David Nakhla 0:00

This is David Knockley with the OPC Committee on Diacon Ministries. We're bringing this to you as part of a series of special episodes of the Reformed Deacons. These episodes consist of the audio of the many plenaries and workshops presented at the 4th OPC National Diaconal Summit held in Wheaton, Illinois, in June 2022. It's our desire that deacons who are not able to attend the summit or those who simply miss one of the many wonderful workshops offered will benefit from this practical content. If you find this episode especially invigorating, just consider sharing it with your fellow deacons. If it's an episode that's particularly suited to the work of your diagonal, consider watching the video version of this presentation together with your fellow deacons and discussing it. The videos can be found on opccdm.org. And now I hope you enjoy this episode.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

I do have a little bit of experience doing this. I uh was an officer in the Army and I was called to do a couple of missions in Central and South America after some hurricanes, um, and uh did to help the folks down there. I was a defense coordinating officer, basically worked for the governor of South Carolina, North Carolina for disaster response. So I know a little bit about the architecture for the federal government, state governments uh deployed overseas to help some folks uh that were in need. But since then, getting out in 2008 out of the Army, um I'm also working uh in a Christian ministry that has a diaconal focus. We we house veterans who and their families are homeless and put them to work um through two federal grants, one for housing and the other for employment. And so I've got a lot of case management experience one-on-one trying to get people housed and employed and working with them when they're at their their lowest. You know, they're in that ditch, and we're trying to get them out of it. Um so I'm gonna apply all that as well to what we're talking about today. Uh, it's meant to be a little interactive. We're gonna hang some meat on the bones that you keep hearing in the big house, right? You go over there to make your brain stronger. Now we're gonna we're gonna come in here and put some meat on those, you know, how to do some stuff, um, how to make things happen, um, make it real, you know. Um I'm gonna get a little philosophy at the same time, but it's meant mainly so that we can focus our thoughts on what we're doing when we do some disaster response. My email is right here. Uh, if you want this slide deck, I you just email me and let me know you want the slide deck. I don't know if it's going to be included on anything. The outline that you've been given is uh old. I mean, that's for it a month ago. And you know, the old saying it's only it's only a minute of work if you wait to the last minute, and that's what I kind of did with these slides, right? So they may not reflect everything that you're seeing in the in the slide deck that you got before you in your books. Um but um I will send you the slide deck, it'll be in a PDF format, and that way you can uh check your notes against what you're you've seen today. Let me get a little bit of a sense of the audience. Um, how many of us served in the military? I know I've got a Navy brother over here. Good, good, good. Navy, Army, Marines. All right, good. Over here? Navy. Very good.

SPEAKER_07 3:37

All right.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Y'all are in God's y'all are Baptist. Not if you were in the Navy, you were Baptists. You're in God's Navy. They they like to do everything under the water, right? So we're Presbyterians are in God's army, all right? You're on the ground, all right? All right. Uh any uh first responders, police, EMS, there we go. Firefighter, there you go. So you've seen the ugliness of life, you know, the death and uh destruction.

SPEAKER_05 4:10

Get in the military.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

And you did it in the military as well? Very good. All right, um deacons, hands up. All right, most of you in the room. Deacons in training. Excellent, excellent, very good. Pastors, I got both of you in here, okay. Steve, any other pastors? Hey, Pastor, thank you. Thank you. All right, good. All right. Um now for if someone was to ask a question for a videographer, can they be heard? Or do I need to repeat their question? I'll I'll try to do that. Y'all keep me honest. So if y'all ask me a question, I have to repeat it so it'll be on the video. You know that I'm in the military because we think in task and purpose. Okay? I think in task and purpose. I get up in the morning, my task is to brush my teeth. My purpose is I don't offend anybody, right? You know, you you everything's task and purpose. Y'all think in task and purpose. You may not know that or not. So our task today, as you can see it, one of the things I was an army officer, had folks brief me all the time, and if one of my staff officers stood up and started reading the slides, I'd shoot him in the forehead. I mean, simply, um I can read. All right, I don't need to be read to. And it usually tells me that they don't know their subject matter. Okay, so I'm not gonna shoot anybody here, right? And uh, but if I start reading to you, I will read a couple things to you because I think they're they're pertinent. But you can read that, you can see what we're gonna try to accomplish today. All right? The ultimate goal is to get that framework built so you can put something to practice in your particular church. Now, I'm gonna exercise the three B's. Anyone know what the three B's are? The three B's. Y'all ought to use the three B's as best you can.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

The one I remember that's applicable is probably not one of yours, but it was be prepared.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Be prepared, yeah. That's that's the old Boy Scout thing, right? Okay, good. It is a good one. Now, my three B's are be brief, be brilliant, and be gone. Okay? That's my three B's. Now we may end up only going in, you know, 45 minutes. Who knows? But you got it, I'll give you a little extra time back. And you can go get some uh sweet tea. Although I don't think I've found any up here since I've been up here. All right, so I'm gonna ask you to look at this task and purpose. Under the task, I want you if you got a pen and paper, I want you to write two words in that task that would help you remember that task. Just two words. You can I'll cheat and use three. All right, just something that will help you, because we're gonna come back to it. And under the purpose, the same thing. A couple words that might help you grasp the purpose. They go together, task and purpose. Because we may revisit that. I may ask y'all anybody remember the task and purpose? And you got a little cheat sheet in front of you, you'll be able to answer the question. We ready to move on? Let's keep going. Here's what we're gonna cover. I call it deconology. Now, it's not a science. Y'all know that if you've been doing it. It is more of an art than it is a science. These are human beings, God's people, that we're serving. Serve the Lord, serve the people. So we're gonna start out with why first. We're gonna hit that why button. It's important to understand why we do something. How many of y'all have children? I'm looking around here, we ain't got too many youngsters. Any of them under three? What is the question of the day? Why? Why? Why is there a telephone out in front of our house, Dad? You know, whatever. It's a why for everything. Why? And even though you answer the why, if it's followed by another why, if they're in the why world, so are we. We like to know why we're doing things. And so we're gonna talk about that. Then we're gonna move to how, where, when, what, which will lead to a framework. Make sense? All right, let me check my notes so I'm keeping myself honest. Okay. I want you all to read that quote. This is from a deacon. I think somebody in the room knows this deacon. Maybe be a deacon with them, a fellow deacon in the same church. Maybe not. Read that quote. So I think most everybody's ready. All right, now this is in the ordained servant servant. How many of y'all get that online? Ordained servant online. You need to get on it, man. This is an OPC periodical. It is sent to every officer in the church. Deacons and elders, teaching elders. So if you don't have it, you need to go to ordained servant and sign up for it, and they'll send it to you. They might even send it to deacons in training if you ask. If you get your deacon, head of deacons, if you have one, or an elder to vouch for you, they may send it to you. It's good reading. And we have Dr. Deacon Carl Carlson, who wrote in 2017 an awesome article. It's called Um The Spiritual Nature of the Office of Deacon. It's beautiful. I read this thing and I went, this guy gets it. He understands. We're gonna talk about what that means. He's here, by the way. I actually he got off the plane. I asked if he'd meet me here because I wanted to tell him I was about to use his name in vain, and he needed to know it. All right. I was gonna talk about him. He's a wonderful man. We got to fellowship last night. So if you run into him, pick his brain. He comes from a church that I cannot pronounce the name. Anybody know how to say I'm asking? All right, beautiful. Something to do with an Indian waterfall and something about that. I mean, it's it's awesome. It means fish. Are you the fellow deacon? Thank you, sir. All right, so a question for you after you read this. When deacons provide material assistance, in what context do we want the recipient of that material assistance to understand the reason for the material assistance? What is it we're trying to get them to really grasp when we pay that bill? The grace of God. Okay. So the spiritual nature of the material gift behind the material gift is what Deacon Carlson's trying to tell us. Now, I told you I work housing homeless veterans. And there's many a time that we get them housed, I have them a key and we pay their rent for three months, and then they get a job and they're self-sufficient and they pay their, and you never, and we talk to them about Jesus. And they just like, hey man, thanks for the all the stuff you gave us, and they don't get it. They don't understand why we're doing it. We're not doing it so that they can, you know, be self-sufficient, you know, pay their own bills. That's not the reason why. It's deeper than that. So, question Does mercy ministry and disaster response, in particular, we're talking about disaster response in the church, have a higher destination, or is it just to stop the distress that there's someone's going through? Their house is damaged. It goes beyond that. Right. Now it's hard for them to think of that when they are in distress. They you can't blame them, man. They hurting. Their souls are hurting. But they need to hear from us and all those that are working in support of the deacons to minister these people that it's Christ first, the spiritual nature of the office, comes to them, the deacon, and ministers to them. It's about Christ, it's about his love for us. It's his resurrection glory. You see the empty grave, the empty tomb. I like how he qualifies it. So when someone's had their house damaged, they're thinking they've first of all felt the effects of death. Destruction. People hurting. And they might think that that's all their reality is right now, is trying to get over that. And so the point that Deacon Carlson's trying to tell us is death does not win because resurrection glory is the power of God. It's what Dr. Troxel talked about. It's the supernatural. It's not everyday life, the grind in the world, it's the supernatural. So if we respond to disasters with a purpose of relieving suffering outside the purpose of the power of resurrection glory, what might we be asking the recipient of mercy ministry to place their trust in? The material world. Make sense? They put their trust in stuff, the material world. And we don't want that. So that's why we're getting into a little philosophy right up front when it comes to disaster response in the local local church. We want people to know that we're coming representing mercy, mercy that our Savior gave us. Again, I work with helping veterans get housed. And I've had what I refer to probably, I've housed about a hundred veterans, and then I again went into the training mode. I've had about two of these veterans who I refer to as professional victims. These are people, professional victims. Yeah, these are these are veterans that are that that they knew the grant better than I did, and they were looking everything to milk it, to get as much as they could get, to manipulate the system. They were living in a material world, and they had mastered getting stuff. They're out there. You might even know a few, you might have even helped a few. Okay, of course, we're supposed to be, we heard it today, be generous. All right? Be generous. Our generosity might win them over, especially if we come in the name of our Savior. So now we've talked about the why, let's move on and get into the how. How does the office of Deacon fit into disaster response? So I typed in the computer and got a word picture. That's what they call these things. I typed in the computer. Well, I won't tell you what the word was. Because the word that I typed in is not even on there. Yeah, it's mind-boggling. But I got interested in it because it was saying some good words. You got the big word deacon, right? And you got the congregation, you got elders. It's got some good words on there, right? Well, there's something missing. And that's the word I typed in there to get there. And that word, anybody want to guess what it is? Supernatural? Yeah, it's close, very close. Grace, very good. It's good. Mercy, that's another good one. Jesus, he's on, yeah, exactly. Relief? No, it's not it. Here it is. This is how the office of deacon fits into disaster response. It's real simple. Worship. Okay, back up. It ain't on there. I've looked. You won't find disaster response on there either, but you won't find worship on there. Okay? Now, Andy, that's our church, right? That's I used to be an elder in that church. Andy's a deacon in that church. That's in Gastonia. Now, I only put that picture up there because it is worship. The vertical, remember we heard that, and the horizontal. It's the vertical that gives the person who is in distress, has experienced a disaster in their life, the healing that they need. Okay. So one of the good the gifts of a good leader is they focus those whom they lead on what is important and what is unimportant. I had 27 years in combat zone, five years. I started out SF, I was an Army Ranger, and I can tell you my job every day was to unconfuse my soldiers. I'm simply it, and that's what your job is, as a spiritual leader in the congregation, to unconfuse, because what all those words that were on there, that was confusion. That was absolute confusion. But you want to unconfuse them? You remind them why they were made, why they were saved, and what they will be doing in eternity. And it's that right there. Now, how simple is that? You were made, we were made by God to give him glory and worship him. Adam and Eve goofed that all up like a football bat. That's army language. Navy, you understand football bat. Soup sandwich, same thing. It's messed up, right? But we were saved. God wants more worshipers. We want more worshipers for God. We were saved to worship. And we will worship in eternity. So deacons provide ministry of mercy and help people focus on relieving the distress in their lives by getting them back to worship. That's why when a hurricane blows through Florence, I mean through the east coast of North Carolina, Hurricane Florence, I believe, is the name of it. When we deployed the disaster advanced response team of the Presbytery of the Southeast, our job was to relieve the distress and point to the church so that they are in the pews, worshiping God and healing. And there were deacons there to love them. Make sure that they were focused again. So deacons create focus by saying this is important and this is unimportant. It's as simple as that. You do it in your homes with your children. This is important. Right now, that's unimportant. Maybe important later, but right now, this is important. So I asked you to write two words down for task. And two words down for purpose. Anyone want to share what their two words are for task? Deacons have courage. Go ahead. Let's go. Specific. Alright, good. Anybody else? For task? Huh? Specific in mercy. Specific in mercy. See how we Just did what we've asked to do? Insight and application. There you go. Very good. Everybody read that task and purpose, just a little bit more. Yes, sir. Insight and peacemaking. Yeah, good. Peacemaking. That's my favorite. Okay. Insight and peacemaking. What about purpose? What are those two words? Anybody else? Disaster framework. Disaster framework.

unknown 22:27

Development framework.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Say again. Development framework. Okay. One of the things about being in the military is you lose your hearing, so I'll be doing a lot of this. All right?

unknown 22:36

Develop response.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

Develop response. Okay, so you just did what I asked. You took a task and purpose statement. You said these things are important from what I read on there. This is important. All those other words, I'm going to park them for right now. They're unimportant. See how that works? Simple as that. You do this every day. But sometimes all of us get very confused. And we need somebody to come alongside us and help us focus on what's important and what's unimportant. Deacons in training today that are in this room. As you're sorting through what the office of deacon is all about, you might be confused as to what's most important. Most of us didn't go. I was a deacon in the Providence OPC church in Austin. Anyone from that church? Plugerville? Okay. So that's I was ordained a deacon there. I had no idea what I was doing. No one trained me. It was a great, what I call a great big happening. I ain't into happenings. I'm a planner, right? So you deacons in training, you're probably looking at that word picture and going, yeah, that's about what I feel like right now. I have no idea what's important. So how does God unconfuse us in this life as to what is most important? What is the most important spiritual and physical activity we are created to do? It's worship. In fact, the most important word, as I've mentioned, cannot be found on that slide after I went to Google and typed in worship. That came up. Okay? That's their description of worship. So listen to another quote from Deacon Carlson in his article, The Spiritual Nature of the Office of Deacon. He says, this is good stuff. This is free stuff. Free stuff. He said, the deacon is marked by strong character combined with a servant heart. We've heard all that today and last night. He gains biblical wisdom instilled by listening to the word preached, studying the word, and participating in training. You're doing it today. Then he brings those things together in carrying out his duties to the church. He is not a mere business manager or caseworker, but a steward of all the church's temporal gifts, material gifts. This is what I want you to listen to. He uses those gifts to enable those under his care to fulfill their chief and highest in glorifying and enjoying God. So he summed it up. We've said it again. What is most important? The vertical, the worship. He uses those gifts, those material gifts, those we're going to talk about gifts and graces, to enable those under his care to fulfill their chief and highest end and glorify and enjoying God. So now, what about the where? Any questions so far? What about the where? Well, let's talk about it. Worship is the centerpiece of our life as believers. It is the highest thing we can do in our lives because we are created to do it, saved to do it, to perform it, to give it. You have to understand the dynamic of the church. So now that we've been reminded how the centrality of worship is how God heals us and renews us, we're going to look at how God has fitted the church together so we can better understand the role of the deacon as it relates to the church members and the elders. How do we all work together in the offices that we hold? Remember, who was it? Was it uh Pastor Shisco that said that the office of believer, did y'all hear those words? That's an office of believer. Okay? So the individual believer is an office holder of self, you know, to in relationship to God. And in amongst the communion of saints. So within the construct of the worship, we have unity, purity, and peace. We're going to talk about unity real quick. First, we are reminded in Ephesians and Galatians how union in Christ establishes and sustains our communion with each other, which ultimately is meant to protect the worship of the church from what? What does unity protect the church from? Satan. Someone over here? Disunity. Schism, right? Division, splitting apart from each other. So unity has a destination in the sense of protecting the church. And that's to keep us from destroying each other. We've seen it. Some of us may have been part of churches that have fallen apart because of disunity. Second, we were reminded in Titus 1, Titus, excuse me, in 1 Peter, that elders are responsible for shepherding the saints. They are to watch diligently over the people committed to their charge to prevent corruption of doctrine or morals. They should visit the people, especially the sick, instruct the ignorant, comfort the mourning, and nourish and guard the children of the covenant. Elders, in summary, are to protect the sheep. So elders are responsible for primarily, primarily, the purity of the church. And they're to protect against what? Wolves. So you see the pattern here. The communion of the saints, that's a doctrine of the church. The communion of the saints protects and enforces unity, protects from disunity or schism. Shepherding protects the purity of the church. All right. Finally, we are reminded in Galatians and Acts that deacons are called to show forth the compassion of Christ in a manifold ministry of mercy toward the saints and strangers on behalf of the church. To this end, they exercise in the fellowship of the church a recognized stewardship of care and of gifts for those in need of distress. Deacons minister the peace. The peace of Christ through acts of mercy to help those who are in distress. Who are not at peace. But are hurting and in anguish and potentially are taking their eyes off God in worship as they trust the material to give them peace and not the peace of God in Christ that surpasses all understanding. Worship is central. The body of Christ encourages each other in the unity in Christ that they have in each other to worship. Shepherds, elders protect the flock to make sure that worship is pure. Deacons provide mercy to make sure worship is peaceful. Make sense? Now you know why you do mercy. I mean, I got told time and time again, as a deacon, you provide mercy ministry. Okay, thank you very much. Why? Well, it helps people. They know that we love them. They know. It's because worship, their heart needs to be totally devoted in a worship service. And if their mind is worried about everything outside the church and all their issues, they're not at peace. They don't come to worship at peace. And that's very important. Here's another Deacon Carlson quote. Read that. Like I said, this guy gets it. He understands. Beautiful, isn't it? The work of a deacon is huge. It is huge because God designed it that way. Acts 6, 1 through 7. Who was not at peace? The Hebrews and the Greeks. And we had certain widows, right?

unknown 32:04

Huh?

SPEAKER_01 32:05

The Hellenists, right? The Greeks. The Jews who were Hellenists, Greeks, right? And there, here we got all these people where? In Jerusalem. And why are they there? There was a conference on no. Holy Spirit, actually. Yeah, Holy Spirit. What was the Jewish Passover? Passover. There you go. So what you now do you have a bunch of people there? And now they come to faith and they're no longer at the synagogue. And all those protections that they had at the synagogue are gone. Okay. And now you have Greek Hellenist Jews, widows, who are in distress because they can't. What? They can't eat. Are they at peace? See how simple that is? They ain't at peace. And what are they asking for? And who are they asking of? The apostles. Right? And they couldn't do their job. So who else wasn't at peace? The apostles.

unknown 33:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

So they, the apostles, weren't at peace. Was the congregation at peace? No. Right? And then we had the widows. See how that worked? There was distress in the church. It was good distress. It was growing fast. All right. Let's look at the win. Are we good with this? Let's keep going. The win. We have three pastors in this room that I know of. Three pastors. One of the most favorite parts of worship is when Chris Cashin or Steve McDaniel will sue you. Raise their hand at the end of worship. Raise their hands. What do they do? Okay, good. So what's that benediction usually telling us? Yeah, they may say something like this: the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance and upon you and give you peace. Is that Steve McDaniel talking? Yeah, his mouth's moving, his voice is being heard, but who's telling us this? The Lord's minister of the gospel, our pastors speak on behalf of our Savior, his words to us, and we leave there at peace and go into a messy world, and we thrive for the next time we hear it. Right? We thrive. We live from benediction to benediction. The Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and every way. Now does that peace mean gas in a gas tank? Maybe. But if you ain't got any, can you still be at peace? Absolutely. Might be a little rough, but yeah, you gotta call somebody to get some gas. But we live a one in six week. And the six days in between here and here are messy. Physical and material distress disrupts the peace of the Lord. Creation groans. We have tornadoes, we have hurricanes, we have wildfires, we have floods, we have those are what we refer as natural disasters, not quite natural, but um then we have man-made disasters, and we're pretty good at that too.

unknown 35:55

Tribulation.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Huh?

unknown 35:57

Tribulation.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Tribulation. Here you go. So the Lord knows that we're about to re-enter into a messy world that is groaning from the effects of sin. He wants us to focus on him and the peace that will calm our souls in the midst of a messy and sinful world that can disrupt his peace in our souls and make our worship of him weak and not of all our heart and soul like it should be. It's a battle. How about you? Monday, it starts going downhill pretty quick. That's kind of why at our church we meet on Wednesday so we can encourage each other to get to Sunday. All right? That's why your shepherds are shepherding. That's why your deacons are going into the homes and talking to people to see if they're okay. They're making sure that the peace of the Lord continues. So we have emergencies. Serious, unexpected situation requiring immediate action. That's a dictionary term. Here's another one. Catastrophic events, an event causing great and sudden change, crisis, time of intense difficulty or danger, or even that disaster. A natural man-made event that causes loss of life. You don't know what a disaster is until you go to, I was deployed to Honduras. Actually, we stayed in Salvador. And we flew from Salvador into Honduras, Guatemala, assessing the damage of a serious hurricane. Got into Nicaragua, that was cool. Get off the helicopter, looking at communists. It's like, woo-woo-woo, ching, ching. They're looking at me, I'm looking at them. You know, democracy, communism, staring each other down. And we go to assess a couple of villages that got hit by this hurricane. Mountains slid down on the town. Didn't even see the town. We saw some people that were dead. Pigs were eating them. Now that's pretty bad. You can't get that out of your head. It is ugly. And I longed. I longed for the next time I could get before God Almighty and worship and heal and get that out of my head. Get it out of my head. I wanted to worship the Lord and have the world come and make sense again as I gave him glory for all the things he has done for me. Thankfully, the Lord has provided us men who ordained to help us do just that. And that's you guys, deacons. They are called deacons. Deacons in the life of the church are meant to help us remain focused by restoring us to the peace of our Lord so we can enter into act of worship with all our heart and soul. Now everybody does this. I have parsed out, I have parsed out shepherding, communion of the saints, and deacons. But it's you can't take them apart. We participate, every one of us, if we're a member of the body of Christ in the communion of saints. So does our pastor, so do our elders, so do our deacons. Our communion of the saints. We have members of the church who have gifts and graces. We're going to get into that. Who can serve each other and be deacon helpers? And you got a list of deacon helpers. You ain't got to do all the work. We got shepherders that need to be deaconed. We got elders who need to have deacons come talk to them and love on them. And give in fellowship together. Make sense? All right, let's keep moving. Alright, so you're looking at a science project here. Orange axis talks about resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back, and we find that people that are highly connected to other people are highly resilient. And we find that those people that are isolated aren't connected to people are less resilient. We know some of these people, don't we? I mean, X talk about widows. Right? Then we talk about being prepared. Who said be prepared earlier? A gentleman over here. There he is. But I call it time management. Are they organized in the way they order their day or their world? Or are they disorganized and very reactive? And what happens is when you find someone that's isolated and reactive, you got a mess on your hands. Now I know this because I help people get out of ditches in my job. And every time I find one that is living on an island, doesn't know nobody, they're always reactive. They live moment to moment. And it doesn't take much for their for their minds to be just confused. And they go do something silly just to survive. But we know people that are highly organized. So what we need to do, the what of deacons' preparation for disaster response, is to know who is most vulnerable in your worship. Who is most vulnerable to worship disruption in your church? You can think of them right now. That doesn't mean, get this, because the Lord, on occasion, providentially, we can think of Job, rich man, very organized, had lots of family, and the Lord still allowed him to be vulnerable. All right? To prove he was God. So it's not a science project, it's understanding how God moves providentially to grow people in grace. But we do know that, humanly speaking, those people that are susceptible to being in distress are on an island and always seem to be reactive to everything that's happening around him. So take time, think about your congregations who might fit these qualifiers. I want you to think out through the rest of this workshop on who they might be, because we're going to start talking about some folks that might fit into that framework we're going to talk about. We'll finally get to. I also want to stop here and kind of let's go back in time and apply what we've learned already. We've done that a little bit in the in the conference, so bear with me. I'm going to go back. Let me ask you this. Under the why, what did COVID do to our why? COVID isolated a lot of people. Here we go. Isolate a lot of people. Did you have people guarding against trusting the means? I mean, no, they all of a sudden started trusting the means of creation. Don't get me wrong, medicine's good. Okay. It's a blessing. I'm not demonizing medicine and I'm not attacking the vaccine. What I'm saying, though, is that we had people who put their trust in that. Very good. You've been hanging out with Deacon Carlson, I can tell. Very good, sir. Yes, sir. You're on it. All right. So what about what did COVID do to our worship? Complicated. It wasn't disruptive. It was disruptive. It wasn't. Well of a sudden we had people, leaders especially, that couldn't focus the congregation. This is important. This is unimportant. Remember that? We was like, we don't know what's important right now. Well, we do know what's important, but we don't know how to get there and make sure it's still important. Okay? Now the good news is the church was strengthened by COVID. In the OPC, Steve can attest, our churches went whoop because people wanted to worship. I mean, in Andy's church, they probably had five or six families that said they were from other churches. And they saw that the OPC church was in-person worship and they said, we're going. And now they're members. Because they knew what was important. Okay? And they were able to do it. There's some that couldn't do it because of the virus. They were providentially hindered. What did COVID do to this? The unity, the purity, and the peace. We could talk about this for days. I mean the purity of the church. We had people at each other's throats, Christians. The wolves came out. The sheep got eaten in many cases. And definitely the peace was totally disrupted. See how this works? That is a natural disaster. Okay? In fact, now some of it was man-made after the way we reacted to it. And then what did our week look like? Is Zoom worship the same as in-person worship? So when Steve stands up in his boxer shorts and gives us the. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm messing with my brother. He knows I am. That's because I love him. It ain't the same, right? Heard it best said this way. God loves to see the visible representation of vessels of mercy congregating, and he shows them off to the world. These are my people. Isn't that beautiful? And they receive, they hear God's word from God's servant, his minister. And the Holy Spirit moves. So when we gather it, zoom is coming out. Yes. I mean, I think we kind of figure out Zoom, you know, where's the where's the spirit, you know? All right. So let's get back to deacons. Hurricane and earthquake can do the same thing. Wildfires, flooding, tornadoes. They can do the same thing. And so your goal as a deacon is to know this. This is how you prepare your church, as you always know who most likely, because it's not a science project, most likely, in the event of a disruption, a disaster, are most vulnerable. Got some more what going on here. Deacons know the gifts and graces of sheep and prepare God's people for deeds of mercy. We've talked a little bit about gifts and graces. We went now, I'm gonna let you know, I had already done all this before you heard it from, but it was interesting how Dr. Troxel, I think, is the one who took us through the confession. Is that right? I'm getting them mixed up. Okay. And he and I came to the same conclusion after studying the scriptures and looking at our standards. The communion of saints, chapter 26, is deaconology. That's you guys. This is how you know your sheep, you know the people of the congregation, and you know their gifts and graces, and you know their mutual good, and you know the inward and outward man. I'm gonna take some liberty here. Let's talk about gifts. I'm gonna break it out into gifts outer man and graces inner man, inward man. There's some. I just these are starters. Gifts outer man. Do you know anybody that can make a nuclear bomb? Don't tell me. All right. My Navy folks might. They walk around with that nuclear stuff on ships.

SPEAKER_04 49:23

One of our guys was on the May Half Project Victory years ago.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

Yeah, there you go. But we know people that got some pretty cool things they can do, right? That are in the congregation. Could be woodworking, it could be, you name it. They got mental skills. I got a master's in strategy from the United States Army War College. I can develop a plan that will take down a continent. I ain't making that up. Okay. A continent. Like you want China to evaporate and disappear? I'll put a plan together for you because the Army War College told me how to do that. I drive people nuts, you can ask Chris, from a planning perspective. Steve knows this because we're trying to put together a strategy for the Home Missions Committee at denomination. I write strategy, but I also was an Army Ranger under a poncho with a red flashlight writing a five-paragraph field order for troops. Okay, so I can go from zero to 60 real quick. That's a gift I have, but it is also a curse because I can. The first time I briefed Deaconology and disaster response to David Knockla, his eyeballs were about to pop out of his head because I went way too fast and way too far. Okay? So I've had to learn to chill my jets, right? Just to cool it down a little bit. But we have people in our congregations that have mental, physical, material resources. And you ought to know who they are. And you know how you do that? There's several ways. We'll get into it later. But I read something in a book. Let me go back. Let me, I failed to do something. I saw it this morning. Listen to this. This book we got is awesome. All right. And on page 173, listen to this. And think this when I'm reading. Think that. In short, anyone within the communion of saints who is not able to experience the joy and freedom of God's children, should be assisted. After all, God had set his people free from bondage of Egypt and in the fullness of time from the bondage and dominion of sin and Satan. All must enjoy the delight of deliverance. Peace. Anything taken away from that joy, such as the burden of poverty, loneliness, sickness, or mental or physical disabilities, warrants diagonal attention. There's your short list. And now you have a short list, and you're going to start working. Who in the church can help people that we just described? You're connecting dots. It's almost like a dating service. I've got somebody that looks like this and needs some help. And I got somebody over here that looks like this and Mike could help. And it's because you know them. And in this book, I read something that was cool. It said, Deacons go into the homes and visit the sheep. And we've always thought that's the elders. And I was like, this guy gets it. He must be talking to Deacon Carlson. All right? This Van Damkat, right? He must be talking to him. He gets it. Go into the homes. You go in my home when I was living in Belmont, you're gonna find I got a whole house generator. Okay? I'm serious. My wife, she's got to have that curling iron working, man. All right. So I wound up buying a whole house generator. Don't you tell her, Chris. Um it's being recorded, I'm sorry. All right. So we bought a whole house generator because we were on a septic symptom in a well pump. All right. And she didn't like not having to be able to shower and, you know, whatever, cook. And right. And so you were a deacon and you come into my house and you say I have a whole house generator. Which means when that widow's house power goes out and it's out for a week, maybe use, and I got a four-bedroom house for my two children who never came to my house, and I could probably put them there. And they could be cool. And I could feed them, and I could fellowship with them, and I could love on them, they could love on me. See how that works? It's that simple. Okay? You're connecting dots. But you got to know this. So you got to be engaged in their lives, you gotta talk to them, you got to get to know them, you gotta be vulnerable. In the infantry, when I talked to a lieutenant and I gave him a mission, and he stood there with that goofy look on his face. I'd simply tell him, move out and draw fire. If you're not good for anything, get up, run towards the enemy so they'll shoot at you and your man will know where they are. Okay. Go get dirty. Go get dirty. Move out and draw fire as a deacon. Just go do. Go do. Don't sit there, go do. Do something. Go go get involved in the lives of somebody. What about Grace's inner man? We know people. I just started brainstorming when it comes to disaster response. We got peacekeepers in our congregations. People who love to help. They have hospitality. They understand what it means to live providentially. They can separate the world from Christ's kingdom. We know who they are. Has experienced personally suffering. Those are great deacon helpers. People that you can marry up with someone who's hurting. They know how to persevere. They're not easily offended. Those are graces in the inward person. The Lord has developed them. And they're not to be idle. We can help them serve the church, the body of Christ, in a disaster. But if you don't know who they are, and a disaster hits, we now in a happening. Okay. Things are happening, but I don't know what to do. If you do a little bit of preparation, know the gifts and graces of the sheep to prepare God's people for deeds of mercy. You're there. Does it make sense? All right, let's keep driving on. So, what do deacons do to prepare? They strengthen disaster response preparedness of the sheep. We already went through knowing who's vulnerable. How many of us know where the Deacon Disaster Response OPC webpage is? Have we looked at that bad boy? If you look at it, you're going to get a bunch of information on how to do a survey, how to sit down with a family, ask questions, what they may have as far as resources, gifts, and so forth. And you'll be able to understand what their weaknesses are, where they might need help. And there's all these resources on the on the OPC webpage. There's even a cat that'll in 13 minutes teach you how to do that. That good-looking gentleman without a beard at Reformation OPC. We teach you how to do that on a 13-minute video, and it's hung on the OPC webpage for disaster response. We actually do one for presbyteries. How many presbytery diaconal committee members do I have in here? There you go. I knew you were reasonable wearing a man dress for a reason. All right. Picking on your brother. You as well? Good. Anybody else? All right. We have one for presbytery diaconal committees. How to prepare for disaster response. Go there. How do you know the gifts and graces of the sheep? Now, this is something I want I'm going to work with David on. How many of y'all are signed up for the disaster response registry? Oh, help me. Get those hands up. Three, four, five. Okay. We need to go to the disaster response webpage and click on the disaster response volunteer registry. Now, if you don't have anything to do that to help in that regard, you can encourage people to do that in your church. But here's one of the weaknesses of that registry. Right now, I can call up and say how many people in the Presbytery of the Southeast, David, have signed up for the registry, and he'll look and give me the list and the names. And it'll be about like 60 some odd people. It's pretty good. But what that does that do for you as a deacon? Zip. What if we had an option when they fill out the registry that they could send that to their deacon? Would that help you? Because in the registry, it asks you a whole bunch of questions. What are your gifts? What resources do you have? Where might you be able to help? Would that be information you would like to know for your local church in case maybe a disaster hits you? You don't have to go to higher headquarters to ask what your people have gifts and graces in. You have it right there in front of you. So this is something I'm going to be working with David on. But get them to the registry. Ways of doing that. How many of y'all have fellowship meals? Put a computer there, put two or three of them, tell them about the registry. Before they can eat, they have to know. Right? Find a way. Find a way. Yeah, open it up. And all those that are afraid of computers. Let's keep talking about what? Deacons protect the communal joy of the congregation. Now, this may sound redundant, but it is not. We're going to point two of 26, like Dr. Troxel did, and we're going to talk about abilities and necessities. What I want to understand is this. My house has a fire. Okay. The whole house generator my wife wanted in the house caused a fire. No. It's and so it's damaged, right? And I now need some help. And then deacons show up and say, what can we help you with? Well, I got insurance. Looks like it's going to cover there. But um how does that affect the body of Christ that I go to church with that my house burned? Hurts. Because we're supposed to suffer together, right? We're supposed to suffer together. I still remember Reformation OPC when it was a mission work. We had a gentleman who got brain cancer. And we were a congregation probably of about 20 people. And every one of us suffered as if we had brain cancer. Because this man was dear to us. He lived 23 more months and he passed away. How did we heal? Trick question. Go back to the beginning of this thing. We went to what? Worship. Okay? But we suffered with him. So the communal, the collective impact of a disaster on one person in your body can affect the entire congregation and their communal joy. And that's what this is, I want us to talk about now, is you you can help protect the communal joy by helping these are what I call necessities. It's necessary to restore peace. And how do you restore peace? You shift from trusting creation to trusting in the resurrection power of God. We want the entire congregation to help not only the one person, me with my house on fire, but we want to help each other. So my, I might have a Andy, we're going to church, and my house caught on fire, and Andy feels as if he was in the house, he lives down the road, when it started burning. His heart hurt so bad for me and my family that his peace for worship is disrupted. And so now we're not only talking about shifting an individual, Mike Chloe, his house, and trusting the insurance agent to take care of everything in the world instead of the resurrection power of God and heal. We're also now dealing with Andy and Andy's wife. Okay? See the effects of a disaster much. That's why when we have a hurricane that blows on the East Coast, we got people in Alaska saying, I want to go. Because they're believers who are hurting for the churches. They have compassion and they want to go. So it is in your own congregations. You should know what you do for me and my house burning and Andy and anyone else that is bleeding with me needs to be taken care of by the deacons. Does that make sense? The collective impact of a disaster. So gifts outer man, Gary says inner man. You're trying to make sure all of what God has given the church is working together to help bring peace. Now let's get into some how. Anybody uh I'll let you read this. This is the tower. How do you say that? We got some people that know how to speak this. Siloom? Is that Siloam? Okay. So this is the account in Luke 13, 45. Here it is. Repent or perish. We emphasize the dark here because you see here on this tower of Saloon that is fallen, and there are 18 that were killed. Okay. And then what we find is it's an opportunity for deacons to remind humanity of need of redemption. How many of y'all have? Now I'm not I'm not speaking worldly here when I say this. How many of y'all have cheated death?

unknown 1:03:58

Multiple times.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

Multiple times. Were you in service?

unknown 1:04:02

No, I wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

Yeah. I won't get into it. But when you have a near-death experience, it helps you examine your heart. When you as a deacon are helping someone reestablish the peace, shift from the world to Christ in their peace, the foundation of their peace, then what you're doing is you're helping them examine themselves. It is a means of bringing the gospel back to them in their minds and their hearts. And if it's someone outside the church, it's even better. Who've never heard the gospel. To repent. None of us know that we're going to get home tomorrow. The Lord may bring us home where we really reside, but home on the earth. I'm not wishing that on anybody. What I'm just saying is a reality, just like it was for those that were under that tower when it collapsed, it's referred to in Scripture. So think of opportunities when you're administering mercy ministry in peacemaking the element of repentance with who you're working with. We're gonna work through that here in a minute. Right now. That's pretty close to a minute. All right. We got Russell. Now, there's a reason why I pick Russell. That's the name of my middle brother. And he was always a pest. So I love him dearly. Um so Russell, we had two members of our church. Russell's one of those that was injured. Through that tower going down. What happened is it fell on his business. It's repairable. There's a hole in the roof. He's married Donna. They got five children, ages two through twelve. They have no extended family close by. We're stepping into real world today and stepping into Jerusalem in the day gone by. And so Rome is like two months away. Not so today, but it's two months away. So what you're learning here is that the immediate assistance, which should always be the family, they're not available. They're not around. Can't get there. And he's the church treasurer. Okay? We got a mess in all hands. So we assess his resilience is fairly good because what you don't know is he's got some faithful employees that did not get hurt and harmed, that are very loyal, and he's got some awesome neighbors. But the church might need to get involved. His preparedness was medium, very the little, no savings, and he had no health insurance. He's self-employed and he was trying to cut some corners. Okay. So what we've done is we've assessed how bad this disaster has now impacted Russell and his family. We got some facts there. But then we got Abigail. I just like the name Abigail. Abigail's in the hospital with both broken legs. Now Russell's in the ICU with brain injury, so he's really bad off, but he's gonna live. Abigail's in in the hospital with two broken legs. That's pretty bad because she's old, she's a widow, she has no children, no related family nearby. The tower fell on her house, and it's repairable as well. It's got a hole that needs to be fixed in the roof as well, and some debris removed. She has no extended family, nothing. Nobody nearby. She's on fixed income. Didn't have a car or a chariot, whatever. Okay. Her assessment is her resilience is probably pretty low. We gotta make an assumption. Could be that she's pretty pretty resilient, independent. She only has her church family. That's it. Nobody else. And her preparedness could be fairly low because she's on fixed income. Only has Social Security Medicare. Now, this is real world. This could happen. And you're a deacon and you ow. And it's just two people that live through it. You might have some folks in your church who passed away. And now you got a disaster in your hand. And how do you deal with it? So first thing we do, we're gonna start with Abigail. And these are blank for a reason because this is meant for discussion. What do we talk to Abigail about examining herself when you talk to her? What are you gonna ask her? What do you ask her? She just cheated to death. She got two broken legs. She's been blessed. She's still alive.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

Make sure she has logic.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

Okay, so you're already jumping to how to restore peace. I want us to start with. Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:18

You gotta you I'm gonna minister the mercy of Christ to her.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

I'm gonna share the gospel with her.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:25

Very good. Amen. Amen. That's excellent, sir. What do you want to ask her? How are you doing? How you doing spiritually? How about this question? Abigail? What if you didn't survive this? She's a you know, where would you be? Abigail, where would you be if you were not preserved by the Lord and only have two broken legs? That's bad enough. Where would you be? Where what's your eternal state? Can Deacons ask that question? Absolutely. You won't start right there. What's most important? You can't get to peace until she starts looking at her heart. All right. So, oh Mike, Mr. Deacon, thank you for that question. It's only made me realize how much the Lord loves me. He loves me. And you know what? He loves all my family in the church because now I can minister to them in my suffering. Whoa, you're going, whoa, she gets it. Right? She gets it. It ain't about her. It's about the Lord's love for her. It's about her family, her church family who loves her. Now she's gonna minister to them. Right? That's beautiful. So you're now giving a little confidence to her. She's okay. She understands. Or it could be, I would have died in my sins. And you're like, oh, why's that? And maybe she tells you. And then she tells you enough to where you go, 911, I need an elder. Okay. I need a pastor, right? But you know enough to minister to her to get her the spiritual counseling she might need. She has her particular elder that she works with. Now we go here. What is a critical? What do you think is most important to get her? It could be anything. What is it? You know her a little bit. What is it that's going to restore her peace? We have some insights over here. What else? Got a hole in the roof? Long recovery. Ah, so she might need what?

unknown 1:11:53

Needs on the driver route.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:55

Needs on the drive, okay. Get that chariot hooked up. What else? Sir?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:01

If I remember right, her scenario is two broken legs, so she may need people to be at her house with her to help her do basic tasks.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:10

Cool, beans. I like it. What else? Basic task. Assisted daily living.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:14

How will her medical needs?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:16

Her medical needs, yes, look here. She's on Medicare. Alright? She has no savings. You had another one over here.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:24

Same thing. Weather Medicare is going to cover it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

Okay, good, good. What else? She's probably going to need someone to help her handle the stress to deal with her medicine. Is that a voice of experience, a gift that you have?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:39

The other thing just very basically, if before she broke her legs, she was able to walk around and get outside. And now she can't, so she's going to be lonely.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

She's going to be isolated. Yeah. You guys are on it. See?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:49

Someone walked the dog.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:50

Walk the dog. Grocery needs. Grocery needs. Sir.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:54

She needs somebody to hold the ladder while she's repairing her room.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:59

I like it. I like it. Yeah. So now we ask. We start thinking, who can help? Are you supposed to be doing all this by yourself? No. Can you do it all by yourself? No. Was it meant for you to do it by yourself? No. We have a body of Christ and communion of saints, and there are people, gifts, and graces in your congregation that might be. You remember the question? We got a young widow and we got an elderly widow. All you gotta ask is the elderly widow. Put it in perspective of the vertical again. Her life is disruptive. I mean, she can't pay her bills. She needs help for a month. Can you help her be a better worshiper and at peace by a month's worth of? Just ask the question. My brother's in sales. Anybody in sales? My brother's in sales. He says one rule: you never know the answer until you ask the question. Ask the question of the elderly widow. Just ask her. Don't be afraid. She can say no. All right? But find somebody else. So now we can see how we've. This is our framework. We talk about her spiritual estate because she cheated death. The Lord blessed her, preserved her life. We think about all those things she might need, and we start marrying that up. Now, what about Russell? Huh? Administering to him. Spiritually, then he asked you to pray. Who you might be administering to? Amen. You got it. Russell has got tubes in his throat, eyes closed, monitors on him. He can't talk to anybody. But he's got family. He's got how many kids? There you go. People are listening. I love it. All right. So. And a wife. Is she at peace? Children at peace? So who are you going to minister to? Her and her children. And you're going to start asking her some questions. And when he comes out of, he comes out of his coma or out of his ICU estate, and you might start asking Russell some questions. You got some others that you might be able to. Here's another opportunity. Who else might you ask that's employees and neighbors? Isn't that awesome? Yes. Exactly. So you know he's got loyal employees. You got an opportunity to ask them the same question. What if this was you? What was your eternal state? Where would you be right now? In hell or Christ? Simple question. People don't like hearing that question unless they're a believer. Okay? And then you move over here. What does that Russell need? Got a business, got a hole in his roof.

unknown 1:15:56

He's got enough healthcare.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:57

He's got a ton of healthcare coming. Got a lot of. You thought Abigail needed help. He's going to need lots of help. And his family. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:10

For Russell goes nice to you. So this is where after EM3. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:45

And then now you're you're finding those gifts and graces that are going to help the long haul, okay, and minister to the family. So that we bring them back to peaceful state to worship. Sir.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:57

Is that the order that you would go in? Would you primarily go question of spiritual, then material, then gifts and grace? Or would would you maybe start with material? Because sometimes people that have been injured in disaster need the immediate before you can even ask the question.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:15

Right. Right. No, that's a great question. I only did it for this reason. The emphasis is the spiritual nature of the office of deacon. I want deacons to understand they need to ask that question. Okay? When they ask that question, is then the wisdom of the deacon and the situation in the family and all that complexity of it, they'll know when. But don't avoid the question.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:40

Yes. Right. Reality that's offered component. Even if it's being a very small component to go, okay, they are so distraught with the material concerns, I gotta go deal with that. Um the only way you're actually going to honestly arrive at that conclusion is the surface group.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:00

Right. I mean, I I I wouldn't disagree with you. I think that's where I would go. But I what I want you to do is be feel comfortable. Don't don't put so much emphasis on the material that that they think that you're a Santa Claus. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:15

I think that uh I'm I'm I'm I'm possibly aware that we can put the peacensor and put the peacens.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:42

Yes, quote, quote, he was at peace when he was being stoned. Amazing. Yes, very good words. What what I want us to leave here today is you are you are serving in the supernatural, right? You are a spiritual deacon. So that's why I want us to think about this first. Do you ask that question right up? Great, great question. I I think it's you know them. Maybe you're comfortable enough. Maybe they're new members and you don't know them well enough, and you're gonna pause a little bit before you get there, right? All right, so what happens when Russell, you ain't got enough gifts and graces to help Russell or Abigail? Do you go out and sell lemonade and and and cookies and and lickies and chewies as we call them in the in the military? You go do that to make money?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:41

My personal example is when making one to the congregation, make it known to the local presbytery, and then that is still not enough, but we have to oversight.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:52

Very good. So were you in David's class today?

unknown 1:19:55

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:56

Okay, who was in David's class today? All right, so you know the answer. We go to the presbytery. There's people in the presbytery that have gifts and graces that might be able to apply to help you out, to strengthen, or connectional church will strengthen your body. Okay? We were in mission work at Gastonia for a while. We had a borrowed deacon, like we had borrowed elders. This guy was awesome. He's as big as Tim. Tim Hopper. I mean, big old tall guy. He's in the shooting, he's a pretty cool cat. All right? He's in the competitive shooting. He'd come to us 30, 40 minutes away and worship with us and walk around. Got anything you need help with? And then he finds something. He'd say, somebody said, Well, you need to talk to Chloe, his house burned down. And he'd go, yeah, he'd say, You need to talk to Chloe, somebody in the congregation, because he's talking to him, sensing the congregation how they're doing. And he finds a diaconal in because he talked to somebody. Mike's house burned down. You need to talk to him. He came over. Next thing you know, he's putting a ton of diaconal love on us because we didn't have any deacons. It was awesome. I love this guy this day. He just oozed mercy. I mean, every time you saw him, it was about loving people, loving God's sheep. And he's that's at connectional church. And we got the dart. I don't want to talk about the dart, disaster events response team in the Presbytery of the Southeast. We'll deploy that Dart to get that hole fixed in your house. Tree off your house. Water out of your basement. Because we got a bunch of tools and equipment and trained men to do it quickly. But then if we can't handle the presbytery, we're gonna kick it to denomination. David Knockla makes it happen. The CDM makes it happen. And they come up with people from Alaska. It's amazing. They show up in North Carolina, I'm here to help. Well, take your snowshoes off, Skippy, and let's done. See that house? That house was destroyed in Hurricane Florence. And I'm gonna read you a diary entry of the lady who owned that house. She bought that house, and two days after she bought it, it was three feet underwater. And you see all that stuff that's sitting on the street? You see that trailer? The disaster response team, advanced response team, went in there and took up all the subflooring, got all the insulation out, cut the drywall to the flood levels above it, got blowers in there, started working on it. Two days after the water receded. This is what she wrote in her diary. Anyone know Scott Cormier? Deacon at Newburn, Covenant. It has been one month since we came home to find the house had been flooded. Hurricane Florence had left the house I had owned for two weeks in a shambles. God, in his providence, has provided disaster relief through the OPC that tore out the wet flooring and sheetrock. A church member, kissing graces. A church member provided us a place to stay for the first week. And the company I work for, she's a nurse, has provided a furnished apartment until my home is restored. To have lived through a natural disaster, I have been greatly blessed. I have shed many tears, but am overall very blessed. Do you think she was at peace? Because people, huh? She was getting there. So she's a member of Newburn Covenant, Hurricane Florence, Newburn, North Carolina. And I now know her as a member of the church that I'm a member of. And she shared with this, and both of us cried. At the anniversary of Florence, she breaks down. And we have to be with her. Because it was so catastrophic to her. She is still healing, but she is at peace because she's at worship every Sunday. She's and a deacon did that. Scott Cormier, the deacon at Newborn. One guy working his little tail off. Orthopedic uh physical therapist, I think is what he does for a living. All right. I developed a catechism. Now we're not going to recite this, but I want you to read it. I want you to read it, because if you want it, I'll send it to you. But I want to hear from y'all if you think it helps when it comes to disaster response in the local church. Summarize what we talked today. We're about done. I got two minutes. I think. You know those saying, if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing, so we can keep going if you want. So you guys find that helpful? All right. Remember, my task and purpose for you today was that. I hope I accomplished it. If you want the slides, just email me. Let's bow our head in prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, you are indeed just that. You are remarkably gracious, gracious beyond our understanding. And Father, you have given us the gift of grace to give to others because we know how gracious you are. And Father, we ask that we would be able to imitate your grace in our lives to those who are hurting and need mercy in their lives to be restored to the peace of worship. And we thank you for the love of the saints that deacons have. And we ask that you would bless these men as they go now to another activity and finish up tomorrow and take home what they've learned and put it into practice so that they can glorify your name in Christ's name. We pray. Amen. Thank you, man.

David Nakhla 1:26:51

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