Conversation - Mailbag From Our Church Kids

This week on Kingdom Conversations, Discipleship Pastor Robby Strock and Lead Pastor Jared Priset open the mailbag for a special episode inspired entirely by the children of Church of the Lakes. From fun and lighthearted questions to deep faith-filled conversations, this episode explores some of the biggest questions kids ask about God, the Bible, church, and life itself.

 
Together, Pastor Robby and Pastor Jared discuss questions like: Who made God?, Did Jesus have brothers and sisters?, and How was the Bible written? Along the way, they also share personal stories about becoming pastors, staying connected to God, favorite Bible verses, and even a few fun surprises from everyday life. 

Filled with honesty, humor, and encouragement, this family-friendly episode reminds listeners that no question is too small when it comes to growing in faith. Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, student, or simply curious yourself, this special mailbag edition is a joyful look at faith through the eyes of children.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to this Church of the Lakes Kingdom Conversation podcast. At Church of the Lakes, our mission is connecting all to Christ to become healthy in God and courageous in love. In 2026, we're emphasizing a kingdom mindset in all of our ministries and missions by being more like Jesus and counter-cultural in our living. Today's podcast answers questions from the Sunday School Classroom. Our youngest members have submitted some great questions that explore our faith. So join Pastor Jared and Pastor Robbie as they talk about life and answer questions from our youngest. Be blessed.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Welcome to another Kingdom Conversations. I'm Pastor Robbie Strock, and today we're doing our first mailbag show, thanks to the children here at Church of the Lakes. And to help me today is our fearless leader, Pastor Jared. How are you doing, brother? I'm doing well.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

It's been a few weeks. I'm glad to be back.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah, I'm so grateful that we have an opportunity to highlight some of our foster care ministries, including having your wife and your eldest daughter on. It was a lot of fun interviewing them. And then we've got coming up uh Nicole Bowman from Hope Ridge, and we'll have Matt Ritzard, who's our lay leader at 9:30, uh, our contemporary worship here at Churchill Lakes. He'll be coming on the Tark RFKC. So wonderful. Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be good before we wrap up our Kingdom Citizenship series. But I thought it would be a nice idea to kind of open up and uh have some fun with some questions since we've had some submitted, especially because uh Angela, who's our um director of our child care ministries, really. Well, I mean, I guess it's uh she's director of all children things here, not just the child care stuff, but also then uh our Sunday school, uh basically anything from 12 years old or younger, right? Um she went around in our Sunday school and grabbed some questions, but uh I thought we'd have some fun and just do a quick check-in, all right. So uh, Jared, tell me something from this past week that made you laugh.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

That made me laugh. Uh everything with my kids makes me laugh.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Um laugh or cry is it one of those? Laughter cry, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

My uh youngest daughter, Adelaide, had a birthday party. Uh she turned 12 years old on May 1st, and she had a sleepover with uh four or five of her friends, and in the night, uh in that particular night that we were celebrating her, they did uh what they called blind karaoke. What? And it just basically it's karaoke, but you're not allowed to look at the lyrics. You just have to sing along without looking at the lyrics.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

And uh wait, did you participate in that? No, no.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

But I watched all five of the girls go up and do it. It actually it was it made me laugh. It was cute. Um, to watch them have fun and just a lot of Taylor Swift.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Is that what was going on? I don't even know.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

I don't think there was any Taylor Swift. Um, there were some uh Disney show movies, um uh songs. Um, I can't think of the one Adelaide did. I'm I'm drawing a blank now. Uh, but she knew every single word of every song. Maybe it was let it go. Maybe it was from Frozen that she did. I don't know. But it but it made me laugh. It was fun to see them just have an innocent fun together as friends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

That's awesome. Yeah. Uh how about this? Tell me something from this past week that made you cry.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

Go from one end to the other.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Yeah, you got that right.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

You know, be being uh kind of in the midst of our fo highlighting our foster care ministry, something that really kind of broke me this week was uh a few of our families were called by the county to take more kids, uh, which is w w what we've signed up to do. And uh the the the kids that were um needing to be placed were a sibling set of four. And so one of the families took two of the kids. Um one of the families unfortunately wasn't right timing, so the the particular child that was gonna go to them is in a different home. But then one of our uh foster caregivers took a uh two-year-old boy who had a fractured cranium. And uh she has been in the hospital with him since the day she was assigned him. And it just kind of breaks your heart uh that people would be abusive to anybody, but uh particularly children at two years old, and the cranium was fractured because he was physically abused by his caregiver. And so uh that kind of brought me to my knees uh in tears uh this week. Yeah. But but he's uh just a report quick, I got a um text message from that foster caregiver today and the MRI checked out. Uh so he's moving in the right direction. I think he might actually get discharged to go to her home. Praise the Lord. So yeah, so that made me cry this week. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Not to get too heavy, but no, that's uh that's what we're doing this for. Yeah. Uh how about tell me something, Jared, that you spent time in meditation or thought today about it.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Well, we had our uh staff meeting this morning. So the past couple days, I've been uh preparing for some uh spiritual formation, leadership development exercises with the staff. And it really reminded me of something uh a dear friend of mine from the police police department told me as I was uh moving into uh seminary to go get my degree and then into church ministry as a pastor. Name was Lonnie Ducet. I love Lonnie, not sure if he's listening, but if he is, then Lonnie, I love you. Uh but he said to me before I left on my very last shift, he said, Listen, we need good pastors, and you're gonna be a good pastor. But when you pastor, don't get so caught up in the work of the Lord that you forget about the Lord of the work.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Amen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

And so I talked to the staff this morning about, you know, the need to make sure we're ministering out of the overflow of Christ in us, and that's when we're most effective in in what we're called to do, is when it's out of the overflow of Christ in us, and not when we're depleted. And so that's something I spent some time thinking about and and talking about today in staff.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Thanks, Jared. I I want to continue doing this throughout the rest of the year and as we go along, just to do some quick check-ins, because I think people realize that uh we're just everyday normal people. We are, yes. Uh, and as you so just beautifully said, the overflow of Christ out of us through the Spirit sometimes gives us an opportunity on Sunday mornings to share the gospel message, but everyone has a unique opportunity to share the gospel message in their own circles.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

That's a good point. We're all called to ministry when we're baptized into the faith.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

So although we may be at the forefront for an hour on Sunday, and perhaps in certain ministries within the organization of the church, you know, everyone's a part of this mission together, including our children, which is why I'm so excited to turn this over to them, ironically. Uh, you know, I'm a child at heart, so I'm gonna I'm gonna ask and throw you a bunch of questions. And uh I think people will realize when they look at the depths of these questions, they will see some theological uh, you know, yearnings to understand who, what, why, all the things about our our Lord and our God. So for instance, our first question to get us started off, Jared. Who made God?

SPEAKER_02 7:12

It's a great question. A question a lot of kids ask. Sure. Uh the short answer is nobody made God. God has always existed. Um, just to think about a few scriptures that speak to that reality. Uh, Psalm 90, verse 2. Before the mountains were born, the author says, From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. Uh Exodus 3.14. Uh I think of that uh moment in the biblical narrative where God is calling Moses to uh lead his people out of Egyptian slavery. He meets Moses at a burning bush. Moses asks the question, Well, who do I say to them, sent me? And God says, You say, I am who I am. Meaning I've always been. I I'm where I will always be. The phrase Yahweh, right? Yahweh, yep. And then Colossians 1:17. Uh scriptures say I have my Bible in front of me right now. Um, and he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And so that's just another uh scriptural reference of how God has always existed. Um, God is eternal, that's a term we use for God, meaning he has no beginning, he has no end. Uh everything in creation has a cause except God. God is the uncaused creator. Uh He stands outside of time, He's created time. Uh so yeah, that's how I would um say that He's uh I I think in church tradition, the the church would say that he's he's self-existed. Yes, that's a term that they would use. Um so if God needed a creator, he wouldn't be God.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Right, exactly. It's literally in the definition almost of what a God is.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

So that's how I'd answer that.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

And even diving a little further, our next question really focuses in on the earthly life of Jesus. Our next question, it says, who was all in Jesus' family? Did he have brothers? Did he have sisters? So on and so forth. Because oftentimes we know the story in the birth narrative of Mary and Joseph, but I wouldn't consider Joseph a part of his family, technically, right? If you want to do it like that, or maybe you want to talk about fostering a little bit there.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

That's where I would talk about fostering. He uh certainly is not a biological father of Jesus, uh, but he did serve in the father role. Yeah. Uh as a, you know, do you call it a stepdad or a foster dad? Yeah. Uh certainly Jesus' biological mother is Mary. Uh he did have brothers and sisters. Uh I think the church would say they would have been half brothers and sisters because they would have been uh children born of Joseph and Mary. Uh and so Jesus would share the same mother with these uh particular um siblings. Uh Matthew 13 uh will speak to the siblings of Jesus. Uh it's a moment where uh Jesus is preaching with authority, he's you know, uh doing miraculous things, and the crowd says of him, isn't this the carpenter's son, the carpenter referencing Joseph? Isn't this his Mary's uh name mother's name Mary? And aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas aren't all of his sisters with us? And so they actually give literal names of some of Jesus' siblings there in the Gospel of Matthew. So his brothers were James, uh Joseph, Simon, Judas, or Jude. In fact, uh the epistle to uh named James was the half-brother of Jesus, and the epistle named Jude uh was the half-brother of Jesus, and so yeah, he had siblings.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, which kind of opens up the door to our next question because when the Bible was written, who wrote parts of the Bible? For instance, you just referenced two of Jesus' uh uh siblings who wrote uh letters that ended up in our scriptures. But if we go back way back to the beginning, Jared, and all the way to the end, who are some of the people that wrote the scriptures that we study, you know, pour over each and every day?

SPEAKER_02 11:19

That's a great question. Uh you know, what makes this scripture to me so remarkable and what validates uh the the this the the message of the entire biblical witness out of sixty-six books is it was written by forty different authors over a series of thousands of years, and yet there is the same story consistent throughout all of those books of the Bible. Uh and so some of the people that w would have written some of the Bible, it was all written by God, uh through um uh the human uh authorship. Uh but every, you know, I believe every person who actually wrote the words of scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what they wrote. Oh, I see. And so uh Moses was uh a person who wrote some of the Bible. Uh David, King David, wrote some of the Bible. Um you have you know the prophetic work of like the Isaiah and the Jeremiah's and the Daniels. Um you you have the you know the some of the minor prophets, you you see, you know, Malachi, many of the prophets wrote their own books. Yeah, yeah. And then you get into the New Testament, and you have uh, you know, Matthew, uh Luke, John, Mark, John, um, you have the Apostle Paul who wrote the majority of uh the the New Testament, and you have people like uh the Apostle John, you know where we get Revelation or First, Second, Third, John. So we got forty different authors over a span of thousands of years covering 66 books, and yet there's a common story thread throughout the entirety of it, which to me it just gives confirmation that this was actually written by God uh through the pen of of human beings who who were inspired by the Spirit.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

And even more so, isn't it important, Jared, to keep even as we dive in like we are in this season into the book of Philippians, for example, is it important to keep into context the whole entirety of the narrative of scripture when studying a specific book? And then even as you dive further into Philippians, like once again we're doing right now, you need to keep uh that context of that book as you go into individual scriptures. It's kind of like a magnifying glass as you zoom in, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Yeah, context is king. You know, you we we don't want to be proof-tecting proof texting the word of God, so we want to see where specific passages or I should verses or what you'd call pricopies, passages of scripture fit into the to the to the collective narrative of of the scriptures. Uh it's you know, it's really a story of our salvation, it's a love letter written to us from God, you know. And uh it's it's more than that, but that that's you know an easy way of uh trying to understand um the the narrative as a collective whole.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

And which I mean you've kind of already touched on this next question, too. We had somebody submit a great question, one of our kids. How did people know what happened back then to write the Bible, or are they just making it up? So I I mean, we have adults that ask that question even today, right? And and even amongst denominations, we argue as to what should be a part of the biblical canon and what should not be, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Yeah, Protestants and Catholics uh have a you know different understanding of what should be part of the collective canon of scripture, um, what should be considered more authoritative than than uh other things. Um in in terms of uh how do people know what to write and what happened and how to write it in the scriptures, the Bible is based on eyewitness testimony, it's based on preserved history, and it's also based on divine revelation. Uh I I would emphasize that these are not made-up stories. There may be stories that are figurative or allegorical in nature that are trying to preach a specific truth or point. I mean, Jesus taught in parables all the time. Absolutely. Um but but you know, I'd probably say divine revelation is the biggest piece of of the the way the scripture is written. Again, it's it's eyewitness testimony, it's preserved history, it's divine revelation. And so when it comes to you know eyewitness testimony, uh, you know, first John, the the the apostle John, he wrote that uh in John 1, 1 John 1 1, that which we have seen with our own eyes and have touched with our own hands. Uh Peter writes in 2 Timothy or 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 16, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. Um when it comes to careful investigation, I I love Dr. Luke and his gospel says in Luke 1, verse 3, having carefully investigated everything, I too decided to write an orderly account. Uh something else about biblical, the biblical narrative, it was written in a time where oral tradition was was often how information passed from one generation to the next. Right. And it's not like it is today, if you play the telephone game in like school today, somebody starts off whispering something in somebody's ear, and by the time it gets through the 20 kids, it's completely different at the end. That is not at all uh oral tradition during the biblical narrative time. Um the oral tradition, they were very careful with making sure that the exact information was passed down from one generation to the next. And again, I don't know if we can really grasp that in our own culture because that's just not how it is. No, right. Uh nowadays. Um, and of course, divine revelation, uh God guided the process of the scriptures. And that's why there's so it's so connected, and there's this common thread throughout all 66 books.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

I do find it interesting for the science geeks that are out there. I'd help encourage people. It's uh believe it or not, it's uh about 80 years since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, all the way back then. I mean, it was right. What wasn't it in the late 40s? It was something like that in the 1940s.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

I've been to Qumran. It's kind of neat.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Well, the reason I bring it up is for those who question the accuracy of translations or what you know how things got. I mean, that takes us all the way back to that. What we're reading today is accurate up until like the you know, second century, isn't it? Isn't that how far back the Dead Sea Scrolls are carbon dated? Um so like you can you can get all the way back almost 2,000 years worth of the city. Well, more than 2,000 years. Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

The Dead Sea Scrolls would have been uh it was Isaiah prophecy. Okay. So we're talking B BC by hundreds of years, okay. Before Christ by hundreds of years, yeah. Just incredible how uh and it would what I find to be most incredible, because there are a lot of skeptics to the biblical narrative in this story that this uh salvation that we say is rooted in in Christ. Um every time something new is discovered, it always validates something in scripture.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Which would lead me to believe that let's take the scripture at face value until somebody can disprove it, but nobody's been able to disprove it.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

This is like a fun little apologetics lesson for our kids.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Well, Lee Strobel, you know, you want to, you know, Lee Strobel was an atheist and a journalist who went out to disprove Christianity, and he ended up being convinced of its validity. Yes. Uh you can read that in The Case for Christ, which is a great book, uh, you know. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Anyways, yeah, thanks for walking us through. Yeah, so some of these logistical questions our kids ask, like parents obviously are equipped and kind of know the answers as to how maybe we believe it as a church, but I'm just I'm so encouraged that we can just take the questions and answer them directly. But you know, I'm gonna turn the page here a little bit and we're gonna split some duties right now. Okay. Uh we had a lot of kids ask questions about what our jobs are as pastoral leaders, okay. Serving leaders. So can can we can we spend some time on what our jobs are a little bit? Uh what is a pastor, Jared?

SPEAKER_02 19:15

It's funny because I you're making me laugh because not only children but adults will ask me, so what do you do all week?

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Oh, I have friends that ask me if I only work one hour a week and it's on Sunday from this hour to this hour.

SPEAKER_02 19:27

That's funny. Um yeah, definitely more than one hour a week uh a pastor works. So, what is a pastor? The short answer is a pastor is really a spiritual shepherd uh who's uh tasked with leading, teaching, and caring for the people of God within the context of a local church. Um some of the scripture that I, you know, I would uh ask people to kind of look at and I would commend to would be like Ephesians chapter four, uh, where you know the Paul talks about that the Lord gave some to be pastors, others to be teachers, uh, for the purpose of uh equipping the saints for the work of ministry. And so we said at the beginning, like we're all called into ministry, uh it's just in different contexts. And as a pastor, my ministry is really to equip the saints, those within the church, to be um prepared to be ministers within their circles of influence, if whether that be a nurse, a police officer, a firefighter, a teacher, a doctor, so on and so forth. So, really, there's a lot of equipping that goes on. There's a lot of um helping to to mature people in the faith, to help them expand their knowledge base of the scriptures and God's calling in their own life. Uh so really it's a shepherd kind of it's just to shepherd God's people.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

I love that illustration. Obviously, we see uh so many illustrations of shepherds throughout scriptures, including in the parables, and we see Jesus is called the good shepherd. Um, so I love I love that illustration. I just add that uh throughout my call ministry, I've really leaned on the word servant leader. Um, and oftentimes, you know, maybe in this season of my life, you know, if uh as we work totally as a team. What'd you say, Jared? I would 100% agree with you. You know, I'm so grateful to have people that you know serve a church who don't have an ego, who are willing. If you know, Jared, if you told me to go scrub the toilet right now, I'd go do it. And I do it joyfully because to be honest with you, we're working together to to serve other people the best that we can.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

And to advance the mission and sometimes follow Christ and become helping God and courageously.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah, and and and some of the best ways to serve are to follow. And that includes the call of what our congregation is telling us to do, right? We're we're here to equip our congregation and listen to what they want, which is why we're in foster care, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:45

One of the reasons, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

Yeah, because so many people within this congregation have heard and discerned that call from God for their lives, and it part of our job is to help the church come alongside of them.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

But yeah, we you know, every year we uh the leadership team of the church. uh develops uh ministry priorities for the new year and that's in a sense sort of like our um our orders as pastors yeah marching orders marching orders and and we you know and they hold us accountable to making sure we are um moving the church in the direction of fulfilling those ministry priorities that we have set out yeah well and then you know not only did people ask what is a pastor but they wanted to specifically know about us as pastors for instance we got a question what age did you want to be a pastor and perhaps let's put the second question on there what age did we become pastors there we go how about you for you first yeah I I you know I I felt a call to be a pastor at 18 years old uh I actually had a a pretty transformative come to faith moment at uh 18 years old uh where the Lord met me and uh you know he had to work some things out with me and once you know I really relinquished control and humbled myself uh and received Christ in in a just a a real sincere way I I tell people it was a moment where I made my father's faith my own. It wasn't much after that that I felt uh a stirring in my soul for uh to be a pastor and I thought to myself there's no way on God's green earth I'm gonna be a pastor. Uh God I I I don't feel like I'm equipped to do this. I you know I I grew up with an insecurity of a speech impediment and so the thought of getting up and speaking every Sunday morning it just felt too daunting and scary. And so you know for the next many years I justified I rationalized that okay I'm called into ministry and I'll do ministry in whatever occupation I partake in. And so I always wanted to be a police officer and I pursued that in college and I I was that for a number of years in the Washington DC area and I was trying to convince myself for all those years that this was my ministry mission field. This is where God wanted me to do ministry. I could be a um I wasn't a cop first uh Christian second I was a Christian who happened to be a cop and I was going to make sure to to um shine Christ's light and share his love in that context but you know how the Lord is when you're called into vocational ministry you're not going to be able to to run away from it forever. And so called at 18 I found the answered at 27. And that's why I transitioned out went to seminary and got my my master's degree there and then started serving churches.

SPEAKER_01 24:31

Sure. For me I guess um I didn't have a defined call kind of like you did or a sense of that calling I uh I think my biggest connection point when looking at making vocational ministry my you know profession uh I've I've been asked to serve in a number of different capacities over the years including just being the silly adult that has to tag along with the youth and still make it fun when we're trying to put boundaries and stuff up and um I think I've always had an opportunity to connect with people and I love spending time with people. And you know um when you guys asked me to help serve in Canal Folden I was kind of humbled by that fact because I felt so ill equipped um but you know I'm so excited that in less well about a year from now I'll be ordained as a deacon within the Global Methodist Church when I'm excited for you. Yeah excited for our church. It'll be um yeah well I owe a lot of thanks to the people in the church that helped me get me to this point.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

So it's well you also bring up a good you know the one of the Christian cliches that I do love is God doesn't call the equipped he equips the call that and and I I think that's that's the point. If we rely on our own abilities and our own wit and wisdom it's not going to work the as effectively as it could sure without leaning into to the Lord who actually equips. Right. And I know that's where I draw my strength from as a pastor is is in the God I serve.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Well to keep the questions going our next question about being a pastor how do you as a pastor stay connected to God?

SPEAKER_02 26:06

It's a great question the the the easy answer which is the right answer is I just am continually engaging myself in the spiritual disciplines of scripture reading of prayer of worship of fellowship of fasting uh Christian count conferencing accountability um I I listen to uh sermons from other pastors every single day of the week um you know I listen to the scriptures I just try to meditate on the word of God I just I do do the the spiritual disciplines that help keep me um in love with the with the the one who called me um I also preach the gospel to myself every day um so I can you know I it's important to to minister out of the overflow of Christ in you in fact you can't be effective as a pastor unless you minister out of the overflow of Christ in you and the only way that happens if you stay engaged in your relationship with him.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

It's like you're pouring yourself out we talked about this in Philippians yesterday um when we were going through the scripture in uh chapter two uh just how Paul says he's being poured out emptied right and if you're not being filled up by the Spirit through our Lord you know eventually you're gonna be a dry well right yeah um yeah that I can I ask a logistical question though Jared like when you maybe you're like me I know when I listen to other and I I'm the same as you I listen to other pastors uh um but the funny thing is is I don't do it to gain insights on how to preach or anything or sermon series that we could do here as this oftentimes if I want to do that stuff I have to listen to a sermon twice or three times because I'm so convicted by what I'm hearing in the Holy Scriptures that I'm focused on that rather than focusing on things like delivery and like trying to polish my own delivery and stuff like that. How about for you?

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Is that similar to you or a little bit of both oh man you're more multi-talented than I am. I'll tell people that uh I learned how to preach watching uh Reverend Dr. Mike Glenn from Brentwood Baptist uh he's has since been retired now retired sure and I I absolutely uh uh have uh so much admiration and respect for that man and watching him preach helped me learn how to preach um and so I I I'd have to say there's others that I I've watched preach too that you know uh in terms of the the way they deliver the way they turn a phrase uh that has helped kind of help me develop and hone skill uh but I I also do listen to him for content I I want to see how they're uh exegeting the scriptures and okay would I have exegeted it the same way okay how do they come up with that and and so on and so forth. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Okay our next question uh going back to the Bible Jared what's your favorite Bible verse? Perhaps let's expand upon it.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Maybe what's your favorite Bible story on top of that okay my favorite Bible verse um that's a tough question because different seasons of my life there's different verses that hit me more profoundly than others. How about how about for now then? Oh goodness when you said favorite Bible probably the Bible verse that was my very first favorite Bible verse was Joshua 15. Is this are we talking about back when you were a kid back when so back when I was a kid okay I talked about my insecurities every night I had this little fortune cookie size piece of paper on my nightstand by my bed and it was Joshua 15 and I read it every night and on the back of it was a prayer that I read every night. And Joshua one side one five says as I was with Moses I shall be with thee I shall be with you and I found a sense of comfort in knowing that you know the God of Moses was my the same my same God and that if God is willing to be there for Moses he's gonna be there for me too and I I I you know you look at the Joshua narrative Joshua was the one who succeeded Moses in leadership. And I I if I was Joshua in that moment I'd be very nervous trying to fill the shoes of Moses. Right. Right and and and I think the Lord knew that because in Joshua 15 he says to Joshua listen you might be nervous I'm I'm reading behind the curtain. You might be nervous you might feel ill equipped but as I was with Moses I shall be with you. And so going into ministry uh the Moses narrative was the narrative the Lord used to help me validate my call. Why is that Jared I know a little bit about this but Moses you know in his call story in Genesis or Exodus three and four he he had a lot of excuses as to why he wasn't gonna be called to be the great deliverer for God's people. Sure. And some of those excuses were around his inability to speak eloquently and that's the one that jumps out at me the most uh but God you know every time he came up with another excuse as to why it shouldn't have been him God answered each of those excuses with with a very logical and rational answer. And so um as as I was walking through finally answering my call I felt Moses's call narrative being justification for my call into vocational ministry which brought me back again to my boyhood favorite verse of Joshua 15. And it really was a convincing verse okay Jared you can do this because God has called you and as he was with Moses and Joshua and everyone else in the scriptures he's gonna be with you as well. And so that's what I would say maybe off the top I had my favorite verse in scriptures probably Joshua one five would you say your favorite story then is Moses because of the character or any any any any story out of the Moses narratives I just love. I you know uh Barb Walker who was just an accomplished artist in our church I asked her a couple years ago will you paint me an image for my my wall in my office? And the image came out of Exodus 17 is when Moses uh went to the top of the mountain as Joshua led Israel into battle against the Amalekites in the valley. And when Moses went to the top of the mountain his arms were raised and as his arms were raised Israel prevailed over the Amalekites but when he got tired and his arms fell down the Amalekites overpowered Israel. And so Moses's brother Aaron and Aaron's son Hur saw this and so they ran up the mountain and held up Moses's arms for him. And because of that uh the people of God gained a victory that day and you know I I love that image as a pastor in ministry because I'm okay leading God has called me in in in the past the row of row uh the role of pastoral leadership but I can't do it alone I need the the the the church coming up behind me and holding up my arms and together we will gain a victory for the Lord.

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I do love that image and I know exactly the painting and I can envision it in my mind. You know JD Greer uh from the summit church he he did that uh as a uh when he went through Exodus maybe in 2024 or what it was 25 okay well when I was listening to him preach about it he actually brought people on stage and for this whole entire sermon made them keep their arms up I remember that with the helps of us it was it's funny how a simple illustration and application like that helps you rationalize uh that story a little bit more okay well we got to end on one final question probably the heaviest one that we have to Jared but we got a question from one of our youngest and they asked us what is our favorite color I love it well if my daughter Anna was sitting here I would tell you my favorite color is whatever color her favorite color is and that's changed over the years but if you really made me uh honestly say my favorite color um it's probably between blue and green maybe blue really I think blue is my favorite color well you do your blue suit is very nice I must say uh I don't know my favorite color has to be purple you know Jared I I have to joke uh when uh being a Jackson graduate you know mean that we're in Jackson Township uh our school colors were purple and gold and when I went through school uh it's hard for our youth to understand this because now they can wear any school color or any color and it's a school color now I guess I just but our uniforms could only be purple and gold that was it oh wow it was not allowed to be black there wasn't uh we had to have white right for certain sports or whatever but everything had to have shades of purple and gold in it or white and when I went to college at the University of Dayton I discovered how much of my wardrobe was purple and instead of getting upset about it and laughing being like this is not a color that most guys wear out in public I was like I'm gonna own this I love the color University of Dayton's colors. We were red white and blue red white and blue now now when I first started going to school there the blue was like uh North Carolina Tar heel okay blue or if people can envision that but it it was a baby blue okay and then as uh uh by the time uh I got closer to the end of school it was more navy it was funny they they changed symbols they changed colors you know it's all about making more money when it comes to sports but oh my goodness Jerry thank you so much for your time today I hope this was fun I hope we can continue to do this as we not necessarily fill gaps in times but um I want to show people that we're not afraid to answer people's questions you know like and of course our children do a great job of asking questions but I'd encourage any of our listeners right now run to your computer and literally if you have a question for us type it out we'd love to hear it if you can just email us at podcast at church of the lakes.org that's it if you send us uh a a question there we'd love to integrate it whether that involves a sermon series whether that involves anything with theology apologetics so on and so forth Jira and I love uh working with people and that's I think why we enjoy small groups so much is you know because we love um sharpening uh iron is is it sharpens other iron you know what I mean um and helping people discover the scriptures but before we go today once again I want to say a big thank you to Betsy our director of communications once again a big thank you to Len who's once again our editor our encourager and to my wife Stephanie as she helped us get off the ground with our social media once again if you want to reach out submit a question we'd love to hear from you at podcast at church of the lakes.org but before we go please remember as Jared always says it's our mission as followers of disciples of Jesus to connect all to Christ to become healthy in God and courageous to love and until next time God blessed from Church of the Lakes with Pastor Jared Priestett and Pastor Robbie Strahd if today's message encouraged you and helped you grow as a devoted follower of Christ we invite you to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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