Change Directions

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Visit truthnetwork.com and click on the Africa Needs Jesus banner, or call 888-988-5656 to pledge your gift to put a wind-up radio into the grateful hands of people desperately in need. This is the Truth Network podcast where we explore relationship instead of religion every week. Your chosen Truth Network podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into Kingdom Pursuits. Now live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. Hey, good morning. Welcome to Kingdom Pursuits. I am not Robbie Dilmore.

Gerry Mathis sitting in for Robbie this morning. This morning we've got a show that's going to be packed full of excitement. I'm in the studio with two really good friends and people that I think a lot of and you're going to enjoy this morning.

A lot of discussion. I have Daniel Baranowski in the studio with me, who's the worship minister at Pinedale Christian Church, and Tim Hanauer, who does landscape design, former missionary, and then all of a sudden God called him to have a change of direction and kind of placed him off the mission field into a new mission field. And that's the thing, we kind of lose sight of the fact that sometimes in business and in our workplace we don't realize that, you know what, that may be the mission field that God put you in and we need to also approach it with that same type of approach instead of just thinking, you know, it's just a job or it's just an occupation or it's just a business. You know, God probably put you there for a reason and let's not, you know, lose those opportunities. I know for me, running a business, it's kind of important that I make sure that everybody comes through those doors, that they know that I'm a Christian and believe in Jesus Christ and use it any way I can to hopefully to build the kingdom and also use it as an encouragement to people as they're kind of, you know what, when I usually get them at Raised Body Shop and Record Service, they're in a crisis, I mean they've had a wreck or their car's broke down, so they're sort of vulnerable and sometimes not very, I don't know, just not very, they don't seem to be very open to hear how, you know what, God's got a purpose and it'll all work out because when you're in a crisis you kind of shut down a little bit.

But it's the tool in which God gave me to be able to serve him and I need to make sure that I do that. I'm going to go ahead and let Daniel and Tim introduce themselves and I want to, during the introduction time, kind of tell me a little bit of the story and this is going to kind of catch you by surprise because I didn't tell you I was going to ask this question. What kind of, what was your path to get you to where you are today? I guess I'll start.

I'm Daniel Baranowski. Currently my current, I guess, destination as worship minister at Pine Hill Christian Church, as Jerry said, but what got me here was in about middle school. Our youth ministry started a worship team and needed some people to do it and so me and a few friends got together and started to play. And then for some reason in college I thought I wanted to do youth ministry and learned really quickly that I don't like writing papers and a sermon is essentially a paper every single week or lesson is. And I went back to that small passion that my youth ministry kind of got me into worship ministry and I've kind of pursued that ever since. So it's been a pretty evident calling since I was, gosh, 12 or so. So yeah.

Yeah. And tell me a little bit about your family. I see my family. I've got my dad and mom and I've got one sister. My dad is a former master ship builder in a shipyard in Virginia.

He's been an elder, a deacon as long as I know, still an elder at his home church. And my mom has done many different jobs to help, you know, help pay for auxiliary things like vacations and stuff. But they're great. It was a great family growing up. I had a God loving family that raised me. All right. And currently, what about your family? All righty. Cool.

Yeah, that's that's important. I'm married and I've got two kids, five and three and a half. Well, almost six, I guess at this point now. But yeah, it's Hope and Levi are my kids and my wife and I've been married for 11 years. So it's been a long run. Well, not for you. Yeah. I was going to say, hey, you're still in the, still sprinting it right now, brother.

Yeah. Tim, how about you? I know you've got a past there. God's usually in a lot of ways. And what got you to the point you are today?

Well, yeah, that that's fun to think about that because it is a long and winding road. The really fun part is, is that it's it's fun that God never wastes a stroke because I can remember being a foul mouthed little Bible belt brat, 15 years old. And God literally just turned me around at a Christian camp and I thought, I'm going to the mission field and I'm going to head out. I'm going to save the world and went to Bible college. And after a couple of years on the field and having a really bad team experience there on the field, I came back and tried to develop a skill set and jumped into the landscape industry. And next thing you know, I'm in the middle of of a weed patch, weeding pots of of plants and saying, OK, God, what are you doing? And why am I here?

I should be out on the field, you know, doing important work. And that's where God really hit me up upside the head with a two by four. And things really changed. I think he had to correct a lot of theology and destroy a lot of pride in my life before he could ever use me.

And so that's that's really I mean, the short the short answer is he's he's got to take a lot of things away from us before he can ever really use us to produce fruit. And so those those 15 years of thinking I'm doing the right thing and being in the wrong footing. And then, you know, having the having the discipline of the Lord, the faithful discipline, the Lord put me to a point where he can use me as is kind of that story. And Pinedale has been a fun place to be a part of that, to just step in, relax, not not try to do anything for the Lord.

Let the Lord use his people to call me to do what he wants me to do instead of me trying to lay hands on myself and try to come up with my own thing. And so it's been 24 years since we've we've known each other and sort of been together on the same journey. Yeah, cool. OK, now about your family. Well, I've got two kids and I've got three grandkids and the three grandkids are amazing to in Florida that that run track one that fast pitch plays fast pitch softball.

In fact, she's down there in South Carolina this morning playing fast pitch. Martha and I've been married 30 years and just loving life. This is a really sweet time of life and very thankful for for where we're at right now. It's a it's a good place, both business wise and ministry wise and family wise. We're in a in a good spot right now. It doesn't mean it's going to stay there, but we're we're in a good spot right now.

Hope the prayer stays there. Well, Daniel, I know there's a couple of activities coming up at the Pinedale in the month of April. Yeah. And I'm going to get you first. We're going to talk about tell you what I want you to throw out some names of concert coming up.

We're going to come back and talk a little bit more about it. But if you're listening this morning when I asked Daniel, what are some of the artists that are going to be performing on April the 30th for the worship together night concert at Pinedale? If you're listening, remember those names, because a little bit later on, I want to ask you a question about that. And you'll be able to win two tickets to that concert. Twenty five dollars apiece for the tickets. And great opportunity to win them. So tell me a little bit about April the 30th concert.

All right. So this is kind of a unique concert. We got Cody Carnes, who some of you may know, Carrie Jobe.

It's her husband. He's coming in. He's been writing records a lot lately. And he's all over K-Love, WBFJ, which one are local stations and a lot of them around the world. Brian and Katie Torwalt are also a part of that night.

They're out of California. Then you got Sean Curran, who's from Passion City Church in Atlanta, and then you got Jonathan Traylor, who's out of Nashville. So it's all five of them will be up on the stage together all night, just leading a three hour worship service, passing their songs around back and forth.

So it's gonna be a fun evening. Yep. Run those names by me one more time. All right.

Cody Carnes, Brian and Katie Torwalt, Sean Curran, Jonathan Traylor. All right. Now we're going to back back up a little bit, an event that's going to happen this coming Wednesday night, I think. Yeah. So this Wednesday night at Pinedale at 7 p.m., our choir and drama ministry is doing a program called At the Table. It's a collection of choir songs and some spoken word drama that'll kind of paint the story from the Lord's table up until the crucifixion and resurrection.

It's about an hour long program, but starts at seven o'clock and will be a blast. Yep. So no charge.

No free admission. Come in and address for Pinedale Christian Church is 3395 Peters Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27127. I think I got all that. That's correct.

Yeah. But you can also pull up on the website will have information on that at Pinedale.Church. Also, as just was that last Saturday night had a concert at Pinedale. And the reason I'm even going to mention that I want to just kind of get a when we come back from the break, I want to just sort of break it down. But it seems to me that maybe Pinedale is becoming a destination point for a lot of these concerts and stuff. And also somebody has to sort of take the lead on that. We're going to talk a little bit about that and how that concert was.

Be back in just a moment. Kingdom Pursuits. This is a calling show.

866-348-7884. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits. I'm Gerry Mathis in studio with Daniel and Tim. And we're just fixing to talk a little bit about some of the events for the concert. We just mentioned quickly about the 30th.

We're going to come back to that one. We also mentioned the Wednesday night. This coming Wednesday night, the choir and drama team at Pinedale will be putting on a program at seven. That's this Wednesday, the fifth. Yeah, April 5th. But as I mentioned, it seemed like just sort of looking back at last weekend, Danny Gokey and I forgot who I was. It was Danny Gokey, Jordan Felice and Blanca. Yeah.

Concert at Pinedale. And it just seemed to me, I mean, just some of the work that goes into that. Because I tell you what, the building was electric, that's for sure. And it was packed and it takes a lot of work to make that happen. I think it's a great ministry outreach for the community. And it seems to me that maybe Pinedale and Daniel is becoming a destination point for some concerts upcoming. Yeah. Coming out of COVID, we just renovated our room at Pinedale to have a little better tech in it.

It's more comfortable seats in it. And one of our goals was to bring in artists from outside, Southern Gospel, contemporary, you name it. If they're Christian and you hear them on the radio around here, we'd love to bring them in for a concert. And we tried for a while, couldn't get some landing dates.

And then finally, Danny Gokey's tour agency contacted us, mentioned a date that worked and we just pursued it. And like Jerry said, we had 1036 people in attendance. We sold out the 1100 tickets.

So a couple people didn't show up, but that's all right. But it was a packed room. It was high energy. The sound was great. The experience was great.

And I didn't hear a single complaint of a single person that had a seat anywhere in the room, even with us being packed and sold out, that they had a complaint about the way they could see or hear. It was just a great evening. Yeah. And I just want to give a shout out to all of the volunteers that if you're listening, you helped with that. I mean, thank you because they did. I mean, from walking through the doors and then when it's over walking out, it was nothing but a great experience. Yeah. It was 40 volunteers from Pinedale and 30 volunteers for World Vision that it took to put on the concert from 8 a.m. that morning to 1 a.m. the next morning when they finally got out and we got the room cleaned up and ready to go. So it took an army. But yes, it was worth it in the end. Yeah. A little bit.

Okay. Tells me a little bit about I know this is a little bit of a different type of concert for the April 30th, the worship together night. What is that? So like a typical concert you go to, there's an opening act that comes out, kind of a lesser known person. They do a couple songs.

You got another act and then you got your star act, which this last weekend would have been Danny Gokey. Well, for this worship together night's tour, the company worship together, which you may have seen on YouTube or a few little radio spots here and there. They just gather a bunch of artists up together and say, I want you all to just become a worship team like a normal Sunday morning church has.

Put your songs together and make a night where we can sit together and worship. It's not a concert per se. These are people and they do have a fee to travel. So there is a ticket price, which Jerry mentioned was twenty five dollars a ticket. But it's it's a night that's just focused on coming together, filling the room and just worshiping together.

Yep. And that's that's April 30th. And that is a Sunday night. Seven tickets. Where do you get your tickets? How can you get tickets? So the cheapest way to get tickets is to come to Pine Hill Christian Church. In our bookstore, we have twenty five dollar tickets that have no online fees. But if you go to worship together nights dot com, you can buy tickets there.

There is a small online fee. I can't remember what is seven, eight dollars a ticket. So if you can come to the church and grab it, you'd save yourself quite a bit of money if you've got a family of four or so coming.

Yeah, absolutely. When we're talking about reaching out and I do think that doing concerts is a tool that we're able to use to be able to reach out in the community. And sometimes it may not be the loss that are coming to that concert, but it's also people that just need sometimes we need to be able to encourage ourselves and we need to encourage the body of Christ. And I think concerts is a great, great way to do that. I know that a lot of people, as I sit there and watched and some of the people that were sitting around me, I knew their story that some of the struggles are having in life, but they were just they were just enjoying life itself.

I mean, they were just enjoying the concert, having a good time and just kind of forgetting a little bit of the day to day pressures that we all face and stuff. And that's just cool. So, Tim, as we sit there and we think and your story and stuff, and I know what the difference you've made being able to serve with Tim as an elder. And we may have time to talk about how he's also transitioned to another aspect of his life. But as far as just when you first come off the mission field and all of a sudden you're in landscape design, was there a time, as you said, talking about being in a field and saying, God, what are you doing with me?

What's the plan? Let me in on it. This isn't what I had in store. But God was able to use that. Yeah, I had a very unhealthy view of work. And God, the first thing that God did when I came off the field was get that fixed. And so he put me literally weeding buckets for five months in a nursery and learning how to draw landscape plans under the tutelage of the guy that owned the nursery.

And God started to wake me up. First of all, I was reading in Genesis and I was studying the Genesis account. And I came to realize that the first landscape designer in the Bible is none other than God. I was studying and I realized, wow, the thing that he created was a garden. And it was a Garden of Eden and actually had hardscape in it. It had a wall around it.

It had an irrigation system and had rivers that flow through it. But the thing that struck me first, Jerry, is that it said that God placed trees in the garden that were both good for food and pleasing to the eye. And that verse struck me so differently. I'd never seen it before and suddenly now I was in a field that involved planting trees and doing things that were supposed to be beautiful.

And it's like, now why would that detail be in that story? And I came to realize that, hey, all through the Bible there are gardens and gardens are places where God wants to connect with us. Nebuchadnezzar had a garden. David had a garden. Solomon had a garden. Everybody had these gardens. The tabernacle was a type of garden because it had a wall and a structure and God was in the middle of it. And what's interesting is you go all around the world, and I've been to a lot of countries and I've studied landscape design and architecture in those countries, and come to realize that all of us are trying to create that. We're all trying to create a place to reconnect with God. And one of the ways we do it is through architecture and especially landscape architecture. That there's this innate thing because Adam and Eve were built for a garden and they were built for a relationship with God.

We tend to express it that way. So when you go to Japan, their landscape designs literally have a spiritual component to them. When you go to other places, you go to India, and I've served in India and been around that. They have walled spaces and the gardens all have meaning that are there to reconnect you.

And so, A, I don't think I would ever be without a job because, A, I am following in the image. If I'm made in the image of God and God was the first landscape designer and that's what I get to do, I really feel like I'm following hard after him and his trade. And then God began to open up this concept that, hey, maybe I have you here exactly for such a time as this.

I want you to reach landscape designers and architects because I think there's an interesting testimony there because of that. Now, fast forward, you get to Jesus, the very night he's betrayed, where is he? He's in a garden and he's buried and he's put into a garden tomb and three days later he rises from the dead.

And here we are getting ready to celebrate this. He rises from the dead. And the first person who sees Jesus, Mary, thinks he is the gardener. Now, what was Adam's job? Well, Adam's job was to be the gardener.

And what was Jesus portrayed to Mary as? Hey, I think this is the gardener. And so the first gardener lost our place in fellowship with God.

The second gardener got it back. And so years ago we took and franchised our business. We would have landscape architects come in.

I would train them. And usually about a weekend I would begin to just share my thing that God had shown me about, hey, God's the first landscape architect in the Bible. And here's why this is. And he uses this physical architecture to connect us to himself. And here's how Jesus connects us back. And it was fantastic to just, all of a sudden these people were saying, wow, I've never seen that before.

Many of them from a very secular background. And yet God gave me the gospel but gave me in a way that I could really connect it to landscape architecture. And that was a fun, fun moment to see full circle, hey, I'm weeding these buckets now. And yet 15, 20 years suddenly I've developed a business and God's given this to me. And really I think one of my favorite verses in the whole world when it talks about professions and that sort of thing is that verse in Deuteronomy where God warns the children of Israel, he says, you may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the Lord your God, for it's he who gives you the ability to produce wealth and so confirms his covenant that he swore with his ancestors. In other words, God gave you the ability to make a company, create wealth.

God did that. And when you suddenly realize that, you suddenly realize that, hey, maybe my profession, my job has eternal consequence and he's put me in a platform such as this. And so I've completely looked at wealth from a completely different standpoint. Wealth is not something that a greedy person says, hey, I make money, my God, and suddenly I go pursue it and get a pile of it. But rather it's something that God gives us to be able to take to the marketplace. People see it as value and the better I get at it, the more I'm rewarded and then I can take those rewards and be able to share them and create a ministry platform out of them. So it's a very transformed, I think, and hopefully redeemed way to look at both work and wealth. And God also has continued to use you in a different role, but also through missions. I mean, you're still connected in missions and God has allowed you to have a path to do that also. Right. My platform overseas initially was farming systems.

And so now it's kind of like Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. You put the farming systems together with landscape architecture and so several of our missionaries have used those skills in their thing. So I can help them in their development of, say, for example, agriculture, but do it in a way that is God-honoring. All right, again, this is a calling show 866-348-7884. I'd like for you to call if you have a question for Daniel or for Tim. Or if you want to just tell a story about how you use your platform to bring people to Jesus Christ or to be able to share Christ to everybody has a platform. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com Back to Kingdom Pursuits. Again, it is a calling show 866-348-7884.

And as a matter of fact, I'm going to repeat that number again. As I said, we're going to have a couple of tickets to give away. So the question will be if you can call in and tell me one of the artists that will be performing at Pinedale, April, Daniel 30th at 7 a.m. It's a Sunday evening worship together night of concert or concert night. And again, give us a call if you can tell me one of the artists at 866-348-7884.

Back to Tim as we're waiting on the next caller or the caller to come in to try to win the tickets. So God still is able to use you in the mission field and get back to that story. Yeah, you know, what's interesting is, is we have a very cut and dried understanding of missions in America. And I always had the idea that the model was, is that you got a vision or somebody laid hands on a group of people or individual to become a missionary. And then you went and raised money and then you went and did your mission.

And then you stayed there for a year, two, three, four, and then came back and told everybody what you did. And that when you go biblically, it's interesting that that's not how it originally happened. The very first missionaries were actually self-funded. There are three distinct missions models in the Book of Acts. And when you go back to Acts 13 and you see Paul and Barnabas and they decide to, the Holy Spirit says, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work that I prepared for them to do. And so they laid them out, laid them out, they laid hands on them and sent them out. And as they went out to Eastern Turkey, they were self-funded because the man Barnabas had sold property.

He was a wealthy individual. And most Americans can actually self-fund their own missions, especially short-term stuff. We can just use our own money and go. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's a great way.

If you've got funds, go for it. Go complete the Great Commission where God leads you. The second thing, though, and I think we always think, well, okay, now that Paul's second missionary journey, he must have been funded by other churches.

And that also is incorrect. That's where we get to Acts 18. And we realize that Paul and Barnabas had separated ways. And now Paul and Silas were on the second missionary journey. And they met Aquila and Priscilla.

And they were all tentmakers. And Paul says a very interesting thing in the book of Acts about that tentmaking endeavor. And it's a wonderful business passage. If you're a business person, I challenge you, go to Acts 20, verses 33 through 35. And listen to what Paul says. He's talking to the Ephesian elders now to give you some context. He's talking to the Ephesian elders.

And he says, look, you guys, I have not coveted anyone silver or gold or clothing. You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied not only my own needs, but also the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work, we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus Himself said, it's more blessed to give than to receive.

So think about that. Paul said, we built tents. Now, were they good tents?

They must have been. He had a successful business. How do we know it was successful? Well, not only did he earn enough money to support his missionary endeavor, he had enough money to supply his companions. So that took care of their housing, took care of their room and board. And he says, and here's where the profit comes in, we had enough to give away to help the weak and the needy. And you look at that verse and you go, wow, a business is an amazing thing. Paul, at some point in his life, took a specialization, used it in that second missionary journey, and that's how those churches were planted. That was the platform he used. And it wasn't until you get to the third missionary journey that you find other churches saying, hey, Paul, we will give you money and we will help you go to the next fields, to Greece and to other places and share the gospel there.

So as Americans, we tend to automatically default to that third one, and I think that's totally a misnomer. The hottest concept right now in missions is BAM, B-A-M, Business as Mission. And if you get into the mission world, you'll find that platforms are probably, I know in places like Thailand, in places in the east, in most of what we call the 1040 window, where most of the unreached people groups are, it's business platforms that are really shining in those fields. It's not the traditional missionary platform that works there, and for a lot of reasons, but I think specifically, again, study Acts 20 verses 33 through 35. There's a key answer there, and even in the book of Thessalonians, you'll find that repeated over and over again. Yeah, I think so many times we also, I don't know, don't give the support to missionaries. It's important that the monetary support we give, but Tim, I think you brought in the importance of the aspect of just praying for our missionaries and praying for missions and praying for people out in the field, and it may not be on foreign land.

I mean, it's local soil also, and I think that's just so important that they know that they have the support of the church and the body. Right, I mean, Jesus' command to make disciples is literally not, the command is not go. The command is as you're going, make disciples. The command is make disciples.

The command is not go. It is as you're going. So if Daniel is at Pinedale and he is a music minister, he's to be making disciples. If Jerry is in the body shop, he is to be making disciples. If Tim is drawing landscape plans, he's to be making disciples. That's the essence of Jesus' command is wherever you're at, make disciples as you go. And the mechanism that God uses is sometimes he sends us intentionally and sometimes he sends us unintentionally, and then the other mechanism is sometimes he brings the mission field to us, like Compassion International, repatriating refugees. So sometimes the unintentional bring or come and the intentional come.

We have students that are in our universities right now that come from all sorts of places. That is a mission field. So really the essence of the command is not go, but the essence of the command is make disciples wherever you're going. Yeah, and it's just like I'm sitting here, I'm also going to throw another thing out since nobody can either remember or can make it to the concert, if you know that you're in the Winston-Salem area and are going to be in town for April the 30th for a Sunday night, give us a call. We've got two tickets to give away.

You don't even have to tell me the artist. You've just got to tell me you're going to be here. So that's the main thing. And if nobody calls in, I want them.

I know, I'm saving somebody some bucks here for the night of family entertainment. But it's sort of leapfrogging and using it as a bridge to ministry as far as what our missionary work is. It doesn't necessarily have to be Daniel is a missionary. And it may not be in Jamaica, Dominican Republic, or Zimbabwe, or wherever it may be. God placed him in Winston-Salem, North Carolina at Pinedale Christian Church.

And what's your take on that? I just think so many times we don't realize that we're in our mission field. Yeah, I mean, when I came to Winston-Salem, I wasn't from here.

So I was called to leave my home of Yorktown, Virginia and move five-ish hours away. But even as a worship minister, I have a team that's with me each week that have so many different walks of life, so many different levels of faith. And my job as a minister, missionary, priest, fill in the blank of whatever word you want to call my job, it's to come alongside them, partner with them, help lead them in the way to Jesus' path for their life. With their strength off to the side, come alongside them and educate, enlighten, partner with them, fight with them, pray with them, so that when they get a calling or have a position of leadership in anywhere it is, they have the tools to then continue going on. Yeah, and as I mentioned in my business, I usually deal with people that are in a crisis, but that's the platform I have.

And TM will have it when they're needing work done, but that's the platform that I've gave them. And for Daniel, it's when they come in to worship our Lord and Savior. But then again, for all of us, it's a matter of figuring out how God is going to use us and how we can make it where it's relevant to that person that we're trying to talk to. I always go back to the same story I say, as Wheaties never changed what's inside the box, but outside of that box changed.

Every time a new star athlete or whatever it is, that's the way the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, we don't change that, but we need to change sometimes the way we present it. And again, as we're ready to go into the next segment, the last segment is your opportunity to call in to win those two tickets to the concert for April the 30th. You're listening to The Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits again. I've given away two tickets to the worship together night concert on April the 30th at Pinedale Christian Church at 7 p.m. Please give us a call if you would like those two tickets and as we're sort of wrapping up the last segment. Again, I'm going to get Daniel, go ahead and give us the dates for the drama and choir program Wednesday night and then also the concert and how you can get tickets for the concert. All right, so first up, this Wednesday night, April 5th is a free event. You just come to Pinedale Christian Church on 3395 Peters Creek Parkway in Winston and it's a night of choir songs and some drama spoken word about just the Last Supper to the crucifixion and resurrection.

So that will help you get your heart and mind ready for this coming Easter weekend. And then April 30th at 7 p.m. we've got the worship together nights tour with Cody Carnes, Brian and Katie Torvald, Jonathan Traylor and Sean Curran. A night of worship. You can get tickets on worshiptogethernights.com or if you're around here in the city, come to Pinedale and we'll save you eight bucks a ticket with those online fees at our bookstore. Looking forward to having a lot of people out that night.

Looking forward to it being two big nights. Yeah. And, Tim, as we wrap up, what is the one thing, if you're sitting there and somebody says, what's the one thing in ministry that you think is probably lacking that we really have lost connection with? I know you talked about how we need to connect people. And earlier, I don't even know if we said it on air or not, but how the world we live in now is, you know what, you need a tablet, you need a phone. People are disconnected from other people.

Absolutely. How do we combat that? How do we combat the world we live in?

Well, I love your analogy about the Wheaties box because you have to continuously change the outside of that. In other words, every generation has to decide how am I going to make disciples. It's interesting that the way Jesus made disciples, which was gathered guys together and they just did life together.

And we still want to do life together, but we do life together very differently now. So, for example, our current level of discipleship at our church, we bring people in, we do a small group, we teach them how to develop a relationship with Christ, we teach them how to study the Word, memorize the Word, get the Word as part of their internal DNA, teach them how to do private prayer, how to build the root system of growing into Christ, and then teach them how to connect with one another. And by doing that and connecting with one another, eventually they can share their faith and be obedient in all things to Christ. And when you pull all those little pieces together, hopefully you've got somebody that has grown out of immaturity, and our churches are filled with immature people.

Immature people literally complain a lot. They tend to jump from church to church to church. They need a preacher to feed them instead of learning how to feed themselves and walk on their own and develop from spiritual infancy through adolescence and into some form of maturity where their relationship becomes stabilized. And that, I feel, as a discipleship minister, it's my goal to get people to that point. It's my goal to do that in my job. It's my goal to do that. That's stability.

Stability happens that way. And so I think that part is lacking. The other side of it is, and to your point, if the average American spends 6.7 hours a day online, then we've got to create content that encourages people back into their relationship with the Lord, because people have a great relationship with their phone right now, but most people don't have a great relationship with the Lord. And our challenge is, hey, if we're going to make disciples today, we're going to take, for example, our curriculum and then make it go online. Make it go wherever people are. We want to be in that space and in that place to get them to where Jesus said, you know, this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you've sent.

That word, no, epikinosko, is relationship knowledge, not head knowledge, not that sort of. It's all about knowing Him in everything that we do. That's where I want to push people to. And we're just trying to figure how we do that. Every generation has to do that. Yeah. Sit there and we look at the world and stuff and just sort of go into the season we're moving into, the Easter season. I just think a lot about when I'm sitting there and go to the store or anything else or just hearing kids talk and people walk through the church and also in my business, how many people really understand what this season is about? And whose fault is that?

That's mine. Each and every one of us' fault. Because for kids, they couldn't tell you a thing about Jesus dying on Calvary. They can't tell you about Him coming out of the tomb, but they can tell you about what their favorite chocolate egg is and that that morning they want to get up and have a basket full of sweets. They want to make sure that what's more important on Sunday to know where they're going to go egg hunting than being in church that Sunday morning.

And that's kind of a scary place we've put ourself and we've kind of gravitated to as far as a culture. Because one thing, I hope that no one would have to make the decision on Easter morning. Really on any morning, on Sunday morning. I know that for me, and I think I'm sitting there with two people right in front of me, well, one thing, you better be there on Sunday morning as Daniel or we would be in big trouble. But growing up, there was probably never a time that you had to decide if I'm going to church or if I'm going to go and play a game or I'm going to go hide Easter eggs. You knew you went to church. And we see our culture and our kids who are drifting away from that.

Whose fault is that? That is us as adults and as parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, church leaders. But we don't encourage our kids to be plugged into church. So I hope that tomorrow morning, if you're in church somewhere on a Sunday, Easter Sunday, make sure that it's a big event. The week leading up to Easter, sit down and you hear the stories of reading the Christmas story to your kids because of about a baby and everything. Sit down and read the Easter story also. Amen. Because it'll make a difference. But all of a sudden they understand what the power is in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the Truth Network.