Being Generous | JEFF FOXWORTHY and ANDY STANLEY

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] well we're so thrilled to have Jeff Foxworthy with us here today and Jeff and I have been friends for quite some time we'll talk about that in just a few minutes but before he comes up as if you have not already seen enough short videos today I just wanted to show you one more video for those of you it's your first time it's like really I could have stayed home so anyway and I just wanted you to see this because this is gonna frame our conversation and give you a little bit of context about why we invited Jeff and why we're so excited about what he's doing in the community and why I think you're gonna find it inspiring enough to where some of you are gonna find the courage to step out and do something a little bit uncomfortable so check this out and then Jeff will come and we'll have a conversation together watch this I love these guys you know I learned it's real easy to discard people or to not think about them when you can put them in a bucket and just call them homeless or addicts or whatever but when they become Jack and Wayne and Kevin and Solomon when they become real human beings it's really hard to turn your back on them and I think that's what I've learned from this place is is everybody in here is no different than I am it's it's people that got damaged early in life and and because of that they had struggles but they're who love no less by God than I am and and so it's kind of a cool thing to sit around in a room full of men and actually talk about these things and I was telling somebody the other day if you offered me of a million bucks but I had to give away my ten years at the mission I wouldn't take the money because it's changed my life it's made my life better and how do you put a price tag on that so would you please welcome to the stage and my friend and yours one of the funniest man in America Jeff Foxworthy that's a lot of pressure yeah that's a lot of pressure Wow thanks so much for doing this my pleasure yeah and Jeff and I have known each other a long time I'm not sure how we met or who introduced us but about I think it's 2008 Jeff and I actually went to Africa on a compassion international trip to meet the kids we sponsored and so I'm not gonna show any pictures of me but here Jeff is doing he didn't know yet another talent that people didn't have the only job I'm really qualified yeah yeah hello and bubbles so we had a fantastic time on in that environment and spending that much time together with Jeff realize this is a guy that's way more than what people see on television we became friends people know you as famous comedian blue-collar comedy that you know that's for some people that was their introduction to you then fifth-grader an incredible run that was so much fun as long as they give me the card with the answer as long as they 20-something books how many books I don't twenty six seven so yeah people don't even know that you're alive you litter an author yeah 26 27 books and the most amazing thing I want to get this right you've done six comedy albums three of them went triple platinum which means each one sold about three million so Jeff is the largest selling comedy recording artist in the history of the world so that that's like that's like amazing yeah it just seems like it should be somebody else yeah so maybe sending folks don't know about you you actually grew up in Atlantis to tell us a little bit about that you actually grew up and grew up in hate and hate bill it literally at the end of the runway when and yeah that that's maybe the way I am because I've been held so many jet fumes in my life but it was yeah the home of chick-fil-a so I've known the Cathy family's that when that was the only chick-fil-a in the world so now it was a cool place house yeah the dwarf house the original and I grew up in Southern Baptists gonna church Southern Baptist Church yeah got saved early in life seven years old remember that Sunday I was like I wanted to go down and my mother was holding my shirt like during the during the invitation yeah during the invitation you know the oh just as I am you know the choir is gonna sing five stanzas and I'm like I want to go down and my mom was like you're too little you don't know what you're doing so and I don't know how this worked out the preacher came to our house they had the preacher do a house call and sat down and talked to me and he told my mom yeah he knows what he's doing and so I'm like we're going that Sunday night service you know yeah I've said we're going Sunday night because I'm not going to hell because y'all were too lazy you know to let me let me get in you know want to be in the club yeah in case the world ends tomorrow so it was one of those Southern Baptist Church you see yes yeah well I mean it was which was a little bit of a problem for me because anybody that kind of grew up in that strict church environment it was kind of one of those places where you know don't drink don't smoke no custom you know like to do this and I knew a very early age I was wired like this so it was a little bit of a dichotomy for me because I'm like I know I love God but I can't do that you know that will drive me crazy in it and it probably wasn't until adulthood that I that I reached the fact that it's like God went wait a minute I formed you in your mother's womb I made you like this because you can have influence on people that can't do this yeah and so I'm like that was just free well you just freed up a whole bunch of people yeah I love people like this you know like so so your face started at a young age and as like everybody else there were twists and turns along the way but you've just that's just been a big part of your life and a central part of your life the whole time for the most part yeah it always was you know it's like weird with comedy because I will have people say well why don't you just do Christian comedy and I'm like well then the only people that listen to me you're Christians why can't I be a comedian that loves you no and the cool thing about that is they're like I'm a big outdoors guy I love to hunt fish and hike and all that stuff so people will come hear me like it a wild game dinner that would never go to church you know but they'll come to laugh for 30 minutes and then maybe you know I can share something else with them yeah though yeah I don't regret that so let's talk about the comedy thing a little bit so you went to Georgia Tech went to Georgia Tech I was a Georgia fan I would have gone enjoy I had no money and so I had to live at home and I worked at a grocery store full-time so Tech was the closest school and I went there for three years until they invited me to take some time off yeah here's the funny part so I have three there's a minute us feel better yeah and and so last Christmas my mother was saying to me you know you have three years it's it you just should go back and get that last year and I said mom Vic the comedy thing is working out okay she's like I know but you would have something to fall back on so yeah I went and then they took some time off and anyone who worked for I'd work for IBM started in dispatch but I had a job carrying a tool bag fixing machines it sounds more glamorous than it was and I was the guy I was the guy that was always like doing impersonations of the boss and the break room and then somebody would tap you and you turn around and the boss would be you know so I was not headed for greatness there IBM but actually it was your friends at IBM that encouraged you to I had a bunch of friends that would go to the punch line every week you know it was kind of new the comedy club thing and they kept coming back to work and going Fox you're funnier than the people down there you ought to go do this and I didn't and so they entered me in a contest a lot of people probably remember at the great southeastern laugh off they entered me in this they signed you up they signed me up and this wasn't an amateur night it was for working comedians and so I'm like I went and watched for a week to try to get an idea what it was all you never been to a comedy club no I did when I was a kid I would buy like you know Cosby albums about hearted but Flip Wilson and I'd memorize them and go to school and get in trouble for them the best note that I ever got in my life first time I played the Fox Theater somebody brought a note to the dressing room and it was from my high school principal and he said I cannot believe I am shelling out money to listen to the same kind of stuff I used to try to put a stop to it it's this thing yeah here there's that guy again yeah so I went a home and in wrote five minutes about my family and went back the next week and won the contest Wow and it first time I said no idea what I was doing now something else very significant happened at night yes I'm my wife current wife current no oh yeah no she wasn't my wife then yeah I was single yeah well you know it says like the one he's got now not one of the next two or three so uh but she was an actress and she had just done a movie with a guy that was a comic and so they had a group that came down to root for this guy and he was in the he was in the contest he still we're still friends today so I met and she came up and talked to me and so and I was so nervous I like looked at her and I spilled my drink right like all down the front of her and I'm like well guess you'll never go out with me and she said you haven't even asked and that was thirty thirty years ago so we've been married 32 years I met my wife and my career the same night same place yeah that's pretty cool yeah [Applause] and so and she encouraged you to chase this thing was the only person you know and I guess it was because she see we she was the one saying you've got all this creative stuff inside of you you're gonna go crazy if you don't get it out so after two or three months of doing amateur nights I quit IBM and my mother's disgust my mother's first question are you own the dope not just dope the dough are you on the dough and I'm like no I'm not on dope I just I want to try to be a comedian he's like we can get you help we have [Laughter] five years later I was on Johnny Carson the same mother's going you know you wasted all those years that IBM whatever moms they're the best okay so you met Greg your wife yeah and you've been married for 30 years and immediately I mean that's just 32 years I got a picture of your whole family check there we look at yeah there yeah that's my girls all girls yeah my oldest daughter Jordan who works at the Atlanta mission full-time that's her job Jill's a Auburn grad oh really we're gonna do that on Sunday we're just gonna rub it in and then my beautiful wife who doesn't change and I just get old so huh that's fabulous so so the comedy thing your mom was right it ultimately worked out the other thing before we switch gears that I love about you Jeff and I've heard this from other people and then I've asked you about it is during all those years I mean being a professional comedian you're all over the country you're on the west coast a lot you live in Georgia you stayed here and where it was it would have been so easy to just disconnect from family and just live that life you you paid a price both in terms of time energy and money to get home be there in the morning get your kids to school and that was that's always been a priority for you yeah well my dad left when I was young my command so and no matter what your parents say when when you're a kid and your parent leaves in your mind you think I wasn't worth sticking around for mmm that's what you feel and so even though I had a job that put me in a different city every night I would rent a plane I was flat a PDK I would fly home every night so say Friday night I had a show in st. Louis I would go do the show and then flow home and get home at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and I'd get up and I'd take them to soccer or basketball or whatever they were doing and then I get back on the plane at 4:00 in the afternoon fly to Minneapolis or flatter you know wherever I was doing so for but I would take my kids to school every day and my brother lives next door to me I'd take five little girls to school every day because I wanted my kids to know hey even though I love what I do you're the priority in my life yeah I think that's an important thing for folks to know because it's so easy to use a myriad of things as an excuse but that was that cost you terms of time influence and a sling and a whole lot of money so so ten years ago and this is this is amazing ten years ago someone that I don't think you even knew all that well invited you to do something you had no interested in it all so tell us about how the whole involvement with him is I did a country countdown show for ten years - who recorded it on Tuesday morning it would air on the weekend and so we got canceled and I kept thinking what am I gonna do on Tuesdays and we were I was with my girls at the Carter Center watching a documentary thing and then they had to go to the bathroom and whatever you girls do in the bathroom takes a lot longer than whatever as guys in the bathroom so I'm killing time and a guy had a table set up from the Atlanta mission and I took one of their brochures and as I'm reading it and I was like oh I didn't realize this was a faith-based thing and the guy's name is Joshua Harrelson and he said hey if you want to have lunch I mean Brody's number down and I got home I put it on the kitchen counter and for months how many two or three months my wife would be can I throw this away I'm like yeah don't throw that away yet but it just sat there things came and went and I finally called him and he said yeah come down for lunch and in my mind I'm thinking he wants something out of me he wants me to do a show and donate the money or he wants me to do their commercials he wants some and and I asked him I'm like what do you want he's just want to have lunch and so he invited me down the first guy that I met at the mission and this was my feeling about people that were homeless I'm like oh there's somebody homeless find a few bucks and they'll go away and I can go deal with what I'm dealing with the first guy I met was a now we're in the middle of downtown Atlanta it's this white 20 years your first trip first trip down there having lunch down in the cafeteria 21 year old kid named Jason and I'm looking at him and to be honest I'm like get a job you late what the heck are you're 21 years old what are you doing and so we sit down and Joshua says hey Jason tell him your story and Jason said well it was me and my brother and my mom and dad and then when I was 11 my mom killed herself he said and then the next year my brother killed himself and then it was just me and my dad and my second year of college my dad killed himself he said and I just got tired of hurting and so I just started getting high and I'm looking at this kid and I'm thinking I would have got high too oh because when you get high or when you get drunk you're not a good employee so you don't work nobody wants to hire you and so you don't have money and so you start borrowing and taking from people around you and that's how you end up on the street is some kind of hurt that you numb to that's how you end up on the street that's how you end up homeless something bad happen to you and you couldn't get past so all of a sudden instead of being nameless and faceless this was a real guy with a real story that really it's the story stunts mm-hmm and I'm looking at him and I'm going on I could be homeless I could be you because I would have gotten high too and so what was the ask after lots I mean there was an ask well yeah I went back two or three times I kept thinking what do you want and kept asking Joshua what do you want and he said finally he said you keep asking what I'll want I'll tell you what I want you to lead a small group he said none of these guys have ever done a small group and all group at the Atlanta mission a homeless people yeah do a little small group Bible study and I'm thinking there's six and a half million people in Atlanta and you can't find anybody more qualified than me really and so that's how it began it was me and twelve guys and I had to even entice him I would stop at chick-fil-a and get chicken biscuits I'm like if you'll just come to small group I'll give you a chicken biscuit and so literally you when you get to chick-fil-a on Tuesday mornings they're not even though I'll wait for them to open I'm standing outside in the dark well you would ever like get Geoff's autograph if you'll go to the chick-fil-a you have to get there 615 615 you got a good shot at yeah so you pick up okay keep going I'm sorry and what was weird it was almost divine it's it's and I'm like wow this job is bigger than I am so I had a group of guys that some of them I barely knew that I would text and go hey you want to come down here one like my closest some of your friends yeah just associate and somebody said well this guy's kind of get a heart for and would you like to come down and almost to a man every one of them said I'll come down once but Tuesdays are busy from back in I can't do it but once and then 10 years later they've been there every Tuesday for a decade Wow and and I mean I love these guys these guys are just so all in I know some of them are out here today and so it's not my thing all I did was say yes that's all I did I wasn't qualified I just said yes I'll do this now why did you go back because you know what well that was the thing with Jason if he didn't ask you initially to do anything it was just well here's why I went back was because of the stories and and and in fact one of them my best friend's oh my gosh if you've never read a book called same kind of different as me Ron Braun Hall and in Denver more the story them but that that book really influenced me and one of my dearest friends in the whole world Wayne cook he had the he and I are that book but I was scared to death of cook because cooks big and he was angry when I first started going in there and I have a friend Ronny Brassfield we call him chicken man and so one in one of those early groups we were it was hard to get him to talk to discuss because if you'd been in church you don't talk and so we I was trying to think of questions so one of my questions was what is the Bible and and so chicken man one guy said was just a book so chicken man took the trashcan put it in the middle of floor and walked over and dropped his Bible in the trashcan and you see everybody go yeah and cook got up and he pulled it out and he wiped it off he said chicken man don't do that and he said well if it's just a book why does that bother you and cook told this story in the condensed version he said when it's when his mom died he said I inherited $70,000 and like a lot of us when we have excess we don't do well with it and he just started party and got a couple of girlfriends and they they're partying night and day quit going to work you know getting high doing crack and and when you don't go to work you don't get paid when you don't get paid you don't pay your rent and you end up on the street and he said so when I get kicked out of my apartment we're bouncing from place to place and I've got my stuff in a few suitcases in a backpack but as I'm bouncing from place to place I'm losing stuff and one of the things that he had was when he was a kid he had this Bible that his mother had given him and on the inside cover she had written a love letter to him on the inside cover of the Bible well somewhere along the way he loses this Bible then it always happens to the money runs out the next day the girlfriends go away and now you've got a crack habit in your on the street year year and a half later a guy hires him and another guy to go clean out an apartment building that he had bought and he's going to refurbish and rent out and so two floors they're cleaning the mount cooks on the bottom floor and other guys on the second floor and cook goes up to check on him and he said there's a little pile of stuff in the corner now this is a hundred miles from Atlanta year and a half later 100 miles from Atlanta he's going and he said what's that stuff in the corner he said well this stuff I found that might be worth some cook cities over there rooting through looking at and there's a little pile of books covered in dirt he reaches down and he pulls a book out of the pile and he opens it up and there's the love letter from his mother his Bible it's his Bible year and a half later one hundred miles away so you put it in a movie people would say that's not believable and he said he literally collapsed to the floor and started sobbing in he's like okay if God's chasing me this hard Wow I'm gonna quit running Wayne cook has been sober for a decade and has taken more guys off the street down at the Atlanta mission than anybody in Atlanta [Applause] Jesse told me that when you start a new group or there's new guys coming into the group you oftentimes start with Luke 15 and you start with the story of the prodigal son and you know the setting is Jesus has Pharisees and religious leaders on one side and tax collectors and sinners on the other and neither of them understand what God is like and so he tells these three little parables these three little stories that they're gonna be in the story of the prodigal son but there's also an older brother and so you told me that's where that's in terms of introducing them to this is the gospel and the significance of what's about to happen that's where you start why why that story and what's the connection between that in that group I think it's the greatest piece of literature ever written and it's you know you open your novel and it's this auric but it's you know the story of one son that says hey I want my inheritance which in that culture meant I wish you were dead you're not dying fast enough so it says to your dad I wish you were dead I don't want my money and you know goes out and squanders it on all the things that the world says your cool things women and booze and whatever and in you know ends up feeding somebody's pigs and wishing he could eat what they were eating he's like alright I'll swallow my pride and go back home to dad in that part of the story that I love is it says while he was still a long ways away his father saw him so his father wasn't that's that's an active thing that's not a passive thing he's searching the hilltops waiting on this kid that said I wish you were dead you know they reunite puts on the ring the robe this in the sandals meaning you're not a servant you're your family and the son that had stayed in that had done everything right gets mad cuz you know the the father had said let's kill the fatted calf and have a celebration because of my son that was dead is now alive you know you know who hated to see the Sun come home the most I would guess the brother but no the fatted calf Oh I shouldn't have like oh now it's you're gonna use that down the road though I guarantee you no I'm just not gonna answer that come on so but I think it's it's just such a great analogy because it's called the prodigal son but it's not really about the son that went away is not even about the son that stays and gets mad because they're having a party it's about the love of the father I mean the whole story's about that and that's who God is you can't be bad enough to make him quit loving you and you can't be good enough to make him love you more and I think sometimes especially within the organized church we become that son that stayed and we're like I'm gonna do everything right and you'll love me more and it's like no it's not possible I don't love you anymore then I love the guy that's smoking crack under the bridge I love you all the same and that's that's what makes him so cool man is we don't love that way he loves that way did the guys resist that story is that kind of an eye-opening moment let's take a while for that to say you know most people that live in addiction got damaged early on some type of abuse might have been sexual abuse physical abuse emotional abuse so it's hard you know to feel like you're loved that way and I think for a lot of people the idea of father father's not necessarily a good word to a lot of people you know especially when you've had a father that's left you or abused you or or whatever so there's a transition there but but this is why these Bible studies are important because once and and what I did is everything my earthly father could not give me it was like gods like okay you want a daddy that just loves you a daddy that doesn't leave a daddy that's here a daddy that encourages you that I'm gonna end so I just let God be my daddy you know and there were nights when maybe a days to this day when I get frustrated I'm like dad can i just climb up in your lap you rub my head for a little bit and so you know I've freed my dad cuz my dad's dad left early my dad's dad went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back and so I'm like oh well that's why my dad was that way so I free my dad up from that and I love my daddy passed away in 1999 but he's freed up from that and so once you understand how I am loved and I'm not you know cuz that's what we all have in common is a comedian all I'm thinking about is what do we have in common that's that's what I look for comedy in well one thing we all have in common everybody wants to be significant everybody wants to be worth something and and at the cross God said you're not worth something you're worth everything you're worth everything to me I'm gonna give up my perfect son for you if you were the only person on the planet I'm gonna do this for you I love you this much and so in addiction if you can ever get that hurt to heal you can get restored and it doesn't happen in every case but it happens over and over and over again down there guys that weren't the hopeless heroin addicts that are out there making a difference you know got their own place got marriages in so we're all damaged every one of us is jacked up in some way and I think the thing that just thrills God's heart is to see broken things restore how because God doesn't start something go all that didn't work out I'm gonna give up on that he's like now if you'll trust me I'll make this right you told me a story once where because you know there's they're homeless and they all have a story but they get accustomed to people doing things for them they come to the mission and they're fed they come to the mission they can get into a program so you decided you were gonna try to teach them this this particular group you've been with for a while you had good relationships to be generous so you decide you're gonna give them some money to can you tell that story is that too awkward no no it's not - all right so how many people have been wronged about something okay I've been wrong about it's funny when I look back at my life most of the things that are they argued vehemently for or against 30 years ago I totally changed my mind so did the mission has a wonderful thing it's called being in the program and if you agree to get cleaned if you'll get sober they'll put you up for a year they'll feed you every day they'll put you up for a year but we're gonna go through you know emotional healing spiritual healing job attainment you know all kinds if they have to be in a small group with the Foxworth it yeah well but it's like we want to restore we don't want to just keep taking care of you because you're homeless we want you not to be homeless and so after about a year of doing the program Jim Reese who quit his job as CEO of a fortune 100 company to run the Atlanta mission just an amazing story in itself I said to Jim I said Jim they need to bless somebody because we're providing every meal we're providing the beds we're providing the towels in the soap they need to bless somebody and I said I want to give them all at Christmas a hundred bucks it's like oh no I don't want people in the street buying Greg no don't give him 100 bucks it's so and and I just you know I kept praying over this and I said I'm telling you it's it's gonna be okay I just feel like God's telling me it's gonna be okay so we ended up on 50 bucks and so by this time the twelve had grown into you know 250 guys on Tuesday morning and so when did the banking get crisp $50 bills and at the end of the thing we gave every guy in the program a $50 bill and guys are jumping up going I can get a bus ticket I can go home for Christmas I can buy my kids presents somebody that were nine five and and so excited and I said to them I said okay that's your money you do it whatever you want to but three blocks away there's a school that caught on fire last month and it burned up all of their stuff and I said so they're really struggling without notebooks and paper and pencils and things like that I said I was just down at Children's Healthcare last week and they told me that over the Christmas holidays there will be three kids their own Christmas Day and it's the coldest winter in a hundred years in Atlanta and there's people sleeping in her cardboard so whatever you guys collectively want to donate into this basket in the middle of the room we as group leaders have pledged to match you dollar for dollar you know the 15 group leaders will match you 250 guys dollar for dollar and we'll go buy notebook paper and we'll go buy hats and gloves and we'll go back to toys for kids 250 homeless addicts got up and went and put their $50 bill in the bucket every man in the room and then they started digging through their pockets and pulling out five-dollar bills in $10 bills and then they went back to their room and they got their change and started dumping it in there and at that point I got a and walk around the corner and and set against the wall and soft like I have not sobbed as an adult in my life because I'm like me I feel good about myself when I sit there and write a cheque for somebody but I never gave every dime I had to somebody else and so being wrong about somebody when you look at somebody out on the street and you think oh they're just a bum or they're just a drug addict or they it's like no they're a person and they've got a heart maybe bigger than yours and that they're willing to give everything they've got to help somebody ow well we're yeah and that powerful [Applause] so we're challenging folks at all of our Atlanta area churches all nine churches around the city to step out of their comfort zone answer a call and do something uncomfortable and we've asked people to go to a website you you were here and and some did and some won't and some will and they'll get too busy and I love the fact that your first invitation you had that phone number and you set it on your dresser and you shuffle the ground and moved it around and it sat there and sat there and then finally and so what would you say because our churches are full of busy people raising kids grandkids we're going to work and our hearts are good you were generous and our hearts we're just not all about generous on our calendars sometimes so you know our card churches are yours well what do you say to us busy people about these opportunities yeah I tell my kids that you're not really alive until you have a few hold your nose and jump moments just hold your like when I quit IBM to be in a comedian that was a hold your nose and jump first year I did 406 shows made $8,300 and how many shows 406 so and I know you're going there's only 365 days in a year but that's like two shows Friday 3 7 or whatever if you wait until you have the free time to go love on somebody else you're never gonna do it just say yes just so yes I I will commit to go do this and and what I found happened to me I was wrong about what the world sells you as being a full life I find with my life my life is the best when I'm not the most important thing in it and everybody in here has somebody in their life an aunt a grandfather or grandmother or whatever that you look at and you go man that's the kind of life I want to leave I guarantee you whoever you're thinking about when I say that was not a self focused person they were another because I've never known anybody that was self focused that was happy and so when Jesus said I used to contemplate that what does that mean when he said you'll have life to the full it's not what the world tells you it's not hey what can I get for me I found that what I found down there too no you know because when you serve somewhere like that you're probably thinking wool you know you come away with that with the idea of oh I'm so appreciative over what I have and they don't have and that's not the case at all they the case for me is oh I know somebody's story and we have much more in common then then we're different and we're both loved the same way by this crazy guy that just covers us in a waterfall full of grace so the full is the relationship that I have with these guys that I never would have had if I hadn't just said yes and I wouldn't trade it for anything I love these guys they've made my life so much better I sit there you would pay money to listen to them pray so they're not like this in them not being accusatory but sometimes on Sunday we act like we got it all going on you know and when we do we're just pretending we don't have it all going on so it's sometimes it's refreshing for a guy to go hey I stole my grandmother's life savings to buy crack and you're like well the cross covers that too we can deal with that so but if you write a check you're you're gonna have a positive influence on somebody's life and that's great but if you serve you're not only gonna have a positive influence on somebody's life you're probably going to have a real positive influence on your own life and it just makes it richer and fuller and yeah and once you've tasted purpose you don't you can't be happy with just existing anymore Wow well Jeff thank you for what you do thanks for coming today can we give a warm ocean camp thanks to Jeff Foxworthy fain thanks y'all god bless you [Applause] [Music] well how great was that hey I want to just take five more minutes of your time and then we're all gonna get out of here but for those of you that are watching online please don't turn it off give us five more minutes I promise you we you'll never get them back but it will be worth it I think I love his line I can't stop thinking about the line that my life just works best when someone else is most important when it's not me that's most important and part of what we want for you and I promise you I know you for some of you some of it we don't know each other and you're wondering like okay what's the sell what are you gonna you know honestly we do not want this because we're in desperate need and oh no if it doesn't happen we don't know what's gonna happen no it genuinely is for you 100% of this we believe is what is in your best interest in my best interest that life just works best when you take the spotlight off yourself and put it on someone else it might be the very thing that is standing between you where you are right now and the life that you want or the life that you hope for is through serving someone else and so we want to make that as easy as possible for you and we feel like we have we feel like we've done all that we know to do to make it as easy as possible or our goal really is that 100% of you would participate in this every one of you that are watching online today that are watching this later in the week everybody in the east everybody in the West our goal is 100 percent participation in this so here's what I'd love for you to do I'd love for you to get out your cell phone if you would and when I said this earlier today no one did it so if you could really do it at the very least it would make me feel less depressed about my life if you would just get out your phone maybe it'll help the person down the road maybe you don't text and so you're like I'm not gonna do this but maybe it'll the peer pressure will cause somebody else to do this we've tried to make it as easy as possible and if you would text five to the number five five five eight eight eight five five five eight eight eight text the word NP serv NP serv so in the number portion you just put in five five five eight eight eight and then write the word MP serve no spaces NP serve caps doesn't really matter so what we're going to do is you're gonna get a response back I've already tried this and I already got in the response and you're gonna get a link to our website be rich dot org forward slash served it's gonna take you directly to all of the service opportunities that we have vetted our team has spent hours and hours and hours vetting 3,000 projects for our church here in Alpharetta the North Fulton community right here South Forsyth everybody around us we've got 3,000 projects and what you'll do is if you click the link and go to that website what you're gonna see is you're gonna see a great filter where you can click do I want a group option or do I want a family-friendly option we've got both of those if you're serving just you by yourself you can click either one of those and you can look through what those are they're all just filters and you can filter through weekday or weekend morning afternoon evening our greatest need is probably with the star house an organization that does some after-school stuff with kids and if you're interested in helping us in the afternoon that's probably gonna be the ones that will fill up well we'll have maybe the most difficult time filling up but as you scroll down you'll see let's see what do we let's take that provide a Thanksgiving meal from home stretch if you'll click on that you click the plus it tells you more what more details about the project and you can do this by yourself you could do it with your group you can do it with a few friends but it tells you exactly what you need to do and then you click to register and you can claim that you can claim that service opportunity now some of you are gonna think of something or you're gonna have an idea ours are our focus is with at-risk kids with homelessness and with near homelessness those are the three things we really focus on but for those of you that care about something else you've got a passion in your community we would love for it for you to still serve with them but just log your hours so we've got a button that says log your hours and the reason why we're doing that we're not trying to get anything we're not trying to get a grant or win anything like that we just want to be able to celebrate all that happens through be rich so no matter what you do we would love for you to log the hours you can create your own you can figure out something that you can do a way to serve a local organization in our community and that would be fantastic now here's the question that I always ask is I always think well does this work we don't really know if this works or not that's not really why we do this but we do think this works I think it's a great plan to be able to help people in the community but we saw we saw some results in action on Friday and honestly I wish you were there to be able to see this but you weren't some of you might have been on Friday at the Georgia World Congress Center Fulton County School System had their legacy of excellence banquet they award the best teacher for their entire school district I'm it's 14,000 employees hundreds of thousands of students one of the largest school districts around we got nominated as a as a partner as an exemplary partner by Elkins Point middle school and by Amana Academy both of them nominated North Point Community Church which is fantastic there were dozens and dozens of organizations that were nominated at the very end of the banquet they said hey we want to name the 2017 most prestigious partner award from Fulton County school system and the drumroll happened and then they said North Point Community Church the 2017 most prestigious partner for all of Fulton County Schools we were stunned we were floored and it was not us thanks Kevin here's the award I wish it was like this big massive trophy but that wouldn't be great dollars spent probably but this is lovely it's fantastic we're gonna pass this around to you you're gonna be able to keep it in your home for a day because this is not for us this is for you this is what you have done this is because of the way that you have mentored kids and packed boxes and served at schools and served in organizations with people that you'll never meet we think that it is making a huge difference in our community and this was just one little push on the wheel and so I honestly just wanted to tell you thank you thank you for how you've served in the past and I hope that you'll serve this year in the same way because we believe that it's worth it at the very least it might be the very thing that God uses to unlock joy in your life to unlock maybe the the less depression stress anxiety over your own stuff is by serving someone else and so we hope that you'll take advantage of this I'm telling you I think this is the easiest this is the easiest opportunity for you to serve that you'll ever find we have tried to make it so easy for you because we believe it's worth it and we hope that you'll take advantage of this we want everyone to serve one hour with one of our community partners that's what we want at the very least log your hours if you're gonna do it yourself that's fantastic as well hey it's gonna be so fun to get to celebrate these results together thank you so much for being here next week we're gonna talk about how to love our community you're not gonna want to miss it because Bob golf is gonna be here and it's gonna be a whole lot of fun if nothing else it will be a whole lot of fun have a great great Sunday we've got some of our partners out in the atrium in our lobby we'd love for you to say hello to them have a great Sunday we'll see you on social media if not we'll see you back here next week for part three of be rich Thanks

Channel: North Point Community Church

Views: 197,694

Keywords: North Point Community Church, North Point, NorthPoint, North Point Atlanta, Andy Stanley, AndyStanley, Andy Stanley church, Andy Stanley message, Andy Stanley sermons, North Point church, NPCC, North Point youtube, Andy Stanley YouTube, jeff foxworthy

Id: UZiHJ5wWkvU

Length: 45min 43sec (2743 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 13 2017