Leading Out Of Our Personal Discipleship Webinar

I, too, want to greet each of you in the Savior’s name. It is a blessing to be with you all in this venue again. I’ll repeat Arlan’s thanks, Brad and Michelle. Thanks so much. I’m looking forward to this topic and we’re just going to have a conversation around it and there’s going to be a lot left unsaid.

But I think we’ll leave with our thoughts stirred on this on this matter. And I really look forward to the experience that you can draw out on this topic of leading out of our own personal discipleship. Michelle, I’m going to start with a passage in 2nd Corinthians 3. And let this maybe be a foundational passage to our conversation. I’ll go ahead and read it. It’s on the screen there for everyone to see, but we read, it says, ye are our epistle written in our hearts known and read of all men for as much as you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as ourselves, but our sufficiency is of Christ, who also have made us able ministers of the New Testament.

I think this passage provides a lot of encouragement, but also a lot of depth as well. And I might just start with this, Brad and Michelle, I would be glad for your perspective.

I think this passage really says that we cannot and should not separate our personal life in Christ with that of our ministry. And that ministry does come out of that personal connection. I just think that this passage really speaks to that. And there’s a lot there.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this particular passage. And I know you’ve seen it. I’ve shared that with you prior to tonight. I’d be glad to hear what’s been on your heart as this passage sends us here tonight.

Yeah, it does really speak into this topic and speak into both our personal lives and everything that God and Christ do for us. Certainly, verse five that not feeling sufficient does come very much to our minds tonight because we don’t have this figured out. But in all of that, God works, and he provides. One of the things that come to my mind as we thought about this a little bit is another Scripture earlier in second Corinthians and chapter one that talks about how God comforts us in our troubles and our tribulations so that we are able to comfort others. And so, I think that it speaks into this idea of discipleship and our relationship with God and with Christ and how that also overflows into our service to others as ministers and any of the ways that we serve others.

I really like that example that you shared there, Brother Brad, and that out of the compassion that we have experienced in Christ, we share that same compassion with others or that reconciliation. And so there again, coming out of that personal relationship. Perhaps this is for those of us who’ve been ministering for some measure of time, but I can see where a person could get to a point of separating ministry at some level from their personal life.

I think we’ve probably seen it in some of the wider Christian culture, in terms of notable Christian leaders, but I think if I looked inward, I could see that. You learn the vocabulary, you learn the routine, you learn how to play the game like we learn how to play or to do our work, our jobs or occupation.

And I’m just curious how that hits you. Am I alone in the recognition that could possibly happen? And I’m wondering if Wellness 360 has helped. I’m part of the impetus around it or behind it to that end. No, I don’t think you’re alone, Matt, at least there’s at least 2 of us anyway, and I suspect that it’s not uncommon for a lot of those that are joining us tonight as well. But yeah, that is something that feeds into what we’re trying to do with 360 Wellness. One of the strategic agenda initiatives that we have as an Elder Body is a healthy leadership model.

And so, working through this discipleship and the different areas that feed into being healthy, as we serve, is really important. And I think that it just seems that Satan’s going to attack Christ’s church however he can, but if he can do that through the leadership, I think Satan would be pleased about that. And so, being on guard about that and sure, there are examples in the wider Christian culture. We try to pay some attention to those, and the reality is, there’s also examples among us. Sometimes maybe they’re different, maybe they’re not, I don’t know.

But whether that’s moral failure or whether it’s abuse of power or being present but not engaged, as you described a little bit, Matt, all of those things are things that we’d like to be proactive about creating a culture that moves us away from those sorts of things and not just reacting to problems as they come up.

I really appreciate that. I appreciated your statements there about Satan’s attack. And I guess a question that I’d follow up with is, have you found even personally that Satan attacks uniquely because of your position or because of the roles that you’re in? Have you found somewhat of a target on your back simply because of the call to the ministry?

And I’m curious about your thoughts there. Yeah, I feel like almost right away. I felt like our marriage was under attack and there’s all kinds of misunderstandings that we had to work through, which, in the long run, I think it’s made us better, but I think right at first, it was definitely attacked.

Thanks for that. Yeah, Brad. I don’t know if you add to that. Yeah, so serving as a minister as an elder is a unique form of service within the church that, in general, a relatively small percentage of the church experiences. And it’s a role that we engage in and there are unique ways that Satan would come about to try to destroy relationships because of decisions that we have to make. It makes us feel very acutely any sense of division within the church that I don’t think other people necessarily feel. Certainly not in the same way that I would and so that brings a sense of discouragement and things like that, that I think have to be a unique way that Satan would tend to attack someone who’s in that kind of a position.

And I think that’s part of the intention here as we start this conversation. We set that up to say, this is a real topic and a real conversation, something that’s important. And I know that Wellness 360 sees it as that and so I’m going to step through just a little bit about what we’re going to look at here in terms of the contents of tonight. We’re going to first identify some definition because we’ve used some terms, discipleship, for example, is a term we’ve used already.

It’s in the title, serving out of personal discipleship is a phrase we’ve used. So, we want to provide a little articulation of what we mean by that. And then we’re going to talk a little bit about the address, the hope that lies in serving out of our personal discipleship. Then we’ll look at what serving out of a personal discipleship might look like.

So again, drawing out that caricature of what it might look like. And then finally, how might we grow in our personal discipleship? So, these are all the points that we’ll talk about. Maybe we’ll stay linear with them and follow one after the other, or maybe we’ll jump around, not a big deal, but I’m going to start with this definitional piece, Brad and Michelle, just to be somewhat clear here about what it is that we mean by these terms.

And so, here’s a definition that we’re going to use for discipleship. And that is one who’s in training to the end that he or she might live their entire life in the way of Christ and help others do the same.

The one who’s in training to the end that he or she might live their entire life in the way of Christ and help others do the same. So, this is what we’re going to talk about when we use the term discipleship. Sometimes we get a better sense of it by words and phrases, maybe in a word, discipleship might be training or apprenticeship or practicing or following.

In a phrase, it might look like being a student of Jesus, identification with Jesus or ongoing transformation to Christ likeness. Add to these or make any comment on these as you think about your own life and your walk as a disciple of Christ for many years. Which of these words strike close to your experience or that you want to highlight or, perhaps a word or a phrase that’s not in the list.

I’d be glad to hear that as well as again, as we fill out the space of what a disciple is we’re talking about. I would add a word, appreciating. I feel like we need to spend time thinking about who Jesus was and what he did for me and how he lived for me. If I can appreciate that, maybe I can be more like him.

You’re really bringing a contemplative aspect to it and reflective, which I think is excellent, Michelle. Yeah, it seems like when we think about being a disciple, we think of Christ’s 12 disciples. And sometimes I like to think about what that looked like. Maybe we have a picture in mind of Jesus teaching them and they’re all sitting around and they’re interacting and engaging together or they’re traveling together.

They travel together a lot. So, it’s a real sense of just doing life together, and it’s not a mode that we go into and out of. Sometimes we feel more engaged than others, but it’s a part of life. And so, what probably strikes me the most in the phrases here is that it’s an ongoing transformation that doesn’t happen necessarily quickly or in a linear way, but hopefully continues to happen throughout our lives. And often in ways that are very, very small, or what we would say is very small. This is about learning and being trained and practicing little bits at a time. And I know we’ll talk more about that as we go on here.

What I hear you say there, Brad, is this a dynamic relationship, a relationship in motion and sometimes we use words like I’m stagnant, right? We know that doesn’t feel right. And I can certainly attest to what that feels like to be stagnant where it feels like I’m perhaps not in that dynamic following or apprenticeship mode or whatever it is. And I don’t know, can you relate to those feelings? And what do you do then to reconnect? And sometimes we can mask it in ministry, right? It looks like we don’t. It looks like we’re thriving or vibrant, but we can mask it in ministry.

Again, full confession there, but yeah, that’s true. And maybe that’s a part of the in season and out of season that the Word calls us to. Preach the Word both in season and out of season. But at the same time, I don’t think any of us want to stay there and it’s certainly not healthy to stay there. How do you get out of that mode when you find yourself there?

I don’t know that I have anything dramatic, but it’s going back and just intentionally engaging in the Word and in prayer. I’ll usually find that I’m stagnant in those kinds of things if I’m overall feeling a little bit stagnant. That’s advice that anybody on the call would get, Brad.

I’m so glad you said that it was not dramatic because, I think, we’re all sighing a sigh of relief that it’s not something dramatic, but something ordinary. Right? Yeah, Michelle, what comes to your mind to get that engine going again? I think just acknowledging that you have it is the first thing.

I got it and I need to do something to move closer. So, not getting comfortable with stagnant is the first step. Right? Correct. Yes. Or denying it. Yes. Or we can pretend to ourselves sometimes just not to other people. And so, acknowledging it, like she’s saying, I think is a good thing.

I really appreciate that. You know, as we talk about then serving out of one’s personal discipleship, this is how we’re going to understand it here tonight but seeing our service to the congregation on and off the pulpit, to be an extension of our personal relationship with God. And so, we’re really tying these things very, very closely.

I guess, could we say this then that we cannot minister health or where we’ve got a limited ability to minister health to people beyond the health of ourselves. Is that the connection that we want to make? Yeah, I think that’s true. It’s certainly not long term to be in an unhealthy place and still minister health to others.

I really appreciate that. You know, I was reading in Hebrews, Chapter 5 verse 2 and I found this to be interesting. He’s talking about the priests, the priesthood, and Christ is the ultimate high priest, but he talks about the Hebrew priests, and he says this, I’m paraphrasing, but the Scripture says the priest has compassion on the people he serves because of his own infirmities. And so, I was blessed by that to see that spiritual leaders in that time lived out of their personal relationship with God and even their struggles. And I think that’s going to lead us then, as we talk about the hope that lies within us. There is a hope here in serving out of personal discipleship. It’s really a beautiful thing that we can serve out of a personal discipleship because Christ meets us in that very personal way.

So, let’s move to this one, just a few comments. And I would love to hear your thoughts too, as we talk about what health there is in serving out of a personal discipleship.

This image here that we have God, self, and others. We find, I think, value in all of these. But it’s going to promote a proper relationship between us and Christ. So, there’s a vertical relationship, promotes a proper relationship between us and those that we serve and their proper relationship between us and our ministry. I’d love for you to take any of these on for size and illustrate them or speak to them to the health that we find in leading out of a personal relationship as it regards to us in Christ or us in their congregation or us in our personal lives.

So, I think we’re probably pretty aware that we need to have a healthy relationship with God and we’re maybe all in a little bit different place with that or different seasons in life that feels better than others. And so doing, what doing our part to maintain that is certainly good.

And just for me, it’s just an ongoing realization that God is faithful. He can’t change who he is. He can’t change the fact that he loves me and that he cares about me and that he cares about those that I’m called to serve. That’s who he is.

When we think about our relationship with others, with those that we’re called to serve in the church, I have a phrase that I say quite often that people are complicated, and I may be the most complicated one of them all. And so, I would say never feel like I do a good job of relating to people and communicating and, there’s times that we go through difficult times. Frankly, we’re going through one of those right now, Michelle and I are, with our church and so those things happen. But again, God knows all of that and he cares. And we can trust in that. So, that leads me to thinking about this internal relationship with ourselves. I can very quickly and easily get discouraged, despondent, anxious, even depressed by the pressures that come in relationships with others.

I’m still learning to deal with that is to feed on truth. God is faithful. I’ll turn to the Psalms and read the places where David, or whoever the author is, is lamenting, but he turns to God in that lament. I think God can handle our complaints but just rest in the fact that in the end, God’s got this.

So, these different relationships are all like you said, Matt, they’re dynamic, they’re ongoing. But learning, trying to make progress to learn about how to do self-care enables the other things to happen. And it has been really critical for me. Sometimes it feels just like for survival, to manage life and so, hopefully that’s helpful somehow.

There was a time when I was really feeling the pressure and experiencing a lot of anxiety, even depression, and I sought out counseling, and from that, I got a set of tools that now I can use to help myself go through this, and those things are very hopeful to me and very helpful. But one of those is a document that’s called Truth Talk. It’s available on the ACCFS website. But there’s a sentence in there that I love. When I pull that out and read it to help myself feed on truth to get me through the day. But that sentence says something like, growth is not about perfection, but it’s about progress.

And so often I’ll tend to measure by whatever I think some ideal is, rather than by am I moving in the right direction? And sometimes I have to look back over a longer time than just the last 10 minutes to define that out. So, I really appreciate that as we think about serving or ministering out of that personal discipleship, then it is serving out of that growing perfection. We’re not a product of perfection but growing into Christ’s perfection and there is some satisfaction or some solace recognizing that I’m heading in a direction here and I’m serving out of that direction rather than having arrived at any given particular place.

Certainly. Yeah. We need to take care of ourselves too. I mean control my reactions to others. I can’t control what they do. So, if we just keep looking internally and help that grow, maybe that can help the relationship with others. How in tune are both of you to each other’s personal walk with Jesus? Is that a place that you can peer into pretty easily? Or is that something that’s even more private?

Probably more private. Yeah, I would say it’s more private, but we have learned to more quickly go to sharing, me especially. It’s just sharing with Michelle what I’m struggling with so that it doesn’t go as far into her having to wonder what it is I’m struggling with and is it something that she’s done or not? Or is it something that’s elsewhere in my life that I’m ruminating on and I’m struggling with? So, I think, probably our personal walk with Christ, we would maybe be a little bit more private, but I would say that we’re growing in continuing to be more open about the things that we’re wrestling with. It may not be exactly where it should be or we would like it to be, but I think we’re moving in the right direction and that is hopeful.

I really appreciate that. I think that gives us a lot of perspective as well not being able to peer into a marriage relationship. And I’m certain all marriages operate a little bit differently, but I think that’s very special. Have you learned how to better engage one another? Or has that been a learning process as well over time to know Michelle, when to engage Brad or when to preempt the matter with Michelle? Oh, definitely.

I’ve learned a lot. There are times I know I need to leave him alone and let him just think. We are both internal processors, so I do get that a little bit. I know when to leave, but there comes a time where, when I get so frustrated, I got to ask him, we’ve got to talk about this.

So, yeah, we’ve really stepped into this next point here, which really is what does it look like? So, what might serving out of a personal discipleship look like? I think we’ve been seeing it in your testimony as you share about it, I think, nicely, but let’s just go ahead and continue the conversation.

Leadership comes from followership. Followership isn’t a word that we use very often, but we use leadership a lot. But leadership that comes from followership is part of what it looks like to lead out of a personal discipleship feeding on what you’ve been fed. Brother, Brad, you mentioned really spending time in the Psalms. And at some point in time, you probably, this is kind of a gross picture, but I think it really illustrates a lot. Birds feed their young by what they’ve eaten, right? They go and they fill themselves and they receive nourishment from it. And then they feed their young, exampling lessons you learned.

So, I would really like to hear what your thoughts are about what you’ve learned about leading from following. It’s kind of a catchy phrase or a little bit of an oxymoron, but what have you learned about that and how do you do it? Well, I think we don’t often think of those together.

So, one of the first things that comes to my mind when I see that sentence, several years ago when our sons were getting ready to enter college. We took them to Kansas State, you go through all of the sales pitch and everything that they have to offer. And one of the things that they were really pushing, the university was pushing at that time was their leadership studies program.

And they were bragging about how many of their students had minors in leadership and things like that. I just sat there and listened to all of that. And I’m thinking, you know, I think maybe they need a program in followship or followership. Because I think that my experience is that all of us are following someone.

Certainly, we’re following Christ. And in any organization, well within the church, we wouldn’t want an individual to have absolute power. And so, we have to work together and that’s a sense of following. And it just seems like the humility that’s needed for leadership comes from knowing how to follow and certainly from knowing submission to Christ and reliance on him and trusting him to continue to care for us.

So that’s, I think, very vital and it’s something that in terms of leading out of that kind of discipleship for myself is something that I do feel compelled to try to teach others and to demonstrate to others and be an example of a good follower when maybe that’s when I’ve delegated something to someone else and I accept the way that they choose to do it within boundaries, but I accept the way they choose to do it, even if it was different than the way that I might have done it myself. Which doesn’t come naturally to me. My boys have told me often that I’m great at letting people do things the way the way they want and not telling them what to do as long as they do it the way you would have done it. And so, they’ve called me out on that a few times.

I think that’s beautiful though, Brad, submission. Listen to these words that followship teaches us submission, trust, and humility. These are the words that you used in your description and to think that comes out of personal discipleship where following is the objective.

I think it’s beautiful and it’s very persuasive. Compelling, I think, is a better word. It’s very compelling. I appreciated your example of birds. Yeah, that sounds a little disgusting, but I find myself doing that both when I’m preaching, or talking with someone, whether that’s more of a formal counseling role or just visiting with someone in church. I’m not good at quoting Scripture necessarily, but just the concepts and the things that I’ve learned from the Psalms or other places in the Bible, I feel that regurgitation happening in those kinds of examples. So, I think that’s a very real thing.

I really appreciate that. And, you know, Brad, I think we probably all have experienced this, that when we sit down with the Word, it’s very easy to have an audience in our head. Right. What does this look like? Or how would I preach this? Or how would I teach this? Or I sure need to understand this because of this other thing as opposed to really taking it in myself because of my own personal need, never mind the audience. But then having that come out for the audience when God wants it to happen is a beautiful model that you’ve really illustrated.

But how do you do that? What does that look like in your own personal time? Is that a mental thing that you do to say this is for me? This is me time and not them time. What have you learned in that space? I’d be glad to learn. Yeah, well, I’m still learning. So, teaching is a gift that God has given me, so it’s very natural for me to sit down with the Word and immediately start thinking about how I would teach this, or what are the main points that I would want to make if I was talking through this Scripture. So, sometimes it is a pause, and okay, I just need to be thinking more about what I can learn from this and what will be comforting to me and soothing to me and will draw me closer to God. Other times it just comes out of a deeply felt need. When I talked earlier about feeding on the Psalms, often that’s out of a deeply felt need.

And in those situations, I tend to not think about how I’m going to teach this. I tend to think more about how I just want this to help me in this moment to be comforted and to have my trust in God increased. And then you mentioned about how helping others do that as well with the example of following, learning to follow, and then helping others follow as well.

And this third bullet here is exampling lessons learned. Speak to vulnerability. We all know the phrase, practice what you preach. It’s a good phrase. But that’s a pretty high standard. And I think we’ve all had this situation where we might be preaching on anger and the wife and kids know just exactly what and how that went there. And it’s easy to wax eloquent, right, and so there’s a degree, I think, of vulnerability. Certainly, there are boundaries here on how vulnerable we should be. What have you learned about being vulnerable, being known by people, being known by your congregation?

Anyway, anything in that space, I’d be interested. When he preaches, he’ll be a little bit vulnerable there as far as he’ll say, I’ll preach to myself here a little bit and everybody else can listen if they want. Okay. I like that a lot. Yeah. I think we can be vulnerable in the sense of we can approach whatever Scripture we’re working through from the pulpit. Maybe we could avoid it which probably isn’t good for the church or for us. We could approach it from the standpoint of I don’t know, claiming that I don’t do good at this and moving on which might be better. But I think working through it, speaking truth still, at the same time acknowledging that when we’re in front of our congregation, we’re not the prophet from a far country, just recognize, you see how I live my life. You see how I interact with people. You’ve experienced how I’ve interacted with you. And sometimes I don’t get it right but encouraging all of us to keep pressing on to allow God to mold us and shape us and change us. There’s a vulnerability there and I don’t know that I have that completely figured out.

I know I don’t, but I think that doing it in a way gives a sense that we’re in this together, is a healthy way to approach that. I sense in your illustration that you’re real, and that’s important. And that there’s honesty, maybe that there’s improvement there, but also an illustration on the gains that are made or perhaps what we’re doing about it.

As I think about anger, for example, you could choose a thousand different situations. How am I being discipled in this particular area of my life is something that you’re putting on display for the congregation, which I think is a really powerful sermon in and of itself.

Not only are we learning the quality, but we’re learning how that looks like being discipled in a person’s life is powerful. Yeah, and I’m just sitting here thinking, I hope that if anybody from the Bern congregation is listening to this, they’ll recognize this as being true, because yeah, it is what it is, and we don’t always get it.

Right. Well, even that sentiment there, Brad, speaks to the whole topic of tonight. I think all of us on the call here understand that. I think you’ve really brought out a beautiful vulnerability that you and Michelle have with one another. And certainly, there’s really importance there. And if we’re not married, then to have somebody else that we can be completely vulnerable with is, I think, really, really helpful.

Let’s move to this next one which comes down to how we might grow in this personal discipleship? We started with 2nd Corinthians 3 here at the last verse is beautiful. We know it here, but we all with open face beholding as in a glass. The glory of the Lord is changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. It speaks to that process that you spoke of on the discipleship slide, Brad, that this is a relationship in progress.

It is dynamic and the change that is brought about in our lives and the lives that we serve is measured and incremental over time. And so, my question then is really twofold. One is personal and the other one is 360 Wellness. I want you to speak to that, but maybe we’ll just talk about the personal one first.

What personal examples of discipleship practices have you found helpful in this season of your life? So, I know for me, I feel like I’m always having to do something intentional in an area that I grow, and I do something little, but it feels life changing. As I look back, it is life changing.

So, like, right now, I feel just like I’m not, maybe loving the Bern Church, like Christ would want me to love it. So, I started going through the book and every week, I pick a couple or single, and I think about what I appreciate about them, what I’m thankful about for them, and then I pray for them that whole week thinking of that.

And after you do that for a whole week, it’s easier to love them. I mean, even if it’s somebody that maybe you’ve been sideways with or whatever, yeah, it’s something little, but life changing. I want to capture a couple of things with that, Michelle. One is that you kind of started with the end in mind.

I need to be more loving. And then you worked backwards from that and said, how do I get there? And you mentioned intentional practice. You gave a great example of what that intentional practice is on a daily basis that over time makes a difference. I think it’s a beautiful way of ministering out of your personal discipleship. Thanks for that.

There’s something that I’m thinking about, and it was prompted a little bit by one of the questions that were sent in ahead of time. Sometimes, I think all of us would probably feel the pressure to do more, and whatever that is, whether it’s more devotion and our personal devotions, or whether it’s more interaction with the church, whatever that looks like, but one of the things I remember being taught by ACCFS once when we had them come to Bern was that every time we say yes to something, on the other side of that is a no to something else.

So, while I might say yes to, I don’t know, pick something, I might say yes to going to the nursing home to visit some older sisters that are there. That’s a good thing. But when I do that, I’m saying no to something that I could have spent that time doing what could have been also something that’s very good.

So, knowing that when I say yes, there’s a no associated with that doesn’t necessarily make the decision perfectly clear. Being aware of that and as I make those decisions or thinking about that, at least a little bit, probably helps as much as anything with the guilt that I’m leaving something undone and that tension that comes from that sense, because I can’t do everything. It’s not possible. So, just thinking about that is something that is helpful to me. You speak of time is of the essence of what you’ve just shared there to a yes is a no and no is a yes. You only have so much time and that certainly is something that is on everybody. Right?

What have you learned about time usage as it regards your personal relationship with God? You know, how do you carve it out? Or do you see it differently in your stage of life than 20 years ago? I don’t know. Give us some perspective there.

Yeah, I don’t know. Do you have some thoughts? So, well, as far as I feel there is probably a difference that we don’t have our young children. So, when he comes home from work, I’m not passing off young children to him where I’ve had it. So, he doesn’t have that, although we travel to see our adult children, which we haven’t done very good, but anyhow, we have to travel or make time for that. I don’t know. Yeah, we also need more time.

I don’t know. That’s hard, but it changes. I mean, you’ve mentioned phases a number of times, Sister Michelle, when you’re talking about being thankful. You mentioned this time of life, or I think it was the phrase you used, but I get a sense that our personal devotional lives with Christ don’t look necessarily the same for 50 years.

They ebb and flow with life’s demands or what it looks. It’s in context of life, I guess. Yeah, so it’s something that’s been a big deal for us in the last year and many people on the call know this, but the first part of February, I was doing something stupid, and I slid off of a roof and got busted up pretty bad and both of my legs. And of course, you know, that took about 2 seconds to happen. And it turns life upside down immediately for both of us. Yeah. And so we were thankful that some of our previous experiences in life have enabled us to navigate that, not perfectly, but okay, and especially that first or second day when I was in the hospital and going through surgery and things like that with pain not under control. Yeah, I was in pain, and we can start to feel pretty helpless in those situations. But Michelle really helped us through that. Just tell him what you did, hon.

Well, I felt like I just wasn’t thankful enough. I really, as a whole, feel like I’m a thankful person, but I should be thankful that he’s alive. I should be thankful his head wasn’t hit. There’s all this stuff, but all I could see was the bad thing, how my life is going to change, how much pain he’s in. I want to fix that for him. All of this stuff. And I decided to start a list, and we did it together, of the blessings and the things that we can be thankful for.

I mean, starting out with somebody who saw the accident. So, the ambulance was there. We just walked through and then we kept doing that ongoing and it just helped take the focus off of us and just have a more thankful attitude. Yeah, and there again, it follows that same shape that you previously said that you saw the end. This is where we want to be. We want to have this posture towards our situation, but we don’t. And what can we do today? And with measured intentionality for us to get there.

And I think your example is excellent. Thank you for that. We’d love to mine more of the personal, but I did ask for 360. I’m looking at the time. Share a little bit about 360 Wellness and how they view that personal health. Sure. So, 360 Wellness is a work group, is the term we use within the Elder Body. There are currently four elders and three elders’ wives serving on that. Michelle and I both serve on that work group.

And our desire is to be proactive, to try to give a variety of things that we’ll probably cover in the next slide, but a variety of things that we’ve worked on and try to develop. We primarily distribute this information to elders and elders’ wives but with an encouragement that they pass that along to the ministers that they serve with. And they can go to anyone, there’s no restrictions there in terms of how it can be shared. As we think about wellness, we want this to be a comprehensive thing that focuses on different parts of our lives.

And so, we’ve chosen these 3 categories to focus on, and in the tools, the things that we have been developing will deal with one or more of these categories. So, the first one is personal stewardship. So, it’s the kinds of things that happen within us and in our personal relationship with God. And then we recognize that most of us are married and have families. And so, prioritizing those relationships and not allowing them to get swallowed up in the roles that we serve the second category. And then the third one, we’re calling shepherding and relationships, and these are not necessarily focused on how to do things, how to do a wedding or how to do a baptism or a testimony or any of those kinds of things, but more on the interpersonal skills that we need as leaders and communicating and dealing with conflict and all of those kinds of things that that we’re confronted with. So, those are the kinds of things we try to focus on within 360 Wellness. And that’s it. And that’s excellent.

I can see that tonight’s webinar really focused on that number one category, didn’t it? That personal stewardship. Absolutely. Yeah. So, there’s proactive helps that are available through 360 Wellness. Go ahead and speak to some of these helps. Yeah, so what you see on the screen here are just some of the things that we have been doing or developing over the course of the last 3 or 4 years now. One of those are well-being assessments and these are available to anyone, and you can get those from your elder or your elder’s wife. It’s just a way of assessing where I am at in a certain area and then a potential to use that as a discussion with your spouse or with a mentor or something like that.

Another one is at the March Elder Conferences, we try to spend some time focusing on some of these things and being intentional about spending time amongst all the other business, sending out some periodic emails with resources that are out there and available that might encourage. We’re trying to do better about onboarding new couples and ordained leadership by providing some resources through ACCFS for them to think through their relationship and how they’re thinking about their new role and then just encouraging mentoring and intentional relationships with each other.

So, these are just some examples. All of these are intended to be proactive. So, it’s not trying to fix a problem, it’s not going to the doctor, but it’s going to the gym or eating healthy sort of examples, ahead of time. Well, and I think that’s really the spirit of this webinar altogether, that we would live into this discipleship, personal relationship with Christ just to that exact end.

We’ve got the website down there. That’s just a website that would house some of these things. Is that right? That’s correct. Okay, and that is available for ministers to use. Yeah. It will be a publicly available website that anybody can access.

Great. As Arlan mentioned at the beginning of this webinar, this will be recorded. This slide deck will be made available on our website and that link will be there, to be accessed as well. We really appreciate it, Brad, we are right at the bottom of the hour.

And so, we want to be respectful of everybody’s time. And I know that we’ve been fortunate to hear you share this topic. You’ve been vulnerable and we’re thankful for that. We recognize that, thanks. Really, really appreciate it.

Yeah, it’s our hope that we can through our experiences, not that they’re unique, and talking to people, somehow be helpful to others and not that we have it figured out, certainly not. Well, I think the point has been well made that it is not in the destination but in the progress towards that destination.

And I think that’s part of the hope that we have that we can then minister out of that progress, and out of that training after Christlikeness that we each do personally. So, each one that was on here tonight, thank you. We are right at the bottom of the hour. We want to be respectful of time.

So, we’re going to go ahead and sign off at this point. This webinar will be recorded, and you can find it on our webpage. So, thanks each one for being here.