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Bye.

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Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and today I'm joined by Brother Arter. Steve Arter, how are you doing? Good evening. Good. Good. Here we are at, I guess it's Singapore, and we've found out. Kyle did a image search. I think it was Kyle. Oh, very nice. Never been there. Yeah. Well, today you're sitting there. All right. Well, what are we talking about today? Talking about

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cultivating our influence as Sunday

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school

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teachers.

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Cultivating influence. Yeah. So as Sunday school teachers, we teachers, I said that with a little accent, we play a crucial role in shaping young minds and hearts. So our position, it might seem kind of humble or almost low or something, but it carries immense responsibility and potential. So to maximize our impact and grow as It's essential to focus on developing our own selves. Today, we want to talk about the three key areas that can help us become more effective and influential Sunday school leaders.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Hey, man, this is a really good topic because, you know, you think about that buzzword influencers. Everybody's an influencer. Yeah, that's true. You know, whether it's

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dieting or

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food or exercise. Yes. You know, while that stuff's important, I guess. Yeah. It's more important to be an influencer in what we do, whether it's Sunday school or youth or the adult church. You know, it's not just a buzzword. It can't be a buzzword when you're involved in Sunday school. So, you know, the buzzword influencers really means something when you're talking about building your sphere of influence. And we'll talk about that. I kind of gave a topic away, but our sphere of influence is from five to 11 years old kids. Yeah, exactly. And that's huge, huge.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

That is huge. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. What you just said about there's influencers everywhere, social media, quote unquote influencers. But yeah, we want to, and I guess, you know, some of those influencers do influence the people that follow them for good or bad, you know, depending on what it is. So, you know, there's makeup artists that are influencers. I mean- All kinds of stuff.

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That's their job title.

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Yeah. I'm an influencer.

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Yeah.

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Yeah. YouTube personality. Yes.

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Yes. Whatever. Influencer.

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Yeah. And so, yeah. And we want to be influencers where we are influencing a following, but it's our Sunday school class, our Sunday school kids. We want to influence them and make life-changing impact, basically.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Yeah. That's our goal. But, you know, I'm sure you'll allude to it. We have to be on our game. Yes. You know, when the Bible says, uh, raise up, try, train up a child in the way they should go. And when they're old, they won't depart from it. Yes. You know, I wish it was when they were young, they won't depart from it, but you know, how, how old is old.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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Yeah. Well, and, and the other thing with this, and I don't know if I have this in my notes at all, I don't think I do, but I've told, like, I've told my kids, my, I have two older ones and then a younger one, but I've told my older ones, even when they were pretty young, like 12 and stuff, I would tell my son, you're being watched. And so we in Sunday school, as Sunday school leaders, we are influencers by default. And now, so we want to make our influence greater, but by default, we are influencers. And what are we leading? I think that we have to be careful. And this is what I would tell my kids is you're being watched. So if somebody follows in your footsteps, where are they going? Oh, yeah. And so we're influencers by default. So are we teaching good habits? Are we showing up and not being our best

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self? Amen. Because you're going to influence in some way, shape, or form. Yes. You're either a good one or a bad one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

And kids pick up on such little nuances. Oh. I mean, they're so observant. And it's like subconscious. Mm-hmm. pick up on it and we don't even see it. And then you see a kid doing something. You're like, Oh wait, that I do that. Don't I?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah.

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You know,

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my, my granddaughter does, does it all the time, you know, and you know, you think that she's not watching or our kids aren't watching. And then, you know, a week or two or a month later, she'll come up with a question, Papa, why is this, you know, or why did you do this? Or, you know, and that's, that's how our Sunday school is.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Yeah. And then you realize, Oh, they were paying attention. They're paying attention. Yeah. Well, that's like, I told the story a while back about, we had a bunch of boys over to our house on Sunday afternoon and, and they were playing, they were playing Sunday school. And, uh, the, uh, one of them, he was, he was wanting to be a good Samaritan and he was asking my son, Ash, and he's like, where's, where's a robe? I need a robe. Brother Arger had a robe. Yeah.

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It's

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crazy what they remember. Yeah. So he knew he was like, I've got to have the robe. All right. Well, yeah. Like you just said, um, I do have this on the notes, but we have to, it kind of starts from within to be the best influence. And so I have an outline here, and one of the things I have on there is that we have to clarify apostolic values. This is an apostolic podcast, and we have listeners all over, but that's the first thing, is clarifying our doctrinal values. And so as apostolics, you know, we can, I guess, and maybe I'm the only one, but I get i think that we can sometimes be guilty of just thinking like oh yeah well i mean they know they they go here they know and then also i think we can be guilty of um you know i grew up in this pretty much and so we can be guilty of just like um how do i say it like like it's so a part of us which is good that we don't expound on it enough to make sure to cross it over to get that message right yeah to get that message across. So to lead our Sunday school kids and, and even our staff, you know, you and I have talked about developing staff too. And so even our staff, we ourselves have to have a clear understanding of our apostolic values. And we have a lot of young staff, not saying that that could happen to me and you. Sure. You know, you're, I think the oldest staff in our repertoire. And so, and then we have really young staff. And so, all the way across the board, um, we have to make sure, you know, I mean, we should obviously be praying and reading the Bible, you know, all of these things. And so, um, part of, part of our responsibility is to, do I know, do I understand these apostolic values? Do I understand our doctrine clearly? And one of the best ways to learn something is to be able to teach it. And so if, if we could learn it in the way that, you know, we have to teach it, I just read something um, I just read something about, I can't remember what book it was, but I just read that this guy said that his father said, every time you're studying for a test, test or study like you have to present on the subject. If you study like that, if you study like you're going to have to give a presentation and teach somebody else the subject, then you'll know it inside and out.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Man, I wish I would have known that 40 years ago. Yes. Right? Or had that revelation 40

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years ago. Well, and so this, in Sunday school, we have that opportunity. Even, you know, we're talking about influencing the kids and stuff. But just a side note, we have that opportunity to get better ourselves. Oh, yeah. Because we are teaching these subjects. Sure. And so now you go to do a Bible study. And yeah, you might be teaching five and 11-year-olds, five through 11-year-olds. But now you go to teach a Bible study to a 40-year-old or whatever. Their family. Yeah, exactly. You know, some new people.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

You know what we should do sometime is review on, you know, when we're doing prayer requests or the plan of salvation and see how are we presenting that? Are we, you know, do we know our stuff? Are we just going through the motions? And, you know, not to be critical, but, you know, if I'm not doing it wholeheartedly, that will show. Yes. That's good. So, you know, that. It's like reviewing a film for, you know, the NFL. They watch films to

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make themselves better. Yeah. Like, oh, you slipped there.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yeah. So,

SPEAKER_00 9:37

I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there. No, that's good. You know, this podcast, we're about being transparent and showing the magic or disaster. And we don't talk a lot about our disasters or probably enough. But I do think that you bring that up. I do think that sometimes we are just going through the motions. Sure. The segment, you know, of Planet of Salvation, we do Planet of Salvation every week as one of our segments. It's about two minutes long and it's easy to just like, okay, let's just run through it. And you know, one thing that I thought about, this has been, I don't know, it might've been a year ago or something. There was, and I know not all the kids feel this way, but this like hit me like a dagger is somebody got up to do plan of salvation and they were like, what's step number one. And somebody, one of the kids yells out, Obey all staff. And so for those that don't know, we have four main rules in Sunday school. We have obey all staff is rule number one. And so they were, and we do the rules every Sunday and we do it at opening. And I was like, I'm glad that they remember the rules. I want them to remember the rules. And it's pretty simple. It's just four of them. But I was like, have we failed? talking about the plan of salvation and they're saying, obey all staff. I mean, that's great. Obey all staff, but that's not step one. Right. And so, um, and, and by the way, our plan of salvation is repent. And so we talk about repenting, being sorrowful and turning away from your sin, being baptized in Jesus name and then, uh, receiving the gift of the Holy ghost. Yeah. Evidenced by speaking in other tongues. So just want to clear, clear that up. Right. This is an apostolic podcast.

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Right.

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But anyway, so yeah, I was, I remember that. And like I said, it was been a year ago or something. I can't remember how long ago, but it stuck with me because, and again, I know the majority of our kids, they know the plan of salvation. We do it every week, but I thought, oh, are we failing here? No, that's not the first step. Oh man. So when we, uh, coming back to us, you know, when we have, when we understand our, our apostolic values and we have self-application, this gives us a foundation for our own teaching, you know, when we're, we're instructing and interaction and interacting with the kids. So I had a, just kind of a list there of, of things. And so one is identify apostolic values to instill in the kids. So one, a few of those things, we just talked about plan of salvation and that's key. Um, you know, I'm working on this curriculum with the WPF organization and, uh, And that's one of the things about that is we're like, we want it to be apostolic through and through to the core. And so that's one of the things that we want. But we also, we want to teach on, like we do offering in Sunday school. And one of the reasons, actually the main reason we do offering, we don't get a lot of offering. It's not like, that's not how we raise our money. The reason we do offering in Sunday school is to teach on the concept of giving. Yes. And so that's, part of our apostolic values that we want to instill in these kids. Amen. The worship, the praise. Demonstrative worship. Yes,

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demonstrative worship. We're just not sitting there with our hands in our laps. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Well, and I like how when you do prayer requests, you talk about that. Oh, yeah. Getting excited. Yeah. In fact, you had us change the music because we had kind of a piano music. Yeah. So we now have two tracks. We have the piano music when you're taking requests And then it goes to the more, I think it's some more drums or something. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and then establish and prioritize some goals for the class. And this is something we could probably do better on, but you know, like it might, it would be good to, we don't really have a review, a solid review process for the kids to know like, okay, yes, they memorize the memory verse or know that. Yeah. I mean, if they get the Holy ghost, we know that that's, that's a big milestone, but it might be good, you know, if we had some kind of goals, you know, like by a theme, you know. I think that, I don't know, I've tried this before on more of a yearly basis, but I think it might be, what's the word? Well, you said sphere of influence. So I don't think this is like unrealistic, but I think it's outside of our sphere of influence to say X many kids get the Holy Ghost. And I, you know, people might do that. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that, but I just, I feel like that's God's sphere of And so we can lay all the groundwork, you know, for that. But anyway, so then finally I have aligned our teaching methods with those values and goals. So we have the ways that we do it. And just like we talked about plan of salvation, maybe we're just going through the motions. We should be aligning those ways that we teach offering plan of salvation, do the prayer requests. We should align those with the goals and values. And that's one of the things like with altar service, we have, we basically require a hundred percent participation. And what that does is it creates a culture. So even new kids, I mean, once in a while you have to like say, Hey, come on, you know, go up front. And, but they see everybody does it. Right. And so we have, you know, two or three new kids or four or whatever. Well, they're the only ones not doing, you know, so, so they know, oh, okay, well, this is just what everybody does.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

But when they, you know, when they come back or, you know, they, make a few trips, then they understand it. And that's, that's part of what we're, what we're doing here. And they start falling in line.

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Yeah,

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exactly.

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Yep. Okay. Here's a next bullet point I have is, is servant leadership. And so true leadership is rooted in servanthood. In fact, we have the best example of all is Jesus, you know, washing his disciples feet, you know, and, and so much more than that. But so at Sunday school teachers and leaders, we have the opportunity to model opportunity to model this. And I, a few sub bullet points there is just valuing the needs of kids. And I remember, um, pastor Burgess told me one time he was talking about, um, I think we were talking about marketing or something for the church, you know, or advertising. And he said, he said something about there's needs and there's felt needs. And what he meant or what he was explaining to me is felt needs are, um, what people feel like they want. And so it's kind of like, uh, this is probably a bad example, but a kid might feel like they want some candy. They want a candy bar, but really they're just hungry and they need some food. They need some sustenance, you know, probably not the best example.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

That's good. But I, you know, if I wanted a candy bar and you offered me a corn dog, you know, I'd probably still want the candy bar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Well, that's true. But yeah, understanding the, uh, the needs of, of our kids. And then, and then valuing, I guess when I wrote that and valuing our kids' needs is what I was kind of thinking is, is valuing what they think they want. It's kind of like the kid is like, look, mom, watch. And they jump off the couch, you know, they do something and they want somebody to know. Yeah. Like this is a big deal. Yeah. And so I remember brother Tyler Hodge, a podcast, but Tyler Hodge, you know, you need to put out another podcast. It's been a long time, but every time he puts them out, they're really good. But he did one on prayer, and he talked about praying with kids, and he said, I can't remember the name, but he's like, one time I prayed for Fluffy or something like that, and it was the kid's dog. So they prayed for the kid's dog, you know, because the kid's dog had died. So he prayed for Fluffy. But it was the kid's felt need. Sure. It wasn't what they needed, but it was their

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felt need. you know, my cat's sick or, you know, and I'm just, I, I'm not as empathetic as I need to be because like I said, you know, that is their immediate concern right now.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Yeah. And it's easy for us to be like, well, that's not a big deal.

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Yeah. But it's a big deal to

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them. Yeah.

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Yeah. You know?

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Yeah. If they said their mom was sick, we, we feel more empathy.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yeah. You know, but you know, the pet, cause we just don't, that's not our, that's not our value. Value. Yeah. Yeah. But it's their value. It's the kids. So, yeah. So I, I, Yeah, we could all do

SPEAKER_00 19:06

a little better on that area. Yeah, something for us to work on for sure. Help me, Jesus. Yes. And then this is something we've talked about this in different contexts before, but I put adapting our teaching style to have the most impact. And so what we do, I mean, we do some big things, you know, And that's because we want to have impact and we have our big set designs. We have playground and everything. So we do this big stuff. We do full costumes, act out skits and all of these things. You know, I was just at recently, I was at the kingdom kids conference. Now it's country kids, but the summit conference in Tennessee. And I was telling somebody, we were talking, they were asking questions about And I said that basically on a much smaller scale, but basically we do that every Sunday because it's I know you haven't been, but you saw some of the videos and stuff. Yeah, I did. But it's about the closest thing to our Sunday school that I've seen out there. And so we do that every Sunday. We do these skits and stuff. But anyway, I haven't said all that. I'm not trying to brag, but I'm trying to make a point is a little bit. Yeah. But to have an impact I kind of almost think of Naaman and I think that there's some this is this is the podcast we're talking about all our faults okay I think that there's some of that level like where I'm like oh we need a big maze we need a slide we need but some of that impact is going back to that empathy some of that impact is is dipping in the Jordan it's it's the small little things that are not big and flashy like our scenes are it's this small, it's, it's that I care. Yeah. And I think I could do a lot better on that part is that I, I do care, but, but showing the kids that I care, it's easy for us to say, well, look at the set. Of course I care. Right. How many hours has it been on that? Sure. Kids don't know that.

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Right. They

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don't,

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they don't see that. Cause at the end of the day, you know, that's fun and that it's great that they, they get to experience that. But what takes place in there,

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That is what's

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most important.

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Yeah. In the main room, when it's

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altered, like when you,

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when you sit down and put your arm around a kid or when you pray with them, that's the impact really. Yes. That's the full, and it's, it's the small thing, but it makes a huge impact. And again, I'm not saying we're not going to tear down our sets and all that. All of this is a culmination of things, but I just, I guess, you know, in my own self, I can feel some of that. I think I could be Sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

He was doing his magic tricks and his demonstration and then instantly yielded to what God was doing. And right after that, and I, and we had kids get the Holy ghost. Yes. Just went right in. So everything is so magnificent and it, and it, and it works great. But if we don't follow the, the, the, the lead of the Holy ghost,

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it's all for nothing. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

You know, and when he just, I mean, he shut down his demonstration, like right now, It's all right. God wants to do something here. And we had kids getting the Holy Ghost five minutes after he was doing some crazy magician thing. And so, again, while this is all important to get the kids' attention, what we do in the chapel area is the most important. And following the Holy Ghost.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Yeah. And that's one thing we say, too, is we're pretty heavily script-driven But when

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God moves, script

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goes out the window. uh, maybe small cause we're teaching small people, you know, I can, the, this, this role that we have can seem small and, and maybe it is small, but it's not insignificant. Right. And so what's the thing? I think elder Booker says, big doors swing on small hinges. That's, I think it's a message he did. Yeah. It's very profound. Um, hopefully I'm crediting the right person. I'm pretty sure it's elder Booker that said it. The thing is, is we, we, We have, and we've talked about this before, but we have an important job as Sunday school teachers. We are planting seeds and we are, I mean, I wrote an article, I don't know, a year or two ago for WPF magazine. And one of the things I talked about at the end is I wrapped up with something along these lines. Today, I sat down with a preacher. I prayed with a choir director And, you know, and so I, what I was saying is in Sunday school, I sat down and I taught these people because that's what they're going to become. They're going to become the usher, the preacher, the piano player, whatever. And we, we fortunately, I mean, I'm not quite the dinosaur that you are, but we have fortunately been able to see that. Yeah. We've seen that cycle. In fact, I did podcasts last week with Nicole and Arielle. And we talked about that. They were in Sunday school and now their staff in Sunday school. So it's, it's just awesome.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

You know, and, and that, that, that means a lot to me. And I know it means a lot to you because I mean, we're building the bench that's going to replace us. Yes. Yes,

SPEAKER_00 25:50

exactly. All right. Well, the sphere of influence, we kind of touched on it already. So our, our effectiveness as Sunday school leaders is really directly related to our sphere of influence. It's, it's related to, Right. Amen. A kid, you can, you know, I've had it where there's a kid I'm thinking of in particular that's, he's still orangutan. I said he, he's still orangutan in Sunday school sometimes, but I changed how I behaved toward him and it got results. Oh, yeah. So it used to be like, sit down, you know, you got to obey the rules or you're going out. And then I had a mind shift when I realized some of the issues he was dealing with. And again, we've had this this conversation before, it's not okay for a kid to mess up your whole Sunday school. I'm not saying that. But it changed my outlook and it changed how I acted towards him. And so, anyway, having said all that, if you can develop that trust and that respect, then you gain more influence with that child. And then if you can do it at scale, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Another thing, we build relationships with the kids and And Sunday school, you know, and I've noticed we haven't sent very many kids out lately. That's true. You know, so. It's been a while. Whatever we're doing to help the orangutans be better. I mean, it's working. And maybe, you know, we're being more empathetic to their needs. Because, you know, we build the respect with them. That's going to transfer outside. Because, you know, when we see a family at Walmart. Yeah. You know, and, um, that, that's, that's, that means a lot to me.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

You know, I mean, we, we, we see our church kids all the time at Walmart or Safeway, especially Safeway, you know, it's close to the church, but the, the kids that come on the bus, man, it's huge for them, for me to, for me or us to recognize them. And they introduce us to their, their parents or their grandma, you know, sometimes we don't know what their living situations are. Yeah. And that, that's, uh, our sphere of influence is huge. Right. It's not just, you know, inside these four walls, it's, it's out in the community because when they see us, it's like, Hey, that's Kroger, you know, or Mr. King, Yeah, your character. Yeah, exactly. You know, and yeah, you know, that should mean something to us as Sunday school staff.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Yeah, and it comes back to what we talked about in the beginning is being aware that you are being an influence, good or bad, for better or worse, you are being an influence. And so, man, I want that influence to be a positive impact. I want that to, you know, make

SPEAKER_01 29:31

a positive difference. Because, you know, it could bring the Oh, that's, that's the guy you talk about all the time.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep. And we've had kids, we've had kids that have come back at like youth age. Oh yes. You know, they were gone for a few years and they remember because they remember Sunday school. And so they come back. We've

SPEAKER_01 29:51

even had children whose parents have come here before. Yes. You know, that were picked up on the bus by the Pierce's. Oh, wow. Way back. Yeah. Yeah. And we're getting those kids, kids.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

And we can make that lasting impact on lives and even like what you just pointed out is generations. So we got to remember that our role is vital in nurturing this, the next generations of these kids, these believers, these leaders that will be doing great things. What's the thing about we're the church of today, but also of tomorrow. And again, I think that probably most people that listen to this podcast, don't feel negative about kids ministry. I mean, it's a kid ministry podcast, but while if you're involved in kids ministry, maybe you can feel like it's a small thing and it's small, whatever, you know, it is, it's not insignificant. We have a high calling. This is, you know, it's a big deal. All right. Well, I think that's our time. So that's a wrap.