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 and coffee break theology from Pastor Greg Griffith. This is a podcast of King of Kings Church in Omaha & Fremont, Nebraska. Learn more at kingofkings.org.
Beyond Sunday
Giving Eternally: Trading Ownership for Stewardship
Dina, Julie, and Tyler unpack what it means to live generously in a world that is constantly chasing more. They explore how shifting our focus from possessions to purpose brings freedom, joy, and impact that lasts far beyond this life.
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Thanks for listening!
Welcome to Beyond Sunday, the King of Kings podcast, where we dive a little bit deeper into our message series and see what we're taking Beyond Sunday. My name is Dina Newsome, and I have some fun guests today. Go ahead and introduce yourselves.
SPEAKER_00:Hi, everybody. My name is Julie Easley. I'm the executive director at King of Kings. And my name is Tyler Rolfson, admirer of Julie Easley.
SPEAKER_03:Wow, thanks.
SPEAKER_01:But my official title is campus director for Fremont.
SPEAKER_03:No, I think I'm the president of Julie's fan group.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, wow. I'm feeling the love, guys. Thanks. I like you both too.
SPEAKER_01:Election day is next month.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, here we go.
SPEAKER_03:Put your vote in now if you want Tyler to take over. All right. Well, I don't know if you guys know it, but we are recording this on Tuesday, October 21st. And today is National Back to the Future Day. Ooh, that's a Back to the Future movies.
SPEAKER_00:Tyler probably wasn't even born. Was it 1985? Wasn't it?
SPEAKER_03:I think, yes. I think 85, 85 or 87, right?
SPEAKER_00:But when sorry, Julie, no, I was not born. So painful.
SPEAKER_03:But have you seen them? Oh, yeah. Have you? Okay. When Marty McFly went back in time in the original one, the date was October 21st. So that is why October 21st now for 10 years has been national Back to the Future Day. So my question for you is what future invention from movies about the future are you disappointed has not been an actuality yet?
SPEAKER_01:Well, what first thing I'll say on Back to the Future is isn't it in the second movie that they go forward 30 years to the year 2015, which is now 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_00:I think that one's so sober.
SPEAKER_01:But one of the like, like, could it ever be sort of fantastical things was that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series in Back to the Future 2 in the year 2015, and they actually won it in 2016. Wow. So that was pretty darn close as a prediction. Yeah. That's good.
SPEAKER_03:So not an invention, but a happening.
SPEAKER_01:100%. For which we can all give thanks to God.
SPEAKER_00:I think as I am stuck on 80 with that endless construction that will never go away. I want a Jetsons flying car, but just for me, so I can sail over everybody else and be like, yeah, that's what I want.
SPEAKER_03:It was not in Back to the Future, but my biggest disappointment that we don't have yet is teleportation. I I watch Star Trek. And I just want to beat me up. Yeah. I, you know, I want to, I don't I hate driving. I hate flying. I just want to teleport somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:That would be great. That does sound convenient.
SPEAKER_03:I also wouldn't mind in Back to the Future, he slips on those futuristic shoes that then automatically adjust to his shoe size. I that to me, that would be great too.
SPEAKER_01:Agreed. So in Back to the Future 3, that's where they go back a hundred years.
SPEAKER_03:To the Wild West.
SPEAKER_01:1885, right? Wild, Wild West. Yeah. And my favorite part of that movie is when Doc has this giant contraption with all the 1885 things to then create one ice cube.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, wow. See, I only watched the first one. I never watched it. You're missing out. I didn't even know there was a two and three.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Goodness. I know. Um uh I'm totally blanking on what's the actor's name? Who plays Marty? Um Michael J. Fox. Yes, Michael J. Foxx just released a book. Really? Uh that's about his um experience on Back to the Future movies and the TV show, Family Ties, that he was on just recently. I have seen in the I have not read it or he seems like a good dude. 100%. All right. So now moving back to our present, we are currently Queen of Transitions.
SPEAKER_01:Let's go, Dina.
SPEAKER_03:I dust off my cape. The giving challenge, we are in week three of this message series, and Pastor Zach Zender is leading us through. This week we talked about giving eternally, trading ownership for stewardship. So, what jumped out at you guys the most? What are you taking beyond Sunday from this week's message?
SPEAKER_00:I mentioned this in message planning today. I just found that the example that or the story that he told at the top was so like a perfect fit for the whole message. And just think about how often we're captivated by things of this world. And they become s of primary importance so often unless we really keep our eye on what's most important. And you know, that mom who is completely ignorant of all the scary things. Right. Hawaii, yeah. But um, and then and then her family, who is so captured in that moment by what was happening to them right now. And I can be that person really captured by what's happening to me right now.
SPEAKER_01:I I think the image, controlling image that I walked away from Sunday, uh, was the the hotel thing. He came back to it a number of times. Um, and then it's one of the books, one of the days this week in the in the Giving Challenge book, where he kind of has this kind of accompanying fictional parable where he's staying at a staying at a hotel and it's like, oh, there's a Walmart across the street. I'm gonna go buy some nicer sheets. And then I'm like, oh, you know, get a Dyson uh Dyson uh fan. And I'm like, well, you know, our TV in the hotel room is kind of small. Like, what if I go buy a 60-inch TV? Like by the end of it, he's like, obviously, this is a parable. This has not actually happened. Although I did wonder, I'm like, Zach, did you actually do this? Like, but just drawing out the point of we it it just hit home probably in a deeper way for me. Is like, oh wow, a hotel is not my home.
SPEAKER_00:No, and it seems so ridiculous to outfit it.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly.
SPEAKER_00:Because it's so temporary.
SPEAKER_01:And to say, well, what is my home? And how often am I really like I I walk the question I have here is like, do it, do I have an unhealthy relationship with my stuff? And the answer is probably yes. Right.
SPEAKER_03:We all do.
unknown:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Um, I really liked where he talked about when he was talking about stuff, and he talked about um in a book he read, I think it was, or a speaker, I can't remember, that said, Oh, well, a certain percentage of you are Lutheran and a certain percentage of you are this. But 100% of Americans are materialistic. And I was like, how true is that? Yeah. No matter what our income is, we are materialistic. All right. So um the story that he opened with was about if you haven't watched the message yet, I encourage you to go back and watch it. Um, but it was about a false alarm that people in Hawaii received where they got a text message that went out that said there's a missile coming and they should get to safety.
SPEAKER_00:Um they went to a hotel lobby.
SPEAKER_03:Maybe it was decked out from the Walmart across the street. Yeah. Um, and this, you know, for what do you say, 36 minutes or something like that, until another text message came out realizing this was a false alarm, someone had hit a wrong button, and there was a family that was having this experience where the father and children could not find the mother, couldn't get a hold of her in this, in their thinking the world is ending or their world is ending. And then um, when they finally got a hold of her, she was oblivious to the whole thing, had just gotten out of the shower after being on the treadmill and having a conversation about kitchen upgrades, like countertops. How did you relate to that? Where do you think you would fall in that like story? Would you be in the panicking? Would you be oblivious and talking about countertops? Like, or how did that story hit you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, well, part of it just depends on your station, right? Like if you're the the reason she was having these kind of flippant conversations is that she didn't see the text, right? Right. Um, and I think kind of maybe one of the purposes of why Zach brought it up is to kind of say that, hey, there's no excuse. I'm ringing the bell right now. The the life that you live now is but a blip on the radar of eternity. And you've probably seen, and it's probably been talked about a number of times, but that famous Francis Chan illustration of a crazy long rope, right? That's what 60, 70, 80, 90 feet long. And then he has like a two-inch tape wrap at the end of the rope. And he said, That two inches of tape are the 70, 80, maybe 90 years you have in this life. And the rest of this rope is eternity. And there's just something about our sinful flesh that just kind of puts blinders on to eternal significance. And in a way, Zach was even this was not a false alarm, it's a real thing. It's like eternity is coming. Where are your values on this side of heaven?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Agreed. And I think that it shows up in a number of ways. It's not even just how we view possessions, but just thinking about where we invest our time in our most important relationships and what are the things that we're talking about? What's our vision for the future? Eternity is long. So as I'm raising my children, what are the things that I'm talking to them about as things of primary importance? Um, how am I loving my neighbor well? Right. So it's just storing up treasures in heaven versus treasures on earth. It's so important to keep that vision in front of us at all times, but it's easy for it to be bumped off. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Were you guys surprised? I was so surprised. He shared that statistic of Americans who believe in Jesus. Yeah. And it was like 60 some percent believe in Jesus, and 33% of Americans believe in an afterlife. And I'm like, oh, they they they they really we we really do need an alarm.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah, that was sobering.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Uh when he was telling that story, I was just thinking of that 36 minutes and what my brain would be like during that 36 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:Take us into it, Dina.
SPEAKER_03:You you both panic. I'm really good in a crisis, but I'm not so sure I would be good in that crisis. I you both are parents. You you ever lost your child, yes, you know, in a public place for what seems like 10 hours. Yes. And it's really a minute. Yeah. You know, I just my son was five years old the first time we took him on a plane to Hong Kong. And Hong Kong is a city of 10 million people. And he got behind someone where I couldn't see him at a subway stop once. And just the panic in that moment, because how would I ever find him if I lost him in a country across the world, you know? And that's what I just kept thinking of in that 36 minutes. I mean, my thoughts would only be about being with my family and making sure my family was safe. Yes. Because that's the most invaluable valuable thing to me. And so then how do I put that in perspective of am I making sure that my friends and my loved ones are safe for eternity? Yeah. You know, like, okay, maybe there's some people I need to talk to. Maybe there's some some conversations I need to have. Maybe there's some more invites to church I need to issue out, or know things. And I just that, you know, where you can't breathe, your heart stops. That's what I think. Okay. Does God feel like that? You know what I mean? Like about us because he cares so much for us. I just that's I just couldn't get out of that feeling.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So um another statistic that Zach shared is that storage facilities are primarily in the United States. The US has 90% of the world's storage facilities. And so I have a biblical question and a fun question for you. First, the fun question. What's your guilty pleasure that you store or that you think you you can't get rid of? Maybe you don't need a storage facility for it. It's not a huge clip, but what's your thing that you're like, I just don't want to get rid of this, but I probably don't need to hang on to this stuff.
SPEAKER_01:So we don't we don't have currently have a need for a storage facility because I feel like every month I pay my mortgage, I'm paying for a storage facility in my basement that just has empty room upon empty room upon empty room. If you guys want to swing by Fremont, I'll give you a tour. It's not very exciting. Um and so I but I mean we did just do a cross-country move and like it kind of you get face to face with the stuff. And I'm like, some of this stuff like I don't want to get rid of because it is family heirlooms or you know, memories. Like at my my kids when they grow up and when they have kids, like they're gonna want to have this stuff. They would, but other things, I'm like, oh my gosh. How many, how many boxes of gift used gift bags do we need to bring with us to Nebraska?
SPEAKER_00:I have a I have a tiny problem with decorative plates. Oh. So I have a lot of them in my hutch, and I also have some of them on my walls. And my husband, who is very generous about letting me just do whatever decorating we want in our house, we have a big archway in our my kitchen, and I'm like, I'm putting plates over the whole thing. And he was like, No. No.
SPEAKER_03:This is the one he was drawing the line.
SPEAKER_00:It's like we have enough of them everywhere, so let's just stop.
SPEAKER_03:My mom used to have a decorative plate, but she would get them when they travel. And so they were memories to her, and they used to line a hallway in our basement. Yeah. My dad was so excited to get rid of that.
SPEAKER_01:I think Dale would be in his camp. Can I ask a men a question on behalf of all the men right now?
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So when you say decorative plate, you're referring to a plate that I will never eat off of. Okay. I just wanted to be sure. Play only. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, I could eat. I mean, you know what? There are some in my hutch that we eat off of, like on Thanksgiving and stuff. But like mostly it's just to look pretty in a in a hutch, and then they're hanging. The ones on the wall, no one's eating off of. Of course.
SPEAKER_01:Because once you take it off the wall, now you have people on the wall.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So if you're at a dinner party, your kitchen now is out of like out of function. Well, not no, it's no, it's function is not the purpose here. This is clearly not a functional argument. Just decorative. Decorative.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Just yeah. Don't try to understand. It's just a thing.
SPEAKER_01:Dale, I I hear you. I hear you right now, Dale.
SPEAKER_03:I have a problem with my children's keepsakes that I think they don't think are keepsakes.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:For example. Have they told you so?
SPEAKER_03:Um, no, because I don't really give them access to them. I just keep them for a day when so my oldest daughter is married. And after she was married and they got a house, I packed up all of her stuff lovingly, carefully, organized it by boxes, elementary school, middle school, high school, turned it all over to her. I have no idea if she still has it or not. I think maybe she does. My middle daughter does not have the room for me to gift her things. I think she would just get rid of them because she could care less. My son has no interest even in anything. But for example, when I was packing up my daughter's stuff, my daughters did swim team in the summer, like just a fun swim team, like not highly competitive when they were in elementary school. And they would get a ribbon for every event they would compete in. And they would compete in four different events every week, all summer. So we would end the summer with 50 or 60 ribbons. I kept them all wrapped up with their time cards. Oh my. Never in a million years will any of us need to look at this and remember when you were eight years old, you swam the 25 meter butterfly in however many seconds.
SPEAKER_01:It is recreational summer swimming.
SPEAKER_03:I go. But I was like at a point during when I was packing the stuff up where I can't get rid of this. This is a memory. You know, if they get rid of it, that's on them. I feel like I feel some obligation to keep it until they are in the space to properly identify whether they want to keep it. And that age is not 18 or 25.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna say, what is the age, DNA?
SPEAKER_03:I think like a marriage is like 45.
SPEAKER_00:After she's gone.
SPEAKER_03:They can go through it when I'm dead.
SPEAKER_00:You're like mom.
SPEAKER_03:I don't know. I have so many keepsakes that I love from my childhood. I do not have swimming ribbons or something as insignificant as that. But my ex-husband, when we got married, had very little. Like his family had been in the military, moved a lot, had been through some just family dynamic changes, and he had nothing from his childhood. And I always thought, oh, how horrible. He didn't really have a problem with it. I did. Right. So I was sure not gonna let our children live this devastating life. Yeah. But that's my guilty pleasure. Okay. So then shifting gears to when Zach was talking about these storage facilities, he talked about Luke 12, 13 to 21, which is the parable of the man who has plenty or whatever you want to call it. Where basically, I don't know, do you do you want to summarize it, Tyler? You want me to? No, go forward. Oh, yeah. So basically, this guy has got too much stuff and decides to store all of his stuff. He needs to tear down all his barns and build bigger barns. And the Lord pretty much says, You fool, uh, you're gonna die tonight. What good is all this stuff? Like share it. Um, and so how does that parable hit you when we're talking about our guilty storage pleasures or the things that we keep keep? What does that make you think of?
SPEAKER_01:So um it's a it's a Zach emphasized this in the message where he he said, Jesus doesn't even say it's wrong. He says it's a foolish thing to do. It's a it's a it's a dumb, he even used the word stupid. Can I say that on this podcast, Dina? Yes, you can. Thank you, thank you, Julie.
SPEAKER_03:Julie's my boss. So if she says so.
SPEAKER_01:So this is what I noticed yesterday. I was rereading this. Um, obviously, for those who don't know, context in scripture matters a ton, that what comes before something, what comes after something helps contextualize. And so after this parable, here's what Jesus says. Jesus said to his disciples, Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will put be put, or what you will put on. For life is more than food, body more than clothing. And then listen to this verse. Consider the ravens, they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn. It's like, oh, Jesus, it's like you knew what you were doing. And to be clear, this is not um God saying, don't have savings accounts, don't prepare for the future. Like we need to be wise and uh take care of our families and that sort of thing. But I think we all kind of know so much of this series is about the heart, right? And where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And we we kind of know where that line is, where it's it just kind of becomes about more and more and more. And newsflash, enough never happens. So where when we have this eternal perspective, like, oh yeah, we actually can't take any of this with us. So we need to bring some values of heaven into our earthly realm to more reflect the generosity of God.
SPEAKER_03:Amen.
SPEAKER_00:I also think about just um the orphan mentality that a lot of us still carry around with us, the idea that we don't have a loving father who is going to be providing for everything that we need. And so therefore, I need to um take care of myself, protect myself, comfort myself with my stuff. And Jesus is saying, look, you have a loving father who is gonna take care of all of this. So instead of having this white knuckle grip on everything that's gonna keep you safe and protected and happy and comforted and good, let it go. Uh, release the grip. You have a father who cares for you very much and who's going to be providing your needs and beyond.
SPEAKER_03:Let it go, my three-year-old granddaughter. Yes. She's obsessed with frozen and hears that song all the time. There it is. Just be like Elsa. Let it go.
SPEAKER_00:Let it go.
SPEAKER_03:Um, so one of the other things that Zach really talked about was um from First Timothy 6, 10. And that verse is often like mislooked at. What the verse actually says is for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. What people often misquote it is that money is the root of all evil. But it clearly says for the love of money. And then Zach kind of took that verse and he flipped it and he said, What if the reverse were true? For the love of generosity is a root of all kinds of good. How did that guy strike you guys?
SPEAKER_01:I I think it's a I think it's a really cool, honest, rhetorical uh flip. Um, I never thought about that before, uh, because we we always hear it in the negative. And he and he was responsible with it. He said, What if this is you? Um and you know, throughout this whole series, it's uh we're we're saying, hey, God's been so generous with us. Um, how can we develop habits of generosity that become that kind of that kind of fight against that internal sinful nature that wants to, like Julie just said, kind of kind of grip and control. And um uh okay, my mind just slipped. What what was our question again?
SPEAKER_02:We were the verse. When you flipped it. Yeah, how does that hit you?
SPEAKER_01:So then yeah, so then my mind went to our our our kind of focus uh coming out of each of the messages of the campuses is was putting a spotlight on our partnership in Guatemala. And I shared at the Fremont campus, uh, you know, every time our family goes to eat out at Chipotle, it's usually more than$45 because our kids are eating not like five-year-olds anymore. And$45 a month not only feeds one of these children in in Guatemala, but does housing and uh education and puts them in Christian discipleship and kind of builds up this community. Um, and so think about for what the generous act of$45 a month, which for many of us it it's actually does it's not actually very much percentage-wise compared to income. Um, but then all the good that can come out of that in this community. And I was I was telling some of the people at our Pizza with Purpose event afterwards, um, there's a reason that we're doing this as a 10-year partnership with actually an exit strategy, not because we only want to come in and go out, but actually we we want to set them up to to to not rely on on other because we want them to be self-supporting and um kind of kind of do do their thing. We don't want to help, we don't want to uh in the process of helping actually hurt what God wants to do in this community.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's a runway.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah, I love that too. I I thought that that was such a poignant phrase and just remembering that um the things that God asks us to do are not for our punishment or to make us miserable. It's for our flourishing and for our good. And so when God asks us to be generous, he knows it's the best thing for our hearts, and we'll be deriving a lot of joy and peace from that. And so um I do think it's true that generosity is just gonna be get a lot of wonderful things in our lives. Not that it's always gonna be easy, but I think I think it's just a guarantee that that your spirit will flourish when you're walking in the commands of Jesus.
SPEAKER_03:I really got stuck on the first part of it for the love of generosity, because I thought, do I love generosity? Like, do I like feeling good about myself if I donate to something or serve a worthy cause or something? I do. I do like the feeling, the dopamine, the happiness, quote unquote, that I get from that. But do I love generosity? And I started thinking about the story with the missile, the fake missile, and how I'd want to be with the people that I love, that I really do treasure. Do I treat generosity like that? And I got stuck on that. And I gotta tell you, my brain has not fully wrapped around it of okay, how do I put generosity in a position in my life where I am loving it, where I am honoring it, where that's a very valuable, important thing. Because I don't really think that's where it is right now in my life. And so how can I work towards that? Yeah. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I I really with the whole theme is um trading ownership for stewardship and this giving eternally theme. Um, at the end, and maybe this is where the next part was going anyway, Dina. Um, but in the end, you know, Zach's saying, well, us what a steward does is reflecting the heart of the owner. And so he gave those three things. So what does God's heart beat for when it comes to being generous, right? It's for the the the poor. That's all throughout scripture, caring for the poor. It is um uh saving the lost, God's heart's for the lost, those who don't yet know Jesus, and then strengthening believers of the church. Um, the the more that I think that our generosity can reflect God's heart, I think that's where the greatest good can come out of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So that steward versus owner, if you are following the Giving Challenge book, um, there is like a questionnaire that you can fill out, a steward versus owner mindset. Um, if not, you can find it on our website. If you go to watch the latest message, and then there's a discussion guide that you can view that has that questionnaire on there. I think that's a really important part to look at the difference between steward versus owner. So the other thing Zach talked about was three wins, three wins you get when you're generous eternally. And one is just happiness. He talked about the dopamine in your brain, you know, is equal when you're generous as to doubling your income. And that is phenomenal to me. Like, but um, and then number two, he talked about eternal rewards, obviously our time in heaven. And then number three, pointing others to Jesus, that that is the third win that comes from us being generous. How did that touch you guys?
SPEAKER_00:You know, I I I thought a little bit about um the work that we've been doing um with these public schools and how our generosity in those places have brought people to our church because they're it's just in a world that can feel so ungenerous and so jaded, seeing acts of generosity is so refreshing and points to something beautiful. And I think people are interested in finding what the source of that beauty is. So I I I think generosity is such a jewel in today's world. And we would it's to our benefit and to the kingdom's benefit to exercise that as often as we can.
SPEAKER_01:Can you give those three one more time?
SPEAKER_03:So one is happiness, two, eternal rewards, and three is pointing others to Jesus. The three wins.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So a little peek behind the curtain, Dina, you came out to Fremont last week, met with Christy and me and a kind of community representative. We're we're talking about kind of the possibilities of a night to shine in Fremont. For those who don't know, Night to Shine is put on by the Tim Tebow Foundation. Actually, Dina, you do the spiel. You oversee the whole thing.
SPEAKER_03:Night to Shine is a prom night experience for um youth ages 14 to 18 with special needs that happens on the same day and time everywhere across the world. There's like a 700 locations that that experience this event. Um, and it has a gospel focus talking about where all teens, even those who have special needs, are true daughters and sons of Christ.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. That's wonderful. It's like you've made that pitch before a few times. I know. Um But what reminded me of that is um you you said in that meeting, if if churches go into putting on night to shine, expecting like you invest this amount of money and time, you're going to get ROI in, you know, and if you go in with that sort of expectation, you'll be very disappointed. Because night to shine is not the kind of event that is gonna bring a bunch of people to your church, maybe. But what it does is it creates a culture of being generous to people that are often overlooked. And then what that's what Pastor Greg has done at King Kings for all these years is what does it look like for us to develop a reputation beyond our walls and that's a generous place? And that's a place I want to be a part of. Um, and so yes, night to shine is like the ultimate happiness night. How can you not walk away, just just smile? From ear to ear, um, but to see all of the good that comes out of it that is not even like your own immediate benefit. Because if we're if we're only approaching generosity as transactional, meaning I'm gonna do this for what I'm gonna get on the other side, we're kind of missing that. And I think Zach says this another point. He says, Giving is the ultimate test of love. And so if we're loving the world as God does, we're going to be generous in our giving.
SPEAKER_03:Zach talked about how proud he was to be a pastor of King of Kings, that it gets talked about, oh, that's that generous church. And you mentioning the school partnerships just makes me think of, I mean, I've had countless interactions. I one of our touch points is Disney Elementary for our Millard campus. And as the associate director here, I go see them, you know, in one form or another every month. And um, what we do most often is take a snack cart around. We fill it with chips and cheese sticks and sodas and fruit bars and just roll around to the classrooms and knock on the door and give every staff member a choice of a snack. And I'm shocked at how thankful they are. It's a cheese stick and a Dr. Pepper. And you would think that I gave them a firstborn. Like they're just so grateful. But one day when we were going around and there was a new teacher, a new staff member. And she kind of looked at the other staff member in a room, like, what's this? Do we have to pay for this? You know? And the teacher who had been there for a while said, Oh no, these are our friends from King of Kings. They just come here and love on us. And I was like, that statement right there, that's what I want to publicize. We just want to show up and love on you. We don't care where you're from. We don't, you know, we care about your eternity, but right now I'm not here to preach to you. I'm not here to pray for you. I'm here just to love you. And the rest of it hopefully comes down the line as a part of starting that relationship.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so as we wrap up, what are your final takeaways from this week?
SPEAKER_01:So as I was uh reading the devotions for this week, so today we're recording on Tuesday. So we've had, I think, two days in the Giving Eternity week. Um, there was an emphasis on one of the days about how on the on the own owner steward question, how we we don't belong to ourselves, right? Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 6. He says, You were bought at a price. You are not your own. We belong to God. And my my heart and mind just went back to this beautiful song. If you guys have not listened to it, I encourage you to just pull it up after this podcast. It's called I Am Not My Own by Keith and Kristen Getty. Um, and we we we did it um in the spring before in Connecticut before moving out here. And from this three three different perspectives of um imagine like a little six-year-old girl saying, singing to God, I am not my own, and then a teenager girl saying, I am not my own, and then an adult woman singing, I am not, but in in and the different life stages, but then that same chorus, I belong to the Lord, I am not my own. I'm like, man, I more and more I want to be living out as that faithful steward that I don't belong to myself. I'm I'm I'm no owner, I belong to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's good. Kind of thinking about stewardship too, and this wasn't something that my parents said to me explicitly. And I think even if they did, it wouldn't have been in a weird, damaging way. But just when I just was aware of the fact when I was, especially when I was maybe a teenager, like I I was like a representative for my family out in the world. And I I loved my parents and didn't want to do something that would bring shame to our family name. And in the same way, I want to be a good representative of the family of Jesus and to God my father. And I want to be the best representative of that family that I can be. And so stewardship is that just wanting to lift higher our father and our our family name.
SPEAKER_03:That's beautiful. I like that. The quote that really stuck out to me was one that Zach said from Martin Luther that just said, God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does. And I was just like, Okay, all right, God. Yeah, I'll work on that. Well, thank you guys so much for being here. We will jump into week four of the Giving Challenge uh this next week, where we're gonna introduce kind of an exciting thing where guests can participate. I'm excited at the campuses. So pay attention during the service. Come to service if you don't normally come and hear more. Until then, let's keep living our faith beyond Sunday.
