The Neighborhood Church, Bentonville, AR
The Neighborhood Church, Bentonville, AR
"I'm Fine, Everything's Fine: Exploring Emotionally Healthy Spirituality"
Ever find yourself saying "I'm fine" when you're anything but? Join Pastor Joe Liles, Tom Helmich, and Roseann from The Neighborhood Church as they dive deep into what it really means to have an emotionally healthy spiritual life.
Based on Peter Scazzero's groundbreaking book, this podcast peels back the layers of our typical spiritual performances. We explore how our emotions, faith, and relationship with God intersect in real, messy, and transformative ways. What distracts us from truly connecting with God? How can we develop spiritual maturity? What does it mean to have an authentic relationship with the divine?
Whether you're struggling, searching, or simply curious, this podcast offers a compassionate and honest look at spiritual growth.
Tom, welcome to the TNC podcast. We are back live recorded in studio, aka the Worship Center at the neighborhood church, and I have two of our regular podcast hosts joining me today as we break down. A message from Tom, how much kicking off his first series ever in the life of the church, I'm fine. Everything's fine, which is has been entirely relatable for the church. Like that series title, it reminds me of when we did, hey, can we talk? Which is something that people say in life often, which means there's a big talk coming, and people are like, ooh, that's tough. And this is another statement I feel in life that people like I can relate to, that I'm fine, everything's fine. When you say I'm fine, everything's fine. It is not indeed. It is not indeed. There's a lot going on. So we're going to break down our life group, study book, right by Peter scissoro, which is emotionally healthy, spirituality, which is going to be great. But before we do that, I want to introduce to you How is in the house this morning. To my right, you've already heard his voice. It is a sultry, smooth about that Tom helmets in the house, our upcoming pastor of care and education here at the neighbor church, getting ordained in May, coming on to staff in the summer, in the summer. So I don't know. I feel like you're gonna travel after you get ordained for a little bit, thinking about taking a week, yeah, without you telling me, I was like, I know he's gonna be gone. I'm not thinking about like, him being ordained and being on staff. And I'm like, Tom go do your thing, and then when you're ready, come back and be on staff. It's gonna be great. I got you. I know you now. I know you like that early summer travel, yeah, you know that early summer travel last week. He was like, Joe, I'm taking four weeks. You know, when he told me that after I didn't receive my sabbatical grant, and he's like, cool. I'm gonna be gone for four weeks. And I was like, Tom, I will, I will mess you up. Tom, I will mess you up. School related. It was, of course, it was school related. Yeah, it had to be gone. Unbelievable. It hurt my soul. Hurt my soul. I've never told him. This is a live telling of Tom confessions. Okay, here we go, to my left with the the wonderful smile and the sly little laugh that you just heard on the podcast. It is the wonderful Roseanne bowling. Roseanne bowling coming in and guys, in order to start our podcast, let's tell everyone the church phone number. You guys ready for this? A, one, a, 2479367, 2285, neighborhood church, church. And guess what we used to say on the podcast? We were saying before we got here, who answers that phone? And we would say, say, No one, no one answers the phone, and then we'd leave a message, and if we got back to you, you won, right? I mean, that's like when you plink on the prices, right? Like it was hit or miss, it was hit or miss, but not anymore, because we have the wonderful Roseanne bullet. Roseanne, how many calls do you get on our church line? A couple a day, a couple of days. So if you're listening to the podcast, just call to say hi to Roseanne.
Tom Helmich:And if you've been calling for a long time and not gotten an answer, we're so sorry. We're
Pastor Joe Liles:so sorry. We apologize to do We apologize come. You can come into church on a Sunday. You can see us. We love to talk with you. Oh, can I tell you guys something that happened? Tangent, I apologize right now, right? Let it go, squirrel. So on Sunday, that's Joe, wonderful couple new to the church comes in on Sunday, and I had our worship coordinator come up to us and say, Hey, welcome desk is real active right now. And I said, great, because we just kind of put up the whole welcome desk, men's group, women's group, the whole thing's going on. It's wonderful. And I said, Okay, great. And I said, What does that mean? They said, well, we just got some good deals. Good theology questions coming in. And I was like, Oh, really? At the welcome, I said, Yeah, it's great. And so I got to meet a brand new couple on Sunday. Went back there after service or second service, and went back there and oh man, they had a list of just excellent theology questions, which is part of why I love the podcast is because we get to break down a deeper part of the text. They're asking, like, hey, what's our beliefs on hell, in the existence of hell? Like, you know, what is our what is our understanding of church discipline? You know? What is our understanding? I mean, it was just an amazing conversation about really deep rooted topics in the life of the church. We talked for 45 minutes, 45 minutes after Sunday, about the and it was great, like, and I think there was a lot of just kind of like, shared like, Hey, here's where we're at, but you can also be there. That's okay, right? It's about this conversation that's happening, which is really good and so, so that's why we come to the podcast. We come to the podcast to kind of break down that'd be
Tom Helmich:a great podcast sometime, just about the debate about the existence of hell. You
Pastor Joe Liles:know what our most watched? Well, it's in our top five for now, for years on YouTube. The message, you know which one it is, it's when we did our Halloween series many years ago about spirits, right? And do you believe in evil? And then the whole logo was like, this evil Halloweeny logo type of deal. And and it was all about like, hey, what do we believe about hell? What do we believe about demons? What do we believe about this? I was just kind of like staying in the vein of October, right? Our one of our most watched things is from that series called what is prophecy, and because a lot of prophetic things came about judgment and casting out in the future, this and that and so but yeah, it continues to be one of the most looked up things on YouTube. What is prophecy? And I figured out that any message that's titled with a question, like, for example, our last couple that came up, there's been some more than been rising up on YouTube, because we ask questions like, Hey, should the church change? Is the title? It's basically the whole text on the thumbnail for our video. And people are just keying on it because they have that question like, What is the future church, like, what do you
Tom Helmich:have, like, a way that people can put in, like, their questions, and we do a series and just breaking down the questions, like the Sundays, like, what is hell? What is heaven? What is the spirit? What is and just, like, start, like, just answering those questions, yeah, work on Sundays. Maybe we do it like on the series, yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles:that's great podcast series. That's great. So I've wanted to put that on the Billboard, right? So in different seasons, for six week, runs three, three month runs different things like that. We've done a billboard. Right? When we do the billboard, it's so we can just put out things. But I've always wanted to do, like a submit, like, what are your questions about
Tom Helmich:church? Yeah, very likely be a whole lot of art this question, yeah, I have no idea, yeah. But
Pastor Joe Liles:just to get the community, because we can always get the church, but like to hear from the community, even if they don't come here, like, what are their questions about church, church, northwest Arkansas, church in general. Like, why is it needed? What's going on? That's the
Tom Helmich:hard part. Is, like, you're trying to put a message together. Like, my wife will tell me, Amy will tell me when I like, there's something and she's like, what's that mean? I'm like, Oh, I know what that means, but yeah, like, a churchy word that nobody else knows. Yep. So if somebody has a question, more than one person's gonna be wondering that. Yeah, very much. So, so I think that'd be, that'd be fun. Yeah, it'd be
Pastor Joe Liles:great. I mean, it kind of reminds me the series we're doing coming up in May for your ordination, kind of that ordination track, which is kind of the the history of the church, right, and where it came from. Oh, interesting. Oh, it's gonna be so good. And then we're gonna do in that a traditional Sunday. Oh, I heard that. Traditional people, well, no, they're excited for it. We have given them a heads up. They are excited for what's going on about it. They want it. I mean, yeah, if I can get, like, a ham b3 organ to come into the church right now, I'm gonna get some fake pipes behind it, right? Traditional, hold on a second. I can do this. I can do this. We could do like, a pipe organ theme. Oh, now I'm getting like, Phantom in the opera, vibes like this.
Tom Helmich:Don't, don't go. Might be kind of hard to fit a pipe organ in here. No, no,
Pastor Joe Liles:no. So, like, I'm kidding, I know. I mean, I know. Challenge me. I'll put a pipe in your eyes. Like, shoot, like I said it out loud. Morgan in here all day first,
Tom Helmich:he's like, me kill you,
Pastor Joe Liles:Gary, our facility right after Easter too. Hey, Gary, here's our next project after Easter, which can be great. No, I'm wondering if we can get PVC pipe and, like, cut the top, like an organ, and then just put it across, you know what I'm saying, like, it'll start hearing a
Tom Helmich:pipe organ, or gonna think the blue man groups coming in, yeah, and then we could
Pastor Joe Liles:play the pipes. Ooh, drummers could play the pipes. Yes, that would actually be pretty. You know what? We'll do it.
Unknown:I'll go ahead. We apologize
Pastor Joe Liles:to everyone. This is how a series developed at the neighborhood church. What if we started with Oregon? We started with no music, right? Because your early church, right? Like, we're not room table, it wasn't part of, like, the worship, right? And so you get into early church and, like, the 1500s Reformation period, you're all organ. Oh, that early, right? Yeah. Like, early. Like, no, so I'm talking like 100 church, then we're going to do the 1500s church, then we're going to do the 1990s church, because that was an awesome, like, multi site, kind of almost into digital age of church, right? Online, different things like that. Your good three chord worship, right back in those days. And then, and then we're going to get into the future of church, not even like modern day. We're going to go straight to, like, future of the church, which is going to be great. Gonna be great. And so it's a great series. But what if? What if it's there? Like, we have this wonderful backdrop of, like, organ for the series. But then on the 1500s one, we played organ music, right? We do our traditional Sunday. It's gonna be great with a keyboard. Oh, we can we have or, yeah, would be amazing. Okay, so we play this. You got the organ, everything else. But then But then what if, like, the future church, we do bring in our drummers, and they actually turn around and actually play the pipes. And if we can get it right, they each actually have no Yeah.
Tom Helmich:Board is really cool. Depending on how tall we make it, we could, like, lay it down out here, like a, oh
Pastor Joe Liles:yes, that'd be awesome. Like a Blue Man Group, like a Blue Man Group, yeah. And then people come in for the future of church, and it's just Blue Man Group, like the future of church. I don't know if that's the right message. Okay, the illustration might break down at that level. Um, so you might have to do it. But I do like that. Do the Orange Man? I think we've come with our backdrop post Easter who? Orange Man?
Unknown:Orange Man Group, Orange Man Group,
Pastor Joe Liles:wow, that's, I like that, Roseanne, I'm feeling, I'm feeling like we got next year you contributed.
Tom Helmich:We can't put a limit on what the church can be exactly.
Pastor Joe Liles:Then we could roll that to our Christmas when we do our float and do orange MAN group, because last year we did Blue Man Group with the drums. We'll do orange band group on the pipes. Okay, so Tom All right, before. You take another 10 minutes talking about the upcoming series of the church, and you know why? It's because Jesus has risen. This is our post Easter series, which will be wonderful. Tom, you broke down a message starting a new series. So let me just kind of take us through why we're starting a new series. This is our life group series, right? And so all the life groups are gonna be doing the same study. We're actually meeting on the 30th, 31st 31st which is a Sunday, right? And we're going to meet on that Sunday is the 30th, 30th. It's the 30th. We're going to be on 30th on that Sunday, and we're going to meet five to seven kickoff study. It's going to be amazing. All the life group leaders and then a new life group people coming in, right? So if you've requested to be part of life group, you're going to be reached out to this week, which is going to be great. Had people ask me, yeah, it's great. So like this week, we're setting everything up to kind of say, hey, the 30th is our day, and then got all our leaders, the books and the resources and the workbooks, which is really great, so they can start reading now. And so we do a shared study in the church. So the church is learning the same thing on Sunday, but not the same material. So like we're talking through a message that is applicable to life, the life group study is literally going through the book chapter by chapter. So we try to do different content. So no matter if you're in church or at Life Group or in the leadership dinner study type thing that we do for kickoff, you can all get new content, right? It's never repeated. They're related, so it's going to take you. They're related Absolutely, hopefully, and so, so this is the first time you've opened a series for us at the neighbor church. So just in like an opening of a series, this is five week series going through up Easter which, by the way, opening is harder. Opening is way harder, because you're setting a tone for the entire series, yeah. And then afterwards,
Tom Helmich:I'm like, Oh, I think I'm gonna pointed this off. They're gonna do some course correction, because I went a totally different way, because I started listening to emotionally healthy discipleship, yes. And then I was like, Wait, it's, it's okay, no, it's spirituality, yeah? And so I started reading that while I was in Florida, yeah. And then I looked at a text. Somebody said, what the mentioned the leadership book. I was like, Oh, am I off again? And I wasn't. But luckily they Yeah, parallel enough, right? But then I took a completely different direction. You
Pastor Joe Liles:didn't take it a different direction, but I think that's the what you took it is a great question, right? Because you asked about the heart for God, which is an Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, right? Like, where is your heart? Who are you as a personal as a personal identity with Christ? Where does your heart lie with Christ? Right? And why do you love God, right? Why do you believe in God, right? These kind of heart questions that exist, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. So break it down for us. Like, what was your takeaway launching the series as you were thinking about what we're calling I'm fine, everything's fine.
Tom Helmich:So like I said earlier, whenever somebody says I'm fine, everything's fine, they're not everything is indeed not fine, correct, right? It is correct. We're trying to reassure ourselves that there's something, there's something going on. And one of the most important things we need to cultivate in our life is a good relationship with God and in life, things are going to happen, you know, we're going to experience trauma. We're going to experience, you know, disappointment, all these things are going to make us want to say, I'm fine. Everything's fine, to try to reassure ourselves. And while that relationships is important, these things that cause us to say that can be distractions from our relationship with God, and we need to take care of those things. We need to be Yeah, that kind of leaned in. Because I know a lot of people have had to deal with a lot of crisis, and we've got to be able to deal with our own emotional stuff to be able to to invest in a healthy relationship. Yeah, it affects relationships with spouses, with parents, with each other, and with God, if we're so focused on these other things, yeah, it keeps us from investing in that relationship. And we gotta be able to take care because, and I don't know if I read it right, the author was kind of taken the other direction that spirituality is necessary for emotional health, if I understood that, right. But I look at the other direction that emotional health is necessary to really live into healthy spirituality. Like your emotions have to be good. You know? It's like the, you know, the airplane when they say, put your own mask on first, right? Like, if, if we're not healthy emotionally, they're going to be things that are going to distract us from being able to live into that relationship with God and invest in that relationship. And we've gotta be able to take care of those things to allow us to have that relationship. I mean, it's going to be there God reaches out to us despite, you know, emotional stuff we deal with in our life. But for us to actually invest in that, we have to take care of ourselves? Yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles:I agree. I mean, I think there's a holistic taking care of yourself too. It's a good question to ask, like, does the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality come before the holistic health, or does the holistic health back into motion? If you look at
Tom Helmich:Holistic Health, right? It's your your emotional, your spiritual, your your psychological, your physical, like, You got to have all these, these needs. There's like a wheel and a book I did I've gotten during CPE of holistic health care, which is why they put chaplains in hospitals. Yeah, you've got to have this kind of holistic care team. And so I think I don't necessarily say one before the other. I know God initiates the relationship with us. But beyond that, I think these things all kind of happen together. We have to have the total picture to really be, yes, completely healthy.
Pastor Joe Liles:Yeah. Roseanne, what is your thought about the definition of emotionally healthy, spirituality? What does that mean to you? So like hearing that on Sunday, sitting in the church listening to Thomas message, what was kind of your takeaway from what that means? Yes,
Unknown:my Oh gosh, I so emotionally, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, ironically, to me, takes the emotion out of it, and it's a spirituality. It's a relationship with God, the Triune God, so the Spirit dwells with me. I study Jesus's path and his teachings, and God, the Father, is there. So, no,
Pastor Joe Liles:I love that. It's interesting because I also kind of set it on the spirituality part, right? It's because I also want emotions are hard for me, right? Kaylee's always like, Dad, I want you to cry more with me. And I'm like, well, baby. I was like, that's I get that, and I want you to be and she's like, Yeah, she's in her feels right. She's 15 year old. She's in her feels right. And I'm like, that's wonderful. And I do cry, right? I'm an emotionally, I would think, an emotionally healthy person, but at the same time, I also understand that I hold back my emotions often, right? I acknowledge my emotions, right? I'm present with my emotions. I don't like to live into the messiness of emotions. Sometimes I wish I could do that. Yeah, here's the deal. It's hard, like, and as I've shared before on this podcast, like I go to therapy, which is wonderful, and one thing she told me, which I super struggle with, is she's like, You need to live into the mess of your the mess of your emotions. Sometimes I was like, No, I
Unknown:don't like. It's just something you don't want
Pastor Joe Liles:to do. I don't live into the mess of the emotions. I'm
Tom Helmich:that guy that, like, there's certain movies I can't go watch because I'm gonna be crying. Oh yeah, I've cried at other people's funerals. Wait what I've never met. Uh, yo, yes,
Pastor Joe Liles:absolutely, you know. And is it because of empathy? Like, why would you say that early on? Like,
Tom Helmich:I had no idea, but I think, I think so, because, like, I'm seeing other people, yeah, grieve. And in church, like, one I had tears rolling down my face when Max was singing, Oh, yeah. And then the last song, you're getting a little emotional right now, right? The last song, yeah, I couldn't sing it, yeah? I tried, yeah, yep. And I'd get choked up, and by the end of the song, like my wife's handed me Kleenex. Yeah, it's happened to me since, like, junior high, high school to be and these are old school hymns, right? Yeah, not always is moving, but certain things that just kind of hit you somewhere, and you don't, it's hard to hard to understand. So there are times I wish I could
Pastor Joe Liles:turn that off. Yeah, yeah. I think mine is that mindset protection? I wouldn't see that. Yeah, right. Mindset protection against a lot of pain. I very much have, like, an abandoned reality in my life, right? And this is just like, let's just be real honest on a podcast. Why don't we go there? And so when I'm thinking about emotionally healthy, part of that is to deal with those emotions out loud in my life, right? Because I always want to present as a non anxious, right leader, when I come out and I feel that presence, right? And it's great, and I feel that is a very strong part about my leadership personality. But at the same time, like to live into the messiness of emotions, like what I'm trying to so and now, when I live into that mess, and I kind of let my emotions out, and I'm like, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that. It's like, I came out before I could, I could hold it in a little bit and address it and then bring it out in a really nice
Tom Helmich:that's the hard part. Like during CPE, you know, they tell us that you got to know when you need to step out of the room and you're Oh, yeah, and a place to be able to be helpful, yeah, because of triggers. Yeah, right, yeah. You've got it. You've got to be able recognize that. But, and also, when talking to people about, like, emotional health stuff, and I'm not, I'm not a therapist, you need professionals for that, but you've got to acknowledge it first, yeah, foremost. And sometimes that's the hard
Pastor Joe Liles:so the image on scissors book, right? If you're going to do life groups, is an iceberg, right? Level image. We know the iceberg elements. We know the iceberg kind of just what it represents, right? You have this little piece on the top, underneath the water is this big iceberg. It's huge. That's emotions, right? And you and I talked about this just before the podcast. Actually, it was this identity that, like, there's a little piece on top that gets all the attention, right? And it's a loud voice, or it's this emotion, or it's this high impact, right? Everything else like that. And then everything beneath is all the things that are going on in your life, across the holistic side of who you are as a person in this role, and I think as a pastor, I've so long dealt with presenting emotions, and then once we're in a conversation or counseling with people, all the rest of the iceberg starts to surface, right? Oh, man, I've seen him roll and and there's one image, I think is great for emotions, because it's gonna have a feel. You're sitting on top of the iceberg, right? And these people swam, they had a boat next to an iceberg, they got on the iceberg, right? And they're climbing to the top of the iceberg to just stand on top of the iceberg in the middle of the Arctic or wherever. Yes, okay, I'm not supposed to link to it in the comments. Okay, yeah. So they're on. They're climbing the iceberg, and the boats, you know, now backing up so they can get this beautiful shot. Whatever's gonna happen, right? They're gonna get there. They get about five, six feet up the iceberg. And I'm gonna say it's 2030, feet, yeah, it's not like, super tall, or anything else like that. And as they're climbing, all of a sudden, you see the iceberg starts to just tip towards them, tip towards them, tip towards them. And. And then it flips right while they're on the ice, right? And so the first thing they try to do is climb faster. It's not working. There's not working. Yeah, the beautiful way of sharing this dude is because they're both fine, right? They jumped off right, flipped. And it wasn't this crazy flip, rolling everything out, but, and so they don't but that's what I feel like, is that when you start to embrace all these emotions. They flip right? And they all come forward, right? But it's not the part that people have seen in you before. It's not the part, but the holistic side is that we have to acknowledge all of the emotions that are underneath the water, right? And I think the messiness is not that who we are is not that we're not presenting our full self. But you know, like, I'll talk to people now and be like, hey, that actually, that actually hurt when you said this, right? And I was feeling this way, but I'm addressing these things. And I think it came from here, here and here and so but I just wanted to talk about it more fully. And what I'm saying is, hey, my presenting emotion is this right now, I don't need to address that, because I think it's just a presenting emotion. Here's what I'm feeling underneath from our relationship, and here's what I'm feeling from what I think, also I'm seeing from things that's going on in your life. How are we landing here? Because if it's all about the underneath, let's have some more conversation, right? Let's really talk with one another and get to a spiritual maturity. And that's what scissor breaks down. I just want to read for you what his definition of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is. And it says this Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, he defines it as a holistic integration, and holistic as holy, right, H, O, L, i, s, t, i, c, not, W, H, yep. And so holistic integration of emotional health and spiritual maturity, emphasizing that true discipleship cannot happen without emotional awareness, right? And growth, right? And so I think there's a real interesting thing. He says, You cannot separate Emotionally Healthy Spirituality from spiritual maturity. And so I want to stop there for a second before we read your scripture, right? And kind of get into the message. What do each of you define as spiritual maturity? If it's inseparable, there are consternated Looks happening on both of them, if you're wondering what's happening, because it's,
Tom Helmich:I think it's different for everybody, right? Because it depends on what your challenges. Oh, I would challenge that. Everybody has their own obstacles. Yeah, you know you because, yeah, emotional health is absolutely necessary, yep. But there are people I know that have emotional trauma or things they struggle with, yeah, that are very spiritually mature. So I don't think one necessarily prevents the other, but I think it's what the level is of a distraction. Is that for you, for your emotional maturity, or for your spiritual maturity? Yeah, I think spiritual maturity is something we always chase, okay? And I don't know we ever fully achieved that, until we have the, what Luther called The Little death, right? We, we lose the distractions, you know, the we lose the total Saint Mark, right? The when we die, complete our baptism, yeah, it's something we we work towards, probably our, our entire lives. Yeah, absolutely. You know, as we as we mature, we turn away from some of the distractions, and it gets easier as we go. And if you chase that too hard, you might wind up in seminary. Yeah, it's probably different for everybody. What your what your own struggle, your personal struggles
Unknown:are, spiritual maturity, from my point of view, is the ability to stop think about where you are spiritually turn to God for direction on where you should go or where you can go spiritually. So the maturity is being is not not the absence of emotion, but it's the ability to stop and weigh that emotion and then move forward. I
Tom Helmich:like that answer. That's a really good answer. Like, put quotes on that, yeah, that's
Pastor Joe Liles:the one that's going out. Yeah. I
Tom Helmich:mean, if you think about I remember people always saying that, you know, you have time and money for the things that are important to you, yeah, right. And if your spirituality, your relationship to God, if that spirituality is what that is, your relationship to God is important to you, then you're going to invest in it, and you're going to and you're going to focus on it, you're going to, you're going to stop and you're going to think about those things and invest in that. Yeah, yeah, that's really good. So
Unknown:I think as As humans, we want to push through those difficult seasons of life and not dwell in them to see where God is taking us. We just want to push through, you know, I just want to push through grief. I just want to push through this financial setback. I just want to push through, push through, push through. And that's a sense of hurriedness where I think God maturely. You. God wants us to stop and and weigh that. Where is God wanting me to go through this? So
Pastor Joe Liles:you said some wrenching that spiritual maturity is about, you know, discernment, but also discernment of where God is calling you. How are you moving forward? What the plan is moving forward. What opened up in my mind, as you were talking about that, was, is spiritual maturity also trust in where God has you presently. I think sometimes we're so enamored or hopeful that this isn't the end, that this isn't the spot that our spiritual maturity says, hey, the hope is where I live, is where God's having me next. Is there a trust quotient for spiritual maturity that says I have a hope in what is forward in my path, forget what lies behind, straight forward to what lies ahead, right? Literally, the life force of the church. But I'm also trusting that where I'm at now is a reality that God also has me. And is there a spirituality? Because that reality could not be a reality that we want like it cannot be really that's peaceful. It cannot be a reality that we feel like we should be in, right and moving through. But sometimes that is a wilderness necessary, right for that next step, because the wilderness
Tom Helmich:is where you go for preparation. It's for preparation, right? Spiritual preparation, right? Because, and sometimes I think that that trust is contradicted by ambition. Yeah, true. But our own, our own wants on stuff. So
Pastor Joe Liles:or sometimes I'm just gonna say this out loud from our earlier part of our conversation, sometimes it's hard to trust God when you have to deal in your emotions that aren't the holy ones. Yeah, right. And when I say not holy, I mean, they're all holy emotions, but, like some of them, dang if we're talking about anger and we're talking about, you know, just well, anger, disgust, right, anxiety, right, mistrust, like all these different emotions that come through us if we're living into those, it can feel like that's not a holy moment in our life. But I think part of emotional healthy spirituality is dealing in those emotions, sometimes I can say are more so prominent than our feelings of joy happiness, right? In these kind of great, great moments that exist so So, yeah, just thinking through, I want to give you a couple quotes from scusero, right? Because we just read that. It was interesting. He says, at its core, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is about moving beyond performative faith, right? Just saying I'm a Christian, and like showing that I'm a Christian, he's talking to Martha. It's talking to Martha and embracing an inner transformation where emotional and spirituality grow together, spiritual maturity grow together. So we have this transformative faith that exists. And then his book, he starts to talk about differentiation, about how we understand our personal relationship with God in light of the world and around others when we're dealing in our emotions. And he says this. He says living your God given life, involves remaining faithful to your true self. It entails distinguishing your true self from the demands and voices around you and discerning the unique vision calling and mission the Father has given to you, right? So one more time, it entails distinguishing your true self from the demands and voices around you and discerning the unique vision and calling and mission that the Father has given you. And so there's a very interesting part that he lays out next, is that, how do we deal in relationships that aren't the relationships that we hope for, that seem like they're spiritual mature, that seem like we're completely aligned and we're equally yoked, and this is wonderful, and we're just moving in life together. And he says, I may not agree with you or you with me, yet I can remain in relationship with you. I don't have to detach from you, reject you, avoid you, or criticize you to validate myself, which is so profound, right? I can be myself apart from you, which is beautiful, but apart does not mean outside of relationship. So I think in thinking through these things, it's very important to think about who are we as a self differentiated person in our faith relationship and and this was the last one about relationship, which then we're going to go into the text that talks about these relationships. Right? Getting to your core requires following God into the unknown, into a relationship with God that turns your present spirituality upside down, dangerous. Wow. Now here's the question, as has there been any time when your spirituality has been turned upside down, not
Tom Helmich:talking about the iceberg flipping? Yeah, great, yes, we did so good
Pastor Joe Liles:with that analogy earlier. Yeah, he's probably using that because, like, iceberg works in the sense well done. Peter, yeah, well done. Well done. Sounds like he's an author
Tom Helmich:or something. So now rephrase the question, make sure we're on,
Pastor Joe Liles:yeah. When have you experienced really this kind of spirituality being flipped upside down? Have you experienced that
Tom Helmich:in your life? You know, I think a lot of people do that when they jump church traditions. Yeah, because they start to deconstruct their theology of what they assumed. Yeah, was there. And I met people that have gone through that, that have left one church tradition to, you know, to go to another, because they've realized there's something that doesn't jive with what they thought they believed. Yeah, you know. And I think I'm trying to remember a specific instance, and kind of that several times with what I thought, because of immaturity, intellectual and spiritual maturity. I think something means one thing, and then later on, I realized that doesn't mean that, and we have the choice to either be stubborn and refuse to accept it and just stick with what we've always believed because or to be able to say, Oh, that wasn't right and and make a turn, make a change. But we don't want to do that because we want to present they're always in control, and they're always right about everything. We've got everything right. It's hard to admit that we had something, something wrong. We weren't actually following God on, you know, on that path like that, you know, the idea, and there's still, and there's lots of debate on on things like what the role is in our own actions and our own effort in things like salvation, or one that affects a lot of people and with emotional health, is like, why is this happening to me? Yeah, of thinking that it's because of some, you know, some sin or something, versus realizing that maybe it's just because sometimes life is tough, you know, and those moments of of what does prayer I mean, you know, prayer, right? It's people praying for something to happen, and it doesn't happen, and then it shatters their faith, yeah, because
Unknown:healing, healing is one of them that people pray for healing, and when that healing doesn't happen, where does your faith go then?
Tom Helmich:Because, what's the role of of prayer? Right? It's not a remote control for God's will, right? You know, it's a petition. And just like, you know, as kids ask the parents for something, sometimes the answer is no, Mm, hmm, and there's so much we can't understand, and it's one of the things that terrified me. In CPE, are going to pray for people that are sick, and, like, in a hospital, it's like, well, what do you pray for? Like, when we pray for healing, and they're not, is that going to shatter their faith? Is that? Yeah, shatter their faith? Is that, yeah, yeah. And sometimes people have prayed for something and not gotten it, and they're angry at God, or they Oh yeah, the existence of God, and there's a moment in there of transformation in their faith to see that that yeah, that sucked, but, but it's okay, yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles:it's looked up to them entirely. Roseanne, has your life ever been flipped upside down in your faith?
Unknown:Well, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, my first marriage, we were very involved in the church, yeah. And I was very involved with the prayer ministry there, and accepting that I was unevenly yoked with my husband, and that that divorce, which was completely foreign concept to me, alright, was what needed to happen for my spirituality to grow was painful, yeah, but so I mean that completely flipped upside down my spirituality, but I hit my knees and kept going. Oh well. And so it was, but it it was equally painful to lose a husband to death too, so, but I was also a lot younger. So you know that that resiliency, that's there, you know, I'll make it through this,
Pastor Joe Liles:yep. But, I mean, it's so interesting you say that because I imagine in all the crisis situations in life, right? Or the crisis of call, the crisis of relationship, crisis of marriage, right, like that, the choice of divorce, to not not be together as one anymore, right? All those have moments where the resilience is a question, right? The iceberg flipping is not like, Hey, this is going to end well, and I'm going to return to faith, right? These are questions of, how do I turn back to God? Right? It's and, you know, I've seen people remain faithful throughout, right? And go there, but the questions always remain like, God is now a new experience in my life, right? Because of the pain and the hurt and the flipped, you know, understanding of my faith, I now have a new experience of God, and I need to understand what this transformation is in my life, and what does this mean in my relationship with God. And I think it's interesting, because those times of crisis are a deeply personal interaction, and then what you find from those moments of crisis is that every interaction after that with people who are also in those similar life situations is a deeply public right, affirmation of your faith journey, right, as you share that with others and you get into that and support groups and different things like that. So yes, because zero, I think, is hitting on a huge topic. I mean, I can remember two moments in my faith where life flipped upside down. Was one, when I was pathless, coming up. To college, and I prayed for the path that led me to seminary, and I can still remember sitting out with God and just saying, I'm done, like, that's it. I'm out and not out on life, just out. I'm not going to try and make the decisions for everything anymore. I'm not going to try and be the one who decides every step of my path anymore, because it wasn't going anywhere like I had. I was looking at the future, and it just like I didn't see a long desert. This is not I was like, I'm looking at 40 years of the wilderness right now the wrong door. Yeah, exactly. And so that was one, but I think a moment of flipping while in the neighborhood was just prior to COVID. I really took a new understanding of my call within the neighborhood, and I wasn't the pastor of the neighborhood church, and everyone is a member of the neighborhood church and everything else. I was a member of the neighborhood church. I just served the neighborhood church as pastor, while other people serve as greeter or unsound or technician or unstaffed or things like that. I just served the church in a unique way, right? While others serve in their ways throughout the church. And so it was almost this de elevated understanding of my role and capacity in the church in light of the body, right? And understanding, hey, we're all just here serving in our unique ways that we're gifted. And that's true every single one of us, I am not separate from that. And so this kind of like flipped, transformative inner call moment really helped me to understand how I show up on a Sunday, right? I show up on a Sunday as a servant hearted leader that comes in at a time that you know is my time to show up so that I can preach, and people can be aware of that and kind of go forward. So I think that's been a transformation, and how I understand call and how I understand those moving forward. Uh, Tom, can you share with us and guide us in the scripture reading for today? One,
Tom Helmich:one other example of the flipping. Let's think about, we were talking about that, like in your pastoral role. I think of of Peter, of his being flipped. Yep, you know he's following Jesus to this, you know, this great power to restore the Hebrew people to former glory and then being shattered when Jesus was crucified, and then running away from it, and then Jesus coming him again and getting flipped again and back into following Christ. So this, this thing we're talking about that we experience, this isn't new, Yeah, correct. It's been going on the entire history. Yeah, sure, yeah. And I don't think it's going to end tomorrow either. So it's uncomfortable and it's scary, but we'll get through it. Yeah, it may pass like a kidney stone, but it'll pass. It'll pass, it'll pass. Alright, so we're gonna be different reading from on Sunday, because I think this is gonna fit better with the discussion of of the spirituality being a relationship. That's Romans eight. Chapter, eight. Verses, 2627 and 28 so Rosen, if you wanna start with verse 2626
Unknown:Yeah. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought. But that very Spirit intercedes with size too deep for words and
Pastor Joe Liles:God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Tom Helmich:In verse 28 we know that all things work together for good, for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.
Pastor Joe Liles:Can I just say what stopped me in this text right away, because it was a superficial top tip of the iceberg, stopping sure I had to release it. You said, Roseanne, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought. And I was like, I don't know the last time I've said ought or written ought in however many years, like it is not a part of the language and repertoire that as we ought, like, when was last time you said as we ought, or written ought? Ou GHD, yeah, like,
Tom Helmich:you know, you know, we ought to go get something to eat. Like, I use it all the time. I don't think about it, okay, but it sounds Wait, what did you just say? So we ought to go get something to eat. We ought, we ought. We ought to get that does work, yeah, but I didn't think about until you mentioned that I'm like, do what? So, no, you know, whenever you read it, I like to pray as we ought, because in that context, we ought a foreign way of you. It's not how I use
Pastor Joe Liles:it. No, it's not, yeah, that's what do you mean? What are we how are we supposed to pray as we should? What does that mean? Right? That's a question to decide. That's the question. Yeah, I'm asking right now, like, we pray. I'm reading this text going, Wait, prayers we ought. Like, what's the steps? Like, what do you mean prayers we I feel like, I can't get past verse 26 to get to the Spirit, because you're saying, like, pray as we ought, like, there's a formula to prayer. There
Tom Helmich:is. Jesus taught it to his disciples, we covered it. So prayer ministry, yeah, it's the Lord's prayer, asking him how to pray, correct? And he said, Pray this way, yep.
Pastor Joe Liles:And the way is the Lord's Prayer, right? But doesn't
Tom Helmich:have to be just the Lord's Prayer. He said, correct. Said, he said, he didn't say pray this. He said, Pray in this way. Mm hmm, because we actually broke that down. I don't have the outline memorized in front of me, but we broke down what the the questions are, what the things are, and the Lord's Prayer. And you can change the wording for for anything based on, you know, certain things, like one to a. US, it Our Father who art in heaven. Yep, you know. And giving the glory of God, hallowed be thy name, and to pray for certain things, right, to pray for God's kingdom, pray for God's will. And so you can break it down to like a formula, but we don't pray for that. No, we don't, you know. I mean, I catch myself praying like, oh, you know, Lord, you know. Help me out. Help me get this assignment done on time I forgot. I will help my Amy not be mad at me for the or, you know, we pray for like I find myself praying a lot for avoidance of consequences of decisions I made, right? Wow, my earliest vivid memories of prayer, yeah, I was in the basement of our house in Brush Creek as a kid, right, early elementary school, mid elementary school, and we had these cabinet these oak cabinet doors, and I was playing with them, or crawling inside the cabin. So my mom was yelling me, quit playing with the doors. And I'm like, okay, and I kept doing it, but more quiet, yeah, and I broke one of the doors. Oh, and drama, my mom just looks at me. She's like, I'm calling your dad. Oh, my dad, like a good ways away from where he lived, and he had to drive in to deal with the issue. And I was hunkered down and in my bedroom, facing my pelt, praying the dad was not going to be too mad, yeah? And we had a stern conversation, oh, and I think I had to help him fix the cabinet, but I was praying for relief from consequences. Yeah, yeah, yeah, not necessarily for the kingdom of God to come, for us to to live into God's will, you know? So that's what we don't pray as we ought.
Pastor Joe Liles:So I looked up the Greek right while we're sitting here for the word ought. And in Greek, it's behooves, right? Which is, yeah, it's super I love when we can break down some words here, right? So it's a Greek word for behooves, right? And, and it's very interesting, because the word is day Dei, right? And, and here's what it says, which is really different than the Latin day, correct? Yeah, they're both different. I love your academic nature. Tom, the Greek word is, we call it necessity or obligation. Right to pray as is necessary. Right to pray by obligation. Now, here's the second part. It conveys a sense of something that is required or inevitable, like, Hey, you should pray right, but it's going to be inevitable that you fall to your knees and you pray right. Like this is going to be something every often in the context of Divine Will or purpose in the New Testament, it frequently appears in discussions about what must happen according to God's plan, or what believers ought to do in obedience to God's commands,
Tom Helmich:and that's why we because we're unable, right? We have this. We we it's our weakness that we did not know how. It's not that we don't pray as we don't know how to, and so we don't pray the
Unknown:way God needs us to pray, right? Well, the
Tom Helmich:way we need, I don't know that God needs it, but the way God wants us to pray for our own need, right? Like we need in that relationship, and that that's what the Spirit's for. That's whole, the whole idea that we're incapable of faith, yeah, apart from it being imparted on us by by the Spirit. And so God has the spirit here with us to intercede for us, Mm, hmm, to to help us with the things that we can't do our own. When I love
Pastor Joe Liles:the language that God searches the heart of us, right? And then knows the mind of the Spirit, right? Now, heart and mind. We talked about this a little bit before the podcast, like it's so interesting, because I definitely distinguish those two, right? Like they are separable, right? The heart from the mind, right? One is emotions and one is knowledge, right? But here, actually, in in the text, it really means that the heart of the spirit, right? That mind was a mindset, right? It meant like God knows the heart of the Spirit already, right? And so he's searching our heart. And I love this relationship, like searching our heart and knows the heart of the Spirit. And so whatever is missing that God is searching for in our heart, the Spirit intercedes on our behalf, right? The Spirit makes a makes a place to come in and represent that part of our missing heart on behalf of God, which is just such a beautiful language. It's almost like we know that there's going to be moments missing in your emotions, and moments when when you know you don't fall to your knees, and moments when you can't trust God in the way that you think you can trust God. And this spirit is going to intercede for the believers, and I think it's important for the believers, right? Like this, trusting of God in your relationship, the spirit's going to intercede for the believers, to bring them to a reality that's going to meet them in their need, right, that they're praying for. And that's such a beautiful, beautiful language, beautiful language. So Tom, what did you do with this text in your message?
Tom Helmich:So I didn't use this text and message, and you had this
Pastor Joe Liles:reading here. But I was like, yeah, there's a great part of the podcast kind of does some
Tom Helmich:extra right? Because the readings in there you guys looking at the comparison of the two Simons, yep, which could be confusion, confusing, because lots of people could be named Simon, just like, just like, now we have Simon Peter, right? Which is Peter's the nickname? Yeah, last name, you know, nickname given to Simon by Jesus. Yeah, your rock. But then in other places the Bible, like in Galatians, he's called ke Fauci, which is just the Aramaic different language. It gets confusing. Like,
Pastor Joe Liles:what are we talking about? I said, Cephas. Have you say you said CAFOs on Sunday? And I was like, interesting. I hope I have not done that wrong. Now. Mind you, you know what I said that for? Because his academic nature. Sure. I was like, I think I've been saying that wrong. I was like, This guy's in Greek right now, and he's going to keep us is like, you say that right now, and I still want to say, see, and it
Tom Helmich:could be C I don't know. It could be. It could be, but I only say ke Fauci, because that's is written in Greek, but it's an Aramaic word which is closely related to Hebrew. And I don't really remember a lot of sounds Hebrew. It's very guttural. Yeah, it's very that's why I assume. But I honestly don't know. I have no idea. Maybe there's, like, a Hebrew scholar
Pastor Joe Liles:out there. I can tell. I could ask if there's a Hebrew scholar listening to one of the neighborhood podcast, please. It could happen, if this happens, how great with it? Yeah, this is good.
Tom Helmich:That's a good question. I don't know, but it's the same person, right? It's just a language, language difference. So we compare the two Simons, the magician, you know, the one who denied Jesus, but was following out of out of love, yeah, for Jesus, and the one who was wanting something out of it. And then we compared Martha and Mary the because that's the other part from Peter Cesaro list of of working for instead of being, yeah, with. But then what I didn't really touch on in Scripture, because I'm trying not to overload everybody with a Your
Pastor Joe Liles:son is true. You should only get, he gets the credit for that. Yeah, keep it to three times, right? I remember the time. I remember the Sunday you did, like seven and you it was literally so much scripture that he spoke like two sentences in between each scripture and then went to the
Tom Helmich:next group, like, This is Exhibit one, exhibit two, like a court case, yep, which is, which is easy to do, and it probably should just be one, because, like, Sunday, I don't feel like I got the point across very well, because I was so worried about time. Yeah, I feel like I actually brought it home to the ending, because we get in the car and Amy's like, What are you talking what was the point to your
Unknown:family. Yeah, that's what you need. An iceberg slipping
Pastor Joe Liles:right now in the car. My
Tom Helmich:pastor is a child, you know, I haven't eaten much of him in a while, but he said that the most important thing in your ministry, yeah, is going to be your wife, because she's going to be the one who's most honest with you whenever it's great, good message. She's gonna be the one that says, What were you talking about? Yeah, you know, we need right? We need that, right? But yes, we compared the two Simons. We compared Martha and Mary, but we didn't really talk in Scripture about what spirituality is. I gave my definition, but we didn't really talk about in Scripture the role of the Spirit, which is why I picked this, because this is where we know, we see that the Spirit intercedes for us. And I love that language where it says, size too deep for words, yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles:yeah. That's good.
Unknown:As a mom, that really resonated with me. Why size your kids? Just, you know, go beyond the fear,
Tom Helmich:sometimes the worries of stuff, yeah, just things that happen. You just that emotion. You can't even put words exactly times that we don't know what to say. The Spirit intercedes with size, with something that is beyond what words can possibly encompass. Yeah, and we don't have to have words for it,
Pastor Joe Liles:yeah, I'm gonna take this size too deep for words as like a parent that you said. Roseanne this past weekend, Jess was gone with Kaylee at a tournament in St Louis, and so I was with Landon, and Landon then lost tech for the weekend, right? So let's just imagine it was a consequence. And so, so he lost tech for the weekend, and in right away, like I had stuff to do, because Jess was gone, and so I was heading out for something, and this was on Friday, and I had something in the evening to go to, and it was like an hour deal. So I was gonna head out. Head out, Landon was gonna stay at the house, play video games, whatever he's gonna do, and I was gonna come back, we're gonna do dinner. Everything was like that. And there was a sigh that I deeply remember, because I'm like, Oh, you have to, no, this was Thursday night. Just left Thursday so this is band practice. And I was like, Oh, you have to come with me now, you know, like, now we're in this together, right? And I remember this moment of thinking, dang, like, because I was just going to go do my thing, come back. And I'm like, You're with me. Now. Very interesting thing happened. So the next morning, he wakes up, and he's like, Dad, I have a plan for the weekend. Here's what I want to do with you. And I was like, hold on a second. Like, decide too deep from words, like removing the distractions. And he's like, here's my plan with relationship with you right now. And I was like, What are you talking about? He's like, Okay, I got a whole Saturday plan for us, the whole place to plan. I was like, great. It's like, what's the start? He's like, first Starbucks. And I was like, Okay. And he's like, or boba tea, or pop up, any drink thing is what we're gonna start with. And I was like, okay, he goes, then we're gonna go and we're gonna buy new monitors for my computer, and then we're gonna buy a new computer desk, and then we're gonna buy all of this stuff for my room. Then we're gonna build my room. And he goes, and then we're gonna do he goes, Oh, you can shop a little bit too, if you want. But he goes, and then we're gonna go to the movies, right? And we're gonna get some drinks the movies, and we're gonna do that. And he goes, and after that, we're gonna get dinner, and he goes, and we're gonna come home and hang out for a little bit. And I was like, I'm in. Like, I'm totally in, because all the distractions were gone. He got closer, like he got closer. And then said, Oh, hold on a second. I've been looking over here, but now this relationship is very important to me. And he said, I want in on this relationship. Right? And I felt this about even in the midst of like, Hey, you have a consequence right for your actions. Like, even the midst of that, like, I was like, Oh, I'm I'm in, we had incredible relationship, right? And it wasn't the idea of like, hey, we need to live in these consequences and you have to be here and you have to experience the pain of this. No, that wasn't the reality. The reality is remove the distraction and the thing that caused the pain, right? That's out now, and now we have this relationship of love between each other. Work. We can go and experience new things, right? And it was almost like this intercession on behalf of, right, sounds like, but, yeah, it was a beautiful moment. I wonder
Tom Helmich:if, like, all the things that we do to mess stuff up, is why the spirit has to,
Pastor Joe Liles:yeah, yeah, come with me. Yeah, here we go. Here we go. Start
Tom Helmich:that because he, he lined out practices, yeah, relationship practices, yeah, right. Things to do to to invest in that relationship. Yep, that's what spiritual practices are about. Things we do to invest in our relationship with God, which is, which is awesome, because you take the distractions away, and what's left is that desire for a relationship. Yeah, when you spend time in
Pastor Joe Liles:prayer, you spend time reading the Bible, you spend time in devotion, right? You devotion, right? You spend time going to meet with others to talk about your testimony and their testimony. Yeah. All these are time, right? All these are investment in God, right? All these are removing distractions of the places and devoting yourself to God. So Tom, I thought your message was great. What was your take home question for the church on Sunday?
Tom Helmich:Yeah? What? What is the heart change that we need to be able to, to get rid of our distractions, to invest in that relationship, yes, in maturing our spirituality. Yeah, like, what is it in our heart that's that's distracting us from that, you know, and that, so that's the next thing. Is, like, you know, what we can talk about, you know, things we can do to to work on, on maturing our relationship with God. But like, what are the things we need to change in our heart? Yeah, you know, the desires we need to change, or the, you know, the just the stuff we need
Unknown:to change, habits, or something that we need to change we like? Was
Tom Helmich:it with we love that maybe like, because it's like, I'm talking about an unhealthy relationship, right? When you what is it that we love, that that we need to let go of to be able to be able to just live into that relationship? Yeah,
Pastor Joe Liles:I thought I could see the amount of people that were thinking about that question right as you laid it out right at the end of the message, because that's the take home, right? The take home is, hey, we need to discern our own lives now next week,
Tom Helmich:you worded it better when you enter than I did. I'm like, Oh, God, much better. No, I've ever talked
Pastor Joe Liles:about it beforehand. I I just, I brought it down from three sentences of a question just into a single question. You don't have
Tom Helmich:to lead one again for a while, because doing on a series like this way harder than
Pastor Joe Liles:it's hard to start a series, but it's great. It's great leadership development and like understanding how to create something. And then what you said was profound, too. At the start of a series, you said, I've always lived into the direction of a series, right? That's as hard coming into the direction of someone else, casting a vision into a series, right? So, like, I'm now on the second week of the series going, Oh, I gotta, I gotta,
Tom Helmich:my favorite part from the whole thing, yeah, I should say it was something that inspired me from the message. But as I look on your face when I was like, You have no idea where I'm gonna go,
Pastor Joe Liles:Yeah, I have no idea you're gonna go, yeah, it's great as I yeah, I got this, but man, you're gonna take this in a direction where I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to, I'm going to have to come back hot, you know, here we go. So my
Tom Helmich:hope for that, the whole message, which I don't, I don't think I pulled through real well, was people to realize that that our desire of our heart should be to be with God Yes,
Pastor Joe Liles:from God yes,
Unknown:and they're not shopping, we're not
Tom Helmich:shopping, right? And that that we should be content and find joy in that relationship being with God and not feeling like we have to accomplish something correct, and knowing that, that if there's something that's distracting us from, from our relationship with God, from our mature spirituality that's emotionally related, that we need to, you know, not, not worry about stigma, and go to the people that God has put in our lives that can help us, yeah, with emotional health so we can eliminate those distractions, if it's an emotional health, because that's, that's, that's something that's important, you know, we can we take a care, take away whatever stumbling blocks we need to to be able to be present in, in that relationship? Yeah, absolutely. Just didn't word it that way on Sunday, I was so worried about the time. I'm looking like, which number? Because you're like, 27 minutes. I'm like, I can do it
Pastor Joe Liles:in 27 minutes. I'm gonna shave that
Tom Helmich:point Tom especially the first service. I'm like, because we got the change between the two services. Yep. And then I'm looking up, I'm like, which number is the one I need to worry about? I just let it get in my head. Yeah.
Pastor Joe Liles:So especially, so especially, that's part of, like, experiencing preaching, that's, that's that, that growth edge where, yeah, that's the growth. That's just, it's not easy. These are things you cannot learn without being up here, right? Preaching to you gotta, you gotta do it. You have to be, yeah, you gotta have a guide, you know, you gotta have a guy help you look through stuff. Absolutely, it's not it's not easy. It's not easy. It's not easy. Well, this next week, I'm taking over the preaching right, coming back in, which has been kind of wonderful, because with Drew Tucker preached, you preached before that, I'm coming back in after like three weeks, and I'm like, I'm feeling ready. It's been three it's been three weeks. Yeah, it's been great. So, so I'm coming back in, which be great, and I'm preaching on a topic which I think everyone is experiencing a lot. And it's being overwhelmed, the emotion of being overwhelmed in life. And so this is important for everyone to hear. I think it's going to be about removing the noise and distractions and getting back to a heart of God, really profound, right? It's interesting
Tom Helmich:that we've done two book studies that both get into that aspect, like two different authors, yes, always go into Ruth dissemination
Pastor Joe Liles:to hurry and now emotionally at the spirituality kind
Unknown:of feel like the Holy Spirit is sighing, what
Pastor Joe Liles:for the world? Remove, slow down. Yeah, for God. So if you know anyone, if you know anyone who's overwhelmed, this is the message for them, right? To take that and go forward. Um, I think it's a great day to, um, add something to the schedule for people who are overwhelmed. Hey,
Tom Helmich:come to church. I'm gonna be driving back to Port Smith on Sunday, so I'm looking for you to be listening.
Pastor Joe Liles:I'm looking forward to listening to that. Okay, it's gonna be great. No pressure, no pressure at all. No pressure. Well, that's it for today. On the TNC podcast and all guys, people said, Amen. You
