Hey, welcome back to Dwell on These Things. Today, I got to have a discussion with Derek Evans, the new co-director of the middle school ministry here at Dwell Community Church. Derek shares about how he came to Christ here at Dwell, but also his passion and drive for wanting to reach the lost, specifically middle school students. It was interesting hearing his vision and long-term picture of what the middle school ministry could become and how God has developed his burden for reaching middle school students. And so, I hope you enjoy this episode of Dwell on These Things with Derek Evans. Well, I appreciate you coming in, Derek. Welcome to Dwell on These Things, a podcast at Dwell Community Church. I'm David, here with Derek Evans, new fresh middle school director alongside Brad DeFault. So, Derek, thanks for coming on. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Really grateful. Feels like kind of a homecoming for me. I've been involved in this church for past 16 years and always wanted to work here. Never knew if I would. So, there's a part of me that feels like I'm coming home. Yeah. 16 years ago, did you come to Christ in this church? I sure did. Okay. Through the high school ministry. Nice. Shout out Walker, Texas Ranger High School group. Oh, throwback. Yeah, throwback for sure. Yeah. So, I went to Centennial High School, go Stars. And a guy on my wrestling team by the name of Graham Curtis. So, Craig and Mary, a lot of people know them. Their son, he was just a real good friend to me, talked to me about the gospel. And I eventually went out to his home church. Were you receptive? Not initially, no. So, I grew up in a non-Christian home and very naturalistic, very do what feels best, what have you. So, there's obvious logical consequences to that. And I was a pretty just honestly depressed guy. I had a really hard time in adolescence. It's part of my burden for doing middle school. It was such a dark time for me. And I really wished that I'd known Christ then. So, I was in high school. Guy on my wrestling team, Graham Curtis, he's good to me, invites me out to church. And I was very expletive in my disinterest, let's just say that. But eventually, just his friendship, and I met some people and they were very cool. So, I ended up going out to that high school group and I was blown away at the quality of the Bible teaching. I'd never really been in church before. And I had this impression in my mind that church was sit down, stand up, sit down, stand up, wear a suit, sing a song you don't know. Talk to people you don't want to talk to. But I went to home church and I go, these people are cool. And there's a discussion, I can contribute. I'm not even a Christian. And they're going to ask me, okay, yeah, I'll speak up. I became kind of a yapper, unfortunately, but it is what it is. And then I started going to South CT. And I was blown away. This is back when Conrad was teaching South CT every week. I was blown away at the quality of the Bible teaching as well as personally, his story coming to Christ was a big deal for me. And it helped me work through some of the, I just had emotional barriers. I felt like I was too far gone for God. And so, he actually shared his testimony at CT and it blew me away. So, not too long after that, I received Christ for myself. What year was that? January 1st, 2010. So, it's easy for me to keep track of my spiritual birthday. Yeah, right on the decade. Yeah, every new year is a glass of champagne for Jesus. Nice. And yeah, I'm really grateful. So, yeah, I came to Christ in high school, man. And I stuck around for college, went to Ohio State, joined the college group, had a fantastic experience. I'm still in the college group. My wife, Morgan and I, we help lead a Heisman Home Church. I'm having a great time doing that. That's cool. And this is not your first time on staff. It isn't. So, I used to be a barista. Oh, I didn't know that. At 4th Street. Yeah, I was a barista. Dan Brannigan and I always joke about that because he was my manager. Oh. And we're now in challenge group together and hang out and our kids hang out. And he goes, yeah, you were a little overqualified for that job. And I go, well, I'll let you say that, Dan. Yeah, right. So, I did that. I also worked as the South CT sound and light guy. Oh, yeah. Which did not have much to do with sound and light. I was mainly the kids affectionately referred to me as a bouncer back then. Oh, yeah. So, I don't know if you were you in South CT back then? I was in South CT and you were the guy who if anyone was talking at all during any point of the teaching, you full voice would tell them to be quiet. Oh, yeah. Which proved very effective over time. Hey, man, look, God knew what he was doing. It was a fun gig. I learned a lot. And, you know, some people have told me in a different life, I should have been a sheriff's deputy. Oh, yeah. So, you know, I tried to take that job very seriously. It's funny you mentioned that. My first week on the job, there were a flurry of emails. Who's this guy? Why is he telling kids to wake up? Because there were kids who would sleep. They would sleep at CT. And thankfully, I think it was Brett and Josh Benham both got on there and went. Yeah, that's his job, buddy. You took it at run. Yeah. Oh, I was a little like, oh, no, am I overdoing it? You know, I don't want to be distracting. But I think that I was doing what I was supposed to do. That's funny. I really enjoy that job. It's funny. I run into guys and girls every once in a while who will go. Yeah, I remember this one time you kicked this kid out. And I was so I was so scared, you know, just like, oh, yeah, struck the fear of God into trying, trying, you know. So it's funny bringing that into I've started going to middle school CT since I've been a job. Are you teaching it yet? So I my first middle school CT teaching next week. Okay. Yeah. Teaching on Genesis 15. Nice. Abraham's faith. I'm really excited about that. I feel a little rusty. So my old job at Youth for Christ, I was teaching the word every week to, you know, big audiences at the schools. And sure, I've been out of practice. So I had my first like big teaching this morning. Actually, I was at Fellowship of Christian Athletes up at Sells Middle School in Dublin. And they had asked me to come and do a teaching. And so I mainly just shared my testimony. I did a teaching on the Psalms. But it was cool to kind of get back in the saddle teaching middle school kids again. It's just been a minute. Yeah. And that group is well attended. There's about 70 kids there this morning packed into a just for those studies. Yeah. Just sells middle school. That one is popping. It's it was a really cool experience. It was encouraging to see that many kids getting there before school to learn about God. Yeah. And I'm hoping some of them will end up going out to Pennsylvania or Dublin middle school group. Because they're out there and the Danhausens, Clint and Stephanie, they're awesome. They help lead that FCA as well. Yeah. Okay. It's interesting. I feel like I'm seeing this more and more of people in our fellowship getting to take part in other organizations, whether that's Youth for Christ or FCA or whatever. It's good. Yeah. It's exciting. What gives you an opportunity to do outreach that otherwise you might not be able to? Sure. Like when I was working at Youth for Christ. So I was a sports coach. I coached football, wrestling and track and field, which was a hoot. I loved it. And then what happened is because I was doing that, I was able I had the authority relationally. Sure. To be in the school. And then we would do a Bible study at the school that was pretty sizable. And so getting involved in some of these parachurch organizations, it gives you that benefit where you can get in the schools and there's not as much stigma about parachurch as there is about church organizations. Sure. Yeah. That makes sense. Well, I mean, sorry, I'm taking a beat for a second. That's all right. I mean, it sounds like you're, whether it's leading middle school group, trying to find yourself in a middle school home church, coaching middle school football, you mentioned earlier that there's something you have a heart for this age demographic. I'm curious where you felt like that came from. Was it always that way because you were involved in a high school group? Yeah, certainly not. What's funny is when Quest's job initially got posted, well, back when it was not Quest's job, I guess I don't know who it was previous to him. Someone told me I should apply for the middle school director job. That would have been like Yeah, a long time ago. And at the time I was working at the Harambee school and I went, yeah, right. I don't want to hang out with middle school kids. Are you kidding me? High school ministry. That's what I want to do. I don't want to work with middle school. And I really, I just completely dismissed it. And yeah, it really is. And what's interesting is that when I started at Youth for Christ in 2020, my goal was just to work with high school kids. So we had felt like the leading from God was to be in Dublin. And I was going, yeah, I'm going to get involved in high schools and everything. And then every door kept closing except middle school. Like what? What do you mean? Sorry. Did you have like specific? I'm curious if you. Oh, yeah. Well, I would try to get involved. Yeah. Sorry. My bad. I try to involve the high school. It wasn't really open doors, active disinterest. And then I met this guy, Ryan Walton, and he's not in our fellowship. I actually figure out what church he goes to, but he was a teacher at Emerald Campus. He's friends with sweet, Scott Sweet, Scott Sweet. I think Scott introduced me to him. I can't remember, but they work together. And so Ryan was a teacher, but he was discouraged because he felt like his faith had nothing to do with his job. And he was like, if I can help you get involved, I'd love to. And so it was kind of a throwaway meeting, honestly, like I wasn't sure what would come out of it. I was, I was discouraged at the time because we hadn't, we weren't getting any progress and we're hanging out with a bunch of Hilliard middle school kids. It wasn't going well. And it was funny. He sends me an email the next week, Dublin Davis middle school needs a football coach. Do you think you'd be interested? And I go, Oh, coaching football. I don't know. You know, like play football. I played football in high school for the Owen Tenniel stars. That's what we were called. We were famous. We actually got on ESPN because we lost our homecoming game 103 to zero against Beechcroft high school. It got so bad that they couldn't keep the numbers on the scoreboard. Yeah. Cause there's only two digits. Yeah. Yeah. It was atrocious. So, you know, was that, was that during like middle of the third quarter running clock starts, there was running clock at halftime. That's brutal at halftime. And so, you know, part of me reading the email had almost like a PTSD reaction remembering high school football, but I go, look, you know, I've been asking God to open the door and here's a door. Yeah. So who am I not to take it? And that was actually the start of this really awesome journey where I got involved at Davis middle school. And that became kind of our home base for a lot of our ministry there. We started a club there and that was before school. Many kids came to Christ through that club. Football coaching introduced me to a whole network of just men and women that I never would have been connected with who were kind of door doorkeepers who would help, help me get into places. Our athletic director was a man of faith. He actually wrote me a really cool recommendation for this job, but he was very pleased that I was there, you know, trying to help kids understand the gospel. And so it ended up being a really cool opportunity just on one, one, what I thought was a throwaway meeting and one job posting that I didn't want. And so God works that way sometimes. And so that's where a lot of my experience from middle school comes was, you know, we worked with hundreds of kids over the past six years, helping them understand the gospel, many of whom received Christ. And so when this job was posted initially with Quest intending to go to Raleigh, I was intrigued because I went, Oh, I could do this, but do this for my church. I'm going to, I'm going to, can we go back to sometimes, I don't know if they want Raleigh on the podcast, but you could say go to do domestic missions. Absolutely. With Quest going to do domestic missions, that was his plan. Someone floated the job my way. They said, Hey, you know, maybe you should do this middle school gig. And I thought, yeah, this is a good idea to be able to do a middle school group, but on kind of our turf. And it's a ministry that, like I said prior, like I never was involved in this as a volunteer, but it's something I was heard about. I had always had guys in home church or, you know, guys I would meet with for discipleship who would be involved. And so kind of, you know, full circle, the homecoming aspect was, yeah, being on staff for a gig like this is pretty exciting. Yeah, that's good. Well, I know that hanging out with middle schoolers could grow your burden, but it also could not. Yeah. Oh yeah. So I'm curious, what about this age demographic really stuck with you? Felt like you could have an impact. Yeah, totally. It's funny. You know, initially again, like I was so used to high school kids that the idea of hanging out middle school, I kind of rolled my eyes. Okay. All right. Here we go. Sure. But what's interesting to me about middle school kids is they don't take themselves too seriously where you're hanging out with a pretty funny, most of them, some of them not. But, you know, they'll ask you genuine questions, right. About life, about faith. And yeah, they're not taking themselves too seriously, not trying to impress you. I never really felt like middle school kids were trying to impress me. They might be showing off. Sure. And they're doing that for maybe the girls or who cares, but I never got the sense that the kids were man pleasing. It's kind of a mixture of what Jesus talks about where he's like, you need to, you need to come to me like little children. There's that kind of faith aspect of, I don't want to say innocence, but kind of, I'm not putting up a front, but there's a little bit more maturity than maybe elementary school kids. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. And so what's interesting about that is that there's a great risk to misuse that. And so part of my burden as leading middle school kids is I want to steward this responsibility with great care. I want to teach these kids the word. I want to help them understand the gospel personally and then how they can bring the gospel to their friends. It's the most important thing we can do in life, you know, and yeah, it's a great responsibility to steward that. We don't want to waste that opportunity, if that makes sense, where they're at these really receptive years of life and to not urge them to do what Christ wants us to do. This was the case probably 10, 15 years ago, but in America, the most spiritually receptive demographic, most people coming to Christ was middle schoolers. Is that still the case? Yeah. Then the numbers seem to indicate that. We've seen a lot of kids come to Christ in the middle school ministry. Like I said, I'm new to it, so I'm more just looking at the past numbers, but there's a lot of kids who are coming to Christ. And you know, you and I both are in the college, man, and we meet people all the time. So yeah, I came around to the middle school cell group and accepted Christ, got involved in high school group. I remember for my years, I did high school ministry for eight years. And every year during the freshman transition, I'd meet all these really quality kids who, you know, some of them are kids that grew up in the church, which is awesome. You know, we don't want to discount that. That's cool. But also many were kids who had received Christ in middle school ministry who are now looking to start the next step in high school group. It's really cool. I'm curious. Do you feel like you have stories or testimonies over the past couple of months of just like really receptive students? I feel like this could be a good place to input some of that of like, you're saying that like, um, this is the case where if you have stories. Yeah. So I just got involved with the jam ministry on Sundays. Okay. So that's, um, it's during adult CT. And so the middle school kids, they go to building X. I'm the building X. There's one at fourth street as well. I I've not visited that one yet, but, um, so up at, up at building X, we're just hanging out. And so it's a bunch of kids. TNT is also there. So that can, that can get kind of hectic. All the kids were sprinting around and there's eight footballs flying through the air. But I met this kid there, Josh, and we had this great conversation. You know, he was a little ornery during the teaching. I had to take his phone away. Cause he was just on his phone, but we had this great gospel conversation. And, uh, I was really pleased with the questions he asked. He was asking about, you know, yeah. Accepting Christ. What does that mean? It turns out from his cell group leader that following week he received Christ. And I was shocked because part of me kind of assumed he was saved just talking to him because he was so spiritually receptive and so interested. And again, this was my first day at the ministry. So I don't know who's who, you know, like I'm meeting these kids and going, Hey, you know, uh, what do you think about God? And they're like, it's like Brian Runk's son. It's like, Oh, all right. So you've heard about God before. Sure. Uh, so it was just so cool to see that happen in one week. I got a lot, I don't know. I got a lot of joy out of that. Seeing that kid come to the Lord, um, and shout out to dog pound. That's a group that he's awesome. Uh, and yeah, just hearing these kids talk about their friends too. So again, at GM, I get to experience a broader range of students, but in a smaller setting, about like 20 kids. And so I'm sitting with these kids and I'm talking about people they're inviting or people that they're trying to invest in their cell group. And they have people that they are really invested in praying for, trying to reach out to. And it's just impressive from a middle school level to have that level of maturity with kids. They care about their friends. Yeah. So that's really blown me away and it's gotten me fired up to think about the trajectory of this ministry of helping kids, not just come through the door and then maybe make it to high school group, but come through the door, grow as a leader. It's not going to be everybody, but it's going to be, it's gotta be some of them. And then go into high school and ready to, uh, ready to serve and step into new roles. Yeah. I mean, you're, you're talking about the spiritual receptivity of a lot of these students. I'm curious whether it's on the football team or whether it's in this position, what parts of the gospel do you feel like really hit home for middle schoolers? What do you guys try to drum on in your teachings? Yeah. There's, there's an aspect of friendship with God, that God is real and that he wants to, he wants to be your friend. He wants to know you in a personal way. There's another aspect that's interesting I've seen over the years, which is kids being concerned that God won't accept them. And it's not even out of a concern about their own sin or morals. Many students I've talked to, they go, oh yeah, they're not concerned about, I've done too much wrong. Rather, it's almost that God would be disinterested in me. And that, that really brought me great sadness, to be honest. And so for some of those guys, it's, God is incredibly interested in you. You think about Revelation 3.20, he's standing at the door and he's knocking. And you think about the William Holman Hunt Light of the World painting, look that up on your phone. He's, Jesus is knocking at the door and there's no handle on the outside. But he's knocking. Yeah. You gotta let him in so he can dine with you and you and him, right? That's good. And so helping those guys understand that. One instance that sticks out in my mind was a kid in Dublin who he was really upset because he had had a, like his house had gotten flooded. And they're like a upper middle-class family, pretty well-to-do. He was really troubled that a lot of their things were destroyed and they couldn't live in their house for a week. And he's crying. He goes, why would God ever let this happen to me? And so, you know, part of you as the adult, you roll your eyes, you go, you have insurance, your parents are probably fine. I talked with his dad. His dad was like, yeah, great. I got a new set of golf clubs, you know? But he was really troubled. I think he felt like it was maybe just, it was an invasion of his peace. It totally rocked his world. And so I hit him with the passage where in James where it talks about every good gift comes from above. So you're focused on what you've lost, but what about focusing on what you have? And you could have this in Christ. He had not received Christ yet. And so we're sitting there, you know, outside of this middle school, staring at a football field and he's crying and I'm just trying to, you know, help him out. And something about that got him, where he went and he received Christ because he realized, I have so many great things in my life. How could I not praise God? And so those are a couple of experiences I've seen with kids. Largely, they just got to hear it. Because receptivity is there. They got to hear the gospel and they got to have someone who cares about them enough to pray for them and to just help them to answer questions, to laugh with them, cry with them. You know, that's been my experience, at least, especially with middle school kids. That's great. I mean, the gospel is going to be relevant to all age groups at all times. Just different parts of it are going to come out. I even feel like in the past 10 to 15 years, some of that stuff has changed. I feel like my experience when I was in middle school, being from, you know, maybe a similar background as some of those kids on the football team, there's a feeling of everyone is vying for your attention and time and there's a lot of opportunity and a lot of barriers to following Christ or loving Christ is that I have other opportunities to go and do other things. So it's interesting that you're saying that for a lot of these students, that's not the feeling. The feeling is I do not have anyone who's interested in me. Why would a God as big as he is want anything to do with my time or my resources or my life and my heart? So that's interesting. Yeah. Well, and the reality is there are so many things vying for your attention when you're a kid in the suburbs, but you're avoiding the attention of God in many ways. I was talking with an older guy who I became friends with, and he was bringing his grandson out to our Youth for Christ group trying to help him receive Christ. And he was red in the face. He was so angry. He goes, these clubs, sports, they have them on Sunday mornings. It's a disgrace. You know, they should be ashamed of themselves. That's the Lord's day. And it was just interesting to hear his perspective where, I'm like, look, we can do church any day you want. But the prioritization. And so it's real that there's all these things vying for your attention, but at the end of the day, who's going to be there with you forever? It's the Lord. And what's going to make your path straight? It's following God. Psalm 119 is a teaching that we would do, a lot of the students, where it talks about having a clear path in life. And a lot of it has to do with loving God's word, listening to God, dedicating yourself to God. And so if we can teach kids not only to receive Christ, but also to really shape their path based on what God wants for them, you're going to be living a godly life. And ultimately, if you think about Psalm 37, 4, delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart. Delighting ourselves in God, it's emotional, but it's also decision-based. If I delight in God, I'm going to do what God wants me to do. And then what happens is you see your life, when you shape your life around following God, he meets us there, and he meets those needs that you never would have thought you had. Yeah, that's cool. It seems like as we're talking, you and your brain have a positive trajectory in your mind for how students can change, God's love can transform them. You mentioned earlier, you have that vision as well for the ministry as a whole. So I'm curious, the positive trajectory that you had mentioned earlier, what's the vision that you have for where the ministry could go in the next three to five years? And I was curious if you have any scripture you meditate on as you think big picture about middle school ministry. Yeah, it's hard not to think about the Great Commission, Matthew 28, right? We talk about that all the time here, the will to make disciples of all nations. So thinking about the middle school ministry, we're trying to, in some ways, move into new parts of town where we've been in the past and maybe haven't had a presence. So we're working on launching a new middle school home church in Worthington. So I'd invite, you know, our listeners here to pray for that and something we're really excited about. But from a philosophical standpoint, we're trying to help students understand that they're going to be at their best spiritually, emotionally, and everything when they're serving and loving other people. So part of that involves inviting guests, but also, you know, being known in your cell group. Like, are you relationally involved? Do you talk to people? Are you asking other people questions and trying to get into their worlds? So that's a big deal. I think that's what makes healthy groups that then, you know, become multiplying as well as for some of these students getting involved in things that they don't do already. Why not go try a sport and try to meet people? Why not do a club? Why not go to that neighbor that you've never spoken to? You know, maybe you have some anxiety. Go knock on their door. It's not a big deal. They're probably lonely too. So we're thinking about stuff like that for the future, but largely the things we're trying to focus on is good discipleship. So our leaders, meeting with kids, and in middle school it's called mentoring, not discipleship. It's really not that different, except maybe some of the long-term trajectory of it. Like you might mentor a kid in middle school, but not necessarily be alongside them as they grow up and become a, hopefully, a home church leader one day, right? But good mentoring, we're hoping, will help yield the kind of, just the kind of groups that grow and change and are winning kids of Christ. That's good. That's three. It's good stuff. I feel like we've hit on most of the stuff I wanted to hit on. I want to ask kind of like a solicit for prayer, things you're like, I'd like to talk about this. I mean, I'm enjoying this. This is cool. Yeah. Kind of like ad-libbing a little bit. Yeah, totally. Talking through stuff. Yeah. I guess I could talk a little bit about kind of my passion for what I would like this ministry to become. Yeah. Is that, you know, Isaac Newton said that I can only see so far because I stand on the shoulders of giants, right? So people have done fantastic work in this ministry, and I don't want to come in here and go, cool, let's just make it everything I want it to be. But at the same time, we want things to grow and be what God wants them to be. So something that we're really excited about is to try and help kids and leaders think about how they can reach their peers, but also thinking about parents, how they can reach peers for Christ through their children. So you think about, you know, your son or daughter brings a friend out to the cell group and the kid receives Christ. How fantastic is that? But on top of that, you could meet that family and help that family come to know Christ too. And so that's something that we're really trying to think big picture, not just about the middle school ministry, but also how does this affect our adult ministry? How can we help people in the adult ministry not only, you know, develop kind of outreaching contacts, but even a passion too of, yeah, we're an outreaching family. We do outreach together. And I'm hopeful that that's something that we can really sink our claws into. And, you know, I hear about it happening already, which excites me. And I want this to be a ministry too, where we're teaching the word faithfully, but also that people are building awesome relationships. I hear about that happening all the time, but that kids come out of middle school and not just, oh, it was so fun. We want it to be fun. Don't get me wrong. We want it to be relational, you know, them to come out. I love for kids to go into high school and have real friendships from middle school that live on. And that's part of my experience not being in the church that was sad for me is that I had buddies in middle school and then we didn't really stay connected over the years. I tried to circle back later once I came to Christ and reach out to them, but, you know, the relationship had kind of moved on. But that's something that I'm hoping for. I've also just really appreciated working with Brad DeFault and Jackie Peruki. I mean, they're awesome. They've really just been super welcoming to me, helping me get on board. I've only been here, I think, like a month and a half. And, you know, I ask questions and they're super helpful, help me get on board with things, you know, even just relationally, they're very warm, asking me a lot of questions, helping me get like real involved in their lives too. So that's been a real like breath of fresh air where I came on kind of nervous, you know, people are going to like me kind of thing. And so it's been really cool working in the middle school office where I feel like we're already really unified and developing awesome friendships. That's cool. That's good. It's great. You're having a good transition in. Are there things that people could be praying for you personally or the middle school ministry ways that people can help even if they're not going to be serving in a middle school group per se? Yeah. Yeah. So I think one thing is we're trying to shape and develop our middle school ethos, middle school CT ethos rather. And so we're looking to hire a couple of different staffers to work on Tuesdays to help us lead the ethos, lead activities. We're replacing a couple of people who are joining a domestic church plant. They're great. And so we're trying to hire some people in the next couple of months. So if people could pray for that process, that'd be awesome. And we're also looking to recruit some volunteers to help also with activities and games, almost like specials, if that makes sense, like a blowout special, but at CT. And we're going to see how it goes. Yeah. What's the vision? The vision is that there are people who basically are Tuesday-only volunteers. They show up, they run three-on-three basketball, they run volleyball, they run the board game room. They, you know, XYZ thing, right? Your CT's at Calumet right now? No, it's at the warehouse. And so that actually, the idea is that it takes some of the load off the adult leaders, because many of our middle school leaders are parents. And so they're coming in on Tuesdays, they're bringing their kids, but some of them have home church or cell group. We don't want them to miss for that, right? But at the same time, we have kids who need to be led. And so the idea of getting some of these volunteers is that it's a well-led event, that we have a team that the focus is making this really fun and awesome for the students. High engagement activities, it's just fun stuff. Is the goal like larger scale, bigger group activities, or being able to separate it off? Because it's just so different than a high school or a college CT, where most times it's, I hang out with my home church or maybe some other select people and then I leave. Oh yeah. College CT, man, I'm cracking up on a beer, watching Thursday night football. Yeah, that's great. You're not doing that on a Tuesday. I'd be fired if I did it on a Tuesday. Yeah, hopefully not, right? So yeah, the idea is kind of both. Like we have big games. It's just interesting. You know, if you think about, oh, you want to come to CT or you want to come try and win a gift card in a rock, paper, scissors tournament on Tuesday night, and there's a Bible teaching. You know, like the idea is that the activities are a draw, but also that it builds the engagement and the buzz for the students themselves, that they feel like they're a part of something that's really fun and engaging. Yes, that's something that people can pray for. Pray for me to find the right fit, the right group for me to join. You know, I have some ideas in mind, but I'm really enjoying visiting groups. Like I said, I've been really impressed just seeing the quality of leadership, the engagement, you know, talking to a bunch of our leaders who, you know, some are parents, some are not, and just hearing their burden for ministry, their love for the students that they have in their group, it's really gotten me fired up. And I'm excited to eventually have that myself, leading a middle school group. And yeah, you know, life is just crazy. Like I got two young kids, and so doing a new job, it's been funny figuring out the balance of when to be at home, when not. It's been much easier now that I'm not coaching sports. That was horrendous for trying to, you know, hang out with my children. I was joking about that with a guy this morning who he did the same thing. He has four children and he was coaching sports, and it was just horrendous for his family life. And so it's been really great. That was a part of the old job, you know, so it's been great having those evenings freed up. But yeah, transition is always difficult. So people could pray that, yeah, God will smooth things out and put me where he wants me to be. Like I said earlier, I'm really, I'm having the time of my life in this job. I mean, it's just so awesome. It really feels like I'm right where God wants me to be, and I'm really grateful for that. Well, thanks for doing this, taking the job. I mean, you're still in the first 90 days, something like that. So it makes sense. You're feeling a little crazy, but appreciate you taking the time to do this podcast, get to introduce yourself to more people. Do you have any plans for a blowout camp this year? Every kid is asking me that. What's the theme for blowout camp? What games are we going to play? A TBD. We're brewing it right now. It sounds like you don't have ideas. No, we have ideas. One of the promos that Jackie is working on is Moses as a cowboy riding on a horse with a lasso that's a snake. That's hard. Yeah. I don't even know. I don't even know where that's coming from, but I'm letting Jackie cook and she's cooking. Is that the teaching series this year? I believe so. Because I know that if I'm right, blowout camp rotates through. Yeah, we have a rotation. That's awesome. Yeah. I'm 99% confident that it's that. That's fair. Well, cool. Thanks again, Derek, for coming on. Dwell on These Things listeners. Thanks for listening in. If you want more information on the middle school ministry, you can go to dwellcc.org slash middle school. I should actually. Hold on. No. Clip. Dwellcc.org slash blowout camp. Dwellcc.org slash donate money to middle school, please. Well, Derek, thanks again for coming on for this episode of Dwell on These Things. If you want more information on the middle school ministry and what they're doing and how God's moving, you can go to dwellcc.org slash middle school. And for more resources like this podcast, personal stories, teachings, whatever you can go to dwellcc.org. Thanks, Derek. Yep. Thanks, David.