 Good afternoon Hello Hello, hello, so I think we'll let people continue to wander in I know the food truck lines are long and wet and Not a lot of fun this afternoon But we'll go ahead and get started nonetheless now and then just let people wander in as they wander in I think My name is Tom Darby and I have been Attending radiant with my wife Karen for 22 years now Karen's right over there. Yeah We definitely Definitely feel blessed to have been here for that long. I've been an elder here now for a little over 10 years And Karen and I own four businesses with our children In the plain while Michigan area. So we have four children Son-in-law my daughter just got married a month or so ago and then a daughter-in-law Um, the four kids work with us in the businesses So a lot of people wonder I wonder if they still like each other. Do they still get along? And they do and we do Uh, they we still have sunday lunches every sunday at one o'clock. They all come we spend time together We vacation together still so everybody still gets along and that is a miracle and it's a god thing So we're just thankful for that We never expected that All of them would work in the businesses. We just prayed that god would send them wherever he wanted them and we tried to train them up and Pray over them and talk to them about we wanted them to do what god wanted them to do And we were blessed just in an amazing way that he placed on all of their hearts to come and work with us So we're thankful for that So we started our first business Um in 1995 Um, I grew up around here. So I went to gull Lake High school then I left got a mechanical engineering degree Down in indiana and then had three job opportunities and came back up here to work for an aerospace company for 10 years before um, I Started our first business and felt called to start our first business So the marketplace is a mission field um to me was something that um, I really didn't think about when I was young I grew up in a home. I went to church at a catholic church not far from here grew up in a home where my father was the son of a irish father and an italian mother so a pretty wild situation and um, so he grew up going to the catholic school in the catholic church And then my mom was just an on fire holy spirit filled woman. So But I grew up always knowing And believing that jesus died on the cross for my sins and that God was god But I chose at a young age when I was in high school To believe that the world what the world had to offer was better than what god did So I chased that through high school Chased that through college and then my first experience with a marketplace mission Missionary or mission field was my senior year in college my friend graduated before I did he went to work for this company And I received a letter in the mail back then we got mail it wasn't on phones and um That letter said hey, I met this guy In the workplace and he led me to jesus in a relationship with him And he said you need this And I can remember thinking to myself as that was going on I hate to say this but I'm thinking oh no I lost my best friend because I wasn't ready yet I always knew that I would make a decision for jesus. I just thought I would do it when I was old I was believing what the world was telling me and I thought when I'm old and stop having fun Then I'll make that decision, but he was after me. So he sent me letters I got time for me to graduate and I had three job offers and one of them was at where he worked And at that point I was you know been poor been in college for four years So my sole decision was based on who was offering the most money and that company offered the most money God knew right where he wanted me and he found a way to get me there So I got there and he just stayed after me and and then I got a roommate That roommate was a believer since the time he was born I think so he was after me And then my mom was praying for me. So I was a marked man So about six months later, they were both after me and saying hey, there's this christian concert at miller auditorium And we want you to go with us. I said no, I don't want to go but they just kept pestering me pestering me Finally, I said, you know what? Yeah, I'll go So I went and I just had a radical experience with god at that At that music festival is what it was. I think it was steve camp that was there singing And giving a message and it was just amazing. So They made an altar call at the end. I stood up and I felt like I floated down there and from that time on I was just on fire. So I got to work that monday And my friend came up and said hey mike who was the guy who would let him to christ would like to see you at Break time So I went up there at break and mike said hey, I'd like you to come and be a part of our bible studies that we're doing here at work And he said i'm also going to start a small group in the evenings and he had four of us That were two of us were brand new believers one was not a believer And then Another my roommate who had been a believer since he was really young and he said i'd like to disciple you guys and meet in homes Our homes Once a week in the evenings For the next year, would you be willing to do that? And I didn't know why but I said yeah, you bet I would be willing to do that So that was my first experience with somebody in the marketplace who looked at it as a mission field So I had made a decision In his name was mike mike didn't just say okay, that's good enough Tom saved and tom's going to heaven mike said hey now The real work starts and how do we go through this discipleship process? So we took The four of us and it kind of grew the one the one individual Who came into that group and hadn't accepted christ ed accepted him at the first meeting that we were at So then we were all christians in a way. We went And he poured into us over the next year. He poured into us Having us memorized scripture He poured into us speaking into us teaching us how to read the bible Teaching us what the words meant as we were reading. What does it mean to be redeemed? What does it mean to be saved? What is it? What is grace? What is favor? What are all of those types of things so that as we read through the bible? We had a better understanding of what it was. He taught us principles On being a husband being a father He taught us principles on the workplace Then as we got to the end of this time as we were getting to the end of our year He started to tell us you know what? If all you do is take this information and how I've poured into you and how gods poured into you over the Over this past year and you do nothing with it but keep it to yourself He said this has been a waste of time He said i'm doing this for you so that you can go out and do this for other people so that they can go out and do This for other people and we can keep this going so that was my experience with um the marketplace and at the end of that time um I started to as he said that I started to meditate on Ephesians 2 10 Which says for we are god's workmanship created in christ jesus To do good works that he created in advance for us to do So that that he created in advance for us to do weighed heavy on my heart at that time So I started to pray and what is he taught us how to pray and taught us how to do things He said if you really want your prayers to be effective you have to understand what god's will is Because if you're inside of god's will and you're praying inside of god's will for his life Then he's going to make it happen through his power So I started to pray that I said you know What is it that you prepared in advance for me to do and I started to think oh, you know like At in my early 20s. I'm thinking are you going to send me to some foreign country? Or am I going to go into a church and work for a church or what am I going to do? And as I prayed through this and sought it out What I felt him saying to me was I have you right where I want you I want you in the marketplace and I want you going out and pouring into people's lives there And I think for a lot of us for many of us That's what our call is You know, we can't all be called into full-time ministry in the church A lot of us are called to full-time ministry and life In the marketplace pouring into people So if you look at The marketplace as a mission field, so there's a little under 200 countries in the world The united states is the third largest country. So you've got china india and then the united states But if you look at the marketplace inside of the united states There's 150 to 160 million people working in the marketplace That would make the united states marketplace The ninth largest country in the world And right now if you're working in the marketplace You're seeing a need for jesus. I'm seeing god move in the marketplace in ways that I haven't in the past 35 years that I've been there But part of that I believe is because if you go back 50 years when I was young most all my friends And their parents went to church So most people were going to church. It's just what you did now. I'm not saying everybody was on fire for jesus and They had a relationship with him like they should but at least they were there and they were hearing There was an opportunity to share and they were learning things and You look today and you can look at any of the statistics and less and less people are going to church I don't think god's sitting around saying hey, let's wait for them to come to us He told us in the great commission that we night. We need to go out and go to them And that's what's going on in the marketplace right now I've had opportunities to speak at a lot of different places and I've had opportunities to get to know The head of the west leon church for the united states and canada and spend time with him And the west leon church right now is doing something that they call marketplace multipliers So it's moving through that church right now or they're training people up inside of their congregations to go out and be missionaries into the mission field Part of a group that's um cea christian employers alliance. It's doing the same types of things um a group called c12 where there's Over 200 different groups of business people who meet once a month and pour into each others businesses and pray over the Their businesses and their communities and what's going on in the lost But the biggest thing that's going on is i'm seeing more and more people awake to the fact that we're called to go and do this We're called to share our faith and we're called to do it in the marketplace even though society tells us That that's something maybe that we're not supposed to do so the barna group in 2018 Did a study and what they based it on was they call people And they interviewed people who attended church at least two times a month and believed that the bible was god's written word And they asked them some questions. So this kind of tells you where the mindset has been And i'm seeing it change but where it has been and that is the first question they asked them was Should we act ethically in the workplace as christians? You'd think that would be a no brainer, but it was 82 of the people said yes i'm not sure what the 18 percent were thinking but Still 82 percent said yes, and then they asked them Should we make friends with non christians in the workplace? Only 66 percent said yes Just making friends with non christians in the workplace And then they asked them should we share our faith in the workplace? And only 24 percent said yes So that's not that 24 percent were sharing their faith. That's just asking them If they thought they should share their faith So we we in the western church I'm sure not in this room if you're here and you're at this conference You know, you're not having this issue But in the western church as a whole What we're seeing more and more Is people step out of this and start to step in the realization that hey, we're called to pray a church We've we've you know the conference has spoke. I hope the conference has been awesome by the way Yeah, so amazing But speaking about prayer and so much time in prayer in prayer inside of our churches But these Are all church buildings for the local church. We are the church So prayer inside of our businesses Prayer outside in the marketplace Is no different and no less important than what it is inside of these four walls We need to take it out into those places if we want to see our workplaces changed And if we want to see our communities change So what are some of the reasons that people gave for not sharing in the workplace? They said not an appropriate location. I'm being paid to work not share Now there's some truth to that We'll talk about that in a little bit that we're paid to work and we need to be a good example And we need to do that But I don't see in any of the verses in the bible where god talks about us going out and sharing our faith Where he says hey do it everywhere, but the workplace You know, don't do it there. I mean just look at jesus is his example And when he went down to the lake of galley With peter and james and got on their boat after they had been fishing all night long hadn't caught anything now that's their workplace That's for their work and that's their job If we're not supposed to go in the workplace. What was he doing going there? So he goes down there They're getting done with their shift. He borrows their equipment He stands on it and he goes ahead and he gives a message and then when he's done He does a miracle there. Should we see miracles in the workplace? We have seen miracles in our workplace We should expect miracles in our workplace and jesus did work did miracles in the workplace You can even go all the way back to genesis if we're talking about god in the workplace God gave adam the garden He was right there with him He was in the workplace So from the design in the beginning and I mean it's just common sense for everybody that sits in here But it's it's not as common as what we would like it to be That hey, we can't just get to work and say hey, that's not who I am anymore And I'm going to leave jesus outside and at five o'clock. I'll come back out and plug you back in and away. I'll go That's not what it's about. We're not going to reach the people expecting everybody to come to the churches because they're not We've got to go out to them And if we're going to spend 40 hours a week somewhere Building relationships what better place to do it than in the workplace? Where else do I spend more time? There's no place that I spend more time Than in the workplace getting to know people and if i'm purposeful about it I can take the casual relationships and then move them into meaningful relationships And then move them into spiritual relationships over time. We're going to talk a little bit about that as well Too busy not enough time for businesses wife for kids Elder at a church. I understand busy But we can find time to do those things. Hey, am I willing to Give up one lunch a week to do something like this. Am I willing to get up earlier one day and go meet people for breakfast? What am I willing to do to make that time for god? Don't feel qualified. That's the pastor's job I mean the pastors are anointed All of you pastors are anointed in a just an amazing way But it's all of our job and we are qualified sometimes we feel like giddy in and we don't think that we can do things But it's not our strength. It's god's strength. It's god's power He says uh in first peter 3 15 in your hearts honor the christ the lord is holy Always being prepared to make defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you So always be prepared. It doesn't say pastors always be prepared. It says all of us always be prepared We're all called to share when he sends us out Afraid people may not look at me Or like me. I'm sorry or look at me differently. Yes and yes That can happen. It does happen. It's happened to me over the 35 years more than once I can remember when I was young and we were just I was it was less than a year since I had made my decision and really surrendered my life and we were on fire And we were talking about it at work and this guy at work pulled me into his office and just berated me I mean just berated me about You know even talking about god at work or how could I Believe what I believed and he was just so angry and it caught me off guard It was the first time that I had ever seen that but we should expect that that's going to happen sometimes It's a spiritual battle and those types of things go on And all's we're called to do and I was called to do is just continue to love on him. He was actually Kind of a friend of my parents and by the time he passed away He had accepted Jesus as his lord and savior So he had had that change and I'm not saying that anything that I did had an impact on that But what I'm saying we just don't know where people are and we're called to love them And irregardless of if we attack if if we're attacked by them We have to be wise with how we respond and we are going to get attacked. It is going to happen. You can expect it Concerned I may lose my job I haven't seen that happen yet. I'm not saying that it couldn't happen If it did happen one thing I know hudson taylor has this saying That he said god's work and I've got it up in my office god's work done god's way will never let god's provision So I believe that wholeheartedly and if I was doing god's work And somebody let me go now if if i'm not showing up for work on time and if i'm doing a terrible job I can't blame that on hey it was because I was sharing my faith but if It did happen and it was because I was sharing my faith and I was a great employee There's no doubt in my mind that god's going to replace that with something better. I mean he promises that we can hold on to that promise so Co-workers are hostile towards anything spiritual again. That kind of goes back to what we talked about a minute ago My company has a policy against it. I really haven't seen that yet. I'm not saying that something like that couldn't happen But if you look at the fruit of the spirit and glations At the end of that it says against these things man can make no laws So if we're just doing those things and then sharing outside of work beyond that So if we're doing the fruit of the spirit out of glations is Love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness generalist and self control So if we're doing those things inside of the workplace and we're pouring that into people And then they can't tell me what I can do with my personal time And then outside of that I'm meeting with people and pouring into them and loving them and drawing them to jesus But but I honestly have not seen I have seen in a couple cases Where their companies have had policies for supervisors where they couldn't do something like that with people that worked for them For whatever reason, but that's the only thing that I've seen in the 35 years And then I've invited them to church and that's great. Yes, we need to do that We should be inviting people to church. Some people won't come So I mean we have to pour into them right where they're at, but also inviting them to church It's like we're almost like saying here here. I'm gonna hand you off to the pastor And now it's their job and it's not my job. We can't just invite them to church We've got to meet them at church. We've got to take them to lunch after church We've got to then talk to them at work We've got to do what mic did with me and we've got to say, hey, am I willing to pour into them and to mentor them And to go through and build them up We've got to pour into people beyond to just making that invite but by all means yes We should be inviting people to church John Newton who wrote Amazing grace and I'm sure you all know who he was. He was a slave boat captain Back in the 1700s and he had a radical conversion and became a priest Wrote to William Wilbur force who was a young man at that time in parliament And a lot of you probably know about him as well But he was in parliament in England trying to get the slave trade stopped there and he wrote this to him And I I read it a while ago and I just think it just applies to us in the marketplace as well He said the example and even the presence of a consistent character May have a powerful though unobserved effect on others You are not only a representative of Yorkshire You have the far greater honor of being a representative for the lord in a place Where many know him not And an opportunity of showing them what are the genuine fruits of the faith That you are known to profess So how true is that for us where the workplace is concerned as well Where he talks about Where many know him not I've I've had opportunities um to speak with especially people in their early 20s And share with them and a lot of them not a lot of them some of them don't even know the basic bible studies I mean you're starting from You would think that everybody would know the story of Noah or those types of things We're getting into a generation where that's just not true anymore It's not true in in some ways It's almost better. I don't want to say it's better But in some ways it offers a different type of opportunity Where we're starting with someone who has all kind of questions questions and not not a lot of preconceived notions about Who god is and jesus is So I mean that can but that's where we're at at this point and especially in the marketplaces we go out there In in work with people. So there's a couple scriptures that I want to read that You know, I think are foundational for Talking with people about sharing in the marketplace Romans 10 14 How can they call on the one they have not believed in how can they believe in the one they have not heard And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news And then the great commission obviously Matthew 28 18 and 20 and jesus said to them all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me Go there for and make disciples of all nations Baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit Teaching them To observe all that I have commanded you And behold I am with you always to the end of age And then second Corinthians is the last one that Out of chapter five In christ god was reconciling the world to himself Not counting their trespasses against them And entrusting to us the message of reconciliation I'll read that again and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation Therefore we are ambassadors for christ God making his appeal through us I can't tell you how many times as I've been talking with people they've they They've said, you know, that's jesus's job or that's god's job or And jesus did the job 2000 years ago. We can't do that. I can't save anybody. None of us can save anybody That's what jesus did But as we read through scriptures It's not that we don't play a part From that moving forward and drawing people to him that we're not his ambassadors I don't know how we can read through the scriptures at different places And think that we don't play a part and that's that's not part of all of our jobs And it is And so the marketplace as we go out there and as we're working in the marketplace Is a target rich environment for sharing god with people They may not always be receptive But if they feel our love and they see see our love and if it's not just about a bunch of rules And if we're building relationships and pouring into people That gives us the foundation to make to make a difference So i'm going to talk for a few minutes here another 15 minutes or so and then take some questions But i'm going to go through a few things that over the past 35 years I've seen as foundational as far as having Impactful ministry in the marketplace First is and it runs right along with the theme of the Um what what we've been talking about here and what what everybody's been preaching about here and that is prayer um A successful outreach starts with prayer and it's foundational So at our businesses We're fortunate enough to we have prayer Each day and the prayer meeting that goes on each day. I'm not a part of that one But a group gets together At a first break time and they read the proverb of the day Together so whatever day of the month it is they read that proverb and then they pray So every day we have that and then once a week I get together with a group and we do a bible study and prayer At lunchtime and it's for Some of my spiritual leaders that are there as well as family members So for a long time we had four generations of my family at our businesses praying My grandma would come in my mom was there She would come in myself and then one of my children would be there as well So there would be four generations on top of other stuff praying for The people that work there praying for things that people brought up to us from a health standpoint praying for their families praying for the community and that's foundational In what has gone on from a spiritual standpoint and I believe as well how we have been blessed in the physical realm as well And has got as how God has poured out his blessings on us But also we talked about the miracles Jesus went and did the miracle in the workplace with James and Peter and I'm gonna Pick on my daughter because she's a family member. We've seen other stuff go on But I'll just tell that story real quick. So my daughter when she was in high school It was having headaches just terrible headaches And we so we took her into the doctor and they did a CAT scan and He called me at work and he said you need to get a hold of Karen and you need to go pick Adrienne up We read something on the CAT scan and you need to get her to the hospital Or actually it was an MRI. So he said you need to go get a CAT scan So not the not the phone call you want So I grabbed her we went in when we got there They did everything and they called us into a room and they showed us and they said you see that spot That's on her brain. They said that's not normal and that's what's causing some of the issue But we don't know what it is So they did a bunch of tasks and we prayed and they couldn't figure out what was going on They we ended up going to Cleveland clinic with some specialists And they immediately knew what it was and they said it's a cavernous angioma Which is a bunch of small blood vessels that didn't form right when she was born and they started to bleed And it was bleeding on her brain and that was what was causing the problem So we prayed we prayed here at church. We prayed at work. We prayed everywhere at home We laid hands on her for six years. She had non-stop headaches So they never went away So I I had a friend who I had met through business and we became spiritual friends his name was mark girly And mark's great great grandfather. I think it was fenius girly was abraham lincoln's pastor And he had a lineage of healing and they started the healing rooms in grand rapids. Well We became friends and he said hey, I would like to do a teaching on the holy spirit in the workplace Can I use your company as a guinea pig? Can I come down and Teach some of your leaders who want to come on hearing from the holy spirit in the workplace And I said sure no problems there was about 15 of us in the room and mark came down He was teaching on that and at one point he was going through and he didn't know adrian situation He said it would be like if somebody had headaches all the time And I felt like the holy spirit said stop and tell him about adrian. So I said mark hold on a second I said actually adrian does Have headaches non-stop and she has and he said well, can we pray for her? He said sure so we all stretched out our arms and he put his Hand on her head and started to pray and she felt her head Beating and he felt heat in his hand and her headaches went away instantly And she she has yeah praise god and she has not had headaches since then Six years no headaches. That was in the marketplace That was a miracle in the marketplace and it wasn't that we hadn't prayed in other places And I can't tell you why god didn't healer six years before I'm thankful that he did when he did and he uses it the way that he used it Um, and it means what it means, but we've seen other things go on like that So as you pray in the workplace and as we Expectantly look to god to do A measurably more than we can think or imagine Through his power that verse says not through our ours. Why I can't do any of that But he can but we just have to believe it We have to know who he is and we have to know that he wants to work there Just as much as he wants to work Anywhere else there he wants to go everywhere and be everywhere including the workplace Loving our neighbors So if if prayer is foundational Which it is and it starts there and I think you know One of the things that I was taught by the man that Mentored me was through prayer when I first started off praying It was like a shotgun list of things that I thought You know, I should be praying that I wanted or needed or whatever it was and he said no no no He said that's okay. You need to talk to god, but you also need to listen And he said, you know, you look at what jesus did he got away And then when he talked to people he said I can only do what the father tells me to do So he was listening so he taught us how to listen to and listen for the holy spirit So, you know, we pray we listen And then we obey and then part of that obeying is loving our neighbors. So If we're going to build those relationships that we talked about and take them from just the casual ones Into meaningful ones and spiritual ones one of the best ways to do that Besides praying for the people on top of that is actually loving our neighbors and loving them. So when the When the the expert in the law came up to jesus and said, you know Hey, what are the most two important commandments? He takes them back to deuteronomy into leviticus and it starts with hey Love the lord your god with all your heart soul and mind and strength So hey god's at the center. That's what we've been talking about That's where it has to be and then the next one is love your neighbor as yourself And that's that outreach part that we're talking about right now. How do we reach out? Into our sphere of influence and have the largest impact we can possibly have for him And then not grow weary I had had a friend for 20. I think it was close to 25 years. We had worked together In about a year ago He was he had not given his life to the lord. He came Into my office. He closed the door and with tears in his eyes. He said He said I I I think it was like two or three weeks before he said I gave my life to jesus. He said thank you for not giving up on me and thank you for pouring into me Um over the past 20 whatever years it had been So I would be easy to think hey This person's just not going to make that decision But we don't know that We don't know that God does so we continue to love them. We continue to love on people. We can do it In a myriad of ways inside of the workplace But one of the best ways is just being kind Being kind romans Two four says god's kindness Leads people to redemption So it doesn't say I'm going to argue them in It doesn't say I'm going to use the bible to shame them in It says god's kindness leads people to redemption So you can never Under estimate just what being kind to somebody The type of impact that that has and the draw that is because it looks different Society's not that kind right now if you just get on facebook, which I'm not on but my kids I think some of them still are maybe they're all off not to but they used to share stuff There were times people would say stuff about me on there and they're like dad They're saying this about you, you know because of your stand or whatever it is and I'm like, you know, that's okay I'm not there, you know, but people Unfortunately, especially on social media just feel comfortable and being nasty at times So kindness then becomes something that differentiates us as followers of jesus from everybody else in society If we can work at that and make sure that we don't fall into that same trap that everybody else is We look different and we become attractive to them And then being spiritually attractive You know part of that is Being a good worker So we kind of alluded to it a little while I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that But if you're going to work and you're not showing up on time You're grumbling you're acting like everybody else is acting. You're not getting a lot done Then we're we're going to lose Some of that witness that we can have as opposed to if we're excelling at what we do Irregardless of the situation It's going to be much much more meaningful a couple of verses on that Colossians 3 23 Whatever you do work at it with all your heart as working for the lord not for man And then one that caught me when I was reading through proverbs when I was younger and it's kind of always stuck with me and I First time I read I was I can't even believe this isn't the bible But it's proverbs 18 9 it says whoever is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys So, you know, I don't think that's not good. I don't think we I don't think we want to be slack in our work I think we want to Pursue excellence Because we serve an excellent god. We serve an amazing god. We serve the creator of the universe And he's creative. He can give us creative Amazing ideas inside of our workplaces. I can't tell you the number of times And we talk about time and one of the things that people said is we don't have enough time But how god makes time for me I I use an example from just uh, it's fairly recent past few years Where I was walking through the shop and they were having all kinds of problems with one of our machines And I looked at it and instantaneously. They'd been working on it for a couple of hours I knew what the issue was and it was an obscure issue that I should not have known And I said I think you need to look at this and they said really I don't think that's it And I said no humor me just look at it and I walked away and I came back And that fixed the issue and the issue was fixed and that wasn't me that was the holy spirit So what that did was that saved me Half a day or a day's worth of time that I would have been there hunting through trying to figure out what that is so, you know, we can if we If we yoke up with god and if we we look back to that Hudson Taylor saying god's work done done god's way Will never lack his provision that provision is not just fiscal that provision is time that provision Is the resources that we need that provision is the ability to do The things that we want to and that he needs us to do inside of the workplace from a spiritual standpoint So we just need to continue to trust him and pour into him and continue to cry out to him for his direction You know as we As I tell people and work with people about taking god into the workplace One of the things that I tell him to do once you start praying and find other people to pray jesus sent out Um, I think it was in luke. He sent out to 72 in pairs of two So if you can find other people to pray with we have that inside of our work It doesn't have to be somebody that goes to the same church that you go to just somebody that believes The same things that you believe from the standpoint of who jesus is and what the bible teaches and then it's god's written word But if we can find those people that are like-minded to pray with That's huge and then take that That time and listen and then get those marching orders and then go out and have an impact inside of the marketplace Uh, you know, we have an opportunity to help people around us inside of the workplace discern light from darkness truth from lies True joy from fleeting happiness Eternal hope from despair In reality of eternity from the here and now Jesus when he was walking through and I'll finish up with this. He's walking through in matthew nine and He's going through the towns and the synagogues and the country side And he's seeing the crowds and he tells his disciples. He says, you know, it's the bible says he has compassion on them And then he says The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few Asked the lord of the harvest therefore to send workers out into the harvest field In the marketplace is one of those places It's a harvest field that as we continue to pray if we're getting together and we're praying That's one of the things we pray is that god will continue to raise people up and send them out into the marketplace So that we can have an impact for them for eternity um as At times I've gotten busy and and started to maybe think about coasting or wanting to coast a little bit He always brings to mind the stanza from amazing grace that says when I've been there 10 000 years bright shining as the sun I'll have no less days to sing his praise than when I first begun and the picture that I get is Who out of all of these people inside of my sphere of influence is going to be there singing with me And who's not And then that just brings me back right back to the reality of a lot of this stuff stuff is a temporal And what I need to be focused on is what's eternal All right, so I'll I'll attempt to answer a few questions if you guys have any questions You're all wore out It's it yeah Both yeah At that time it was a little uncomfortable just being honest I mean they we had relationships and I had known them long enough that they had earned the right It wasn't like a stranger coming up to me And so I knew who he was and I had seen the changes in their lives. So From that standpoint I was okay with it If it had been just somebody on the street corner or a stranger doing that then it would not have had the same meaning So it comes around those relationships life revolves around relationships our relationship with god and others and then It because they had that relationship with me and because they were willing to do that It did it got me to the point of where I just said yes to get them You know off my back and to go And and then god used that in a And just a mighty way to transform me in my life that that Their willingness to do that and care about me and love me that much Changed my life Yeah Yeah, I mean continuing to show god's love as hard as it is in those types of situations. He tells us to love our neighbor and when you go to the The parable that speaks about that You know the person the good samaritan the samaritans were not liked by the jewish people They were considered half-breeds. They had they had been conquered by syria a long time before Intermarried and it was so when jesus used that as an example to us. He's saying hey, we're called to Love everybody and he tells us to love our enemy. So I would say You know, I I would try to Limit my interactions with people that are overly hostile. There's no reason to it's just It's it can be I don't want to say can be a waste of time But you continue to love them, but I'm not going to spend all of my time with them because all's it is I did that when I was First a christian at first somebody wanted to be confrontational all of a sudden they were taking all my time And I was spending all of my time with them instead of where I instead of where I should be spending it So the enemy was using them to distract me and take me somewhere else So I would say continue to Love on those people continue to act in the way that jesus would act continue to try to pour out the fruit of the spirit But also be wise enough to limit the interactions and spend your time where you should be spending it Yeah Either one of you guys Yeah, remote work is surely A new dynamic and over the past two years when I've spoke that seems to be one of the ones that comes up Almost every time because it is Different and especially I mean it's I don't know that it's that different for people who are in their 20s But for me pushing almost 60 now it's different for me. I'm just not used to that That's not the way I work But a lot of the same principles apply and what I've seen people do is as they're pouring into people And as they see opportunities inside of meetings on You know social on on the internet, however, they're doing it What they've done is then The same way you might pull somebody aside if you're at work and speak to them in a one to one They reach out to them after they've had not in front of everybody And then they have a one to one in that manner and pour into them in that way But the hostile person which we all will deal with if we're Out in the workplace and you're trying to share your faith. There's nobody that won't it's the same type of thing that I just talked about and that is You know praying being wise With how much time I spend with that person how I interact with them Definitely loving them and showing the fruit of the spirit so they can see what's different I mean you think about that individual that screamed at me when I he literally was yelling at me Calling me names closed the door was just hostile He gave his life to jesus before he died as he went later on in life And who knows how many people and how they reacted to them him when he was hostile What kind of impact that had on him and how the holy spirit was able to use that Amen That is so true and it's and it's becoming more and more and more prevalent in that manner Yeah Yeah, I'm sorry Yeah, yeah, you definitely want to armor up and that's why I call it marketplace missionaries because if you think about missionaries They're going over in many cases into hostile In environments hostile places and they're bringing the gospel And I use that and god gave me that word for that very reason It can be that way and is that way so about three years ago god started to lay on my heart to write a book I Didn't want to because it's not something that I had ever desired to do and told him no basically for six months kind of ignored him until he beat me over the head and I finally went to caren and said I think god is saying that I should write a book. What do you think and she's a protector of my time And she does just a wonderful job with that. She's just a wonderful partner in all of this and So I was hoping she would tell me no and And she said no, I think you're supposed to I'm like oh shoot so So I ended up uh being obedient and doing what I was called to do But I say all that to say that um just uh, you know, I've spoken a little bit about what's in here There's more than that we brought books as gifts to all of you So if you want a book go up and take a book if you have somebody you want to give one to go ahead and take two But that's our gift to all of you Um, so not all the workshops have gifts, but we have a gift for you All right All right. Thank you so much. God bless all of you