Let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you." Thank you.

you.My name is Justin Morton, and I preach for the Walter Hill Church of Christ in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

And the lesson that I learned the hard way is that there is a time to respond and there's a time to ignore.

Uh, most of us deal with people on a daily basis in our everyday lives.

We deal with some difficult people, uh, at work.

We deal with difficult people sometimes, uh, in our ministries, and sometimes we deal with difficult people even in our churches.

And early in my ministry, I had a, a guy that, uh, liked to be very critical of, of my work.

And about the time we got to Needles, California, my brother's driving my truck with my trailer behind it and I'm in the car with my wife, Tina, and she goes, "It looks like our trailer's on fire."

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[upbeat electronic music] Well, good morning.

Good morning.

It's good to, uh, see everyone here this morning.

Grateful that, uh, you chose to be here.

Um, pray that, uh, our study this morning will be, uh, beneficial, uh, to all of us and a blessing as we strive to, to live for the Lord.

But I'd like to begin this morning with a word of prayer, uh, so if you would, join me as we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for your attention.

Have you ever heard that dreaded statement, "But we've always done it this way"?

[laughs]

Some of you are probably very familiar with that statement.

Maybe many of us have even made that statement ourselves, and generally in the church when we make that statement, we're referring to, uh, some type of ministry or activity or program that we have going on, and maybe there's some people wanting to change some things about it or evaluate it, and the response is, "But we've always done it that way." I think we have to guard against allowing ourselves to do something just because we've always done it that way.

The Bible teaches us in James 1:17 that every good gift and every perfect gift comes from above, and I believe every ministry that we have in our churches, uh, the programs that we do, those are blessings from God that God wants us to use for, for His glory.

But should we continue something solely because that's what we're familiar with? Should we continue just because that's what we're used to doing, or should we stop, assess the situation, and evaluate it? And I believe for us that would be a, a wise approach for us to take when it comes to our ministries.

The topic that I've been tasked with dealing with is, is what are the pros and cons of continuing, uh, our programs and our ministries without modification, without assessing or evaluating it over a period of time? As we think about the pros of continuing what it is that we normally do, what we c- what we have been doing, I think there are a few pros to just, "Hey, let's just keep doing what we're doing." Pro number one is that, uh, continuity provides stability.

Um, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into sailing, what it was for you that captured your imagination when it came to sailing, and then through that, how you came to own a motorboat?

So, uh, I started off as a kid going sailing with my dad, who took us out, and it was a case of pull this, pull that, uh, which is all good.

And I did a, a, a dinghy level two course as it was then, where you do a week's worth of dinghy sailing, joined the Marines, and then, um, ended up going, we did the Royal Marines Sailing Championships, and I came bizarrely third.

Um, the competition wasn't great obviously that year.

And then because of that, somebody remembered at some point while we were out in Belize, uh, that I could sail, and they needed a sailing instructor, not that I was one.

So they sent me back to the UK.

Uh, I did a sailing instructor's course, uh, at the sailing center in Plymouth, headed back to Belize, and then I spent the next four months of our six-month tour in Belize, uh, teaching people how to sail with my newfound skills.

That-

the pitfalls.

Yeah.

And, and I think the...

What you've got to understand is fear is not related to danger at all.

So, um, as an example, um, the closest I've ever been, I think, to utter catastrophe at sea, we were sailing back from Halifax, Nova Scotia, back to Plymouth.

Um, I was a crew on a boat, and we're in a, a nine- force nine gale in the daytime, surfing down the waves.

There was dolphins coming out sideways.

Yeah.