00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 642 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm David Smith author of who's got your back making and keeping great friendships among men. I encourage you to invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talents and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to build real lasting friendships as a man is vital to doing this.
00:00:31 And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with the leadership provided by Scott Mayer. And every time anything goes wrong, they feel that. And yet it is inevitable that things are going to go wrong. Things go wrong and in person service too, but in some ways, by having that community around you,
00:01:04 it actually makes it feel less like a problem. And more like just something that happened, or at least that's true for the folks in my church community. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast.
00:01:33 We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can, In today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in others. I talk with you about why worship belongs everywhere, but why it can be so hard to really worship outside of community. And I talk about why right now, maybe highlighting that struggle to you. One of the mistakes that we sometimes make as Christians is thinking of worship is that event that happens on Sunday morning inside of a church where we sit down with other believers and we gather together and we maybe take communion or we worship and sing songs.
00:02:24 We do different activities that are very structured and ritualized, and these are moments of worship and don't get me wrong. These are indeed moments of worship, and they're very important ones if you're on the Christian journey, but you also can find moments of worship in other places, not just formal places like sitting down and having quiet time in prayer and reading scripture in the morning,
00:02:52 but also informal activities like work with others, like having that moment where you help someone out that needs it, or you pray with someone who needs that moment of prayer as, as well as other sorts of informal activities, like being able to just spend some time in nature, taking a walk, looking at the beauty around us worship truly is an activity that belongs everywhere.
00:03:23 And, and some of those worship activities that I just listed can be done alone. They can be done by yourself, but the truth is being on the Christian walk is not one that you really can take 100% on your own. Being a Christian is not a solo activity. You've got to interact, not just with God and not just with others out in the world,
00:03:51 but also with other fellow people that are along the journey as well. You've got to be engaged in a community of worship. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that it's got to be a formal denominational church, but if all you do is just spend time in isolation by yourself, that's generally not going to surround you with a community of worship. It can be nearly impossible to really connect and develop yourself along the spiritual path.
00:04:26 If you're doing it in complete isolation from all others. And yet. So often that's something that we can be tempted to try to do. We can attempt to go on the walk by ourselves. I did that for a long time and I struggled with it and I had a hard time with it because I was trying to do all of this as a solo act.
00:04:49 When in reality, I needed to surround myself with a community it's really difficult to find ways to not just lift others up, but to lift yourself up without that community around you see I've had the pleasure now of both conducting services and being the person up front, as well as being the person that just attends a worship service. And the experiences though, both very spiritual are also very different.
00:05:20 And right now I've got the experience of going to worship and being the person that's kind of running all the technology, trying to make the sound machine work and trying to do the live stream and keep things balanced for the people that are in present in service as well. And that struggle actually pulls me out of worship. Sometimes I don't feel like I'm plugged in and part of the community of worship because I'm working during worship and see that's part of the thing worship has to be done and given over to God.
00:05:55 And yet, sometimes we can separate ourselves from it. And right now for me, this actually highlights that struggle this this time where we're in, COVID-19 where we're streaming churches and some churches are open and others are closed. Highlight some of those difficulties of staying plugged in with your community, even when you're physically separate from them. And remember, I like that idea of physical isolation rather than social isolation.
00:06:24 We still have to be plugged in with each other, even though we may not physically be in the same room, but making that happen takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of activity. It can be really difficult. And I guarantee you, if you belong to a Christian community and you have a pastor, that pastor is struggling right now.
00:06:43 And if you have folks that are supporting that worship, they're struggling right now because there's a lot of work going on. And every time anything goes wrong, they feel that. And yet it is inevitable that things are going to go wrong. Things go wrong and in person service too, but in some ways, by having that community around you, it actually makes it feel less like a problem.
00:07:09 And more like just something that happened, or at least that's true for the folks in my church community. So it's interesting that right now, the pressure we're under highlights. How if you've been trying to walk alone your entire life, you're probably feeling even more isolated than normal, more lonely than normal. But if you've surrounded yourself with a rich community, you're still finding ways to plug in with that community.
00:07:36 Sure. It's not the same. It's not as nice in some ways there's definitely value and benefit to being able to do things in a way that involves sitting it down across the table from each other and breaking bread together and giving each other a hug. But there's still value in finding whether it's a telephone call, whether it's a zoom call, whether it's FaceTime,
00:07:59 whatever it is, being able to still reach out to your wider community and have them lift you up and walk with you is still valuable. You know, a lot of people are like, I'm an introvert. I don't mind not being around people, but even introverts still need a community. Now, the way they interact with that community may be different,
00:08:19 but they need that community around them. None of us can do it alone. We're always stronger together. We're always stronger when there's people around us to catch us when we fall. And if you haven't been able to find a spiritual community right now is actually a unique time to be able to do that as well. Because with more and more churches streaming online and finding ways to reach out in a way that they never have before you can expose yourself to a wide variety of services and maybe discover a community,
00:08:54 a church, a family that you can become. Part of that, you're more comfortable with that. You'll like their message. You understand what they're saying? The good news is delivered in a way that is authentic and real to you. And I encourage you to do that because the truth is yes, worship belongs everywhere and worship can happen everywhere. And yes,
00:09:17 we can even worship alone, but to truly build that relationship, we've got to find a community of worship that we all belong to. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling.
00:09:52 If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship and like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures,
00:10:23 develop your influence and impact the world.