purposes: edification, evangelism, and glorification. You may have leadership in a certain place that, that your Sunday morning assembly that we’re not gonna do one, a certain one of these. That we’re gonna direct it in a certain way. And let me say that that’s their prerogative to do. If the leadership decides that our Sunday morning assemblies are goin to be directed in a certain area, then we as followers should have a duty to follow that. But, at the same time our leadership has to be, they have to look at the needs of the people, the needs of the community, and they have to look at that in a much broader scale than what anyone person wants or needs.

Um --- so when I look at those 3 things, 3 things, I’m goin’ to call number 1 edification. When we come together is there anybody who, who would argue that we don’t need to be reaching in. That that’s what we’re doin’. When I say edifying, encouraging or another, reaching in: Helping Mart, praying for him with his dad, helping, uh, Tambor with her hip and whatever else may be.

Being together, being a church, pulling together. When we come together, isn’t that what we need to be about? Is it? What about evangelism, reaching out? You know in, in especially, in within the context of the Churches of Christ we have always been about doin’ things that brings the outside in, that attract people to the church, uh, --- we want people to come here, we want to have a service that’s uplifting that brings people to the Body of Christ, that talks about evangelism, glorification - reaching up. I think if there is any of these 3 areas that maybe the Churches of Christ as a whole have kinda gotten away from, I believe it is glorification. I believe it is reaching up. Sometimes we’ve stressed these so much that we’ve left out this 3rd one. But if you want to achieve a balance in any situation you’ve got to have all 3.

We will at some point go back to fill in some blanks there. I know I’ve left some holes. But I’m going to flip over --- “bonk” --- (Tom hits his microphone.) Sorry Jeremy --- ha, ha --- and I’m gonna uh, uh, aw, --- I know it’s not hot in here. I can’t be hot, but Kevin told me he’d get me some hormones if I got too hot ha --- ha. I ‘m just kidding.

9. (The body)

I just tell you. I can’t say enough, I’m just overwhelmed at all the, at all the, all the things that, that I wished we had time to say. Uh, --- when we come together on a Sunday morning, uh, the beautiful image of the body, that Paul gives us is an image of the body working together, of the hand, and the foot, the eye, the head all of these things, these things coming together of a sense of we can do all of this because we’re working as a unit. And the thing that he says there, he says, um "Now you are the Body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it". I think there is an emphasis there on each and every one of you. You know I think God has sent everybody in this congregation for a purpose. He has bought us here from the east, the west, the north, the south, and we’re all here to fulfill some mission that God has bought to us, whether it’s the right wing, the left wing, the right brain, the left brain, the no brain, you know it doesn’t matter. We are all here to fulfill some purpose that God has brought.

10. (“Riding the Winds of Change” and the builders.)

Have any of you read the book "Riding the Winds of Change"? --- It is a great book. I would, I would suggest that you get it. It talks about 3 ways that are in every church, three ways that are in every church. The first one is the builders and I don’t know how much of this I’m going to skip, so if you don’t mind if I just hold it. It talks about the builders. In general, the builders are the older folks in, among us. They are our parents. Let me tell you this they are the parents of some of you in here. They are the grandparents, they are the grandparents of some of you in here, because I’ve hear, I’ve talked to some of them.

Tom Brokaw calls them the greatest generation, the builders of our society. They are the people who have solid expectations about what worship should be. Words like reverence and quiet, clear, peaceful, come to mind. They value tradition. They are the fabric of our society. He says pull them out of society and it will fall apart. He says pull them out of our churches and we may find out just