Parish Retreat 2018 Session 2

Alright, here you go. Hank, I can lift a shark with one hand. Al, I don't believe you. Hank, give me a shark with one arm and I'll show you. I don't really know.

What do you say to a 40-ton shark with razor sharp teeth who's listening to his headphones with the volume turned up? Anything you want, he can't hear you.

These are horrible. Why do you think... Oh, no, no. What do... Oh, it's a vampire joke. Is that okay?

Yeah. Alright. What foes do vampires like best? Blood vessels. Oh, bloody hell. What do you get on the cross of the vampire with a mosquito?

A very itchy neck. I never let it be said that we're such churchy people we can't tell vampire jokes. What's your favorite favorite letter in the alphabet?

Arr! Thank you. You know my parents say arr? Arr! Because W is not very too many. Father, we thank you for the lunch in this last session. Lord, we're grateful for what you've done.

And Lord, I just pray that you've imparted some wisdom out of a fool such as me. Now, Lord, we want to look at how to proceed, how to go from here with some practical application. So, Father, we just pray that you would stir our creative imaginations collectively.

Now you would go forth in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. So, I tell you that woman, Barb Paquin, that I shared about, who had the spiritual gift of scrapbooking. Right?

Who had that great story of restoration. Again, man, she was married for a bunch of years. They'd gotten divorced. They were divorced for 12, got remarried. Then they had 12 more years, 20 more years of marriage.

Right? And this guy, John, man, he loved his wife. You can imagine how you'd feel if you were divorced for 12 years. Then they got remarried and then you have 20 more years. Grateful, right?

So, I met Barb. Barb was doing great stuff. She was always willing and active to come in. And then Barb had actually physically died a couple of times.

Had a vision of heaven once. She was actually wrapped up and she saw the wings of these angels when she coated with a heart attack. It was powerful. You could tell it was true. It shook her to the core. So, when I'd gone to New Hope, Barb was having some issues.

She'd gone to the hospital. We were praying for her. And she's like, you know, pastor. We had communion. We had confession. It was beautiful. I was like, you know, pastor. The Lord's been speaking to me.

I'm like, well, Barb, that's great. What do you say? I'm not telling. I'm like, oh, come on, Barb. Wait. I'm not telling, pastor. I'm going to wait until I get back home. Back of my mind, I'm thinking like, none of us know there are a day or hour.

I'm like, you know, just. That was very pastoral. So, I'm like, okay, Barb. That would be fine. So, I went home. I got a phone call an hour later from her husband. Barb's coding. Actively dying.

Come back quick. So, I went back to the hospital. I heard this woman, Barb, surrounded by her family. She'd been intubated. The tube was out. And we're all just waiting for her to pass into her glory.

Family's gathered all around her. So, I put my anointing oil down, my prayer book, and my Bible on a seat. And I found next to the seat a legal pad. And Barb had written the last three things in her life in her own handwriting.

It was there. It just caught my eye. Get this tube out now. Underlined. Barb was good. Her husband was French-Canadian. And she's like, I want ice chips.

Two cups. Now! Underlined. Exclamation point. The last thing she wrote in her hand said, tell Pastor Brian. The Lord said, don't be afraid.

You see, Barb thought it was for her. That when she got out, not to be afraid. Not to be afraid to do things for the Lord. Not to be afraid to do any of that. But you know, the Lord was gracious to say, Barb.

She'd always say, you know, Pastor, I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of how. She didn't want to be painful. Right? We're all like that. But the Lord met her in her grace. And the same thing would be, here's this woman.

The last thing she said to me. I mean, when I did accommodation, she was wide awake. You know, it was her release and she knew she was going. And it was holy. And that she had her family gathered around her.

She signed, I love you, to her deaf nephew. Pointed and winked at all of her folks. And later on, she's passed away in her glory. Thanks be to God. You'll see Barb. She's going to be scrappy looking with Jesus.

When you see this kind of glory, man, it's just Barb in her glitter. Thanks be to God. You know what, Barb, like, left me that gift. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.

Scripture tells us that, right? Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to the Lord. Just don't be afraid. How do we not be afraid? To be filled with the perfect love of God.

That's why I'm always going back to these things that we do. When you are filled with the perfect love of God, love casts out all fear. What happens when somebody is full of love? I've got two young kids.

There's a great book. You've got daughters. It's called Strong Daughters. Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. Did you ever hear? A beautiful woman, Meg Meeker, she wrote this book. And, you know, my wife bought it for me because I didn't have, I only had a brother growing up.

And I had girls. I'm like, what do I do with this? Or these. Right? Right? Yeah, yeah, the first one. And my wife, she's like, you love them. Like, yeah, them what?

Love them. Love them. So what I was taught, like especially for girls, is that they're going to be taught the rest of their lives a whole lot of negativity in this world.

And all of us do. I normally do when we're doing this with high school students. I can do it for you now. There's post-it notes. Why don't you guys take two post-it notes a piece.

Right? And just write down two descriptive words that you would use when you see someone like, strung out, homeless, just busted. Right?

Two descriptive words. Maybe somebody who hurts you or somebody you harm. Just give me two descriptive words. And put them on there. You got a pen?

Any descriptive, they don't have to be negative? Well, they're usually negative. Negative words. So they have to be negative. Don't ruin my thunder, baby. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I should know better. Yeah, no, it's okay. You can do that. I mean, you can just, go ahead. Couple of words. Don't, you know, don't overthink it. Couple of words. Oh, one of words.

My bad. One of words. My bad. One of words. No, there's no single thing that's doing it wrong. You're okay. And when you have one, I'm trying to walk around. Wait. I'm a hundred.

Thank you very much. You got your. You can look at each other's papers. Yeah. Jack you're the only one with the papers.

Going over take your. You got them with your Santa voter. You got yours? Okay. See that yours good record. Cause you're not negative.

Wow. Sip but this is okay so like seriously when we talk about what's the you should love the Lord to gather a heart mind soul and strength right thank you very much so what we do is um oh my goodness no but tell people like when you give these words when they're spoken or maybe they're actually they're cursive correct right the Lord's very clear he says the tongue is a restless evil right fire starts fire and turns bolts destroys and kills people right the Lord says use your mouth your words to build people up well you know the world doesn't do that you know so like we get all these things and I normally have like this helmet on

I stick them under and I'm like you know so when we have these things with people right and all these curses are spoke over them they can't feel the love of God they can't see the love of God they can't hear the love of God the love of God can't transform their minds right like that woman who was you know walking through Jesus just saying if I could just touch that little piece of our town just fearlessly walk into places and to speak the blessings of God over people who have been cursed right and to love them fearlessly now I can give you guys scriptures like all day long right like Isaiah 58 you know you go to chapter 6 this is a fast that I choose to loose the bonds of wickedness to undo the straps of the yoke to let the oppressed go free to break every yoke is it not to share your bread with the hungry bring the homeless poor into your house when you see the naked to cover him with underwear not to hide yourself from your own flesh thank you beautiful thank you and then verse 8 then shall your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily isn't that odd then the light is going to spring forth in your life then whose healing is going to spring forth theirs or yours whose healing did you hear it yours then our healing springs forth isn't that crazy we don't see those pieces you know when we we believe it you know like again

I go back to nursing homes it's full of widows and orphans I believe the church is going to get empowered when we start to be about the daddy's business we're going to be healed and we're going to be made whole and when we're loved fully we can love fully and it's not until we start to walk out and to do those things that we're going to experience those things now look they're like they're wicked practical I mean it's not it's not I have to be careful when I was in New Hope right you know Kevin Kalson you guys talk about him quite a bit you know his wife designs the Blackhawk helicopters right it's kind of fun he had a woman who designed the Blackhawk and another guy who built him right and it was kind of fun so I could never his sister in law would come and she's a rocket scientist for NASA right for NASA and I could never say like well this ain't rocket science because they're like what's wrong with that they had no common sense at all I tell you that you forgive me I meant

I didn't have any common sense they were awesome but like a lot of this isn't you know we talk about this and when you go back and read the mid rashes when you hear things explained by the ancient church fathers they're always going to take this how do live this peace out now look I believe that all scriptures God breathe I believe it right I believe that it's truthful it's not all literal can we say that right so like here's this deal what does that what does that book say if your eye caused you to sin what do you do let it out thank you very much and if your hand caused you to sin what do you do what about your foot right and then if you cause a little one to stumble what should you do millstone around the neck millstone around the neck look at this guy we're going to call him lucky this guy is a country western song right so we know like it's not all literal but it's truthful so we're talking about like

God God cares this much about sin right and Old Testament professor was really clear if you want to remind yourself about how how much God hates sin look at the whole the violence of the cross that's how much God hates sin you have to go again back to the the the the the the the the I got it go back to the sacrifice right with Abram taking the animals and cutting them in half right with an old suzerain tree both walk through well not both one walk through if I go back in my my covenant with you may this happen to me if you read the story only the pot and the smoke went through right the theotomy of God why man couldn't walk through because he knew man couldn't keep the covenant but that covenant of animals being split open was satisfied in the cross right that's when Jesus became that split for us so if we don't do these acts of mercy God takes them seriously and we can know that because we aren't experiencing our healing our healing when we exhibit the love that we've been given our healing starts to express itself so don't be like lucky alright but when the Lord is asking us to do these things let's really kind of take a peek at it and let's do it fearlessly now I want to get practical with you guys because you guys have talked about homeless ministry how do you do it what do you do what's going on

I'm going to give you all that I've learned in the last two years in three and a half minutes I want you guys to visualize really quickly your house okay how many floors do you have think about your garage I want you guys to visually walk through your kitchen open all the drawers go in the pantry the basement look around the laundry room every bedroom the playroom if you have a summer home if you have a motor home at this moment if we had more time I would say write it all down everything you see and then thank God for it so a lot of our friends that are living in a homeless situation this is our whole house could your house fit in here all of it so folks if you're staying in a shelter still to have a small locker they can lock it up they don't want to lock it up because you'll steal things are stolen quite often

I want you guys to think about this everybody I work with that's in a homeless situation I treat them as if they're in a foreign country and they are IDPs internally displaced peoples that have fled a war torn country because they have they're people that were living in peace most of it a foreign army came in sin destruction whatever evil loss of job displaced them from their homes just like that not too many folks slowly get homeless it happens overnight and they find themselves wandering about in quite a fog right biblically we're supposed to walk in wisdom toward those who don't know those who are walking about in a fog and this is all they have so when you're working with people just remember like they are in trauma when they're living in a shelter there are people that are using around them stealing around them most of the folks that run the shelters you know they're stealing stuff from people and donations that come in stuff doesn't get to them so when we look at someone who's really angry living in a shelter they have good reason to be angry alright so we gotta do an extra dose of oh it's okay when we start to minister to people in that situation alright we also wanna be careful you know when we start to talk about these people if they don't say thank you they don't know how to say thank you right if you're growing up in a home it just wasn't like that right so there's generational cursing we have to deal with right so this is like all my friends you might have you're gonna have a bottle of water right walking around a lot of my guys will drink from a public not water fountains but public fountains themselves right you guys are you know health folks you know what happens to your body when you don't have a lot of food or electrolytes if you haven't studied anything about food scarcity you know what food scarcity is these days not having a supermarket in a three mile radius so there's no again we're just gonna unpack all these pieces there's no food you live in the food scarcity you don't know where next meal is coming from imagine the trauma on you emotionally and then physically if you have to go with no supermarket no access to fresh fruits or vegetables you get your meal from the bodega now you like

East Sri Lanka food right it's not canned it's all fresh and prepared right most of it except for the coconut milk and stuff right but fresh and prepared it's what we do so when you're eating stuff that's like all processed we tell people our food has no food right so we're trying to walk around to figure that stuff out we'll have a toothbrush if you're lucky you cannot buy health and beauty products with food assistance you can't do it did you realize that when you're so in Hartford if you have Husky D state insurance you can have your teeth extracted by your insurance but you can't have them cleaned so these folks have to walk around until their teeth fall out before they can get any help so if you're getting all the again the leftover stuff from Wegmans or Hannaford's right all the sugary stuff people don't want we know how that happens what affects your teeth right and if you have bad breath they get periodontal disease and your breast starts to not smell so good teeth don't look so good again

I want to be very careful here right but they get it they get it so their teeth don't look all that great there's nothing they can do about it hello beautiful so also in here we've got this would be this is their whole bathroom right the whole bathroom if they're lucky we'll have some tenants you can keep track of you know where you're going we buy them we have to find them right deodorant you get them at the dollar store but if you don't have a lot of money right you can't afford deodorant you can't just go off and buy this stuff if you don't smell all that great you know we know that if you're living in a shelter or if you're out under a bridge again a lot of guys aren't in shelters because the shelters are violent scary places so they prefer to stay out Hartford every shelter in Hartford is wet that means they don't have to be clean and sober to stay the mayor thought it would be a really good idea so we can take care of the people house them while they're going through addiction what has happened is turn these places into like crazy places nobody wants to stay there's very few shelters for women

I don't know about Syracuse in Hartford there's very few people ask what do you do for women on the street I say you know what we don't see a lot because a lot of women know how bad it is on the street so they will compromise themselves and put themselves in relationships so they're not out on the street personally I work with the Hartford policemen when we find women that are staying on the street my wife and I take out a credit card to get them a room in the hotel right and we pay for it until we can find a place in the shelter not on my watch amen heck no we're taking care of folks like that then you got soap it's a beautiful piece man go to the dollar store I believe Jesus made the dollar store I get 33 cents for a bar of soap man isn't that amazing right cleanliness is next to it's not in the bible I know John Wesley had a lot of kids and his wife did all the work amen so we give out wet wipes and handy wipes too especially when you're a lady we know that you have to be clean if you're not staying clean you get sick right saw a video about

I'll be really careful I got lots of kids but for a lady to be a lady and experience what life is like as a woman on the street it is impossible to stay clean so a lot of diseases and sicknesses pop up too when we do our underwear ministry we give out fresh underwear all the time because you have to stay clean right we also have a big box of feminine products and we give them out we also have big bottles of ibuprofen and Motrin we open those up and just hand a few out it's expensive to buy a whole bottle like 10 bucks a pop right so we have lots of folks that are just living in lots of pain because they can't afford anything like that and again I tell people oh no not on my watch this is something you guys can do easily one of the groups in downtown Hartford made one of these cards people always go by saying I want to help out somebody on the corner of the street these cards on the front have where to go for housing right where you can go for a shower then on the back there's looking for a meal every day of the week and what meal they serve right and you can just print them up it maybe cost you 50 cents a pop or whatever can you imagine if it was like you know what our church we just printed up these cards and we're trying to get them off in the hands of everybody probably find a printer that might want to help out but when you stop off instead of giving somebody you know that dollar or whatever which you're probably going to go and use for something don't give out to people standing on corners it's 99.9% of scam you just give them this stuff it's like man

I found some places where you can go and you can get some help the backpack itself is just a gift most folks won't have backpacks it costs you 10 bucks right if you see guys that are walking the street or ladies that are on the street most of them won't have their stuff stashed somewhere right and people watch where things are stashed they'll be hidden under bridges they'll be buried off in the bushes somewhere right so they'd have to have places to go and get rid of them in Hartford they can't go into the public library which is a great place people go to charge their phone get on the computer try to navigate again I'm going to give you a fire hose this is what you need to think about doing homeless ministry in Hartford I can't just bring someone to a shelter and say go in I don't know about Syracuse we have a 2-1-1 system they have to call someone up on their Obama phone as they call it navigate the 2-1-1 system and then wait to get in they get free minutes usually take so long to wait they burn up all their free minutes on their phone can't get in a shelter if someone wants to get off an addiction to heroin it happened to me just last weekend this guy I've known he popped

I bought him a bike last year he was clean and sober had a great job had a relapse sold his bike had nothing to do I saw him I'm like man this was you last year I showed him the old video he's like I want that I'm like how about right now so we tried to go and find there was nowhere for a bed can you imagine how frustrating this is for a pastor the Holy Spirit convicts somebody wants to get them free and I can't find them a bed you can and I encourage you look up there's an access number in Hartford they should have an access number here in Syracuse I can call up now they find the bed for me and they provide a ride my poor wife I mean they were dated I was getting absolute don't do this absolute straighters I kind of met getting in my car and it's like driving them off to their freedom often times in our church service we have you know God convicts people and then we call the ambulance and the ambulance will come and they'll take them off to rehab if they go to the hospital they can rehab in the hospital you know so we're seeing that kind of fun stuff so imagine this is your your clothes closet this is what you got all of your clothes fit in your backpack now I what was her name

Amelia who had all those shoes back in the day remember that woman 800,000 pairs of shoes oh yeah another Marco yeah one most of my friends don't have one pair right so we try to get shoes off my friends say you know when you're homeless and you live in your clothes your home wears out fast so we got a couple of pairs of socks this one's got three newer shirts we've got underwear and another shirt when you're living on the street or when you're in a homeless shelter most folks don't have access to washing machines so we think about oh those smelly homeless people they know they can't wash think about this if you have one pair of pants how are you going to wash those things yeah you know it's just not going to happen and then you have to have laundry detergent laundry soap you know there's some folks in California man I'd love to see it happen this is my big dream these Christians are buying laundromats right so they're using it as a for profit business and then one day a week they close it down all the homeless guys can come and wash your clothes you know how long it takes to wash your clothes right hour and a half maybe two hours right you don't have a lot so it takes that you know what I mean so you have an hour and a half two hours to do bible studies to pray over people you know there's some folks that actually instead of that they just hang out and they collect change and then it gets out in the homeless population for a while and on a certain day you can meet these people at a laundromat and they'll have a whole bucket of quarters which was really big in a principal church in Connecticut and they would just sit there and feed the machines while they're hanging out waiting for their clothes to dry they'll talk about like Jesus and watch it's been wider than snow and then they'll negotiate things we have case workers with us you know

James is really clear if you say to someone you know God bless you go your way and they're cold and shivering it's on us right so we can walk people through when we do our homeless ministry again there's a couple of books you might want to check out one's called Toxic Charity right the other one's called When Helping Hurts we want to be careful not to enable people we don't enable people so we actually have case managers that work with us you guys can get trained in case management we walk people through steps right it's like you guys are in the prayer teams when folks walk up we'll say how can we pray for you a lot of times folks will say oh everything so then Christians will start to pray like that oh Lord I pray you make them feel loved and affirmed and valued all those good prayers but we pray point specific how can I pray for you oh everything like what I need work oh yeah what do you do where do you look have you had an application in a lot of folks you work with don't have access or don't know how to fill an application out so you can go to a public library where a bunch of homeless folks are hanging out and start to walk people through it how do we do resumes can I help you just hang out and walk through the application process

I've done it just dab with someone and been their data entry guy really simple right another thing guys can start to do is do ESL classes I don't know what your population is like here a lot of Guatemalans right a lot of El Salvadorians in Hartford down in Virginia was real big Tom Herrick you know Titus Institute his church did ESL classes and it was amazing you know if you come in you don't speak English you can get a great job with a landscaping company right and they're taught when they come in you know just say that job is beneath a white person I'll do it so they're trained when folks come in the undocumented workers right but they can't progress past that because of a language barrier not that they're not smart I learned that really well I'm sitting there in seminary and I'm like well this guy doesn't speak English very well he won't do all that well in Greek and I'm like oh man you're a jerk obviously he got the A and I got the B because the guy was like wicked smart but in small pieces like that so we go and pray over folks like I was saying well I'm right now

I'm estranged from my kids well where are they they're with my sister well how come well I was involved in drugs well have you called them no I haven't well why not we'll get that piece so let's pray about that let's ask God to restore that oh and by the way what's her number and we'll call up and we've seen people getting reconciled to their families again we're about a ministry of reconciliation the four full brokenness right getting restored back to God is really important but like Wesley would say right a hungry man can't hear the gospel right so we're going to look at all these other places if they're sleeping outside clearly they're being affected by all the elements right so we bring in the clothes sleeping bags we make sure they're not selling them for stuff I got a friend of mine when he gives out brand new shoes he takes a magic marker and writes all over them they lose their value not their worth they lose their value if they're estranged with somebody else like a sister or brother we start to talk about reconciliation reconciliation and getting them back and being restored to family if they're like against themselves you know it's a lot of guys a lot of women will come out like you know

I've gone through all this stuff you know and they believe that defused attitude like they're not good enough to come back in so we're there we're there all the time and by us church showing up and just being presence a ministry of presence they see and they taste that God is good so when we show up and I'm going to finish up here because it's just really kind of beautiful um I had that mark on my side thanks this is a quick little view of like how we do it if you guys ever want to do a mission trip down to Hartford I would love to have you guys come for a weekend and see what's going on it's just beautiful so this is the street church right here in the front steps of city hall right it's a seat of government and then above that is the throne of Christ above everything amen amen so people come and we'll sit here in the front steps of city hall right there's two fountains over here this fountain right here is my baptismal font it's very beautiful here are the front steps this side over here is Bone Park in the public library um over here is the

Wadsworth Athenaeum where all the fancy people go so they always walk by all that we're doing the first step we have right over here is a table for coffee tea giving out choice at work for Starbucks we offer the full coffee experience we make the coffee for them we don't put stuff out for health reasons right but then also they're being served for the son of man not came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many we're modeling that and then we have people literally walking by so we have greeters like this is by Narthex's main street it's like hey what's going on how's it going you want some coffee what are you guys doing oh we're just got a church taking care of really oh that's pretty awesome so we'll take care of all those folks that come by generates the buzz then over here we have snacks for people that might have to go off to work can't stay for the service right can't stay for the food so they'll run off then right here on the front steps I can show you pictures later is my folding table and my altar and I want to be careful this is really cool if you read the vision that God gave

Daniel of the altar you know it's made of wood remember that it's got wheels why wait speak aloud to move I got my moves I fold it up and go with it it's pretty cool right and you can't buy it from like all me or anybody it's really beautiful Costco makes my altars but on that we do use a chalice patent and candlestick holders that are all bronzed because it's beautiful and we got a guy Charlie who brings my altar weeds you know big stuff and he lays them out on the altar these weeds they're beautifully ugly right and then over here we have my sound system and Main Street here's a big traffic light right here and we have 120 decibels of Christian music blaring over the city right gospel because when he proclaims the name of Jesus something happens in the atmosphere right when he say the name of Jesus literally things change demonic fleas they can't stand so we're praising

Jesus like right there then over here after the service we break this down bring it over to this side we have sandwiches in the winter we have hot soup like I mentioned one of the Baptist churches brings down their full team then over here on the side we'll do either the underwear or we'll do fresh fruit or we'll do hygiene products because folks don't have anything or we start to make these out too guys try this if you want to give a blessing back out we make little first aid kits if you're living in your clothes you're living I mean I do a lot of backpacking too right I've done a bunch you know when you get a foot disease or a foot fungus or a small cut and ingrowed toenail infection comes in real quick you know how many amputations happen it's incredible so you guys that are homeless so you have food insecurity that leads to type 1 type 2 diabetes right coupled with walking your feet always having wet feet so if you give them like little first aid creams you can buy from a dollar store too get them on Amazon a few band-aids some q-tips and toss them in you know they can really they can save a foot right it'll cost you 47 cents to make that up and then every time we have those too we put in a word of encouragement a little card and it's not like again we're not going to go from the attitude of because you're on the street you must not know

Jesus it's just encouragement because like everybody needs encouragement so that's that's my church right it's we have case managers that are here too right so we we do an awful lot but it's the one small piece that we we can we can be called to do you know like make a card that just collects all the places they can go you don't have to do it all just know where they can get it all amen you're the dispenser of the good stuff right thoughts about this piece or anything that you guys might be involved in what do you think yes ma'am no every Saturday I'm Seventh Day Advent Anglican and I there's a couple of reasons one I we do so I have a mission trip every Saturday and right now I've got a woman with church army that works for me Dorothy Smokas and she's a captain as well she's leading the service it's really good she's got an amazing testimony so we have 125 volunteers like I said that we pull from about 25 different denominations and they come in and we are the buds of Hartford you know by the glory of

God what we've been doing helped bring in world vision you know world vision right now they have eight cities they work in doing domestic work and they saw that there was enough boots on the ground in Hartford doing God's ministry they decided to move a warehouse in so I get to shop when I go there they get all the stuff that's left over from stores so like we talk about anything good come out of New England I'm like man if world vision shows up you know they did their research so you know God's just doing it and again it's small little pockets of being faithful people I meet on Saturday because people don't want to show up on Sunday you know well they're going to church right which I get so I go to a Baptist church on Sunday they're good friends of mine you know but yeah but it's consistent yep could you either leave us a card or send me a card in my email so that I can get the template for a similar card here yes oh absolutely do you have an extra card yeah

I can give you this one yep thanks you're welcome Brian do you ever have city hall people or anybody try to run you on no no we actually we were so we started off next door with this area that was it's a private trust and we got run off of that but then this is great the woman who has the mayors right here heard about it knows what I do with this police officer that meets in city hall and they're in city hall two days a week doing pastoral care for the homeless in a cop's office and he beeps I've led people to Christ in city hall in a policeman's office because you have great favor I'm blessed and highly favored you know flat out so she heard what we were doing and put it in the mayor's ear to allow us to be in the front steps and like we're not there on Saturday why don't we go no one complains sometimes I get like some weird church groups walking by and we just I run them off right

I do I vet people like Madge like yeah everybody wants to volunteer when you see God's work being done everybody wants to come I had a woman who was a Muslim I want Muslims to come to faith in Jesus and so does Jesus but when you show up with your head covering I can't have you serving coffee and welcoming people into my church because just by that you're denying the covering of the blood of Jesus right so not I'm no sorry so once in a while it's been difficult because we've got people that want to help that can't but in terms of city hall we've got great favors and if we get run off I'll go down the street I've got brothers in Africa they're under a tree we don't need a building Michael Yemba he's a good man he went to Trinity school for ministry and again I've got the unfair advantage this guy came to Trinity and he was hung upside down for three days and caught with a machete with a pastor in South Sudan I'm not putting up with nothing I mean please alright

Jesus I'm getting wet today in the rain oh no I'm going to melt I'm like yeah no again like all those people aren't supposed to guilt us but that's our western understanding they're supposed to encourage and inspire us right the scripture says look at those in their faith model and emulate so that's the piece we have been a lot of his ecumenical work right we have a lot of churches working with us and I believe that's what's drawing the power of the Holy Spirit the Lord's pleased when brethren dell together right cross denominational lines what's happened in all these other churches are trusting somebody in a collar and that might sound trite but it is huge absolutely huge I joke all the time I don't wear it to get a good parking space like you guys do with a sign I wear it because I'm a slave that's why I have it on so these folks are coming in and it's just and then when the world sees the church playing together nicely in the sandbox you know then it's like that's what we want to see someone had asked earlier one of the guitar players who had to leave you know do you ever get problems from people saying I don't want to come to faith because of all the bad stuff the church has done

I'm like I really don't because we're doing these acts and people are seeing the church together they're saying that's what the church is supposed to do like so they want to be a part of it yeah and again it didn't cost a dime to start you know the Lord just said go I started all of that I saw people getting sandwiches in the winter so I took my Coleman camp stove and my beer brewing pot and I cooked up hot soup I scorched the first batch and I cooked the second one we just went down with soup you know that was it and then the Lord was like being faithful in the little years have been more something about some guy with talents or something somewhere being trusted with more but just we step out of faith for the call it's going to start to go and the world's waiting to see it it's beautiful yes what does you spoke about baptism but liturgy communion homily that's got to look different on the street what do you have the applications do you make what's different what's the same sure so

I preach like Jesus did he's like look at the birds I can point to a bird right and then we talk about you know vines and you know the vines you see you know the vines been grafted in kind of like take it naturally put it on that tree how's it going to look so sometimes I have to wait when the lab cars go by one day they had a street fair so a woman that was wearing stilts and had like pentagrams tattooed on and was dancing behind me so I feel like to dance with her right so those adaptations the baptisms we do in the public fountain right when the fountain's not running I take a water bottle and just chuck it on them right in terms of preaching we preach you know it's open air so it's just beautiful and I invite other pastors to come when you stand in the corner and preach there's nothing better in the world it's so freeing you know in terms of like what do we do so in the old book we have a right three right that we could have done Archbishop

Foley Beach it's really clear that when we have to contextualize our sermons we have freedom to go and talk about that my people couldn't follow you know the services in our book a lot of my folks can't read you know so we do a right three as we're at it you know but we again it's grape juice and we have the wafers out because Jesus took out little wafer things during the meal no he didn't but yeah other than that and then like someone was praying when we stop and we pray for one another we literally turn and say grab the person next to you and pray for the prayers of the people you know so we have homeless people praying for guys that have lots of letters after their names and corner offices and we teach them to model how to pray and lay hands on it that way so yeah that's how it works we can't pass a plate you know although people have given us crayons and one guy buys me a gift every week from the thrift store and brings it up yeah you say that he gives me weird stuff my wife's scared of it you know we gotta receive these gifts but like

Sunday I'm like Charlie Allen follow man cast this thing out you know it's like literally I cast it out so we have to receive you know so that's how it works we do a Christmas party on the street I bring a Christmas tree we bring wreaths and time to the trees I bring Christmas presents if I have time I show you videos and we had a woman last year who was spontaneous that came and grabbed a bell and started singing joy to the world in a complete downpour you know so we just we have that Palm Sunday I bring in palms you know and we're just typically like standing you don't bring chairs people standing up or yeah so we have like I said the stairs are right there so folks sit but then we'll stand the service is a half hour 45 minutes you know and people get it it's like we're not we're not gonna go when we show up with our van people are waiting for us and they're not waiting to get something they're waiting for church you know that was a big piece the Lord said

I don't want you to plant a church I didn't want to plant a church I wanted just to do justice ministry but the Lord's like no man you're a pastor so I want you to plant four so I did right but when we show up they're there waiting for us because they want Jesus above everything else and all our volunteers can't believe it but we talk about you ever hear the ministry of the empty hand right it's being comfortable and going to people without anything to offer but ourselves that's the piece right we're giving them friendship we're giving them someone to talk to right and folks just I mean they hang around forever we do coffee and sandwiches folks don't want to leave they'll stick around for you know two and a half hours because you feel human right yeah I've talked a lot you guys have been very gracious I know like I said I'm hard to follow with notes but my wife keeps reminding me of Brian the Lord made you the way he made you and I'm grateful for that and I have a testimony and we all do and we were saved to be a blessing to the nations you know and

Bishop you asked does anyone complain about it and well not so much and I love the fact that when when I was called out of the church and when God's people were called out they had to go away to a safe distance three days away right three days really important they journeyed on three days completion right and they did it so they could worship and they had to have stuff to worship God with right remember where they got all the stuff to make implements to worship in the temple where'd they get it yeah yeah right so as they're walking out they're saying yeah I need your stuff to go worship Jesus but that's what we're doing we're pillaging our task masters worship Jesus and it cracks me up and I'm excited for what God's going to do with you guys what he's doing right now you know in all honesty I went and I spoke at your synod and it was just an honor to be invited

I love the the the we have I love the fellowship that we have I love it and then father Caleb called up and said like when I was there the Holy Spirit asked if I come along and I was humbled and grateful right and I'm more than willing to drive as far as I have to because Jesus left the throne and come to me there's no distance that I can ever compare to I gave you an awful lot to chew on I gave you guys my email address you're more than welcome to stay in touch with me Facebook is great you can follow what we do everything we do is grounded in scripture right I've tossed out you know I haven't memorized all the chapters and verses that's why I have my truth machine right I've got boring disabilities but I know the word of God well I handle it well I handle it fear and trembling nothing we do is contrary to God's heart right and again I just wanted to come and share that the Lord might use the spirit to just get you creatively thinking and I'm so proud of you as a brother in Christ that I'm going to go to the next place and I'll talk about this sister and brother body of believers in Syracuse you know on this little road and they're out there about the kingdom of

God and they're laboring in the field and they're going to be praying for you and blessing God for you as well and it's going to be good father thank you for what you've done for what you're doing lord it's going to fire hose right but that's what your grace is like it's overpowering all encompassing consuming father our brains are kind of mush you know me I could talk for days and you wrote in your words that if we tried to write down all of the good things you did there wouldn't be enough books in the world right but father we just want to see the city made famous for you the city lord knows for salt that it would regain we're joking about the salty rolls in buffalo father I just pray for salty people right here in Syracuse you know that the loudest house in the whole city would be the church and that as it walk in it would be a deafening roar of the praises of angels descend and the glory of god would just draw such an excitement and that father god we would do it not out of spite but out of love and mercy and thanksgiving for what we received so jesus now i just pray a mantle of evangelism on my friends that they be able to just share the story about that rock in their pocket and it's founded on you the rock of our salvation and it might not be the most exciting story but it's your story that you gave to them jesus i just pray that any barrier will just disappear you give us everything we need lord in us is the full power right the fullness of christ lord says please to dwell in us please to dwell in him if it's in him and he's in us and that means we have it lord i say hasten the day we no longer have to feed anybody but we're at that eating that aged wine and that aged beef and just rejoicing with you you love me so much you are so beautiful you're so good and we give you all the praise father if anything i said today was not of you pleased behind this makes you forgotten there's any encouragement and hope father may all of our joy can make you we give you all the glory and you all the praise in jesus name before caleb finishes i want to tell a nice story about ryan at the synod this past spring i approached ryan and asked if you would speak to our synod he said certainly but you've got to do it in five minutes i felt really horrible four minutes and 37 seconds into it he said i'm done i thought this has never happened before it was really great and the holy spirit felt just like he's fallen this weekend god has blessed you ryan touch lives for jesus name amen our retreat continues and we'll come to a close tomorrow

morning father and brian will be our preacher for our sunday worship service just want to thank him for being here with us and show our appreciation for what the lord has shown us through him yes and with that being said bishop would you dismiss us with a blessing sure thank you rector unto god's gracious mercy and protection we commit you the lord bless you and keep you the lord make his light to shine upon you the lord lift up the light of his countenance and grant you peace this day and for all amen yes ma'am