Be A Team Player

you may be seated tonight i was asked to teach out about six weeks ago or so on a wednesday night and i started just writing down a few notes here and there in middle of june brother cardin on a wednesday night you were you were talking and i i will i had my phone i was just taking some notes just thinking about this and i promise you everything i wrote down brother cardin you were saying maybe a little bit more eloquent than me so i worked on it a little bit more just some thoughts just writing down down some thoughts here and there about three

weeks ago brother brad was up here saying word for word it's like god am i am i trying to take the easy rod out you know easy way out here or are you trying to tell us something i even talked to brother brad after that wednesday night which is i mean he typically is not in here on wednesday night so we typically don't even get to hear him on wednesdays but so we we talked about it and tonight i'm going to follow the leading of the holy ghost and his spirit confirms any any doubt there may be that there's something wrong that there's something that

i miss the mark but we're going to talk about being a team player how can i be a team player have one singular attitude matthew 6 10 thy kingdom come thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven that's it it's not about me it's not about what i want but it's about him when i did get the uh the topic about being a team player brother chris you when i told brother adam about it you you brought it up there's a how many sports analogies can you go to i thought about bringing my ball glove in or a football i thought about

doing that it's perfect timing because of the olympics are going on right now does anybody have any idea how many medals the usa has won nobody cares last count i had was 79. that that that goal that number one goal the u.s is leading everybody by the most medals and i'm not gonna i'm not gonna be up here to talk about that but that that 79 that 80 whatever it is it's by a bunch of individuals doing their part yes somebody can say i'm a gold medal winner but as the u.s we can say we're leading the pack who are called what is the calling

and that's the first thing i'm going to talk about being our our individual calling some attribute the call of god only for someone who's in the ministry typically if you hear somebody say i feel called it's to some sort of ministry their pulpit ministry music ministry domitians that is kind of the the connotation we receive i i feel called into the ministry this church has several members several people who are are leading in that ministry who are called and serving in that ministry and i'm so so thankful they've been called everybody has been called by god second thessalonians 2 13 through 15 paints a little

bit broader picture of just that than just that but we are bound to give thanks to god always for you brethren beloved by the lord because god from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the spirit and the belief in the truth to which he called you he called you he called you by our gospel for the obtaining of the glory of our lord jesus christ therefore brethren stand fast and hold to the traditions that were taught we thereby whether by word or example we all have a calling of god on our lives sometimes that calling it may look a little bit different

for me than it does for pastor i'm thankful for the call to ministry i'm thankful for the shepherd that leads our church i'm thankful for that calling that god has given him i'm thankful for the calling of the fivefold ministry i'm thankful for those that have that burn and desire to to preach his word i'm thankful for that calling i'm thankful for that god chose the foolishness of preaching preaching to save souls i'm also thankful for the skilled bible teachings of brother cardin peter wright my father-in-law whose birthday is today the list can go on i'm thankful for all those just unique talents that they

bring to this team but i'm also thankful for that calling each of you are fulfilling each member of this church has a calling on their life what is my calling you may ask first and foremost we're called to lead people to christ we are called to live holy lives we are called to be christlike we are called to love our neighbors we're called to go to this field around us and pray for them we're called to serve we're called to love the lord our god with all of our heart that's nothing new that wasn't some brilliant idea i just came up with that's in the

scripture after that we all have individual callings and this message is not a any disrespect to to those that stand behind this sacred desk of the calling to pulpit ministry but i want to encourage you all you all have a calling and a part of the kingdom of god that will help us be that team but if you're not called to be a pastor you shouldn't try to be a pastor that's just asking for a heap of trouble that's not the most important thing that you can do in your life if that is not your calling the most important thing you can do is seek

god and find out what your calling is and fulfill that my time at gateway in bible college every once in a while we'd have missionaries either local or global missionaries come into chapel i think a lot of times they were just deputizing and just coming through the st louis area and they would lay their burdens out typically how they do here on on a service it never failed and i think those of you that went to bible school will understand this the altars will were filled with three-fourths of the student body saying i'm called to go to wherever that is never failed and then the

altar call song would be lead me lord i will follow or i'll say yes lord yes i can't tell you what your calling is i can't tell you what their calling was but i'm pretty sure that not all those people were called to go to michigan to be home missionaries but they were answering that desire to seek god's word and to see god's calling upon their life i think a lot of it was just a bunch of teenagers trying to figure out where they're supposed to be they felt god calling them to something but trying to figure out what they're supposed to be what do

i do if i don't know what my calling is brother cardin just stand so what he went over a few wednesday nights ago be a productive member of society be a witness in whatever job you are doing yes even if you're miserable in your job be a witness i can't get up here and tell you what you're calling this i can't get up here and say you're doing everything you're supposed to be doing that's between you and god pastor may have some discernment on some things i can't tell you that but i can tell you many of you many of you are going to your

callings every day mike you're here phil singer god's gifted you a skill set to be a law enforcement officer you may never stand up here behind this pulpit if you do i'll support you 100 yes there's some training involved but god has given you a calling to protect me to protect us should you feel bad because you're not called to be a preacher and again if i'm wrong that's that's one thing but it's okay but you should hold your head up high that you are called to do a work for god i personally witnessed in the beginning of the pandemic a year ago a little

over a year ago when we didn't know what was going to happen mike was in a place that he was running making law enforcement decisions for the entire county at the emergency operations center how great is that to have an apostolic person making those decisions that's not a place pastor is going to be that's not a place other people are going to be but he's fulfilling his calling jason you served us in the marine corps i'm not sure what your relationship with god is at that point but i guarantee he puts you in that place to protect us to protect our country teacher you're called

to train our children it may not always be the bible but you can make a difference in their lives you may be that only steady influence that godly influence they ever see without you our world would be so so lost factory worker you're called to make the products that we need to survive you can have an impact on your co-workers that pastor's never going to be able to to reach they're never going to be able to come here hear that message on a sunday morning you can invite them and hopefully they will but you're going to be able to have that impact on them business

owner you're called to be a moral and ethical leader your action can lead to clients to christ if you make a stand for what is right ephesians 4 1 says walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called whatever it is you are called to do walk worthy every person is just as important as the other during the pandemic it was brought to light in the in the hospital setting those evs environmental services or janitors are just as important as those physicians if you're not cleaning the room sister tammy's shaking you you know what it's like if you if if those rooms aren't clean

and prepared then you can't see more patients you can't help other people sometimes it may seem like your calling isn't as glamorous as someone else's and that's just okay you're called to do your part it's just what god wants you to do he wants you to do your part can my calling change or morph over time there's a book that some of you may read by dr spencer johnson named titled who moved my cheese has anybody in here read that few people let's see if jared's in here or not i actually just gave him that book a couple weeks ago so see if he raised

his hand but i don't see him in the book it's a parable it's very short but it talks about two mice and two little people that are feeding on this pile of cheese it's very antidotal the mice sniff and scurry start seeing that pile is going down a little bit so they start developing a plan how do we make sure we don't run out what do we do so they go out every day they go out a little bit further do some go out through the tunnels and search for a little bit see if there's any other cheese and eventually they find another whole stockpile

that's as big as the one they had in the beginning so they begin they make a plan they they understand there is a need for change the other people don't do that and you can read the rest of the story but it's just it's antidote but it talks about sometimes you know what we need just because we've done it a certain way sometimes we need to change a little bit and honestly that that story hit home to me in this setting because i want to talk a few minutes about my calling on my own life when i was i can't say an exact time i

don't feel like i had that voice of heaven that thunder and lightning and said god came down when i was a kid and said i want you to do this but i did feel at a young teenage age a call to to serve in some sort of ministry i thought i had it all planned out i as soon as i got out of high school i went to four years of bible school i knew how to hold my big black bible just right i knew how to fold my handkerchief just right except those ones that you can get the initial on it you know sometimes

i could never figure out how to get that in the exact right spot but i thought i had it all figured out so i went to four-year bible school i graduated expecting to get a full-time job in ministry and you know what that just didn't happen fast forward 20 years my life's a little bit different than i anticipated was that because i missed what my calling was not necessarily did i have doubts about my future absolutely can i look back over the last few years and know that i'm called to do exactly what god wants me to do god gave me the desire to keep

educating myself i was at a in a decent job that i was passed up for a leadership role about eight times so i went back to school he gave me the desire to be a good leader he put a spot he put me in a spot to ultimately make medical decisions for my entire community to oversee the pre-hospital the medical training for my entire community and then when i felt released from that he put me in a spot to drive operations for a nationally ranked hospital is it different than what i thought it would be yes but doing my secular job is that me fulfilling

my calling i truly believe it is at this point where am i going to be in 20 years i can't tell you but i do know if i continue to follow god's heart and his calling he will put me in that right spot and open those doors can i be frustrated because 18 year old me it didn't turn out the way 18 year old me thought it should absolutely but why how many times do we think we have the plan figured out and then things change god's in control it's all that we need to have when you turn into the parking lot of your job

have a smile on your face walk with a skip in your step hold your head up high you're going to your calling what does this have to do with being a team player i'm glad you asked how can i help the team with my own calling since we're talking about my career i will talk about some of the things that have changed in pre-hospital medicine since i started one of the main things has to do with cpr in a cardiac arrest situation brother adam has a video to a couple minute video to uh kind of demonstrate that for us the os cpr the in the

wilmington fire department was usually that the youngest man on the truck ended up doing compressions dripping sweat doing compressions for 30 or 40 minutes and you would never stop the youngest guy on the truck was dying he was exhausted from doing compressions trying to make your heart beat a hundred times a minute by pushing on your chest our save rate has gone up about nine percent so far this year we're at 24 which is a huge number comparative to the nation the nation is about still at 9.6 we named it the pit crew process basically because you're in the south and we like nascar like

the pit crews on the nascar team everybody already knows what job they're going to do when they come across the wall same wave with us when we get off their fire truck everybody's assigned to a job two more rounds and they hit no delay of care or delay of compressions which is the most important part if the blood is not moving the oxygen's not going anywhere so you can breathe in and out of somebody all you want but if the blood's not moving it's not doing anything now so when we walk in the room um obviously first thing we're going to do is we're going

to check responsiveness hey sir are you okay we're going to check the pulse if they don't have a pulse they're not breathing we're immediately going to start chest compressions one of the three guys he's already going to be assigned compression so he knows he just needs to start compressions he's not going to do anything but for two minutes but do compressions he has no other job the guy that's kind of running the show is the guy with the aed he needs to bare the chest so we can put the pads on and the third guy is at the head and he's going to be doing

airway put a king airway in and then compressions never stop two minutes go by we turn the aed on analyzing heart rhythm well the guy that was just doing compression is going to switch with a guy doing airway hey guys let's do an airway we'll switch with a guy that's doing aed whoever's actually running the aed is actually taking a two minute break shot delivered because they're the next one to do two minutes of compressions quality of the compression stays the same we don't lose the effectiveness of the compressions and it's better outcomes for the patient after we implemented pit crew first call i went

on and we actually used pit crew it was obvious afterwards that we weren't as tired we actually measure the people who make it to the hospital get well and leave the hospital those are the only ones that count as a save for us now so i'm sure all of you did not think you were going to come to church on a wednesday night and have a cpr lesson right i will say prior to the pandemic we did have a an evening like that a couple series of wednesdays and hopefully we can get back to that but what i wanted to point out is the changes

15 16 17 years ago when i went to paramedic school we put a lot of focus on doing all these advanced skills we put a lot of focus on we'll do some cpr until somebody arrives with an aed and then we'll just stop what we're doing and we'll get these sticky pads on and we'll make sure you know we have everything just right see if we need to shock the patient and then depending on how that works we'll go do a little bit of of compressions which are called basic life support just some basic things and then as the paramedic then i'm going to try

to start an iv and then i'm going to get an airway and all these other things the focus wasn't on the basics the focus was on the person that had the higher licensed doing the most advanced skills that they can evidence-based practice which is what we try to do in the hospital world in the medical world now shows that if everybody has their own job if everybody focuses on their own job and doesn't worry about jumping from skill to skill to skill to skill there's better outcomes one of the ways of doing that is this pit crew method as this video said when somebody you

don't wait till somebody says they're too tired to do more compressions because i tell you i can tell you what i've done compressions when i was too tired and didn't realize it so i wasn't keeping up as fast as i needed to do it every two minutes you change and science shows us that there's better outcomes my previous job we took it a a step forward and we developed a cpr checklist ran by a code commander and that person on scene sometimes the highest ranking sometimes the lowest ranking has this checklist that says hey you're are you doing good compressions hey is this turned on

is the metronome known turned on so you know what your rate should be hey hey your compressions aren't deep enough you need to you need to do them a little bit deeper so their job is to call out things that are missed or if somebody's not doing it correctly and again science shows that there's better outcomes when that happens i hope you can see the correlation that i'm getting to number one we need to focus on the basics number two we have a code commander that god has given us pastor sometimes it's you coming up here and saying you know what everybody's doing a good

job you have all these things done you're doing a great job sometimes it's hey you need to do a little bit better in this you need a little bit do a little bit different hey you're i'm noticing something maybe you don't see it yet but maybe i see it having that set of eyes that's out just to make sure everybody's doing the best they can the world word of god shows us if we all do our parts lives are going to be saved i'm wrapping up here what does that look like at church somebody walks through those doors the greeters it's important to fulfill your

calling of being a greeter ushers you have a job to do you have a calling to do sound you have a part service leader musicians preacher all down the line we all have a part to do what if somebody's doing something that i want to do i would rather be a greeter i would rather be a singer i'll say that it's not true you know what it's okay to let somebody else do it and maybe there's a chance for you to do that part or maybe as in my life i got passed up on eight promotions so i could have some a spot that was

better in the long run i can't tell you why i can't tell you what god has in store for you but i can tell you you have a calling sometimes it may not be your season and that's okay just do what you should do what you know to do and be encouraged that if you're going through to your nine to five job that that is your mission field that could be your calling if we want to stand tonight pastor preached about victory on sunday he was the next person in that list of people preaching teaching about things that i had been making notes how can

we have victory we can be a team player play your position if you want to be use a sports analogy when your brother or sister is struggling switch out with them no one wants to do compressions for an hour we all have time we need to step out it's no secret in the workplace now there are so many open positions some are entry-level positions some are executive level positions many critical positions aren't filled some people just walked away from doing their part there's shortages everywhere and the good people are getting tired from doing extra work do your part don't resign your duties don't give up

your calling not now not ever it's okay to be tired it's okay to let somebody else have the spotlight for a minute but if you want that victory pastor preached about sunday be a team player it's early i know let's take a let's take a few moments i asked sister christy to play this song if you don't mind singing it's old but it talks about everybody working together to do our part let's just take some time to focus on that you're my brother you're my sister so take me by the hand when we're walking side by side as long as there my is so take

me by the hand together we will work until he comes as long as there is you're my brother you're my sister take me by the hands together we side by side me by the head together we will work and would you lift your voice and thank him for this great body of christ the team that we're a part of lord jesus we thank you so very much for grace and mercy that has brought us together your grace has brought us together we celebrate that tonight and thank you for the depths of our heart we do ask you to help us each one to do our

very best in jesus name amen