Believing in the Larger Story: Trusting God Despite Struggles with Brenda Seefeldt Amodea

www.Bravester.com
www.LargerStoryChurch.com

Bible study called Trust Issues with God
I Wish I Could Take Away Your Pain

https://youtu.be/_eWrfEJPNuw

Brenda Seefeldt Amodea is a mom of 4 grown boys, pastor of Larger Story Church which meets on zoom, author of two books, and a brave woman.

In this podcast episode, Brenda Seefeld Amadea talks about her journey from angry adolescent with trust issues towards God to a committed believer and pastor. 
She discusses her transformation, triggered when three compassionate girls invited her to join a retreat and instilled in her the belief in Jesus's love. 

This caused a significant shift in her life, leading her to become a pastor and help others in their faith.

Would you like to get a weekly sneak peek into the guests?
Join my Substack @janjohnson3

JustTalkingAboutJesus.com

If you have a story to tell, check out the form on my website.
I'd love to connect with you!

Transcript

[00:02] Jan: Welcome to Just Talking about Jesus. I'm Jan Johnson, a seasoned believer who loves relationships and you know, just talking about Jesus.

[00:14] Brenda: Helpful things are I will be here for you in a year. You know, I'm, you know, I will check in on you often.

[00:23] That means that today you don't have an answer for me. You may not have an answer for me in three days, but at least I know you're going to check in on me.

[00:30] So I'm not going to be wallowing in three days because someone's going to be calling me.

[00:36] You will tell me what the outcome is going to be where, you know, again, this kind of, this larger story, you know, my son's going to be okay and God's going to redeem the situation.

[00:47] You will tell me this and I'm not going to believe you because my heart is so hurt over this and this is a repeat situation and I believe that last time and here we are again.

[01:00] But you will keep telling me this because you will keep showing up. I will eventually believe it from you. And that's what's going to get me to the other side.

[01:11] Because not only did you, you know, that wasn't, it wasn't a drive by situation giving me a false promise.

[01:21] Jan: Okay, My guest today, Brenda Seefeldt Amodea is a pastor, a speaker, wife, Oma, mom of four grown boys.

[01:37] Brenda: They're always my boys, but they're men. Yes, I know.

[01:40] Jan: They're always right in your heart.

[01:42] Brenda: That little boy.

[01:43] Jan: Six boys, six boys.

[01:45] Brenda: Yes.

[01:46] Jan: Yeah, yes, I get that. Yeah. Well, welcome. So you do some posts on bravery, so why, why, why bravery? Where'd that come from?

[02:01] Brenda: Well, I wrote for 25 years youth ministry resource site. And I did that for 25 years and then I kind of got okay, God, what's next? Not that I left youth ministry, but like what's next?

[02:13] And when I took a calculation of my life, I was like, I keep making these brave decisions and I kept digging into what bravery is and that just when I figured that out, it just resonated with me.

[02:26] And then I started digging into what bravery is and what brave faith looks like. And I was like, boy, I didn't recognize it. And so then I started writing about that because that was giving me some juice to write about.

[02:38] And I've been doing that now nine years.

[02:42] Jan: Yeah, yeah. Tell me some of your testimony. Where'd you come from? Did you grow up Christian?

[02:47] Brenda: I grew up in a good Christian home in Minnesota. Born in California. Wanna brag? But then I got moved to Minnesota, when was 5 and.

[02:58] But I would, I didn't become a Christian myself till I was 15. I just, I had anger issues with God. I, I mean probably rightfully so. I just didn't, I just.

[03:08] Anyway some really dark, dark years as a teenager and God and I, you know, while I was taught God, I was like, God, you did not treat me well. You've left some deficits in me.

[03:20] What's wrong with you that you don't heal me? I had a stutter and my parents did a really good job of bringing me to healers to heal because they could see that I was sinking into depression and sinking into myself and into self-hatred.

[03:36] And the healers didn't heal me. And so God doesn't exist or God, you're not good.

[03:43] And so my self-hatred turned into hatred towards God. And there were some pretty dark years and I think I pretty scared my parents.

[03:54] When I was in 10th grade, they, we changed churches and sent me on a retreat with this new youth group. And this would be, you know, late 70s, I'm not talking triple youth ministry.

[04:05] This is a long time ago.

[04:07] And on that retreat I will never forget, I met three beautiful girls who were my age and they welcomed me. Now this youth group did not like me, they did not like me.

[04:21] But these three beautiful girls welcomed me when we got there and let me hang out with them for that weekend. And I've never had beautiful girls treat me so well before.

[04:32] And so when they told me that Saturday night of the retreat, you know, the big night of commitment, that Jesus loved me, I believed it.

[04:43] And that dam of anger and self-hatred and mad at God broke. It just, it broke.

[04:53] And I came home from that retreat completely changed. I will not forget my parents. I got dropped off after the retreat when I got back and got dropped off at my house and my parents saw me get out of the car through the kitchen window and I saw their faces.

[05:08] They saw my face was changed and I saw their faces change like their daughter's gonna live.

[05:18] And. And then it was then on just again, brave faith decisions I was leading. You know, my senior year in high school, I was leading a Bible school for my friends, a Bible study for my friends.

[05:29] And then it wasn't much longer than before I got called into the ministry. And I've been a pastor my whole adult life.

[05:35] Jan: Isn't that something? I think I just hear that kind of story over and over where somebody, somebody has that effect on your life, you know, or somebody accepts you for who you are and sees through into your heart as to who you are and welcomes you in.

[05:51] And then you find out who Jesus really is.

[05:55] Brenda: Yes.

[05:56] Jan: Not like, oh, oh, not just that guy up there someplace, whatever, but he's a real person that cares about me.

[06:05] Brenda: It. It. It was. I mean, I will never. Gina Lindy, Tony Rue, and Marie Andreessen. I've never seen them since. I will never forget that. They let me see that Jesus could love me.

[06:18] Jan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that. Then that paves the way to be able to learn to trust.

[06:24] Brenda: Yes. Yes. A lot of brave decisions are needed to trust God.

[06:30] Jan: Yeah. I mean, that whole trust thing, that's huge for everybody. I don't think there's anybody that doesn't have some trust issues, you know, with. Right, yeah.

[06:40] Brenda: Well, that's why I wrote my Bible study called Trust Issues with God. This is it.

[06:47] Jan: Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about that. What kind of like, what are your chapters? How's it broken down? What does that look like?

[06:53] Brenda: It is. It's. First of all, I'm a pastor now. I've been a youth pastor for 40 years. And then I transitioned to being a lead pastor of a kind of a new church plant that began in the pandemic.

[07:06] So this Bible study came out of my church. So this is not just my learning, which is some. There's a lot of it in there. But everything in here went through my church.

[07:17] And the people in my church said, you need to publish this because people need to hear it. And we kept circling back to trust issues. I could talk about, you know, who God is, and I'll go back to a trust issue, you know, could talk about.

[07:32] Oh, we did a great lesson on the parable of the unmerciful judge out of Luke 18. That's a difficult parable.

[07:42] And in my church, we do conversational teaching. It's not. I don't teach at them. I teach them, teach conversationally. Just call me an older youth pastor. And when we did that lesson on the unmerciful judge, they.

[07:59] My church people gave me such a different perspective that it makes that parable understandable.

[08:08] In the parable, Jesus teaches that God is this unmerciful judge, or someone in my church was like, God is a jerk.

[08:18] And of course, when we have trust issues, we think God is a jerk.

[08:23] And then the processing through the parable together and with group think going on and different perspectives, we put it all together and we got this beautiful perspective. So that's one chapter.

[08:38] It's four weeks. There's video teaching with it, and then there's Five lessons to do throughout the. Four lessons. Excuse me, Four lessons to do throughout the week, and then a video teaching.

[08:50] So you can do this alone or in a group like that, but it's. It's a. It's a workbook.

[08:55] Jan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so now you got me curious. So what did they come up with? He's not unmerciful. Who is this guy you're talking about? Who's this?

[09:07] Brenda: The parable teaches how the widow kept coming back and coming back and asking.

[09:16] And we in our group think was like, when the widow kept coming back, did she change her request over time because she learned to see the judge as more and more human over time instead of the, the shutdown.

[09:34] And then you shut down and you don't try again. And here comes another brave decision. She kept going back. And then did the judge and the widow actually form a relationship?

[09:44] Jan: Yeah.

[09:45] Brenda: Which is what bent the judge to change his mind.

[09:49] And so it's that consistency of the widow believing she had worth in herself to go back to the judge again and again and again. You know, there was a. There was a righteous wrong that happened in her life.

[10:02] So she just kept going back to the judge because this is the way through. And in that process, I think she learned how to know what to really ask of the judge.

[10:12] And the judge then also got to see who she was and that. To see her worth and her value and then granted the justice that she was asking for because they now had some kind of a relationship.

[10:26] Jan: And isn't that the bottom line?

[10:27] Brenda: Isn't that. Isn't that. Isn't that exactly. Isn't that? I mean, you read that parable and you're like, okay, God's a jerk, but yet when you dig into it like this, you can't unsee it like, oh, my gosh.

[10:42] Yeah, that's exactly what God desires out of us. Is this. This depth of coming back and he delighting in us every time.

[10:52] Jan: Yeah.

[10:53] Brenda: Yeah.

[10:54] Jan: Our church has been doing the Bible plan with the Bible project and through a year, you know, and love, love, love, love that. But just so much of coming back to come back to me.

[11:07] I'm here waiting for you. You know, look at what you guys are doing. It's just like, this isn't the best way. My way really is the best way.

[11:18] Trust, Trust. Trust me, you know?

[11:21] Brenda: Right, right.

[11:23] Jan: Just.

[11:23] Brenda: Yeah, but, you know, unfair things happen in our life. I mean, unfair things break that trust.

[11:31] So, again, do we.

[11:34] We call this the larger story God? Do we Trust the God who holds the larger story? Or do we just take the small view of God and say, I'm out because, you know, this unfair thing happened and what, while your heart is broken?

[11:49] Yeah, it's hard to have that, like, a reasonable thought like that, because you're just reeling in pain. But then one thing we also taught a lot, which they made me put into the Bible study, is how all of our emotions lead us to God.

[12:04] Like, if we will give our emotions to God, all of them will end up finding God in a whole new way. It's when we are afraid of our emotions or we're going to numb our emotions or divert out of our emotions is when our view of God changes.

[12:22] It becomes smaller. And then, of course, all kinds of other secondary issues get brought up when we don't just feel all the pain or all the anger, all the disappointment.

[12:35] Because on the other side of that, you can always find this larger story. God.

[12:41] Jan: And I mean, what does he say to Job? Yeah. Wait, did you create the universe here?

[12:50] Brenda: Exactly.

[12:52] Jan: Did you create the seeds? Did you create all of these things? Do you think you have it all figured out and maybe I don't or what?

[13:00] Brenda: Exactly.

[13:02] Exactly. And then there's this verse in Romans 2:4 that we talked about in the study and in a church here that how God is patient with us. And so thank God, he's patient with us, which means we also need to be patient for the solution to our problem because it involves other human beings who God's also being patient with.

[13:22] But in the end, in the end, God is redeeming all of it.

[13:27] So if I could be gracious for the patience God had with me in. During my angry years or, you know, even, you know, in my long life as a pastor and the things I took control of as a pastor.

[13:42] And then I can realize God needs patience with everybody else who's involved in my story so that we can all be redeemed. So it's not always on my schedule.

[13:52] Jan: Yeah, yeah. And you don't know what part where your story fits into somebody else's.

[13:57] Brenda: Exactly. You know, so that, you know, in the creation story is big. My story is big, and God is writing all of it.

[14:05] Jan: Yeah, I love that. The song, the Way Maker, you know, just how even when you don't see God working, he's working in the background, he's still working. Even if you don't see it, you know, and you wait long enough and you see that, you find out where he was working in the midst of things but sometimes right in the middle of it, it's just like, I don't think one more day.

[14:30] Brenda: Yeah, that's where our trust breaks. Like you said, if you can wait long enough. And that statement, I'm sure everybody just hear it and went, ugh, I can't take another day.

[14:40] Jan: Yeah.

[14:41] Brenda: But yet here we. We're offering hope, but we're also saying, I hear. I hear you. Today is really, really, really hard.

[14:49] Jan: Yeah.

[14:49] Brenda: And you have to wait long enough. So tomorrow's not going to be much better.

[14:54] But there's a big game going on here and you're going to win. Yeah. Just got to stay, you know, brave decision to. Brave decision which will lead you to a trust that's going to get you to the other side of this.

[15:07] Jan: I think that's where journaling is really good, you know, to be able to write. I call them, you know, the. The build an altar, you know, like Moses or Josh we were going through, and stop here.

[15:22] Set up these stones for an altar to remember so that people will always remember what happened here. You know, another friend that I was talking to, she says, yeah, those are big rock moments.

[15:35] Brenda: Yes, yes. Y. But.

[15:37] Jan: But if you write those down, then you can go back and say, you know, oh, well, he was here and he'll do it again. He was here in this situation and he'll do it again.

[15:48] Even though it didn't look like it to begin with. You know, that's. Yeah. And if you live long enough, hopefully you see a lot of those situations.

[15:58] Brenda: You know, I was just gonna say before you spoke, I was like, just trust these two old ladies here to tell you that it is going to get better. Because there is something about age that gives you the wisdom to trust.

[16:13] I jokingly, but I really mean this.

[16:15] To do this Bible study, all I'm asking you to do is begin at a 51% trust in God.

[16:22] Just over half to say, I think God may be able to work this out, but I'm really angry with God right now. And then when time you get done with this Bible study, you might be at 73%.

[16:33] Unless you're an older. An older person. And you might be more. Just because you got that age for the wisdom.

[16:39] Jan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Just. It keeps. Keeps going and. And there's still things that I've just gotta, you know, keep trusting about. I haven't seen the end of the story yet, but I just have to keep trusting that.

[16:52] That he's in control and maybe he's doing a work with the person in my life that needs that to happen. Right?

[17:02] Yeah, yeah. So I can do to fix it. You know, I'm not the one to be able to fix it. So.

[17:09] Brenda: So you have to just trust, is God a good God or is he this unmerciful judge? But then if you keep trusting God, then you realize, oh, that jerk of a God actually really cares about me.

[17:22] Because look at this and this and this and this.

[17:24] Jan: Okay. Exactly. Just so good to keep writing those things down and being able to see them. We're talking about them over and over again, you know, because your story helps somebody else.

[17:33] Everybody's story helps somebody else.

[17:36] Which is what I love about just talking about Jesus.

[17:40] Brenda: I know, because this is just a conversation of two women who have learned something.

[17:45] Jan: Yes, I will be 72 next week. And it's like, yep, I think I have learned a few things. And yes, hopefully I'm farther along than I was way back at the beginning.

[17:58] Brenda: You know, you are. And this is, you know, the church overall, you know, is one of the few places where we get to mingle with people like you who have this older aged wisdom, who have been through all the emotions and all the disappointment and still following God.

[18:17] Jan: Yeah.

[18:18] Brenda: You know, what a gift you are to your people in your life, into your church. Because we don't have many other places in our life.

[18:27] Jan: Right.

[18:28] Brenda: Where these people cross over. But to have you, you know, selfishly in my church with my younger people, they would just gain so much wisdom from you.

[18:39] That's, that's, that's the gift of why we need to go to church. Probably that one reason alone.

[18:44] Jan: Right, Right. So tell me about your church. It's a little bit different.

[18:48] Brenda: It's a lot different.

[18:50] Again, a youth pastor up until this point. So I already have this other perspective. We began during the pandemic and that was, I thought, I thought would be a temporary church.

[19:00] Just, just because of the pandemic was everything. The church was shut down. I was laid off in my church.

[19:07] Some of the parents of my teens came to me on the side and said, we think you should start a church. And my husband leads worship. We're at a church together, leading worship together.

[19:16] So, you know, ready made worship team and you know, over here.

[19:21] Jan: Yeah, exactly.

[19:22] Brenda: And it was like. And so. And this is the big thing. They said what? You know, they were live streaming like we all were back then, but that was so empty.

[19:31] And they said, they said, what we're missing is faith conversations and to deal with the pandemic fears, you know, the George Floyd situation. And where is God in this? You know, And.

[19:43] And so I was like, well, I'm not afraid of faith conversations. I have a worship leader just mute over zoom, what the heck, and see what happens. Again, it was pandemic.

[19:54] It was, you know, so we began in October, that first year of the pandemic. And to my great surprise, I got people coming in from all over the United States.

[20:07] Some of my grown teens are finding, you know, a way to connect with me again as their pastor, which I absolutely love. Yeah, we got strangers coming in. I don't know, you know, how they find out about us other than, you know, Facebook or webpage or something, you know, and so.

[20:23] So we're. So we're continuing. We're still a church. We're still meeting over zoom. We meet on Friday nights.

[20:29] This is interesting, too. The parents of the teens who asked me to start this church said we're really liking Sunday mornings as a quiet time with our family and not losing half the day to church.

[20:44] And Friday nights are a family night for us.

[20:47] So can we meet on Friday nights? And so we did. I mean, again, it was pandemic. We're going anywhere. Right. But we're still meeting on Friday nights. Because another section of people that join us are people who serve their church on Sunday mornings but are not being fed in their church.

[21:06] Jan: Yeah.

[21:07] Brenda: And so we got a group of people like that that are coming who love the conversations. A lot of them are the older, wiser people, so we're getting this. This, you know, older age wisdom we were just talking about through them, but they.

[21:22] They're also able to talk and, you know, shape the conversations. And so I've just, you know, with three and a half years in, I've learned to not, like, put an ending on my message because the conversations become the teaching point, whether it's one of our young people asking a question that's a really good, honest question because they're not afraid to express their doubts in this kind of situation or whether I ask a question and then it goes into this other direction.

[21:52] And again, I've been a pastor my whole adult life. I'm not living in the real world like people who are coming to church are.

[22:00] Jan: Yeah, yeah.

[22:01] Brenda: So the wisdom from these other people in response to something that I shared out of the Bible is actually probably more meaningful than whatever I had in my notes, because it's coming from their perspective.

[22:13] Living out, you know, through divorce or through a job or through driving in traffic, you know, these things that I'm really exempt from.

[22:24] Jan: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah.

[22:26] Brenda: Yeah.

[22:28] Jan: One of my sons has just started on his faith journey at 43.

[22:35] But we've been watching the Chosen together, and it's just like. And he comes. He lives in North Hollywood, so he comes from it as a different perspective from.

[22:45] As an actor and, you know, in that world and type of things, and it's just like. Or from a producing point of view or whatever. Oh, I see how they did that.

[22:55] Brenda: Or.

[22:55] Jan: Oh, that's really interesting. And it's like, huh, I never would have thought of that that way, you know?

[23:01] Yeah, I know what you mean. It's just having that other perspective is.

[23:04] Brenda: Really, really, really helpful. Because if I was just talking at them, they'd just be nodding like, that's pretty wise, Brenda. But when someone says something, they're coming from their perspective, like maybe of a divorce perspective, all of a sudden that means so much more to every.

[23:23] To more people than it does to just my perspective. Yeah.

[23:26] Jan: Maybe there's a little paradigm shift on something, you know?

[23:29] Brenda: Yes. Oh, yes.

[23:30] Jan: Yeah. Yeah. So you've also written a book called I Wish I Could Take Away youy Pain.

[23:36] Brenda: Oh, this is. This is. It's a real. It's a tiny little book. It's got doodles in it. It's a. It's a gift book. I would say a lot of it's autobiographical, but in a.

[23:50] You know, in a way, some of my brave decisions have broken my heart.

[23:57] That's what this book is about. It's dedicated to the people who have stepped in and carried me through my pain. So hence the. The title. And so it's got just some of the things to do and not to do.

[24:10] There's three pages of things not to do to help, you know, help someone through that.

[24:16] One of the.

[24:18] It's got doodles in it. So it's a real easy read, quick read, but then you're gonna go, ah, now I know how to help. Help my friends better instead of giving a platitude because, oh, making my skin crawl when I would get a platitude, but I would also understand.

[24:32] So I'm going to just share. One of my brave decisions was the boys that I raised.

[24:38] I didn't give birth to them. They kind of came into my youth group and had situations and ended up. I ended up raising them. It's a beautiful story, but two of them ended up in prison anyway.

[24:50] And so prison's very much a part of my life. And so I say when I'm talking to someone and they're like, particularly. One of my boys got arrested a lot and sort of like he was in and out for, you know, every few years.

[25:06] So when he got arrested again and I would like share this with somebody, I could see their face change or this is where the platitude would come, you know? And like, I don't need a platitude.

[25:18] I need understanding.

[25:20] Or even worse, the drive by prayer.

[25:24] I will. Yeah, I will. I will pray for you. And then I know they're not gonna think about it twice because they don't. Because they don't want to think about prison.

[25:31] Jan: Yeah.

[25:31] Brenda: They don't want to think about a mom's broken heart.

[25:34] Jan: Yeah. Some kind of a scripture that's like, oh, yeah, thank you. I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. Together for good. Or that is.

[25:44] Brenda: That is not what I need at this moment. I just need you to see that I am smashed. And I got to go to the court through the court system again.

[25:54] And I thought we were done. And I just need you to see me in this. I've been through the court system before, but I hear I am again. I just need you to see me.

[26:05] And so the book is about that. These things to. To do to really help someone when you don't have the words to say, you know, and the things I need to hear from you so I can make it to the next day and then through the next.

[26:18] You know, the court system's long, so for the next year plus. And then the first day of prison. Jail. And jail and prison are very different than the first day of prison's another day.

[26:29] And you know, I just. So it kind of.

[26:32] It's really helpful. Little. Little easy to read book. And it's cute.

[26:36] Jan: I think I have some good things to say. Helpful things.

[26:40] Brenda: Yeah. Helpful things are I will be here for you in a year. You know, I'm, you know, I will check in on you often.

[26:49] That means that today you don't have an answer for me. You may not have an answer for me in three days, but at least I know you're going to check in on me.

[26:56] So I'm not going to be wallowing in three days because someone's going to be calling me.

[27:02] You will tell me what the outcome is going to be where, you know, again, this kind of. This larger story, you know, my son's going to be okay and God's going to redeem the situation.

[27:13] You will tell me this, and I'm not going to believe you because my heart is so hurt over this. And this is A repeat situation. And I believe that last time and here we are again.

[27:26] But you will keep telling me this because you will keep showing up. I will eventually believe it from you and that's what's going to get me to the other side because not only did you, you know, that wasn't, it wasn't a drive by situation giving me a false promise.

[27:42] It was like you are showing up, you're checking up on me. You're not just giving me, you know, churchy words, but you're just checking on me and then you're telling me that this is going to be fine and I will eventually believe you and that's what's going to pull me up and pull me the other side.

[28:01] Jan: Yeah.

[28:02] Brenda: Well, the other thing is, especially at this point in my life, I can't pray anymore because I start praying, I start dwelling and I start ruminating on all the bad things.

[28:14] And so it's easy for me to not pray because prayer just brings me lower. And I don't know if that's for your listeners, but it's. Sometimes I just can't pray and there's a pastor saying this, but these people are praying for me in my behalf and I know that.

[28:32] So then I don't have to feel guilty for not praying. Yeah. I know that for these next few weeks I got these people praying for me on my behalf.

[28:42] I don't have to try to figure out how to talk to God. I got enough to worry about, you know, and they are doing that on my behalf until I can pick it up again.

[28:52] That is a great gift and God.

[28:54] Jan: Will wait for you.

[28:55] Brenda: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're still in a relationship. I'm just, it's not actually pray about it makes me ruminate sometimes when you're.

[29:04] Jan: In that deep grief, it's just so hard to even see past, you know what it is.

[29:09] Brenda: Yeah.

[29:09] Jan: And still in your heart of hearts, you still trust that God's going to take care of it? I do you have that trust that the God of the universe that still chose you to be and child is still going to take care of it in some way?

[29:29] Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're almost out of time. What would you like to leave our listeners with?

[29:36] Brenda: I would like to say I hope you can make some brave decisions to trust this larger story, God and to see God as having, as being for you.

[29:51] Even though right now you wonder, you know, that disappointment may be really loud right now, but that God is for you and to just trust this all the way to the end.

[30:05] Jan: Yeah. Yeah, Good words. Where can people find you?

[30:10] Brenda: I write@bravester.com. and then you can find the Bible study there. Or the Bible study is at trust issues with God.com or Amazon, Barnes and Noble, you know, et cetera, et cetera.

[30:26] Jan: And if somebody wants to join in on your.

[30:29] Brenda: Oh, good one. Because you can, you can keep coming. I have people from California coming, by the way, which is crazy

[30:42] Anyway, so I'm just saying anybody can come. And that is largestorychurch.com okay, you can go. We. Our Zoom link is protected, so you gotta just. You have to leave an email to get the Zoom link and just trust us with that email.

[30:55] But we've had some Zoom bombers come in that try to disrupt church, you know, Some. Yeah, just. So anyway, so we do ask for an email and I just ask you to trust me with your email and then come on in.

[31:07] Keep your camera off. If you're shy or if you're a back row person, just keep your camera off. That happens for most, most of our visitors when they turn their camera on.

[31:15] I know they trust us. Yeah. So do not think you'll be the only one with your camera off. Just, just try us if you're looking for some good conversations.

[31:26] Jan: Perfect. Okay. Brenda, thank you so much.