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September 14, 2022
Baggage Check? Week 4: Mental Health in the Church
Sermon Transcript:
We’re in a series called “Baggage Check.” When I started to put this thing together — and it’s the same way I do it with all the messages that I do that are what I call thematic in nature. I try to have a big idea. Sometimes the big ideas are better than others. You know, I have a limited amount of content that I can create, and I also have the liability that I was born in Kentucky. But that being said, as I thought about this, typically, when we think of baggage, when we talk about it with people’s lives, we make the statement that they have baggage. It’s almost a negative thing. But you and I both know that when we carry baggage, whether we’re in a car, in a plane, or wherever it is, what’s in the bag is what we feel like we need for that trip or for that moment.
So, the more I thought about this series, the more I thought about how we don’t want to do the traditional thing where baggage is a problem that needs to be removed. Although, there may be some things that need to be removed in our lives, I wanted to talk about that baggage is an opportunity for God to move. What I envisioned in this series is that we would all be willing to open up the bag of our life. In that bag, there’s all kinds of stuff. It’s stuff that really speaks about our lives. There are shoes in there that maybe you got that job that you have, right now, that are in your bag. There may be shoes that you went somewhere that you wished you would not have gone. There may be a shirt in here that somebody who loved you bought you, and now they’re no longer here. But there’s stuff, there are probably mistakes, and all of that is in our bag.
Rather than saying, “Okay, God. What I want You to do is I just want You to remove everything,” which would be foolish, we say, “Lord, I want You to come into my bag, and I want You to move around.”
So, that’s what we’re trying to do. I’m trying to be super practical because, at this point in my life, I’m really into trying my best, on every weekend, to give you something that will help you in your life. I realize I’m limited because I only have 30 minutes or so, every weekend, to try to say something that’s worthwhile. Which is why I try to come with a lot of content and a lot of things for you to think about and work with.
So, let me ask you a question. If I told you that there was an Old Testament scholar that said this about one of the psalms, would you be interested in reading it? He said, “It’s an embarrassment to conventional faith.”
Would you go, “Whoa. Okay. Hold on.”
This is a Christian that said this. What if I told you another Old Testament scholar, a prominent Old Testament scholar, said it’s the darkest psalm? Would you want to read it, or would you go, “Well, you know, I don’t really like that dark stuff. I sort of like light, excitement, and whatever.”
Would you want to read it? Well, you probably would. So, I’m going to read you that psalm. It’s the one psalm in the Psalter — there are 150 psalms in the Psalter. It’s the one psalm in the Psalter that sticks out. It just lays there. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to is I’m going to read it to you. I’m going to make a few comments, but I’m going to just, basically, read it to you. Then I want to see how it makes you feel. I want to see how it speaks to you because I suspect this will be an interesting psalm to read. It’s 18 verses. So, if you were thinking, “Oh, man. It’s going to be the Psalms. Isn’t one of those psalms like 14 pages long? Psalm 119? We’re not going to get out of here, honey, for dinner.”
But I want to read it to you, and I just want you to allow it to process. Let’s just read it together.
“Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out before you day and night. May my prayer reach your presence; listen to my cry.”
Have you ever been there? Have you ever been there when it’s like, “God, I really need You to hear me, at this point. I really need You to respond. I need You to please hear my cry.”
The psalmist goes on to say, “For I have had enough troubles, and my life is near Sheol.”
In the Old Testament, they believed that everybody went to Sheol. When you read the proverbs, when you read other stuff, a lot of the people in the Ancient Near East thought the gods blessed you in the here and now. That’s why when Job has all those problems, nobody knows what to do because it’s like, “If you’re really a righteous man, why are you going through all these problems now?”
The psalmist says, “I’ve had enough. I feel like I’m at the point of death.”
Have you ever been there? Maybe some of you are going, “Yeah. You’re speaking my language, right now.”
“I am counted among those going down to the Pit. I am like a man without strength, abandoned among the dead. I am like the slain lying in the grave, whom you no longer remember, and who are cut off from your care.”
Have you ever been there? Have you ever been there when you feel like God is working in other people’s lives, and He’s caring for other people? You see that they bring people up and, “Hey, yeah. God just restored. Yeah. Somebody just gave us a brand-new house.”
And you’re going, “Man. God, where are You for me? I’m going through it, right now. I just don’t even feel like You’re listening or that You care.”
“You have put me in the lowest part of the Pit, in the darkest places, in the depths. Your wrath weighs heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.”
Have you ever had just wave after wave after wave of emotion. Have you ever had wave after wave of anxiety? Or wave after wave of depression or uncertainty or fear? You know, this weekend, 21 years ago, the September 11th attacks happened. I don’t know where you were at. You probably remember them. You probably remember the feelings that you had. You probably were uncertain. You probably didn’t know what was going on. There was probably some fear. You could probably go back and still remember those waves.
Some of you, right now, may be going, “You know, I’m here, right now. You don’t understand. I am just battling it, Chip. I mean, I am battling it. It is just on me. The pressures of life, jobs, finances, what’s going on in the world, trying to raise children — I mean, yes. I’ve been there.”
Then we have this word, “selah,” that nobody knows exactly what it means. It’s maybe a musical direction. It’s maybe a pause. We’re not quite sure, but it definitely sort of takes a moment to just let it settle in.
It says, “You have distance my friends from me; you have made me repulsive to them. I am shut in and cannot go out.”
Have you ever been there? Have you ever been in such a bad place in your life that because you’re so bad off, your friends start to just tiptoe away? Because they see it, they don’t know what to do, and you just feel like, “Man, I’m dying on the inside. I’m shut in. I can’t go out.”
“My eyes are worn out from crying. Lord, I cry out to you all day long; I spread out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead?”
“Because that’s where I’m headed.”
“Do departed spirits rise up to praise you? Will your faithful love be declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Abaddon [the pit, the depth, the abyss]? Will your wonders be known in the darkness or your righteousness in the land of oblivion? But I call to you for help, Lord.”
“I keep showing up. I don’t know why I keep showing up because it doesn’t seem like You hear, it doesn’t seem like You respond. I’m just in a bad place, but I’m showing up.”
Maybe some of you, right now, or you online, you’ve shown up, but you’re here.
“Lord, why do you reject me? Why do you hide your face from me? From my youth, I have been suffering and near death. I suffer your horrors; I am desperate.”
“I’m just desperate.”
“Your wrath sweeps over me; your terrors destroy me. They surround me like water all day long; they close in on me from every side. You have distanced loved one and neighbor from me; darkness is my only friend.”
And guess what? That’s it. That’s the psalm. Done. You might’ve been going, “Hold on. I was expecting a turn. I was expecting something else.”
How does that make you feel? “Darkness is my only friend.” My suspicion is that for some of you, right now, you’re like, “Man, that just makes me feel uncomfortable, man. I mean, I came in here and I was expecting at least a joke or something. Something. I mean, where’s the nice light on a rainy day? I mean, come on.”
I’m sure that’s true, but what you may not understand, and what you may not know, is that at least one in every five — and I say “at least” because it’s probably more like one in four — thought to themselves, “I can totally relate.”
You see, it may not be you. It may not be you. You go, “I don’t relate to that. Life’s pretty good.”
But it could be you one day. It could be your wife. It could be your husband. It could be your child. In fact, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, Florence Nightingale, and Mother Teresa were the one in five. You go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. We’re talking about Martin Luther the reformer? Spurgeon the great speaker? Mother Teresa? What? The one in five?”
Let me give you some other stats here. Only one in ten pastors has any training to help the one in five in fact, only 27% of churches are equipped to help the one in five. To just top it all off, 91% of Christians polled said the one in five are stigmatized in the church. Who are we talking about? We’re talking about people with mental health challenges. Something we don’t talk about. I asked people before I came on, “How many sermons have you heard on mental health challenges?”
“Zero.”
“Do we talk about it?”
“No. We don’t talk about that. Why would we talk about that?”
I mean, I’ll get an email: “I don’t think you should’ve talked about that on a weekend service. This should’ve been done on a Tuesday night to three people. Not me. It’s not me. I come in here to get something for me.”
No, no. We’re going to talk about it because I’m going to tell you, as your pastor, I’m sick and tired of seeing people commit suicide. I’m sick and tired of seeing people that are struggling with stuff, and we just sort of push it aside and act like it doesn’t happen. I’m sick and tired of seeing stuff. I mean, we’re going to deal with it. I want you to lean in here because this is important. This might be for you. You might be, right now, saying, “Man, it’s like there’s nobody else in the room. He’s speaking right at me, right now.”
So, lean in here, and listen to me because this is important. This is important for all of us who are Christians. First of all, mental health challenges are not abnormal. We just sort of act like, “Well, I mean…”
Do you know what we do, as a church? It’s sad, but do you know what we do? We go, “Oh, you’ve got mental health challenges? Yeah. You’re crazy. That’s what’s wrong with you. You just must be out of tune with the world. Something’s got to be wrong because you shouldn’t be having those things. If 91% of the church polled said that the people are stigmatized, then you already know what most Christians think about mental health challenges. They don’t want to hear about it.
But listen, this is just some of them. Depression. Do you realize depression is rampant in our country? It’s rampant in our churches, and nobody wants to talk about these things. Panic attacks. Anxiety. The Apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 11: “Go home. Be a Berean.”
You go, “What do you mean ‘be a Berean?’”
In Acts 17, it says the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonicans because they searched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.
“Go home and search your Scriptures.”
In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul says, “I’ve been shipwrecked, I’ve been this, I’ve been that, I’ve been this, and I have the anxiety that weighs on me daily for the churches.”
“Well, Paul shouldn’t have had anxiety.”
See, this is the problem. We just go, “Well, you shouldn’t have it.”
It’s not abnormal. Panic disorders. PTSD. Do you really want to go to a soldier who has fought for you, who has served overseas to try to keep you safe, and go, “Do you know what? You shouldn’t have PTSD. Something’s not right.”
No. Eating disorders. Paranoia. The bottom line is it’s not abnormal. Do you know what it is? It’s human. It’s human because we live in a fallen world. It’s a struggle for many people. In fact, second, mental health challenges are not always just simply spiritual issues. We do this all the time. We just go, “Oh, no, no. We only need Jesus.”
Let me tell you something. I’ve seen some of you all, who only need Jesus, who didn’t get any sleep. It isn’t pretty. I’ve seen some of you all, who only need Jesus, who didn’t get your caffeine in the morning. Amen. I’ve got one child over there, going, “Preach it, Chip! You tell ‘em.”
You know? What happens is we sort of get this idea that, “Well, it’s just spiritual. If they could just get spiritually right, they wouldn’t have these problems.”
Okay. Well, let’s riff on that. So, it would be my suspicion — and I think I’m correct on this. I realize there’s always an anomaly, and I realize there are abnormalities, and I realize there are people who you read about that don’t fit this bill. But I will tell you this. I believe the average pastor in America really intends to do good things. I don’t think people go into ministry, going, “Yeah, I’m going to go into ministry. I don’t know why I’m going to go into ministry.”
No. Nobody wants to just do this. They feel called. See, I believe I could walk into a church in Tennessee, a church in Arkansas, or a church in Arizona and say, “Hey, I need prayer.” And I think that if the pastor were there, they would pray for me. I don’t believe they would be like, “Oh, we’re not praying for you. We don’t believe in prayer around here.”
I mean, there might be a church that would say that, but I think pastors try to be spiritual. So, if this is only a spiritual issue, then pray tell me what these stats mean that are done by Lifeway and Barna? Twenty-three percent of pastors say they’ve struggled with mental health issues. I’m going to tell you, right now, not all of them answered that correctly. If 91% of the church thinks it’s a stigma, I can assure you not everyone answered that correctly. How about this? Seventy-five percent of pastors say they’re stressed. How about this? Ninety percent of pastors say they’re fatigued and worn out on a regular basis. How about this? Ninety-one percent of pastors say they’ve experienced burnout. How about this? Seventy percent of pastors say their self-esteem is worse than when they began.
That’s not so you can look at that and go, “Oh, poor Chip.” That’s me just trying to make a point here. Listen, if you think this is only a spiritual thing, that if, somehow, they could do a little bit more spirituality or go to a small group a little bit more, or whatever else, you’re just not understanding mental issue challenges. It’s not just that. There’s more on top of it. I think of the moms that are at home with the kids, trying to pay bills, and the electricity is off every other month, and then back on. They’ve got to struggle with the husband, or vice versa. Or you’re trying to get a job, and you don’t have a job, and you don’t have enough money to put gas in your car. You look around the world and all the stuff is going on. You come to church and everybody’s fighting, and all of this stuff. You go, “Oh, it’s just a spiritual thing.”
No. It’s part of living in a fallen world, and the Church has got to wake up and realize we’ve got to be more sensitive to these types of things. I’ll tell you that if we’re going to walk alongside those with mental health challenges, which is what we’re called to do, by the way, we need some help in our practical theology. Because theology is just bad in America. It just is. It’s bad because — and I’m not trying to make anybody feel bad, guilty, or anything like that. But when the average Christian who can show up — and I’m thankful that they do. They show up to church, but they do very little Bible reading, very little study, very little prayer during the week. So, you’ve got 30 minutes, as a pastor, every week, to try to get everybody on the right track with the world for six days, pouring into them. It’s tough. It’s no wonder that we have all these crazy things.
But what happens is our theology is much like the rest of everything in the world. Everybody silos off. Everybody goes to one side or the other. Everybody erects a wall. “If you’re not for me, you’re against me.”
What happens is — and you’ll realize this. You’ll realize, “Hold on. A lot of this is true.”
What happens is you’ve got two sides on this whole mental health issue thing within Christendom since 91% of the people are stigmatized. You’ve got the “Jesus can heal everything” camp. “All they need is just a little bit more Jesus.”
And you’ll see it. They’ll say, “Well, I mean, they lack faith. If they had a little bit more faith, it would work out.”
You might not say that, but you’ve said it to your friend. “If they’d just pray more. They don’t pray enough. That’s the problem. It’s a spiritual issue. Jesus is going to heal everything. They just need to pray more.”
Let me ask you a question. Did the psalmist in Psalm 88 lack faith? Not at all. And did he pray? You bet. Guess what? He stopped the psalm, saying, “Darkness is my only friend.”
Or then they say, “What it really is is sin. That’s what it is.”
As if any of us are living sinless on a regular basis. Does anybody want to come up front, right now, and say, “I’ve got it together, man? All the time. One hundred percent.”
No. None of us do. Or you get the other side. The other side says, “Just wait for the sweet by and by. Well, you know, their life’s just hard. I mean, I don’t know. Life’s tough, and suffering is our lot.”
That’s real positive. I wonder why half the church looks this way, and why they walk around with doom and gloom? Neither one of these are right. Neither one of these are correct. Let me tell you what Scripture has to say about the world that we live in. John says, “Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed.”
The New Testament teaches a “now” and a “not yet.” Both are true. In fact, you see it in Paul. He says it this way: “This present time and what’s going to be.”
And we could go through the Scripture, left, left, left, all the time, and see all this pattern. We live in the dash between the “now” and the “not yet.”
The Lord is going, “Yes. Preach it. Dun-da-dun-da-dun-dun-dun!” You know? It’s great.
I’m telling you, this is an important message that people hear because we don’t talk about this stuff. I’m going to tell you, right now, if you send me an email and say, “You know, I don’t think you should’ve been talking about this,” I’m going to hit “delete” because this is important that we talk about this. Okay? This matters to me because I have people in my life who have broken down, have burned out, and people in their lives, who are Christians, shunned them. We can’t do this. We just can’t do this in the world that we live in. We live in the dash between the “now” and the “not yet,” and the way Scripture talks about it is that the “not yet,” the heavenlies, the power of God has broken into the “now.” So, yes, God can heal. Yes, God can open blind eyes. Yes, God can do the miraculous. But we don’t fully live, yet, in the “not yet.” The way we pray in between, in the dash, is, “God, heal. God, move. God, do. But Your will be done.”
That’s how you pray. And you go, “But I think God wants to heal.”
Absolutely, ultimately. But He doesn’t heal everybody here in the “now.” I’ve never had anybody come up to me and say, “Chip, I’d like to pray that you could see again,” because nobody thinks about that. I’ve never had anybody come up to me and say, “Chip, I’m going to pray for the four fillings that your dad, as a dentist, gave you when you were a kid. I’m going to just pray that you get new teeth.”
But nobody thinks about that. Nobody says, “I’m going to pray that the scar you have will just be removed,” because we don’t pray those things. Because we know we live in a fallen world. The place to be is to believe that God can do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ever ask or think, but to understand that in this life, not everything is going to be cured. Not everything in this life is going to be healed, but there will be a day when everything in the “not yet” is healed, is dealt with, is restored, is covered up, and that’s the great hope that we have. And not understanding this leads to ruin because people go, “If it’s all in the ‘now,’ then you didn’t have faith, you sinned, or you did this. If it’s all in the ‘not yet,’ well, then it’s terrible. You don’t have any hope, right now, in the world that we live in.”
Neither one of those things are true. Fourth: We need to lean — I’m talking about lean — into the traditions and the tools of our faith to help those struggling with mental health challenges. We have the greatest triad of tradition and tools of anybody in the world. We have the Church, we have prayer, and we have the Word of God. Those things are vital. It’s vital. Why do you think these three things are being attacked? Why do you think the church in America is falling apart? Why do you think people pray and go, “I’m not going to pray anymore?”
Prayerlessness is up all across the country. Why are people challenging the Word of God? “It’s full of inconsistencies.”
Why do you think that’s being attacked? Because these are the pillars that we run to and lean into as Christians. Let me just read you a couple passages of Scripture. I just hope and pray that they speak to you deeply. If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. That’s the Church. You know, you may not know this, but we have four employees here, at the church, that do nothing but care ministry. You go, “Wow. Four people?”
Yeah. We put our money there. Why do we do that? Because we realize that I can’t take care of 3,000 people. Chris Absher can’t take care of 3,000 people. Chris Pedro can’t take care of 3,000 people. The staff members? There’s no way. You’ve got to have a larger thing. And here’s the beauty. If you’re going through difficulty, if you’re going through suffering, I can tell you we have testimony after testimony after testimony of broken marriages restored, issues done, counseling done, all through the care ministry of this church. I mean, we take care of so many people. We don’t usually broadcast it, and we don’t talk about it, but man, it’s a robust thing. If you’re suffering, find somebody and say, “Man, I need to get with the care team.”
We have all kinds of counseling people that we can refer you to. We even cover some of those things for our people. I mean, we are a generous church. You do not have to suffer alone, here at Grace. You don’t have to.
This is about Jesus. He will not break a bruised reed. He will not put out a smoldering wick. Have you ever seen a candle that’s just about to go out? A reed that’s been bent over, sort of broken? You’ll see kids, every once in a while, just take that twig or something and go ahead and break it off. He doesn’t do that. Maybe you’re bruised, right now. Maybe your flame is just about to go out. Jesus doesn’t put flames out. He loves you. He doesn’t do that. He heals the broken-hearted. He binds up their wounds. This great passage by Paul is so comforting.
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I’ve said all of that to get to this point. I want you to hear me, and I want you to hear your pastor well. Please hear me. You are not weak to say, “I need help.” You’re not weak, at all, to say, “I need help.”
There have been plenty of times in my life where I’ve had to call people and say, “I need help. Can you please help me?”
There have been times that I’ve gone home, Mindy has found me in the closet, going, “What is wrong with you?”
And I’m like, “I’m just done.”
And you say, “Well, Chip, you shouldn’t tell us those things.”
No, no. Listen. None of us have arrived in this life. I’m just tired of people in the church making people feel bad for being human. If we were all together, we wouldn’t need a Savior. What happens is — because I know what happens. It’s the stigma. “I don’t want to tell anybody I need help because if I tell anybody I need help, it shows that I’m weak or I’m scared. I don’t know what the end result would be. Pride, fear, or whatever.”
I’ve got a couple of quotes that I found on the internet that are just so good. Things not to say to someone with mental health challenges. That goes for you and me, and it also goes for you who are going through those challenges right now. Don’t say it to yourself. “Ignore it.” Don’t ignore it. “Forget about it.” No, no, no. “Do you know what? Just fight it. You’ve got it. You’re better than this. Rise up. You’re overthinking.”
Don’t ever say these things to somebody because when you’re at the place where darkness is your only friend, that’s not what you need to hear. And not only that, but just because no one else can heal you, or do your inner work for you, doesn’t mean you can, should, or need to do it alone. That’s why I want you to hear, as your pastor — I want you to hear me here. You are not weak to say, “I need help. Please help me. I need help. I’m struggling. I’ve been trying to do it on my own, but I can’t do it.”
Church needs to be a safe place for all of those who are in that position of Psalm 88. It’s not in there just because it’s in there. It’s in there because it needs to be in there. It reminds us, when we talk about these things, that let’s not forget, but let’s remember and cling to the fact that the great, ultimate hope for followers of Christ is not here and now. It’s ultimately in resurrection. That’s why the psalmist intuits something as he’s going through all of this. He says, “Do You work wonders for the dead? Yes, He does. And do departed spirits rise up to praise You? Yes, they do.”
Because our great hope is in Him. It’s knowing that, one day, all tears will be gone. All sin will be gone. That’s the great hope. That’s why, as a church and as people, we’ve got to open up our baggage, and say, “Lord, please work with me with my mental health.”
Listen. Some of you all, please hear me. You need to ask for help. I don’t want to hear about you a month from now. I don’t want to read about you two years from now. The Lord loves you. We’re to love Him with our mind, as well. Sometimes that means you need to take care of yourself. Sometimes that means you need to get more sleep. Sometimes that means you need to stop trying to do it all on your own. You know, I just want to encourage you, if you’re there, to take a step. I know it’s hard. I know it’s tough to say, “I need help.” I know it’s tough to take that step out. You don’t know what people are going to say. Are they going to stigmatize? I get it. But church, we’ve got to be a place — as this world gets crazier and crazier, we have to be a sanctuary here. We have to be a place where people can come, drop it all here, and not feel bad. In fact, we should rejoice when people say, “I’ve got a problem.” We should rejoice when we’ve created a sanctuary where people feel comfortable to be able to say, “God, I need You now.”
Would you bow your heads for just a moment? I don’t want to embarrass you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. I don’t want to do anything. But I’m probably going to do something here that might make some of you all feel a little uncomfortable. It’s not my intention, at all. It’s because I want to be a place where people who are going through difficulty can be loved. If you’re struggling right now, if you feel overwhelmed, if you’re just going through it, right now — and maybe you’re not exactly at “darkness is your only friend,” but you’re just really going through a lot, and you’re struggling, I’m going to ask you to do something that’s probably going to be uncomfortable. There may be nobody that does it, and that’s okay, but I’m going to try to create the safest place that I can for you so that we can get help. Because I don’t want to read a story or hear about you a couple months from now.
If you’re struggling with mental health challenges, struggles, overwhelmed with whatever — maybe it’s too much at home. Whatever it may be, if you just say, “Man, I need help. I really just need to know that I’m not alone,” I’m going to ask you to do something that’s going to be, probably, a little tough. I’m going to ask you, would you stand up where you’re at? I’m going to ask people to come around you, pray for you, and to let you know that the church cares about you. It’s not to embarrass you. It’s not to call you out. It’s not to make you feel funky. It’s to say, “Hey, I want you to know that you can stand up here. And at least you have a pastor that will come after you and will do everything he can.”
And I want our church to learn to do this together. So, I’m not going to put anybody under any embarrassment. I’m not here to preach for how many people stand up. It’s not the deal. I just feel led, every service, to give everybody an opportunity who’s struggling, if you’re struggling with that, to just be able to stand up and say, “I’d like to have prayer.”
So, I’m going to ask you, if you want to stand up, to stand up. I’m not going to belabor it, at all. Amen. Great. I want you, if you can look around, if you see anybody near you that is standing, I would like for you to gently place your hand on them and pray for them, and then I’m going to pray.
Father, I humbly ask, right now, because I believe there are people who didn’t stand, but are standing in their heart, to say, “God, I need You now.”
God, I pray, in Jesus’ name, that they would know that You care about them, and that darkness doesn’t have to be their only friend, that there are people who care for them. There’s a church that cares for them. Lord, I pray that they would walk out of here and go to the guest place, go to the front desk, or find somebody with a lanyard and say, “Hey, can I get some information about the care team?”
Lord, I pray that You would do some miracles here, for Your people. Lord, I pray that as we sing this last song, You would shine some light of the “not yet” into the “now,” Lord, and speak and minister to Your people. Lord, we thank You for this time. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Message Series
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Teacher
Dr. Chip Bennett
Senior Pastor/Teaching Elder
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