Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. This is behind the message.
In this podcast, we take you behind what we teach here at Westside. I'm Ben Fleming, that's Lindsey Parnell, and that's Evan Earwicker.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Hello. Hello.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Fresh off of the toughest couple weeks in Bend history, probably right? Yep. We haven't recorded since then. And, I mean, behind the Message is, you know, what we've been teaching and what we've been processing has actually been a joint project for not just the church, of course, but for the community. So it's this collective heavy lift, I think, that we've all been walking through.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The surreal thing that happens when it's not some other community, it's not a tragedy somewhere else.
I think for all of us, school shootings, mass tragedies, they happen with a frequency to where when they do happen.
It almost takes that kind of empathy by intentionality, like you're trying to empathize with that and not get numb to that to have it happen in our community.
It didn't feel real to be watching the news, and it's not somewhere else, but it's down the street. It's in a neighborhood we know.
Just awful. Yeah, just awful. And something that is hard to put into words, just how devastating it is to a community.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: We all shared the stage the Sunday after, so there's this kind of collective response that I think we should get into.
But individually, I'm curious where you guys are at now, but even just how you process through that dynamic that you're talking about of this is a phenomena that's reserved for places far away as how it works in our minds. And this was very much at home.
So I know, where were you guys at and how you processed it, and where do you find yourself now?
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah, a few things on the day that I don't know. I think back on and reflect on, like, wow, these are such tough moments. One was, we had Pastor Brandt with us here at the church when the first news came through to his phone because his wife is a teacher at Silver Rail, a kindergarten teacher.
And so he received word about an active shooter.
And then she had to leave her phone behind and her watch died that she was texting on after that first text. And so we're sitting with brant for about 45 minutes after the initial news, and then as the actual media was picking up on what was happening, completely in the dark on her safety. And so processing that. And in the moment, you're just, you know, everyone's kind of in shock and not sure. What to think. And then being with him was you feel that weight and you don't want to freak out. And also the reality of what's happening is just overwhelming. And then the second was when I got home that day, my wife had just told our son Jack what had happened. And just kind of. She vaguely said what happened at first, and then he came back with the question of, like, did anyone die? And she told him that kids had died.
And so I came in right after he'd heard that, and he was just sobbing on the couch for about 30 minutes.
And through that, she said, what are you feeling? And he said, I'm scared and I'm sad. And I thought, man, that is the picture of it, you know, and it's a tragedy on so many levels when a community walks through this, but it's something you alluded to several times, Ben, in our response was it's not just the loss of life. It's the loss of innocence for our kids.
It's just wrong on so many levels.
And of course, the loss of life is devastating.
And now we have so many that have witnessed that violence close up. And the ripple effects of that will be long lasting and not easily healed and so, so heavy. Yeah. How are you processing, Ben?
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I. I'm. I'm surprised at how much I. In denial. I was. I. I went to the dump, actually, I was at home, and then I took a load of garbage to the dump, which is not far from Silver Rail, if you're going from my house down there to the not landfill, past a few ambulances that were just flying. You know, I been married to an ER nurse for a long time, and she's always very adept at figuring out what's going on just based on the pace and the siren of an ambulance. And I clocked that this thing was cooking, and then there was another one, and I was like, wow, that interesting. And then went and took care of my stuff and then got a few text messages.
And it was like, yeah, there's an active shooter. And I was like, it's probably nothing, literally is how I felt. We get warnings and false alarms and we get this stuff. And then to slowly, like, I walked into the room with you guys. We were waiting for Jackie to text with Brandt, and it was like, I can't believe this is real kind of a thing. It just took a long time for me to lock into the fact that we're dealing with an actual real crisis.
Just such a. I don't. I don't know what that means, I think human beings are just interesting. Again, it's this. This is reserved for something far away, and it couldn't possibly be happening right now. And it was.
Yeah. And then the thing always comes down to, how do you talk to your kids about this? And my kids were certainly concerned, felt the weight of it. And then there was this other side that was, like, fairly quickly, like, but why is practice canceled? Like, I understand that's a bummer, but we're not playing football this afternoon. That feels weird. Like, it felt disconnected in their minds, which led itself to a good opportunity to actually talk about doing this as a community. That some of these things happen and they affect our family, and then some affect our extended family. Some affect our church, our school. And then some things are citywide and regional, and there's this, like, mourning that we have to gather together and participate in. Like, we have to do it, actually. It's. It's ingrained in who we are.
And so there's been some interesting teaching points that way. But then walking myself through them. Yeah, every step is. Felt. Felt a little bit unreal.
And I think the church has been something that I'd never been more grateful for.
That's this weird side of it, too.
It's horrible to go through that and to feel the beauty and the importance of us gathering that Sunday. It felt so important.
Not that we were doing church necessarily, but that we were together.
And it's been only a few times in my life that I think I've felt that specific experience of, like, this has to happen right now. We need to be in a room together, you know? How about you, Lindsay?
[00:07:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I think I've processed a teensy bit intentionally, and I think I've intentionally kind of held it at a distance.
I think part of me feels like I can't do both. I can't actively process how this is affecting me personally and also pastor and mother. Well, I don't wanna be one giant nerve, like, raw nerve, you know?
So my focus has been my kids, first of all, just parenting them through it. What do we share with them? What do we not share with them?
How do we walk through this together as a family? Eric and I have just had, like, one continuing conversation. Basically, we just pick up where we left off with a new. And that's been really helpful to just kind of talk about it in real time and get angry and swear and then sad and cry and text our friends. You know, that kind of a.
That's been really beautiful.
But, yeah, I think. I think I'LL probably have some work to do a little bit down the road, but right now, I'm a little bit in, like, helper mode. Like, no, now is the moment to, like, be there for others, you know, and that's been really meaningful for me and interesting to see this side of myself come out where I'm like, no, I need a car compartmentalize right now. And, like, we'll circle back around to this. But maybe that's a form of denial a little bit. Like, I'm not gonna feel this just yet, so I'm gonna focus on these things. And don't get me wrong, there's been pain and tears and all of those things, but I think when the focus shifted from Thursday to Sunday, you know, we had a text or a teams thread going with, you know, 20 of us talking about our Sunday service. Then it was like, the shift in me where I was like, yep, this is what we're focusing on. This is what we're doing. This is the important thing, to be there for our people.
So, yeah, that's kind of been how I've navigated things over the past couple of weeks.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Maybe it's some kind of denial I appreciated. I can't remember how it came up, but you and I were talking in the front row right before you went up on the stage for the first service, and you said something like, no, we have to lead right now. And so you didn't say, I feel fine, but there was something about like, yeah, we're not being a raw nerve. We have to go lead. This is the job right now. And it doesn't mean we're cold. It actually means that we're. We're very warm and relational. But there's a job to do right now that's serving the people in front of us. And so this is who we have to be, which I found terribly comforting at the time. You know, I. I think I know that and believe that. And to hear just somebody else standing next to me kind of affirm that feeling, I was like, oh, yeah, that's absolutely right. We've talked about it as the people at the church, we're trying to dig really deep right now because this is the time to serve.
And also, you got to take a break, and you got to go cry yourself to sleep sometimes and then get ready to do it again in the morning. You know, And I think sometimes we can be like this. Look, we just always have take time. We got to make sure we're paced reasonably. And I'm looking at us. I'M like, now is not the time to be paced reasonably. We gotta. We gotta get after this thing because there's a real hurt and need that we have to help reach with the rest of our community.
It's just. It's hard to navigate all of that, because it's all true, right?
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. Talking to Jackie, who's the kindergarten teacher at Silver Rail, after the Sunday service that we pivoted to be specifically around this tragedy and our response to it, and she was saying that she felt like, you know, the service was like, for her, and people will say that, and I'll be like, oh, that's awesome that you got something out of my preaching this week, or whatever. When she said that, my response was. It was. It was absolutely for you. It was for you, and it was for Sharon, it was for Lauren, and it was for the students and their families from Civil Rail. That was who it was for, you know, the whole day.
And it is in these moments where I feel like we have a responsibility to hold up hope in despair and light, in darkness and comfort.
And also, we are looking at those most directly affected and saying, clear the decks. We want to be here for you very specifically in this moment.
And that's where I hope we don't lose sight of that, because like I said, this is going to be not weeks of healing for those directly affected. This is years, lifetime of healing from something so traumatic. And so I do think that's our job. And I think Sunday, the Sunday after we had those two days to kind of say, what. What do we want our response to be for those that were in the building?
And even Thursday night, we had a vigil in Drake park.
And shout out to all the churches that came together to do that. Shout out to Journey Church for being the reunification spot. We've only heard again and again how wonderfully they showed up. So shout out Keith and Kara and your team. What a beautiful expression of ministry that happened there. And then that night, several churches kind of very quickly put together a vigil in Drake Park. And I think in retrospect, it started out as kind of, let's get some of the churches together to pray in Drake Park. But very quickly, it became the community vigil.
The governor was there, the mayor was there.
Many, many. I mean, over a thousand people, I would say, showed up in Drake park for the vigil, far beyond a group of churches.
And yet the vigil itself, which we participated in, felt pretty churchy and so no shade. I mean, we were throwing everything together in the moment. But in retrospect, maybe we would have approached that a little differently, knowing that the whole community was coming out for that and made it less church oriented.
But Sunday was different because we were gathering with our church. And so I guess I'm speaking to that. How do we choose kind of responses based on the environment or the crowd or who we're talking to? Do we adjust that as we go?
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah. It's important to continue to evaluate not just what we're saying, but when we're saying what we're saying. And the template that we ended up using for our discussion about Sunday was like, this really should feel like Good Friday because it's a really dark place that we're in and there's no getting out of it between here and there.
And I've always had a little bit of a hard time, just as a Christian, with how funny even, like, Easter feels. So Easter shows up and we're like, he is risen. I'm like, well, yeah, it's been the rest of the year too. It's been the same thing. I'm not sure why we celebrate it. Like, this is kind of a funny thing to do. The older I get, the more I understand, especially just how the church calendar ministers to us in and of itself.
And we make a point when Good Friday comes, to not talk about Sunday during the service. We leave quietly. It doesn't feel like an Easter service.
And we know what's coming, so we know the truth of our faith and we know the truth of eternity.
And it's really important that I would say, even still right now, overall, for our community, it's just, it is Good Friday, and we're not going to rush people that were on staff or are connected to this tragedy into a version of Sunday until the end of Friday has come and Saturday has gone through, and then Sunday has arrived. And so to talk about all the things that, like I said, we believe are true, that ultimately God gets the final say and the glory is all to him and all that stuff. That Sunday was an important time to really kind of hunker down and not throw out hope or lose it, but not project this idea that we're trying to move on quickly from the pain that we're really, really needing to sit in right now. And that's kind of what it felt. It felt like this really patient laying down in.
In pain.
We even had a baby dedication that morning that was like a salve to the soul, you know? And it was. It was pretty hopeful and sweet. And also, it still didn't necessarily pull the entire room out of this kind of collective mourning feeling. You know, there's. There's something about. Something special about not just what we were saying, but when we were. We knew when we were and not just what we believe overall. And I thought that was important.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Yeah. The dedicating of little baby George, I think, was maybe the most most appropriate to the moment picture of hope, because words do come up empty at some level.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: That's it.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: And I think we all did a fine job of carrying that balance of grief and weight and also pointing to Christ as hope and darkness.
But with baby George up on the stage, it was like, the rhetoric will get us so far as far as our rhetoric around hope. Right.
But to hold a child in your arms.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: And say, jesus, we still are trusting our kids to you.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: That's different, you know.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And it. I think that's what we're saying. It didn't feel trite, though.
It was like we just needed to stand and observe and experience something together.
I think so many of the stupid things we say as Christians a lot of times in times like this isn't because we're trying to, like, blow up the moment. I think it's because we just don't know what the heck to say. We just don't know what to say.
And so we're like. And I see people that are, you know, it's on Reddit or on social media that can't you believe? And I go, I can't believe. Because it's. That moment is just so hard to say anything. And so the lesson sometimes is like, just shut up and don't say anything.
But I know it's like, you don't know what to do with your hands. And George coming up and interrupting all of that to where nobody had to say anything. You know, we could have probably held him there for a few moments and then, like, said a really liturgical prayer, and people would have been weeping, you know, just at the sight.
Yeah. Thanks to. Thanks to baby George. I.
It's. Everyone's going to remember that baby dedication. There's a lot I've forgotten, but that one was pretty great, man.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
And the.
The. The words are not unimportant in these moments. I don't want to make that feel like we don't think words do anything because they actually do. And I think they're. There are more.
They're weighted, heavier in these moments, but we know maybe their limit.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: And so it's all the stuff. And I alluded to that on that Sunday was.
Everything we talk about is for these days. It's for this day.
It's not something we have to set aside our hope in Christ works up to a certain point. But if there's too much grief or the tragedy is too great, like, sorry, it's just not going to cut it.
I think that's backwards, actually, to the whole point of Jesus coming and the cross, is that it's the most hideous and violent thing that is at the center of our faith, which is the cross of Christ and the humiliation that he endures so that through the cross, we can stand there on the worst day and be like, yeah, God's here.
And that's so hard to do.
You know, it's so hard to do in the moment. But that's. Maybe that's the grace of these moments for us as pastors who are feeling the way just like everybody else, but is to be able to stand in front of a congregation and just share that and let it be what it is and not try to manufacture anything or project false.
You know, everything's cool. Everything's gonna be okay. No, it's not cool. It's not okay.
We're not okay.
And yet here we are.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: That's a good distinction. The words have limit. And obviously, I think words matter in those moments because I said plenty of them on Sunday. You know, we used our words.
I just think we all have that sense of when you're right, something just can't quite capture the thing that we're trying to. And so there's an efficiency, maybe with words that is most helpful because there has to be room for the Holy Spirit to fill in the rest of the gaps, so to speak. You know, there's a stupid example that I kind of used on Sunday in a different context, but I threw up my back trying to move our washer that had been sitting unused in our remodel for over a year. And so it's got all that washer water in there. And I plugged the hose. Some of it was down on the ground. I threw out my back and just kind of set the washer back down. And I laid down in the nasty.
Wash your water, because I couldn't move. And I was in a corner of the thing, and Rebecca's like, are you okay? Like, what do you want me to do? I was like, just. I just. Please don't say another word. Like, I can't move. Nothing's gonna change my situation. Like, I just need to be left here in the wet corner of the washroom. You know, and it was like just. That's, again, a terrible example. But sometimes there's just these moments where I just don't. We don't need to talk.
I'm sitting here. This is a miserable situation. It is what it is, and I kind of just need to feel the stuff.
But you're right. That doesn't mean the words don't matter, shouldn't be included, especially in our faith. That's a good point.
[00:21:11] Speaker C: I think acknowledging the limit of our words is probably the most important thing there. Like, words are still so important, but acknowledging you're right, I think the motivation of a lot of the trite sayings, like thoughts and prayers, et cetera, et cetera, they're coming from a really good place. Like, we want to take away your pain. We want to give you hope. We want to do these things. So we're going to say this stuff, but to acknowledge the limit and to know that while we wish we could fix it, we can't. That's not what we're trying to do here. We're not trying to fix anything. We're just going to be together and cry together and question together.
And I think that's.
That is the most important thing, because it's not our job to fix any of it. And to assume that we could is, I think, where so many of the missteps happen and the silly words get said that are more hurtful than helpful, you know?
[00:22:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And I think that's proven by the. It is the words, but it's the presence and it's the showing up. I mean, the intensity of the hugs, you know, I think that we all shared with folks from Thursday on is proof of that. Like, yeah, I thought, Ben, what you shared of the vigil, what you shared on Sunday, beautiful, raw and real and moving.
And also it was the conversations after the vigil that you could tell. Just, like, people just needed to talk after services on Sunday. Just needing a hug. Like, it really is both.
And the words mean even more when you're in the room with somebody who's.
Who's falling apart, you know?
[00:22:54] Speaker A: Yeah. I wanted to say something on Sunday that met what the room had already accomplished. Like, I felt it as people were gathering the value of what had already been done, just by the doors being open and people walking through them, and then you see the hugs and people are weeping before the service starts and all that kind of stuff. And I found myself in the front row being like, I want whatever I say to just meet this and. And not Pull it backward or ruin what's happening? Because I think people have this natural inclination to understand what needs to be done in this moment, for the most part. And that is like the hugs. The hugs were different, man. Like, I've never been hugged like that ever, you know, by dozens of people that somehow, you know, didn't even really recognize, but that might recognize me. And we have these conversations after the vigil, after the service. That was the main event to me.
And there was a few moments where I was like, anything I say could only ruin this or make it harder for people. And so to meet that moment is our job. And I would say that's the job of Christians in time of crisis. Like, what is it when you experience this on a smaller level or with a family member or something like that, and there's seven of you in the room.
If we're going to say something, what are the things that we can say that simply just meet that moment of grief and what people just really need. And we know it inherently what we need. And that is a tough task. And I think it's a really worthy one, though I'm more sold than ever that Christians need to figure out how to do that really well in those situations.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And I'm, I've been never more grateful that we have some vocabulary as a church for these moments, just because of the history that we've walked through with some difficult tragedy and death and loss as a church and pastoral leadership over the last decade to have that.
Whereas our tradition is Pentecostal. And I think, again, no shade to Pentecostalism or the charismatics. But a lot of times there's a lack of vocabulary and lack of tools in the toolkit to grieve well and to hold sorrows, because you want to get so quickly past that into, okay, how do we praise our way through this? How do we get breakthrough? We need breakthrough again. Because I don't like the feeling of this. And these past two weeks, I've just been so grateful that we were by no means experts. And I think other traditions have far more to offer in these moments as far as that toolkit. But we have some tools to be able to sit with people and walk through this. And I'm grateful for that. And I think that's my, that'd be my encouragement to any Pentecostal leaning churches and movements is don't be afraid to lean into the these moments where people are hurting and suffering. Don't skip over it.
Don't skip right from Friday afternoon and try to get to Sunday as quickly as possible. Right. Like you were saying, Ben, there is a process here, and you're going to be better as a church for it if you don't rush through the Friday and the Saturday before we get to Easter Sunday, so to speak.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Yeah. That takes a real equipping, though. I don't know that I would have been able to communicate that very well seven or eight years ago. Yeah. You know, even more recently than that. And of course, nobody's ever prepared for what has just happened. But it. It takes some kind. It takes some living, some spiritual formation to get to a position where you can get a little bit more comfortable in that. Because I. I totally identify with the.
All right, let's. We gotta move on here. Eventually we gotta pick up and we gotta go. And you actually need those people too.
Right? Like, we do need somebody that leans that way, I think. So when that. We get to that point in the process. You know, I can be kind of a stinker on Easter, if I'm honest. I'm like, oh, look at all the eggs and all that. And I kind of need the people that are like, we're. Let her hair down and dance. I'm like, you know what? You're right. You're right. That's what today's for. I don't. I don't lean that direction naturally. So we do need those people.
It's just. It's a matter of when sometimes or all the time.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I like the picture. Is it in? I think it's in Luke.
Maybe it's Matthew. Anyway, from the moment where Peter's with Jesus and who do you say that I am? Peter. He says, you're Christ, the son of the living God.
On this rock, I'll build my church. So it's this big moment, and they're up in the north in the mountains. And then immediately after that, then they have to walk all the way down to the bottom of the Kidron Valley. Before then, they head up to Jerusalem. And if that's a picture of our spiritual formation and discipleship, it's like that time we think we're at the peak where we got it all figured out and we finally come to know who Jesus is. He's like, great, we're headed to the valley. And then most of our spiritual formation, I feel like, is that journey with Jesus down, down, down, down, down to the bottom.
And it's only then that there is this sense of, okay, now where do we go with Jesus? And even that is a march towards the cross.
You don't get to skip over any of that. And you don't get to stay up on the mountaintop. Like, there is a process of discipleship. And my hope is that as Christian leaders, but as disciples of Jesus, that those moments when we leave the you are the Christ, son of the living God, and Jesus starts to take us down, that we don't opt out in those moments, and we're like, have fun, Jesus. I got to stay up here. I don't know if I can handle that.
But that's the whole thing. That's the whole process. And that's where we gain what is required, I think, to have anything to offer hurting humanity and a hurting world is because we've stuck with Jesus all the way through that process.
And there's so many of those echoes in these moments where it's like, this is so hard. It'd be much, much more pleasant to numb out or opt out or just block this out.
But, man, this is the real stuff of formation.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: You've referenced not opting out a few times in communication with staff, I think with discussion with the church. And I appreciate that language because there is that moment where there's a little bit of fight or flight where you can just go, I think now's a good time for alone time. And I'm a big fan of alone time. But again, looking at the church and us and being like, nope, other way. We're running to the fire now. This is the entire idea of why we exist. I think the thing that sneaks up on us, though, and this is why. I mean, situations just like this, they're just not. There's not fair.
And we underestimate what is actually going to feel like in the middle of them. Like, I think about it, like, parenting.
All the elements of parenting that people talk about, you know, it's. It's playing with the kids and then it's changing the diapers, and then it's feeding them and getting them to do this, and they're learning how to do that. All of those in my mind, sound pretty simple, and they sound like good, hard work. The thing that you just don't consider, especially before you have kids, is that you have to do all of these things while completely exhausted from not sleeping the last 14 days because your child was whatever. And so it's not even just about those things. What makes it unfair is that you don't get to rest between the reps of them. Right?
And that's when I think about the loss of innocence. I think about what this Community is going through. Like, I think all of us are actually built to hang on to a lot.
Being a kid already is pretty tough, I think this day and age and to have to be a kid while losing the innocence in the middle of it is just so unfair.
And I think we know that we're called to serve people and to care for them in their greatest hour of need. I don't think any of us were built for this to be the greatest hour of need. Right. It's this level of exhaustion and.
And unfairness that it's just so hard. And I think that's where what meets us in the middle of those fight or flight moments where we have to decide.
And just like in that parenting thing, you have to decide, you got to keep going back, and you got to keep being exhausted, and then you got to change the next diaper and play the next stupid imaginary game on the floor. You got to go, go, go again.
And it's so beautiful when it's done with that kind of passion that I see from our church right now and from our staff, and it is just so unfair and exhausting at the same time. It's tough.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
Alyssa was checking in on me after several days, you know, of us responding to needs and families affected and with concern of, like, are you okay? And she always tells me, I need to see a spiritual director. Noted. Alyssa. I'm sure you're listening.
And then something happened yesterday, and I was complaining a little bit about, like, I'm just so tired. And instead of being like, are you okay? She said, well, this is just God stretching you. And I was like, how dare you? You just flipped the switch from, you need support. Are you okay? What do you need into, like, just, you know, whatever, dude. You're fine. Stop complaining. This is just God stretching you anyway.
So, you know, which way is it? I don't know, Lissa. I don't know.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: That's so funny.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: Do I need support, or do I need to, you know,
[00:32:38] Speaker C: pull
[00:32:38] Speaker B: myself up by my
[00:32:39] Speaker C: bootstraps? Both. And you're
[00:32:42] Speaker A: not gonna get any sympathy from Lindsay.
[00:32:43] Speaker C: No, you do need a spiritual director.
[00:32:46] Speaker B: You need to toughen up, and you need to see a spiritual director. Okay, fair enough.
[00:32:50] Speaker C: I do think I do agree with Alyssa on both sides. I have found in the tougher seasons of life that my margin increases.
It really does. Like, you're in the fire. You're in the hardest, most painful part, and yet, somehow we survive, and we're still able to show up and to meet people. Nothing about it is easy.
Everything about it is beautiful.
And in the ministering, I should clarify, everything about the ministering is beautiful.
But, yeah, I do think our margin increases, our resilience increases. There's. There's something. There's a growing that happens through it, which is nice.
I'm thankful for that. Because what's the alternative? We burn out? We burn out. We're not okay. We can't show up for our families, for ourselves, for our church. So the Holy Spirit is very, very faithful through all this. And I think we have to remember it's not just us.
It never has been, it never will be. The Holy Spirit loves our kids, our community, our church more than we ever could and is always faithful to show up in these conversations in our weakest, darkest moments.
The presence of God is very real and brings comfort and strength and hope.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Amen.
Some of the things I've been just grateful for is one, just the way that the church has responded so generously and selflessly. I mean, so many just like, how can we help? What can we do?
People showing up. I think of all of the counselors, both our clinical counselors and therapists in the church, as well as, like, our westside care providers, our youth and kids teams and volunteers just jumping into action, opening spaces here at the church to talk with kids and families.
Our friend Edward, I think we might bring on the podcast, but one of our therapists here just. It was so on. What do you. What does the church need? How can I help? How can I be present?
I've just been overwhelmed by everyone's kindness and generosity.
And then we have.
We're caring for those in our church, Silver Rail families. But Then also about 15 churches have now come together.
And right as we're recording this, we're putting care baskets together with hundreds and hundreds of dollars of gift cards and things for all the teachers and staff at Silver Rail. I love to see the churches kind of stepping up and coming together in a way that sadly, sometimes takes tragedy to bring churches together.
But I'm hopeful because of that willingness, I guess, to set aside differences and say, no, our community's hurting.
So those pieces of this that look like light and darkness are really encouraging. And you see the quality of our community and the love that's really, really present and evident in these horrible, horrible moments.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it turns out we need each other. And it's always expressed beautifully in moments like this. As awful as they are, you realize you need.
You need the wealthy people who are contributing in their way. You need the people that can build stuff you need the people that have extra energy and muscle. You need the people that are going to put together baskets.
You need the people that are connected to the other people so that you can get the thing done. And yeah, I'm super impressed with everybody's response almost immediately, even just in text to us. I can't even imagine the messages going out to everybody in the community. The amount of people that were like, we want to help at such a level of volume. And I'm going, I wouldn't even know how to use all of you. This is impossible. There's 10 therapists knocking down the door and they're, you know, I don't know what. What you should do, but what a testament to how we respond in moments like these.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it points to what is maybe surprising until it happens, though, the need for logistics and connectors, because the need is obvious and huge. And then the offer for help and resources is also huge.
How do you connect those? And so I really shout out to all the organizations and the PTO and all the people that are tasked with trying to match this outpouring of support and resource and money and gifts and therapy and all this with all this need. And that is a huge, huge task.
And yeah, well done to everyone who's in that right now, for sure.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So a different podcast, like, it's been a different couple weeks, but certainly thankful for you guys and for the church that we get to lead and yeah, what a.
What a horribly beautiful moment.
And thankful the Holy Spirit's going to continue to guide our city through this.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: You didn't have a follow up to that, Evan. You're just gonna let me end it like that?
[00:38:10] Speaker B: I'm all worded out.
That's a first.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: Words have limits.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Finally. Stop talking.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: I feel like I'm the over talker. It's not. Lindsay, you should try to over talk one episode.
[00:38:22] Speaker C: One episode. I should give that a go.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Interrupt us, Tom. Go grass like we do
[00:38:27] Speaker C: here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what about this? Oh,
