Barre EFC – Learning from Our History
Hebrews 10:32-36
(shared with the BEFC congregation June 2003)
During my Sabbatical, I took 3 days alone just to review our 22 year history as a church. I grabbed 5 boxes worth of “stuff” and headed down to Camp Spofford, not knowing what to expect. Because of a weekend retreat coming in, I had arranged for the last 5 hours to be spent at the EFCA church down in Spofford. In my usual “good timing”, I had walked in on a funeral for a longtime older Christian in the town – but that is a story for another time. After the crowd thinned out, Tom, the associate Pastor asked me what I was going to do. I told him that my last task of reviewing our history was to go through all the sermons I had preached in the last 22 years at the church. There was a pause, you could see the wheels of his mind really spinning and a puzzled look came on his face, “why would you do that?” It wasn’t meant as a mean, cynical, or questioning comment – he just couldn’t see what value could come from it. I answered “I have no idea what I will find, but I know I will discover something very significant.” Because there is not a time that I diligently look into the past of history, where I do not come up with a much clearer view of the present or a much more confident knowledge of where we need to go.
Within 30 minutes of reviewing my past sermons I had little tears in my eyes – I couldn’t go on. Because God confirmed for me a truth about this church that is so, so very special. The very first sermon preached was entitled “Who Does God Use” and it was from I Cor 1:26-31. You may remember that during our 20th anniversary celebration 2 years ago, I preached part of our second sermon, but could not share the first sermon since we don’t have my notes from it – only the outline. “Who Does God Use?” “not worldly wise, not culturally influential, not financially well off or of a status family, but foolish in the eyes of the world, weak in the perception of those around, lowly, despised, yes even ‘nothings’ in the eyes of people around” – that is who God uses! And my challenge was that God loves to use ORDINARY people to do EXTRAORDINARY things.
Although it had taken 22 years to do so, God opened my eyes to see that He has done that fully in regards to this local church – the Barre Evangelical Free Church. We are not the wisest, nor the largest, nor the wealthiest, nor the most connected church. In fact we are in a city of declining population, we are in a tiny insignificant state (unless you really like maple syrup!) and we are associated with a tiny denomination most in our area have never heard of. Newspaper, magazines, TV & radio stations do not beat down our doors trying to get interviews with us. Yet God has allowed us to experience such incredible miracles such as being given this downtown building, being able to launch the donation of 60,000 pair of brand new shoes & boots, being a major part of standing up for God’s institution of marriage statewide, being able to reclaim over 40,000 pair of socks for people in the former Soviet Union and our latest is having a foundation give money for our youth pastor where we didn’t request it – the leaders of another denomination did. We have a leader of a nondenominational mission organization who uses us as an example to churches he speaks to across the country, we are no longer “unknown” in our area, our story has been shared with churches across the former Soviet Union and while I was away on Sabbatical one person in a church said, “You’re from Barre, VT – I hear God is doing a lot in that area. This little, insignificant church has experienced the power of God and the provision of God and the love of God and what it means to join God in His work. Now I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet – in fact I work for a non-profit (play on words) organization – but in almost a prophetic way, God moved to have the very first topic preached on, one that He would abundantly fulfill in the life of this church. That is our destiny together!
All of us want to be significant; however we may define that term. Individually, we can seek significance through our own efforts – usually seen through fame, fortune or power. But in the end less than 1% will achieve any kind of human significance by this definition. The other 99% will be left behind. There is another path that God opens to us and that is to be part of a living, life-changing movement. What is amazing to me is that we do not have to go out and discover what that life- changing movement is – we don’t have to wait until such a living movement happens. When we look at our history, God has already clearly shown that He is at work here and we just need to join Him in the work. It doesn’t matter whether we teach Sunday School or help out once every 6 weeks in nursery or Children’s Church; it doesn’t matter whether we clean the church or lead a ministry. It doesn’t matter whether the tithe we give is little or big. It doesn’t matter whether our service here is known or more hidden – IF WE ARE PUTTING TIME, EFFORT OR FINANCES INTO THE WORK OF THIS CHURCH, WE ARE SHARING IN THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GOD’S WORK THROUGH THIS CHURCH. This is no ordinary church, even though we are very ordinary.
PROPOSITION: God has called us (uniquely) together for this time and place, to make an eternal difference by joining Him in His work and giving Him the glory before others!
I. The power of reviewing the past Hebrews 10:32-36
I want to show you in the Bible, the importance God puts on reviewing the past as a powerful tool in living right in the future. Then I want to share some observations from my 3 day in-depth look at our last 22 years so that we all experience some of that power to go the right way in the days ahead
A. Godly values are clear
The people whom the book of Hebrews was writing to were struggling with some areas in their lives. Some of the congregation no longer took worship services seriously and were sporadic in attendance. Others were engaging in major sin and giving excuses, putting others on the defensive if they should challenge it. Still others were struggling with their conscience. A number were discouraged by what was happening in their lives. Some were upset with God for letting negative things happen to them. Plus they just didn’t seem as excited for the Lord, as bold in witness nor as radical in positive holy living as they use to be. And this is just the clues from Hebrews chapter 10. Amazingly God didn’t ask them to start a renewal ministry, He didn’t want them to make a committee or pressure the church leaders to do something. In fact God didn’t even ask them to pray about the situation, although I’m sure He also wanted that. Instead, in v 32, God told them to remember. That was what would be most important. God wanted them to stop and genuinely look at their history from the perspective of faith!.
And what they would have seen was that those in their church, the Hebrew Christians, were very dynamic as new believers. In v 32, it says that they stood strong in the midst of suffering. READ. Instead of getting mad at God because everything wasn’t going easy in their lives now or instead of saying “why me Lord?” they use to view suffering as a challenge – a great contest. They pictured their equivalent of football, basketball, baseball or maybe even golf. They looked at how they could be victorious instead of ‘why was this happening.” That is quite a positive challenge isn’t it? This week when things didn’t go well at school or work, wouldn’t it have made a huge difference if you viewed it as being down 21-7 in football – but you had the ball. A little more love, a little more patience, a little more faith, all in the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit and you’d be closer to winning. Or what if the car broke down, the checkbook ran out of money or your nice clothes got messed up? Did you see it as a time for spiritual action towards victory? Probably not, but the Hebrew Christians did. Or when some physical problem came to you – did you affirm in your mind that if you don’t give up and keep loving God, then you win. They had forgotten In v 33, they were publicly insulted and mistreated, yet they did not start to hide their faith to protect themselves. In fact they started to deliberately stand up with others who were being mistreated. They showed incredible boldness in a hostile environment. In v 34, they lived in a very countercultural way – instead of thinking God should give them a nice house, good paying job and peaceful neighbors, they joyfully accepted the confiscation of the very goods they did have. They did not let hedonism, materialism or self-centeredness rule their lives. And they felt the applause of God rather than the approval of people. And when they slowed down to look back into their history, those godly values became clear again. And God’s faithfulness became clearer.
B. Godly values are rewarded
And it also became motivating. In v 35, the writer of this letter reminds the believers that they will be richly reward for living by Godly values. Interestingly, God says that what they are actually losing is confidence – the confidence of faith. Mistreatment, sickness, opposition, ridicule usually makes us unsettled and afraid – anything but confident. Yet the reason that Christians throughout the centuries have victoriously persevered through all kinds of problems IS BECAUSE God gives us confidence as part of truly becoming Christians. NOT confidence in ourselves and not an earthly kind of confidence, but a confidence in God Himself which emboldens. We all want that kind of confidence, yet it doesn’t come from seminars or motivational speakers, or positive thinking which we will all hear from commencement speakers this season. It comes by letting go of ourself and so focusing on God that we know He will richly reward all that happens. As v 36 says, we need to simply persevere.
There are lots of ways God could have challenged the Hebrew Christians to renew their faith in Him, be again excited about the future and find strength to live more victoriously today. But the way God chose to make this most clear to them, is to look BACK and review their history. The sabbatical you so graciously gave me, allowed me to look back in a greater detail than I have ever done before. Here are some lessons I’ve seen and I share these to encourage each of you.
C. By looking back they could more confidently & faithfully move forward
II. Lessons from our past
A. God has called us (together) uniquely for this time and place
Unlike many other churches, we do not yet have people attending who grew up their whole life in the church. Every family here has chosen to be here. As His body, God has gathered us together uniquely to impact this place at this time. The Bible tells us that the local church is God’s visible hands and feet in a particular area. That means we have been uniquely called together for this time and place. But with more than 30,000 people directly around us all of whom will go to hell for eternity if they do not surrender their lives to Jesus as Savior and Lord, is there really any evidence God has called us together uniquely for His work in Central Vermont?
When we started as a church 22 years ago we focused on Barre city as there were no churches in the city itself holding strongly to the Bible as the complete, total Word of God (that is the inerrant, plenary, verbal Divine inspiration of the whole Bible) and other evangelical beliefs (we later found there were at least 2 less visible ones). In 1981 we had 11-15 people total. By 1984 we had climbed to around 30-40 people. While we were moving forward as an individual church, we were so tiny that any kind of objective evaluation would have to conclude that we really weren’t that important for what God needed to do to reach the 30,000 people in the area. It looked like we were the kid on the football team that got in to reallly play only when victory was secure or defeat was certain. (fortunately, like the recipients of the Book of Hebrews we did not look at our situation “objectively – but through the eyes of faith we believed God could use us to reach some in the area).
Then in 1983 or 1984 some of the pastors in the area gathered together to bring out John Wesley White – an associate evangelist with the Billy Graham Association. 33 churches were involved and a number of those pastors did not believe in the full authority of the Bible or that Jesus Christ was the only way to heaven. The pastor of the Methodist church would later be convicted of sexually molesting young boys in the next town he served and the pastor of the 1st Baptist Church believed that having teens play ping-pong and pool at the auditorium was just as good as winning them to the Lord and discipling them in the Bible. So you can see why I am so excited about the changes in these two churches and the pastors who are now there! As a church of only 30-40 people, totally unknown in the community and without even enough income to support a pastor – how could we ever do anything special for God? We couldn’t because God doesn’t need people to do things FOR HIM – He is not lazy, weak or unknowing. What we could do was to join God in his work. So we did. Every single member of the Barre Evangelical Free Church went to the special counselor training for the crusade. Even though we were the smallest church of the 33 participating, we provided the largest number of people at the counselor training – almost 20% of counselors according to our records. We also ended up being one of the top 5 or 6 churches in term of financial giving. No one, from the outside, could have foreseen that God could use the church with the least people to spiritually counsel the most people. Nor do we specifically know how God could use us in the next couple years, but you can be confident that as long as we continue to serve Him, He will use us uniquely for His great work.
B. It is better to join God in His work, then to do ministries for God
Once we see God powerfully work in our midst, we are tempted to try to duplicate that by our own human efforts. In every church there are many ideas of what ministries we should be doing “for God,” when in reality those ministries are “for us”. As we “remember” our history as a church, one of the clear messages is that it is better to join God in what He is doing, then for us to come up with and try to do ministries for God – as if He somehow NEEDED someone to serve Him. And God has been very patient with me personally in giving me years to see the difference – but it is clear in our history.
In 1989, we became one of the smallest churches of our day to “mother”, that is to start, another church. 27 adults and kids out of our 90 were sent from this church to start another EFCA church in Northfield. (By the way they have just called a new pastor from what I understand – he is currently living in California and he is a friend of Leisa Laybourne’s brother). If everything had gone according to plan, we would have started to grow again and in 6 months regained most of those people and been able to continue on with doing all our ministries for God. Things didn’t go according to plan. We lost more families at that time, we didn’t have enough money coming in to pay the bills and there was a huge amount of discouragement because we didn’t have enough people to serve God.
As what happens everytime things aren’t going well, people began to tell the leaders all the things they weren’t doing right and what they needed to change. One of the strongest statements was that the reason we weren’t growing was that we were not praying specifically enough. Back in 1986 we had prayed specifically for 10 singles or families, and God had added that exactly. We needed to do this prayer ministry for God so we could again do ministries for God. So in the late fall of 1989 we started to pray together for God to add 6 singles or families to the church in the next 6 months. At the end of 6 months we not only didn’t have any new people in the church and were in deeper money problems, but we hadn’t had any visitors from the area. We kept praying for a couple more months with absolutely no results. What “worked” as a ministry “for God” before wasn’t “working” this time. And on July 31st in my study I cried out to God, “Lord how is anyone going to believe in prayer if You don’t answer them.” The first Sunday of August 1990 we had visitors from the area for the first time in ages. And we had new area visitors EVERY Sunday until Christmas. 13 singles or families were added to the church. Our financial, emotional, grumbling and ministry personnel problems were gone. We moved to a new level of effectiveness as a church we have not retreated from since. And I remember distinctly as I wrote the “Highlights and Lowlights” for that year – it was as if God were saying to me, “Neal which would you rather have – 6 families in your timing or 13 in Mine.” In terms I am using today – Neal which would you rather have – the lesser results that come from doing ministry FOR ME or the greater results that come from JOINING ME in the work I am already planning to do. It’s is not a question which leads to greater long term significance, joy and growth. And it has had a significant impact on how I lead. I am not against dreaming about what God can do in our area – but if we start focusing on primarily WHAT we can do FOR GOD, then we will get upset at the people around us in the church who won’t help us in that task. And instead of helping the overall work of God, we will actually hinder it through personal attacks, bad attitudes, gossip, bitterness and totally unnecessarily discouragement. We are fortunate to be in a church where God has so clearly showed us we can trust Him in His timing! Amen and Amen.
C. We’ve always been part of something “bigger”
As we learned in our doctrinal study on the church this year in adult Sunday School – God never speaks about the local church “as a part of” (or a subset of) the universal church. He would refer to this local church as “the church of God”, “the bride of Christ”, the “House of God”, just as He uses those same words to refer to the Universal Church. This is hard for American Christians to understand, because God puts a higher value on the local church than our culture. But it also means that whenever we, personally, are part of a local church, we are simultaneously part of something bigger – something that doesn’t have a humanly visible organization. What is amazing, is that from the very beginning of our history as a church, we have acted in a way that demonstrated we were part of something bigger.
In Nov of 1982, we had grown to about 30 people, not even enough to be a self-supporting church – yet at our first missions conference we brought in 3 different missionaries: Hank Griffith from Congo, in Africa with the EFCA; John Hutchinson from Irian Jaya, with Wycliffe Bible Translators; and Dave & Cheryl Ann Reynolds from Egypt with Operation Mobilization. We didn’t have enough people to reach Barre VT and we were already focused on wanting to join God in reaching the whole world. And God has honored that missions emphasis of ours.
In the state we initiated a number of joint church activities. In the summer of ’83, we had a joint softball game with the Presbyterian church from Graniteville as the pastor was an evangelical and we wanted to encourage them. The next pastor would be antagonistic to Bible-believers and we haven’t seen much dynamic spiritual life there since. In the fall of ’83, we started a joint football afternoon with the other VT Free churches – again to encourage the men of our churches. In Spring of ’84 we were one of the strong voices encouraging the formation of a new district in the EFCA that would focus JUST on reaching New England even though we were small and weak in numbers. In winter ’85 we started to get together with the other VT EFC’s on a Sunday afternoon at Camp Singing Hills to encourage families of different churches that we are part of a bigger movement. Later that year in Nov of 1985 we would have a joint Sunday worship service with another church – what was unusual, was the other church was 1 1/2 hours away! We had a joint worship service with the Newport EFC. During this time we encouraged the new church plant efforts in Wilder, Newport, Bristol, Spofford NH, Northfield, Richmond and Morrisville. And that continues today in different ways as we bring pastors together for monthly prayers, sponsor the National Day of Prayer for the area churches, are involved in the area parachurch ministries and are known outside this county as a church that gets involved outside itself. You serve in this local church and you automatically are a part of something bigger.
D. We’ve always been “on the move” and never jus “playing church”
It is absolutely amazing to read through our 22 years of history and realize that we have never “stood still” in regard to ministry in the church. It’s never been just doing the minimum for church. Every year some major advancements have been seen. I couldn’t write them all down. There is a management proverb that says “you’ll do less in one year than you think, but more in 5 years if you persist.” (actually that exact wording is mine). At any one moment we can think up far more things we should be doing this year than could ever possibly be done. So we could just focus on what isn’t done and be discouraged. Or we could stop worrying about that and simply serve the Lord in the humility and stand back amazed at how God multiplies our little actions. Listen to the articles written about our church during the mid-1990’s.
- Leadership Magazine features our church in the “Ideas that work” section for our UnSale
- The Chapel Newsletter – a huge church in Ohio that was sponsoring the 50 Day Adventure that a million participated in – article of downscaling & multiplying resources through UnSale
- Times Argus – our local paper had a large article and picture in an article entitled “Barre Evangelical Free Church: A Vision Come to Fruition”.
- Evangelical Beacon – in the District News section – “Mending Socks for God’s Glory” regarding our Belarus work
- Times Argus – featured in an article on the effect of the bad economy on helping the hurting
- Evangelical Beacon – in the evangelism section – “Too many coincidences” about use of the evangelistic “Pursuit” magazine
- Evangelical Beacon – in the missions section – “How God is using a congregation of 70 (adults)” regarding our India work
- Evangelical Beacon – in the Seminary section – “Truth Conquers” regarding how we used a work the seminary did on “Intelligent Design” to dispute naturalistic evolution
This is absolutely amazing. There are 1300 churches in the Evangelical Free Church; a majority of which were larger than us at the time. At the most 8-10 mentioned in any magazine, yet we were mentioned again and again during an 18 month period -- not just in one area of ministry – but many different areas of ministry. What God was doing here stood out. Believe me, God is doing far more than we think or imagine here as we serve TOGETHER. In heaven, what we personally did will be dwarfed by what God did through this seemingly insignificant church of which all of us are a part. You and I do not need to “find” or “make” our significance – we just need to join God in His work and He has already shown an incredible willingness to use Barre EFC .
E. We never know when God will use one of our little actions in a big way.
(we have received A LOT of thank you notes – more than I thought!)
Listen to these words from a May 25, 1999 letter to the church
Dear Neal & BEFC
Thank you for everything you have done for me. As a Christian who just recently turned to Christ I needed a good place to get a foundation on what church should be like and what to look for in a pastor. I think that what you provided is an awesome place for me to start. I could never say thank you enough for something that many think is trivial. I hope to return to VT some day and to see all the progress that has been made.
(he mentions some other things and comments on the tapes of the Bible we sent with him) … I didn’t get through them like you had planned but I am still listening to them and they were a great asset driving the 2300 miles from VT to TX. I started my day off with the Word of God speaking to me in more than one way. It was great!
Tell everyone thank you and that you all at the BEFC is [sic] in my prayers. Take care, be safe and God bless.
OK, participation time – raise your hand if you remember what the author of this letter LOOKED LIKE – his name is 2 Lt John Louch – one of the Norwich guys, in fact really the first one to come over. I don’t remember what his face looks like, yet God used this church in unexpected ways. We can NOT plan significance – we can only serve and let God multiply our feeble efforts. (By the way we have received A LOT of thank you notes than I remembered and I didn’t save them all)
G. Many things we later saw God’s hand in, we had tried unsuccessfully at an earlier time
I was amazed at the number of times we had tried something 5-10-15 years earlier with only limited results or even failures and then when we tackled it at a later time we saw incredible blessings from God. One quick example. I found a letter I wrote in 1991 to the Day’s Foundation (I forgot I had done that) -- asking for one-time financial help. It was probably 10 pages total length (don’t worry I had an executive type summary at the beginning). I had obviously spent a lot of time on it and it was visionary. If I were a foundation I surely would have wanted to help. We were in a time of great growth about a year and a half after planting the Northfield church. We were helping the Richmond church plant, helping the initiation of the only Youth for Christ chapter in New England and with many new people from our prayers I mentioned early that really stretched beyond our means. We were still financially strapped but knew soon those new Christians would be giving so we weren’t a situation that would yearly ask for money. RESULT? We didn’t even get a reply that I could find. Now 13 years later, Terry Dorsett of the Southern Baptists does the work and we get more than we asked for from the very same group. This happened again and again! We did a missions emphasis I forgot about on India in the ‘80’s that went no where – now our India work is multiplying throughout the whole district. Between 1987-1995 we sent out a half dozen teams to find land or a building with every door shut. Then we were GIVEN this one. In the early ‘90’s we tried to have a youth group but because of YFC competition, it failed. Right now I think we have the largest teen youth group in town. I’m convinced we never have to worry about a particular ministry not working. Those weren’t failures – they were just preparing us for the real thing when God worked and we joined Him.
H. No major advance happened without opposition
In thinking about history, it is easy to either magnify the problems or forget them. What became very clear when I read through the NT again this past 6 weeks and as I studied VT church history from 1760 to 1840 is that no major advance in ministry happened without opposition. It’s been true here, although many in the congregation may not have known about some of them. I read a heart wrenching multi-page letter from one of our ministry leaders where in complete brokenness she shared how she knew she could do better in some areas, but had done the best she could in an event only to have people complain about something which they, themselves had been unwilling to help do. One of the key reasons I knew I had to get away on this sabbatical, or I would be tempted to look elsewhere, was the amount of flack I had received – and in talking with other pastors, this is a really good church. Sometimes that opposition is simply that people are at different places spiritually, sometimes it simply comes from the nature of leading (everyone doesn’t automatically agree to go a particular way or leaders aren’t needed), sometimes it is because people are more focused on themselves or their family than God, sometimes it is simply a balance issue (the balance between faith and being a good steward with what we have) – there are many reasons, but we must all realize that no major advances happen in ministry where there isn’t opposition – otherwise we will slow down what God is doing for the un-realistic goal that everyone will agree. Or we will get discouraged when one person complains when God is cheering us on in heaven for a job well done. If we all want to live a significant life in light of eternity – we have to expect rough seas. It is simply the cost of following Christ to a fullness of life.
III The conclusions?
Five simple conclusions with a stress on the final one.
A. Always be actively involved in a local church
Ultimately, we have the greatest chance for significance simply by being an active part of God’s ordained church, then we ever do trying to do it all on our own. It’s not about us, its about God.
B. Get excited about the victories and stop obsessing about defeats
We’ve now been a church long enough that even our defeats are turned to victories in the years ahead. Let’s stop wasting our time on the bad and get back to real excitement and joy in the Lord in the victories
C. Let God deal with opposition
If there is always opposition, let God deal with it – He’s a big boy and plenty capable
D. Sacrifice when you see God at work
Athletes try to give their best effort in the big games. When you see God at work – it is the big game – God is going to move forward with or without me. But the more I sacrifice to join God in His work (when He is really working and not just some hype from a Christian fund raiser), the greater I get to share in the victory – and that will go on for eternity. I honestly believe God has now demonstrated to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is at work among the teens of Central Vermont. I told the pastors on Thursday that our goal is nothing less than (outside of parents) that greatest influence on the teens of this area will become the Bible-believing churches. That hasn’t happened here in over 100 years. If you really want to be a part of that, sacrifice when you see an opening.
E. Regularly give God the glory
People we are not the best church in the area – even though I’ve hyped us up today. Other churches are better in Bible Studies, kid’s ministries, evangelism, compassion, church planting, visitation and even loving one another than we are. So I seriously asked myself during my 6 weeks – why are we so fortunate to have seen God’s Hand so clearly, so many times and in such special ways – probably more than the other churches. Certainly it wasn’t because we did everything better. I came up with only one answer. We get real excited and give God the glory when we see His work, when He answers our prayers, when He works in people’s lives and when He speaks to us in the Bible. In short, we tell people around us some of the stories of our history. As of last year, one fellow here still regularly told people the miracle of how we received this building for $1 as evidence that God is real. I tell innumerable people these stories – so much so that the head of our seminary and a national ministry leader and a mega-church pastor and a pastor from Boston (that’s 4 different people) all ask when they see me – what has God done special in Barre EFC lately I’m ready for my yearly encouragement. Nothing is more important in the Universe than that the creatures of God, who have free will and the ability to understand, turn and glorify God. That is where God is moving history. So if God can find a person, more importantly, if God can find a local church – who is willing to truly recognize His powerful work and give public witness to His greatness – then He will do more and more things through that church. We are one of those churches. We can hinder this process by taking credit for this for ourselves and think we are doing church better than others. We can hinder this process by complaining that we should be doing other ministries than what God is miraculously working in. We can hinder this process by trying to make God’s work more predictable through human planning. We can hinder this process by failing to step out in faith, or by focusing on our own needs or by lack of generousity. But we can never hinder it by being less than the best. We can never hinder it by being less than perfect. We can never hinder it by having some opposition. We can never hinder it by having some problems. It will never be hindered because some churches are better at prayer, better at evangelism, better at mission, better at Bible Study, better at creativity, better at any ministry… Because God loves to work through those that are less
So we are an ordinary church, but God has used us in extraordinary ways. Don’t hesitate to tell others because that brings Glory to God and puts us right where God can use us – for eternal significance.