Beyond Sunday
Beyond Sunday is a podcast where we dive into what our Church is up to, what's happening in society, go deeper into topics from Sunday mornings, and hear leadership talks from Pastor Greg Griffith. This is a podcast of King of Kings Church in Omaha, NE. Learn more at kingofkings.org.
Beyond Sunday
Honor Code - Week 4
Julie and Roger join Dina to talk about the power of honor across generations and why it matters in building strong, faith-filled communities. From encouragement and mentorship to seeking wisdom and showing up for one another, they explore how honoring both young and old can multiply impact and bring us closer together.
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Thanks for listening!
Welcome to Beyond Sunday, a podcast from King of Kings, where we dive a little bit more into our sermon series and see what we're taking Beyond Sunday. My name is Dena Newsom and I am ecstatic to have some guests that I haven't seen for a couple weeks now. Go ahead, introduce yourselves.
Speaker 2:I'm Julie Easley. I'm the executive director at King of Kings.
Speaker 3:I'm Roger Timer, one of the pastors.
Speaker 1:It's so nice to have you here. So at King of Kings as a church, we just finished two weeks of VBS and all three of us have been in kids' ministry early on in our church careers, so true, so, I'm sure, plenty of VBS experience. So my question for you is what is one of your favorite VBS memories?
Speaker 2:I think, probably for me, both as a child going to VBS and then as an adult, participating in VBS is just watching the kids sing with their whole hearts and do the actions and just be so into praising God, and I remember loving that when I was a kid too. Just a lot of joy there.
Speaker 3:I also have the picture of the group energy and from their perspective, it was one of the most celebrated rock concert live events of their life. Yes, it's the real deal and it's all getting a focus towards Jesus and their hearts are so open for it. But my favorite moments are all the crazy stunts that happened, because I got to be part of them, a lot of them.
Speaker 1:I hear stories. It happened because I got to be part of them. You did a lot of them. I hear stories yeah.
Speaker 2:I wonder how many gallons of sweat you've poured into various costumes over the years. It's horrible to think about.
Speaker 3:I can't tell you some stupid, stupid things I can't tell you. But we got more important things I'm going to put on. My maturity hat More important things than me telling you stories.
Speaker 1:I don't know I kind of like the stories you guys talk about the energy in the room. My favorite memory is one year there was a little boy who was a third grader and in one of the stations they said something like you can read more about this story in your Bible at home. Like you can check that out. And this little boy went to the leader and said I don't have a Bible at home. And so the leader came to me and said, hey, can we get this child a Bible? And I'm like absolutely Go and get a Bible, take it to him. It's closing. Kids are jumping, hopping around, the music is going. Everyone in the room Like that.
Speaker 3:Everyone in the room, like that year I think. We had, you know, 400 kids in the room and this little boy sat down and opened that Bible amidst all the craziness and just started looking through it and I just I took out my phone and took a picture, because that was just like oh my gosh, the power of the word of God you know, here.
Speaker 1:he was asked for it and oh that's so great, yeah.
Speaker 3:And the power of the community. We do not grow in our faith as a solo sport and VBS really emphasizes that. It gives time for kids to be part of a group and hear other kids and their faith stories as a shepherd or the little guide takes them along, faith stories as the shepherd or the little guide takes them along, and just the whole community that happens in such a short span of time reminds us as a church, hey, we need each other, yeah.
Speaker 1:And I think it's something that's very intergenerational, which we're kind of talking about in our sermon series and you talked, julie, about how you have memories when you were growing up. There's so many of our volunteers now that grew up with VBS and so they continue to come back and pour into the kids. That's so great Well, jumping into that intergenerational idea. This week was week four of our Honor Code series and it was talking about different generations. What stuck out to you guys? What are you taking, beyond Sunday, from this message?
Speaker 3:Well, I really appreciate an overview of generational thinking. It's easy for us to think of our biases and differences in terms of cultural lines, geographic language, those kinds of divisions. But more subtle are some of the age divisions and in the recent age, I might say, generational groupings, because that has become a science last about 30 years. Back from the book Strauss and Howe, generations to Generations, which they made me read during my doctoral studies. I'm so smart on this stuff, but it is fascinating and as we do that, we do it with a purpose, going back to words that they use to exegete the culture, so we can better understand how to love one another and, in this case, honor from generation to generation.
Speaker 2:I think when I got done listening to that message, I was just reminded again about the incredible power of the words that you speak. And it costs just as much to say something encouraging as to say something discouraging. And everyone, everyone can use encouragement. And how are we using our words to encourage? I mean speaking as someone now who's in an older generation. How am I using my words to encourage and empower the generations coming behind me? It costs nothing but time and it can make such a difference in young adults' lives.
Speaker 1:Yes, very true. That's really what my brain was just swimming with. Oh gosh, how big of an impact do we have? And I'm somebody that's worked in kids ministry, has worked in student ministry, like I try to recruit and cheer on other adults to pour into these, but it's very easy in my day-to-day life to forget how I, just as one individual, impacts people. All right, so Pastor Zach Zender started out this message with a little breakdown of the different generations. So my question is what generation are you from and what stereotypical trait of that generation do you like about?
Speaker 2:your group so I'm from Gen X and I think Gen X always prides ourselves in being like one of the more low maintenance generations. So now here I go. I'm gonna say something that's not particularly positive, but I feel like this it kind of like the boomers just got a lot of attention and I felt like millennials got a lot of attention and I think felt like millennials got a lot of attention and I think Gen X actually is a smaller, like the window to be a Gen X is smaller but just kind of got skipped over. But I feel like overall we're kind of that generation that puts their nose to the grindstone and just gets the job done, but maybe everybody feels that way.
Speaker 3:No, I think you hit it. And actually one of the things things we didn't talk about that but I found fascinating in in taking some graduate level courses in generational thinking is that at any one time there's a constellation of four generations and they go a dominant recessive, dominant recessive. There you and you can see that happening with the boomers, the millennials, the Xers.
Speaker 2:Yes, are the recessive.
Speaker 3:It doesn't mean that you're less than, but they don't get quite the attention. Yes, and we had to watch movies that actually reflected the generation, and the movie that we watched for Generation X was a Ted. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure that was one of them, but there was another one, the Breakfast. Club, that's what I was just going to say, the Breakfast Club Any, john.
Speaker 1:Hughes movie.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's very our generation.
Speaker 1:It's going to come to me it will. When it does you just shout it out? Our listeners want to know.
Speaker 3:I'm laughing about it right now. But anyway yeah, I think you're right there. I'm a boomer and we were a very idealistic generation.
Speaker 3:And I appreciate that because I was there in the 60s and the summer of love during my teenage years and all the idealism and the counterculture. But actually such a dominant sized group yes, the whole society of America began to idealize what we were idealizing. Now we had a tendency to be very idealistic, but in terms of getting everything done that was irrelevant. Everyone just kind of had to pander to us a little bit.
Speaker 1:No, we did, get stuff done, you did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we were high-performing.
Speaker 2:A lot of boomer presidents. No Gen X presidents.
Speaker 3:It's a population thing too. That's boomer presidents no, gen X presidents no, because it's a population thing too. That's true, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm a Gen Xer and I love the survivability that Gen Xers have. We're like we didn't wear sunscreen and we didn't use car seats and we drank from hoses and we survived. We would leave the house and we didn't get kidnapped and we'd be gone all day and nobody knew where we were.
Speaker 3:Free range those kids.
Speaker 1:It was just we survived. So true, that's what I like. So, as Zach transitioned into the next part of his message he talked about, he had two things that were tips for the older generation to think about when they're communicating with the younger generation, and then two tips for the younger generation speaking to the older generation. So the first ones were from older to younger, and the first one he said this is all the Ps in his sentence push past preferences to propel the next generation. And he asked the question what preference is God calling you to lay aside in order to greater propel those younger than you? What are your thoughts on that idea of pushing past the preferences to propel the next generation, or what is God asking you to set aside?
Speaker 3:Well, one of the common characteristics as a follower of Jesus is to be not just to know him, but to be inhabited by him and his attitude towards people, which had the capacity to understand, and by understanding people, it gives opportunity to know. What is it that they might need Now? Encouraging words is an excellent example of that, but in some cases it might be even more specifically like validation, and there might be people in generational profiles that are beneath you or not younger than you that simply need the validation that, hey, you got what it takes. Now, that's also a quote that's been widely said. Fathers need to say that to the next generation after them, particularly their sons, and say you got what it takes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think about and when Samuel, the prophet Samuel, was talking to God about who the next king of Israel is going to be and God reminded him. You know, I don't look at people the way that you look at people. Man looks at the outside, god looks at the heart.
Speaker 2:And I think sometimes when we look at people of a different generation and don't maybe understand what the wrapping on the gift is all about the gift is still in there and we really need to take the time to kind of maybe look beyond the things that puzzle us, to the heart of the person inside of that. And so I'm just thinking a lot about how do I really look at the heart of a person and sometimes I think these generational differences, there's just some fear attached to it. So even you know, I'm 55 and there's stuff I don't understand about technology and it just feels intimidating to me. And when things seem scary or different, there's just I don't understand about technology and it just feels intimidating to me. And when things seem scary or different, there's just a tendency to push against it a little bit. So I'm just trying to recognize in myself, when I see something that's unfamiliar, not to push against it but to be curious and to move forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Simon Sinek, the author and speaker. I love a lot of what he talks about. But he talks a lot about the millennial generation as they got into the workforce, and both boomers and Gen Xers would judge millennial coworkers of oh they're lazy, oh they don't want to work their full 40 hours all there and they just have a different work style. Like they just function in a different way. They grew up with different routines and so they function and structure their day and their work time in different ways than what a boomer or a Gen X or just someone different than them may do. And I really, like he like, would almost get angry in some of the podcasts I would hear him in talking about. Millennials are not lazy. The idea is that they're lazy and they're not lazy, they just work differently.
Speaker 1:They function differently.
Speaker 3:Dina, that's such a very good illustration. And if I were to put myself back a few years back, when I had hair down to my shoulders and it was a statement of being countercultural, and the generation above me said you long hair, yippee, yippee, yeah of me, said you long-haired, friggin' hippie. And it was one of those social customs that was becoming a barrier that you just used to characterize stereotype. If you would that generation behind you and that's what Zach's talking about let's push aside, let's understand what some of those biases are, so that we can answer the calling that God's given us to speak into other people's lives, the honor that God wants to give them through us.
Speaker 1:So the second point that he talked about for the older generation to the younger generation is to speak life and courage. What are your thoughts there? You've already kind of touched base on, you know, speaking positively to them. I just it's not just words, it's actions too. That's what I kept thinking. It's not just words, it's actions. It's how I make assumptions about that generation, and then how do I build them up, even when I may not fully understand their motives, in the same way that my brain works, or yeah.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things that struck me in the message was just talking about the challenges that our younger generations face, things that are unique to them, that we never experienced, or maybe experienced in a different way. Every generation has their challenges, I know, but I think like about my youngest son, who was born a few months after 9-11 and then graduated from high school during the COVID epidemic. That's really tough and growing up requires courage. And how awesome is it when you have someone who comes alongside you and says, like you said, roger, you've got what it takes, or I'm walking with you, and then don't just say it but actually take time, which is really our most precious commodity. I think during the message I was thinking about, julie, what are more intentional ways that you could reach out to the generations beneath you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah about the fact that the generational characteristics, personalities, are largely formed by some of those sociological events happening, you know, in the era of their formative years or developing years, whatever. So it helps us better understand and sometimes to be able to speak honor into their lives means to validate them in ways that we can help step aside and make a path of success for them. Now, one of the things that I really enjoy doing is I hire a young man from our church to come on over and help me with various yard work or different building projects and stuff like that, and it gives me a chance to actually coach him a little bit about work and hard work, and also even to the point of saying, okay, is this, okay, let's look at what you've just done there, Is that acceptable? Yes, and he'll say yeah, and I go no.
Speaker 3:I'm going to tell you why you've just done there is, is that acceptable? Yes, and he'll say yeah, and I go no, it's not. I'm gonna tell you why.
Speaker 2:And actually, that is a kind of a loving thing.
Speaker 3:It's a loving thing and said because you're gonna have, you know, someday, a boss and someday you're gonna own your own company and if that happens, you're not going to get that customer back. And here's why, and and also, then we would joke about it, laugh about it, but what he got, the clear picture and what he needed to know is that someone is genuinely on his team and wants to see him have success and is willing to for me not to do it all myself, right, but to take the time to let him do so that he can have success and help him fashion that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and mentoring really is a gift and that's what you're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm also getting very cheap labor. Don't tell him.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm paying him, okay, but you are investing in him, and that's something I think that we have kind of lost sight of in society. I feel like when I grew up, there were a lot of adults that I feel like poured into me. They were the neighbors in my neighborhood or leaders at my church or even different relationships that I had with adults at church I mean at school and I feel like sometimes now there's such a barrier to just investing in other people's children. Both of my daughters, when they were young, when they were in their teenage years, had their small group leader at church.
Speaker 2:That really just poured into them.
Speaker 1:And still to this day, one of them. She was there for a time and then she kind of grew out of it and that was fine. She has fond memories, but my middle daughter just reached out to hers yesterday to talk about life and we were just talking 27. So this was 10 years ago or more than that that they were spending time together, but the impact that that had, and the amazing thing about it is now that daughter has developed a relationship with some teenagers that she knows just kind of through a circumstance that are foster children right now and she is just pouring into those kids.
Speaker 1:She'll take those kids just out for a meal or just go spend time with those kids where she's just an outside adult, like they have enough space, adults advocating for them, you know, trying to help them with the situation that they find themselves in, but this is just somebody coming and loving on them and spending time in them and like purposefully, she said, I remember what that meant to me even though she wasn't in the same personal situation and is now trying to turn around and pay it back to someone else.
Speaker 3:So it was an interesting question If we kind of took Zach's encouraging word and said who is it that we would identify in our sphere of influence and be intentional about opening up opportunities to develop a more intentional kind of relationship or mentoring. And, Julie, I've watched you do that because you've done that with some younger gals in a very intentional way that also brought spiritual breakthrough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's just a blessing both ways right. So just being able to hear their perspectives, seeing them as they're coming to understand new things about God, just enjoying who God made them to be as a person, it's been extremely meaningful for me, so I've been grateful for those opportunities.
Speaker 1:Now, Julie, did you ever participate in MomCo?
Speaker 2:I did not. What used to be?
Speaker 1:Mops? I did not either, and so this is something I'm still learning about. But MomCo sets up basically like mom mentors with their program where it's moms that have been through your stage that help mentor younger moms through that right here that we work with in our building, you know that uses our facilities. That, yeah, is honoring the next generation or a generation younger than them, not necessarily the next generation like children, but a generation younger than them, by trying to support, encourage, by speaking life and courage, just like Zach's. You know challenge, so that's great. You know challenge, so that's great, all right. So then pastor Zach transitioned into advice for the younger generation in relationship to the older generation, and his opening advice was stop wasting your money on door dash.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't stand up and say, oh, it's obvious.
Speaker 1:So, true. I do think that's a very generational thing. Yes, a hundred percent. No, his real advice number one was receive their wisdom. What did that make you think of?
Speaker 3:Well, our culture sometimes does not, and we have to understand. Our American culture has its though it's a fabric of many different nationalities blended has its own unique take on elderly, because some cultures around the world, the older you get, the wiser you get and the more prominent your voice becomes. Perhaps not so in America, it's not as readily seen. There's a kind of a tipping point after which the person may not be perceived to be as wise, but the point is true wisdom is being open to receiving wisdom. And can we take the time to actually, in reverse, ask that question that I mentioned earlier who is it that you're identifying and being intentional with to pour into? Well, if we were to reverse it, who are you identifying or being intentional to say, you know, I think I need to slow life down a little bit and ask that person some things about life that they have to share with me. That might be really beneficial.
Speaker 2:I love that, roger. I was thinking about something similar. So I just heard this on a podcast and I can't say who the person. I can't remember who the person was exactly, but he was saying how important it is from us to move from kind of looking at people who have platforms to people who are pillars. And he said oftentimes people who are pillars in their community have lived a long life of faithfulness to God, to other people, and they actually may not be people who are shouting from the rooftops hey, look at me, look at me.
Speaker 2:But I think the younger generation would be wise to slow down and look at people who've lived really fruitful lives in relationship to God and other people over a long period of time and be inquisitive and ask them about what that's been like, and they would just learn so much. So I just think it's slowing down and asking questions of people who might not be saying hey, let me tell you all about myself. I've got this amazing platform. Here's what you need to know. It's looking for those quieter people who are just absolutely rock solid.
Speaker 3:Can I share a little bit about being old? Yes, I got you.
Speaker 1:Older. What exactly? Older Age challenged or chronologically challenged?
Speaker 3:No chronologically superior.
Speaker 1:There you go. That's right, that was the word. I found it too. Yes, you are correct.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I'm chronologically superior, but I have found that in my more recent chronologically superiority years I am much more reticent not to talk or share my perspective, as I was 20 years ago. I find it much more helpful for other people if I just am quiet, unless they are really interested or really ask, and so that's kind of a word of encouragement that sometimes we really need to ask. And here's a classic point I had just an amazing encounter recently in Africa with a refugee people group, face-to-face with a thousand refugees, and it's an amazing story, and someone asked me a little bit about it and I told a paragraph and then I kind of watched the person switch the topic to something else and I said, well, that's okay, but I cause I don't have a need to keep going, like maybe I once would have. But I'm wondering if maybe that person might have said asked a little bit more, because there were some things that they might have said ask a little bit more because there were some things that they might have really benefited from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so then Zach said number two was expressing your gratitude and grace, that's from the younger generation to the older generation. This is one, I think, that is easy to forget. I mean, we talk about how much the boomers did, you know, or how much my parents did, or you know, whatever my parents, whatever generation they may be, you know as kids grow up and learn, oh, you know, they've done this for our family, or they sacrificed this, or they did this for our community or for our church, and I think it's really easy to forget to thank them for that and it takes such little time, but don't you think it means so much?
Speaker 2:I mean right, we were talking about how much encouragement means, Gratitude means a lot to speaking as a as a mom Right.
Speaker 1:I know more, I guess.
Speaker 2:Right. He talked about kind of the transfer of generational wealth. Well, there's a lot of ways to be wealthy and so just to encourage people, even if you don't have a lot of cash to pass on to your children, someday you can pass on something that's just of so much more value, right, discipling your children in the Lord. That's going to pay eternal benefits that go far beyond whatever money that you may give to them, just the richness of a healthy and happy family life, parent-child relationship, so just being grateful for what you've received.
Speaker 2:Nothing's perfect, but I think a lot of us can say we had parents who, at least some of the time a lot of us can say we had parents who, at least some of the time, did well and wanted what was best for us.
Speaker 3:And can we find that and say thank you? I've recently had the blessing, the challenge, the life transition of helping my father-in-law by going to the nursing home, and a big part of that, with my wife Cheryl and I in our conversations with him, was taking time for me, especially to affirm him for his personal impact to me, because these are the crowning years of his life, and to remind him that some of his personality characteristics of speaking joy into people's lives, just being interested in people lives, just being interested in people, and those kinds of things that gave him a sense of people feeling connected to him when he was around. He needed to hear that again when he was going to the next transition that, just like you've done for me, dad, in so many ways, I of see what God's up to, because when we're thankful we're usually celebrating something that God's doing or has done.
Speaker 1:This piece made me think of two weeks ago, when it was Father's Day and Pastor Greg was talking about doing a special prayer for fathers and he had all the dads stand up and ask people to go lay a hand on their father. My son, who's 18 and just graduated high school, was in the service that day and he said that near him there was an older—he didn't say how old, how chronologically superior—but an older gentleman who stood up, and he didn't have any family around him, but he stood up as a father.
Speaker 1:And my son went over and put hands and prayed on him and he said when he finished this guy was tearing up and turned to him and said thank you. And we were talking about it afterwards and I was like what an amazing way to honor that generation for you.
Speaker 1:Like he knows, for whatever reason his family is not here, whether they don't live here, they don't come to church with him. You know, when he stood up he knew that wasn't going to be. You know that case. He's still receiving a prayer because we're praying over all the fathers in the room. You know what I mean. But just to have this stranger come over who's a younger generation that I'm sure there are a lot of stereotypes about. You know prayer and where their faith life is, and just the boldness to go over and step that up, and he's telling me this story and I'm tearing up talking about it now, like I'm just like, oh, oh yeah, it's so beautiful, yeah, love it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's so beautiful yeah.
Speaker 1:Love it. I just really thought that was a. I kept thinking of that this week when Zach was talking about, you know, honoring that generation and I was like, oh, you know what? Not all hope is lost.
Speaker 3:Yes, that's so sweet, Dina yeah.
Speaker 2:It really is. Yeah, I think you know, just thinking about this message and the scripture verse that says life and death is in the tongue. How are we using our words? Are we sharing life or are we bringing something way worse? And, man, when I think about the words that I speak, I want to be representing Jesus himself, who is full of life, and it was just a great reminder.
Speaker 3:So I think we're probably to that point where you're kind of wrapping up. We are, I'm getting the wrap-up look from Dina.
Speaker 1:You're always so kind. Anyway, this is a job you can transition into. Roger.
Speaker 3:I love the topic of honor and it kind of caused me to ask the question you know God, what are you asking? And in the very heart of the commandment, to love God is to honor him. And the way we honor God, the way we love God, is by loving others and honoring others. That's just kind of how it works, and the beautiful thing about the Christian faith is that the power to do that comes from God.
Speaker 3:Seeing how faulted and short we come, up and taking action himself because he was the one that took his robe of honor, laid it aside, came and took up a clothing of shame of our own sin and took it on himself and then was ridiculed. Jesus ridiculed as he bore our shame on himself. Why? So that we might be honored with his forgiveness and life in him. And after we've received that from a God that would honor us so much, my goodness, there's power in that how we can honor one another across generations, up generations, down generations, across backyard fences, national boundaries or language boundaries. So what a blessing it is to be in honor culture, because God's the one who honored us so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really enjoyed this series and I really enjoyed. I wrote down the quote that Pastor Zach shared towards the end of this message, and it was from Sadie Robertson Huff, and it says when we are a generation that honors, encourages and lifts each other up, old and young, we don't just carry the gospel, we multiply it. I was like whoa, that one's good. Well, thank you guys for being here. I am excited for your next visit, whenever it is on our schedule, because we'll be jumping into a new sermon message next time Sounds great you.
