 Who are the Sharks? They're entrepreneurial leaders in the North Texas Conference Churches with a passion for reaching new people for Christ. The Reverend Debbie Lyons serves as the senior pastor at First United Methodist Church, Winsborough. Her passion for community engagement has earned her the mayor's key to the city. Phillip Neely, a lay member at Whaley United Methodist Church in Gainesville, has more than 20 years of experience in business development. And currently serves as president and CEO of Trident Process Systems. The Reverend Sylvia Wang serves as the senior pastor at First United Methodist Church, Archer City. As chair of the conference's journey towards racial justice coordinating team, she helps develop strategies to create an equitable future for all people in the North Texas Conference. Greg Hickman, lay leader at Whitesboro United Methodist Church, is the owner and CEO of First Texas Home Health, a leading home health care system. The Reverend Dr. Andy Stoker is an interfaith leader who has served as a United Methodist pastor for more than 20 years. Today, he is chief engagement officer at the Thanksgiving Foundation. Jessica Vargas, mission coordinator in the North Texas Conference Center for Church Development, supports leaders across the conference as they identify new ways to engage their communities for Christ. Pastor Kayla Nicole Raglin is first into the spark tank, asking for the shark's investment in health care and worship, which will bring meaningful worship experiences and tangible gifts into the hospital setting as a ministry to engage health care workers. I am a chaplain. I was able to work prior to COVID, during COVID, and now. And staff burn out. Patients are always sick. Families are very emotionally going through a lot during this time. And we know that the pastoral departments do not make the hospital money. So everything that they provide that's ministry is donated between the community and the church. And so they need us to continue to supply the support that they have. Well, hello. Good afternoon. I am Pastor Kayla Raglin from the Village United Methodist Church. So health care and worship is the new ministry space idea. And as a chaplain, I've been a chaplain for eight years. So I've been a chaplain before COVID, during COVID, and after and now, during the present time. And what we have experienced is a very emotional and spiritual weight in the hospital system. It's more heavy than we know. And we know, I know if I'm a chaplain, but a lot of people don't understand that the spiritual need is so great, and there's not enough people to feel that need. And so this is where health care and worship comes in. I work for Charlton Methodist Hospital down in Oakcliff. And our hospital responded to this burnout by providing different ministry items like the lavender lounge. So if you go to a lavender lounge and you work at Charlton Methodist, if you have a bad day in your staff, you can go there and you can have different items like granola bars or tea, or it's a low-miding, it's a massage room, and it's a secluded room where no one goes. You have to have a coat, okay? We also provide, this is our veteran salute. And so these are veteran blankets that stung by volunteers, but the pastoral staff presents it to families who have lots of people who are veterans in United States military. But these things, you know, are not paid for by hospitals. So this is something you will find on a tea cart. So any given day, we will take a tea cart around for staff to have a pause to reflect during the day so they're not just going, going. We'll take a time of pause and reflection. So I brought up, and these are type of ministry items that we provide to people who are needing support, like patients who are needed support, or people who are not Christian who are needed support, because as chaplains, we try to provide ministry to all people. And so with healthcare and worship, not all health facilities have chaplains, but those who do have chaplains, they do not make the hospital money. So everything they get is supplied by the community. People like you mean the church. And so that's, we wanted to take a portion of our grant and choose pastoral departments who need that support and demand the pie. So that's step one. Step two is to choose a day where we can join them in worship. So they can come, I like the old fashion revival, so they can come to the parking lot or a common space and join us in worship, whether it's dance or singing or whether it's speaking. We can bring in different type of denominations. Even we just give them the vicinity of Christ. That's all we, you know, we plant the seeds. And that's, and that's okay. And have them come day for a day of worship. Come down from wherever they are and join us in worship for that day and also have a prayer team. So that's most important and being able to pray for them. But we also want to do prayer request cards. So we start this at the village, the young adult ministry, and we want to partner with this ministry as well, where when we do have a day in worship, we have cards that we can give people to take back with them. So now we're not just giving you something, but now we want to connect with you. So 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Right now, you guys can call the number, you can call. If it's a devotional, you can hear a devotional and you can leave a message. And there's people who have, who have agreed to pray for a certain time, you know, take responsibility praying over the mind for that week. And so that's basically healthcare worship is to just join our brothers and sisters in this healthcare facility, this, this network in ministry, the spiritual way they carry it's heavy. Let me start first, Kayla. I'm, so a couple of things. The first is I'm the spouse of a pediatric nurse. So what you're doing for those on the front line is absolutely critical for exactly what you said. It was difficult pre COVID, COVID brought a holy host of new challenges to those working on the front lines. And now it seems like our healthcare world is in chaos. So thank you so much for offering that. The second is I'm the advisory board chair at Methodist, Methodist Dallas Medical Center. And so I have heard firsthand on how this type of ministry going on really affects the morale, the culture, and the patient relationship that those on the front line offer. So I'm encouraged by this. I want to be the first one out of the gate to say, I'd like to offer $2,500 for your ministry. And if there's anything else that could, that I could lend, I'm not quite sure what that is yet. I'd like to hear what the other sharks have in mind too that maybe I could lend a little bit of support and health regarding either healthcare advocacy or just being a spouse of a nurse. What does that look like and share in that vein? But Kayla, thank you so much for your presentation. I'm encouraged by this work. Thank you. Thank you. So this is pretty close to me as well. I own home health agencies. We have an average daily census of about 700 patients. Probably have a hundred and hundred nurses, I guess, that work for me all over the state. And COVID was tough. These people were asked to go do things that they're watching the news. They're reading the newspaper, you know, wear a mask, go do this. It's going to kill everybody, all that stuff. These nurses were going into the patient's rooms. These nurses were my nurses going into their homes, bringing that back to their home, knowing that their kids, you know, when we didn't know a whole lot about COVID and clinicians felt like they were on an island, it was encouraging to see the country as a whole kind of prop these people up and it made them feel good. I will tell you that in my business, we pray daily for our nurses. All of our agencies did. They would have every morning they would be meeting and they would pray for each other. And I think for nurses to know nurses, doctors, anybody that works in that hospital, and it's not just clinicians. It is people that work in the hospitals for them to know that people are praying for them, needs more probably than just I'll talk to really know and to really witness that people are thinking about us, you know, caring about us and understand the things that we're going through. I'd like to jump on board too with with $2,500 to do this. I think it's great. I think it's something that like you said our healthcare industries in chaos right now and it needs a lot of support and needs prayer more than anything. So I think it's great what you're doing. Anything that I can do to help, you know, I'm a phone call away, but I applaud you for what you're doing. Healthcare is more than just like you said, clinical technician. Every day I made sure the cleaning people were my best. I wish you understand how it worked. Absolutely. And they look at me and say, yes, you are very important to us. So thank you for saying that. You have to remember, who are the people that are all of the PPE stuff that the nurses had to wear? Who are the people disposing of? Who are the people bringing food to the patients? All of that stuff. Well, you're chaplain with the hospital or hospice, but just okay. All right. That's a tough job. I'm standing in front of y'all. We're really glad there are people like you out there doing this work. Sure. You've already gotten investors, two sharks, five thousand. My question is, I'm a little confused about your proposal because I see that you start out identifying this new ministry as being involved in rehab centers and nursing homes and all these different facilities. And then you say that some of the money is going to be for your once a month worship and you need a stage. So I'm not saying $5,000 buys a lot of this kind of stuff, which is so important to show that we care, that we know that this is difficult work. So keep telling us a little bit more about where your worship comes in and what stage you want paid for it. Being able to have one day, so say for for Methodist Health and say it may fit on this day, we're going to have an hour of worship. And on this day, and I gave an example, I like to have the parking lot, but whatever the health system is able to facilitate me and say, no, we want to go into our conference room. No, we want to do this. But in my mind, I want to have it outside. So that's obvious. They can have it outside. I want to have it outside and have people come outside, you know, either way. So that's where, so however we could facilitate that day and worship. And so yes, so that includes nursing homes, rehabilitation center, because I'm in and out of there all day that I know they need help. I talk to the activities directors all the time. I stop by and say, thank you. If they're doing something, I stop by and I make sure I participate, you know, to show that I appreciate them. So I know that they need that. And it doesn't always have to be on a large scale. Methodist is a big system. But you know, we have these small, small healthcare facilities as well. So tell us what you're going to do on your day of worship at Charleston. Is that where you're going in? I've already talked to them, they're really finding about it. So they are excited about. So for Charleston, we are, we want to have it in the parking lot. And so we'll have our dance team and then our worship team, Zion, and then a speaker. I would like to have a speaker that's not a part of our church, and then have a Lutheran and Catholic priest there and have no rosaries available as well as prayer and prayer cards. So we can be, you know, sensitive to all the faiths. Like I said, as long as we can get them into the vicinity of Christ, you know, so the things that the spirit work on the heart. So yeah, good. So. Well, we appreciate so much you being here. We are thankful for your ministry and the fact that you keep finding new ways of connecting with people, bring them to the vicinity and, you know, having them learn and to know more about Jesus and the love that they need to know so much right now. We appreciate the effort that you put into your application. You're walking away with two sharks and $5,000. So congratulations and thank you so much. Thank you. We appreciate. Okay. All right. Thank you guys. It will allow me to be able to do what I say I was going to do, which is supply ministry items to the health care system, hopefully, hopefully, lifting that spiritual weight that they are carrying and just be able to join the ministry and show them that the church is still here and we're still willing to help and connect. So I'm excited. I feel very good and supported and I think the experience was worth more than the money for sure. Hearing the feedback and how I touch the individual hearts is definitely worth, worth gold. But I'm very excited and I'm ready to get back to ministry. Heading into the tank is pastor Rebecca Grogan, whose hope, love, peace, joy, ministry is designed to engage the thriving senior population that surrounds Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Lucas, Texas. It came to me twofold. One was the age of the congregation and the other was the of our congregation. And the other was through the Genesis cohort. I had to do a lot of research on the community and the surrounding area and found that we had a good percentage of seniors, 55 plus, that were either empty nesters or retired. 26 percent of them are retired. So we found that this was not something that was being addressed either by the city or any other church in the community. So we decided that would be a perfect niche to come into with our new building. You may be familiar with Missy Buchanan, but she's an author and an advocate for older adults. And she has a blog and I read this in her blog and I think it kind of suits where we feel that the senior ministry should go. The church needs to make it a priority to get people across the lifespan by talking about aging and spiritual terms. And so this is what we are wanting to do with our new space. One of the things we want to do is start this new ministry, folk love, peace joy, senior ministry. What I found out in my research is that Lucas does not the city of Lucas nor none of the other churches in Lucas have a senior ministry. So we think this is an ideal place for us to start. It also, through the Genesis cohort, I had to do a lot of research, had to use my mission inside. And I found out that this is one of the most underserved areas in churches and communities actually. Mission Insight said that in 2022 we have 26.5% of our population and Lucas is a 55-year-old. So that's a good point. The prediction for 2032 is 32.3%. So it's something that's going up. This is not something that's just going to be for a short period of time. This is something that's going to grow with the community. So we are really excited about it. When I presented it to the congregation, they got very excited about it because they could do it. You know, this is something they can do because they're older adults. And so they can sit and talk to people and be pastoral and do things with them and go places with them. They couldn't sit on the floor and play with kids because they couldn't get up. So that was kind of our deal. It's not that we don't think that the families and children are important. We have to begin where we can. And this is where we can begin. So looking at all the information that I thought went through, I noticed that the number one problem for older adults is loneliness because a lot of them live by themselves. And then the second thing is adjusting to that time in your life where you can't do things exactly like you used to. You have to learn tools, learn ways of doing things. And so we thought that this would be a good way for us to start our senior ministry by having a program that's from 10 to 2 once a week. And we'll either have speakers or projects, mission projects that we can do, games. So we're going to serve lunch, put out a little donation basket for that, and have them stay there and become familiar with one another through all these things. Playing games is the best way to find out about people because you talk about who you are and where you've been and whatever. So that's a good way for us to do that also. And then we can reach out into the community. We can start bringing people in because this will be the only place where we'll have this all during the week, probably have it on Thursdays. That's what the idea is right now. And we can reach out into the community and make a community and become part of the church by this process. And I wanted to finish with one of Missy's friends. Her name is Foamy. She lives in the hill country, but she has, she's 93. She had major surgery. She had her hip and her knee replaced and she's sailing through it. And so she has these things that she says to people when she talks to older adults. And these are her mantra, I guess you'd say. She says, not to give up, to face your fears with faith, to keep a vibrant prayer life and to embrace the reality of death, but live fully every day. And so that is really kind of our mantra that we've gathered from all of this. I think this is a great idea. I've read it here you're talking about doing, having speakers come in and things like that to talk to seniors. And I think there's a lot of things that people probably get confused on. I'm in healthcare. There's a lot of stuff out there about Medicare, Medicare replacements, all of this stuff. That's very confusing. I think that's a great opportunity to bring people in. To talk about that so they can really ask questions and get the real answers to what they see from Joe Neymet or JJ Walker on TV. And they talk about how old they look. That's all. Tell me how you arrived at the four hour time frame. I know that, like in Plano, they have senior days. And when I was in the colony, the city did a senior thing. And it was generally a four hour kind of thing. And they had a meal in between so that people could kind of come in whenever they got there and be able to just kind of fit into the thing. So that was basically why I did it that way. I mean, that's what I suggested. And everybody was like, I think that's a good idea. They really want to have lunch. They liked to cook. So they were all for the meat. So I thought that that sounded fine. I don't know if it'll be too long or not. I really don't. But we're going to try it. Let's see what it works out. For Rebecca, from the proposal, look like you and your church are looking into doing this once a week. Yes. And so my question is with a lot of your a lot of your program activities that you just sent to us just now, I was curious about after the grant money is used, what are plans for yourself and your church to continue to sustain the programming? I know there are costs associated with food and speakers and activity apps. I think a couple of things will happen. I think that these people are excited about doing this in their church. But I think once they see it, they will want to support it even more. They have been they've already given to the program in its small amounts, but you know, a couple of thousand dollars, you know, that pretty nice. But I think once they see it and how it works and how they could be involved in it, because of what I told them is that I want them to come and sit with them. No standing in the kitchen. You have to go out there and set up the tables. You have to get to know them. You have to become a part of it. And they were like, yeah, that's what I want to do. You know, so that they're fine with that, first of all, but but I want it to be something where we minister to them. So if they have, they are like brief recoveries, one of the programs in there, if they're dealing with having a spouse that have recently passed away, I want them to be feel like they've got some place that's safe. I think that's something that and it wasn't in the number one priorities, but I think safety is a very big one for adults, but to know that older adults that they're not going to be taken, that they're not going to be used or and that they're going to be safe, that it's a safe place for them to be. So I think we'll be able to fund it. I have a question, Rebecca, about so folks are coming in, having this experience in the church, will there be an invitation to engage more deeply in community? For example, when you're offering the memory care speaker component, will there be an invitation for Lucas to be a dementia friendly city? Will there, I mean, just sort of a sort of sanctifying grace ministry where we learn inside the church, we're going to take outside the walls and transform the community? Yes, that's the whole thing is for that to be something that Lucas is known for, that this is a good place for seniors. You've got a place to start and you've got and like the mission end of it, we want to find places where they can plug into that and feel like they're being useful because most of the time the reason that we lose our obsessed for life is we have no purpose. And so this is something that we can give purpose to everybody that goes in there and continue to assess as we go along, you know, what needs to be done or what new program can we do so that we can get them to feel like this is their place. How many seniors have you spoken to that have told you that they really want this? A lot. I tell us about how you reached through the Genesis cohort, I had to go visit. So I went to the Walmart and talked to people about you know what they like here and well there's not very much to do here and so I talked to some of the older people about what well I wish I had more friends around to talk to and you know so it was just kind of a casual dawning and then the people in the congregation bring their friends a lot and so with some of them stayed quite a few of them stayed but they they came because they you know needed a community they you know I maybe had a couple of people that were family members that were around the area but they wanted a community so that's you know it was pretty much just hands-on feet on the feet on the sidewalk kind of thing so that'd be very official. What's the population of Lucca? roughly 20,000 22,000 it's only nights where miles and it's almost built up okay so that's the population actually stops 2032 it starts to flap because it's just it's all built up that's it so that's why we're trying to hope to get in at this point since it's going to be a growing thing and be able to really become a part of the community in a lot of ways. Rebecca how will this ministry this new space create or help to make new disciples of Jesus Christ? I've pastored in seven churches and this is by far the archer city's the second but by far the friendliest church I have ever seen I will see people you know new people in the congregation and by the time I get off the chancel area I have to stand in line to talk because people are you know talking to them and asking them where they live and who do they know and you know all these kinds of things so we have a really open congregation and it helps bring people in and that's why they stay is because they're immediately made into part of the community so we continue we'll continue to do the same thing. For Becca I'll tell you what I love about this is we all spend so much time and energy beating our heads against the ground looking for young family right young families, children, young families, children and somewhere along the way I think we have forgotten our empty nesters and our folks that are not ready to give it all up yet right and I think in communities like Lucas it's something like this could be very attractive so Rebecca I'm in I'll give you $5,000 for this man thank you so much thank you. I will tell you this and I think it's a great idea if you'll call me and you can get my number I'd be more than happy to come speak to your group at one of your meetings or something that would be great if it could bring you know some nurses or something like that but I mean weren't happy to do that so you're my contact information all right thank you very much well that's amazing you got shark and you already got a spritzer so thank you thank you so much for reading over full so thank you for being here this morning and we appreciate all the work you're doing thank you so much I am feeling elated this is great beginning for this ministry and I think it'll excite our congregation and give them the confidence to know that the conference is behind us and supporting us in this way