An important series of classes for families will be introduced soon at Harvest Baptist Church. Pastor Gary speaks with Pastor Jared about them today.
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Episode Transcript
Chris Harper: Welcome to Harvest Time. My name is Chris Harper, and our host on this program is Pastor Gary Walton, the lead pastor of Harvest Baptist Church. Every week, we spend these twenty five minutes together telling you the stories of our church by interviewing our members and other friends of the ministry. We have two services at Harvest Baptist Church every week. We’d like to invite you.
The first service is at 08:45AM, the second at 10:45AM on Sunday. We have Japanese and Korean translation during the 10:45AM service, and that’s also when we livestream at hbcguam.org. hbcguam.org. This week, we’re in Mark 3:13-15, encounters with Jesus. Let’s begin today’s Harvest Time by welcoming Pastor Gary Walton.
Hi, pastor.
Gary Walton: Hey. Hafa adai, Chris. Mark three is a, interesting story that carries on a little I don’t know if we’re calling this kind of a light series that we’ve been going through in August that’s just bringing us back to the main focus of discipleship and what our mission is as a church and what our mission is as Christians and talking very specifically about what God wants us to do, just trying to simplify things down. Sometimes we overcomplicate what it might mean to be a Christian. And Jesus just says, hear the words that I say and do them.
And so we’re looking at some of the key passages in the Gospels where Jesus says, this is what is important. Here’s what I want you to do. And, Mark three is one of the stories. It’s talking about the the gathering of the 12 disciples, those original 12 disciples. And in the text that we’re gonna look at this this, Sunday, he says, he calls them unto him, in order that they would be with him.
And, that’s verse 14, and that he might send them forth. And that’s a pretty good, simple overview and summary of what Jesus desires in discipleship. So when he calls us to be disciples, he calls us to be with him and with others. And we’re gonna talk about that on Sunday and, just continue to walk through this very simple, clear teaching of Jesus where he calls us to be his disciples. It’s not an easy path, but it’s not a complicated path, and I I hope that we’re seeing that as we walk through these texts together.
Well, Harvest Time this week, we have the chance to kind of flip the tables a little bit, because we’ve got Pastor Jared Baldwin, here with us, who you hear often on Live till five and other plays, but we’ve got him across the table today. So welcome Pastor Jared.
Jared Baldwin: Yes, hafa adai. Still broadcasting high atop the campus of Harvest Ministries from the worldwide headquarters of Harvest Family Radio.
Gary Walton: Yeah. If that sounds very familiar, that’s straight from the opening of Live ’til Five, which if you’re listening Friday evening, you probably might have just listened to.
Jared Baldwin: Just a little while ago.
Gary Walton: Yeah, yeah. And then we’re also flipping the tables a little bit on Chris Harper because of the topic that we’re talking about. And so I’m going to ask him a couple of questions too. We’re going to talk about Family Academy, and I’m excited to dive into a ministry that’s become a powerful midweek anchor for families and individuals of all ages at Harvest on Wednesday nights and call it Family Academy. Pastor Jared is newly overseeing that part of the ministry and so I want to ask him about that.
Then as I mentioned, Chris is teaching one of the classes. So we’ll get a chance to kind of just walk through and hopefully encourage you, maybe motivate you to participate along with us as we’re looking through the fall and your schedule and your calendar. This might be something that you’d find really beneficial for you. So, Pastor Jared, let’s start with the with the big picture view. What’s Family Academy?
What makes it kind of a unique part of our Wednesday night ministries?
Jared Baldwin: Well, Family Academy really is the umbrella term for all the different things that we offer for folks on Wednesday evenings. And really, this year, starting this week, we’re offering maybe more than we’ve offered in a number of years. And that’s because there’s great needs. We have more people that we’re trying to reach through this, whether they are church members, attendees, people from our community like Harvest Christian Academy parents and kids. And so we have a wide variety of things that we are offering to try and accomplish the mission of the church.
You know, we’re trying to help people develop a heart for God. That could be evangelizing, so we could have some people that they don’t know the Lord and they’re kind of taking that first spiritual step and they might come to one of the classes we’re offering, or maybe they want to grow in their knowledge and wisdom and understanding of the Bible, if they can take a different class. Maybe they’re trying to overcome, besetting sins, that we have something for that. Maybe they have teenagers, children. Maybe they just want to get together for prayer and to be fed, and we have something for that.
Then the new thing is maybe someone wants to meet one on one with someone for discipleship. We’re offering that as well. So we have this broad spectrum of kind of a menu of things that we’re offering, but it’s not just doing it for the sake of doing it or to fill time. It’s really to meet some very specific needs and to stay on mission as a church.
Gary Walton: Yeah. You know, we were talking just recently about the name Family Academy. Does that define, you know, currently, this year, as we move forward, does that define, you know, what this is? And, and I actually had a chance to think about it a little bit more, and I and I thought, I really love it. We’ve got Harvest Christian Academy that’s taking place.
We got a lot of other things. And this really is, you know, the evening for the family, from children in our nurseries all the way through. There’s, growth opportunities, you know, for you. And so I love that term, you know, and I’m excited about it.
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. It’s the the ministry on Wednesday nights is strategically aligned so that someone that has children of all ages can come and participate and grow, no matter what their situation is because we’ll have something for every person in the family.
Gary Walton: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I want to ask you about the details in a minute. But, you know, how do you see that, it’s kind of intergenerational, right? I mean, you talked about children, teens, adults. How’s that intergenerational approach strengthen the church family?
Jared Baldwin: Well, I think it it keeps certain demographics from being isolated. So, you could have a wonderful children’s ministry, but if that’s all there is, then, you know, how are you what about when they age out of the children’s ministry? Is there something for them to continue to grow and be discipled in? Or is it, you know, the parents like we we have Vacation Bible School in the summer is a wonderful ministry, but it works well for a short term, but we wouldn’t want to have just parents dropping their kids off every week and disappearing and then not having something for them as well. And so, the intergenerational part from a newborn that could go into a really well run, organized, caring childcare, in our nursery, 7PM on Wednesday nights, so that the mom this might be her main opportunity to be able to sit in a Bible study or in a ministry or to serve, also.
And so, you could have someone that they’re coming straight from work, they pick up the teen, you know, student from home and they want to all be able to participate in something that’s going to help them grow. And so because we have a teen ministry and we have offerings for the parents, there’s a way for that to happen. So it’s unique and it’s a great touchpoint in the middle of the week as far as the health of our church so that you’re not going seven days between having the accountability and fellowship and really the public opportunity to either worship or study together.
Gary Walton: Yeah, we really see that over the years as incredibly important to have that ongoing relationship together. And that midweek point provides that for our church family. It’s been a part of Harvest for many, many years. And it’s because of that sense that we need we really have found out that we need that connect, in the middle of the week that helps us. Chris, let me pull you into this.
I want to ask you in a minute about the class that you’re going be teaching. But you your your family has experience over the years with Wednesday Ministries, children now all in team group, but tell us just a little bit about your family experience.
Chris Harper: Well, my kids wanna get here early. That gives you an idea of the the appreciation they have for the ministries on Wednesday. They have real good connections for the Wednesday night, and it’s an important night for them. And so there’s no there’s no need to try to force them to come because they’re they’re trying to get me to come quicker. So
Gary Walton: Yeah. This isn’t, you know, primarily about our children’s ministries. We talk about that in some other way times, but I’ve communicated for a while that we want Wednesday night children’s ministries and teen ministries. We want we want them to be so compelling for our teens and our kids that we could also communicate to parents that, you know, you’d have to be crazy not to want to have your kids here on a Wednesday night because it’s it’s gonna be that meaningful to them. And, of course, you know, that’s always something that we’ve gotta make sure that we can fill out, but we really do want it to be like, this is great.
We we love having our kids in these ministries, and they’re growing, in their walk with Christ. They’re getting connected with, you know, good friends. So we’ve got kids, you know, of course, from all across the island. You know, there’s some HCA kids that are part of it, but kids from all kinds of different schools and homeschool and connecting on the midweek is important for them.
Jared Baldwin: Yep. And Harvest Christian Academy, the those that are involved with that, Harvest Christian Academy, because it’s under the church, has tried to align Right. Its values with what we’re trying to do on Wednesday night. So they offer they try to offer as little homework as possible. Yeah.
Sometimes there’s a little bit, but as little as possible. We don’t really have sports events on Wednesday nights. We we hold the line on that unless it’s like a a tournament that we have no control over, but we request on the sports calendars and not play any sports on Wednesday nights. So we’re doing everything we can so that the students, if they want to participate, they can. The the the folks that are like on our faculty and staff, that they can also participate in this, that they’re not tied up doing something else that takes them away from it.
So the school tries to, as far as Harvest Christian Academy, tries to support this every way they can.
Gary Walton: Yeah, I mean, this is like off track again, but we’ve actually tried to communicate the leagues that we’re aligned with and others that it’s good for families to give them a break in the middle of the week. Is not just like selfish for us. You know, it’s For families, it is so easy as your kids get into middle school and high school to just be scheduled every single night of the week. So we’re trying to actually island wide communicate that it’s okay to take a night off. Let the kids do something that’s not just school and other things related.
Hey, Pastor Jared, can you walk us through what a typical Wednesday night looks like? Sure. Family Academy.
Jared Baldwin: So something new, there’s two new things really that start the evening earlier than we’ve had in the past. First thing is the hub is going to be open, full menu, starting at 05:30PM – 7PM.
Gary Walton: That’s the coffee shop.
Jared Baldwin: That’s the coffee shop. You know, our baristas down there, they they are going to offer everything they have on the normal menu. So we’re doing this to try and make it even that much easier for someone who might be coming straight from work, then come here and grab a bagel. We, you know, they don’t make like full meals, but they do make snacks and things like that. You can get a bagel, you can get a green smoothie, you can get a cup of coffee, you know.
You can say, hey, let’s meet at the coffee shop, and then we’ll go to class together, whatever. And so we’re trying to make it as easy as possible for people to get here. People that normally like go through a drive through to grab a soda or something could actually come here, you know, take a breath before they go on. 05:30PM to 7PM, the hub will be open full menu. Then also at 05:30PM, we’re starting our new one to one discipleship.
And, Pastor Jake is heading that up. But we’ve had, I don’t know, two dozen, maybe more folks that have said, I want to be paired up with someone in a one on one discipleship relationship. And that could happen anytime during the week, anywhere. But as when Tim Potter was here last year, he said, Hey, if you can give a time and a place, it it really incentivizes people to get together and makes it just that much easier. So starting at 05:30PM till all the way till 8PM, people will be pairing up and using the hub and the patio out there outside the hub for discipleship.
People that have kids will probably not do that until 7PM because the what starts at seven is everything else. So childcare starts at seven. So our nursery’s open at seven. Our little kids are open at seven. Our children’s ministry, so we have that.
We have Heart for Christ, we mentioned our teen ministry starts at seven. Then we have a number of different offerings for adults. So, you know, to kind of focus on the adult side other than the discipleship groups, We have an auditorium class. It’s kind of our standard offering. It’s the meat and potatoes on Wednesday nights, probably in most Baptist churches, but we have a prayer meeting.
Pastor Larry Nagengast is going to be teaching through the book of first Samuel this year, and that starts at seven to eight in the church auditorium. Then we have pastor Your Discovery Class, and you’ll probably say more about that here in a moment. Yep. That’s gonna be we’re using a new venue, so we’re always looking for a creative new place. And, you know, other than the kitchen, we’ve used almost every spot for one thing or another, but we’re using the Harvest Christian Academy library.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Jared Baldwin: It’s the best smelling room on campus. I don’t know why, but it just is. The air con is crisp and cold. They have comfy seats. They have little tables in there.
So Pastor’s gonna be leading his discovery class from seven to eight in the HCA library on the Second Floor of the three story building. We have Chris Harper’s class, Learn to Study God’s Word, and he’s gonna talk maybe say a little bit about that as well.
Gary Walton: Chris, why don’t you go right now? Yeah. Tell us little about Learn to Study God’s Word.
Chris Harper: Well, I was prompted to teach that based on a number of conversations I had with people through the years. It’s actually something I’ve taught here before several years ago.
Jared Baldwin: When you taught a doctrines class last year, we we kind of forced you into doing a doctrinal sprint. Right? Like, had to do 10 doctrines in ten weeks?
Chris Harper: Yes. Yeah. I’m working on forgiveness. But, yeah, we did have the doctrinal class. And
Gary Walton: Which was very well received, by the way. Many people enjoyed that. We had big group in there.
Chris Harper: Yeah. People said afterward I I kept saying something that I thought was true. And I said, you know, these are there’s a fancy name for this doctrine, but it’s probably gonna be things that you know a lot about. And I said that several times each time we would address something, particularly something with a, you know, hamartiology or something, and I would say, you probably know about this. But I was told afterwards, actually, I don’t know a lot about that.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Chris Harper: And I that I was slightly surprised by that, but then also a little bit not surprised. I’m not sure how to communicate it except that some of the people have been around church for a long time, not just our church, but other churches as well. And so I thought it would be great if I could do the Learn to Study series again, because I really concentrate on in the Learn to Study series, how do you go about learning what the Scripture says?
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Chris Harper: So there’s a lot. I’ve arranged it around some questions, and I have the questions in front of me. But why is study important? We start off with that. Why is study important?
And that’s like a study in theology time together. And then what can study do for me? You know, that’s about study and your growth. And then we ask, where does study fit into my relationship with Christ? And that’s about study and discipleship because we talk a lot about, it’s not just about study.
It’s study as you’re walking along in relationship with Christ.
Gary Walton: Right.
Chris Harper: So there’s there’s a lot of them. I won’t read all of them, but, what can I learn from study? That’s kinda like study and education. You can take a certain kind of academic approach to study as well that’s also important. And so there’s so we try to there’s there’s 10 questions, and then we’re gonna focus a lot on tools and a lot on, like, preparation for ministry.
And each one of these will have some level of practicality regarding how do you go about studying. And so I I think it will be helpful.
Gary Walton: I think it’ll be helpful too. I think it’d be fantastic. And looking forward to encouraging a number of people to plug into that class.
Jared Baldwin: Absolutely. I wish I wasn’t leading another group. I’d attend that class. And then, Pastor, maybe before I move on, tell us a little bit about your Discovery class.
Gary Walton: Yeah, Discovery is designed for newer Christians early on in your walk of faith, or maybe you’ve been a Christian for a while, but know that, you haven’t really established, you know, some of the foundational understandings of what it means to be a Christian, how do I live out the faith, what does the Bible say about, you know, some basic understanding. So, it’ll be a small group, kind of designed for that, and, we’re gonna look at some questions and each time go to the Bible, what does the Bible say about this? So I’d love to invite you to come if you fit those categories.
Jared Baldwin: Okay, awesome. And then there are a few other things we’re offering. One is Regen. Now, I have not led this before. Ken Keith led it.
Pastor Clinton led it. But Regen is a group where participants walk through 12 steps of biblical healing in the context of authentic community. And it’s specifically designed for discipleship based on God’s Word to help get freedom from struggles. And the struggle can be fill in the blank. It it’s not just addiction, but there are people who struggle with addiction.
It’s not just, temptation, but people struggle with temptation. There are so many things that people struggle with, and this discipleship based on God’s Word, this discipleship model, with a group of people that different struggles, same path towards freedom from the struggles. And so
Gary Walton: Right, I’m gonna be I’m trying to overcome my anger. I’m struggling with eating habits.
Jared Baldwin: Right, yeah. Depression, fear. But then also the big ones, you know. But anything you can imagine as a struggle is something that God can give us freedom from through His Word and through discipleship and through some accountability. So we’re starting a new cohort of that, and, we’ll be meeting in the upstairs of the cafeteria.
So, and we’re going to kind of kick that off at the same time this week, 7PM, and that’ll meet from seven to eight. There are also some cohorts that have already been going. Those are going to continue on, but, that’s the Regen. We’ll have some different information we’ll distribute out and try and get this out on social media and things like that so people know what’s going on and try and get people kind of recruited to that. But Chris’s class is going be in the downstairs of the church.
Usually, say exactly what room. We’re gonna start in the music room. We’re gonna see it might be that they can more comfortably slide into the conference room, but if if you just go downstairs in the church, you’ll find they’ll be the only class down there. Pastors in the Second Story library, HCA. Regen is going to be upstairs at the cafeteria, Heart for Christ in the cafeteria, Children’s Ministries in the gym and the ELC.
And then we have Just
Gary Walton: real quick, we’ll have somebody posted outside the hub, right? So if you’re looking for any of these classes, you can just come to the hub. We’ll make sure we can direct you.
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. And you should see a lot of people around the hub because there’s going to be discipleship going on. It’s not like you’re going to show up to a dark campus and have to find your way around. We’ll have some signage up as well. Then And we have English conversations, starting in Room 111.
That’s a very specific thing where we pair up, folks that are trying to learn English, and we use it as an evangelistic and discipleship opportunity as well where you have people that wanna do conversational English, and so we pair up people from our church with someone that’s an English language learner, and they start in Room 111, then they move into the hub as well a little later. But it’s just a it’s a neat ecosystem of all the different, things that we’re offering. We we really are very thoughtful and intentional on what we’re offering, based on where we perceive some of the needs are within our own our own body locally, but also if we’re to invite people outside our body, like school parents or neighbors or someone that’s visited the church, is there is there something we can do to also be a blessing to them and help them grow and take that next spiritual step? So that’s that’s our Family Academy. It starts August 27, and then we have basically 14 sessions between August 27 and, mid December.
Gary Walton: Yeah, I’m really excited about it. Even just talking about these classes together, I’m reminded of the intentionality that you mentioned, a variety of classes from foundational studies to deeper, you know, theology, serving new members and mature believers, you know, all along the path. There’s not a 100 classes, but you can find something that will fit And for it’s really the intention. We’d love to have people come.
Jared Baldwin: Yeah. And on top of that, we just had ministry fair two weeks ago. Wednesday nights is a great time to serve as well. So sometimes it’s a season to be serving. Because to be able to do all this, we do need people that want to serve in children’s ministry, that want to be a teen sponsor, that want to help in the nursery, that want to help run audiovisual or lead music in the auditorium.
And so it’s a great opportunity for Harvest Baptist Church members to find a place to serve and sometimes serve as a couple or something like that. So there’s a lot of opportunities with that as well.
Gary Walton: You kind of mentioned this real quick as we close out. Those in the broader island community who may not attend our church, Is Family Academy open to them? And what would you say to someone considering this for the first time?
Jared Baldwin: Yeah, it’s open to everyone and we have plenty of room. This isn’t a closed thing. Yeah, someone And, might be listening saying, you know, I’ve not really participated in anything like this at Harvest or anywhere. I would say just come try it out.
Gary Walton: Yeah.
Jared Baldwin: Come and visit, sit in on a class. You know, you’re not gonna hurt anyone’s feelings if you sit in on class A, then you’re like, I wanna also check out class B. Maybe I’ll go to that one the second week, and then make a decision. But, you’ll be warmly welcomed. You’ll I think you’ll find a place to take that next spiritual step, and that’s our goal.
Gary Walton: Well, it’s pretty cool, to think about. A lot of the stories of Harvest are an invitation to a Sunday morning service, and they come. And again, we extended that as well. But there’s actually a lot of people. I know a lot of stories of people who’ve come.
They brought their children to C2C. Like, hey. I’m here anyway. Could I connect with the class? And you might find out that there’s some people here that you’d like to know that would help you in your own personal spiritual journey.
And, so we’re we’re excited about starting next Wednesday as kind of the kickoff for all these classes.
Jared Baldwin: Yep. Yep. We’re just a few days away. It’s gonna be really great.
Gary Walton: Okay. Very good. Thanks, pastor Jared, for coming to talk about this.
Jared Baldwin: Yep. Thank you.
Chris Harper: And thank you for listening to Harvest Time. Of course, we’d love to have you connect with Family Academy on Wednesday, 7PM. But we also want to invite you again to Harvest Baptist Church on Sunday morning. Two services, 08:45AM and 10:45AM. During that 10:45AM service, we have Japanese and Korean translation.
We also broadcast that service live here on 88.1 FM and khmg.org. We hope to see you this Sunday, maybe Wednesday too. Thanks again for listening to Harvest Time.