[0:00] Look at your watch. It's late. It's 11.06, so we're going to get out of here about 1 o'clock. No, I'm going to preach about 30 minutes, and I'm going to be done, but we will be a little bit late, and that's okay.
[0:13] I got up about 4 o'clock this morning because during the night I just wasn't comfortable with the message I planned. So I abbreviated it and cut about four points out of it. It had 10 points, believe it or not.
[0:26] So you're still going to get a bunch, but it's not really a sermon. It's just things that 40, 50 years of being a pastor have taught me that I thought would be helpful to you to know about Daniel Herring coming in and helping you to make him successful as your next pastor.
[0:46] But the Lord also put something else in my heart that I had just planned to share with you very, very, very briefly, but I really feel led to tell you more about that, and so I'm going to do that at the end.
[0:57] So you're getting two messages this morning for the price of one, okay? But I promise you I'm going to be done in about 30, 35 minutes. If you have your Bibles, look quickly to Titus chapter 1, verses 7 through 9, and I'm not going to preach this passage, but I do want to read it this morning.
[1:12] I'm just going to talk to you today about how you can make your next pastor very, very successful. But in Titus 1, verse 7, Paul writes these words to Titus, For an observer, for an overseer, rather, as God's manager, must be blameless, not arrogant.
[1:34] You hear that? Not arrogant. Not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not a bully, not greedy for money, but hospitable, and loving what is good, and sensible, and by that he means loving what is sensible, and loving what is righteous, and loving what is holy, and loving what is self-controlled, holding to the faithful message as taught, so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching, and to refute those who contradict it.
[2:12] I'm going to tell you, that's a big, big job. To be a pastor and to do it right, to be honest, is just something you cannot do on your own.
[2:26] It just requires more of you than you're capable, any human being's capable of doing. And so he's going to need God's help, and he's going to need your help.
[2:37] And I'd plan to tell you 10 things that you could do to help him, but as I look back over it, you're going to figure some of this out on your own. And so I'm going to cut out those last four and tell you the six I think are most important this morning, okay?
[2:51] So here goes, and remember, I promised a book to whoever could guess the first point. I said that in a news article a couple weeks ago. So if you guessed the first point, I say the first point, you say, that's what I put on my list, preacher.
[3:03] Then you come see me. I've got two books here at the front that I'm going to give you, and you can have them. I'm not thinking anybody's got this down, but maybe you do. I hope I give those books away, okay? You ready? Here goes.
[3:14] Tell him your name until he tells you to stop. Tell him your name until he tells you to stop. Anybody think of that? I didn't think so. But if any of you want two books, I still got them on the front, and you can come get them after the service is over, okay?
[3:29] They're yours to take home. Tell him your name until he tells you to stop. I got a real problem with the way I see some guys today pastoring, where they get the mentality they're the CEO, and their job is to come to the pulpit and deliver these wonderfully orchestrated messages, but then they don't see you again for seven days.
[3:53] I really believe being a pastor means you've got to know the folk, and I know that's what Daniel Herringup believes, and he wants to know you. I want to tell you something. At Brushy Creek, we had 3,300 members when I left, and I wanted to know every one of those 3,300 members, and I've got to be honest with you.
[4:11] I wanted to know. I liked them. I loved them. In fact, out of 3,300 members, and I'm here today so I can say this, I liked everybody but one guy, right? And I just didn't like him.
[4:25] I really didn't. I had a hard time believing Jesus liked him. I know he loved him. But I just didn't like him. But most everybody I not only liked, I loved, and I wanted to know them.
[4:39] But I want to tell you something. I can't know everybody unless you at some time meet me and tell me your name and let me get to know you. For me to know you, you've got to get to know me, and I've got to get to know you.
[4:52] So tell me your name, tell me your name, tell me your name, and one day he'll say, you don't have to tell me your name anymore, Christine. I know your name. It's Christine. And you can stop telling him your name. Now here's just a quick addition to that.
[5:03] I know everybody hates this. Wear name tags. Beginning next Sunday for about five or six weeks, put on a name tag. Now somebody said, I don't like those little name tags. I ain't going to wear no name tag.
[5:14] Everybody knows me. No, they don't. That's why when you ever meet anybody in the hall, have you ever had somebody, and every time you see them, they say, hey, bud, how you doing? Man, good to see you, friend, neighbor.
[5:28] Because they don't know your name. If I ask any of you in the congregation right now to stand and tell me the 15 people nearest you, a lot of you go, uh-oh.
[5:39] In fact, I think I'm going to do it. No, I'm not going to do that. You'd be embarrassed because you think, man, I see all these folk, and I know them by face, and I know something about them, and I really do care about them, and we have conversations, but I don't know their name.
[5:54] You know what happened? You saw them, and you spoke to them, and you spoke to them, and you spoke to them, and you spoke to them. They told you your name somewhere and all that, but you forgot it, and then they kept seeing you, kept seeing you, and then you'd been here so long, you forgot to ever say, hmm, I don't know your name.
[6:09] Would you tell me your name? So it's going to be good for you. Wear those name tags, and see everybody's name, and begin to memorize names, and let him see your name, and know who you are. So tell him your name until he tells you to stop.
[6:21] Here's the second thing. Pray for him every day. Boy, there's nothing you can do for your pastor better than to pray for him. When I say pray for him, I want to tell you what I mean by that.
[6:31] I don't mean to have a list of names, because a lot of folk kind of do this, and they pray for their families, all their family members by name. By that I mean they just kind of call their names in passing, and they've got some missionary things, and they pray about those things, and they just run through this laundry list as quickly as they can.
[6:47] I'm not talking about that. If you're going to pray for them that way, pray for them just one day a week. But when you pray for them, really pray for it. And by that I mean this. Put yourself in Daniel's shoes and think about what is it like to be the new pastor at Pickens First Baptist Church.
[7:03] He's leaving Houston, Mississippi. He's wanting to come here, but I'm telling you something. He's sad over leaving those people in Houston, Mississippi. And you want him to be sad, because he loved those folks, and he wants to say goodbye to those folks, and he's going to have heartache, and his children are, and his wife is.
[7:23] And they're coming here, and they're looking for a new house. How many of you tomorrow, somebody comes to you and says, you've got 30 days to get out of your house. You've got to sell it. You've got to go find one another time. You've never been to Harley.
[7:33] Have you looked for a house lately? Man, there has a cat. It's going to take a miracle for him to come in here and find something in short order and buy that house and move into it.
[7:46] So pray. That's some of the stuff he's going through. He's going to take a daughter out of high school and put her in a high school here in Pickens, and she knows some of the kids here. She was here 15 years ago, so she knows everybody she knew when she was two.
[7:57] What could be the adjustment in that, right? So pray for them, and he's going to come in, and he's going to want to preach the best messages.
[8:12] Man, I've done dropped some money on the floor. I don't ever leave money on the floor, Brian. Cheers. Yeah, I believe that. I believe that.
[8:27] Good luck getting that out of my pocket. I'm just telling you, they need your prayers. They're thinking about a lot of stuff.
[8:38] He's thinking about messages he wants to preach because he wants to come and make a good first impression, and he's trying to decide what do I need to preach, and you pray for him. Pray God will wake him up in the night the way he did me last night and just say, Daniel, here's what you need to preach, that he'll have a burning passion to preach God's word, that he'll do his very best in these early days as your pastor here.
[9:03] So pray for him. Thirdly, when you hear an idea you don't like, and I really love this point, when you hear an idea you don't like, remind yourself of two truths.
[9:16] How many of you ever hear an idea you don't like? A lot of you have lived your life that way, right? You ain't never liked nothing. I mean, a lot of people, it don't matter what the idea is, I just know right off the bat, I'm not going to like it, right?
[9:31] Now, a lot of us are different. We like certain things, and then other things we don't like necessarily. Have you ever done this? No, I just don't like that music. I wish they'd do this.
[9:44] I like it when they do this, but I don't like it when they do that. I like it when he preaches this kind of message, but man, I don't like it when he preaches that kind of message. Or I can understand our church doing that, that's a good thing, but eh, I don't like it when we do that.
[10:00] Two things you need to remind yourself of. You ready for this? And this is good not just in church, this is good everywhere. First of all, tell yourself this, it's not all about me.
[10:14] Okay? When he comes out and he gives you ideas, here's what I think we ought to be doing as a church, here's some things we ought to start doing, some things we ought to stop doing. When you hear that idea, even if something in you says, yeah, that ain't gonna do nothing for me, I don't really like that, I don't think that's the direction we ought to go, remind yourself it's not all about you.
[10:38] You know what he's thinking about? He's thinking about the hundreds of folk who come to First Baptist Church of Pickens and how to help you to grow spiritually and sometimes you need things you don't necessarily want. But he's also thinking about people who've never darkened the door of First Baptist Church of Pickens.
[10:55] He's thinking about people who have moved here from other places and they don't have any friends. He's thinking about young people at time who are turned off to what they've seen in the church and he's trying to find a way to reach them with the gospel of the Lord Jesus.
[11:10] He's thinking at times about senior adults who've grown up angry with the church and they're really angry now at the church and how he can reach them for Christ. So right now I want you to do a little exercise.
[11:22] We're gonna do two of these things. I want you to say out loud, it's not all about me. Go ahead and say it right now. It's just not all about me.
[11:34] Because I want to tell you something, in the church we have this habit of thinking, it's about me and my friends and people who are like me. And everything that's done ought to be for me. I ought to like everything.
[11:45] And if it ain't gonna do me or my family any good, it's just not any good. That's just crazy. Here's the second thing you need to tell yourself. You need to tell yourself, not only it's not all about you, and this is really gonna be hard for some of you.
[11:59] You ready? I really love this one. I could be wrong. Now some of you have never said that in your life.
[12:12] Some of you have never even imagined that. But step out on a limb with me this morning and turn to your wife or your husband and say, you know, I could be wrong.
[12:24] Really, do it right now. I'm just trying to look at you guys and my wife, somebody you know. Jimmy's about to have a heart attack. I mean, you never heard that before coming out of your spouse's mouth.
[12:42] I could be wrong, but I want to tell you something. You could be. You really could be. So when you hear that idea, rather than just run up to him and say, I just don't like that, just go home and ponder for a little bit.
[12:56] Well, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the reason I'm like this is because I think it's all about me or maybe it's because I'm wrong. I'm wrong. Here's the fourth thing.
[13:11] Cut him some slack. From the very beginning and all through his ministry, cut him some slack. Show him some grace. How many of you need some grace? That's what we preach week after week after week after week.
[13:24] We need grace. Well, then live that way. Demonstrate grace to somebody else because I'm going to tell you something. I don't know Daniel real, real well. I've known him for a number of years, but I don't know him real, real well, but I know this.
[13:38] He's going to mess up. He's going to make some errors. He's going to sometimes err in his judgment. He's going to say things from the pulpit sometimes that may just not make any sense in the moment.
[13:52] You know what I said last week in the announcements? My wife came down and she was about to laugh herself silly after I made those announcements and she said, Billy Graham's dead.
[14:02] And I said, I know that. She said, well, you said he was preaching at noon today in the announcements. Picky, picky, picky.
[14:19] Franklin was preaching last Sunday. I don't know if you got to hear him or not, but not Billy. So you're going to mess up when you stand here and you talk enough and that's what preachers do.
[14:29] You're going to say some things you didn't intend to say. You're going to say some things the way you didn't intend to say them. And sometimes your thinking's just going to be messed up in the moment. And he ever suffered from anything like that?
[14:42] Well, cut him some slack. When I was a kid, you know my favorite ball player was a guy named Brooks Robinson, number five, Baltimore Orioles, third baseman. Some of the sports writers in his day nicknamed him Mr. Hoover because he was a vacuum cleaner.
[14:59] He won golden glove after golden glove after golden glove. I mean, he's considered the greatest third baseman of all time. But I want to tell you something about Brooks Robinson.
[15:11] He made in his career a staggering 263 errors. That's a lot of errors. But he played 23 years.
[15:24] 9,000 within 100 opportunities, 9,000 times the ball was hit to him. And 236 of those times, he either made a throw in error or a field in error, but somehow he erred.
[15:40] I don't know, but I would guess if Mr. Robinson was here this morning, we could ask him. And we said, Brooks, tell me something. Did it ever cost the Orioles a game, one of those errors you made?
[15:52] And I'd be almost certain he would say, yeah. Yeah, there's a time or two that I blew the game. I allowed the winning run in because I bought something at third.
[16:07] But I want to tell you something I know beyond a shadow of a doubt. There were many times he made plays that saved games and put W's in the win column. Cut him some slack.
[16:19] He's going to make some errors. Cut him some slack. Fifth thing is this. Be low maintenance. Boy, that's a big one. He ought to send me $50 today for saying that.
[16:34] Be low maintenance. You know what a low maintenance member looks like? He's somebody who's here every time the doors are open, who just volunteers to do things. They walk across the parking lot.
[16:46] They see paper. They pick it up. They hear they're needing folk in the nursery. Nobody has to beg. They go and they volunteer. They're faithful. But they're also low maintenance.
[16:56] They don't expect a lot. They come because they want to be a part of something big and they're not thinking about what they get in return. They're thinking constantly about how they give to the kingdom of God.
[17:10] I'm not talking about monetary. I mean they're giving of themselves. They want to make a difference. When they have needs, you know what they do? They call the pastor.
[17:22] And they say, Pastor, here's what's happening in our family. Here's what's happened to me. I've been to the doctor. I've got this news. Pretty upset over it. Could you come pray with me? Or could you pray with me where you are? Or can I make an appointment to see you?
[17:34] I've got this problem in my life. They don't expect him to have a crystal ball where he looks out there and says, hmm, so and so's sick today. If they're sick and they need him, they call him.
[17:48] But I'll tell you something. Every time they get a splinter taken out of their hand, they don't need him. They have learned spiritually how to put on their big boy pants and go live life.
[18:01] This last week, and don't send me a get well card, I had an endoscopy and a colonoscopy and the three days of prep for that where you hang out around the bathroom a lot.
[18:16] And it's miserable. But I didn't call my pastor. I just hung out in the bathroom.
[18:30] You hear what I'm saying? There's sometimes I need to call him. When I need him, I need him. And if I know I need him, I'm going to call him. And if he can't come, he'll send somebody. And that's great because they can pray just the same as he can.
[18:43] But there are other times I don't need him. And when I don't need him, I'm not going to involve him because I know this. He's got hundreds of other folk out there he's trying to be a shepherd to. And I overburden his life when I ask him to do things that if I just put on my big boy pants, I could do it myself.
[19:00] You understand that? Everybody, that's yes and no. You got that? When I was passionate at Brushy Creek, I can say this now because they're not here. Almost everybody, they lived that way.
[19:17] They were low maintenance. But there was this one young couple and I'd been there just a short time and they called and they said, we'd like to come see you for marital counseling and they came and I tried to help them.
[19:28] Met with them four or five times and we worked through a real crisis. It was a real problem and they needed my help and I was glad to help them. And then about a year or two later, they called back and they said, we got another problem and they came and I helped them through that and that was only a couple weeks that we spent together and I helped them.
[19:45] And then another year or so passed and I began to notice that they'd call me about little things that to me weren't really of great significance. But I'd try to help them and so one Wednesday they'd call and I had a Bible study that met at six o'clock on Wednesday morning so I'd go to the church and be there early at six and it was one of those days where everything was just cram packed and so I didn't get to go home for supper and I knew I had prayer meeting that night and then afterwards I was going to go home.
[20:13] So it was about a 14 hour day, long story short. And they called about two o'clock and they said, could we see you tonight? I said, well, everything's taken and I don't have any appointments left. They said, well, could we see you tonight after prayer meeting?
[20:26] I said, well, is it really, really important because I've been here about 14? Yeah, this is important. We need to see you. Okay. So I met them in my office after prayer meeting and got there about eight o'clock.
[20:36] They come walking in. They got Slurpees in their hands, you know. They've been out to supper and they've gotten them something to drink and I hadn't eaten nothing all day and they sit down in the chair and I'm kind of just, you know, hoping this is really serious, you know, could take me out like this and so I said, well, tell me the problem and she jumps in.
[20:55] She says, I'll just tell you, it's a real problem for us. We're really just fighting back and forth over this and can't come up with a solution. What's the problem? She said, we need your help.
[21:07] Do you think we need a pontoon or do you think a ski boat would be better? Now, I'm not kidding you. I can't tell you what I thought.
[21:18] I want to say, get out of my office.
[21:30] I don't care if you get a john boat or a ski boat or a pontoon boat. I don't care. It doesn't matter. Do you understand what I'm saying in that?
[21:43] Now, I'm saying it in a funny way, trying to be funny about it, but I want to tell you something. Man, we need to hear that. He can't settle every little thing that comes along in your life.
[21:54] Be low maintenance. Go to him when you need him and go to him without hesitation because he'll want you to do that. That's what I wanted to do, but make sure it's a bona fide need.
[22:07] Lastly, let him lead. You've called him here to be your pastor and your shepherd and that means he's going to be a servant and if he's a good pastor, he's going to have a servant's heart and you don't need to tell him he's a servant.
[22:20] He'll know that. You don't need to treat him like he's your slaver, your servant. He's not your gopher. He's your spiritual leader. He's your shepherd.
[22:33] Let him be that. Let him lead. Sam Couch is sitting back here. Oh, there he is. I spotted him earlier. He and I have gotten to be buddies since I've been here.
[22:43] He's a mechanic. He works on big time equipment, tractors, all that kind of stuff. Been doing it all his life. I haven't been to his shop, but I'm certain he's got huge, massive socket sets and wrenches and every tool imaginable known to man.
[23:04] Robbie can tell you because he's pretty mechanical, but I'm not. Okay? But I do have a socket set. One of those $20 Kmart jobs. You know?
[23:17] My biggest socket is probably about an inch. And I tell you something, I had a lawnmower. I don't have one anymore, but I had a lawnmower. And I have changed the oil in that lawnmower.
[23:29] I have. I've changed the spark plugs. I've taken the wheels off. Can you imagine me going to Sam tomorrow and he's got a big Kubota tractor out there and says, Sam, I want to tell you something.
[23:43] You know, I've taken a lawnmower part before. Let me tell you what I think you need to do that tractor right there. Now, Sam's a nice fellow. He'd be polite and say, okay, Pastor, good.
[23:54] But he'd be thinking, you out your mind. And rightfully so. Now, I want to tell you something that may bust your bubble, but here's the truth.
[24:05] Calls you attend Sunday school and calls you own a couple Bibles don't mean you're going to know more about church than Daniel Herring is going to know. Do you understand that?
[24:18] You say, but I've been there a long time. Yeah, you may have been, but I want to tell you something. If he didn't know something you don't know, you wouldn't have called him as your pastor. You didn't need him if you can do everything that he can do and you know as much as he knows what you're going to waste your money calling him for.
[24:38] So let him lead. Do you understand? When he comes here, love him and pray for him and get to know him and let him get to know you and let him minister to you.
[24:50] But man, don't put a noose around his neck and say, you conform to our image of what it is to be a pastor. You lead us and we will follow.
[25:03] Now, I want to close by sharing something personal with you. I want to challenge you as I close. And I want to do so because when I retired a few years ago, I began to take stock of my life because the bulk of my life I know has come and gone.
[25:27] It has passed. And I began to evaluate the 50 years I've been preaching. And you might be thinking I arrived at one conclusion when in reality I arrived at another.
[25:41] From the world's perspective, the world would say I've been fairly successful because I pastored two churches and they did pretty well and they grew and we relocated. There's a list of buildings I could point to and say we built that and that and that.
[25:54] But I want to tell you something, when I looked over the balance of my life, I wondered this. Did I ever make much difference? Did I do much that really counted?
[26:08] And I like to say I think I did but in reality I don't really feel that way. A whole lot of times I think about boy if I had really just swung for the fence.
[26:27] If I really just had the faith I needed. If I really just listened enough to God what might have God done with me.
[26:39] I want to tell you about the two people and I'm not going to come back six weeks and say here's two more people. I thought about it a lot and I've said this to my wife and to some others. I don't know any two people who have done more with their lives than the two people I want to tell you about in the few minutes I still have left.
[26:57] Rusty and Betty Joe McClellan would you put their picture on the board? That was made last week. You won't believe it looking at them. They're 60 years old. They're models of fitness.
[27:10] That guy is just as fit as any human on the planet. They came to my church at Western Avenue when they were in their 20s. They'd both gotten out of college.
[27:21] She graduated University of Chapel Hill North Carolina. He finished at Davidson. He was a football player. They came to Western Avenue. She began to teach a singles class.
[27:33] They started dating. A few years later they got married. I did the ceremony. We became fast friends. She became our singles minister not a paid position. She just did it out of the goodness of her heart.
[27:45] By the time I left there hated to leave them, loved them to death, knew they were going to do something great with their life. She began to attend seminary some doing it long distance.
[27:57] Finally years later she gets her seminary degree. They feel the call to missions. They apply to the IMB. They send them as journeymen to Uganda.
[28:10] He owns a little shoe store in Statesville. It was then Long's family shoe store. His name is McClellan. It's now McClellan's shoe store. He managed that store. Little local mom and pop shoe store.
[28:22] Nothing big. They go to Uganda. They served two years in Uganda. They come home. But their heart is still in Uganda. Now a lot of folks I know, in fact a lot of folks would say if you went there, took two years out of your life, you go to the mission field in Africa, two years, I mean, boy, they are heroes.
[28:41] heroes. But they thought God was leading them to do something bigger. And they began to think and pray and began to think because of their mission experience, how should we be doing missions?
[28:57] And they wrote a comprehensive plan for how missions really ought to be done. And I'm going to tell you, all the time as Southern Baptists, we don't do it the way we should do it, just to be honest with you. But they mapped out a comprehensive way how real missions ought to look.
[29:11] It ought to be a holistic approach that you ought to go and you ought to evangelize people but you ought to also disciple people. And then you ought to teach them how to live their lives and you ought to help them to plant crops.
[29:22] You shouldn't just give to them but you ought to help them earn a living and you ought to help them learn how to live a right life morally and spiritually and to be good citizens and earn a living for your family and how to get along, how to have water and hygiene and all those things.
[29:41] And they just incorporated into a big program and here from the states they began a ministry in Uganda. They found some folks they had led to Christ and they began to disciple those people and began to hire a few of them with some bucks they could get here and there and they began to lead Bible studies and they had jail ministries and over a period of just a few years they started two schools in two different villages that are just supreme educational places.
[30:07] and then they had a jail ministry and they opened a children's home and they had 12 kids come to that children home and they took 12 orphans off the street and they raised them until they get college age and then they send them off to college and they teach people how to plant crops and they drill wells.
[30:25] It's amazing. They started that in 2008 and they still do it out of their home in Statesville. They go there about three months a year.
[30:35] They'll take about three trips there and they stay about a month at a time and they oversee that whole thing from the state side and it has grown to where they now raise about five to six hundred thousand dollars a year and sink it in that ministry and last year I'm on their board of directors.
[30:52] I just went back on and this last year the report was, you ready for this? You know how many people they disciple in a year now? They disciple five thousand people.
[31:04] Every year they come from the Catholic Church, they come from the Lutheran Church, they come from the Anglican Church, they come from the Church of God, the Pentecostal Holiness, the Methodists.
[31:14] If they'll show up they'll disciple them and I'm not talking about, okay there were five thousand different people who came two times. I'm talking about five thousand people who came for a whole year and they discipled these people.
[31:28] And so I was with them a couple of years ago and I told them what I told you. I said, you know, I've read a lot of books about great missionaries but I've never known anyone who's done as much with their life who said, you know what, I'm going to pull out all the stops, however God will use me, I want to be used.
[31:48] I said, I've never seen God use anyone the way he's used you. And my wife and I began to pray about it and the Lord put it on our heart. God, we've done so little.
[32:02] I said, I called her one morning, I said, what would it cost to build a children's home in Uganda? She says, man, it's so much cheaper here than over there.
[32:13] I said, it's going to be about thirty-five thousand is all it is. And what would it cost to operate it? About fifteen thousand. I said, really? She said, yeah. I called her back in about an hour and said, me and Regina have been praying.
[32:28] God's put it on my heart, don't know exactly how it's going to happen, but I want to build that children's home and I want to staff it for a year. And I make that commitment to you. That was in June of 2020.
[32:40] COVID had hit. I wasn't preaching anywhere, but I thought something will open up. And I made a commitment whatever I earn, I'll just give back to that ministry. And so I did a funeral here or there.
[32:53] And I'd give that money to that and then we would just take out of our savings in retirement. We were given to it. And then back in July of this last year, you asked me to come be your interim pastor.
[33:05] And the Lord opened the door for me to do that. And I asked the leadership here, Brother Mendel, instead of giving the money to me, could y'all just send it straight to EWT?
[33:17] And I'm telling you this for a reason. I have to pray for myself but I want to tell you something. Here's what you've built. It's completed now and they're in the process of painting it. Isn't that great? Twelve kids are going to be in there.
[33:30] And you had a major hand. You paid for about half of that house and the need to take care of that. And so here's my challenge to you. Oh, and I want to show you the picture of the kids that's going to live in it.
[33:43] I did cute little kids. That's just a few of them. But your kids just like those kids right there. Those live in another house they got right now. But I'm telling you something.
[33:55] For years and years and years and years to come if Jesus tarries, there are going to be kids who don't have a mama and a daddy who are going to go out home and they're going to get discipled and there are going to be people who love them and they're going to go off to university and they're going to make something out of their life and it will make a difference in eternity for them.
[34:16] And here's why I'm telling you that you're making a difference in these people's lives. Continue to do that as a church. And I'm not talking about this ministry. You may choose sometime to give this ministry or not.
[34:28] But do this. Do things as a church that matter. Stop just stacking chairs on the deck of the Titanic. Do things that matter.
[34:42] Ask yourself, what can Pickens First Baptist Church do that will make a lasting difference for the kingdom of God and do it? And then finally this, you do that.
[34:55] You could be a Rusty or Betty Jo McClellan. They put their pants on just like everybody else in this room. And you could do that. Right now God has given some of you a vision and a dream for what you could do here in Pickens or somewhere else.
[35:12] Don't abandon that dream because it looks too big or too hard. Or how would I ever do that? You pursue that. You've got one life to spend. Don't waste it.
[35:25] Thank you for letting us come and serve. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for this opportunity you've given me. Thank you Lord for how this church has wonderfully supplied the needs of these children there in Africa.
[35:43] I pray God that as Betty Jo begins to staff that and as they find all the children who are going to inhabit this new home, that you'd use it for your kingdom's honor and glory.
[35:55] Bless Daniel Herring as he comes here Father. I thank you for him. I think they've got a great match. And I pray Father that you just use them in a mighty way to preach the word here week in and week out at Pickens.
[36:11] For we ask it in your name for your sake. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[36:24] Thank you for listening. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[36:35] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.