DCC Church Family Meeting 04.19.26

Thank you for tuning in! This is a recording of Downtown Community Church's quarterly "Church Family Meeting". This meeting was held at the church on April 19th, 2026. Everyone who calls DCC their home church was invited to attend! The purpose of this meeting was to share where the church is, where God is calling it to go, and how the congregation can be a part of it.

After listening to this recording, we encourage you to fill out this Church Family Meeting follow up form. This form is to share your thoughts, submit any questions you would like to receive follow up on, and let us know if there is a ministry you are interested in leading/serving in at our church. If you submit a form, someone on leadership will follow up with you. 

In this recording you'll hear from Lead Pastor, Ben Keampfer, Pastor/Director of Ministries, Nate Schaidt, and Director of Operations, Delaney Stoner. Some topics covered in this meeting are church governance, staffing updates, future groups structure, and a 2026 Q1 finance update. 

Thanks for being a part of our mission to Love God, Make Disciples, and Be Great Neighbors in Tallahassee and Beyond. Happy listening!

Link to view PDF of Church Family Meeting Slides - 04.19.26

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Downtown Community Church Podcast. I am Nate Shade. I am one of the staff members here. I'm the director of ministries, and we are getting ready to present to you the church family meeting from April 19th. We took place at seven o'clock that night. You're going to hear from Ben, Delaney, and myself as we go over the state of the church, where we are today, where we are headed, where God is leading us, and where you, as a member of the church congregation, can be involved and help in that scenario. So what we're going to ask is that you listen in intently. And at the end of it, you will see that there is a feedback form in the notes here of the podcast. We would love to hear from you. So click on that, fill out the feedback form, let us know what you think. If you have any further questions, please ask them there. We'd love to get back to you with anything that uh you may uh have questions about. And then also if there's some places where you feel that God is leading you to serve or maybe ministries that you would like to begin, please indicate that there, and we will get back to you shortly. So enjoy and God bless.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Well, welcome, church. I just want to first say um thank you so much for being here tonight. Uh and if you're listening to this online, thank you so much for taking the time to listen and be a part. Uh, this has honestly been a uh something that we've been talking about for almost a year now. I mean, we we were discussions of having this meeting in September of last year and have continually been on a trajectory of really kind of discovering what it is that God's doing here uh and where he's going. And again, our our heart is that you would kind of just from all this have a really clear picture of where we've been, uh, where we are, where we're going, and really how you play a part in it. And obviously, in in planning this for a while, I've thought a hundred times about what's the best starting point to the state of the church and all the work that's been in. And I think probably the best spot is just over a year ago, we had some good friends from New Rules Consulting come in and really help us to understand some stuff that was happening in our church. There were some tensions that were happening, trying to figure out kind of, you know, what's happening. It just felt a little bit like misalignment. And uh during that period, they they identified that the core issue, there's a couple that they saw, but the core issue that they saw was that we were really actually a church of two different visions. This was something that we had felt, and I don't think that anybody had named at that point, but we could sense it. And the best way to categorize these two visions and what they meant um is one is what I would call a more clean segmented church. Um the other being a more integrated, gritty type of church. And let me put a couple thoughts to the different versions, and maybe you'll, if you've been around here for a while, you'll you'll see kind of how this has been true. Um, the clean segmented church, probably the best like actual um organizational uh picture of this was all of our spiritual formation uh over a year ago. If you remember, everything was segmented. We had different groups for every different like quasi-slice of population that there was. Everything from young married, young professional, we had, you know, uh men's groups, women's groups, dad's groups, mom's groups, recently married, we had um college, you know, men's college women's, uh freshmen, women, women, freshmen. I mean, there was just everybody had their own segmented group. In fact, uh, if many of you remember Pastor Shannon, who went and has recently planted um redemption church on the south side here in Tallahassee, uh, when he came into our staff and was over our groups, he actually said, This is the most segmented groups that I have ever seen. You guys, you have a group for every type of people in all around basic likeness, but there's almost no groups for just everybody. And what we realized was that there was this stroke segmentation, but it wasn't just segmentation of the groups, it was actually the segmentation of people, right? Um, that the community when people spent time with each other was hyper-segmented. In fact, even the ministry, right? We would go and we would do ministry with and to and for the marginalized, but that was the group we went to, another group that was a part of our church community was segmented again. Our content segmented. We had different things that were going over Sunday morning and Sunday morning service in big church, different things in kids' church, different stuff in youth group. And so everything was kind of differentiated and fragmented. In addition to that, what they really said and what we saw was that we had an amazing staff that was helping to run and to support all of these ministries. But the biggest issue that we saw was that it was just kind of this underdevelopment, that they could handle more responsibility than what they um were handling at the time, but they really just needed more kind of developmental growth to be able to really lean and lead into that. And what that was causing, and you've probably seen this too, was that it felt like in order to make a difference at this church, you had to be on staff. To carry meaningful responsibility, you had to be on staff. And so we knew that we had to kind of uh break all of those things down. And honestly, over the last year, it's been somewhat like I've said it a couple times, but leading with a veil on, that I was close enough to be able to continually follow where Jesus was leading and more recently have seen where he's leading to, which is why we're at this conversation. And frankly, why we didn't have it in September. Because we could sense it at the time, but I don't think the picture of what God was creating what was was as clear. Um so we did a couple of things uh in that time and made a couple of decisions. Uh, some of them were stuff like the multi-generational groups, right? Just completely, completely removing all the segmentations of those groups. Uh, we did a number of things like um started to integrate the curriculum, right? So what happened on Sunday morning happened on uh in big church. We were covering the same set of verses in uh kids' church. We started covering the same set of verses in youth group. So that way when a parent went home, they could talk to their kid about what they had heard, and they had just heard the same things, obviously, kids' version versus parents' version, but it set the parents up actually in a way to be able to have that. So we started to kind of look more and more at how we wanted to do that. Things that we did that we felt like, man, we can either we felt early on in September um stretch our disciples or continue to shift the culture, right? And stay at two services because kind of where we were attendance-wise and everything, we kind of needed to go to three, but we just had a really honest conversation that we can either stretch or we can continue to shift. And we felt like shifting the culture of the church was much more important than trying to just grow and stretch for the sake of growing and stretching. Um, and so as we started to go through all of those changes and shifts, you know, a lot of them, again, it we didn't think we had the full picture of what God was creating on the other side of that, but it just was consistently following him. And what that led to was really interesting. What we realized is as we went to this multi-generational, seg non-segmented, integrated, gritty, right? Where we're also in the context of how we're looking at people's spiritual lives, it's not just this sense of, I felt like in terms of formation, we were so quick to want to get people cleaned up on the outside, click, quick to get this behavior modification, get this, get this, get this exterior cleaned up so that you can look more like Jesus. And what I kept seeing in the scriptures is this sense that people, God has his greatest commandment was to love, to love the Lord your God with your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And sometimes we say, okay, but we show that we love God by the things that we do, which is true, but oftentimes we can do things without actually loving God at all. And we're not really pasturing the passion, the desire, the love for God and people. We're just cleaning up the exterior and at times creating what felt like kind of whitewashed tombs. When we went to a multi-generational model, all of a sudden, tension popped up. And the tension that popped up was continually around the conversation of multi-generational, of people of different places and spaces, and and can they have the conversations and back and forth? And is it good? Is it helpful? And as that has gone on for you know a little while, part of my job here is to just listen and pray and kind of sense and really kind of have my ear to the ground and saying, God, what are you doing here? And I couldn't help but but have the feeling internally that I just think that we're talking about the wrong thing. I think we're talking about the wrong question. And through a season of prayer, what I came to the realization of was that a big part of what we've been sensing in our church isn't about this uh multi-generational, but it's this idea of transience and permanence. And what I mean by that is that depending on who you are and depending on what stage of life you're in, you can experience our church in completely different ways. From the transient standpoint, that's so many of our college students, this beautiful sense that people are here, they're gonna go, they're gonna do incredible things, they're gonna do amazing things for the kingdom of God. They're here from you know the end of August till the end of November, they're here from the middle of January till the end of April, two to three, maybe four years, and then off to spread the gospel to, you know, wherever it is, Chicago or to Chattanooga or to um, you know, East Angola, Africa, right? Like it, like wherever people are going, they're spreading and taking the gospel. And it's this beautiful mission opportunity, and yet at the same time, there's these people who are of our church who have this covenantal community and experience. The people who are gonna live here, die here, work here, right? They're gonna be here for the long term. And what's interesting is we realized we're really feeling this tension that isn't necessarily generational. What it is, is it's a question around permanence versus transience and the rub that those two things can have when they experience one another in the same church. And if you've been here for long, what you know that that can kind of feel like at the at the end of the day, and this is how I explain it, is if you've ever stood at the beach where the sand and the water meet, right? And the waves kind of come and it takes the sand out from under. And if you stand there for a couple minutes, right, eventually your feet are under the sand and you kind of got to move to get reset. If you've been at our church for a long time, that might be how it feels. Because you have kind of the relational erosion of people leaving. And this was the question that we were left with. Do we adopt a model where the older people are, in essence, kind of the youth leaders, right? The ones who, and that's not the best language to use, but I don't have another way to describe it. That they're there just to make the generational impact, right? To to pour, to love, to serve. And there are another people who that is, that is absolutely the reason and the part of that why they're here. But we could also have it to where we begin to look and and shift. And what would it be like if there was true multi-generational discipleship? If where we always had 30 to 40 percent of our church as college student, but to where what the college student was being invited into was actually something much more beautiful, much greater. They were in they were invited into to where when the college student leaves, the the primary of the community and the infrastructure of the community doesn't leave. It's still there, it's still around, it's so much so that it's invited in, right? And so then you have these university students that start to look and say, okay, there's somebody who's studying in accounting. They're they're gonna be a CPA someday, right? They figure that out, their sophomore, junior year, and then they get the opportunity to go into to be mentored by somebody who's also in there uh who goes to our church, who's an accountant, right? You got somebody who's a CPA that's working at a firm, and you got Jake Moran who was you know over financial planning in an hour's Jake. You in here? Hey, shout out, way in the back, classic CPA, just back there counting people. Um right, but but but he gets to connect, and then what if, what if on top of that he was in his group, right? So he gets to actually see how he loves and serves his family, see how he's with his people, but also learn what it looks to look like that. And here's what I had to really come to the honest conclusion of, which is I don't even think for me, I have the best vision internally of what it looks like to be a sold-out follower of Jesus in corporate America, which sounds crazy because I run a company. But I was thinking about this. Like, what does it actually look like to have the same passion of a missionary that's in Guatemala or the passion of a missionary who's in India or the passion of a missionary who's who's wherever, right? But work for the state and make a stable living with benefits and a family, right? Because that's the people that we have to be. If you ever studied St. Patrick, he did the most beautiful thing. He realized that if he was going to reach all of Ireland, he had to turn his own people into missionaries in that country. And so that is to say, what we started to wrestle with is how do we then create a church that really has generational discipleship, that sees people and allows people and empowers people as they go and as they're sent. That that at the same time they have people who are of permanence who are loving Jesus, and they're able to find your people, your community, your context, all those types of things. Because a lot of what we've had to this point, honestly, for adults, if you're an adult in this room, the most pointed ministries we usually have towards you are derivative ministries of other areas. What I mean by that is we have stuff for parents, not because we decided we want to minister to parents, it's because we minister to kids, and as an outworking of that, we need to minister to parents, right? And I'll tell you the group who has experienced this the most young professionals. Young professionals. Because every time I hear from a young professional, they say, well, college has all of these people, all of these things, why don't we have stuff like college? And my answer's always been because you're an adult. And you know what we do for adults? Groups. That's it. Kind of nothing. And so we started to look around. And as those groups became desegmented, as they became multi-generational, all those things, we started to realize, man, we have to figure out, we can either adopt this youth leader model where we're just, you know, kind of, you know, plugging and playing, or we can create an entire community of people and of church and of faith. And so a lot of what I have seen and I have felt has been the culmination of God creating the structure, I think, to live into who He's called us to be. From the governance of our church to the org chart of our church. And those are two very different things. To the actual ways and the thoughts of how we do ministry, how we connect people, the people that we are connecting and the community that we're creating, um, in a way that has significantly and substantively shifted to where we're pastoring now. And we see all of this community of need in the congregation of that that has and that needs care. And our and our goal in all this then is, and I'll tell you kind of the ultimate dream and vision. And I'll be honest, I don't know if we can get there. I don't know if I'm spiritual enough to get there. I'm hoping Nate and Delaney and Jeff and our everybody else is. But I am so tired of people looking at the book of Acts and saying we're not that anymore. I find no compelling reason why that can't be us. I just don't. The more and more I study the organizational model of the church in the New Testament, it's beautiful. It's beautifully simplistic, and that's what we're modeling literally everything after. But as I started looking at, I'm starting to think, why wouldn't we? Why can't we? Right? We have the poor among us now. They're a part of our group, they're a part of our community, they're a part of our faith. You guys don't know this. Man, after our 11 o'clock service, we had a guy in here that we had 14 people as I walk back through this that they believed had a demon possession, and they got people praying all over this person helping, people praying behind them for that. Like this is like real, honest, like New Testament type stuff. And as I was seeing this, I'm just sitting there thinking, man, I don't want to be a church that just says, yeah, nobody's like that anymore. I'm sitting there saying, why not? They have the same spirit of God, the same people of God. One of my favorite verses in James 5 where he says, Elijah was a man like us, and he prayed. The earth stood still. It wasn't Elijah, it was the God who made the earth stood still, right? And so a lot of what we're going for is I just have this internal desire and passion that I think we can actually do it. And I don't think they're ever gonna be perfect because I don't think that they were either. But I do think that we can be really close to that faithful model. And so everything that you're gonna see tonight tries to say, how do we pastor a group of people? Because that that, if you think about it, is what the early church did. They had people who were there, who were in permanence, but they also knew this mission has to go to the ends of the earth. So go therefore. They were a sending church and they were a covenantal community church. And so as we're looking at this, I hope what you see is all of this stuff just tries to say, what would we do if we were just in the book of Acts? And so what we are going towards and going for as a church is a church that does a phenomenal job of connecting people, life-on-life discipleship. Peers, mentors, professional, non-professional, all over the place. That when the college student comes in, they see what almost none of us had. I don't know all of your family of origin stories in the background, but what I do know is many of you were like me that you didn't have a family when you were growing up that model what faithfully living like a follower of Jesus was like as an adult. I hope that the next generation is able to see that because they have a community of people who are around that. And I hope we as a community around that get to experience the beauty of it so that they have something to see as well. Does that make sense? I don't want to set them up to have to go start to figure out what is a church after they graduate college. I want them to see that right now in and through us. And so I'm gonna turn this over because I've been talking a little bit a little while. But that's the state of the church. We have been in a in a in a trajectory of trying to figure out, follow God, follow Jesus. And it has all come through this process to realize, man, so much of this is what God is creating. And I think he had to show us this last part of transience and permanence for us to realize that okay, this is what all of this has kind of been leading towards. So that being said, I'm gonna hand it over to Delaney.

SPEAKER_06 18:33

And by hand it over, I mean Yeah, point your mic at me. Um, well, just so you guys know, in just a second, he is gonna talk again because we're gonna talk about governance and he's really passionate about talking about the elders, and that is the next slide. So I'm gonna give you a break from his voice and let you know. We've been listening to it all day, you know? Um, but let you know that this is something that like really truly, when Nate and I sat down with Ben a couple weeks ago and talked about this stuff, and then like Jeff wasn't able to join us, but he emailed some like thoughts back and all of the things. It really was something where we were like, oh my gosh, this feels like the word, this feels like the like, oh man, it is like we have structures and we have always loved college students well, but like, oh man, what what is the structure that we have for the people of permanence for the people that call Tallahassee home, um, that call DCC home. I mean, I've been at this church since I was 18 and I turned 30 in two weeks. Like, this has been the place that like I wow. We literally do not have time. I love you so much. Um, but anyway, so this is something where it's like, this is the church that has been my home. I was talking with the Rutherfords earlier about their daughter, um, their eldest Addie is getting baptized on Sunday, which is so exciting. But talking about, like, I remember like the first time she that she got dropped off in kids' church, and I was a little baby freshman who had just started volunteering. And we used to like the old building was like weird, and we basically were having kids' church in what I now realize was closets. Like they were not rooms, they were closets. But every now and again, like the kids would just be crying really bad. So we would go bring them outside. And it's like, this is the baby that like I used to go and bring outside so that they wouldn't cry. And now I'm looking at her, and she's a year away from being a youth student at this church. And like I have gotten to be a part of the Rutherford's life, they have gotten to be a part of my life, and like this is the covenantal community that we want to continue to build and foster in our church. But we've realized, man, we need to develop the structure for that intentionally, not just say, Oh my goodness, God, thank you for blessing us with this. We got so lucky when we know that the Lord is going to bless us with it, but also like, hey, what are the things that we can do to help foster it as well? So as we're talking about all of these things, I'm sure that you guys are gonna have questions. And I was talking to Sarah earlier too, and she was like, my brain always is like, I won't have questions tonight, but on Wednesday I'll have a bunch of questions from the things that we talked about. I want you to know that the very last slide at the very end of this is gonna be like a feedback form that is just your name, phone number, and then a box for you to put questions, comments, anything that you think of over the next week after today, for you to put your questions, comments, thoughts, any of those things in, that is gonna be an opportunity at the end of this. And hopefully we'll also have some time to like do questions while we're here. Um, but then like a staff member will reach out and follow up to answer those questions to hear your thoughts on things. So if you're a note taker, if you're like writing questions as you go, don't worry, there's also gonna be a place for you to put those in so that we can talk about them some more.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Perfect. Let's talk governance. I know it's everybody's hyped about that, so let's roll. All right, so a couple things you need to know. So governance is different than an org chart, and that governance is how things are basically like orchestrated, organized, governed, and kind of overseen and things like that. Um, in the church, the the idea of of what we've created. Um Is there's a structure that seems to be really repairing in the New Testament where if you look in the book of Acts, chapter six, um, there is a kind of a bifurcation of what happens as the church is is growing, they have all of these people who have these needs that are among them. And there's these women who are of one particular group that that aren't getting the uh the widows that aren't getting the feeding that they ought to, and they get upset about it, rightly so. And so they look and say, okay, it doesn't make sense for us to continue of the ministry to inhibit the ministry of prayer in the word. And so they outsource, not really, insource, um, but give that to the deacons. And they they raise up deacons and they say, kind of appoint these people to do the functional. Any church is both a spiritual and a functional entity, right? There are functional things of the nonprofit of which we uh work and exist, and they are the spiritual things. Um, the spiritual things, um, they and they both need levels of leadership. So, first, we're gonna talk about elders. So, elders are the spiritual, and I'm just this is just a quick 4-1-1. I'm gonna tell you a little bit more about this. By the way, we have tons of information. Again, if you want more information on literally any of this stuff, come ask me after or um write it down and we'll we'll talk about it. So, elders are the spiritual overseers of the church. They're responsible for shepherding people, guarding doctrine, discerning direction, and ensuring the church remains faithful to what God has called it to be. They're basically the spiritual shepherds and overseers of the church. Um, elders' development, elders are identified and developed by existing elders, tested through a provisional season and affirmed by the congregation and formally appointed. Um, the next slide I'm gonna talk to you a little bit more about what it looks like. Because one of the things is here's what an elder is, okay? Currently on our elder team, myself, Jeff Kerwin, my man Nathan D. Shaythan. Um next slide, please. So um one of the things that we had to figure out how to do, we had a process by which somebody would become an elder. But part of the problem was, for instance, you had to go here for a minimum of six years to even be in the candidacy for it. And then the process was about a two-year process. So about eight years later, you get an elder. And so when it's like, hey, we need some people, it's like, yeah, we do need some people. How long you've been here for? We haven't been here for that long. And so we've we have revamped it to try to figure out how do we not lower the bar for entry, right? How do we keep that standard just as high as it is, but also make it accessible. Um, and so first there's an identification um staff hire or lay leader, um, kind of can recognize that person, they can say, um, in other words, it's a staff hire that somebody we hire in, we hire somebody from Sop Choppy Baptist who's a youth director or youth pastor or something like that that we bring in, right? Um, or it's a it's a a lay person, in other words, somebody who is not of ministerial background. You don't come with a pastoral credential. You're in the church, you went to a group, you led a thing, right? But you feel a call to be a pastor, even if it's not that you're doing it vocationally here. Um and so there's uh I think a two or three year period um where if you go here, we kind of want to see you for a few years. Uh, in the identification part, um uh one of the elders then says, Hey, here's a person, you know, we kind of have constant conversations around who do you see, who do you know. Uh, it goes from that to an evaluation. Uh they we do an evaluation, they're character gifting, all that kind of stuff. Um, and then there's the there's a provisional phase. That initial part takes a couple of months. Um, we're good, we've created what we've called a provisional eldership, um, which means that for two years, that person has the full responsibility of eldership, but they don't have the voting of eldership. What that is, is if we decided as a church that we feel called to to launch a new campus of Crawfordville Community Church, right? That's something that we want our pastors. Stand up, let's go. Um, we want them to be praying over, okay, God, is that is that that the direction? So if you're if if you're new hire on staff from Sop Choppy Baptists, we want you to wait a little bit in that provisional time so we can see you before you're voting on the full nature of the spiritual weight of the church. Um, so there's a provisional phase that's about two years long. Um at the end of that, there's a congregational affirmation. We do this every time. Um, we bring that person up in front. They would have to have at that point gotten a full vote of unanimous yes from the elders. Then we bring them in front of the church in a church service at every church service on that Sunday. We say this person is going to is in election for and towards, and we have been approved and voted. But if you have for any reason anything that you have seen of this person, we want to know. And we give you an anonymous survey with the month. We've done that every time that we've had a uh kind of the the um uh created pastors and elders, and when we do that, we've gotten feedback. We've gotten here's a thing, because we want to make sure every rock is unturned or and and check all that stuff. So provisional eldership, um congregational affirmation, and then we have a full appointment. We actually have a um a cool uh service and ceremony, and so that's kind of the pathway by which somebody comes that. Now, elders, if you look in the New Testament, are oftentimes um appointed and laid on hands by other elders, right? Elders were the ones who said, there's an area of the church we need deacons. So elders are going to help based on all the congregational conversation feedback, they're gonna help to appoint areas where we need deacons. Here was the great part. We never knew how to do deacons. How do we do this, right? And it was beautiful. And our community of people oftentimes rolls with a community of need. And there's a lot of you who said, What are we gonna do about this, right? We've got to figure this out, get this in all control. Here, can I tell you? You're right. And by you're right, what I mean is that's the job of the deacon, right? We're like, oh, this is what happened in Acts, right? They they they saw and there was a lot and there was this weight, and if and if I spend all my time trying to figure out how we can make this person have a home, then then it has the potential to not help to lean into the eternal home. But here's the problem: if we don't make sure that person has what they need physically, then we aren't actually representing the moral authority in the heart of Jesus, right? We're robbing the actual heart of the gospel in terms of the functional action of caring for the poor, the widow, and the needy and the orphan, especially those in our community. And so we realized we need deacons. So next up is our deacon slide. Deacons are the lead servants of the church. They organize steward and practical needs of the church so that people are cared for and the mission can move forward effectively. Deacon uh development, deacons are identified based on real ministry needs. Um, they are recommended and vetted by the elders, and they are affirmed by a vote of the congregation. And here was the fun part. Then we said, okay, how is our congregation gonna vote on deacons if we don't have membership? And I can tell you something's gonna blow your mind. In Jerusalem, in the book of Acts, they did not have formalized membership. You know who voted? Who was there, who the church was. So that's what we're gonna do. Do I know how we're gonna do it exactly? Nah, we're gonna figure it out though. Maybe through groups, I've thought I think that's kind of a really good representation of who is the body and the heart and the soul and connected actually in the functional things of our church. Um, so anyways, so deacon development, deacons are identified based on real ministry needs recommended, vetted by elders, and affirmed by a vote of the congregation. Um how we've worked this structurally is we we also needed a presiding board over. If you can kind of go to that next slide, I believe, is board of directors. So our board of directors, um, and I'm not gonna get into the the details of this, but there's an interesting tension around the board of directors who is functional and the elders who are spiritual. And no matter who is spiritual or who is functional, whoever's on your board uh is if anything goes wrong, is gonna the that's who the court's gonna say they're responsible. So, how do we create the right functional and the right spiritual? And so what we have is our board of directors is seven people. It will be our um head deacon, which is, by the way, and I haven't said this, I think it's fine to say this. Um we've talked, and Mark Meadows is our first head deacon. Um, we have a head, and if you don't know Mark Meadows, people, he was here before the church started. Like he was he, and I said this literally, he ran sound at the youth group where I was a youth pastor and was the first person to say, yes, I want to go do that. And I he was over all special events as the as the sergeant of Tallahassee, uh all football games, downtown get down. So, and I said, Mark, I want you to think about this. He said, Yes. I'm like, that's my deacon. Um, so he's gonna be the head deacon. Um my man Jeff Kerwin is gonna take the lead as our head elder because we need to have a head elder who's not on staff and who's not me, who represents the elder um and in the in the elder council uh as we meet and as we continue to grow. And so Jeff is gonna be our head elder and lead as lead pastor, I'll be on the board. And so it'll be the three of us. Um, and we will, um, with eldership approval, aka also Nate, um vote for the rest of the four people of the board who will be at kind of a a elder level of above reproach and pastoral. Most likely what happened in in the church and in the book of Acts was they had this internal question that they needed outsider thought on because they were all drinking the same Kool-Aid and they needed to go say, hey, what do you guys think about this? Should these Gentiles who are coming to faith be circumcised? Right? And thank God he said, no, that's not a uh the barrier for entry to salvation. Um, but the point is is we want to have those outside folks. So the board of directors, and kind of what you they do is they safeguard the church legally, procedurally, and financially. They provide fiduciary oversight, ensure accountability, and approve major financial and structural decisions so that the church operates with integrity and responsibility. Board development, the board is encompassed, are composed of key internal leaders, lead pastor, head elder, head deacon. Those things are not are not determined by person, they're determined by position. When I'm not the lead pastor anymore, I will not be on that position anymore. I will not be on the board anymore. Um, and external members who are selected collaboratively by key leaders, by those same key leaders, and approved by the elders. So we kind of collaborate on that. Um, in the next couple of weeks, you could be praying for us as we're gonna begin the conversation around who are the other four, because we've just uh with um Mark and with Jeff kind of getting all the ducks in a row in terms of our governance. Um so I had a last slide, I think, that is gonna be kind of like the the how you can think about these different groups and how they function and flow, because one of the things that you have to make sure in any type of an organizational leadership is that authority and responsibility match each other. Um, elders govern the church spiritually, the board safeguards the church legally and financially, deacons serve the church practically, and by the way, the staff, how they play into this whole thing, is they equip the saints and help the execute the dailies of ministry. Does that make sense? Okay, there's a whole lot more to that than that. Um, but that's the basic framework and the ebb and the flow. Many of these things have already started to gotten put in place. Um, one of the decisions that I had to make, and that is my tendency, if you know me, is to do it all. And so I was like, I gotta get the deacons going, I gotta get the elders going, I gotta get the board going, and to realize, oh man, the most important thing for me to do is not to do that, but to make sure we have a head deacon who is then making sure the deacons are going, a head elder who's then making sure the head elder are going. And as we have those, we have the board that I can help to get going in that that lane. And so people are gonna be over those specific areas in those areas of ministry. And Delaney, why don't you talk for a little bit? Because I'm also tired of hearing my voice at this point, to be honest.

SPEAKER_06 33:15

Well done, well then. Um, I also, as he said, Mark Meadows being the head deacon. A, if you have not met Mark Meadows, he really is the best. Like he is so awesome. So I hope you get a chance to meet him. He's amazing. He is often running sound, so he's also normally in the production room. So he actually is kind of a hard guy to meet on Sunday mornings, but he is the best. All the production team love him, know that he's an awesome dude. Um, but he also is normally the one that calls me out if I have a spelling error. So when you were like, oh, Mark Meadows, I'm like, Mark isn't here to tell me if I spelled something wrong on a slide. So it someone let me know. I saw the word summary and I like panicked. I was like, did I spell summary wrong? Um, but one thing too. Well, first off, I would love to say, like, hey, does anybody have a question about any of this stuff so far? Board, board of directors, deacons, elders. Fantastic. The question was how many people are gonna be on each of the things? So how many elders, how many deacons?

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Yeah, so uh they'll function differently. Um, the elders, it's actually really cool uh as it it'll take a while to develop to that full point. Um, each person who's gonna be an elder is gonna take that you're gonna you're gonna have a lane if you're an elder, um, either shepherding, teaching, or governing. Okay. And so the idea is that each ministry has at least one of those people in it. And so I'll use the kids' ministry as the example. So right now, Jeff, who is over you know, the the families, um, and what we actually want is someone who is on a teaching track with eldership. So they're making sure, man, what's being taught, how can we help the people who are teaching the curriculum to teach it better? How you know they're they're kind of the expert at the teaching component. We have a shepherding elder, which is somebody who's different, who's gifted at walking life on life with families who are going through difficult things. And then we have a governing elder who is helping to relate, so so the kids' ministry director doesn't have to be the person who connects everything spiritually back to the board of elders and all. And so they're actually the one that's in conjunction and and um and communication with the greater elder board and helping to say, how can I help this thing to work kind of better? And so hopefully every area will have a um uh teaching, a shepherding, and a governing elder connected to it, and as well as some governing elders in the kind of greater elder body. Uh as many as we can is the answer. In terms of deacon, it just kind of depends on the need and the availability. Uh, we've already had some deacon stuff start up with um some finance things that we got going, and we just needed some people to help out in some of those areas. We're gonna be developing some more areas. And so deacon, uh, it just kind of depends on the areas of need and what it's gonna take to do that and how many people we have. Uh, but those deacon stuff is defined by continual need and functional need. So it's not just here's a one thing, but kind of like continual areas. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_06 36:06

So do we know yet how many like to start provisional elders we're gonna have?

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Uh it's a conversation that we've had uh with two that we've talked to so far. Um but we're trying to not outpace the it for every elder for everybody who goes to the elder process, there's a there's part of that provisional is a two-year process. They work through the book called Gospel Eldership and Biblical Eldership. Um, one is a textbook and one is a workbook. Um, and both of them take kind of weekly, bi-weekly, maybe monthly meetings. Um, and so we're trying to not overbook the onboarding of those leaders too quickly because everybody has capacity, he's got stuff going on. So uh two so far, but more to come.

SPEAKER_06 36:49

So five elders total to start.

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Yeah, no, that's a great question.

SPEAKER_06 37:00

Um The question was, is it this is why I'm here, you guys. Um the the question was uh is it operations, in case you guys didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:14

The question was for elders, deacons, board of directors, is it just gonna be men? Is it gonna be men and women?

SPEAKER_02 37:21

Yeah. Just women. Just women. There you go. There you go. I like it. Women. Um yeah, no, so we are um the eldership uh is um it's the only place uh that we have or elder, I guess deacon, or not deacon, elder in uh uh board of director. Um and the only reason for board of director is men is because it has to have authority over. Um and what we actually had to do kind of conceptually and ecclesiologically is almost uh elevate to that that to an apostolic level, right? So it's the people who are overseeing multiple things in multiple congregations, which is a c is is elder plus. Um and so the only places that we have in our church that are guy specific are elder and board, um, but deacon is with and for everybody. Um that's one of those things where to be honest, like there are parts of the Bible where it you you feel like, man, I wish that I read this differently and saw it differently. Um, but the reality is is it just seems, you know, what we find is that kind of the headship idea. Um, but I'll say this, we're also exploring the different limitations because I think that there are places and spaces that we conceptually put um uh a little too much into that. Uh and what I mean by that is well, I don't have time right now. Email me, I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_06 38:39

Yeah. So the the lady deacons will be the deaconesses. It sounds like a great softball team name.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Come on. Yeah, so uh I believe we're gonna Yeah, great question. So one so we'll have a um elders will be continual.

SPEAKER_06 39:06

Um you have to repeat the question.

SPEAKER_02 39:08

Oh, are there term limits? Uh uh elders, um so there's no there's no defined term limit on eldership, but there is a three, there's a an annual you know conversation and there's a three-year like evaluation, all that kind of stuff. Ideally, every six or seven years, maybe there would be a sabbatical that's that's in there as well. Um, and so uh there can be part of, and I'll say this, one of the things about elders and pastors is we don't make people elders and people who you're not going to be, you already are. Um and there can be times with that that people don't have the availability. And so we're talking about what that might look like. A lot of people practice what's called an inactive eldership because one of the things that I'm we're not gonna have is in elders can oftentimes be like a church youth group's leadership team. Um, and if you've ever been on a youth group leadership team, what that means is it's a bunch of people who don't actually do anything organizationally, they just say, This is what we think we should do with the pizza party, right? It's it's people who have an opinion but not actually responsibility. Our pastors will be shepherding and pastoring people. Um, that's gonna take some time. And so there will be times when some of our shepherds and pastors who don't have as much time won't be able to as much. We're figuring out a little bit more about what that looks like as we wade into that because we don't want to um decommission somebody, but we do want to acknowledge the fact that you know there's gonna be times it's gonna be tough. So good question.

SPEAKER_05 40:44

Oh my gosh, thank you. Uh no, listen. Oh, repeat it. Repeat it, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

So on that last line is a period. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_06 41:00

Sorry, Jeremy, did you do it right?

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Yeah, I I I think for the most part, what we're gonna what we're looking to do is to continue to build the community internally. And so I don't want to put a limit on like a um have to type of a thing. Um but the people that we're gonna be looking to to do some of this stuff is gonna be people who are staying around. So there'll be conversations around kind of like thoughts and ideas and and future plans and stuff like that. Um but we don't right now have an agreement on like here's the exact expectation or term limit or timeline with all that stuff. So we question though. Yeah, so the actual governance in the elders um is there's two parts. So elders, um, I as a lead pastor am what's called first among equals, right? So that means that my primary job in terms of shepherd collectively, all equals. So we all get in the room and vote. My way, my vote weighs no more than anybody else, but I'm the primary one responsible for them. Um the primary group that can um fire me is the board of directors. The board of directors does that under elders um counsel, right? So somebody has to be able to say, so who fires this guy, right? And so that's how those things work functionally. And so who's over the elder board? Me. Who's over me, the board of directors. But I'm not over the elder board, I'm over them in terms of just care, not in terms of all that stuff. In fact, most of the actual over over and in and kind of co-assisting with both the care, the organization, and the development of the elders is uh Reverend Kerwin with the assist of Reverend Shade. You haven't talked in a while, dude. Can you say that?

SPEAKER_06 43:19

Well, I was just trying to pass something to him.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

I usually say very little, but I I will say this the people who are actually over the elders is the congregation. They see something that's not right, they report that to the staff and to the, you know, and then we have to investigate and figure that out. But elders should be caring for the congregation, and so like it's a servant role. So you'll know.

SPEAKER_06 43:45

Guys, this is exactly what when the three of us are in a meeting, it's like it's just Nate sitting listening and like nodding. It's the best.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Every once in a groans.

SPEAKER_06 43:57

Um, I actually would love to throw it to Nate on something. Thing because I do governance of talking about like the potentially the electing of elders, deacons, that kind of thing coming through groups. So, Nate, any groups updates? What's groups gonna look like? I don't have a slide, the words didn't make sense. I didn't like it, so I didn't make a slide. I gotta be honest.

SPEAKER_01 44:21

This is the groaning moment. Delaney. Anyway, so um with our groups. Um we obviously we shifted to that place of um multi-gen, right? Yay. Multi-gen. Okay, so nobody likes it. I get it. Um so we're still gonna do that. The Thursday night group, we love it. I was gonna say the Thursday night group, we love our group. I love mine. Anyway, um, but here's the thing. So like I'm trying to decentralize our church as much as possible. Um, decentralization, what that looks like, is this this element of who's in control of it? Well, I believe that we have a Holy Spirit, and I believe that he is in charge of his church, and he can control her and lead her and guide her as best as he knows how, and I believe that he'll do it better than I ever will. And so I'm trying to be as hands-off as I can be. Um, but I think he's also given Ben great guidance in the things that we're gonna do. So the first direction was to create the multi-gen um groups as best as we could. If you're in a multi-gen group and it is amazing and you love it and you don't want it to end, it doesn't have to. Nothing changes. You keep doing everything that you're doing. But if you have opened up your house or you've gone to a house and the groups just didn't connect, things didn't happen, and just or there's just times and places that haven't worked for you. All right, we're trying some other things as well. And Ben has come up with this idea of live, work, play, and learn. And so what we're trying to create and what we're trying to show is um kind of giving people an option to figure out like the goal is to have a map on our on our website, on our maybe an app again. We'll see. Talking to Trey, we'll see what we pull off. Um, but having this map that's up, and so you would click on it and it would they would have an element of where do you live, right? And you click on the live link, and all the ones that are meeting in homes would populate. And this is where people are meeting in homes, and you would look on the map. Is there one that's close to your house? When do they meet? What time do they meet? Is it a women's group? Is it a men's group? Is it a multi-gen group? Like whatever it is. If it works for you, great, try it out. If there's not one, maybe start one. Or you could go on to the play, right? So I'll click off the live link and go on to the play link. And now there's a group that's meeting, you know, at the meadows uh during soccer practice for some of the kids and stuff. And there's a group going there. And hey, my kid, is it that soccer? You know, or it's a a stadium event or they meet at a park, just places where you would play. If there's nothing there that works for you, you could start one, or let's click on the work link, right? And oh man, really cool. This is where I work, and there's a group meeting there, and they meet every Tuesday at lunchtime. Awesome. I can show up and do that. If that doesn't work, where do you learn? Right? And so for some of you, you learn in a small group somewhere, like a coffee shop and you're going through Bible studies and those types of things. For some of them, it's a classroom, right? Like you're in school or those types of things. And so the idea is where do you live, work, play, and learn? You be able to click on again. That's if your group, like it just hasn't worked out. Like we haven't been able to get connected. You haven't been able to find that thing that works best for you. And we're just trying to figure out look, if you're already in those places, I'm not like we don't want to make more for you to do. You have a busy life, and there's a lot being asked of you and required of you. So let's not make you have to do something more. Let's find the places where you're already at and allow you to just learn there, allow you to find community there, friendship, fellowship, be the church where you already are, where you already live, work, and play. So that's kind of the general basic idea.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

Perfect. The um within that, kind of the the first movement in it is um we're taking, and like they said, if you have a group, you love your group, awesome, stay with your group, roll with your group. Part of what we're trying to do is is create things where growth happens and spiritual maturations and process happens in in pockets where people are already going and interacting. Kind of that the idea of you know, go there for is as you go, make disciples, right? And so what's the as you go? Well, we would love it if groups started to form around geographical neighborhoods, right? Those are the people that you're gonna be in the community that when you're gonna need to go for a walk, you need an extra egg, or something's happened, and you got somebody that has to come by your house because of whatever, right? Um man, those are the people who you're already interacting and spending time around, right? But maybe again to Nate's point, you have those people that work, and man, you got some folks that you can meet with or that's that meet around where you work um or you play. Uh, we've talked about, man, just I love the idea. In fact, that y'all as you the younger generation, um, y'all do so much fun stuff around play, right? You guys have run clubs. I hate running. So I don't ever go to any of those clubs, right? But I tell you what, when we start a golf club, your boy will be there, okay? But it's but right, but but here's the question why couldn't we have that? Because it aren't our lives made up of different networks and circles of people, both where we live, where we work, where we play, where we learn, where we worship. And the church has become so segmented into just where you worship, right? And show up somewhere else, maybe to a group. And we thought, man, we it would be beautiful if we could do this in a way that actually has groups, but we have all those other things. And if we have groups that are going and they're, you know, cycling together or mahjong together, or you know what I mean, like legit, like whatever it is. But here's what's cool wouldn't it be beautiful to see missional communities for Jesus that are out there just existing as the Jesus presence with people and around people? Um, and the thought is is is man, I I don't like the fact that groups have to be my 10 people, right? What if it was my 10 people, but then I also had some people at work, or maybe if it was these people in this geographical group, or maybe where I work is my better group, and but then I also have some people that I hang with and roll with, and we do some activity type stuff together as well. And so really trying to adopt this entire fully integrated, not segmented life of spirituality. So again, in the process of getting there, right? And so the first thing is moving, especially with groups towards you know things. But again, if you already have your group and you love it, bro, roll with it with it. The last thing we're trying to do is like, oh, God's moving and you're growing, stop right?

SPEAKER_01 50:46

So again, if what you're doing's great, keep doing it, right? So, like, wife came home the other day, Sarah's group, they're meeting for coffee, and a lady walks up and's like, I forget what she was going through. She she had something going on that day, and she was like, Will you all pray for me? Because she's just used to see, like, she's been going to the coffee shop, she's seen them there, they've been consistent because that's where they meet. It's kind of like a maybe a play place, right? I guess I'm gonna call it learn, play. I don't know, but it's a coffee shop, but they're there, they're consistent, and people have started noticing them being there. And so when you're out, when like not just meeting at a church, like sometimes people just aren't gonna come to church, right? Um, evidently our neighbors thought we were Mormon because so many cars were parked in our house. Um parked in our house on every Monday, and they're just like, Why are all these cars parked in our house? They must be Mormon. The states are knocking on the door and that on the house. Why in the world made that connection? But uh, you know, it's it's led to conversations, and so there's those things. Our daughters having those conversations, not us. We we only talk to our neighbors. Joking.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

But only people I knew, so it was okay. Giving them a heads up that there would be some conversation about this. Um and about the change in community groups that might be happening, and about it being basically consonant with the vision that we've been casting over the last year, as clear or not clear as that has been. Um in that, we I also recommended a period of rest for community groups as the summer started, either you know, the whole summer or only part of the summer. And a little bit of it's just related to the idea that it gives an opportunity for a clean break for that for those groups who have not felt like they're sources of growth for people, right? It's not the awkward disappearing from the group that you've been going to to go and join a different group that's maybe starting in June or something. Um, but just to offer a clean break and also to give community group leaders an opportunity to reassess what they want their time leading a community group to look like. If they want to continue doing the multi-generational thing, or if they want to adopt a more geographical approach to something, or switch focus of like, you know, it's been a lot to have people in my home, but I could have people in a coffee shop. Um, and so that's that's really the the heart of the recommendation um was to um give both people in the group and group leaders themselves an opportunity to reassess um how their groups are going and what they want in the future and how they want to build community and take part in that. Uh is that helpful?

SPEAKER_06 54:24

We staff we snap at staff meetings. So we do this thing at staff meetings called CCLCs where we share Christ-centered life change that we have seen or heard about from you guys throughout the week. And it's always like snaps, but at some point it turned into like snaps, finger guns, raise the roop. Oh yeah, breathe, does this. So that's why every now and again, the second someone stops talking, everyone on snap starts snapping. Because we don't know how to fill silent, like we don't know silence anymore.

SPEAKER_02 54:50

It's weird. Sometimes I do that after a prayer request that was really good. I'm like, mm. And they're like, that's not that's not when you do that.

SPEAKER_06 54:57

We have a couple minutes. So are there any other questions about the groups stuff? Would these new groups be starting in the summer or in the fall?

SPEAKER_01 55:11

So we are uh trying to get the calendar thing or the map thing kind of figured out. Hopefully, we'll be able to do that within the next month or so. So would love for probably the end of May to kind of be one of those things that we'd be able to kick some of that stuff off. Uh Ben has been working on a series on discipleship and some of those things to go through in the month of May, uh, which is going to be really exciting, really beautiful. And so uh with the college kids leaving and with the permanent being here, uh, we really are kind of like the biggest desire that we have as of right now is that um from the months of June through August is to create as much community with the permanent population that we can. And so the goal is to kind of I like breaks. So that's one of the things like while I was talking, like I like when we do series and there's like a three-month break. I always, for me, my biggest desire is that the small groups are going through the series that we're teaching from the stage. We're trying to get our our our children's ministry have begun this where they're teaching. For those of you who have kids, you're probably getting some of the notes and stuff that comes home. It's stuff that's going over the same series that Ben's teaching on stage. And what we really want to create is just this environment where if the kid is in the car and they're riding home with their mom and dad, they're able to have a conversation with the same scriptures that their mom and dad just heard and are wrestling with. And so as they get home that week, it's a continual conversation, right? It doesn't end. Gage has been doing those things with the youth group, uh, teaching on the same types of things. And so it's just been really fun and exciting to watch like all the different generations of people are teaching and learning the same material. And so we would love to hopefully and by the end of May, we'll have uh the ability. Uh, it'd be great that at the end of this discipleship um series that we would have this opportunity for people to kind of click and start a group and do those things. The reason why I like the breaks on groups is just that it gives you an easy opportunity to bow out, right? Sometimes like your kid gets a different schedule for school. You know, you have a different time that you need to take your kid to soccer or whatever it is. You know what I mean? Like those things happen, and I know that happens. And so it just gives an easy time to go, okay, I'm done with this. I won't be able to do this group, but now I can do this other one. And it kind of plays in line with what we're doing uh from the stage. And so that's kind of one of the goals. Again, live, work, play, learn, that type of mentality. Hopefully, we can have all that stuff by the end of May.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

And so to some of the timeline questions, it's a good thought. There's there's a bunch of things, one that already has happened that you may or may not have noticed, and there's a bunch of things that will continue to happen. Some of the things that have happened, and we didn't really talk about them a bunch, um, was one that we decided that if we're going to create real generational discipleship and make discipleship the easiest that we possibly can on our church, the best thing to do to connect everybody is to go through the same content and the same materials. We started going from front to back, um, even on uh with our youth uh to our kids, our going through the same uh verses, same ideas, um same thoughts through scripture. So it creates conversations no matter who you are, no matter where you are in our church. Um we made that shift early in the fall. In the fall, we realized that we needed to continue to we we either had the option in in early and mid-September, we never really announced this, to go to a third service because our two services were packed, or to stay. And we felt like we had the the question was do we stretch our disciples or do we continue to shift the culture of discipleship at our church? And so we decided to keep it at two and try to shift that culture of discipleship at our church. And so part of to what Nate's talking about is in the next month, we're gonna have a lot of things, a lot of our groups uh and group leaders are starting to have conversations. We see the summer to Nate's point as the best opportunity to grow the population of permanents that are around. Um, and so we're gonna have a lot of folks um uh who are in conversations from now until then about your groups, um, where you have groups. If you live at a place where we don't have a group and you will not have a group, then it might be awesome for places and people. Uh we're looking to have a lot of those conversations and launching a lot of this new summer stuff at the end of May, beginning of June. Uh, I'll also tell you what I'm really excited about, what Nate was talking, um, to kind of lead into this. Um, no matter if you're college or not college, everybody's kind of in the working world, especially people who are going to internships in this kind of season. Um so the entire month of May, we're gonna do a series called Disciples at Work, which just is what does it look like to be a disciple of Jesus at work and make disciples for Jesus at work? It's a really complex thing in our culture to do well and to do winsomely. Um and so we want to talk about, man, what does that actually look like almost regardless of industry? And so we're gonna spend um the month of May doing disciples at work, and I'm really excited about the summer because we're we spent a lot of time in the drudgery of suffering in 1 Peter. Um, and so we're gonna this summer, we're gonna do a series that's gonna go from the beginning of June until August when students come back called Summer in Rome. Um, right? Clever, clever, right? And so we're breaking those things out verse by verse and never be going through the same stuff. So you can look forward to disciples that work summer in Rome. Uh, and we got some stuff for the fall that we're currently looking, thinking, planning all that stuff as well. Um, groups, we're also gonna start to have some just informal group hangs. Gonna look forward to you know, people who want to host and house some stuff. Um, we've already talked about a guys' group get together where we can do whatever we want. And if we could do whatever, I love the Savannah Bananas. Dude, they just saw what was fun and we're like, let's do it. And so I was like, you know what? I've got a massive blow-up screen. I've got a net and a golf launch monitor. What if we just went in somebody's backyard and had like a guys' golf league where we just swung as hard as we possibly could at golf balls? I don't know if that makes anybody else excited, but it makes me excited, and I'll do it if whether you or not y'all show up. So sounds like a good get together. Um, so we're gonna be doing some stuff, but we would love for you if you have suggestions, all that we have a we have a group that does, you know, crafter noon that comes around here uh and gets together, just bring your own craft. Yeah, shouts out. Um that stuff is beautiful. That that's community, that's the fabric. We're the church, and so I want you guys to also feel permission, like, oh, I can do that, right? If you're like, man, what do you love to do? Why don't we just get people to do it, right? Danny loves the gym, as we can see. You know what I'm saying? He trained me a couple times for Easter. We won't talk about that, but it was good. Yeah, I I'm I did I did legs for the first time in like five years the Thursday before Easter. It was it was glorious. I point out Delaney every time I'm done, because I got nothing. I'm like Delaney.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:51

So very nice. Um yeah. Yeah. Um, but first, yeah, the little side. Um, but that also, as you're thinking about that and as you're thinking about like, oh man, things to do over the summer, that like form at the end, again, there will be a QR code up so you can scan it. That is like the perfect spot for you to put, like, man, I really want to do this thing so that someone on staff can reach out to you so that we can figure out how are we gonna communicate that. Like the ladies' crafternoon is a thing that Kenzie wanted to do, Kenzie can wanted to do. And she messaged me and was like, I really want to do this. And I was like, okay, cool, let's make a partiful. And then she was like, How are we gonna get it out to people? And I was like, I don't know, I guess I'll post it on the downtown kids' Instagram. And like, that's what we did, and that's how we got ladies to start coming for Crafternoon. Um, so just things like that. So if you want to fill that out so that, like if you have an idea of something so that staff can collab with you on like, hey, how can we communicate that you would like to do this thing or you would like to host this thing?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:54

That's it. Would you do it if nobody should show and do it? I'm not just doing it because other people show up to it.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:59

That's good. I haven't heard you say that one in a while. That's good. Good reminder. Thanks. Okay, well, bouncing back over to governance, because I have an org chart update, which does play into finance, which is what he whispered at me earlier. Um, but okay, so coming into the fall, we wanted to give you guys a heads up because the staff, like the people that we have on staff, is gonna look super different going into the fall. Um, the Lord has been moving in really sweet ways in a lot of people who are currently on staff and like called them to new things, which is so exciting, personally devastating for me, but very exciting for them and what the Lord has called them to. Um, or things that they're like, even if it's something where they're maybe not excited about it, like the Lord is calling them to be obedient. Um, like the canons, they uh Nolan actually sent out an email. I think he said something in the email he sent out to you guys today, um, about group leaders, about that him and Kinsey are moving. They are moving back to Oklahoma because Kinsey's family all lives out there. Nolan's family all lives out there. They've got baby Nate now, and their plan has always been to move back to Oklahoma. But in this season, Kinse has a lot of family members who are sick and who have illnesses that when the last time they visited when her grandfather passed away, they're like, man, their health is failing quickly. And currently our son does not really know his grandparents. So we want to maximize the time. So he is finishing up his PhD program. And the plan had been, you know, he's gonna finish the PhD, he's gonna stay in, they were gonna stay in Talhassee for three to five years. And that's not the plan anymore. They're moving, Kinsey is moving next month to start getting back out to Oklahoma. And then Nolan is gonna be moving in a couple months when he finishes up his commitments to FSU and finish his dissertation in Oklahoma. Um, so that's a thing where it's like that is something that they're choosing obedience in that and choosing their family in that. As sad as we are to see them go, it's also something where like I told Nolan when he told me, I was like, man, I am really bummed that you're moving. I am really glad to witness the way that you are honoring your wife and her family and what she needs in this season, though. Um, so that's a huge, like that's a transition that's coming off of staff. And then we've also got Trey, who has been our facilities guy and he does so much with outreach and all of these things. He's graduating college and he's like, hey, I need to get a full-time job and I clean this building part-time and I would like a real salary. So I'm gonna go get a real job. And we're like, yeah, Trey, fair enough. Um, Grace, she told all of the college students at college night last week, but the Lord has for the past couple of months and like ask her about it, because it really is a very cool story, has been moving in her life and she is moving home to Illinois. She's moving to Chicago, which is so exciting for her, but also something where we all are like, Grace College, like what? This and she was like, I don't know, but God's just telling me to do it, so I'm doing it. And then our sweet, awesome, amazing Monica Sanchez, who has been faithfully running our HOPE program. I mean, her and I joined staff, what, Mon eight years ago now? How long have we worked here? Eight, something like that. Her and I have been on staff together since we were literally still in college, and she has been faithfully running our HOPE program. But the HOPE program has been funded for the past three years through a grant that ends in September. And so come September, we're like, there's not Monica's salary is not going to be its plan for her is. Um, and so we have a lot of big staff transitions happening that we wanted you guys to know about because one thing that Ben said last week was he was like, or and he said it today too of this is our church. This is not just DCC's staff church, this is not just the community group leaders church, this is all of our church. So we wanted you guys to know what staff was gonna look like come August, because with how everyone's like end dates are kind of going right now, it's like one person is leaving a month, and that just doesn't feel fun. That doesn't feel fun to like, as you guys know, like find that out on a month-to-month basis. So this is what staff is gonna look like in August, so that you guys are aware. This is what the new staff structure will look like. It's not the like actual org chart because I tried to do it and then I just it looked ugly, and so I couldn't do it. So everybody's job descriptions are there. But if you want an org chart, I will email you an org chart when I make a graphic that actually is legible. Um, but so that's what staff is gonna look like come in August. And Nicole Clark, where is she? She's staying on for residency year two. Shout out, Nicole. Um go for it, yeah. Hey, Nate wants to talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

All right, we'll do it now. We'll do it now.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:55

I'm gonna I'm gonna honor the fact that he wants to talk.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

So um, we currently have three residents that are on um right now. Now, for those of you who don't know, they fundraise all of their income. And so Olivia, we have her, she's back there hanging out. Hi, Olivia. Um she will be probably moving on. We'll see what all that looks like. Nicole, obviously, right there. We see that, she's sticking around. Um, and then Riley, who has been our uh prayer resident, uh, will also be moving to Nashville. Uh, we'll be working for Young Life and um also fundraising half of his salary there. Uh, we are picking up new residents that are coming on. Uh Danny we is praying about it. Where Danny is praying about it. Uh Lexi is praying about Alexia, where's she at? Over there? They're hiding from announcing their business. Um, and so I will ask, I will ask that you guys pray for them because it's gone of all those difficult decisions. Like I just graduated college, now what do I do? What's next? Um, one of the things with the residency is just along the lines of the goal of it for me is that when they finish, they either know they want to do full-time ministry or they know they don't want to do full-time ministry. And so that is always the that's the goal for me. Um, but they have done tremendous work, and uh Danny's done tremendous work with the college ministries already. Um, and so he, as you see, he's not on that chart uh for the org chart, but he is looking at what it would be like to either be a resident or what does it look like to go into the workforce or a ministry somewhere. Um, and so there's types of things, and then Luke Barley has said yes. Yay!

SPEAKER_06 1:09:39

Send me your signed offer letter, King.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

And we'll see what else uh comes for the next year. But like I said, we had three residents this year, uh, started with six, I think something like that, or five. I don't know. It's difficult to really figure this out. Uh finishing with three, and um, but others have just moved on and done ministry already, uh, or have gone on to the workforce. And so it's been a beautiful thing to watch. But residency will continue with some new ones coming up. Uh so please pray for them uh as they fundraise and seek the Lord and where they should go. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:14

Uh a couple quick things, org chart-wise, just so you know kind of how things have shifted because you see that and you think I don't really have context for maybe what was. Um the the moves that were back and forth uh previous. Um, Gage, if you know Gage, he was our he was over our youth, um, middle school and high school students, uh, but he's also our service program director. So he's over all of our Sunday morning stuff that happens in service. Um Delaney, who was over operations and formerly was kids director, has kind of been helping out with the residents who were in that. And as we kind of saw things shifting and where people's gifting and passion were, Delaney has actually a really, really great eye for program, for sound, for what's created when we all come together. Um and it's fun because uh so I've started uh meeting with Gage and Disciplin on a somewhat regular basis, and I uh or regular basis and we talked uh last week or the week before and asked him, you know, everybody in the church world has a desire for your life, you know, whatever you should be a pastor, you should do this, right? Well, what what would you do? And he basically just said I would be a next gen guy, I would be over um both kids and youth, and the go-between of both of those things. Um he started out in kids' ministry. Um, through kids ministry was developed into youth ministry. Um, and so what get what's gonna happen is now Delaney is gonna be over operations and programs. In case you don't know, Delaney is the COO of the church, she's over operations. Nate, by the way, is the head of ministries. Um Gage will be over our next gen stuff, but a part of the operations will be um production and program. Um Nate is gonna be over um groups. Um if you remember back in the day, William was over groups before. Part of what happened is when we had so many people transitioning so quickly, and honestly, almost all of them were admin, um, we needed Nolan in a in a massive way, one to kind of help like usher in this kind of move towards multi-gen, but we also needed um just helped for somebody to pay attention to groups while we were trying to make sure all the admin stuff was kind of there because Delaney wasn't in that spot yet. Um, and so as he's trans gonna transition out, Nate's gonna re-assume that responsibility over that. So Nate will be over groups, um, Gage uh is next gen youth to uh middle school, high school, our kids middle school, high school, uh, and then Delaney will be operations plus service program. So that those are the major shifts and how those things. And I just want to say this college. Oh, oh yeah. And so, well, Danny's praying through college stuff, and Nicole, um and Danny, by the way, if you don't know this, Danny also does already does an amazing job as our men's um college ship college discipleship coordinator. He does it seriously. We have we've had a really cool resurgence of college men in our church, um, and a lot of that is because of Danny and his direct relational discipleship. So thank you for what you've done with that. And he's praying of kind of like what God's calling him towards this next season. So you can pray for Danny, like the wisdom and discernment with all that. Um I, yeah, please. Um, I'm gonna be um basically uh for this next season, I'm not gonna be involved in the direct day-to-day, um, but I'm gonna be overseeing what happens in the college ministry. I'm gonna be helped with them and kind of creating and going around the purposes and the vision and the mission and and the content that they're gonna be going over in the fall and some stuff like that in their college nights. And so I'm gonna be pastorally overseeing college as kind of a pastoral overseer and equipper. Um, but there's an awesome college crew that's gonna be doing some awesome stuff with that as well. Um the the only other thing that I would say is is again, we're trying to do this in ways that create small little things that are almost unnoticeable but create an aggregate difference as it creates, and I want to go back to this thing of permanence real quickly because we're gonna talk about the the finance component of it, is to say that a bunch of the things that we're doing, um they will be hopefully not we're not trying to say, okay, the way we were doing stuff was awful, let's change it all. When we moved into this building, all of a sudden, if you were 30 years old, you didn't feel like a weirdo. And by that I mean if you were here in the old warehouse, it was only 18 and 19. If you were 32, 35, you were like, I feel like I'm a dinosaur in this, like literally, that sounds ridiculous. Literally is how it was. That changed overnight in this place. Do you want to know why? Because this building had two things. Number one, adequate air conditioning. Actually, three things, three things. I say it back. Adequate air conditioning, okay. Yep. And I say that seriously. We had four services at the old one, it was way too small. By the last service, it was 83 to 85 degrees. You literally sweat dripping down. It was standing room only. I don't know how. I still don't know how. Um kids ministry space. And you want to know what the you want to know what the biggest difference between between besides those two was? Chairs with pads. Yep. Now that helps my back a lot when I'm sitting in a chair, right? As well as a lot of people, big things, little things that that went a long way, right? Stuff that we're starting to do in service-wise is stuff like, you know, is incorporate hymns into service because nobody owns a hymn. Hymns are not generational, right? Hymns go for every place, every space, every race, everywhere. And it's one of the things that I that I love about them. As well as if you're if you're old, that's probably what you knew and grew up singing. And if you're young, one of the things that we hear over and over, in fact, there's a really cool resurgence right now into the historical church. Um, and by that I mean into the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church. And a lot of it's because everything's spinning so crazy and so fast right now. People want to be tied into the rootedness of the historicity and the antiquity of the church, and oftentimes even just seeing the things that saints have been singing for hundreds of years, right? And so we want to kind of come alongside with a lot of that stuff. And so little things, you've noticed in the lobby, we kind of have a different picture and it's framed in the middle, right? No one's like, oh, there's a frame now, right? But it's just little things like that that we've seen. So they're just having pictures, having pictures with matting in them, right? So just little things here and there that we're trying to continually aggregate on the way. So also if we do that, if we see stuff and you're like, man, this is something that I saw that I think would be really cool or really helpful, again, drop it in the box, or we're gonna be hanging out. And this is well, we're gonna talk about finance stuff next, uh, or finance stuff now. Um, but I would say that that this is all the direction of the things that we're going with and towards.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:41

You really do just keep pointing the mic at me. It's so funny. Um, okay, well, lock in everybody. We're talking about finances. I have some charts that are gonna come up. Um, finance update. One of the biggest reasons, too, that or not one of the biggest reasons, but you're looking at staff and you're like, oh man, that staff is a lot smaller. Why aren't we hiring someone to take over those roles? A, because I think that there are some things specifically with the shift with Gage and I, where it is like, oh man, that actually kind of makes a lot of sense that he fully runs in that lane and I fully run in the lane of communications and program. So that's one thing, but also we want to be mindful with what the Lord has given us and what you guys have trusted us with, and we want to steward that well. And so one of the things we're doing is not rehiring for roles because we like inflation is rough, guys. Our rent went up at the building, our insurance went up. Like we as like DCC, a lot of our like, oh, I'm blanking on the word because I'm new to finance, fixed costs, fist fixed expenses, um, have gone up. And so we're trying to be mindful of like, okay, our fixed expenses have gone up. So let's steward what everyone is stewarding well on staff. And so we're not gonna make new these new hires right now. But anyway, finance update. I don't remember what my first slide was. Can you pull it up? Oh, okay. Um, sorry, the vibe is also a little bit different because these were the updates that like they made a power.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:13

Things that we found it really important to do was to make sure that all of our bookkeeping was was both um validated and was uh outsourced to a third party so that we could have um uh a a sense of transparency so we weren't inside internally. Delaney's keeping the money, Nate's skimming a little bit off the top because daddy needs some new shoes, you know, type of a thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:36

I have to take back over. Yeah, um, anyway. I have to take back over, you guys. Um, so in Q1, our total income was 197,000. And then our tithes and offerings made up 139 of that. The rest of that came from um donor restricted funds. So that's gonna be things like the residence, the arms grant, which is the grant that we've been using for the Hope program, or any specific donations that were made to the Be Great Neighbors Fund. So that additional, that like cost difference of however much that math is$60,000-ish dollars, comes from donor-restricted funds, where it was people gave us money and we had something very specific that we had to use that towards. Um, we really like so cool. Our church raised almost$10,000 to host to like house neighbors during the cold snap, which that's snaps. That's snap worthy. Like, I know that that's something where we've maybe talked about it a couple of times, but if you didn't know, from the generosity of our church, we were able to get 30 plus hotel rooms. So there was even like you guys were so generous with that that we were able to reach out to other organizations. We were able to reach out to Big Ben Coalition of Care. We were able to reach out to neighborly and be like, hey, do you have any friends who are on the street who you're worried about? Our church has donated this number of rooms. Do you all all of our friends, all of the people who call our church home or that live in our neighborhood are taken care of? Do you also have folks that you're worried about? And like Big Ben Coalition of Care, they were like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. There actually is an elderly woman that I am worried about that I would feel so much better if she was in a room. And we're like, yes, of course. So that is a huge part of this too, of like our church, this this calling of being great neighbors, it is something that we are actively trying to live out with our finances. And that just makes me, I'm like, gosh, I love being a part of DCC. Um and things too, like going to prison and like supporting prison ministry and all of those things are stuff that we were able to do in Q1. Next slide. Miss Grace, are you doing my slides still? You got the iPad? Sweet. Um, okay, so this is a little bit more of the breakdown of what the donor restricted and the grant looks like. So ties in offerings did make up 70% of what we brought in in Q1. I also will send you all of these things. But Grace, next slide for sake of time. This is a breakdown of exactly what the finances are going to, um, percentage-based. So staff alone is 54% of what our tithe, like what our income is going to. Currently, 54% of it is to paying staff. So when we say, like, okay, we're not gonna rehire for these roles, it's because we'd like for it to be less than 50% of what we're bringing in is going to pay for personnel. Um, and then 27% is facilities and rent. So I mean, those are our two biggest recurring costs that we have, that those are things that are fixed and unfortunately went up in this past what, eight months, right? Yeah, past eight months, um, our building rent and our uh insurance went up. Yeah. And we also like that's things too. Like, we're not rehiring. We actively, I think it says it on the next slide, Grace. Oh, this is our income. This is the difference between what we had budgeted for this year. So going into this year, we had 72 budget, 72,000, right? Yeah, that's math. Um, budgeted for each month. So we are currently bringing in less than what we had budgeted, but we have cut our expenses by 25%, which that's on my next slide. Um, we have like as a staff, we have been doing everything we can to cut costs because those fixed expenses, like, it's pretty much that's what the majority of our tithes and offerings are going to. Because again, 70% of our income is stuff that we actually can dictate where it goes. The remaining 30% is something that is fixed. We can't say, oh, hey, we're gonna spend less on the hope, like the hope program this month because we need to pay our light bill or because we have this repair that we need to make. That money that's for hope is only for hope. That money that is for the it's the money that the residents have raised, that's their salaries. Those are things that it's like, hey, we can't touch that. So 70% of what we're bringing in is actually what we're able to use towards these fixed costs. And so there have been times where it's like, oh yeah, we're cutting it, we're cutting it close this month on this expense that we have to pay. But we've reduced it by 25%. Um and the oh, so we've got some different things that we're doing to cut those. But one of the things that I wanted to ask you guys, and I'm gonna ask the entire congregation, not just the folks in this room, to partner with us on. But I wanted you guys to see it was if Miss Grace, you could go to the next slide, is I would love, oh what slide was this? Oh wait, no, go back. What was my chart I had up? Oh, this was from the church survey. Part of the reason that I had this on here was it was so interesting when we got this church survey back this year and saw that 50, I think it's 54% of our church marked employed slash stay-at-home, because being a stay-at-home parent is a job. It is. And so that is a job. That was 54% and the remaining percent marked unemployed, like fully unemployed on the church survey of the 400 some odd people that completed the survey, because not everyone completed the survey on that Sunday. But so I thought that was really interesting. And then when you look at the age breakdown of our church, it's like, yeah, that kind of makes sense. Like there's a lot of college students here, which when you're in college, that is that's your job. Like that is that is the wall that you have been called to. Um, like Nehemiah was called to the wall to build the wall and fix it. And so this also is things of what I also really liked the um duration of attendance at DCC because that also like makes an impact on how long has DCC been your home church. But anyway, I would love for our church a hope and a prayer that I have for us is to have$5,000 more coming in every month. Because with staff transitioning out, so our payroll getting lower, those kinds of things, that's going to be something where having that additional$5,000 a month is really going to help us when it comes to those fixed expenses. So I broke it down in a way that I felt like with the demographics of our church was something that was going to be attainable to invite people into. Whether that is raising, like if you are already a recurring giver, thank you so much. If you already like are a giver, if you are a recurring giver, even if you have just given one time, like if you gave to help house our neighbors during the cold snap, thank you so much. Like, thank you for trusting the Lord with or trusting us with what the Lord has given you to steward. That is such a blessing. And with everything that comes in, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is so cool to like see how our church loves God and is trusting him with the finance, because that's scary. Like that is a scary thing to do sometimes. Um, so I broke it down in a way where I was like, all right, this feels feasible for our congregation. So having 40 people give for the first time or give$50 more dollars a month, 80 people$25 a month, and 100 people giving$10 more a month. And if you're if people are currently giving zero, like when you think about our college student who they're in our their freshman year of college, they have probably never tithed to their church before. They have probably never set up recurring giving at a church before. So they're currently at zero. Them doing$10, like that's huge. That is a huge step of obedience to a college student who's that's something that they're doing for the first time. So this was just kind of what the breakdown that I had of like, hey, I would love for this to be the invitation to our congregation of like pray about it, look at your finances, see what you feel like you are capable of doing with your finances in this season, um, to help us fulfill this mission of love God, make disciples, and be great neighbors. Cause it really does make a difference. And it's something too where, you know, I'm so thankful for this building, and I'm so thankful specifically for the neighborhood that we get to be in. And I want us to not have to question when someone comes up asking, Hey, can I have a bag of food? I don't want us to have to question whether or not we have food in the food pantry that we're able to give them, whether or not we have money to get them a bus pass so they can get to where they need to be. And this amount does that is the difference for us. Like having this much more in the bank each month is the difference between being able to tell someone, yes, we're able to help you, like telling the single mother, yes, we're able to pay your light bill this month, versus no ma'am, I'm so sorry, we can't help you. And so this is the my invitation that I have to you guys. And also, this is not just Just happening in this room, I told Gage, I was like, Gage, put me on the stage for hosting soon so that I can show people this. I probably will try to make it prettier though, or it will be an email. But that was my financial update.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:10

That's perfect.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:12

Yeah. Question.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:14

Hold on, real quick. Something I want to add into that. Two things. One is is a good thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:17

Oh wait, Scotty's got a question for me. Scotty.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:24

No, listen. And hey, thank you for the first time.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:31

Oh we're no. Listen, guys, my batting average is still underweight. Oh, significantly shrinking from Q1. So we brought in Q1 of 25. I think it was 95,000, 93, and then like high 80s. So the fact that we're averaging$30,000 less in the first quarter, like it has a significant difference. And that's already, I think we have less people on staff right now than we did in Q1 of last year as well. So it definitely is like there have there's been a significant difference in what our income as a church has been this quarter, this year. And I would love to, if you want me to send you things, put it in the comment box again, scan the QR code, put it in there. I would love to send it to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:34

Our Q1 is down from 2025, but it's relatively flat going with 2026. A lot of that is both we've had a lot of of kind of like turnover in terms of like people staff and especially like young kind of families-ish area, um, older families, some too. Uh some of it too is when uh and and they tell you this whenever you help start or launch a church and you send good people with that church, you send good people with who are usually, you know, they need finances to do that. And so some of that has been um some of the turnover, some of that has been some of the sending that we've done uh has created uh the downturn in that giving, which has remained pretty stable. And that's what we've been trying to do, is trying to make sure that we're at a place that's that's with that. But I'll also say um to that point, one of the things that we want to do ongoingly is to remain very, very lean as a staff. Um and so also on the other side of this is just to know that um one, some of y'all are gonna see that, and you see, like, oh, you know, a hundred bucks, you're like, well, I could give five thousand dollars right now. That's great. Um, and I just want to be very clear, if God has given you the ability to accumulate great wealth, that's an amazing, um, then you should go to a church that you trust because it's the kingdom of God. Um, but I'll also say that like it it has nothing to do with the actual amount, it's it's the posture and the position of your heart, right? And that's when Jesus looked and saw this person who was giving nothing, right? And so the the idea behind this, and and I'll just be really honest, I don't always do a good job of saying this is the financial need of the church. And the reason is is because deep in my soul, I don't want you to give because there's need. I want you to be given because Jesus gave, right? The basis of our giving is not need, the basis of our giving is what Jesus gave. That spurs inside of us a heart of generosity, right? The heart of the gospel is to say that love should compel us farther than the law would require us to do, right? And so I don't want to give because we just need a new sound system, right? It's because Jesus has my heart and I want to give everything I can back to him and his kingdom. That prioritizes my life and my heart and my soul. And so just know that from all this, if we get more, it's not gonna be this this massive, okay, now we're gonna hide like we want to be as lean as possible because we see all the people that are hurting and that need Jesus out there, and we're committed to being a church who loves and who serves. And that's part of what we're really excited about, kind of going towards the future. So know that that that from me and my heart with that, um, that's where that's where I want you to see in all of this.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:50

Make sense?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:52

Cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:53

Sweet. All right, what's our next slide, Grace?

SPEAKER_06 1:31:56

I was about to say I've got a couple more things, but it's summer at DCC. Don't worry, you guys. This is the what's next. This is the how you can get involved, and then this is the last bit, and I'm gonna fly through it because I have five minutes. So, summer at DCC. When we talk about this stuff, and I'm sure that Ben will also have something to say about this too, but when we talk about like, okay, hey, so we've had this church family meeting, we have talked about kind of what the vision of the church, like what we're what we're going toward towards towards the church, because also our vision hasn't changed. Our mission is to love God, make disciples, and be great neighbors, and it has always been that.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:29

It's a maturation of the vision, not a change in it.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:31

It's a maturation of it. Like, this is just us realizing, like, oh man, our church has grown up and we need to do the growing up with our congregation too. Um, and so that is the thing that we that this is, and I and like as a staff, we were talking about it. We wanted to be very adamant about we don't want people leaving here without knowing how they can get plugged into things. So if you are here and you're like, okay, great, I'm all in, like, what is something I can do? What's something you need me to do? We wanted to be like, hey, here are things that you can partner with sin and you can do. And so here's some things that we have going on this summer at DCC that we'd love for you to be a part of. We have Hope Coding Camp, we've got Vacation Bible School, and we've got Youth Camp because the summer is for the kids, you guys. And we would love for you guys to get involved in those things. The Hope X Coding Camp is so cool. And Monica and her Hope team need some folks to come and be camp counselors, or even if you just have too huge help. We've also got BBS. We're looking for people to decorate and prep beforehand. We are looking for people to be small group leaders. We're looking for people who like, if you are passionate about sending emails, I would love your help. I would love your help. And then we've also got YouthCamp, which there will be a bingo night as a fundraiser. So keep your eyes out. We did it last year. It was so much fun. If you would like to help youth get to camp and help to like support scholarships for our youth kids, we would love for you to come to Bingo Night. Next slide. And then this is one thing, too, that when we talk about the summer being for community for the people that are here, something that we have not done in a while is a community week. We have not had community week at DCC in a while. And this is one of my favorite things that has been a part of DCC for a long time, but we always go through seasons of doing them or not doing them. But if you've never participated in a community week, it is people open up their homes to say, hey, I will host a dinner at my house on this night of the week. And then other people will sign up to attend a community group. And then typically Monica Sanchez, shout out Mon will then take all of those people and all of those people's availability and organize them and assign them to the host homes to go eat at. Community week is so much fun. It's a lot for Monica to do. Like it takes a lot of coordinating. So if you were like, heck yeah, I want to help coordinate Community Week, we would love for you to do that.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:02

By that, you're the person who's like, I love admin, I love organizing things, Excel spreadsheets, things in rows, that's my spiritual gift. I like watch organization stuff on Netflix. Chef's kiss, we need you.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:15

Yep. Yep. And also when it comes to Sunday morning, if you are looking at getting involved on a Sunday morning, but you are not 100% sure, like, okay, we're somewhere that I can go. We have got so many awesome different ministries at our church that I would love to get to tell you about. One or two places specifically that I want to highlight is Connect Desk and our front doors. The Connect Desk is the place on Sunday mornings that when someone is getting involved at DCC or coming for the first time and has questions, we want them to have a bright, bubbly face to tell them about our church. So if you were like, man, I'm a certified yapper and I love it. I was at the Connect Desk this morning. Shocking. I literally, there was a girl who was here for the first time, and Kendall and Ryan were walking past, and I stopped them from walking out the doors and said, wait, come meet my new friend. Like if that is something that you want to do, we would love to have you do the connect desk because that's an area at our church that has that has needed some love and care lately. We need a bright, bubbly face. Sarah Stevens held it down all three services on Easter. She was at the Connect Desk, all three services on Easter. She was killing it. Um, and then any additional community events. So we've said this a couple of times. If there is something that you are interested in doing with the church, Ben wants to host the golf thing. I will not be there. I will be at COVID. I will. I will.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:31

Regardless if y'all come, show. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:33

Um, but also this is a thing that I was talking to somebody about last week where I was like, I love women's ministry, but I love participating in women's ministry. When it's when it comes to like the ministries that light me up, I love doing children's ministry and I love doing prison ministry. Those are the two things that I am so passionate about. But like I love participating in women's ministry. I think that women's ministry is so important. But if I have a, if I've got 10 hours to devote to something, like to be honest, I'm probably gonna go, I'm probably gonna go to Jefferson and visit my friends at Jefferson, or I'm gonna go hop in the car with Nate and drive to the women's prison down south. If you are someone in this room where you are like, Limit women's ministry lights my soul on fire. And like, I want to host a brunch at the church this summer, we would love for you to do that. I would love to figure out how we can coordinate that and do that this summer. Whatever your gift and your passions from the Lord are, we want to be a church that equips you, that helps you to do these things. So scan the QR code, fill the thing out, have the ideas, all the stuff. That's it. That's that's the form I've been referencing this whole evening.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:46

Yeah, we can get a little bit more.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:47

And I'm only one minute over you guys. It's 701. Guys, I'm listening okay, I I've been told I felt spelt feedback wrong. I was panicking by the time I got to this slide. I was like, people are gonna be here in 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:02

That's awesome. Um, so so with this, with all these things being said, there is a ton we covered. And part of the thing with tonight was we're like, how do we even organize this? We're doing everything from governance to org chart to ministries to sermon series to financial updates and systems, I mean, all the different stuff. Um, truly, there was a lot. We have more than we could present, um, documented. Uh, and so we would love to have conversations afterwards about all this stuff. The one thing I want you to hear and all the stuff that Delaney just talked about are the things of the participation, are these are just the things that we already have, right? They're they're the ways that we are the easy kind of fruit um to serve. If you have something that you think that you could help that you could do, one of the things, and I'll a while ago I got pulled over, and apparently it's uh looked upon unfavorably to have a license tag over six months expired. Don't know if you guys knew that or not. But apparently uh you need to get that expunged if you can. Um I ended up with community service uh at the junior museum. This is this is probably five or six years ago. This is going somewhere, trust me. Trust me. Everybody hold your cross your fingers. Um so I get pulled over, and lady was nice enough to say, I could take you in with your kids in the back of the car, but I'm gonna let you go. And I said, Yes, ma'am, I'll go get my license uh checked right now, or license plate. I ended up at the junior museum because you could go anywhere, and I'm like, well, I'm definitely just gonna walk around and pick up trash. It was nice, it was beautiful outside. And it was the most interesting thing because so as a company registers, we had done a bunch to sponsor um the junior museum. They had this pioneer breakfast, all kinds of stuff like that. And I kept thinking, I'm walking around, I know these people, I know the execs of this place, I'm talented, I'm a professional, I've got 40 hours to spend here, and they got me picking up trash. Like that sounds stupid. Honestly, like, give me a project, give me something to do, and I'll probably spend more than 40 hours than what you have to do on it, right? There are so many of you who have so many incredible talents at this church, and it's stupid that all you're doing is opening a door. You we need people to open the door, and that is beautiful, that is incredible, that is amazing. And when people show up to the church, the beauty of what happens when we're all together is that when we're all together, what we do and what we create informs people of how they should see and how they how we view God, right? What they see when that happens. But here's my point there's so many of you that can offer so much more value than this. And I don't know your time, I don't know your limitations, I don't know your schedule, I don't know the things that you have, you do, right? But here's what here's I want you to hear this from me. If you want to be used for the kingdom of God through the avenue of downtown community church, and you have skills and gifts that you feel like are being underutilized, I feel like it's part of my responsibility to make sure those are shepherded, stewarded, and utilized well. I do not want to get to the end of my life and feel like I wasted a massive movement of people that God called me to shepherd and steward because you had abilities and capacities that could just instead of having one or two or ten horses pull the entire group, what if it was just a thousand horses running strong in the same direction? And that's kind of the picture of what we want to see. And so, if with all of this you see and you think and you have an idea, is man, we would love to know about it, hear about it. Um, and we're doing everything with that we can as a staff and as a structure to not just be able to know about it and hear about it, but to actually be able to actualize on the potential. But again, it's gonna take all of us to get there. Um, so thank you guys for being here. Thank you for being a part of our church. Thank you for still being here in the mission and vision. Know that I love you guys and I'll be here as long as you guys want to talk after. Cool. Maybe not as long as you want, but as long as my wife will allow me.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:51

I was gonna say, Lindsey Kemper is not going to agree to that. She is not going to agree to that.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:56

Can I bring you up for Lindsay real quick? Just like a Nate, any final gruffs?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:13

A quick question. Um, since everyone's putting in a bunch of questions, is there gonna be like an email or like another one of these or we can like go through what everyone said?

unknown 1:42:23

I'm curious what everyone else is saying.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:25

Yeah, we have talked about that. Would that would that be helpful for you guys to do something like that? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd be happy to. We'd be happy to.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:31

I was planning on compiling the questions that were specific to things that we talked about today and putting them in a follow-up email. But then anything that's like, I specifically want to be involved in this ministry, I'm like, I'm not gonna name, I'm not gonna name and drop you. But any questions that we then answer will all get put in. Yeah. And we also did record this, and so we'll send that out as well. And there are three note takers in the room, so shout out to the note takers.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:58

Wait, who's praying for is to end this thing? Hey, anybody want to pray? It's our church.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:04

Oh yes, Laney! Which also, you guys, I want you to know that like when we talk about amazing people at our church doing amazing things totally behind the scenes. If you didn't know, this entire sermon series design that we have had since January, Elena Shaley, one of our youth students, decorated. She made that whole thing herself. She hand drew all of those flowers, she did the Easter design, and when you see disciples at work in a couple weeks, she also made that. So shout out, Lainey.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:38

Ann gave an amazing sermon at youth the other night as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:41

Okay. Thank you. Um, bow your heads and let's pray. Um, dear God, I just thank you for every single person in this room. I thank you that you have brought us here, Lord, to just talk about your church, God, and talk about the ways that you are building the local church that is um DCC right here, Lord. Um I just ask that we would just come together to um be the big C church, Lord, to come together to be the community of believers, Lord, that you have called us to be. Um I just lift up our leadership to you, God, just asking that you would guide us, God, that it would not be by our own wisdom or by um just what we want, but it would be, Lord, by your will and what you are calling us to do. Um, God, we I just thank you for all the ways that you have blessed us, and we just know that you can do exceedingly more than we could ask, think, or imagine. Um so we just ask that you would continue to provide, Lord, and that as you do provide, Lord, that we would steward the things that you provide well. God, that we um would not do it for selfish gain, but only for your glory, Lord. Um and I just pray over our congregation, God, just asking that if you have stirred their hearts with um a desire of how they can get involved right here, Lord, that you would give them the boldness to step out in faith, Lord, in that, um, and that you would um just give them the boldness to put themselves out there, Lord, to our and um with what you have given them, Lord. We are just so thankful for you and we know that you are going to continue to provide, that you're gonna continue to lead us, and we just thank you that you um are the good shepherd and that you just lead so greatly, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:28

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:30

All right, I think we got some more pizza. Have a wonderful rest of your evening.