155: The Weight Of Christmas & How To Lighten The Load | with Troy Matchett

Too often in small churches, Christmastime carries a heavy weight of ministry.

Volunteers, ministry leaders, and pastors often feel torn between family and church, struggling to find their own peace and joy in a busy season with extra ministry programs and pressures poured on.

Listen in as Pastor Troy Matchett shares his experience as a small church pastor and what he’s learned along the way to lighten the load during the holidays.


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Transcript

Laurie Acker: 0:01

Hey, this is Laurie Acker, welcome to the small church ministry podcast. Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast, where we celebrate the smallness of small churches, because we know that God works in every place where two or more are gathered, where 20 or more are gathered, where 200 or more are gathered, God is there. And today, on the podcast, we have Troy mattchitt, who is a pastor up in Canada. He has been part of our community over the last couple years. He's spoken at our conferences, just gives some really great wisdom and advice, and has become a friend in this community. And so Troy, thank you for taking time to be on the podcast with us today. And just by way of introduction, do you want to share a little bit about your journey as a pastor in in smaller church settings? Yes.

Troy Matchett: 0:56

Well, it's great to be here. It's an honor for me to to be part of this, like Laurie said, my name is Troy, and I've been a pastor for 26 years, which is crazy, over half my life, and I just turned 50, and I'm not I became a pastor because they said there'd be no math, but I Did figure that out is over half my life. But yeah, so I started off, graduated from from seminary and went to a small town, maybe around 13,000 people. Pastor just was a youth pastor at a small church. There we were there for six years, me and my wife, Penny, and we had a daughter, Alexandria, who's 24 now. And we moved from Bathurst, New Brunswick, to listole, Ontario. And so that in Bathurst, there was 13,000 people. Church was around 100 people. We moved to listole, the town was about 6000 people when we moved there, and and the church was around 80 people. And we were there for I was in Bathurst for four years, enlistable for six years, and then we moved back in New Brunswick. I'm from New Brunswick, and my wife is from Ontario, and

Laurie Acker: 2:21

for those of you who aren't up in Canada, we're talking Canada. Yeah,

Troy Matchett: 2:24

we're talking Canada. And I'm in East Coast of Canada, and I moved to list to Bucha, which has 2300 people in it. So, yeah, so next place I move, I'll probably have to run the corner store and pastor at the same time, because towns are just getting smaller and smaller everywhere I go.

Laurie Acker: 2:47

So your church is your your town is smaller than some big churches. Yes, 2300 people in your town. Now, I know you're in a bigger small church, and we talked a little bit before we went on air, and your church is running around like 150 people on a Sunday, and we're definitely talking to churches under 200 and some of our churches have you know 50 people in it or or 80. What do you love about the small church size in ministry you know? You and I have had a couple conversations about that, but I would love for you just to let everybody in on that, because I love your perspective.

Troy Matchett: 3:20

Yeah, I I mean, I love like, I think all churches, all sizes, have something to add. Yeah, I think smaller churches for me, obviously, I think, I think our biggest trap is we try to be something that we're not, and I think as a smaller church, I think we offer we offer community in a different way, we offer perspective in a different way. And so for me, I think I think God has used me in the way that he's used me. Because I think I don't know how to say this without sounding weird, but I think he's used me in the way that he's used me in the towns that he's used me in the churches that he's used me. Because I think if he used me in a different way, I think I would be prideful and take the credit. And I think this been his way of just keeping me humble and just being like everything that happens, you know, to have a church of 180 people in a town of 150 280 people in a town of 2300 there's nothing that I could do. God does that. Yeah, and I think that small churches just offer community, and they offer a different way of doing things. And if we can stop ourselves from falling in the trap of trying to do everything that the church down the road is doing because they have 1000 people or 500 volunteers, I think we'd be a lot. Uh, happier,

Laurie Acker: 5:02

yeah. Oh, I do too. I think we find a lot more fulfillment, a lot more joy in our ministries. You know, I love to talk about creating a small church ministry that we love, or creating a ministry that we love. And the reality is, if you look at, I mean, how we are created as as connected, spiritual, emotional, physical beings, we cannot have that many great relationships, like deep relationships, and lives are changed to relationship. And I think when we have that in our mind to get bigger and bigger and bigger, we're just watering down, in my opinion, the depth of what we have to give. Yeah,

Troy Matchett: 5:36

and I think, I think I read a study one time is that we only have room in our lives for eight significant connections. Wow. So, so I hear people go to church and they're like, Oh, well, if, if you know, if our church gets this size, then I won't know everybody. But truth is, we only have, we only can make eight significant connections. And so I think in a smaller church, it helps us to do that a lot easier.

Laurie Acker: 6:07

Yeah, yeah. And if we look at the loneliness epidemic, you know, most people don't even have eight significant connections. Yeah, not even close, yeah. Like, all right,

Troy Matchett: 6:17

eight is, like, someone who's, like, really outgoing, like, that type of personality, right? But, yeah, but everyone else falls less than that, yeah, yeah. Loneliness is actually killing people. Yeah, yeah. And since

Laurie Acker: 6:32

we brought up loneliness, this is a really good transition into our topic for today, because we're actually talking about Christmas, the holidays, and how, how in ministry we can get burnt out, how to survive it, but not just survive it, but thrive it. And I, I think one of the things during holiday season that I'm very aware of is the holidays bring up in every single one of us, every single human. It brings up more loss, because we see all the happy, shiny things out there, all the ways it's supposed to be, whether it's stuff and trees and decorations or the family, you know, Hallmark kind of situations where none of us are, where we are without loss. And I think in ministry, sometimes we start pouring out because we're like, oh my gosh, there's so much loss at the holidays. We want to connect people. We want to bring people to the church. And we forget that as humans, even in ministry, we're having those same needs and those same feelings. And sometimes in ministry, we shove down all of our own needs, desires, wants, just this, this core, I don't know, this core, I don't know, pulling for connection, like we shut that down in order to pour out. And I think that happens more at Christmas than any other time. Can you talk about the Christmas holidays, Troy, what you've seen, what you've experienced, and even a little bit what you teach? Yep,

Troy Matchett: 7:47

I think it's the holidays are difficult because like you, like you talked about, there's, there's people who experience loss in the holidays, that where it's very difficult just to be in the holidays. And I think if we approach the holidays with party and fun, that's all good, but we need to make space for everybody, depending on where they are in the journey of the holidays. And so for me, that's really important, like I said to you earlier, before we came I had been sick for last five or six months with a really bad case of diverticulitis, and everything went sideways. If, if you don't know what diverticulitis is, it's not that exciting, and we want kind of talk about it here, but things, it went really sideways, and so like surgery and drainage tubes and whatever. But my wife now has coming into the holidays feeling really tired, but the truth is that's a lot of us, because there's a quote from John Mark comer's Book of the ruthless elimination of hurry. And he says this. He says, If the devil can't make you sin, he'll make you busy. And you talk to somebody say, How are you doing? Oh, busy. And not just at Christmas. Point is we come into Christmas already depleted, fired, and then we're like, oh, well, I got to do this, I got to do this, I got to do this, I got to do this. And I know my pastor wants me to do this and this and this. And then we just, we got nothing to give where our soul is desolate. And that's a symptom. It's not just Christmas. The problem is, that's how we live. And when we get ourselves to Christmas, we're already depleted. And then we got to go into the season of the year with 37 events, and I. Yeah, we're like, yeah, how am I gonna make it?

Laurie Acker: 10:03

Yeah, yeah. When you mentioned kind of going through, like, almost like, empty ourselves, I think of how we push through that so often, and we think we're showing up okay, when inside, we're like, oh my gosh, I still don't want to do this, but it leaks out like that. Exhaustion that that burnt out. Edge of us. It leaks out in so many ways. And I think we're often not aware, like we feel like we can do ministry as empty shells, like there's the people listening right now. I'm just telling you, they're gold, like our listeners right now. They are like your core volunteers. They are like the ones who are carrying all these, you know, different weights and multiple hats, and the pastors who want to learn more and do more like that's who's listening right now, and we feel like we can keep going when we're empty. Yep. What would you say to them and all of us? I

Troy Matchett: 10:56

would say this, and this has been life changing for me, if we look at the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, okay, Jesus gets there and he and there's an order of events that happens. Okay? And so here they are. Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave. Lazarus comes out of the grave, but he's still wearing his death clothes. And then Jesus says to the crowd, help him take his death clothes off. Maybe not everybody's like me, but I think Christmas brings this out in all of us. We're we've convinced ourself that if we work hard enough, volunteer enough, put in enough time, that we can call people out of the grave.

Laurie Acker: 11:50

Wow. Only

Troy Matchett: 11:52

Jesus does that. The only thing we can do is set the table, and when they come out of the grave. We help them take their grave clothes off. But exhaustion happens. And I'm speaking to myself, exhaustion happens when you believe, even just maybe you know different. But it happens when you start to think, when I start to think, I can call people out of the grave. If I organize this enough, if I do this enough, I've put in enough time, people will come out of the grave. And there's not enough organization in the world that can do that. Only Jesus does that. And I think if we could go into Christmas you us applying that to whether that's our families, our volunteers, our church, and just be like, Okay, this is what's my role, and I can't I'm not Jesus. So calling people in the green you

Laurie Acker: 13:02

you know, Christmas by the time this airs, Christmas is one week away, right? And we're all in the midst of it. We may have Christmas Eve service where we're putting out a bunch of candles and luminaries. We may have, maybe in charge of a Christmas pageant with the kids who aren't rehearsing and haven't memorized and haven't shown up for their practices. We may be in charge of the decor, and it's just not going well. Like, what do we do when we feel like we are exhausted, or we're burnout, or maybe we just are desiring more connection or a little more space? Like, maybe we're not even at the at the brink, but we're just kind of in it, right? But we feel like if I don't do it, no one will. What do we do when we're right in the middle of it?

Troy Matchett: 13:49

For me, this is gonna sound crazy, but sometimes, if no one will do it, maybe it shouldn't happen like, because it generally falls on the same, one or 234, people. And I think sometimes you have to be brave enough to just be like, Okay, I can't do this. Like, the art of saying no is really important, because, listen, I'm a pastor, but pastors, when they find a volunteer that'll do things, they'll over depend on that volunteer. And we have to, we have to find ways to rejuvenate our souls. When I was off sick, you know, as much as I wanted to not be sick, I wouldn't trade those those weeks and months for anything, because I had to slow down. And Jesus was never closer than he was in those times and and I think we need to. Slow down like one thing that I would say to answer your question is, there's we need to pre decide what we're going to do and what we're not going to do. We need to make decisions in advance, like I know they're not here this till whatever date in December, but for next year, we need to pre decide. You got to remember how we feel right now, in this moment when you're listening to this podcast, yeah, and say, Okay, next year, what am I going to do and what am I not going to do? And we need to write it down. And the reason why we need to write it down is because often we make deals with ourself, but deals with ourselves are not a deal. We have to write it down and say, Okay, next year, I'm not going to do this. Next year, I this, and we need to slow down. We're not the mega church around the corner. We're not a church with 15 pastors or five or two, we are volunteers. By and large, need to take a deep breath and realize that I am his child not because of what I do. I am his child because he loves me and I'm not going to be any more of his child if I volunteer for 25 hours a week over Christmas,

Laurie Acker: 16:29

and we're not going to be any less of his child if we say no to something absolutely, even if we've already committed. You know, recently I heard I heard someone say that like sticking to a commitment that was wrong or following through on your bad decision isn't really wise or showing resilience. It's basically showing that you're not learning. But you mentioned just a couple minutes ago that we need to be brave enough to say no or to, you know, stop doing something you know, brave. You mentioned the word brave. So brave to me implies fear bad consequence. That's why we have to be brave. What do you think we're afraid of, or most afraid of when you say we need to be brave enough to say no?

Troy Matchett: 17:15

From my own experience, I think we're afraid to let people down. We're afraid to be looked at like we're going back on our word when you're right. Laurie, like just because you said you would do a cantata in 1993 doesn't mean you should still be doing that cantata in 2024 Yeah. Here's the thing from my experience, and I must have heard this somewhere before, because I'm certainly not smart enough to come up with it on my own. But a church is a church can deal with its failures. They'll be like, Oh, we won't do that again. The biggest issue the church has is dealing with its successes. Because sometimes when something's successful, they think it's going to be successful forever, like I've been where I am for 16 years. So I'm at the point now, well I have been for a few years, is I'm undoing stuff that I did, and that's complicated, because you stood up and you said, I think we should do this and do this and do this and do this. And now I'm saying it's time to stop all of that, right? Like we can deal with our failures. Oh, no one showed up. Okay? We won't do that again. But if you're still doing a cantata, because 900 people showed up, or 150 people showed up in 1993 maybe it's time, and that takes bravery. It takes bravery to say, Okay, I think this has run its course, and I understand that this, you could be disappointed about this, but I can't do this.

Laurie Acker: 19:35

You know, I talk to a lot of volunteers who feel like it's their job to take the weight off their pastor. And if you're a pastor listening and you don't have that experience, it's really out there. You know, some pastors feel so not supported. But I'm going to tell you, I run into more and more volunteers who take on as much as they can, as hard as they can, because they want to be like Aaron and her to the pastor, right like, we're gonna we're gonna do it all, and I don't want to disappoint my pastor, and I find a lot of people moving into burnout, including the pastor spouses, because they are trying to Help that Pastor as much as they can be successful. What would you say to them? Because they're listening right now, and they're like, if I don't do this, my pastor, like, you know, he or she asked me to lead on Sundays, or they asked me to do this and and I'm going to let them down. Yeah. What would you say to them? Your

Troy Matchett: 20:33

pastor will be fine. You have to take care of yourself. Like I just had a guy in my church that I'm very close with. We did this worship night, and he called me the next day, and he's like Troy last year. I did, you know, 15 worship nights, or whatever it was with you, and I did one tonight, and I just, I can't, I can't I'm too busy. And I said, Okay, was I disappointed? Part of me was disappointed, but like, we have to be okay with people taking care of themselves like the world is not going to end. If you say no, you might feel like it is and you might feel like there's pressure and there is pressure. But if, if you can be brave enough your passion to be fine, and if they're not fine, that's probably a topic for another day. If they are pressuring you or this or that or whatever, then maybe that's not the healthiest situation.

Laurie Acker: 21:42

But yeah, if they're not fine, they probably have their own growth to go through. And in addition to that, I think sometimes we we it's almost like we protect people from their growth, like we all know we grow the most in our hardest times, but yet we work so hard to protect everybody from the hard times because, because we have, by and large, the for the listeners who are listening right now have grown to be overly responsible. That's who we attract here at small church ministry, are the people who hold the weight for everybody else, because otherwise you'd be in a big church, possibly doing nominal things. Because you know that that really are, those are the people who stick in small churches. They they they want to be part of the core. And

Troy Matchett: 22:26

I want to acknowledge those people like they just love their church, yeah? And they just want the best for their church. And I say this a lot, but we got to always remember that fear isn't a really good long term motivator. Yeah, so true, right? So we said, well, I got to do this, because if I don't do it, no one will do it, and if it doesn't get done, then is another young family going to leave? Or is this going to happen? Or is this good? But fear is not a long, good, long term motivator. You know, if you go back to the 80s, when they did all the left behind movies, you know what I mean? Like, I still, after I watched them, and I was afraid to death, weeks and months later, I still did what I did, yeah, because I feared, like our motivation just needs to be our love for God, our love for His church, and that is the motivation. Yeah, listen, I was sitting, I was very sick. My board came and talked to me, and they were like, No, you're going on sick leave. So they treated me very well. They left, and my wife was sitting across from me, and she knew that I was living in turmoil in my mind, if I'm going to be off for six, 812, weeks, whatever it was going to be, who's gonna take care of this person and who's gonna take care of this person and who's gonna take care of this person. And she looked at me and she said, and in a way that only my wife could say to me, who's also a pastor on staff, but she said to me, she said this. She said, Troy, it's time to face the fact that you're addicted to helping people. Wow. She said, way

Laurie Acker: 24:20

to go. Penny.

Troy Matchett: 24:21

She said, even though your motives aren't bad, you're addicted to it because there's something in it for you. And she's like, that's what addiction is, that there's a dopamine hit, and you really need to look at your motives of why you're doing all the things that you do. And then she stood up and went to bed, and I was just sitting there, but that's what I would say to people today, our motives can be good, but if they get just off center a little bit, and it can really mess things up for us, because then we're like, Well, I have to do this, because what about the pastor? I have to do this because what about this I have but the truth is, maybe we like the recognition, and we need to be careful of our motives, and that's probably really deep topic for another day, but, but for me, it was really revolutionary for me that helping people is a good thing, but. It also, the devil can also counterfeit that and use it to make me burn out.

Laurie Acker: 25:37

Yeah. And, you know, I think most people in smaller churches are running around with the with some of the similar behaviors, motives, doing, mentality. And I just want to talk a little bit about, how do we know when we're a little off center, you know, because it'd be really great to know we're off center before we end up in the hospital or with a life threatening condition, or, you know, on actually burnt out where we are, you know, shutting down and leaving the church. And I'm going to give a few things on my end, what where I see when I'm off center. And if you want to add to it, that would be great. But for me, I would say, pay attention. This is what I do in myself. Pay attention to my own emotions, if I'm getting a little bitter, or if I'm short tempered, or if I'm a little on edge, like, like, if I'm okay, and all of a sudden I'm not like, something happens and I'm like, Whoa. You know what just happened there? That's usually when I can tell I'm a little off center. Or to I don't want to say busy. I hate the word busy, because I feel like we all fill 24 hours. So when I'm a little too driven, or I feel like fast or like it's not enough, that's usually when I I can tell I need to pull back a little bit and get re centered with Jesus. How about you? Anything else to add to that little list for people who are listening now,

Troy Matchett: 26:51

yeah, like, for me, it's, it's my inner dialog, hmm, right? Like, I can be, I can on the outside, I can look all the part, but in, in my mind, if I'm like, talking to someone and and I'm like, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. You know what I mean? Or whatever the inner dialog is. I have to pay really close attention to the inner dialog, because old Troy, before Christ, was a really sarcastic, mean, difficult person in a lot of ways, and so when I'm off centered, that part of me tries to claw its way back. And I have to be very, very careful, because, just because I can put a smile on my face and say, Yeah, Mrs. McGillicuddy, everything's great. You know what? I mean? Like, that's not enough for me. I need to know that my inner dialog is

Laurie Acker: 28:03

okay, yeah, yeah.

Troy Matchett: 28:07

And yeah, that's,

Laurie Acker: 28:08

that's a great awareness, just to bring up, you know, I think our conversation, this is, by the way, this has been one of my favorite conversations I've had in a really long time on the podcast. So I appreciate your your tone, your intentionality as we talk, just your thoughtfulness, just loving this as we talk about Christmas. Like ministry in general is a big weight. It's just a big weight we carry a lot. Christmas gets even heavier because we are, you know, we feel this pressure because of the holidays, because of the Christmas Eve service, because it's one of the biggest, you know, you know, seasons of all time in the church, and also because of our own family and friends and our own histories and and, you know, our own expectations of the holidays. It's a big weight, you know, like we we've talked about that, how do we lighten it? Give us some tips to lighten the weight. You know, again, it's a week before Christmas, like everything's already planned. Everything's on the calendar. We got stuff coming up. What can we do this week, or even today, to lighten the weight?

Troy Matchett: 29:07

Here's the good news. Whenever you're listening to this, you could listen to it when it comes out, or your list to it a week later or two weeks later, or you can listen to in February. That's the beauty of a podcast. You never know when you're going to get to it, but we can. The beauty of is that we can make notes for next year. We might be too deep into this year, right? But for me, a couple of things. You got to be really honest about who you are as a person and who you are as a church. Like, who are we and what is really important to us? Yeah, like, there's churches that are 30 minutes from here, like, like, I said, we're a small town, so you got to drive ways to get to a larger church, but 30 minutes from here, you know that have see 15,000 people go through the doors at a musical, and I'm just like, I just, we just made a decision a long time ago. Like, that's not us. Who are we? Yeah, like, who am I? And so for me, here's a hint. Try to capture people to things when they're already planning on coming. So for example, December 1, it's kind of the kickoff to Christmas for. Us. We've been decorated for a couple of weeks, but kick off for Christmas season. December 1. We're doing we do a thing for the last three or four years called Big Family Christmas, but we the temptation is to do that on a different night. But we just were like, No, we're not going to try to gather 150 people on a Tuesday or Friday, Saturday. We're going to do it Sunday morning. Yeah, so it'll be a really different service, right? People are going to be encouraged to wear their pajamas if they want, or wear Christmas long as you wear pajamas, that is, and wear pajamas if you want, and Christmas colors, everyone's going to be bringing Christmas cookies, and we're going to have hot chocolate after but the service is going to be built in a way that everybody stays in the room. It doesn't matter how loud your kids are, doesn't matter how young they are, everybody's in the room. But, yeah, that takes a little bit of work, but we're already, we're going to put work into Sunday morning anyways, yeah? And so we're not trying to get them there on a different night. Yeah? It's like, Hey, we're doing this Christmas morning, right? And that has been a huge success. So at the end of the night, somebody goes up on a ladder, takes a big selfie with everybody in the picture, you know, and we read a story to the kid we have to the kids. We have object lesson for the kids we like. We do all of these things, but it's not a heavily weighted task, because we say, Hey, can you do an object lesson about Advent for the kids to Sally or Johnny, and they only do that one element, that's that's their job, right? I'm going to speak, it's going to be for 15 minutes. It's going to be illustrated. That's my job. Yeah, right. And we try to divide the task up as much as we can, but we try to really capture, right? So like, for example, we've done like community gingerbread house nights before, but we do it on a time slot where people are already coming. And that doesn't sound revolutionary, except for we run all the programs, and then we try to add things, and then you're expecting yourself and other people to be out three or four nights a week, yeah? And they have their own family Christmas stuff. Yeah, yeah. Like they have, they have their own stuff that's going on. And so for me, that's one hand is try to really monopolize Okay, Christmas Eve is worth putting work into, because people are going to come right, right? And we're doing big family Christmas. So here's, here's what we're doing this year, December 1, we're doing big family Christmas. It already takes place on a Sunday. December 15. We're doing a Christmas banquet. It's on a Sunday night. We do it every year. On the 21st we're doing Blue Christmas, which is an event for people who find Christmas difficult. And we're doing Christmas Eve. That's, that's who we are, yeah. Now there's the youth group is, you know, getting together before youth and baking cookies that they're going to bring to all the nursing homes and, you know, and all of that. But those are, but they already come to youth. They already do that at that time slot right, like, so for me, I've probably done this for maybe the last three or four years. We just pick what we do, we pick who we are, and we say no to everything else. Yeah,

Laurie Acker: 34:11

yeah. Like, you know, I think one of my, one of my favorite messages around Christmas is, is Emmanuel, is God with us. And so oftentimes, when we think of Christmas, like, we think of Jesus coming to the world, you know, like Jesus saved the world. Jesus did all these big things. Jesus was walking around the planet. Jesus, you know, came in a manger, you know, all these kind of things about the world. And I love, I think my Christmas season kind of was transformed a few years back when I started going, Oh, God with us. God with me. Like, right now, you know, if one person is in front of you, can we be God with us, with this person, you know, and really just start to understand that that Jesus didn't just come so that you could do the work in the church for other people, Jesus came so that we could experience God with us. And if we're running around like a chicken with our heads cut off all Christmas season, that is not experiencing Jesus with us, because when I'm experiencing Jesus with me, it's a different pace. It is a different piece. It's not driven, it's gentle, it's sweet. And I actually notice the people who are in front of me,

Troy Matchett: 35:30

and that's exactly big. Family Christmas, December Now, last week, I did sort of a Christmas message to try to encourage people to slow down. Someone else is speaking this week. They won't speak on Christmas. December 1 is exactly what I'm speaking on. We're doing a series called Old Testament, Christmas, where we're gonna we're gonna look at passages in the Old Testament that foreshadow Jesus's birth. First, his name will be called Emmanuel. God with us, we have a tendency to walk really quickly in our own lives, Jesus wasn't in a rush ever, and if we're going to follow Him, we need to walk at his pace. But the truth is, forget Christmas. Most days we leave Jesus in the dust, and at Christmas, we're at a full sprint, and then we're like, I wonder why I feel like this.

Laurie Acker: 36:39

Yeah, I wonder if that. I wonder how transformative that would be if today, if all of us, and anyone who listens to this podcast, literally just started walking slower and driving slower on purpose, like if we all just took this to heart and said, okay, it doesn't matter what's happening. Jesus didn't run to Lazarus, even when Lazarus was dead or sick. Yeah, he didn't. He didn't run. And I think that's a really, that's a really great thing. Darin,

Troy Matchett: 37:16

you could go on list, list over and over and over again, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now you can say, well, yeah, he was the savior of the world. So he could raise the person from the dead. You don't like, we don't have, I get all of that. But he modeled a certain way. If I say this a lot, if I could have only one section of the Bible and I could never read anything else, Matthew five, six and seven, the Sermon on the Mount, everything I need to know about Jesus is right there. Mm, hmm. Yeah,

Laurie Acker: 37:55

I love it. Well, this was a podcast like chuck full of wisdom all over the place, and I just want to leave one, one last word from you, Troy, if there's something on your heart that you want to share, and if nothing's popping to mind, this is the question I was going to ask you. You've done ministry 26 years. You know, young Troy started out in youth ministry. You've been through a lot, lot of places, a lot of stuff. Is there any anything that you would like, you know, you'd go back and tell young Troy about ministry. You know that you wish you had that wisdom when you were younger?

Troy Matchett: 38:30

Yep. And I would answer both of these questions the exact same way. Okay, here it is, be you. There's nobody in this world better than being you. Like, be yourself. Like, I know that sounds really Elementary, but from volunteers, you know, say, say you're a worship leader, and then you see someone else lead worship, and you're like, Oh, they're really good. And you're like, I need to be like them. No, you don't. You need to be you. Right? From a volunteer, there's people listening to this that you are doing things because you feel pressured to do them, but they are not in your wheelhouse, and you're not passionate about them. You need to say no, and you need to be you, because there's nobody in this world better than being you. You I really never believed I would ever be a lead pastor, because I never believed one would ever take me serious. And the truth is, even today, a lot of Saturdays, I'll dream like I show up at church and no one's there. But the best thing I ever did, somewhere in my mid 20s to late 20s, was I had an encounter with Jesus, and he said, Troy, you just be you. Don't be like anybody else, and I'll take care of you. Just be yourself. Don't put on a facade. Don't pretend that you're this or you're that. Just be you. There's no. No one better at that than you,

Laurie Acker: 40:34

wow. Well, that was a beautiful message in the middle of Christmas or not. And Troy, thank you for thank you for being you. I know that sounds funny, but I'm true. I'm real with that, like, thanks for being you. Thanks for showing up as yourself every time you're you're with us, in front of our audience, in our community. We appreciate you so much. And you know, as we head into the rest of the season, I I always end the podcast with be a light, and as you're talking about being you, I'm just picturing all these lights. You know that God created as individual and as different and and when we're trying to all shine the same, it almost dims the whole culture. You know, because we were created individual, and God did come for us, you know, Emmanuel, God with us, each and every one of us. So thanks for being with us, Troy. And Until next week, everybody, be a light. You