So you mentioned yesterday in your talks about the works of this presbytery, you mentioned, or there was mention made of preaching points. Can you distinguish and define what a preaching point is over against the other categories? I'd be glad to. We haven't done that in a long time. I don't think any of our preaching points ever made it to mission work status. But that's not to say that they couldn't. But we've had situations before where there was opportunity in a place, but the group of people, and we've changed the nomenclature from core group to seed group. I think seed group is better. I'm the one that made that suggestion and the General Assembly Committee has taken up that suggestion as well. But where the seed group is small and initially really not showing much sign of growing, we're not quite ready to designate it a mission word. We don't have a mother church that's close by that can give oversight in a smaller time. And yet there's opportunity. to see if we can gather through worship and preaching. And so what we would do is it would be more than just a Bible study, we would actually have worship services. And we did that in a number of places, probably early to midway in the life of the Presbyterian of the Southeast. But like I said, I can't recall a single one that began there that was able to make it to mission status. That's not to say that we won't have that situation again and the committee might decide to do that. Part of the reason there is if there's a group that's seeking to grow, Sometimes, in some places, people aren't as comfortable coming to a more informal Bible study, but they'll come where they can slip in to a service and hear preaching. Plus, we want to model what worship would look like. if this were to become a mission to work and ultimately become a congregation. Because people can come to a Bible study, and we're studying the Bible together, but have all kinds of different views about what a worship service looks like. And so we've modeled that in preaching points. So that's really the difference. It's sort of a step from Bible study, but before it's denoted as a mission work, either by a congregation or by the presbytery, when it's in that stage in the assessment of the Home Missions Committee. Okay, Dan. Yes, his name is Dominic Silla and I love Dom. He's an interesting man. He's married, they're young in their marriage, and their baby is due any moment now. I think maybe next week, their first child. And he's from the Presbytery of Philadelphia. He studied at Westminster Seminary, and Lane Tipton's actually one of his closest friends. But he's just a real, down to earth. And let me tell you a little bit about his coming to Neon, because Neon is a different place than where most OPC churches are. And I've often said, we need Neon more than Neon needs us. It's easy for us to go to places where education levels are high, where people are interested in things substantive. But God has his people in places that are very different. And neon's about as, in some ways, typically Appalachia as you can find. And we liked Dom, the search committee did, as we were looking through MIF forms, which are ministerial information forms that ministers or potential ministers send out. And some of our members listened to his preaching, and they really liked his preaching. We reached out to him, and he and Martha prayed about it. They were interested. But we didn't just say, OK, and then interview him and say, why don't you and your wife come in Canada? Because we wanted them to get a taste of what life would be like in neon before it's formal. a formal candidacy. And so we brought them in for a weekend and he preached, he's licensed to preach, he preached and then had some interaction with the congregation and they just fell in love with the congregation. The congregation did with them. And so then we gave them a little time and said, are you interested in coming and candidating? And he had an opportunity. In the PCA, there was a church that wanted an answer about him coming to be an assistant pastor in a PCA church. They would have been closer to family, all kinds of reasons. Their hearts were with the OPC, but also with NEON. So there's been a delay, no reason to go into details there, but there's been a delay. I talked to him actually on the way here Friday. I had a really nice conversation with Dom, but I'm excited about that. The other one to pray for in that regard is Devin Gay. who has been called by the Mechanicsville Church, Knox Church in Mechanicsville, Virginia, the Richmond area, for the West Creek, which is in West Richmond at Short Pomp. And we have a similar delay there. Great guy. I think he's going to do incredibly well. He's a godly man, and his wife's even better. His wife's retired military. But she's quite a lady and a tremendous help to Devon. And the congregation there adores them. And so be in prayer for these men as they continue preparation towards, we hope, coming to Presbytery in April. And if the Lord opens all those doors that happens, then unless somebody leaves somewhere, we'll have a man in every mission work that's never happened. And I'm kind of looking forward to it, at least for a season. Okay, Jeremy. You mentioned a couple of times the, Satan being at work to disrupt the churches. You've mentioned Satan's work to disrupt the churches. Are there Are there common themes that you see disrupting the church and particularly missions, the mission churches? I see it in the same kinds of things in churches too, but division in the church is the big one that Satan always employs. And what he'll do sometimes is he'll lay low, especially in the early stages of mission work, everybody's all excited. and he'll wait until a time of vulnerability. And oftentimes divisions are over fairly substantive matters. People don't realize what's more important is your reconciliation with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Even if you're depraved, even if you don't get everything, this is your brother and your sister in Christ. But yeah, and another thing too, And I could have developed a talk on this because I did. And I did it as a Sunday school class first in Yorktown. The next week I preached it as a sermon in Bluffton. And then I did it as a, I spoke at the Rechecks Conference, which is coming up in a little over a week. We do it every year. I've mentioned that conference with the RHMs, because we had so many new RHMs, and I was the old guy. So they asked me to speak. They gave me a topic, and I gave five minutes of lip service to it. I told them that. I didn't tell them before I got there. And they said, would you talk about this? I said, sure. But then in between, there was something that was on my heart. And so I said, I'm going to give five minutes lip service to what John and Al asked me to do. And then I'm going to tell you what's on my heart. And it centers around, really, this whole issue of core group, seed group. because we used to call the initial group a core group. If rightly understand, that's fine. You have a core of people that are committed up front. But when that lingers and when the church begins to grow and new people come in, people that were there and who sweat and sacrificed and bled for this work up front, they wanted to still, well, we're still the core group. So when there are differences of opinion about should we do this, should we do that, they think, well, what we think should be what we do. And it came out in a meeting where we had, in a mission work, we had some difficulties and one lady spoke up in an informational meeting and says, I think the session needs to sit down with the core families and talk to us. I didn't say over my dead body, but I thought it. And that's where the Bible study came from. Because here's the issue and this is true in a church too. We are called to die. We're called to die to ourselves to die to sin and to live to Christ Jesus as individual believers every day. We're called to die. And when people start a church. Oftentimes, they sacrifice greatly, even unto what you would call death in these ways. I remember one mission work years ago where a man did not put a roof on his house, that he needed a roof in order to be able to continue to finance the mission work. I mean, he made that kind of sacrifice. And a year after the organizing pastor was there, he was gone. He was gone. And one of the things I've said is that sometimes we've got to die every day. We die, we sacrifice and commit so much up front, but then we think that earns us something and it doesn't. You know, the laborers that were hired at the 11th hour got paid the same thing as those that were hired in the beginning. That's economics in the kingdom of God. It's not in the world. The kingdom of God is not like the kingdoms of this world. And we're all to die. And it comes time when those who have sweat the most and given the most need to be prepared to die. And I would say this, to yield unless it's principle where you can't. But sometimes in the OPC and in reform circles, we tend to think everybody, everything's elevated to the place of a principle that I have to die on. That's a problem that we have. Now, yes, there are certain things that we have to die, we have to, there are certain things we cannot compromise, we recognize that. But what you find in our circles is people are serious and have convictions. And sometimes they elevate every conviction they have to a place of that which is non-negotiable and are not listening to each other or to the Lord. And so that's what I've been, and so the last several church plants we've started, the first Bible study I've done has been on that Bible study. And when I'm done, they're stunned. I said, I'm just telling you, you gotta die. You gotta die every day. You gotta sometimes die to your ideas, your visions, what you want, what you thought for the sake of Christ and his church. It's important because when people don't, divisions will come and that's where Satan gets foothold. Can happen in an organized congregation, also happens in mission works a lot. They have a lot of competition. I heard on the radio this morning that they had churches. I can't hear. I say we may have a lot of competition. This morning on the radio I heard that there was a church with a money-back guarantee. Oh really? A money-back guarantee? I haven't heard that one. My question is, I do have a question. Do you keep any kind of statistics or things on what draws people into the Reformed church? To keep statistics? No, I don't think so. And here's the thing about it. They come from all kinds of different places. The Lord uses all kinds of different people or preachers or books to initiate them. Sometimes, people come from broad evangelicalism, because they hear John MacArthur preach a sermon. They say, we haven't heard anything quite like this. So they start listening to John MacArthur, and then they say, well, his buddies, R.C. Sproul, and then they start reading R.C.' 's books. And R.C., for some of them, helps them to get from Reformed Baptist to Presbyterian. And that's sort of a pathway. Now let me say this about celebrity preachers, and I appreciate both John MacArthur, even though I don't agree with him on some things, I do on most things. I appreciate his boldness to stand for truth no matter what, and I incredibly appreciate R.C. R.C. was probably the most the best communicator of the Reformed faith to the evangelical church of the last 50 years or 60 years. And he knew how to get the word out there. He's just that engaging, that good a communicator. But it can be a problem. Celebrity preachers, and he was a, I'm not saying he sought celebrity. He was looked at as a celebrity preacher. And we had a situation, one of our mission works, where we were teaching on worship, and a lady that had been a member of R.C.' 's church in Florida, well if R.C. and I said, R.C.' 's great, but he's not always right. He's not always right. He's a man just like others are men. And she actually took another lady down to see the church and the stained glass window that was in the church there to come back. We'll see how beautiful that was. And our pastor and our session doesn't think we should have stained glass windows with pictures of Jesus in them. Because they don't think R.C. could make a mistake. It's just like everybody else. He just was an incredibly gifted communicator. And I would agree with R.C. probably 90% of the time. But there are areas of worship, areas regarding Sabbath, especially in apologetics. He and I were on different pages. But it doesn't mean I don't respect him and didn't love him and use his materials to propagate the Reformed faith. But people need to learn to trust the elders and the minister that God gives to them and not, well, R.C. trumps it. But when he's right, that's good. But he wasn't always right. I mean, he's a presuppositionalist now, because I guarantee you Van Til's convinced him, or Dr. Vonson. I was at the original debate between Vonson and R.C. Sproul. In 1977, I think, at Reform Theological Seminary, I was a student there when R.C. came on campus and he and Dr. Bonson debated. And that's an incredible debate. It's really on apologetic methodology. And with the Bonson Project, and now it's called the Bonson Institute, I think, they've made available some of those things. And that's, if you're interested in apologetics, that's, in my apologetics class, they have to listen to that debate, and then I critique the debate and show where Bonson won. But yeah, and the thing is, but I appreciate his notoriety and exposure has introduced so much truth to so many people. But he can make a mistake. I was at the college one time and one of the men, one of my students had a study Bible, a MacArthur study Bible. And I embarrassed him in front of the entire class. And I meant it, because he got MacArthur to autograph his study Bible. I said, what? MacArthur didn't write the Bible? If he wants to autograph one of the books that he wrote, but what? You wanted him to autograph your Bible? This is a mere man. He's a great preacher in God's church, but this is a mere man. I see another guy and he's trying to hide behind that one because he had a Reformation Study Bible that R.C. signed for him. So I let him have it too in front of the whole class. They didn't write the Bible. Let him autograph the holiness of God or something. That's perfectly fine. Or charismatic chaos or something like that with MacArthur. But not the Bible. You have a mere man autographing the Bible? And they did it. That's what God did. I hope that I didn't somehow say something that indicated that I thought this. No, no, not at all. Yeah. But the Lord uses crooked sticks. I mean, he's used me and I'm about as crooked a stick as you can find. But he does. But it can be problematic, especially when you're small and people have come to embrace the reformed faith. the celebrity preacher kind of thing can be problematic. And I don't want to turn Dr. Morales into that. I just appreciate him so much, but we have, and he's a very humble man, but we have to be careful with that. And this is one thing that's important for mission works, and to teach them upfront, these are the elders that God has given to you. Are they gonna always be right? No. But these are the elders that God has given to you. They love Christ, they love you, and you are to submit to the elders that God has given to you for the sake of the gospel. And people say, yeah, yeah, we're Presbyterians, until they disagree, and then they're as congregational as they can be sometimes. Yeah. Jim didn't have any trouble finding horror stories to tell me when we sat in the car for four or five hours that day trying to talk me out of becoming a regional missionary. And I can tell some too, but the blessings far outweigh the struggles. But division in the church is the biggest by far. Now some of the attacks now are due to cultural influences that are taking place in ways that I've not seen ever before. And that I think are very, very dangerous. Satan is not hiding anymore. He thinks he has an upper hand in our culture and he's going after churches that are faithful to the scripture through people that hate Christ and hate his church. And we have to love them. We're called to. But we have to stand for the truth. That's a good question. Okay, Dan, were you gonna? I was gonna stand up and thank you for, on behalf of the session and the congregation, for taking the time out of your schedule, which we understand is a busy one, to come and speak to us, to bring God's word to us. And may the Lord go with you, and please be assured that Our prayers have been and will continue to be with you. I appreciate that, Dan. Dan and I go way back before PSE served on the committee for years together, several years with him as my boss. He was the committee chair. And I appreciate this congregation. Hadn't been here for a long time, but was here quite a bit, several times in the early days. Thank you for the invitation. It was a joy for me to come and be with you. And by the way, And he said that I was his boss. I always corrected him, because he knows better. It was the committee that was, in a sense, his boss. But Lacey Andrews is like a freight train. And when he's moving forward with an idea, it is hard to stop a train and just try to keep him on the rails. They had to reel me in more than once, these two guys. Thank you, thank you.