 There are legislative committees that are going on right now and as we were talking about this annual conference, the question came up, well what are people going to do who aren't in the legislative committees or don't want to be in the legislative committees? And someone said, well I guess they can just kind of hang out and I said, or perhaps we can offer something to help equip our church to reach new people. And I am thankful that the cabinet and the committee on annual conference was generous enough to allow this time for the Center for Church Development for us to talk about how do we lower the barriers in between our church and new people, our persons in the mission field. So again I am grateful that you are here. We are going to be doing some interaction and so be ready to shout out some answers. And as we are getting started, I want to ask you to join me in prayer. Merciful God, we do thank you for this time to be gathered here and that we are just setting aside Lord. And we say a special prayer for those who are Lord just feeling lonely, feeling that no one cares. Lord, those who are struggling with their family issues, those Lord that are seeking direction, who have a whole Lord in their life that only you can feel. Lord, we come here as your servants, as your body, as your light, as your salt. Lord, we come asking you to utilize us, utilize us to reach people with your good news and with your love. And we pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, my name is Owen Ross. I am the director for the Center for Church Development. And I also, one time a week, get the privilege of teaching evangelism at Perkins School of Theology. And I always start off with the class that says, what do you really think about evangelism? Really. And it's interesting the answers I get back, but as we go throughout class and we get to the root that evangelism just is sharing good news. I remember my grandfather reading the paper. He read the Austin American Statesman every day. And I remember asking him one day, any good news? And his response without looking up from the paper was, not in here. Which is also his way of saying, there is good news. But it's not on the 24-hour news cycle. And that is what we are being bombarded with. And people are being bombarded with. And that's why we see resentment. We see anger. We see division. We see loneliness going up on the rise. Meanwhile, God has set aside and called a group of people and have given us good news that the world desperately needs today. We heard it last night proclaimed in the sermon. We've heard it in the various reports today. We've heard it in conversations with one another. We'll go to the next slide. But the world just seems to getting to be more and more effective about separating us from those who are in need of the good news. And let's go to the next slide. What are some of those barriers that are preventing people from connecting with the church, preventing people from hearing the good news? Go ahead and shout it out. Politics. Good answer. Others. Poverty. Others. Hunger. Others. Apathy. There's schedules. I was waiting as a parent of young kids. Sunday morning activities. When did that become a thing? When I was growing up, nothing happened on Sunday morning. There was no sports. There's a lot of competition on people's schedule, especially when the church is accustomed to doing what we do. Other barriers. Racism. Prejudices. Prejudices against Christians. What they think that we believe or what they think we think about them. People will say, I already feel bad about myself. Why would I want to go to church and feel worse? So there's a lot of things that are just barriers between us and those who we are called to reach and serve. We'll go to the next slide. Now I want you to imagine for a second that you are a tomato ketchup factory. And you wanted to get your product into the hands of those who need tomato ketchup. You're the factory. Where would you want to get your tomato ketchup so that those who need tomato ketchup can get it? Where would you want to put it? Shout out the answer. Where? At eye level, where? In the stores. You want them in the stores. Eye level. Where else do you want your ketchup? Where do they sell hot dogs? Where do they sell french fries? Any of the restaurants. So what I want us to notice here is we, if we were ketchup entrepreneurs, we know how to get our product to those who need it. Meanwhile, as the church, we tend to wait for people to come to the factory. Are you catching? The church is supposed to be the factory and we send our product out to those who need it. But we tend to operate as if you want our product, you've got to come to the factory between 10.30 and 11.30. We're open one hour a week on Sundays and that's how you get our product. So what we are seeking to do, you know, for so long the church, we kept thinking of how can we get a funnel to get people in the church? But what we are doing now is how do we get a funnel to get our people out of the church and out to where people are in need of the good news of Jesus Christ? We'll go to the next slide. So if you've not signed the planting pledge, please do so. This is the I am committing to start of attempting and we use the attempt word because when Jesus talked about scattering seeds, not all the seeds bore fruit. And I found it fascinating that the people that Jesus incarnate trained, when Jesus sent them out, Jesus said, and when you fail or when they don't receive the message, you do this. And I'm like, what do you mean? You trained them. We're going to try a lot of things that aren't going to work. Those that Jesus incarnate trained tried some things that didn't work. And I think Jesus sent them out two by two because when they left that town, dusted their sandals, they looked to each other and said, okay, what are we going to do different in the next town? So sign the planting pledge. We want, and it's just saying, I will attempt at least one new thing between now annual conference and next annual conference to disciple people who are not already discipling. All right, next slide. So those who garden, and again, if you sign that pledge, you get a daisy that's donated by Cultivate Ministry. People who garden know that if you're going to, you have to adjust what you plant to the types of soil that you have because not all plants grow in the same types of soil. This is important for us with our church planting, and that's what we call any new ministry that you're going out to try to reach new people to do, is all church planting is contextual. You're trying to reach people where they are in their culture and you have to do it in culturally effective ways. Language is part of our culture and if you go to a person who don't speak Spanish and you start to, and you try to start a Spanish ministry among people who don't know Spanish, you're probably not going to be very effective. So taking into mind the culture that you're going into is essential for our church planting, and we'll go to the next slide now. So what I'm going to give now, and this is going to be the crux of what we're talking about, is four ways to lower the barriers between your church and the people that you're trying to reach. And so the first suggestion I have is go where people are already present. If you want to reach people, ask where people are already gathering in your community, why they are gathering, how they are gathering, and how might you connect with those persons where they are already gathering. And I'm going to share three examples from our conference. Let's go to the next slide. We've got First United Methodist Church Cappell. So there's a huge development that's going in South, it's actually Dallas, but it's, it feels more like South Cappell, which is Cyprus waters. There are thousands of people moving into this community. A sliver of them may drive up and come to a Sunday morning service at Cappell. But First Cappell is trying to reach them where they are. And so they did a big event there in December doing a concert, but the whole purpose of doing the big event in that community is they want to get people registered for an alpha program, which is a Seekers type, Bible study type program, that was going to be held there in their community. Oftentimes churches do a big outreach event, but what's lacking is that follow-up discipleship pathway. So where can people get connected to something in their community so that they can be a disciple? Now some people may work their way and find themselves into the congregation at First Cappell. For others, this is going to be the only place where they receive community, where they receive good news, where they receive discipleship. And we have to say that is okay. Not everyone in the Methodist class meetings were a part of the societies. Are you with me? The next one, St. Luke community. St. Luke community took their Easter service out of their sanctuary, and they held it in a community. And everything that they were doing the whole time as they were doing worship is doing various announcements to seek to provide different ministries and to connect people that were at Clyde Warren Park on an Easter Sunday morning. Again, go where people already are and seeking to connect them with the ministries of the church and trying to connect the ministries to the church with people who aren't already in their community. And you can see that's me and my boys who really enjoyed Easter morning there at Clyde Warren Park. All right. And the next one, this is through Christ Foundry. And hopefully it's a video that will play with sound. And it's probably not. And so it's called Festy Kids. So Festy Kids is a ministry of Christ Foundry 9 Methodist Mission where they are going into apartment complexes. And in that apartment complexes, they are basically throwing children's fiestas. Now Christ Foundry has an excellent Wednesday night children's fiesta program. But they were finding that there were lots of kids that weren't coming to their church on Wednesday night. So they decided to take the church to the apartments on Saturday mornings. They would get members of the church, they would go out, and they would have an event, they would put on puppet shows, they would share the good news of the gospel with the children. But at the same time, a cadre of adults were sitting there talking to the parents and talking to them about the ministries. And what they were hoping to do is find some people that they could go back and visit and eventually start a cell group. We just met with the Latino pastors for lunch and we went around and we shared our names where we serve and what gives you hope. And what pastor Amy Spore of Christ Foundry shared, he says, what gives me hope is our home groups. People with busy schedules are showing up with their books, having studied before they got there and having answered their questions. That although we are dealing with a very busy society, there's still a deep hunger for spiritual nourishment. And church, we are the only entity that is organized to do Wesleyan discipleship, Wesleyan spiritual formation that's out there. We need to continue with our social services, we need to continue with our educational services, but we cannot neglect the spiritual services that we have been charged with because our world needs it. So the next thing, so the next slide, after going where people go. No, I want to ask you a question. What are some examples of Jesus going to where people already are or where the Methodists went to where people already are? That's an easy question. Let's shout out some answers. The circuit riders, they were going where people were, others. The field preaching, going to the mines, going where people were working and they were preaching, others. Jesus at the wedding, others, Methodists going to hospitals and to prisons. Matt Temple is going to write a book called guesting. It says the church we have been great at hosting for years, but when we see Jesus, so often we see Jesus in other people's parties. So can we as a church learn how to be guests in other people's parties so that we can minister to them in their space and on their time? So guesting. Next slide. Where do you tend to find people gathering your mission field? That's a question for you to take back to your church. Next. Second one is add discipleship to ministries that already reach new people, such as your social services. Now when I say your social services, this could be your school that you have in your daycare, adding additional spiritual services for those families. The example I have is Glen Oaks. So Glen Oaks United Methodist Church in South Dallas had a feeding ministry and they were giving away fresh fruits and vegetables. A young man showed up one time and he picked up this acorn squash and he asked one of the saints of Glen Oaks and says, what do I do with this? Which I would do the same. And she says, well come on in here honey and let me show you. And he did. And he came in the kitchen and she took some of the ingredients from that day's food and made a meal with this young man. And so they decided, why not once a month let's take some of the produce that we're giving away and let's have a cooking class with those ingredients and then let's have a communion meal. Remember the original communion just wasn't a wafer and a cup. It was a full meal. So let's have a communion meal on our food distribution Saturdays. So spiritual services, there are those churches that are like, ah, you don't need to bother with the social services. You know, we need to just focus on the spiritual and like, well, that's not us as united Methodists. If anything we can err too far on, we're going to give you the soup and the school supplies, but the spiritual food is for us. Are you with me? Keeping those united is how Christ did it. Keeping those united is how Wesley did it. And I believe it's essential for us to be able to extend our most valuable gift as we are extending our other services. So the next idea, the third one. Okay. Again, there are examples that Jesus is going, we'll go to our third one. And I see Pastor Peter McNabb, who's the pastor of First United Methodist Church of Terrell. First United Methodist Church of Terrell had a grief group. You may have grief groups in your church or other types of support group. Well, Peter got a grant from the Center for Church Development to convert their church's grief group into a community grief group. And he wanted some money to put an ad in the paper about community grief group. And we'll go to the next slide. And you can see them. Community grief group. It's not our church's grief group. It's the community grief group. And Peter can tell you more about it. You can catch him on break. Peter, will you stand up? So you can catch, you can catch him on the break, and he can tell you more about this and how they did it. But thank you. But he'd tell me, you know, they had bad, just they had Pentecostals, you know, all sorts of people that were showing up, you know, especially during the COVID season. And he said, but they also had some people who had no church home. And there were also people who made First United Methodist Church Terrell their church home as a result of that. And so I invite you to go through your, your church ministries that you have. Could any of those be reframed, be reoriented, and then relaunched as a community ministry to reach those that you're not already reaching? Yes, you may end up discipling some other people's disciples, but that's not the worst thing. But I also have seen in Terrell how God has used such a ministry to reach people that the church was not already reaching. All right, in our next slide. So the last one is to convert congregational ministries. Okay, we already did that. And going to the fourth one. And the last one is working with what you have instead of what you wish you had. So I was in ministry in a very low-income community for 15 years in La Fundición de Cristo. And we really had to work with what we have because we could be paralyzed in that if we only had this, if we only had this. And in conversations with various churches, I see them too feeling paralyzed. Well, if we only had this, if we only had this, I had one pastor tell me, and I'm not going to call this person out. And they said, we have nothing to offer children. And I said, you are a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Please don't ever say that again because we have very, very valuable things to offer children and families. Have we discovered how to do them here? Maybe not. Maybe there's some work that needs to be done, but we still have a lot to offer. So there's a church, I'll go to the next slide, in rural East Texas and South Lamar County outside of Pattonville. And when a community is outside of a town you've never heard of, you know it is rural. And so Shady Grove, you can see their land. So they've built a baseball field. And so you can see on the left side picture the church, how far away it is from the backstop. And notice the backstop is facing the other way. So that tells you how much more land they have on the other side. And here's a picture of the church with Pastor Susan Letty and some of their members. And you can see the backstop on the right hand side of the church way far back. And so this was a church, they don't have a lot of cash, they don't have a lot of resources, but what they did have was land. And what they did have was some kids who wanted to play ball. But the idea came because the church is located right next, well you can see the cemetery to the right hand side of the backstop. There was a high school student that had died and there was some student started coming and in that area would just throw the ball to feel close to their friend who had passed. And so the idea was birth, why don't we just build a field? Because the only field in the whole community is the school's field. Other groups don't have a place to practice. If the school is not available, let's build a field. But let's also start a baseball ministry in the church. This community is also majority Choctaw, which I didn't realize that we had a congregation in North Texas Conference, that was majority Native American, but this one is. And they want to be, because they're right next to Choctaw County, Oklahoma, Lamar County is. But they wanted to be able to host Choctaw Gathering Pow Wows there at their community as well. And so this idea came to launch the Icona Field. They were a spark tank recipient not last year but the year before and now they've gotten that up and they're building that land because they are working with what they have instead of being paralyzed about what they don't have. The next slide. Grub and Grace of FEMC Archer City. Archer City did not have a lot of young people in there, but they did have a young man who was a chef in one of the hotels in Wichita Falls. He would go from Archer City and he would go over there to Wichita Falls. And they had hired a secretary who was a young adult, she's not in the picture, who was a young adult. And they said, why don't we start a cooking class for young adults and a communion meal? Now they could have hosted that in the church, but they were thinking, how many of those young adults are going to want to come to our church for a meal? But there was a newly remodeled, I believe it's called the Star Hotel in downtown Archer City. And so they launched this Grub and Grace where Chef Justin gives his cooking demonstrations, they cook a meal and then they share. Now some of these young adults made their way into the congregation, but for others this once a month meal that became their church. Why? Because the church just happened to have a chef. I think about when Jesus asked the disciples, have you no food? And they're like, well, this kid's got a couple of fish and some bread. And Jesus says, well, let's work with what we have. Next slide. Foster kids, who would have thought, wow, that's our asset? But in Memorial United Methodist Church, and I saw Melissa here, do you have more questions about that? You can reach out to her. But there we have this foster family. And what we're seeing is this congregation loving these children, surrounding this family with love and care and saying, might God be doing something in this? And they began to do a little research and they began to talk with foster families and they said the closest foster closet was in Wiley, Texas. And if you know where Little Elm is and know where Wiley is, that is a hike. And so they said, let's start our own once a month close closet for foster families, but let's also do community. And so as a parent of a child with whom we have lots of struggles, finding other parents with whom you can talk and share what a gift. And so Button Memorial launched this buttons and bows, where families can come and they can get physical needs met, but they can also get spiritual needs met as well, which isn't that who we are as Methodist. We have kept those two hand in hand, those spiritual needs and those social needs and that's what buttons bow. Again, working with what they had. What do we have? We have a foster family that this church loves and I think we have enough love to go beyond just this one family. And so they've gone beyond. Next slide. So how will you lower the barriers? Where are the people in your community? How can you get to them? How can you connect with them? What are the ministries that you're already doing that maybe you could just reframe or advertise? There's a YouTube channel, I want you to write down Chris Abbott, Pastor Chris Abbott out of Tulsa and he is leveraging Facebook with a program he calls Plan Your Visit and he has all these videos on how to reach people. And his point is if you want to go where people go, the average like Gen X person spends 30 minutes a day on Facebook. And if you knew people were spending 30 minutes a day someplace, isn't that where you want to be? And so the Center for Church Development where we are piloting with a few congregations and if you're interested in being a part of this, go to the Chris Abbott page, start watching his YouTube videos and if you need those you can just email me and I can send them to you. But what he is finding that people will go, click on the ads on Facebook and they will register to visit your church. Because they find it, many find it intimidating just to show up your church as a stranger. Whereas if they click and then you communicate with them and say I look forward to visit with you and then you visit with them and they have somebody there to receive them. Now this has to be done by Laity. clergy have too many things going on on Sundays to be waiting at the door for someone. Are you with me? But the Laity can be waiting at the door with somebody receiving them and then being able to show them, be able to sit with them and then being able to follow up with them. And what he is finding is people who go through the plan your visit, 80% of them are coming back for a second-time visitor and he says the only thing better than a first-time visitor is a second-time visitor. And so we are talking about piloting with Lake Highlands. We are already going to be piloting with Beverly Drive and Wichita Falls and if you are interested in being a part of this pilot, we are giving a micro grant of $500 to spend on Facebook advertisement to see if what he is doing in Tulsa will work in various contexts in North Texas Conference. Again, being where, let's go back to the previous slide, so going where the people are, then advertising your ministries to the community, converting your congregational ministries to the community ministries and then working what you have. And so for us to consider grants going to the next slide, here are the four things that we are looking for. One, are you gathering new people? Are you discipling people? You are not already discipling. Two, connected with United Methodist Entity, we heard a report this morning from Wesley Rankin. Wesley Rankin has what they call their viajitos, their elderlies, persons that gather every day in there at Wesley Rankin and they play a lot of bingo and dominoes and other things like that. But I provided an Ash Wednesday service this past February there. And there was such just hunger for this and such engagement in that worship service. I pitched to Shelly, I said, wow, why don't you go for a micro grant and then maybe see if you can find some of the Spanish speaking pastors around and give them $50 to come over and provide a service for your viajitos once a week. And so she did that. And so that's an example of adding spiritual ministries to a community ministry. But it's a United Methodist Entity and so that means churches, some of our Wesley foundations. The third is disciples new people and I'm going to speak more about that and then meets regularly. The one-time shot is usually not very effective at discipling people. When Wesley was doing his field preaching, his goal of field preaching was to get people connected with their class meetings. So class means we tend to think of Sunday as the door that enters people into our small group. Wesley saw the small groups as the door which enter people into the big group. Did you hear me? We've gotten into the habit of thinking our big group is where is our doorway into the small groups. Whereas Methodism and Christianity started with the small groups and maybe a big event that gets them in the small group, but it's the small group that gets them into the big group and that's where we're moving with this and so needs to meet at least once a month. Next slide. So the discipleship pathway. This is generally the, this is the most important component of reaching new people, but it's often the weakest in what we're seeing in our applications. How is it that people are entering into a pathway of discipleship of Wesley and spiritual formation? Next slide. So it is not simply an invitation to Sunday worship. Our community events, we do want an invitation to Sunday worship, but it may not be what is going to be most effective at Winsborough United Methodist Church. Winsborough is, there's a pastor right there, we stand away there. If you want to know more about this, she can tell you all about it. So at Winsborough, motorcyclists and other people are coming to their downtown and so their downtown is busy on Saturdays and on Sundays. And so there are persons there that are patrons and they have to work on Sundays. There are no more blue laws in Texas. I don't know if you, people are working on Sundays and they cannot make it to church. And so is it on Mondays that you're having that? This is Debbie Lyons? On Fridays. All right, I had the date wrong. And so on Fridays, she is gathering with the, with these business people and then having a little small worship service with them. It may feel more like a coffee club, but it is where these persons are receiving the good news of Jesus Christ. When I was at Christ Foundry, there was a church that came to us and wanted to rent space. And I was like, I don't want to rent space to another church. You know, it'll feel like competition. It could be confusing with people and they're like, well, no, we're just mainly Guatemalan restaurant workers and we want to worship at 11.30 p.m. on Sundays after our restaurants close. And I was like, that's not going to be competition for the people I'm trying to reach. And with the exception of a chair that was moved every now and then in a check that was, that was left with us, I didn't even know that they were there. But finding out where and when we can reach people. Remember the ketchup? We can't wait for people to come to the factory on our terms and on our opening hours. We must find ways to reach them on their terms and their time. Going to the next slide. It is not simply a Bible study, even though it could be. So the seed that we've talked about, that is a new church plant that's being birthed in what used to be Pleasant Mound United Methodist Church, they launched a bike in the park. And so the pastor likes to bike. So again, work with what you have. The pastor likes to bike. And so the pastor started doing advertisements. We're going to be biking. We're going to be biking. We're going to be biking. And the pastor opens up and receives the people, shares what he's doing, that he's starting a new church, and then invites people to reflect and to converse as they're riding the bike. And then they ride through the park. And then on the other side of the park, they have a concluding liturgy. Now when I say concluding liturgy, it's not, let us all stand and recite. But it is a, I'm glad that you're here today. I pray that God wants you. What prayer petitions do you have? And that's becoming church for people, but it's also building relationships and connecting people with one another. Again, some of those people may find their way into your Sunday worship, but for others, this is going to be their church. The Christ Foundry, Mosquipon, is run by my mother-in-law, and still run by my mother-in-law, even though I've not been in Christ Foundry for six years. She has stayed. And what they do with Mosquipon is on Mondays, they go to all the community, the grocery stores around, and they collect the day-old bread that didn't sell over the weekend. And they bring that collection out. People come from the community on that Monday morning. They have a brief prayer. And my mother-in-law shares in less than five minutes the message of the sermon of the day before, praise over the bread, and then people take the bread, and then they go. They're also invited to stick around and help clean the church up from after Sunday. And it is interesting how many people stick around and clean, even though they don't come to the church, because they feel like, hey, I have a gift. I'm appreciative of this church. And I can give back. I had one lady tell me that she just did it out of spite, because she didn't want to feel like a freeloader when she came to get free bread. And she eventually found her way and is a leader in Christ Foundry today. But at the end of that, my mother-in-law says, tomorrow, at this same time, we're going to be having a Bible study. And I want to invite you all to it. So just the bread and a five-minute reflection, a disciple does not make. But we want to be conscious on all our activities. What is the discipleship pathway? How can we invite people to go deeper? And so those persons who are there on Mondays are invited back Tuesday at the same time in the same place, but without the bread to go deeper into a Bible study. And that is one of the most profound disciple-making projects in Christ Foundry. When I left Christ Foundry, Amy Spore says, oh, and I know you and your wife can't be here, but can your mother-in-law stay? And I said, yes, she can. And so we'll go to the next slide. So I want you to think about how can you lower the barriers? How can you get your product, which I know it feels just maybe icky or to talk about the gospel as a product, but how can we get what we have been given to those who need it? Rather than waiting for people to come to the factory the one hour that's opened, how can we move out? And how can we reach people? How can we lower those barriers? And now we'll finish up. We'll go to the last slide. We do have time for questions and comments, but I don't know if we do that. But I want to go back and just say, please sign the planting pledge. We're going to be following up with each of you so that we can find out what are the experiments that you're doing. There's the QR code. As I teach in class in evangelism in both courses study, and I see Martha Hagan who's a former student and some other students that were here, what I have them do in the course of the semester is they have to design a ministry for their church to reach people they're not currently reaching. Martha designed one last summer and she's launching it this year. It launched in May. Oh my. So if y'all didn't hear, so this was what she did in class last summer. She designed this program to reach their neighbors and they just launched in May and they had 35, and they're already having 35 persons attending. And this is not a large church, so reaching 35 new people that is noteworthy for the church. We have had just so many amazing ideas and I know that God's going to move in your community, move in your church for you to work what you have, to work the gifts that you have that connect in the mission field that God has entrusted you with. And we want to learn about what you're doing, and we want to be able to share it with others and share it at the next annual conference. So what questions or comments do you have right now? And if you have questions and comments about the CCD report, yes in the back. Speak up loud please. Speak loudly please. My counterpart in the Great Plains Conference who does church development there, he says, I have found the secret to church growth. So all of a sudden developers are like, yes? He says, the church has to want to grow. It sounds obvious, but we just heard a story of how true it is that the church has to want to grow and we know as we grow, we change. And many people are at the church that they're at because they like it how it is. But we know growth brings change. And if you're bringing a bunch of young people, they're going to change your church. If you've ever had kids, you know they change your life. Same thing in a church. But I know I was like, why don't you want to name it? This is a great story without a happy ending. Other questions, comments? Yes. So the question is about insurance, which I'm not an expert on insurance, but I would say definitely check with your insurance when you're doing new activities that could cause people getting hit by baseballs. Yeah, just check with your insurance. But yeah, but having senior citizens come exercise, we've put in for a million and quarter Lilly Grant Foundation to help churches leverage early childhood education for discipleship. Whether we get it or not is dependent on how hard you're going to be praying for us. Actually, I don't know if we're going to get it or not, but we've applied for these funds. But I've also thought about, so as Diana Masters, who used to work in our office, she was caring for her mom and she was putting her mom in elderly care for a few hours a day for them. And I was thinking, well, there may be a place for churches to do that, which is both disciple making as well as income generating. And so we're exploring those things and how can we help churches with that. And so stay tuned for that. Sign the planting pledge and we'll keep you updated. Other questions, comments? Yes, sir, in the back. Pastor Chris of here, Chris Dowd. Oh, Abbott. Abbott, yeah. Chris Abbott and Tulsa. And so if you're interested in doing that, there he is. Hey, church growth agency, that's him. He does very interesting work. And we're trying to explore, is that going to work in our churches? He does great YouTube videos, but does it work? I would like to know here in North Texas conferences. So watch his videos. And if you want a micro grant to try some of that. And he explains how to do Facebook advertisement, how to do Instagram advertisement. And we just heard this morning about how much time people are spending. And we have to be present for people. We have to be where they are. And if they are on social media, we need to be there, too. And so he's somebody who can equip us to do that. Other questions or comments? Hearing none, I thank y'all for coming in here today for your desire to reach people that you're not currently reaching and know that the Center for Church Development wants to help you, wants to equip you. We have the micro grants in the new spaces grants. We'll be having the spark tank that will be coming around and we have a fantastic team that wants to connect with you. And so as we close off, I want to close off with a prayer. So let us pray. Merciful God, I just thank you for these saints. And for the way that you're moving in their lives and moving in their hearts to reach a world that is in need of them. Lord, we reach out to others. Lord, not because the church needs them, but we reach out, Lord, because we know that they need you. And Lord, we know that we need you. And so we come to you asking you to move in our hearts and move in our minds so that we as your body can reach out and touch lives and be a part of your healing of our land. I pray your blessings, Lord, upon each here and upon the congregations that they represent. I pray that you prosper them in this new season as they bless those who are around them and those who are in their mission field. And I pray this all in the name of the one who loves us, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you all again for coming. God bless you all. Leadership team and members in this community, would you open this session and pray for us? Where's Phoebe? There she is. This session is now in session. Thank you. Amen. Thank you so much, Phoebe. I'm going to take a moment or personal purchase. Bishop McKee here. Well, while he comes in, I'm going to take a personal purchase to introduce our executive administrative assistant to the Episcopal Office. Deborah, would you come here a second? Let's recognize you. Joelle Stanislaw has worked for the North Texas annual conference for 22 years, and now she's at Perkinson. So Deborah will be filling that vacancy, excellently may I add, on July 1. So this is Deborah Meyer. Deborah was formerly at Lover's Lane United Methodist Church, and so she comes with a very high recommendation from Stan Copeland. And so, Deborah, I'm looking forward to working with you. So when you call the Episcopal Office, this is Deborah. All right. Thank you, Deborah. All right. Is Bishop McKee in? If not, I recognize Dr. Ron Henderson, and we'll just move on from there. Ron, for the report on DEI, the Journey Towards Racial Justice. Reverend Sylvia Wayne will go first. And Reverend Sylvia Wayne, yes. Thank you. Bishop signs, members at the North Texas conference, and friends at the conference. It is great to be with you this year. My name is Sylvia Wayne. I serve as chair of the North Texas Conference Journey to a Racial Justice team. I am really excited that I'll be serving as Associate Pastor at Lake Highlands United Methodist Church starting July 1. Currently, I am also a Doctor of Ministry student at Duke Divinity School. Yay, go Duke. For the written Journey to a Racial Justice report, I invite you to peruse these materials in your annual conference workbook after my presentation. To start, I have a story for you from the Bible. Let us travel to the book of Genesis. We hear of Abraham and Sarah. We hear about an enslaved young woman named Hagar. When Hagar was in the wilderness, she was in despair about her life. She was pregnant and would give birth to Ishmael, a son of Abraham. While in the wilderness, Hagar encountered God. Genesis chapter 16, verse 13, states that, Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her, you are Elroy. For she said, have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him? Elroy are Hebrew words that translate to God of seeing or God of God who sees. The echoes of Elroy resonate in my mind. God who sees. God who sees each of us. God who sees you. God who sees me. God who sees me when in my life there are people who do not see me. What I mean is that have there been times when I have not been seen? Are there some of us here who can relate? Have we experienced encounters with people when we have not been seen? Maybe we were not heard. Maybe we were not acknowledged for our work. Maybe we were not valued for who we are. For who we are as God has created us. Maybe others have chipped away at our dignity and humanity and treated us as lesser humans. Maybe we have looked down on other people because they are different from us in thinking, appearance, physical features, language and color. We need to remember that we are all God's children. We are same and we are not the same. We are all human. God also has gifted us with a variety of hair colors, features, skin tones, cultures and personal and ethnic backgrounds. God sees us and values us. We are all made in the image of God. We need to treat one another with dignity, value and respect. In my personal and professional experiences, I have encountered people who celebrate who I am. I have also encountered experiences and people who did not see me, people who define me based on what they think I should be. I have encountered people who have belittled me because I am not white and I never will be able to be white. Some of these encounters are subtle, some are more obvious. These experiences were other people made me to be less than the full person are dehumanizing. I say this also to give voice to clergy and laity in our conference who encounter experiences where others have chipped away at the full humanity that God has given them. I say this to bring awareness and name the reality of lived experiences. We have worked together to do, to see, to treat one another with the full humanity and dignity that God has given to us. Racism has no place in God's kingdom. Racism on a personal level, racism on a group level even in churches, and racism on a larger level of scale or systems, both religious and secular or both. Racism has no place in God's kingdom. If we call ourselves Christian, we must follow the mandate of God to love one another deeply and truly without limit. As United Methodists, we are called to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We are all called to work for transformation of souls and lives, along with the transformation of social connections and relationships. We have together in churches, community, workplaces, and at home, not for ourselves, all for the glory of God for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We are called to transform groups and systems that chip away at people's humanity. We are called to take courage, to challenge words and actions and behavior that dehumanize. We are called to break and shatter the forces that hurt people on account of race, ethnicity, color, gender, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. God leads the personal and social transformation through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. But we need to take care. We have the capacity to hinder or support the work of God in bringing about racial justice and equity. Friends, where does this work begin and continue? The work of transformation starts with our hearts and our minds. Do we have biases? Do we have prejudices? Can we truly say in the presence of Almighty God that we see everyone, that we truly see everyone as God's beloved children made in the image of God with the richness of features, colors, skills, talents, and full humanity that God has given? It is hard work to look within our hearts. It is hard to acknowledge that perhaps we have contributed to hurting other people. It is hard to admit that we have not truly seen everyone. For those of you who have been hurt, know that God sees you and loves you deeply. We circle back to the echoes of El Roy, El Roy, El Roy, God who sees. Hold on to God who sees you. Let the word of God dwell in your hearts and truth. May our hearts and minds be opened more and more to seeing people, to seeing everyone, children, adults, everyone with more respect and understanding. Let go of assumptions. Let go of your fears. Let go of being afraid for we are free in Christ and Christ alone. We have by God's grace the power to change the world. We make this journey together. The Journey to Racial Justice Team will be continuing to create and hold in partnership with one another opportunities so that we all can learn together and deepen bridges of understanding across cultures and races. Are you ready and willing to continue the work of building relationships with one another in our churches and communities? By the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ, I pray that all of us will say to God, yes, we are ready and willing. Good afternoon to Bishop Sines, members of the North Texas Annual Conference and guests. It's very appropriate that Reverend Sylvia Wayne has gone before me for her report. She acts in it, the progress we have made as a conference in the journey toward racial justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion. And her report also accents to us the work that still needs to be done. We also hurt her pain and people of color identify with that. Our vision and diversity, equity, and inclusion is to create a culture and environments in the North Texas Conference that reflect the diversity of the greater society. More than diversity, I check in the box. We envision a culture of equity, fair, equal, and a just starting point for everyone. A just environment to live, to work, to execute ministry, to develop, to grow, to claim a bright and promising future for all members of the conference with an emphasis of creating this striving and safe culture for people of color. Further, this culture of diversity, equity, and belonging is not assimilating people of color to be identical to the majority, but one of welcoming and belonging just as we are, thereby enriching the whole body and reflecting God's creation and authenticity. After all, God looked at God's creation and said it was good. So each of us is endowed with the Emego DA, the image of God. Imagine Emego DA, Emego DEI, reflecting the image of God, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Reverend Wayne's report to us accents our commitment to this imperative of diversity, equity, and inclusion. A report to us also accent that there is important work to be done in creating this new culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion of belonging. We began this initiative under a different leadership with Bishop McKee, but now we even expect to go higher and further with Bishop Sines. As of today, Bishop Sines has met with most of our groups of color for discussion, affirmation, and worship, and these settings include bringing together specific groups from both Central Texas and North Texas conferences. I contend that Bishop, that our Bishop assured this earlier, is the Chief Diversity Officer, which is a way of saying diversity, equity, and inclusion begins with the leader. If the leader won't sit, it will happen. I have witnessed the change in culture on a number of points in our conference. For example, there's diversity of clergy and laity on our nominating committee. Consequently, there is racial diversity on all of our conference committees and diversities in the chairpersons and with our major committees, for example, Council on Financial Administration. Important in the makeup of these committees is diversity within the groups themselves, rather than having the same people on several committees. We witnessed a growing culture shift in our worship service on last evening. There was diversity with people of color and there was diversity of genre. Further, there was inclusion in the planning of such worship like last night. Diversity is more than inviting people to the party, or rather diversity is inviting people to the party, but inclusion is inviting them to help plan the party. Last night, we got a good witness of inclusion and diversity. It is refreshing when appointments are made, and as a part of the appointed cabinet, that when a person of color is being appointed to an Anglo congregation, none of the conversation is not about risk, but the conversation is often about the uniqueness and the giftedness this person of color is going to bring to a white congregation. That is refreshing to hear. It is refreshing as our center directors, as they take on their many projects, that they're very conscious and intentional in inviting people of color to be a part of all of their ministries, and they often confer with me to make certain that we are being inclusive. One thing of great importance. Segments of our church, the African American church, and its leotine clergy, the Latino church were intentionally harmed because of race or language. Neither of these constituents ever gave one second, one thought, to disaffiliating. Hear me well. Constituents groups who were harmed because of race or language or boat never considered disaffiliating from the church. Somebody always say amen. And so since disaffiliation was not a part of our process or our future, we do not plan to be in invisible, voiceless, or powerless groups, but people whose voice, creativity, color, accent, culture, life experiences are valued just as they are. We move into the future with hope. Amen. Thank you, Reverend Wang and Dr. Henderson. Bishop McKee in the, there he is. Y'all look very familiar. I want to say that to you. So it's good to be with you today. So Bishop Sines, thank you for the invitation. I appreciate being here representing Perkins School of Theology. On behalf of Perkins School of Theology and Southern Methodist University, I want to bring greetings to you. In those greetings, I want to affirm something because we've discovered in our conversations around annual conferences in the South Central Jurisdiction, there seems to be some confusion about SMU and the United Methodist Church. Just forget that confusion. It's not accurate. So I want to say that to you. Secondly, they still have ties to the United Methodist Church, significant ties, and those have not changed. And I do want you to know that. There have been a change in some bylaws? Yes, but they do not affect our relationship in any way. That's the first thing I want to say to you today. That way, I don't get caught in that conversation as I walk out of the room today. I do want to say to you on behalf of Perkins that we do look forward to have Bishop Sines on the Executive Board at Perkins School of Theology. As you know, Bishop Sines is a Perkins graduate as well, has an MDiv and a DMN from Perkins School of Theology. And in 2022, he joined a club in which I'm glad to be into. He was recognized as a distinguished alum of Perkins School of Theology. And many of you were there that night at Perkins when that was conferred upon him. I do want to talk to you about what's happening in theological education. I will say that when it became known that I was going to be serving as the interim dean at Perkins School of Theology, I have never received as many phone calls since I graduated from my classmates since I graduated from Perkins School of Theology. That year was 1978, so I want to remind you what the School of Theology might have been like, what the church was like. And so many of my colleague friends from those days, they texted me or called me and said, now these are the things you need to change. They all looked like 1975 to me. And I simply had this response. Are you still leading your church like you did when you graduated from Perkins? Friends, y'all know as well as I do, perhaps even better, that the nature of the church and the way in which we do ministry and the way we reach people who do not have a relationship with this Christ is very different today than it was 40 years ago. And what I want, why I say that is because none of us can be beholden to what was. We now need to focus on what will be. That being said, that theological education will change somewhat dramatically. Yes, believe it or not, at Perkins we still teach the Bible. And yes, we are theologically centered perhaps as a group, because I can meet with one faculty member and I realize if somebody here is calling me, it better be that I won the lottery. That's all I'm going to say. But what I want to say to you is that you cannot categorize or characterize Perkins School of Theology theologically. But you put it all in a mix and you realize it feels and it's experienced much like the United Methodist Church is, or specifically to you, the North Texas annual conference. Why I say that is because we do live in a day in which people are searching. We do live in a day in which some people are very certain about what they believe, but many of us are very clear about it. And so in that clarity, we discover how it is that we navigate the faith, teach the faith, and actually begin to speak with it academically. And so Perkins School of Theology I want to tell you has a very interesting place that many of you may know about, but I went for the first time in January or maybe early February of this year. I took a day trip to Houston. That's about all I need of Houston, being a Dallas Fort Worth guy, I want to say that. But what happens there is very, very good. And I really am not saying that to Houston or anything else. But to say to you is, is that I went to the hybrid program there at the Houston Galveston program at Methodist Hospital in Houston. And I have never seen that kind of energy about a group of people who had didn't know each other until just a few months earlier than I did that night. I listened to two faculty members teach that day, Hugo Magallanes. David, tell your dad I spoke about him. And also Dallas Jingles. I ate with the students, I answered questions, and I realized that a group of people who who covered the country all the way from Delaware to California had come to Perkins in Houston for theological education. These hybrid models are going to probably catch on. They already are across the country, especially United Methodist schools, and Perkins will be ahead of them. And the reason being, our goal is not to have as many people setting feet on a Dallas campus. It's as many people as we can to engage in the theological education, which I call second to none, among United Methodist schools and seminaries. And so as we begin to think about that, it will change the way we do things. We'll still be doing things in Dallas, Texas. It's not that we're running away or we're ignoring that, but it will continue. And I want to say that in 1978 I graduated, I thought this is the greatest education I could have gotten at this time. I will say it's that kind of education, even somewhat differently, that is afforded to people now. This I want to tell the people of the North Texas Conference, there is significant amounts of dollars. In endowment funds, I'm talking about earnings. In earnings and endowment funds, they're available to North Texas Conference students who are certified candidates for ministry. Theological education is not cheap. However, there are significant resources that are available to all, and I do want you to know that we have them, and they're available to your students. Thank you. That being said, I want to say what I would have said even several years ago to you. Somebody in your congregation really has a call to ministry, but he or she may be waiting for an affirmation from one of you. I would encourage you to have that conversation. And if you want them to have an even short-term experience or deeper experience, we would gladly be welcome. They would be welcomed on the campus at Perkins School of Theology. I didn't know that I would have fun doing this, but I'm having the time of my life right now. And I'm delighted about the people I get to work with, much like the people I worked with at the North Texas Conference, and I'm very proud of what happens at Perkins School of Theology. Thank you for your support and your interest. God bless you. And I want to say a special word of appreciation to Bishop Rubin Sines, who I think is doing an excellent job. And I'm not checking on you every day, I promise. I just... I just catch snippets of the way he's leading the conference and the vision he has, and Bishop Sines, I'm very grateful for you. Thank you very much. I'm grateful for you too, Bishop. We're going to take a quick photo right here. Okay, get ready for the picture. Could we put you on that so I look taller? Thank you. Good to see you too. All right, friends, we're going to move into our second keynote address, so I'm going to have Trey and Akilah move up with our Gen Z panelists. Uh, that'll work. Thousand people. Good work. You nailed it. Well done. Good work. It's exactly right. George is not blushing at all. No. You played it cool. You played it very cool. This is that Gen Z zoo we were talking about earlier that we were definitely not going to take you to. No, you all have been incredibly gracious already just to give us your time, and we're going to practice that thing where it's like we're talking to each other, but we know there are a thousand people watching us, and we're going to pretend like this normal, right? That's right. It's just us right here. This is the kitchen table. Just us. And George's friends. And George's friends. It's just the fourth one. I'm just breaking up for you. Um, I do wonder, could you all just do a, uh, just a quick introduction, who you are, where you're coming from, and then we'll pepper you with questions until somebody says, uncle, does that sound okay? You want to kick yourself, Georgia? Okay. Um, as some of you may know, uh, I'm Georgia. Let's see. I'm from Vista Ridge, UMC. I am serving as the CCYM president for this year. Uh, a little bit about me. I am the vice president of the advanced productions, uh, at my school. I want to go into political science or ministry. I don't really know. Um, and one of the two. And I'm also a strong supporter of the Gay Shared Alliance at my school. So that's a little bit about me. Welcome, Georgia. Um, I am Shirley Ramirez. I am currently working for Project Transformation North Texas as one of their program quality coaches. I am currently over Owenwood Family Farm and Space, Crocker Hill, and the Seed United Methodist Church. And a fun fact, I am also currently a emergency medical technician. Uh, I do that on the side. It's an interesting side job to do, but, uh, one thing that I am pursuing is nurse practitioner in pediatric ICU. So heading towards that route soon. Welcome. It's always hard to follow up after those people. Um, hi everybody, my name is, um, Isaiah McDaniels. I now go by Isaiah McDaniels, um, just for short. Um, I have grown up in various different types of churches. Um, uh, custody of the Methodist Church was definitely my youth church and my family. So, um, shout out to you guys who are sitting out there in the audience. Um, currently I serve at Project Transformation as well as a program quality coach, um, serving at, um, New World, uh, Casa de Manuel, and also, um, Okaven in the Methodist Church. So, um, I've been serving with them for the last four years. This is my fifth year now. Um, I have started taking a couple of college courses, still figuring out what I want to do next in my life, but, um, I realized that I have my whole life to figure that out. So. Hello everyone, my name is Nathan Lewis, and I've just graduated from the University of Texas Boston. Okay. And I currently work as a research specialist for Gartner, uh, working on Research R&D. I'm the highest office in the corporate world and executive teams. And I just love, love, um, the conversation that we all had earlier. I thought it was super uncathable. Okay. Fantastic. Thank y'all. Zae? Yes. Get it right? Okay. All right, y'all. So, the, our first question is really, I mean, it's a deep one. This is, this is hard-hitting journalism. We're going to come out the gate with the, um, it's mostly for Trey, um, because he's building his playlist and he needs, he needs cool songs. So what are y'all listening to right now? Because currently it's all like late 90s, early 2000s, and it needs help. Yeah. So if, if we had your phone, we put it down. What do you listen to? Right now it's Disney music because I'm playing that for kids all over sites. Um, but yeah, um, I'm a big, huge Disney fan. So I'm right now listening to a lot of Disney music, um, and musicals, because I like to sing and do performative arts. Um, so you might find a lot of that stuff in my playlist. What's the top one? Like top musical right now? Um, well, I did just go see the new Little Mermaid movie. So I'm listening to like Skittle Butt and things like that. I told y'all. Um, that's just one of those things that was really interesting to me. Yeah. Anytime you want to bust out a song, we're here for it. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, let's see, Shirley, what are you listening to? I am currently listening to a, so my playlist is a very much big mixture of everything except for country. You will never find a country song in my playlist. I can't get into it. I'm sorry. I just can't do it. There's maybe like two country songs. I'm so sorry, Georgia. There's like two country songs on it. Maybe, but I listened to a lot of R&B, especially Clio Soul, Young Love. It's a really good song. All right. Who sings Young Love? Clio Soul. Clio Soul. Yeah. We got you. Okay. We're right now. It's the old ears. Sorry about that. No, it's good. It's Prince Bacusas. Nathan, what are you listening to? So I kind of just bounce from artist to artist. I love musicals. Yeah. So definitely Hamilton comes up all the time, right? But right now I'm listening to Noah Collin and just having his album on, his new album on repeat. I think he just really captures beautifully the words that are kind of mental experience to young people. And it's really, really captivating to listen to his music. Good. Georgia. Let's see. I listened to a bunch of mixtures of artists. I listened to a lot of like Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the Creator, Mack DeMarco. Yeah, y'all know what I'm talking about up there. Oh, Steve Lacey. He's good. And yeah, that's really the top artist on my new summer playlist. So, what's the name of the play? Yeah, could you tell us? Don't worry. It's Summer with an A. Summer 23 Jams. Thanks for that. That was helpful. That's definitely, yeah. It was very, very helpful. Okay. One of the things that gets tossed around quite a bit. This is certainly a sort of a big part of the broad conversation is self-care. And I guess my question for you all is, everybody seems to, sorry for my mic. I'm not doing very well there. Everybody defines self-care in their own way. I'm just curious what it looks like for each of you in your own lives. Shirley, how do you feel about kicking us off here? I go to sleep. Sometimes I just don't know how to stop working. So my body physically just shuts down. It's just like, all right, it's time to go to bed and I don't wake up until like the next workday. Because sometimes that's all you really need. Just go to sleep. Do your face wash. Make sure you put on your sunscreen before you get out into this Texas heat. Do it all over again. I like it. I love it. I love it. Skincare, nap time. Skincare matters. Yes. Isaiah, how about you? So for me, I mean, yeah, self-care wasn't something I really practiced until a couple of years ago. Because I also am a very hard worker, constantly going. So I would say sleep too. But sometimes just watching a good TV show, like I'll just sit there and binge watch a show, which is rare right now. But my body knocked out, went to sleep for 15 hours like the other day, because I guess I needed it. But I'll just be watching like Grey's Anatomy, or I'll be watching Currently I'm Watching Good Trouble. So like whatever, just I'm watching The Golden Girls a lot too. So it's just something I like watching. Nathan, how about yourself? Yeah, I think, you know, I think self-care is really important. And I think that young people as a whole are taking a good intentionality of focusing on that. And for me, I think that spiritual self-care, mental health care, physical health care, all are, it's really intertwined. And the way in which I kind of like my go-to cure is playing pick up basketball, which for me is where I can just go and relax and get exercise and kind of clear my soul. And it's just great to do that, especially I've been in Austin for the past five years and have a great community there. And it's just a wonderful, happy place, a joyful place to be. Good, thank y'all. That's good stuff. We learned about skin care, lots of napping, which I am here for. So thank you. Oh, Georgie, you got some good stuff. Yeah, I see like self-care more as like a mental thing. And so like what I do is I either go hang out with my friends, or I read a book laying out in the sun, or I listen to music. I really love music. Good, good. Georgie and Nathan, you talked about community. Tell us about your community. Who are your people? Georgie, we've met some of yours. Yeah, that's my people up there. Yeah, I have my church people, and then I have my at-home people. And then, yeah, my church people specifically, I love my church people. Recently one of my friends passed away from suicide. And my church was really, really there for me. And it was so amazing. And I wouldn't trade my church community for the world. Tell us what you'd like to see. I feel like I have so many people everywhere. Sometimes it would be overwhelming. Like I love people, and like I have people from, like I work two jobs. So I work this wonderful nonprofit that I'm working with, but I also work at this place called Camp. It's here in Dallas. It's like a really cool tricked-out toy store. They have like some sort of interactive theatrical performance that goes with it. So I like have people from work in different aspects of my life. I have obviously my church home friends, my family members, sorry. And then just like I said, the friends that I've made over the years, those are like kind of my people. So when I really need someone to like lean on, I feel like I can reach out to somebody and usually they're there. Nathan? Yeah, I think for me it really starts with my family. I've been really blessed to have a family that supports me and allows me to all that do. As I said, I've been in Austin for a while. I grew up in Dallas. So I have great friends in both areas that I just enjoy spending time with. And I'm also blessed to have a football partner who I love very much and who supports me and allows me to encourage me. So that's kind of my key. So I have my family. And so my father recently passed away last year. And working with PT, I grown a second home, a second family. So they're like my brothers and sisters, so many of them. They also act like your younger siblings. So literally act like a younger brother and sister. They're like, why haven't you? I was like, you just told me five minutes ago. But no, they're amazing. Honestly, I don't think I've ever gotten to a lot of places that I'm here now without them. I love them so much. So I know, I don't know if some of them are in here in the room, but if they are, they're probably hearing this. But I tell them this all the time either way. Okay, question. We're a little bit curious about you all have heard. I'm not sure if you've heard of Gen Z, but people tend to talk about that generation a little bit. Maybe that's come across your news feed at some point. I'm curious how you feel about the ways Gen Z is spoken about descriptions, characteristics, attributes, where it feels like, yeah, I feel represented by that or my circle of friends are represented by that. And then the opposite where it feels like, no, that's not me. That's not, you know, my experience at all. And anybody who has something, please just go for it. I mean, I'll start by saying like, I feel like I'm a cusp of Gen Z and millennial. I was born in 1995. So like, I'm really like right there. But I did hang out with a lot of people who were younger than me. So like the grades lower to me. And so like part of me feels like when Gen Z is brought up, like I can relate to some of the things. But then also I know that there's a part kind of on the further side before you jump into Gen. It's an alpha. So my younger sister is eight. Like that's a whole different generation. So like, I don't know, I feel like I get a chance to kind of see, get to see between the cracks sometimes. So like I can see sides on an upper level or on a lower level. So I feel like I'm constantly in the middle. I was on the cusp. And for years, most of my life, I desperately wanted to be a millennial because in the circles I was in, it seemed as if Gen Z was an insult. That it was a way of telling someone not really your time yet, probably shouldn't say anything. And just kind of viewed as being overly kid-ish. And so for me, I desperately wanted to be a millennial. When those are adults, Gen Z are kids. And now realizing that there are Gen Z people who are even older than I am, definitely all adults, and have so many wonderful things to offer, including this to people up here. I'm proud to be Gen Z now, but I think for a long, long time there are a lot of connotations that I ran far, far from, and much of it. I was going to say, oh, okay, sorry, I didn't know if the mic was on. So a lot of what I hear and a lot of what I've seen about Gen Z that I do agree with is that we are the generation of movement, whether it be good or bad. Sometimes cancel culture is one big thing that we did start at the beginning of COVID. I don't agree with everything that we've canceled, but we are a generation of large movement. We are a generation that we don't sit down and take everything that is given to us. We, if we want something done, we will get it done. In one way or another, we use our platform of social media now to give us a voice and give others a voice. And that's how I see Gen Z. And one thing I don't agree with is something that I hear a lot is we don't know what work is or we don't work, which we do. Some of us don't know how to sit down. I hear a lot of the time that Gen Z is the generation that's going to change the world, and I don't 100% agree with that. I think what's upcoming and the future of Generation Z is going to shock everyone in this room because there are some power houses in our generation. But then I've also heard that we're just the generation that's addicted to their phones, which I get that. But also at the same time, so are millennials, and so are Gen X, and so are boomers. Can I add something to that? Hi. So when I think about the whole phone thing, I think about people are always like, oh yeah, we're on our phones, but we've learned to innovate with our phones. So it's like we're not just able to just be completely connected. Like the way I'm able to multitask while having my phone in my hand, I remember growing up, I was not the kid or the friend of my group who was always on their phone. In fact, I would forget I had it. And then I became an adult and had to start doing things on my own, and I realized I really need this thing to keep my life on track and keep up with things. So if I'm not answering email, a phone call, a Slack message, a text, which I don't like to text. I like to physically talk to anybody. I don't know if anyone else is out there like that, but I feel like I can get a whole conversation done in like five minutes rather than like spending all day long trying to text like 16 different people. There's just a lot. So I don't know. I feel like when they say we're good at our phones, as long as we're still getting the work done, then why not have the phones like accessible to do other things? Okay, I think that's really helpful. I actually want to ask a little more on that. And we talked about it earlier. A lot of technology is, relatively speaking, really new. And I'm wondering if you all feel like, I mean, it sounds like what you're just describing as the good and the bad as well, of technology. Do you all feel like, is that a conversation in your circles about how to engage with a phone or how to engage with social media or how to not, do you feel like people are getting nuance that is healthier? I feel like I'll just keep going on that. I'll just say like, I think there again, with every good thing, there's always a bad part of it. So like, depending on how you're spending the time, like, there are certain places, there's a time and place for it too. I think that's the kind of key part there is like, when you are in those times and moments where you're not supposed to be on it just because you really need to be fully present, like those are those times. I feel like it has also kind of affected sometimes the way I communicate with people in a physical sense because I will have to innately tell myself, okay, don't go to my phone, be here, be present in this moment. Because like Shirley said, really hard workers constantly working and being on my phone doesn't always mean I'm very fully present all the time as well. Anybody else? Any nuance around technology and social media that feels like, oh, we're learning how to do this in a healthier way? I would just add that I think technology and social media is a tool and that tools are a new thing and that people use tools to do good, people use tools to do evil, people use tools to waste time. I don't think that any of that is a novel concept. I think that technology allows us to connect people we never would have connected with, allows us to do things that otherwise would have been impossible and it also allows us to do untold harm to a lot of people and so I think that there's a balance in everything and it really comes down to how we use it and I think that Gen C has figured out how to use it for a lot of kids and also figured out how to do it for a lot of people. So I think just like any tool, we can't really look and blame the tool because the tool is neutral. It's how we use it and so I think that that's a way of great power comes down to it. So there's a lot of things happening in the world, right? So many things, so many heavy things. I want to know what keeps you up at night? What are you worried about? I can start. Oh, hello. For me, I think the thing that mostly keeps me up at night is being able to like sit in my bed watching my TV in my blankets with the AC on, having a nice glass of water next to me and it's weird to think that I have all of this just at my fingertips and then there's people out there that don't have any of it and I think that's what keeps me up most at night knowing that like there's so much I can do I'm just I don't know how to get started and so I think that's really something that like eats me alive while I'm trying to go to sleep. I think mine is the same way like there's so much that I haven't done yet and there's so much that I have the potential to do and there's so much that is sitting in the to-do list that has not been completed yet and I think it's just a way of okay I'm going to start with this task and then just work my way up and slowly but more it's more advocacy it's more like what haven't I advocated enough for yet? I would just say that for me it feels like I'll be sitting up at night and I'll just be thinking about how people are still hurting people. I feel like you know with all the things that we've learned over the generations how there are higher issues specifically gun violence like that's just been a thing. I grew up in Allen, Texas so anyone who's also in that area shout out to y'all but when that happened my brother he just moved to Richardson but he lived there and he frequents hanging out there so it definitely was one of those things where it kind of took pause for me and it's hard because you just never know when where and why and there's other things too in terms of just like children and protecting children like how there's still such a hard concept to do and there's just so many things that we say we don't know but we also know so much more now than we did before so like I know that there's work being done but I think that's what keeps me up at night it's just like how close are we to really coming to the other side of things where it's not still so prevalent and really worse in some ways. I 100% agree. It's guns. I know that over the past few years it has begun to really permeate every decision that I make from like a public, from like a movie, from from the mall. You have to really ask yourself is this worth dying for and as I think about having children in the future, a question that really keeps me up at night is I love my family a lot and I'm not here. Can I raise my kids here and the answer right now is no. I don't feel like it would be safe here and I think at this point the way in which I've just come to rationalize the idea is that every day it's going to happen and I just hope that I'm not there and so my love isn't there and that it's just going to happen the next day and after that and if you think more than that it can be crippling and that's really what needs to see plus nights. It is going to pass. As far as you are comfortable sharing and I actually like to hear a little bit about how you will relate to the church or religious or faith life these days and you know if it isn't sort of a church setting then I'm just wondering how you get, I'll say your spiritual itches scratched. Does that make sense? I mean I'll say this, I'm not much of a church goer anymore other than within my work being in those spaces, spending times like this where I'm getting a chance to be a part of the church because I think a lot of the time I am spending that time working to support myself and that can be hard but I think because I'm so busy and I spend that time I'm always like talking with God. I'm like Lord help me in this situation that I'm about to go through and then I just do a lot of praise to whatever like I see his deliverance like through hard and tough situations. So for me personally like that's kind of where I keep my faith and my beliefs kind of within myself also trying to accept things about myself that I'm like you know I'm not fully sure about and understand why these are the things they are but that is just what it is and so having that kind of personal conversation with God rather than having to hear from so many other people's opinions and thoughts and things like it just makes it easier for me to be able to say okay this is where I'm okay this is where I'm open to go forward and I'm open you know I'm not really shying away from being out there in present it's just more so taking my time and realizing it's my life my journey. I can go next. I'm a PK for those of you that don't know. Ashley and Saib is my mom and so I spend quite a bit of time at church but I think that even if I wasn't a PK I'll start off saying this whenever I was younger and I was not United Methodist I was Southern Baptist I did not enjoy going to church at all it seemed like a burden and I was that kid in the back of the church that just colored and then would cry and then whenever I went to my first United Methodist camp it was Bridgeport. Whenever I went to Bridgeport for the first time I had my first God moment I guess you could say and ever since then I've never wanted to not have moments like that. I spend a lot of time praying and I see God mostly in like sunsets and what I said earlier to train Q the world could be falling apart like literally crashing on me and if there was a pretty sunset I would still believe in God. God is always within the sunsets for me and I see him every night so. I can go next so I don't have a certain denomination that I identify with so I guess you would define that as agnostic I'm not too sure with terms but it's because when I was younger we would church hop a lot and I was also the kid that would only sit quiet at church because my mom whispered to us if you guys sit quiet we'll go buy McDonald's fries after church so you know I sat very quietly not paying attention to anything just because I wanted McDonald's but in the future we ended up going to a different church and we stayed there for 10 years that church was very harmful to my spirit and so currently in a healing process of a spiritual church journey so currently going to Seafound Christ Founder United Methodist Church with Pastor Amy I hear her somewhere there she is yeah so they've helped a lot in the healing process and so I do pray a lot I pray with any moment that I can I've been found praying in the car a lot because that's where I am most of the time because of work but again I try to do a lot of things on my own so when it comes to a lot of spiritual work I try to navigate it on my own so I don't really try to follow certain denominations just because it does get confusing I've noticed but that's how that is right now I was uh some of you know from yesterday um the last few years have been uh a difficult journey in terms of the church and um but I didn't want to say I think the second part of the question is really important in terms of staying connected with Jesus and getting to God even if not entering into the physical space of the church and some of that I've always believed and it's rooted in the fact that for much of my early childhood I was a part of the church play that didn't have a building is that the church is people and that I'm very blessed to have some amazing people in my life who have continued to be my church and that continue to show me Jesus and to first to talk about Jesus and talk about this love and this mission even if not physically being in a place of this equal and so I just really encourage me to be about this life so we have time for one more question a little while ago cherry and I were talking about folks who haven't invested in us especially when we were younger who like gave us the keys to the church or gave us an opportunity or a chance and we thought are you kidding me us me really okay crazy person sure um but then we realized that those folks really like they invested in us they trusted us enough to give us a chance give us an opportunity so here's our last question who has invested in you even when you didn't see why they were investing in you but maybe you did maybe you did but feel free to shout him out too especially if they're in a room make them blush a little bit who invested in you I can start with this one um I'll give a little background story so for the past four years I have ran for student body president or class president and um I won one time and the last three I have lost which it's okay it's all right I keep saying it's a sign from God but you know maybe yeah anyways um but uh the Monday after I found out I had lost I went back to school and I was so sad and I had spent the week before doing so much campaigning that I had fallen behind in most of my classes um and so I was really stressed and I was actually crying in one of my classes whenever I got a call from my mom and she was like guess what and I was like girl what I'm crying in class and she said uh Emma Williams and Joseph Bradley shout out um picked you to be the ccyn president and I was like a president let's go um but yeah I was really like me okay cool I don't really understand why me but thanks um so yeah thanks guys I don't know if Emma's in here but thanks to you too oh thanks girl I can go next um hello okay so uh she is currently working in PT Arkansas and she is one of the pastors there her name is Ellen Gotelli um I don't know if many people know her but she is great I love Ellen Gotelli uh she was one of my light coordinators if you don't know what light stands for it's one of the high school programs that project transformation works for so they help you get through college and get uh all of your stuff together because sometimes you're sitting there and you don't know what you're going to do with your life in high school uh but she was amazing it was not a best time in my life but she was very encouraging in everything that I did and so was pastor Amy pastor Amy and the church pastor Lucy too they were amazing especially because they were there for me when my father was passing uh but they also provided amazing food thank you so much I would have been starving so many days but they are great they're amazing people that honestly I would confide in and I would not be here because I would have been hungry without them so it's hard for me to like pinpoint specific people I mean like in different stages of my life I have different people um and so I'm very big on like every person that's coming contact has either impacted me or I've impacted them um so really it's more specific I'm like okay when did this person impact you this person impact you um don't say there are a lot of people from the church um and at Costa Road that kind of like put me on this path I feel like um Patty Scheidmeier was uh like a church mom to me um pastor Tim Morrison was just always there um there are so many people um that if I just started going on and on like I'd be here rambling for for days um and then just even people that I met in the beauty world where I'm just constantly surrounded by people who are uplifting you um and making sure that you're okay um and I think now that I've kind of gotten all those mentorship I keep thinking about like I just want to be a mentor to other people and kind of help them invest in them um as people have invested in me because there's so many things that I see in other people that I'm hoping I can like I don't bring about because maybe that's what it is that they kept pushing me to do like I'm still trying to figure out why people will see things in me I'm like I I truly can't see them in myself yet so that's something I'm working on myself um so I just shout out to those who who know me and um have been there and supported me in my life and who will be there so I've just been in one or two churches in my life and um if I was the name of all the incredible uh Lady and clergy who have impacted me and who are actually in this room today um we would be way very special and I know that that's very important to some people and so you know who you are and um as churches coming on my face got a waiver because of the watering and the planting of the roots that you mowed in and I'm eternally grateful for you for that so thank you ideally you know if you describe people who uh invest you know Helen Thurman this is probably uh poorly quoted but roughly says um that part of ministry is giving people a crown to grow into and that is seeing something in people before they see it in themselves so that they begin to see what you see and that's a little bit of what you're describing and I think this room is probably full of people who have been about that business and somebody else has given all of us a crown to grow into as well and so um for all the folks who got this we've shouted out to be grateful for you and for our panel um Nathan Isaiah, Shirley, Georgia you are incredibly gracious and brave to do this and you're so so grateful so thanks for sharing your time with us. Thank you. That was great thank you for sharing um Trey and Akita will come back for the third keynote speak but you know we've learned a lot from talking from listening to this generation and I I know they're going to do great things and so how can we open the door um for them to to succeed we want them to succeed wildly and to take their faith into the world to transform the world with it um I'm going to ask Reverend um you see Ted Haynes the new district lay leader the new east district lay leader and member of first UMC Winsborough to come to the mic and uh Kenny do we have announcements at this time okay yes we have one uh announcement uh Patrick Booth who is a missionary with a GBGM uh working with refugees and victims of sex trafficking uh is home in north Texas and welcomes the opportunity to talk with your church's mission team if you're interested in that contact Jeff Hall at Cochran Chapel uh to schedule a visit he's here through uh June 21st is he here like here here now where where is he so you can we can know who you are he's a vendor he says okay okay so at the GBGM site all right thank you so after Ted Haynes um leads us in prayer there we're going to be dismissed the toolbox sessions from four through five p.m. then we're going to break for dinner and uh we have ordination dinners and then the ordination service tonight at seven p.m. ordination service tonight at seven p.m. okay so Ted there you are okay would you bow with me let us pray Lord God thank you for this body of believers call to be here to serve you and to glorify you as we gather here to honor you lead us to live and serve together the unity we know that there is one body one spirit one hope one will one faith one baptism one father of all is overall and through all and in all help us to live that here in his aim of confidence as we focus and deliberate on your church and our combined role in furthering your kingdom in north Texas we thank you for the opportunity to serve you in this way in this place and time and we seek your guidance help us to keep our mission of making disciples for the transformation of the world especially in north Texas and focus is our primary interest and not be distracted by differences that do not contribute to that notion bless our churches our clergy and our lady across the north texas conference and lead us to achieve all that you intend for us to do to serve you honor you glorify you and lead others to you in faith in Jesus name amen thank you so much thank you for that all right we are dismissed now to our toolbox sessions um see you at 7 p.m