Everyday Church
Next Steps
(upbeat music) - Hello, friend. Welcome to today's podcast, Everyday Church, with Pastor Jason Kiefer. Everyday Church is a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. (upbeat music) - Hey, my friend, it's great to be with you today on the Everyday Church podcast, and I hope you're having a great day in the Lord and just a great week, or whatever it is you're doing today. Man, the Lord loves you, and I hope you're gonna be able to walk in His Spirit. I know you can. He's giving it to us, and yeah, I hope our time together is an encouragement. Hey, don't forget, check out the website at astatulabaptist.com. Check that out, and I know that'll be a help to you, and get you plugged in in some areas, and yeah, just encourage one another. I always say this, you know, whether you're part of whether you listen to this, and you're part of our church, or another church, or maybe you're not in church, and you're just struggling with some things. Hey, I know you can't be a part of everything, but be part of something, right? Be part of something that the Lord's doing, and get engaged with people that love Him, and we're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but man, we serve a perfect Savior. So, I want to take some time today, a few minutes today, and I want to talk to you about next steps. So, I mentioned this this past Sunday from the pulpit, and I want to share with you what that means, and you're gonna be here more about it, we'll be talking about it, you're gonna see things popping up, and I don't want you to be like, what in the world is that? You know, when you're a kid, we have three kids, and two of our older kids can ride bikes. One is just graduated to a bike with training wheels, and you know, it's funny how you get a little kid in there, and they're just maybe one year old, they get on this one and a half, you know, they get on this little riding toy that rides around the house, you know, and it's a little tidy on thing. But then they'll graduate. The next step is they'll go to a tricycle, right? They go to that trike, and they go outside, and yeah, it's life, you know? And then their next step is either a bicycle with training wheels, or in our case, I think with rhythm, it was a scooter with three wheels, right? A little scooter they'll ride on. Well, then hopefully they'll graduate to a bike without training wheels. Some kids take longer. Rhythm, Leah, I remember Leah, man, she got on that bike in no time, she was riding a bike without training wheels, and Nate took a little bit longer, and rhythm is still yet to be seen. Well, then, you know, after a bike, you know, hopefully eventually your kids are gonna drive a car, you know, and then, but the idea is you're, there's a next step. We're always looking at things next step, and I think that that's just an illustration that kind of popped in my mind. But what do we mean at Assatoababist Church, or what do we mean on the Everyday Church podcast when we talk about the next steps? Well, Armato is loving God, loving others serving both. Loving God is coming into our relationship with him. Loving others is growing together in our relationship with God and with other people, and then serving both obviously is serving God and serving other people. And I think the goal, my goal, my desire as a pastor is to see every individual serving in some way at Assatoababist Church. I believe that's God's will. God gave everybody a spiritual gift, and according to 1 Corinthians, it is to be used within the body of Christ. It's to be used within the body of Christ. And so we, the church is more effective when we serve together, and friend, you're more effective when you serve with the church. You're more effective in your life when you serve together in the church. Philippians 1 verse 27, striving together for the faith of the gospel. That's God's will. But practically, in a very practical sense, what does next steps mean? Well, think of it this way. We can connect, grow, and serve. So loving God, loving others serving both. We do that through connecting, through growing, and through serving. So the first step, if there's gonna be a next step, there has to be a first step. So the first step is always trusting Jesus Christ as your Savior. One has to have trusted Christ as their Savior before they should even consider whether it's joining the church, whether it's being baptized, whether it's serving in the church. Any of those things, salvation always comes first. That is the key. That's the foundation. Because it's a transforming work, and transformation begins in salvation. There's no other name under heaven by which men can be saved. But the name of Jesus, it is a transforming name. And so, you may have been saved a week ago. Maybe you were saved 30 years ago, but everybody has next steps. So we don't want people to get in the mindset, well, next step is for a new Christian. It's for a first-time guest. Man, every one of us, I have a next step. So I've been looking in my life, hey, what's my next step in growing? So when we talk about next step, again, our desire is to be growing in Christ, and it is to be mature in Christ, and it's to be serving within among God's people. And so, salvation is key. After salvation, we believe that baptism, we believe baptism is obedience to Christ. We believe it demonstrates what Christ has done by us being submerged in water, representing the death and the barrel of Christ, and then raised, the Bible says, were raised to newness of life because of the Christ or because of the work of Christ. We see that. So baptism is us following Christ in obedience. And so that would be a next step, discipleship, being part of discipleship, growing in Christ. Peter says this. Desirely sincere milk of the word that you may grow here by it. So our faith grows from the milk of the word, so discipleship is so important where you can grow in Christ. So once you're saved and baptized, you should then be thinking, man, how can I grow in Christ? What can I do to grow in Christ? You know, maybe you're a member, but you should know this. You should know that one of the next steps in the step process is for new guests, for first-time guests or new people that have been coming. We call it a newcomer's launch. This is a time, our newcomer's launch, is a time where we sit down, have a meal with people that are just getting new to ask the tool of Baptist church. And this is a way for you to be engaged with some of the people in our church and get to know people. That would be a next step. So you may find somebody that's new on campus. Hey, what's your next step? They're gonna look at you like you're crazy. Oh, yeah, yeah. So what we mean by that is we want people to be apart. And so yeah, if you haven't went to the newcomer's launch, that would be your next step. Being part of a small group, our life groups on Sunday, we're getting ready to split our adult, our young adults life group up, and it's gonna be come to smaller groups. And probably by January, we'll be adding a third small group. And we want it to maintain its intimacy and it's a small feel so that people feel they'll let their guard down and be connected. That's what we would like. And so that's part of that. Getting in a small group or a life group so that you can grow. We have a new class, we're starting. It's called next steps class. It's we meet on three Sunday mornings out of the month. And this is gonna be a revolving door where people can come in. We have three families that are getting ready to finish up next week as I'm recording this. And this is just where you connect and find your place. Where does God want me to serve in "Ask the Two" about this church? And I would just offer this. It may be that you've been in this church for a long time and you've just kind of set there. You've just kind of been there and you're just really don't know what your purpose at "Ask the Two" about this church is. You should, I don't care if you've been here for 20 years. Maybe this class will be good for you and you should be a part of that. And so you can get connected there and be a part of that class. Joining an ABC serve team. This is gonna be a great, great step for you to follow. Again, maybe you've done everything, maybe even a member for years but you're not really serving. You should be part of an ABC serve team. Use your gifts and your passion. God has given you a spiritual gift to serve him and it's on you to know your spiritual gift and it's on you to serve with your spiritual gift. And I would just say our spiritual gifts generally line up with the way we desire and operate. For example, I love to paint a big picture, not literally paint a big picture, but paint an idea, give an idea of something we would like to do as a team leader or as the pastor. I love sharing with people, okay, we wanna go in this direction and then find people that can be part of the mission and vision and let them break it down and let's make it happen. That's something I like to do. I can see a project. When I see a project, I can see a way to fix it. And so we call that the gift of administration in the Bible. I enjoy that. Maybe your gifts mercy. So maybe you would be part of a caring compassion team to where you would go out. You would help care for people and be compassionate to people. Maybe yours is the gift of helps and maybe you're gonna find yourself being part of that team that is helping do things and be part of things. And so we want you to be a part of that. That's a next step. Becoming a member, if you're not a member, would be a next step. Maybe you're not faithful in giving. Maybe you've just learning about tithing and maybe God's been dealing with your heart about that. Maybe you're a giver, but not a tither. We believe that tithing starts at 10%. And then from grace, we go bigger than that. Maybe your next step will be the 90 day thai challenge. Hey, I'm gonna spend 90 days. I'm gonna commit to tithing and giving off my income and trusting that God will honor that and bless that. And what we do at our church is if God does it, you come back later and you're like, whoa, wait a minute, I'm sinking, man. I can't pay my bills. I should have never tithed. And we will give you every penny back that you tithed. You sign that commitment. You get committed. You give for 90 days. And then you say, hey, God didn't bless. He left me hanging. We believe so strongly that God will bless in that. And then there's other ways. We should always be looking for our next step. We should always be thinking, what am I doing now? What am I doing now that's helping me to grow? And is there something I should be doing more? As you transition from phases of life, maybe you go from being a young parent to all your kids, you go from being a young parent to an empty nester. You're going to a different phase of life. So what is, how am I gonna serve God differently now than I did when I had kids? It'll look different. It's gonna be different, right? Maybe you're single and you're college and career age and you're thinking, okay, now you're getting married and you're starting to have kids, okay, what? What's gonna look different in my life and serving God now than it did before? Always thinking, walking with Christ. It's why we call it walking with Him, right? And so I hope that's a help to you. I'm excited about this, man. I can't wait to see what the Lord's gonna do. And we're gonna be sharing a lot of this. You're gonna be seeing it. We're gonna have an area in the lobby where it's just, it's gonna be for next steps. You're gonna be able to go talk to people and find out how you can get engaged in all this. So pray for us as this gets rolled out and we're trusting the Lord with it. And we're just trusting God that He'll help you and I to grow together. And I can't tell you enough how much we love you. We're praying for you. Praying God will bear your burdens today. And love one another, let's stay connected. And let's be the church every single day. Amen, let's go to the Lord in prayer and ask that He would be with us today. Father, thank you so much for your goodness to us, for your love for us. Thank you for your compassion that fell not. Great as thy faithfulness, O God unto me. And Lord, I just pray you'd help us as we grow together, taking those next steps, Father, Lord, I know it'll be a lifetime of change. We love you, we thank you and praise you and in your name we pray. Amen. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to Every Day Church, a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. If this episode was an encouragement to you, be sure to hit like, share it, and subscribe for future content. (upbeat music)