Kingdom Workers

For the new life that you call us into and the opportunity every time we're in the same place with other believers to be sharpened, to be encouraged. God, we, we welcome you here in this time and we're thankful, God for your love for us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you.

You could go and have a seat. Well, good morning church. Hope you've had a great Christmas week. When I was a middle school student, one of my Bible study leaders challenged me to commit a New Testament verse to memory. It's found in the book of First Timothy, chapter 4, verse 12 where the apostle Paul said, don't let anyone look down on you because you're young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.

Paul just reminded Timothy that we all have things to teach and we all have things to learn from other generations. So no matter what age we happen to be, our words, our behavior, our kindness, our trust in God, our devotion to him, all of those things matter. We have the opportunity to influence other believers in both directions along the generational spectrum. We want to be a first Timothy 4:12 kind of church. Our kids and our students are not just the church of tomorrow.

We believe that young people are very much the church right now. They can learn from us and we can learn from them. We currently have several students who are preparing for full time ministry and while they're home for Christmas, we thought this would be a great time to invite a few of them to sit down with us and share their hearts a little bit. So would you join me in welcoming a few friends to the stage with us this morning?

Good morning guys. It's good to see you again. We did this once at 9:30 already and they all came back for more so that's a really good sign. We're grateful that you guys are here. I want to just many of us know you, but not everyone knows you.

So would you guys start just by just telling us your name and where you go to school and just the basics of your connection with Greenwood Christian? Alrighty. My name is Hunter, I go to Johnson University. I've been coming to Greenwood Christian since I was like 6 and I have been involved serving with both kids, students and adults in various positions from worship to being a camp counselor. My name is Kira Giebler and I am a junior sophomore attending Johnson University.

And being the daughter of this guy over here, I thankfully have grown up here at GCC and I've been here my whole life from being in kids ministry to the student Ministry here. I've been super involved in high school. I got plugged into the worship and production teams with our student service and then when Joel got here, I got plugged in with the worship teams here with you guys. Hello everyone, I'm Zane Patterson. I'm a student senior at Taylor University and I'm a Christian ministries major.

So vocational ministry is definitely my thing. I'm ready for this, I think for myself. I've been here for my entire life. I haven't left. So I was born and raised here in the church.

I've been with the kids ministry, raised in the students ministry and then eventually got plugged in similar to these two guys here with the worship teams and the students ministry and also several volunteer teams that serve here. Hi guys, my name is Sam Willard. I'm a senior over at Indian Creek High School and they have a program over there called Work Based Learning which pretty much means I get to leave at noon every day and get to come over here and study under your youth ministers, Matt and Cody, where I get the opportunity to learn more about the behind the scenes stuff that you guys don't really see. I just get to learn some tips and tricks from them and just get involved with your guys youth over here and grow and learn alongside them. That's great.

Well, I know that stories are different, but one of the things we all have in common here is a sense of calling to serve God in a full time vocational way. So let me just ask you, Kyra, I'm going to start with you this time. How, how did you first sense God's calling into full time ministry and what do you believe God is leading you to do? How is the church encouraging you and shaping you in that direction? Yeah, well, for me, I actually did not sense God's calling into full time ministry until last minute about halfway through my senior year in high school.

At the time I had applied and got accepted into Purdue for Mechanical Engineering. And shortly after I found out about a couple programs from Johnson and Johnson. Really just eased some of the anxiety that I had about college and it allowed me to pursue something that I enjoyed doing, which was working with something with music or technology. But even then I still didn't feel drawn to go into ministry. And that was until I spent a summer working with our worship pastor here, Joel Hensley.

And he has always been someone who has supported me and who has encouraged me and given me opportunities to grow. And it was through that summer that I was inspired by his intentionality and his leadership in this ministry. And it Opened my eyes to that. This ministry is more than just music and production. It's so much about the people.

And after my experience, I was just inspired and passionate about the ministry of people. And then continuing on through my education at Johnson, I have grown a love and passion for the church. And when we gather, the time that we gather together is super important. And what we do in worship matters and it edifies the body. And I believe, I truly believe that my love and my passion and.

And through that, God is leading me to pursue ministry utilizing my gifts in music and production. Super. Zane, what about you? So in 2019, which doesn't feel like too long ago for some of us, but maybe for some of us, a very long time ago, I was going with the student ministry here at GCC out to Ciymove, which is a conference for several thousands of students attend every year. And we were at Hope College up in Michigan last day, there was a speaker who basically said, if you feel called to vocational ministry, please stand.

And at that time, I mean, he was talking to thousands of students. It pierced my heart. It really hit this desperate need for purpose that I was experiencing at the time. And I was so keen on discovering what exactly I was supposed to be doing in high school, what I was supposed to be doing after that. And now looking back on it, I'm just so grateful that God was willing to allow me to stand in that moment.

Several of the people around me, several students, several of my pastors, put their hands on me and prayed an anointing over me for going on this journey in ministry. And so now I've pursued that out by going to college and pursuing that further. But there's a little extra note to that story. After I left, I received even a further encouragement that this is the path I'm supposed to be on. I believe I heard a voice of God saying, build the church.

That exact phrase stuck in my mind for the next six years now of trying to discover what that really means. And so God in his grace, I think I know that my story is maybe unique to some, but I don't think it's greater in any sense. I think that God has simply just given me the grace and knowing of what I'm designed for, what I'm built for, and allowing me to discover that in vocational ministry. Love that. Yeah.

Sam, what about you? Yeah, my story is a little different, but along the same lines. It started off with about two to three years of persistence and avoidance of the calling. It all began at ciy, the same event that I Think a lot of us have been impacted by. And my youth minister over at Fairhaven Christian Church, Tanner Garver, came up to me during that event and pretty much opened my eyes and shared that I have some gifts that would make a good youth minister.

And through several years of different leaders that I've worked alongside at my church, they've just continued to pour into me that I have these gifts and continue to show me. And through this persistence and me avoiding this calling, I was able to understand that that's what God wanted me to do. This church here and my home church has been a great encouragement because they've given me areas to flesh out and live this and serve and just grow and explore new opportunities to try and find out what I want to do. Good. Good.

Yeah. Thanks for sharing. Hunter, tell us about your story a little bit. My story is similar to Zane's, but it's different in a lot of ways. At COI Move my freshman year, they did a call to ministry thing where like, you stand if like you would even be interested in it.

And I was sitting there in my seat arguing with myself about whether this is the path that I want to take, not even taking into consideration the path that God would want me to take. And as I was sitting there arguing with myself, I realized I'm losing nothing from standing, so I might as well just stand up and then see where God takes me. And my calling story isn't a voice. It isn't anything like that. Although I've heard many stories that are like that.

Mine specifically is just a push from God towards ministry. I never heard go into worship ministry, go do this as a living. But I do know that the giftings that God has given me match with that profession and the doors that he's open continue to lead towards worship. So yeah, I've just been following that since about freshman year. Yeah, that's really good.

I mean, one of the things you've shared in different ways is that there have been people who poured into you. There have been adults who've come alongside you and encouraged you to pursue this calling. So could I ask each of you to share and Sam, I'm start with you this time. Just talk to us about some things that you've learned from older believers about following Jesus. And is there anything that you wish old people like me knew about your generation?

Yeah, I'll start off one thing that I think all of us are as Christ followers, we're an example of Christ. And so we may be the only Jesus that someone ever meets and because of that, we are challenged with the goal of being the same person in every room, not changing and conforming to different people in different areas and different locations. And so that has been one thing that I've learned is that it is important to really be the same person because we are the example of Christ. And can you repeat the second part of that question? Yeah.

Just curious. Are there any things that you would like older generations to know about your generation? Yeah. As much as we think we do, we do not have everything figured out.

We don't know who we are, we don't know what gifts we have. And. And so one thing I'd like you guys to know is come help us find out who we are. Come help us find what gifts we have. Encourage us bring up these gifts to us.

Make it a word to us. Encourage us to pursue these gifts that we have. That's great. That's great. Hunter, one thing, the first part was like, what have we learned?

Correct? Yes. What have you learned from older generations? And what would you like older generations to know? Alrighty.

One thing that I've learned from older generations and people who have mentored me is that being a follower of Christ isn't easy. It doesn't mean that you get an easy life. In fact, most of the time it means the opposite.

I have learned though, that even though it is really hard and there are many days when you feel like you can't or you don't want to, it is always worth it to follow Jesus.

And one thing that anything that you want old crusty people like the rest of us to know about your generation, just that we're hard working. We sometimes it can come off as lazy because we're not going to do something if we're not told to. But when it's something we want to do, we work really hard at it and we try to get as good at it as we can.

For me, one thing that comes to mind with my generation is I believe that we are a generation that is hungry and we're longing for something and we're honestly longing to identify with something. And with that, the influence of our culture and social media, it hinders this generation. Kind of like what Peanut said. It may come off that we're lazy, but really I think we're super determined, but we're just misguided from the way we were originally created. And we were originally created to have a relationship and to long for that relationship with God and our Creator.

With that, I think that the older generation can be one that we can look to as they have lived a life rooted in Christ, especially with this congregation. I believe you guys demonstrate living a life grounded in Christ, living in a life together.

It's cool to see that and it's cool to recognize that we have that resource at hand. And the older generation is just one that we can look at and see the faithfulness of God working through their lives. But we can also see the fruits of the faithfulness of the older generation with their faithfulness to Christ kind of piggybacking off of that. The older generations here today, please know you are valued. I don't know if it is an understatement to say that you impact everyone around you and that as Sam was saying too, you serve as an example of what Christ is to several of us.

And so I don't want to speak too much on our behalf, but I feel like from my experience, I've gained so much from those who are older than me in their individual, relatable experiences. One of the ones that stands out is just the power of discernment. I'm not sure if they feel like they have more time. And I think it's because often when we're young, we are ambitious and we seek out a lot of these opportunities, especially in ministry. And we do everything we want to have our hands on what God is giving us the opportunity to do.

But we don't recognize that God's will may not be in all of those things. And so something I've learned is just recognizing taking time in silence and solitude and prayer is so important for spiritual development. If I had to teach a lesson to you all though, I think that one of the things I want to remember is that we are so interconnected with one another. You have the ability to be intentional in your connections with these younger people. And even though it may be difficult at times, maybe the generational gap is too severe, recognize that your influence on their life may be, well, revolutionary.

It's amazing what you can do. And so speaking from my experience, but speaking from several students experience, you have that ability to make that connection. So please continue to do so. Yeah, that's great stuff. You guys have spoken to this a little bit already, but I just want to maybe double down on the idea.

And Zane, I'm going to just stay right here with you if you'll lead us off this next time. Talk specifically about how our church can encourage students to pursue God's calling. And I'm also curious if you observe any obstacles that churches sometimes unknowingly or unintentionally create that make it harder for young people to catch a vision for ministry. I think often something we fall into is this idea that Christians need to be perfect. I think that the church can continue to encourage students than to just offer compassion.

I think that something for me is that I made a lot of mistakes going into what I thought ministry was. And recognizing that both the successes and failures were here at GCC makes that much more of a comfortable, beneficial experience. I think from a sense of what may be causing harm to that process is when often our ambitions for programs is too high. The things I was involved in here at the students ministry is great, but sometimes it can get off track in several different churches of what are we pouring into? Are we pouring into the programs or are we pouring into the people?

And I would say I would hope for all of us that the people building them up, that's the purpose of what we do here in ministry. So just recognizing too that when we're volunteering, when we're serving these things, it's not just for the purpose of the worship or doing the sermon or whatever it may be, serving coffee, it's for the fact of building those people up that you interact with. Very good. Sam, what would you add to that? Yeah, my answer might sound a little repetitive to this conversation because it may have been stolen earlier in the conversation.

But anyways, some obstacles that are unintentionally created are when students aren't directly called and to speak on this. I'm sure my mother over there can be an example and testify to this. But if I am not told to do something, I will not do it. And that I'm sure goes for a lot of other teenagers around my same age, is when we aren't directly pursued and called to serve and be a part of things, we won't do it. And so my encouragement for the church is to seek out those students, constantly pursue them, and for the students, find ways to get plugged in.

Really, that's the biggest encouragement, is to get students involved and to call them and pursue them. That's good. That's good. Hunter, what would you add to that?

Engage with the students and let them lead. There is so much power that comes from letting people lead who have the ability to. But often I think our churches want to push the younger generation aside and say, you'll have your turn in a couple years, a few years, couple decades.

But they're not going to have the experience. We're not going to have the experience of leading if we aren't allowed to, and it's going to not be beneficial. And that transfer of one generation to another won't go well if both the generations don't have an understanding of where they're going. And part of that is, again, encouraging those students to lead.

Some responsibilities and some leadership roles are not.

Not every age is responsible enough to handle them. If you put a sixth grader as the head of security, it's not going to go well.

But letting students lead when they are old enough to have that responsibility is something that we can do that will allow them to grow their leadership abilities and be able to lead the church better when they're older.

Yeah, I think one of you said it a little bit earlier, but my encouragement would be to. To just stay connected, engage your students, get to know your students, get to know what they love to do, what makes them. Them, their gifts. I think from that the youth has so much potential that it's just. It just needs to be pursued.

But with that just teaching students, discipling them, leading them, mentoring them, encouraging them to live in a life with Christ day in and day out. Their relationship with Christ isn't limited to just the Sunday morning. It continues throughout the week and through eternity.

Really good stuff, guys. I appreciate you sharing with us. Got one more question before we land this plane. And I just want to ask, because we have a number of students here in the room with us. What biblical encouragement can you offer to our current students about seeking God and growing spiritually in this season of life that they're in?

Hunter, you want to start that one for us?

A lot of what my professors have been telling me is in this season of life, this is where you will set the habits you will follow for the rest of your life. The things you do now and the things you get in the habit of now will follow you for a long time. And it gets harder to break the older you get.

So what I would say is make your faith a priority. Now, I know when. I know it was only one year ago, but when I was in high school, I was pushing it back and trying to like, well, I can do that in a couple years. I have the whole rest of my life to put towards God. Like, I'm gonna take a couple months to myself and like, do what I want to do.

That's not what we're called to.

We. It's easy to not make time for God because we are such a distracted generation.

We need to focus on the things that matter, like our relationship with God.

One thing that I was pushed to do by some of my professors just to try out was to. To start journaling and start engaging with God in that way. And I haven't been doing it very long, but I've seen the fruits of it already. When, like, I'm going through something that is a struggle or something that isn't easy, I can look back and see, oh, God did this in this moment. And he can do something similar now.

That would be my to you guys. That's good. That's great. I'm going to kind of piggyback off of that by being a nerd and giving you A quote from C.S. lewis.

He says something on the lines of, if you put first things first, second things will follow. But if you put second things first, you will lose both first and second things. And I think that line is very important during this time when we're trying to figure out what calling we're trying to pursue or even beginning to pursue our calling. If we pursue our call before pursuing the one who called us, we can fall into the trap of putting our identity in our. Our work and our achievements and our accomplishments.

And because we're human and we're not perfect, those things will fail. But if we put, if we pursue Christ first, as Christ is both our creator and our sustainer, if we pursue him first, the things will fall in place and through faithfulness, his glory will flow out of that. It's such a beautiful thing. In Ephesians, it says, for we are created, for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do. I believe that verse is just a beautiful reminder of our work in Christ's story, that our work in Christ's story isn't four years from now when you start your career.

It isn't the story that happened 2,000 years ago. It's the story that continues to live now. And we are called to live faithful. He's just calling us to be faithful and just to say yes, Amen.

I feel like one of the verses that stands out to me is Revelation 3:20, and it's Jesus saying to the churches there. I stand at the door and knock. And I feel like one of the things I'm even still applying now to my life and I wish I had learned sooner, is that you won't know every step of the way. Jesus knocks at the door. And when we let him enter in, he nourishes us with communion in his presence.

But I often thought it was fortune telling, like he was going to somehow tell me my future in the next several practical steps to going to the next thing. What's the next goal, the next journey. But I realize now that Jesus doesn't give me that nourishment so I can know what's next, but rather have the strength to be obedient and to be faithful. And so rather than being afraid of letting him in and taking me on some unknown journey, he takes my hand as I let him enter and guides me along the way. He gives me a vision that allows me to be obedient and faithful, but he doesn't show me every step.

But I don't think that causes to retract from God's faithfulness and his love. As Kira was saying, it's beautiful that we're able to trust in this God who's shown so much mercy and grace through His Son, and that we are able to participate in that presently. I think something that you said in the earlier service, Kira, was that Christ isn't participating 2000 years ago or even four years ago when we were experiencing it in high school, but it's now present in this moment.

That's really good. That's really good. Well, Sam, take us home here. Yeah, I think you guys over there really talked a lot about this and I'd like to hone in back on that is that we look at a lot of things and especially kids nowadays, we think that we can wait till later or we need to wait till later to start. And it's like, oh, when I'm older, I'll start serving, or oh, when I'm older, I'll start doing this or that.

And really it's a misconception because we can start doing that now, obviously, like you said, we can't have a sixth grader work in security, but we can find ways for them to serve. And so with that, everyone has gifts and everyone has different talents. And the key to all this that I encourage you to do is find ways for you to put your gifts into use for kingdom work. And the first step to that is just saying yes. When you're presented with opportunities to serve and do something different.

Don't let the fear of not knowing or fear of messing up or doing bad stop you from doing it. Just say yes. Because you never know what God can do when you say yes and the places he'll take you and grow you to. I've experienced that in my life in many different situations where I've said yes, where I really didn't want to do it. And it turned out to be something great and amazing and allowed me to grow in many different ways.

There's also been situations where I've said yes, and I figured out that that wasn't for me. But that's all a part of saying yes. And the best part about it, we really appreciate the encouragement, guys. We. We're grateful for you.

We're proud of you. We love you. We're excited about the impact you're having now and the impact you'll continue to have in the kingdom. We'd love to pray for you. Would you all join me in praying for these students?

Heavenly Father, we're grateful for your love for us and for your calling on our lives and the privilege that you give us to begin a part of this family, Lord, where people of all ages, from all kinds of different backgrounds come together as one body. We're. We're grateful, God, that you have used people who went ahead of each one of us to pour into us and to introduce us to you. We're grateful, Father, for the voices that have spoken into Hunter and Kira and Zane and Sam's lives. And we ask that you would continue to bring more encouragers their way.

We also ask God that you would use each of them to encourage others. We pray that you would have them show them the discernment that they need, Father, to sense where you're leading them, to be able to see when you're opening a door. We ask you to give them the courage and the humility to follow that leading. And God, I pray that you would give them just a strong drive to remain faithful and to trust you over the long haul. Father, this is our prayer, not just for them, but for all of us.

And we pray it in Jesus name. Amen. Would you join me in thanking them for sharing with us this morning?

Friends, just by way of wrap up, one key component of our mission as a church is to inspire others to follow Jesus. And that absolutely includes the next generation. I believe that Hunter and Kira and Zane and Sam and some of the things that they've shared with us this morning have actually laid out some really practical challenges. One of those I think you heard, is the importance of pouring into our families, parents and grandparents. We have an opportunity and we have a responsibility to show our kids and our grandkids what it means to live for Jesus.

The church's job has never been to raise our kids spiritually. For us, it's to equip all of us who are in positions of influence to bring the next generation along. God intends for our homes and and our church to partner together in sharing faith with our kids. I think you also heard an emphasis on setting an example for those who are younger than us. I mean, we all have younger eyes who are watching us.

They may be the eyes of our kids or our grandkids, they may be nieces or nephews, they may be younger siblings or rookie co workers or neighborhood kids or underclassmen at school. But our lives can encourage them and point them to Jesus. They I think you heard an emphasis on plugging into ministry now, not waiting until later, but like Sam said, just being willing to say yes. There are lots of ways to serve, even as a middle school student or as a high school student. And both our kids and student ministries rely heavily on the faithfulness of adult volunteers who love Jesus and love kids and are willing to give of their time.

Equipping the next generation to follow Jesus requires an investment from all of us as a church. And so I would just underscore the fact that when you and I give to Greenwood Christian Church, we are helping to fund next gen ministry in a lot of different ways. The last thing I think we heard this morning is the importance of letting God guide your life. We recognize not everyone is called to vocational ministry and we don't want to give the impression that they are. But I am convinced that there are more people called to ministry than there are people who answer that call.

I mean, as the church, we are responsible for helping the next generation to seek and follow Jesus. And if we don't encourage our students to consider God in their college and career plans, it's highly unlikely that anyone else is going to do that for us. So students, if you think that God might be calling you into ministry, we would love to talk with you and help you explore that. And parents, if you have questions about what ministry might look like for you, your kids, we'd love to talk with you as well. I can tell you that in 16 years of student ministry I've worked with some terrific young people who are now serving in ministry.

But I can also point to others who I think were clearly called to ministry, but their parents just couldn't see any path for them other than a high paying career. And I can guarantee you that if your kids decide to pursue vocational ministry, they're not going to get rich doing that. But there are more important things than that. God is faithful to provide for our needs and there is no more significant, more lasting work that we can do than to pour into the lives of other people in a way that advances the kingdom of God there. So if God is opening a door or attempting to open a door in your child's life when it comes to ministry, could I just encourage you, please don't just arbitrarily step in and try to close that door without some prayer and some conversation and some wrestling with all of that.

At this point, I want to invite our Next Steps team to go ahead and make their way up to the front. As we step into the threshold of a new year, I just want to encourage all of us to make the year ahead of us. A year of growth, a year of ministry. We're going to kick off a new teaching series next weekend that will just be a refresher for us. It will be a doubling down on why our church exists.

And I hope that you'll be here to be a part of that. But if you sense God prompting you to take a next step of any kind, we want you to know, like you've already heard this morning, you don't have to wait. You don't have to wait until next Sunday. We don't have to wait until next year. The right time to answer the call of God is always right now when he issues that call.

So whatever you sense God prompting you to do, whether that's making time in scripture a more consistent daily habit, whether that's trying to deepen your prayer life, or placing a higher priority on gathering with other believers for worship, or finding a place to serve, or determining that this will be a year when I truly dig deep and try to give generously. Maybe it's surrendering your life to Jesus in baptism. Whatever that step looks like, we'd love to help. We just want you to know that if you'd like to talk or pray with a member of our team anytime, just text the word next to 317-707-9997. You can also scan the code that you see on the screen and just hearing from you will prompt us to reach back out.

We'd love to begin that that conversation. We want you to know that at any time you can share prayer requests with us simply by going to greenwoodchristian.com prayer or you can always come right down front here after the service where there will be several of us who'd be happy to talk with you. And I want to lastly remind you that next Sunday, January 4th, we're going to kick off a new cycle of our Next Steps classes. It's a three part series of classes that are designed for those who are new to Greenwood Christian or just wanting to take a next step into deeper engagement here. We'd love for you at 11am next Sunday to come and be a part of that class with us.

We have just a few days left to finish 2025 strong, and we have the opportunity next Sunday, right from the start of a new year, to dedicate an entire new, fresh calendar year to growing as followers of Jesus. And so we want to invite you to come along for the ride and be a part of that journey with us. Our students that you heard from this morning will be down front as well. If you'd like to encourage them, we'd love for you to come and say hello to them. It's always a privilege to be together with you.

Pray that we'll usher in the new year together in a God honoring way. Have a great week. God bless you all.