Keys to a Good First Session Webinar

 Keys to a good first
session is the topic tonight. What we intend to do is to be very concise about
some very basic things, as it concerns meeting with individuals in a mentorship
type of setting. What we intend here to do with this teaching is to kind of
allow and bring that first session so that it’s not so daunting, not so scary
because we are sure that you’re getting mentors in and out of the program in
your local churches. People are signing up. People are saying, yeah, I’d like
to do this. And that’s probably turning over frequently. This could be a little
bit of a help to any of those people who have done that, or might help them get
their mind around what that looks like. What we’re going to do tonight, we’re going
to have three different buckets. We’re going to do a little bit of information
to inform. We’re going to spend most of the time on equipping you in this
teaching, and then we’ll close with a little bit of motivation. So that’s a
little bit about the layout.

The first informing piece, and we’ll be a bit brief on this as
we want to shift discipleship counseling to the local church. ACCFS has done a
great deal of discipleship counseling and discipleship counseling basically is
that low hanging fruit of just walking with people, discipling, mentoring them
as it’s through life. You can think about the heavy clinical counseling type of
things, such as bipolar and anxiety. And some of those heavy lifting things
ACCFS has always done. And we’ve done a great deal of this discipleship
counseling as well. But, we believe that discipleship counseling is most
effective in the local church where relationships are lived, where there’s a
community around a person where it is just natural.

And so if you can get a sense a little bit of our desire here
at the agency to shift that discipleship counseling and help that shift happen
to the local church. We will continue the chronic clinical counseling as well
as I’m sure discipleship in at some levels and for some situations, but really
we would like to equip the local church in this type of mentoring.

Arlan, do you have anything you want to say at this point? No.
I just want to affirm this is that we see this as one of our roles kind of
growing and expanding where we are providing curriculum, instruction, learning
in various mediums, webinar being one of them to help you do your job in the
local church and help the local church do its job well.

And, I want to emphasize too, that we are always open to
thoughts, concepts, things that you see that you would like us to cover at any
time. Feel free to shoot us an email or give us a call either of us and share
those ideas and we’ll work those in. We’ll get those incorporated.

Let’s move on now to the equipping part, keys to a first good
session. What you see before you is a bit of I guess it looks like maybe a belt
buckle. But what we want to do is we want to start inside and we’re going to
talk about basic counseling skills. So again, we’re trying to make this job of
talking with people, mentoring people, discipling people, whatever word you
like, and we want to make it manageable.

We want to help people see what it is and what it’s not. So if
you would like to think about this, we start in the very center here and we’re going
to move our way outward in these concentric circles and talk about an initial
mindset and what we want to do again, bring near the mindset of a counselor or
the mindset of a discipleship person. Again, right now your mics are muted,
feel free to make note of questions as they arise. And, once we get through, we
only have a few slides here, once we get through, we’ll open that up for
questions. I’m going to start with the initial mindset of a person who is a
helper.

Okay. Is that. Your counselee is hurting. So now we’re using
the word counselee, we’re talking about a mentee. We’re talking about a helpee
all of those words, the same thing here, but the person that I’m helping is
hurting typically. And so the initial mindset of a helper is that they
appreciate that pain realizing that it’s not a simple thing to ask for help.

This generates within us a helper, a compassion, a love for
this person. Okay. So that would be the first thing. And then going and
realizing that it’s not easy to ask for help. So we realize this and that
vulnerability is not easy. And so, we then appreciate their openness and we
support their courage.

In fact, this is a wonderful, easy, low hanging fruit way to
affirm a person. We’re always looking to encourage a person if they have
engaged in this relationship. Well, now you’ve got a reason to support them and
encourage them because it is not easy. Something is hurting. Vulnerability is
not easy. They are being open.

And so we can support that it’s not easy to ask for help. Now
we move on to say, okay, again, these are all initial mindsets of a helper. I
don’t know them or their story, a very basic concept that we take as we engage
a person for the first time as we realize, and we admit, I don’t know this
person, and this person is unique.

And their story is unique. It’s very easy to jump ahead and
say, oh, I know what this situation is about. Or I know this family situation,
or I suppose this must be the case and we can jump to those conclusions and the
initial mindset is a reminder to us that no, I really don’t know. I really
don’t know this person.

And I want to build that trust. So that’s a first type of
objective that we have when we talk to people, I want to build trust. I think
about it like money, putting it in the trust bank. I want, I’m going to need
to, in this relationship, probably draw on some equity with this person. This
is when I need to build that equity.

And so my counselee doesn’t know me either. And so, as we think
about this first session, we can think about knowing them and their story. They
also knowing us. Brother, Alan, jump in at any time if you have things that you
want said, or have been left off here. Will do. As we move through the initial
mindset, something hurts.

It’s not easy for them to ask. We appreciate this. We realize
that I don’t know. We actually have a very freeing concept here in that I don’t
need to be an expert and this is important, and this is very freeing to the
mentors that sign up or agree to do that in our churches. This is wonderful
freedom to realize that I don’t need to have all the answers.

I don’t need to know all this. Discipleship doesn’t require
expertise in all matters of life. In fact, you may not have the same temptation
as your counselee, but you have temptation, right? You may not have all the
same disappointments, but you have disappointments. So, realize, allow this and
allow those who step into mentoring in the churches to try to get out from
underneath the heaviness of I don’t know what the answer is going to be, or I
don’t know if I’m going to be able to give any advice at all. Okay. A counselor
has in their mindset that they don’t have to be an expert. Certainly love is a
part of the initial mindset. Above all things put on charity, which is the bond
of perfectness Colossians 3:14.

I love that phrase, above all things, almost as if to say if we
mess up on everything, but love is there well, Scripture says it covers a
multitude of sins. It is a wonderful, as the Scripture says, the bond of
perfectness. And so that love is imperative and that love carries the whole
relationship that we have with those that we help.

And then finally, the initial mindset having hope, leave your
counselee with hope. So critically important when we have a first session. A
first session in and of itself is hopeful. As we mentioned over here, we said,
vulnerability is not easy. And so we appreciate that openness. And so we give
them hope that they have even begun a first step.

They are being open to their need for help. That is incredibly
hopeful, but always be looking for ways to comment on hope throughout a
session. This puts something now a direction for our ears as we’re having a
conversation with somebody we’re thinking hope, hope, how can I comment hope on
here?

What can I hear or listen for and then say, ah, this is a
hopeful moment, or this is a hopeful concept. And we try to posit that hope in
there as much as possible. Wonderfully the gospel is the gospel of hope. And so
we carry that with us and certainly the gospel has its place here. As we think
about hope. Brother Arlan, anything to mention on this slide?

The one thing I want to emphasize that you have brought out,
but when we think and work with mentors, one of the first feedback we get is
people become hesitant because they feel like they have to have all the answers
to a situation that arises. And I know personally myself, when I sit down
across a table from someone, I can have that fear, that what if I get stumped
or what if I don’t know what to say?

Or what if I can’t really have anything to offer and what I
appreciate about what you shared is we can alleviate that fear. Our opportunity
is to be there, to be available, to share hope and we will talk more about
this, but to some extent, just point to the right resources when necessary, and
those are roles that we can play.

It doesn’t do well if we have a fixit mentality. We have to
fight against that a little bit. We have to live in that world of ambiguity,
where sometimes things aren’t fixed in a short time. But it’s a very healthy
mentality when we can get there and it’s a very freeing mentality as you said,
Matt, that we realize we don’t have to fix everything, we just have to be
available and care. And thanks for that, Arlan, and that is so true. And that
is, that’s the wonderful hope. I think even of this teaching that hopefully,
you brothers and sisters can carry forward to those who serve in your churches
that some of these are basically the initial mindset.

Notice that all of these things in the initial mindset do not
require any sort of further education in counseling at all. Let’s move on now
to the skills. Okay. So now I have my initial mindset. I know what I should be
thinking. Now we’re going to move on to some of to dos or what does that look
like?

So the first one to talk about here is simply the structure of
a first session. Okay. So sometimes you’re like, okay, well I’ve made the
appointment, we’re sitting down for coffee or I’m meeting them before church or
whatever that looks like. Now what? What does this session look like? Now,
there are eight things listed here.

The numbers could be juggled up in different orders. There’s
nothing sacred about the order. And there are certainly things that could be
left out, but this gives us a little bit of a list of things. So the first one
says, discuss preliminaries. Now, what that means is especially as you initiate
a co a relationship, a mentor relationship.

Is it kind of important that you lay down a few ground rules.
So we understand one another. Are we meeting, is the expectation that we meet
every other week or once a month or every week by text or by phone call or in
location or by email? Some of those preliminaries are nicely set out in front.
Another example of a preliminary that’s nice, it’s helpful, is a time limit. So
for example, if you say our meetings are going to be one hour in length, then
when you kind of are bringing it to a close at 55 minutes, that makes sense to
them. They understand that oh, we’re coming up to our 45 minute, we’re going to
bring this to a close and it gives you some freedom to do that instead of
trying to cut off something that’s moving on and on an hour or two hours.

And, you’re trying to bring this to a close. So some of those
are just preliminaries. Next is a counselee shares their story. Now, remember
they’ve, they’re talking to you and now you want to hear what the issue is. So
this is probably the largest and maybe the most daunting part of that session,
hearing that story.

Now, remember we talked about, you don’t know, we don’t know
what the story is, and so we want to hear it from them. Now, there are some
things that help some questioning, drawing out their story, for example, and
there is a learning to do this. Okay. We get better at this as time goes on,
but here’s a phrase, can you share with me why you desire mentoring?

Can you share with me what’s going on? What, you know, and you
open that up for that person to share using open ended questions. So they would
be questions such as, tell me more about that. Or you might say tell me why
that is or why did you feel this way? And it leaves them with answering in
sentences, answering in paragraphs rather than one word answers. And it helps
draw that story out. So questioning is one skillset for drawing out the story.
I’m going to go now to listening is a huge part of the story too. And then
brother Arlan, you can jump in after I’m done with these two. Making eye
contact, for example and affirming facial cues are just huge things in allowing
a person to tell their story. They want to know that you’re with them.
Remember, we don’t know what the story is. So we’re making eye contact with
them. We’re affirming with facial cues summarizing what you are hearing. So,
sometimes to pause and to stop and say, now let me understand you, right.

You said this. Yes. And you feel this way about that? Yes.
Simply it’s good for yourself so that you are hearing them and it’s good for
them to know they are being heard. So summarizing what you’re hearing is
helpful. Listening for possible goals that a counselee might have is very, very
helpful.

And now it gives you a lens to think about this conversation.
You might think, okay, what are some things that we could work on? So maybe you
might be, as you listen to their story, you might hear them say something about
trust. And so you might think, oh, I wonder if this is a goal to build trust or
faith.

Maybe they need, maybe they would have a goal to grow in faith
or might be Bible reading or something. So it’s a lens as I’m listening to
their story, what goals do they have for themselves in terms of what would be
helpful? What is the good end that they want? Listen for emotion. I sense some
fear.

What are you afraid of? You might ask. I’m listening for. Oh, I
see that they’re discouraged. And so we listen for that or they’re anxious. And
so there’s another lens to be listening for what emotions are being evoked in
their story. And then we listen for a person’s interpretations and implications
of circumstances.

So it might be that the young person talks about an encounter
with their father, for example. Listen to how they interpret that encounter and
what they think is the result of that encounter. You know, did they assume that
dad does not affirm them that dad does not value them. That would be an
implication that they took from that encounter with their father. Try to be
able to listen for, oh, this is how they interpreted that encounter with their
dad.

And this is what they think is the reason for it and the result
of it. Because often speaking into those interpretations and implications is
one area that we can speak into as mentors and as counselors. Brother, Arlan,
questioning, listening, all of this, having to do with a counsellee sharing
their story, what would you have to say?

I think the only thing I would add is there is this art to
this. And as you said, I think Matt, it is a skill that some of us are born
with and it comes naturally. And some of us have to work with it and get a
little bit better with it over time. So don’t be discouraged if that’s more
your nature, that’s something you have to work at.

And be encouraged if it becomes naturally, but, there’s this
art where you seek to understand where the other person’s coming from and you
do almost an investigation where you go broad and you start to narrow down and
say, oh, that, that trips something in my mind, maybe I need to follow up with
that or that trips something over here and I need to be thinking about that.
But while you’re doing that, don’t go too heavy, too fast. I mean, if the
individual goes there, follow the trail that they’re going. But we also don’t want
to scare someone away by trying to get it all figured out at once. I think it’s
been said that sometimes the goal of the first session is just to have a second
session.

And, I think that fits here where we’re going to listen. We’re going
to question, we’re going to seek to understand, but mostly we’re going to build
that rapport and that trust bank so that we can get together again and dig
deeper. That’s great, Arlan. And so he really commented on these first two
bullet points as being maybe the most important making eye contact, summarizing
what you’re hearing so they know that you are being heard again. That would be
most important. Some of this as we grow. Now over here. So we’re looking at the
first structure, so they share their story. Something that’s helpful is finding
out past counseling experiences, who else is speaking into this person’s life?

Okay. Maybe they have a very involved grandfather or maybe they
are meeting with their minister or elder. And then you could follow that up. Is
it okay if we talk or would that be appropriate? Sometimes sharing that and
having a larger group of helpers is helpful. Maybe they’re not comfortable with
that.

But if you find out that they’re counseling with their friends,
you know, that gives you a little bit of perspective of what is feeding into
this person. And, what other voices are speaking into their life, identifying
the person’s goals. That’s very similar to what we talked about here.

Listen for possible goals but allow them to collaborate with
you. What would your goals be? We might want some behavior to change. Okay. And
so that’s a very broad goal, right? It might be, I don’t want to be addicted to
such and such, but really there’s probably a great deal of many other goals
that precede that one, such as getting into the Word or having an active prayer
life or getting involved in and having companionship with believers.

So think about goals in a broad perspective and allow that
person to collaborate. Where are we going to start with the second session when
we come back and we talk again, where do we want to start? What do we want to,
where do we want to go from here and allow that person to have some buy-in to
the mentoring relationship. Always offer encouragement whenever you can.

That speaks again to this hope concept. Hope, always commenting
on hope whenever you see it, certainly being open and allowing for questions,
closing in prayer, all of those, and this gives you a little bit of a sense of,
this might be a way to have a first session structure. For example, having a
spirit of empathy, putting yourself in their shoes is really what we want to
do.

And having that spirit of empathy, they will catch that spirit
of empathy. And that will go a long way now in actually answering the most
important answer. So that’s now this final one, the most important answer is
simply for them to be heard, for them to connect with us and for relationship.
And I want you to catch also the optimism of this most important answer.

We did not say the most important answer is to solve their
besetting sin. We didn’t say to solve their addiction or solve this the most
important that’s all. That’s all later, the most important first answer is for
them to be heard, relationship, and connect, because then we’ve increased the
probability of a second session.

And that’s exactly what brother Arlan mentioned is sometimes
when we first begin these relationships, the number one goal is to put us in a
position to have a second session. And that then lets me free of having to
answer all the questions in the first session, having all the answers in the
first session, stopping the mentee, whenever they say something that’s not true
in the first session, realizing that no, we’re going to have another session
where we can handle and unpack some of these situations. Brother Arlan, what
would you say here before we move on?

I have nothing to add for this. I think you covered it really
well, Matt. Okay. Then, we’ve got one more slide and then we will turn mics off
and take questions or comments. And the last one is simply to motivate that
relationships work. God is a God of relationships. He invites us into his
relationship with he has with himself as a Trinity.

The gospel is much about relationships with Jesus and then he
asks the church to be relationships. He calls us a body. And so relationships
are defined. Relationships are defined by some responsibilities. The counselee
has some responsibilities in terms of commitment, being proactive, consistent,
being vulnerable or real.

That’s what we would look for in a counselee. But as a helper,
we have some responsibilities, some confidentiality, expecting growth, looking
for progression, offering that hope. Those are some of the responsibilities
that we have. And, really this relationship that you are engaging in, or the
folks in church are engaging in is really takes it’s a spectrum from
companionship, which is a friendshhip, to accountability where we’re now really
specific about an issue in a person’s life to mentoring, where you’re really
walking with a person through life. And so you can see here that the
intentionality increases as we go from companionship, mentorship, Brother
Arlan, you’ve given this a great deal of thought.

What would you add to that? I think I just want to encourage
the church and to encourage yourselves and the roles that you have within the
church to always be seeking and thinking, how can we be more purposeful and
intentional in our relationships and how can we encourage others to do so?

It really that’s the power of the Body of Christ. We are called
to relationship. And we are called to go beyond the surface into some of these
deeper levels, and by nature it doesn’t happen. It takes kind of an intentional
type effort. So I encourage you to encourage others in that regard, but also
let’s not overcomplicate it in the sense that often this happens just by
example. And, by sitting down at the lunch table, you know, we have a wonderful
setup in church with noon lunch, sitting down at the noon lunch table with
someone and just listening and questioning and being able to, as the Spirit
leads, start those conversations with someone and see where God takes that.
That is accountability.

And that goes beyond the companionship to those deeper levels.
And I really believe that’s where the power of the body of Christ comes out.
Thanks, Arlan. Okay, so we’re going to go on to now questions and comments. So
at this point, I’m going to turn off your mics here. I might go back to this
image here, where we can see some of the things and a little bit of
housekeeping items.

First of all, feel free to whatever questions you might have,
if you want to. Feel free to have those. We will also be sending out because we
are interested in some feedback. We’ll probably be sending out a Constant
Contact, which is going to have a, bit of an evaluation or a way for you to
provide feedback upon this experience. Arlan and I certainly want to learn from
it. We want to improve this teaching venue. And so, we would look forward to
your comments there. If you don’t offer ’em now, but so you could look forward
to that as well. If you do, speak up, if you would, again, mention your name
and we can have a conversation as much as you want, I think everybody’s live
now, go ahead.

Good stuff. This is very, been very informative and very
interesting. And, I think it’s some good stuff. So do you see that it, is it
something that you can pass on? Oh, I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think very much
so, in fact, you know, in sales, it’s a lot of that same stuff, you know, it is
kind of interesting how it ties down a car salesman and you know, that’s what
you’re doing with people in a sales situation is building their trust and
asking questions and listening.

There’s a lot of similarities. Sure. A lot of differences too,
but a lot of similarities. So we will be, Arlan and I will be sending out this
PowerPoint along with a very helpful article that some of the content in this
presentation came from by Lauren Whitman. And we will be sending both of those
out in our mentorship email coming out Wednesday.

So you’ll have those in your hands. Matt, I would just like to
ask, so let’s talk a little bit about the spirit of empathy versus sympathy.
How do you keep from going kind of into that sympathy versus the empathy? Was
that James? Yeah, sorry. That’s James. It was no problem. I’m just looking at
mine.

Well, the difference between sympathy and empathy by definition
I guess, would be sympathy says, I can imagine that’s difficult or I would have
to imagine that that’s difficult. Empathy says I understand that that’s
difficult. So empathy, I would say requires a little bit of vulnerability on
your own part.

Not that you share whatever your trial is, but you identify
your trials with their trials rather than being very third person saying, I
cannot relate, but I imagine that’s difficult. That would be sympathy, which is
wonderful as well. Does that make sense? And Matt, I think the other thing that
I would offer too, to that question, which is a great question, is sometimes we
can, you know, Scripture calls us to speak to truth and love.

And I think of the empathy being a little bit more on the love
side, where we can enter into their world, we can appreciate where they’re
coming from. We can, you know, feel their pain, so to speak. That’s a little
bit more of that truth piece and the love piece can be the sympathy piece where
we feel alongside them.

But if you get those out of balance, you can start to just say,
well, you know, that’s really hard. I can’t expect you to do any better and I
guess we’re just going to settle for 80% here and move on and commiserate, you
know, almost together. And so, I encourage that, you know, grounded in the
standards of the Word prayerfully discerning how to speak the truth in love and
empathize. Yes, love the person, but also keep that truth piece there where we
keep calling them to a higher standard. One of the points in the accountability
is that you expect progress. You almost demand progress that we aren’t going to
stay at 50% forever. We’re going to slowly, by God’s grace over time and with
encouragement, keep moving up that ladder.

And I think that’s a key concept at this point too.

Question brothers. This is Todd, in leading at Bluffton North,
you know, we’ve gotten to that point where we’ve putting people together and I
guess we’re trying to figure out a little bit, what is our role once that
happens? I mean, we really have had great feedback from people, but at times I
feel like maybe we’re supposed to be doing more.

We connect them. They go, we don’t want to be under their feet,
but I don’t want to feel like I’ve just like we’ve pushed people out and
they’re kind of on their own too. I mean, like. I don’t know if there’s a right
way to manage this without, you know, we send out the emails that you send us.

We’ve had maybe one meeting after we had done this for maybe
nine months just to get some feedback from them. But there’s times I feel like,
you know, maybe we should be doing more. I don’t know. I’m just, we’re just
maybe looking for your advice or your thought. I appreciate that, Todd, and
really if anybody else wants to weigh in on any of these questions, feel free
to do so. We see this team of people here as being in the trenches, so to
speak, and might be able to speak to your question, Todd. Some low hanging
fruit, Todd, that I would say is keeping the issue elevated in the minds of
people.

It’s very easy to come out as we did. The Bluffton North had a
weekend. We had the training and there’s a bit of hype in that time. And then
like everything become busy. Things seem to fall off and just the elevation of
the topic loses a bit of its inertia.

And I think one of, one kind of low hanging fruit type of thing
is just to simply encourage your people, the brothers and sisters in that
effort, helping them. And, I would think about this in two different buckets,
Todd, there is an equipment bucket where we equip people to do things.

And then there is a motivational bucket where we encourage them
and we help them want to, if that makes sense. And kind of keeping both of
those buckets full is a little bit maybe, what we would look for. And certainly,
that’s what Brother Arlan and I are trying to do, even with a meeting like this
is try to keep both of these buckets vested.

If that makes sense. I think the other thing, Todd, is we talk
about kind of, dripping out the message as much as possible. And, that speaks
the thing to that motivation bucket that Matt was talking about there. But if
there’s a way to continually get the message of mentoring dripped out, that’s
part of the point of the emails.

If the pulpit can somehow announce it every so often, or just
kind of remind that this is going on. I think that’s a healthy thing. And even
it could be appropriate. I know there’s one church that they have purposed that
every year. So they’re going to get the mentors back together.

And maybe it’s every six months. I don’t know, that might seem
like too much of an undertaking, but at least sometime maybe you have another
session where you share ideas, you share thoughts together, experiences of how
things went and almost kind of have a self-perpetuating learning experience
together as a group.

I think those I’ve heard good feedback from those churches that
have done such things. And I appreciate you guys sending those emails out cause
that’s the education part for us. I feel like the motivation at times is easy
enough. We had a neat one yesterday. We had our business meeting and our Elder
Brother Steve Ringer shared, encourage the church in the mentoring program.

And we did get an email today from a lady probably in her
eighties, offering to be a mentor, which was really kind of encouraging because
haven’t had a lot of older people. It’s been more, it seems like younger
people. So it was neat to see that. Powerful and that’s great, Todd. So, I
think keeping that door open where people, come into this work is very
important.

I mean, six months, you’ve got more people in church that are
maybe available for it. And so we have an initial door opening and then,
sometimes, we forget to include others. And so that would be part of, I think
your job, which sounds like you’re doing quite well. And that is keeping that
door open and getting new mentors in.

And then at that point in time, there would need to be some
equipping. And that’s what we’re hoping this teaching can help you with. This
would be something that you can pass on to that sister and help her, or any
anybody else that’s wanting to join. Any other questions out there? Matt and
Arlan, can you hear me now?

This is Brad. We can, yes. Okay, good. I found the right
button. So, I think this is great information for the mentors. One of the things
that, and we don’t really have a very good, or we don’t have anything formal
set up yet. I think we’re trying to move in that direction, but sometimes, in
my counseling with people, I will think, you know, I think this person could
really benefit from a mentor type relationship with someone.

But it seems like, and it’s related to this vulnerability that
you talked about they’re really intimidated by that for some reason. And, you
know, it’s maybe they’re concerned about the confidentiality aspects or
whatever. Do you have also some information that could be helpful for those
people to help them get more comfortable with the idea of being mentored?
Brother Brad, I think that’s an excellent request. I’m writing it down because
the resource, per se, isn’t immediately coming to me, but, Brother Arlan, what
are you thinking? I think that’s a key piece. I think part of it is in, the
word mentoring can be a scary word.

At least we’ve gotten that feedback in multiple different
places. Sometimes, the word of just encouragement or kind of being an
encourager, having someone walk alongside as an encourager can help alleviate
some of that fear. I think, help, I mean, sometimes the terminology makes a
little bit of a difference.

Yeah. But for the most part, it’s a culture that you’re seeking
within the church where it’s expected, and a culture takes a long time to
develop. And, it develops as they, as positive examples perpetuate themselves
over time. Which is easy to say and hard to do. But, Matt and I will put our
brains together a little bit more and that could be a great topic for a future
email because it’s come up before and that’s a great question.

One thing I might offer, Brother Brad, is maybe backing off the
expectation. You can, the person is timid about being vulnerable. Well, maybe
this person needs a companion, maybe a person to come alongside them who really
doesn’t know the situation. And that’s very healthy. Okay.

So for example, I had a counselor here who asked me to walk
alongside a client of his who didn’t know the situation who didn’t know and who
could just read the Bible with him without having all of these weights and bags
because I didn’t know what the marriage situation was.

And, that might be a non-intimidating relationship where you’re
saying no. If would you be willing to be put together with a person where they,
we, you know, you might, I’m not sure if that makes sense or not, but you
almost separate those things. And in time, maybe those things will work itself
out and she would become, or he would become more vulnerable when it’s ready.
Okay. Yeah. That’s helpful thoughts I think, brothers and yeah, I would look
forward to some additional help with that as well. We see that it’s seven
minutes till nine o’clock and there’s certainly no reason to go a complete
hour, but we want this time to be as useful, maximal use for you folks.

So feel free. If you, any questions or comments? Maybe just one
more question here. Yeah. In terms of this webinar and how it can, will be
accessed in the future. Will you just provide a link of some sort to that? How
do you see that? That’s an excellent question, Brad, and since this is the
trial run here, I’m not going to make any promises, but I did hit record and
I’m going to be interested to see what happens after we log off. And I know
that there’s going to be some file formats that are going to need to be
adjusted so that it could be played. But the pie in the sky hope is that we
would have a video of some sort that could be housed on our website and
retrieved by whomever you want.

Okay. That’s fair enough. I accept that. Matt, this is James, I
just want to. This is very clear. It comes through very good. I’m using my
iPad, but actually the sound and everything it worked really well. So I don’t
know how it’s worked for others, but for me here, it actually came in really
clear.

And everything was, you know, it wasn’t like the slides was
real delayed. It was all, so it worked out really good. So just some feedback
from here. Thanks. Thanks for that feedback. Thank you. Well, if there are no
more questions, then there’s, we would, well, let’s close in a prayer, I’ll
have that prayer and then we can log off. Heavenly father we’re thankful for
this opportunity through the technology, which Thou has allowed and are now
using for thy glory, Father. And we thank Thee that this teaching can be
brought forth. We’re thankful for the willing hearts and hands the
congregation. Step up into the lives of people and make relationships and make
disciples of Christ.

And we pray that Thou would bless this effort in all of its
many forms and all of its many locations. And we pray that Thou would be
glorified now, tonight. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thank you each one.
Brother Arlan, anything in closing? No greatly appreciate you taking time on
your evening and joining us and thanks for what you do each day to encourage
and serve others.

May God bless you. Have a good night everybody.