I want to invite you to take your Bible tonight and turn to Psalm 127. Psalm 127. Tonight has been a special service for us, as we heard from Derek and Emmy, their testimonies, and they are, if I can put it this way, the next in a long line of a wonderful heritage that we enjoy here at First Baptist Church of those that have been called by God from our church as missionaries, as pastors, as other servants of the Lord. We've enjoyed a wonderful heritage as a servant-sending church. And I use that terminology tonight kind of in a broad sense, servant-sending, to include missionaries. but also to include pastors, to include Christian school teachers, to include others that are serving in other capacities of ministry, both in terms of vocational ministry as well as faithful folks that maybe have sensed the call of God to ministry as lay people that have gone to be a part of a ministry somewhere else that have been, in a sense, sent out from our church as well. We have a wonderful heritage of that. We are a sending church for currently seven active missionary families, one retired missionary family, and then three missionary families that are on deputation, on pre-field ministry, including now the Wilcox's tonight, that are raising their support or will be raising their support to serve in ministry specifically as missionaries. And of course, there are numerous others that are across this planet, and especially the United States, serving as pastors and teachers and other ministries. And so I say that as a source, not a private, of joy. Praise the Lord that God has lifted up from this church over several decades individuals like that that have been the fruit of the ministry of First Baptist. At the same time, my concern is this, that we want that to continue. And I think it's important for you to understand that across America today, that's probably not normal. As a matter of fact, it's not normal across America today. The trend is the opposite. The trend is for fewer to sense God's call to ministry. The trend is for there to be shrinking classes of candidates for mission agencies. If you were to ask the leaders of our mission agencies that we affiliate with the most closely, you would find out just how small those classes are, perhaps even that there are no classes. There may be even examples of not having anyone that they are preparing to be sent out into ministry and so the trend is a concern. Recently I heard a Bible College president say that they had far more requests of the Bible College for graduates than they possibly could send to those different ministries, Christian schools and pastorates and youth pastorates and of course missions ministries as well. And so that's a great concern. But the problem here as we think about that, the problem is not the mission agencies. The problem is not the Bible colleges or the seminaries. The problem, if there are fewer people, the problem is in the pew. The problem is in the churches. The issue has to do with the churches because it's the church's responsibility to train and to equip and to sense God's call on the life of an individual or a couple or a family and then to send them forth from that ministry to serve in full-time vocational ministry. There's a tendency maybe for us to think it's the problem of the agencies when in reality it's the problem of the local church. Agencies don't disciple and send missionaries. Local churches do that. Agencies assist local churches with that, but it's ultimately the responsibility of the local church. And so spiritually vibrant and biblically purposeful churches will disciple and recognize and then send out God called servants of the Lord. That's the responsibility of the local church. And so God wants us as a church to be faithful so that he would then use us to produce servants of the Lord. So tonight, I want to look in a topical sense at seven different priorities of servant-sending churches. If we want First Baptist Church to continue to be the church that it has historically been in preparing young people and middle-aged people and people of all ages for ministry, then I think these things must be a priority in our church, first and foremost, but also in our personal lives. So notice with me seven different priorities. And by the way, they are not in order of priority, all right? If you're somebody that always thinks that way, that number one's the most important and that number seven's the least important, that is not the case tonight, okay? They're somewhat random in their order this evening. So priority number one is probably one that will surprise you a little bit in terms of the text we'll go to. It's found in Psalm chapter 127 and verse three where it says this, behold, children, are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. The priority number one of a servant-sending church is this. It's raising children for God's purposes, not our own. Notice what the text says, it says, behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. What is a heritage? A heritage is something you receive from someone else, that someone passes along to you. Like the way that Woodrow Kroll puts it, he says this, a heritage is this, they are on loan to us from the bank of heaven. Our children are on loan to us from the bank of heaven. They are ultimately his children, not ours. They may have daddy's eyes and they may have mommy's personality, but they all have God's image. And they're made in his image and ultimately they are his children. And so one of the challenges we have as parents in America, especially in a capitalistic, materialistic society, is raising our children with God's purpose in mind instead of raising our children with our purpose in mind. And what happens is oftentimes that comes crosswise with the American dream. Because what is, after all, the American Dream? I know it's been defined in a lot of different ways, but one of the ways it's been defined is simply this, that the American Dream is wanting your children to have it better than you've had it. to be more successful than you have been, to be better off than you have been. And so you want your kids to get a good education or perhaps a better education than you did or to get good training, perhaps even better training than you did so that they can make a good living and be comfortable and enjoy a good life and just have a sense of comfort and ease. Well, what's the problem with that? Where's God's will in all of that? And is that our primary focus of raising our kids to get a good job? Is that the most important thing, that they would have the best income possible? Or that they would fulfill God's purpose and plan for their lives? Several years ago, a camp leader was in the habit of interviewing teenagers who came to his teen camp. And all summer long, he asked them this question. If you could be anything you wanted to be, what would it be? Teenagers, if you could be anything you wanted to be, what would it be? Over the course of the summary, interviewed hundreds of teenagers. Guess how many of them chose something related to ministry. One chose he'd like to be a youth pastor. Zero said they'd like to be a pastor. And three said that they would like to be a missionary. And so you might wonder, well, surely that was an outreach camp, right? That was a camp where most of the teenagers that were attending were coming from unsaved homes, and so that would be expected. Well, he thought of that, and so he asked each of them what their home was like, and he discovered that 81% of them came from homes where both mom and dad were born-again believers. And this is the conclusion he drew from that research and that study. He said this, quote, this tells me that Christian parents in their quest to have financial security in life have held up all of those secular options. Very few are holding up service to the Lord as an option. In my opinion, kids are not being urged to serve the Lord in full-time ministry, end quote. I think he's spot on. I think the biggest problem, or at least one of the biggest problems for our young people going to ministry can oftentimes be the obstacle of their own parents who want them to be successful and want them to have the stuff that maybe they didn't get to have and enjoy a career that maybe they didn't enjoy. And so that becomes their primary focus and their primary aspiration for their children instead of the aspiration of their children serving God and finding God's will. I understand that may not be them being a missionary or a pastor, but I hope you pray for that. I hope you wish for that. I hope you ask God for that, if that is God's will for your child. So I can't help but ask the question, what are your aspirations for your kids to get the best job possible or to serve the Lord wherever possible? Are you praying that God would call them to ministry? Are you encouraging them to consider it? Are you raising them with your purpose in mind or God's purpose in mind? After all, they are simply on loan from God. You see, your greatest gift to God beside yourself is your child. The greatest gift to God beside yourself is your child. So we ought to give our children to the Lord. Sending churches are full of families who raise children for God's purposes, not their own. Secondly, priority number two is surrendering to the will of God. And we go to a familiar passage of scripture tonight, it's Romans 12, 1 and 2. I remember as a kid, a teenager attending a regular Baptist church, it seemed like every youth rally that I ever attended, somebody preached from Romans 12, 1 and 2. I cut my spiritual teeth on surrender messages, if you will. And unfortunately, as a result of that, I remember in youth ministry deciding that I wasn't going to preach from Romans 12, 1 and 2 because every kid has had that beat over their head for all these years. Surely they're sick and tired of it. And then the Spirit of God convicted me about that because I began to read about and research and hear about what I'm preaching about tonight and the shortage of people that are willing to go. And I thought, you know what, maybe I'm part of the problem. If I'm not willing to preach texts like Romans 12, one and two, and the concept of surrender, maybe I'm part of the problem. We're familiar with it. What it says, it says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And the heart of that is that command to present our bodies as living sacrifices. to have no will of our own, to say to God, I will do whatever you want me to do with my life. And not just at the altar in terms of making a decision and walking an eye on the church service, but from this point forward, my life will be yours. It'll be a living sacrifice. I can't help but wonder if that's not part of the problem in our churches today is that so few people are willing to say that to God. So few people are willing to live that for God. It's amazing to me, our world contains seven billion people. And in a sense, the gospel in terms of percentages of population appears to be losing ground in a lot of places in the world. In other words, the population growth is outgrowing the growth of the spread of the gospel. That's especially true in the United States. A smaller percentage of people in America are believers with each new year and the growth of our population. And yet, you contrast that with fewer people that are headed into ministry that God could use to share the gospel of Christ, and you can't help but scratch your head and ask yourself the question, why is that the case? Is it that God is calling fewer people to the ministry? Would that not seem kind of contradictory to the nature of God? that God is calling fewer to be missionaries, that God is calling fewer to be pastors, that would seem to me to be contrary to his nature. And so is the problem that God is calling fewer or that fewer are saying yes? That fewer are surrendered, that fewer are willing if that is God's will for their lives. And that may be you tonight. You may be sitting there thinking, well, I've got it all planned out. I've got this plan, and I've got this goal, and this is what I'm going to do, instead of simply saying, no, it's not about my plans and what I want to do, it's about what God wants me to do. And so churches that are used of God to send servants are churches where surrender is emphasized and is a priority, not just preached from the pulpit, but practiced in the pew. So I would ask you tonight, are you surrendered to the will of God? Priority number three. And again, another familiar text of Scripture. Priority number three is praying for more harvest laborers. We won't look at the entire text, you're familiar with it. We were told to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into the harvest. I've always thought it interesting that Jesus didn't simply tell them to go. Now I know he did that later, right? But he started with prayer. And I think part of why Jesus did that is because when we pray about something long enough and hard enough, sometimes we become the answer to our own prayers. When you pray, Lord of the harvest, send forth labors into your harvest, sometimes God says, and you're the one, in response to our prayers. Warren Wiersbe put it this way, when we pray as he commanded, we will see what he saw, we will feel what he felt, and we will do what he did. You see, Jesus tells us to pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labors into the harvest. You know, we pray for what's important to us. Theodotomy, think about your prayer life. We all pray for what is important to us. My question is this, is praying for labors for the harvest near the top of your list? Jesus specifically commanded us, pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into our harvest. What if we prayed as persistently and passionately for a missionary to get into a region of the world where the gospel is not proclaimed? What if we prayed as diligently and persistently for a missionary to get into that region as we pray for someone to get out of the hospital? Or to get out of a health problem? or to get out of some other kind of illness or struggle or to get over it. I wonder at times if we don't pray the Lord of the hospital more than we pray the Lord of the harvest. And again, it's not that we shouldn't pray for sick people, but God's pretty specific when he tells us, pray the Lord of the harvest. And so churches that are servant sending churches are churches that are consistently, passionately praying for more harvest laborers. Is that an important prayer in your life? Pray the Lord of the harvest, praying for more harvest laborers. Priority number four. is training rather than entertaining. Notice what Ephesians chapter four says in relationship to the ministry and to those that God has given to the local church and their role. Ephesians chapter four, actually we need to begin reading in verse 11, it puts it this way, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for what? for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. You know what that verse of Scripture is teaching? The pastor's job is, in a sense, to work himself out of a job. The pastor's job is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. Someone put it this way, I left the ministry when I became a pastor. Tongue-in-cheek, obviously, but you get the point in that being a pastor is training other people to serve the Lord. Pastors aren't the ministers. Every person in the church is a minister, someone who is serving the Lord. And so as I preach God's Word, and as I teach God's Word, and as others within our church do the same, they fulfill that role of preparing you and equipping you to serve. You see, what you hear every Sunday from this pulpit and from your Sunday school classes and other avenues is not just designed to fill your brains. It's designed to equip your life. and to train you to serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And so a servant sending church is all about equipping, it's all about training rather than entertaining. And this especially fits our model of youth ministry. For a church our size, we don't have the biggest whiz-bang youth ministry in the world. You do realize we could have a lot bigger youth group. I mean, if we had adopted or adapted to methodology that was entertainment oriented, we would have a lot more teenagers here to see the show, okay? But that's not our philosophy of ministry. Pastor Josh has developed a very biblical philosophy of ministry that is geared in teaching our young people and training them and equipping them to serve the Lord Jesus Christ with the rest of their lives. Derek and Emmy are evidence of that, both in our church for Derek and Emmy and other churches. And they're evidence of that in terms of their parents and the fact that their parents have filled number one that I've already preached about tonight. And so, as a church, our focus is on equipping, our focus is on training. That's why you not only hear about our youth ministry and why they're out on a missions trip right now, but other ministries that are designed to do that. That's why I had the joy of sitting down with seven or eight of our high school guys and teaching them how to preach this last winter and spring. And what a thrill for me to have seven or eight guys that said, you know, I'm willing to give this a try, Pastor Odell, if you're willing to teach me how. and the joy of having several of them participate then in Talents for Christ. That's why we do things like in Sunday school, Faith in Action, teaching our kids how to take what they're learning and putting it into practice. That's why Evangelism Explosion is not really just about sharing the gospel and winning people to Christ. It's just as much about training people who are part of Evangelism Explosion to be able to share their faith in an effective manner in any context, in any setting. It's really more about training than it is about evangelizing. And so those and many other ministries in our church are designed to do that. We need to keep doing that. Focus on training rather than entertaining. Churches that are servant-sending churches do that. Number five, priority number five, churches that are servant-sending churches balance or place a focus on balancing biblical evangelism. Again, I go to familiar texts and I am on purpose not spending a great deal of time in these texts. A number of these I've actually preached in an expository way in the past. And so you're familiar with Acts chapter 1 and their restatement of the Great Commission in a different form that's found there in Acts chapter 1 verse 8 where it says, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. That's balanced biblical evangelism. Balanced in what sense? Balanced in this sense, in at least two different ways. First of all, balancing biblical evangelism means reaching people with the gospel is a local priority, not just a global one. There's a tendency sometimes for some churches to say, we give tons of money to missions. But you might be able to ask that same church, but what are you doing to reach your neighborhoods for Christ? And it is easier probably to send money and to send people across the planet and not go across the street. And so a church that is truly balanced in that sense understands the local priority of reaching people for Christ. A church that doesn't take the gospel across the street won't produce people who will take the gospel around the world. It has to start here. And so that's why you hear a great deal of emphasis on things like Super Saturday, our random acts of kindness ministry that was designed not only to show people the love of Christ, but also to share the gospel of Christ just a few weeks ago. And our musical ministry, and the men's steak and corn feed, and the evangelism explosion, and those types of ministries that you'll hear me say, this is designed for outreach. What does that mean? Don't show up by yourself. Make sure you bring someone who's lost with you that can hear the gospel. And yet, event evangelism alone is not all that we're called to do. In other words, it's not just about bringing somebody so that Pastor Odell can preach to them. Personal evangelism is the balance of that. And so a church that balances it is a church that understands evangelism biblically is about reaching people for Christ as a personal responsibility, not just a pastoral responsibility. So it's not just about the events where you can bring somebody to it, but it's also about you living out your life in your workplace and in your neighborhood and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in those contexts. Every member is a witness. There's no substitute for your personal witness through the relationships that God has given to you. As a matter of fact, the Bible says we owe it to people to share the gospel, Romans 1, 14. I like what David Platt said about that. He said, quote, every saved person this side of heaven owes the gospel to every unsaved person this side of hell, end quote. It's true. We owe it to people to share the gospel of Christ with them. And let me just say, we have a long way to go here. as a local church and as the body of Christ in America. We have a long way to go when it comes to sharing the gospel. Lifeway Research gave the following statistics that in the next seven years, 55,000 churches in the United States will close. 55,000. It also, in their research, they also stated that those who attend church on any given weekend in the next few years will drop from 17% to 14%. So on any given weekend, only 14% of Americans will find themselves in church in the years to come. Only 20% of American churches are growing, and of those, only 1% of those churches, only 1% of those churches are growing because they're reaching lost people. You know what that means? 95% of church growth is simply shuffling Christians around. 95% of the churches that are growing are attracting other Christians from other churches that maybe got upset about what was happening in their church and ended up in a different church. That's not really church growth. Real biblical church growth is when people get saved and follow the Lord and believe His baptism. I'm thrilled that there are three that will be doing that here in a few weeks, but there ought to be more. We ought to be a church that is reaching people for Christ and especially reaching adults for Christ. And the only way that will happen is if one by one we take that responsibility seriously and share the gospel of Christ with people. Biblical balancing of evangelism. Six, servant-sending churches. are ones who focus on championing missions and missionaries. Acts chapter 14, we have that account of Saul and Barnabas and the end and the conclusion of their first missionary journey. There's a biblical pattern that is set for us there in Acts chapter 14 in that when they finished that first missionary journey, what did they do? They came back to Antioch, the church that had sent them out on that missionary journey and commissioned them to be missionaries, they came back to Antioch. And notice what it says there in Acts 14, beginning in verse 26, it says, for there they sailed to Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had completed. Now, when they had come and gathered the church together, they reported, and notice this next phrase, they reported all that God had done with them. What a powerful statement. They came back to their home church and said, look at what God did. The people that trusted Christ as their savior and churches that were established as a result of that, they reported all that God had done with them and that he'd opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. So they stayed there a long time with the disciples. They came back and they championed what God was doing. We need to hear what God is doing all across the planet today. and on a regular basis from missionaries. Sadly, a lot of churches relegate missions and missions reports to the least attended service of the church. When do you hear a missionary? Well, they'll get Wednesday night to give a 10 minute report. We intentionally don't do that here at First Baptist Church. Now I'm particular in terms of not giving my Sunday morning pulpit up very much to a missionary, but you will on a regular basis, typically once a month, have a missionary share a report or present their prospective ministry to us as a church and for them to share that with us because we need to hear what God is doing. That the folks that we have invested in, that God is using them to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so it's intentional that we do that. So many churches have just kind of pushed missions off to the side as a tacked on thing. And I know we're accustomed to missions conferences here at First Baptist. Do you know that a lot of churches don't do missions conferences anymore? And they wonder why interest in missions plummets. So we strive to champion missions and champion missionaries. One of the ways to keep the fire for worldwide evangelism burning is by regularly stoking it with missionaries reporting about what God is doing. And our prayer ought to be that God would light that fire for missions in every one of our hearts as well. Championing missions and missionaries and then finally, And this statement is not original with me, it's from a book entitled Gaining by Losing by J.D. Grier, and he puts it this way. It's by measuring success by sending capacity rather than seeding capacity. How have we historically measured whether or not a church was doing well? Is it growing, right? What are the numbers? It's a matter of nickels and noses, right? Are there more people and are the offerings going up? It's kind of the mindset of our measuring stick of success. And yet as you read Acts chapter 13, what did God do in Acts chapter 13? He took people away from the church. He took the best and the brightest. Acts chapter 13 is the call of Saul and Barnabas to that missionary ministry that I've already mentioned to you. It says this in Acts 13, 1. Now in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manian, who'd been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. And they ministered to the Lord and fasted. And the Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then having fasted and prayed, they laid hands on them, and they sent them away, and they kicked them out of church. They'll be missionaries. And so the church gained by losing. The church gained by measuring their success by sending capacity rather than simply seeding capacity. I'm still reading this book, Gaining by Losing by Grier, and so I'm not done with it, but one of the things that really grabbed my heart was a metaphor that he uses in that book about Which boat fits your church and your view of the church? If you were to describe a church like a boat, which one would it be? Would it be a cruise liner? Would it be a battleship? Or would it be an aircraft carrier? Let me describe those three metaphors for the local church. People who see the local church as a cruise liner, the church is all about Luxury, after all, that's what cruise liners are for. Cruise liners are all about serve me. What do I get out of this? How can I enjoy myself? And so for the cruise liner concept of a local church and the cruise liner mindset in the life of a believer, it's all about luxury. And so there are all kinds of ministries that minister to my entire family. I mean, everybody gets something great out of this church. Sports ministries, youth groups, nurseries, comfortable seating, make sure the air conditioning and heat works perfectly and it's never too warm or never too cold, exercise classes, social events, relevant messages, and feel good music. It's all there, it's all great. I love this church. It's like a cruise ship kind of church. He goes on to say this about that church, quote, if their church ever ceases to meet their preferences, well, there are plenty of other cruise ships in the harbor, end quote. In other words, someone that has a cruise ship mentality is quite eager and oftentimes does jump from that cruise ship to a better cruise ship that happens to be going by. Or they may jump from one cruise ship or one cruise line to another on a regular basis. Or they go to one cruise ship because the preaching's really good, to another cruise ship because they like the worship, to another cruise ship because they've got a better youth program, and to another cruise ship for a fellowship or small group or a Bible study, because that's better at that church. And so they bounce around from cruise ship to cruise ship, because after all, the church is a cruise ship. Others have the mindset that the church is a battleship. At first, that sounds pretty good, doesn't it? A battleship. That church is in attack mode, made for mission and success is determined by how loudly and dramatically it fights the battles. I think especially our fundamental Baptist churches of the past have really been good at this, even if we weren't supposed to be. Quote, he says, the role of the church members is to pay the pastors. and to pay the pastors to find the targets and fire the guns each week as they gather to watch. They see the programs and the services and the ministries of the church as the primary instruments of mission." So it's those programs that attack the world and their battleship. They're in attack mode. The last one is the aircraft carrier. You know, the idea of an aircraft carrier is that the battle occurs where? Where do you want the battle if you're an aircraft carrier? That's right, you take it to them, right? You don't want it to come to you if it's an aircraft carrier. Sadly, a lot of churches think the battle goes on and they're waging a little wars inside the church. That's not the way it's supposed to be done with an aircraft carrier. You keep the battle away from the ship. You take the battle to the enemy. You capture and you attack outside of the carrier. Does that not fit the biblical model? Christ said, I will build my church and the what? Gates of hell will not prevail against it. What is the primary role of a gate? It's what? Is it an offensive weapon or is it a defensive thing? It's defensive, and so the picture that Jesus is creating there in Matthew 16, 18 is that the church ought to be attacking the gates of hell by winning souls to Christ. And so this model of an aircraft carrier fits the local church where we take the battle to the enemy, where we load up the planes. Guess who the planes are? Who are the planes? That's you, that's us, that's all of us. Well, we load up the planes on Sunday and prepare you to go out into the world and fly sorties into the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We launch you into the battlefield to take the gospel to your neighborhood, to your workplace, to your family, your social environments, and maybe even across the world. Sent out from the aircraft carrier church. And so which metaphor for the church fits how you are living? Is First Baptist Church a nice cruise liner to you? Good music, good preaching, good air conditioning, comfortable pews, nice people. I get a lot out of it. And don't misunderstand me, folks. It's not that I don't want you to get anything out of First Baptist Church, okay? I want you to be ministered to. But if it's all about the creature comforts and what we get out of it, we've missed the mission. Or maybe it's a battleship mindset. Pastor, you go get them. You go win everybody to the Lord. You keep preaching against sin, Pastor. Take those big shots. Or do you see the church as an aircraft carrier. You land here on Sundays, maybe Wednesdays, maybe a few other times during the week for other Bible studies or other ministries, or you get loaded. And then you take off into your neighborhood, into your workplace, into your family, into your social interaction through hobbies, and you share the gospel of Christ. Maybe some of you will be so thrilled about doing that locally that you'll say, you know what, and there are people in whatever nation across the planet, nobody's flown over that territory before, nobody's landed there with a gospel, and I want you to really fuel me up, because I've got a long mission. God has sent me on it, and I want to go across the planet to take the gospel. God, help us to be an aircraft carrier church. God, help us to be a church that places a priority so that Derek and Emmy aren't the last ones. They're just the next ones. They're just the next ones. God, help us as parents to train our kids to serve Christ first in whatever His will is for their lives. to want to serve Him in whatever capacity, that we would not be the obstacle to them finding God's will being serving in full-time ministry. May we surrender to the will of God in every moment of every day, say, Lord, I'm on the altar, I'm yours. I'll do whatever you want me to do, I'll be whatever you want me to be. And may we as a church pray constantly, Lord of the harvest, send forth laborers. Lord of the harvest, send forth laborers into your harvest field. May we train how to entertain the next generation and the current generation. May we see the person across the street needing the gospel as much as the pagan across the world. May we champion missions. That's one of the things I'm thrilled about, about us even being able to host Baptist admissions this next week, is it's a great chance for us to be a blessing and encouragement to 350 plus missionary families from across the planet. And I get to rub shoulders with my heroes. I hope they're yours too. And may we measure our success by our sending capacity, not just our seating capacity. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for Derek and Emmy. Thank you for others that have gone before them. I pray that they are simply the next in line of many others in the years and decades to come that will stand behind this pulpit and say, I'm called. God wants me to serve. I'm willing to go. May dozens more like them, if you tarry, find and fulfill your will for their lives. Perhaps, Lord, there are some even here tonight that are sensing the very same thing in their hearts. I pray that tonight you might lay it upon their hearts and burden them with their need to surrender and follow your plan for their lives. Make us what you want us to be and use us for your glory. I pray in Jesus' name, amen.