The God of All Hope | November 30, 2025

Oh, thanks Tom.

Alright, we'll go a

little more at Christmas.

A little more Christmas,

but it is definitely icy out there.

You guys.

I have been up for a long time and

I'm ready for lunch right now, so,

'cause it's been a long morning of

shoveling, but we gotta keep, you guys

made it out here through the snow.

You want a long sermon?

I can see it in your eyes,

Danny, don't you worry my friend.

Don't you worry.

So we're gonna talk today a little

bit about hope because we are now

officially in the advent season.

I dunno if it's the same for you,

but for me, I feel like I don't

even know what happened in the last

month to get us to Thanksgiving.

And the idea that we're only

like four weeks away from

Christmas seems mind blowing.

But here we are, four advent candles

away from celebrating Christmas.

And if you're not familiar with

the whole advent candle idea every

Sunday leading up to Christmas,

we're gonna light one of these.

I say this in theory, we're gonna light

one of these candles that lit really good.

You know, last time, this may not

be the hope candle, just so you

know, I may have the, I may have

grabbed the wrong candle here.

It's nice and warm though, man.

It's been so cold.

Lemme tell you.

Okay.

This is definitely not the

hope candle right there.

Just so you know.

That one is, that's next week's candle.

There's the right candle.

Dax, did we try these?

Oh yeah, we did.

Okay, perfect.

Alright.

Alright there, there you go.

I was starting to run short on

hope there for a minute, but

then the Hope Candle showed up.

Well, we're gonna take a look just

a little bit today at Hope as we

look ahead at the coming of Jesus

and the celebration that's before us

because our God is the God of hope.

Over in Romans 15, verse four, it

says this, for everything that was

written, everything that was written

in the past, right, the scriptures

they were written to teach us.

So that through the endurance

taught in the scriptures this,

this promised Messiah, the.

The arrival through prophecy and

God showing up to his people time

and time again that Emmanuel would

come to Israel and as Paul said, we

are the Israel of God, God's people.

That salvation would come, this endurance

that for years people held onto hope.

We see it in the scriptures and we get

to experience it today knowing that the

Messiah has come and the encouragement

that these scriptures provide, the

endurance, the perseverance, the

encouragement, they all lead us to a

place where we can experience real hope.

No matter what our circumstances

are, no matter what the situations

that we're facing are, no matter

what the world around us looks like

in the moments that we live, we

have hope anchored deep in our God.

The God who is the God

scripture says of hope, right?

He's not the God who knows about hope.

He's not the God who helps

us think about being hopeful.

He is the God whose substance is a hope.

He's the God of hope.

Scripture says over in if we continue,

Romans 1513, it says, may this God of

hope fill you with all joy and peace.

Spoiler alert some candles coming down

the road as you trust in him, so that you

may overflow with hope, right by not your

own strength, not by your own ability,

but by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And this word hope in the Greek, this

word El peace, it means expectation.

It has this picture of expecting

something to play out, expecting

something, but it's not just

expectation, it's confident expectation.

It's a sense of surety.

It's not hoping, this is crazy, right?

The, the Greek definition of

the word hope isn't hoping.

It's knowing that God will deliver

and that God will provide and that

God will do what he said he will do.

It's confident expectation and this

phrase, the God of all hope is a picture

of the foundation of hope as though

God himself is the thing on which all

hope is built, which is a great picture

and that he is the author of Hope,

that he's the one who came up with

the concept and first wrote it down so

that we could all experience what hope.

Is he is the God of all hope.

And as we approach Christmas time, we

get busy with a lot of different stuff.

And we look back at the original

days of Bethlehem and Judea and

shepherds and people doing their stuff.

Hope was starting to fade and dwindle

years of silence and darkness when

this savior of the world shows up

burning brightly, the light of hope.

And God gives hope to his people today

for all that we face and all that we've

go through because he is the God of hope.

Well, I hope you're ready because

we're gonna do something a

little different this morning.

It's a holiday weekend.

We got lots of people stuffing

their face this day with their

friends and family and other places.

You guys were full.

So you came to church, which is great.

Um.

I really someday want to have a Turkey

communion on Thanksgiving weekend.

I just feel like there's nothing

more White rock in my mind.

But we're gonna do something a

little special this morning and we're

gonna take a little family walk.

I dunno like, I dunno if you guys have

spent time, um, with family over the last

few days, but sometimes, like grandma and

grandpa, they wanna tell a story, right?

Or multiple stories, or your uncle or

your aunt, they wanna share some things.

Well, we are gonna have a little

family fun taking a walk together back

through what God's done as part of our

church family and maybe a little bit

of what he's in the process of doing.

So I'm gonna invite my dad to come up here

and join me, which is always, yeah, yeah.

You guys applaud and I get nervous.

I mean, two different

reactions, but it's all good.

Of course he always got nervous

when he handed me this mic, right?

Yeah.

Oh, he did?

Yeah.

Believe it.

Hey, hey, look, since you're up

here, man, we could do like a three

generations thing and just Wow.

That's okay.

You're good.

All right.

All right.

Thank you, ma'am.

So we're gonna take a little look

back and, and you know what, Debbie,

we may have to dim these lights just

a little bit because, uh, white rack

technology wall at its peak right

now was not always at its peak.

And so some of these pictures might

be pretty sketch, so you'll probably

have to kill these top lights.

Just snap 'em all off, boom, boom, boom.

Or just keep going.

You doing great.

You haven't, haven't

started one of those yet.

Very top ones.

1, 2, 3, boom, boom, boom.

Hey, technology is good.

We go.

Hey, all.

Great job.

All right.

Alright.

Is that on?

Uh, yeah, it's green.

Okay.

Yep.

You're little red gear.

I'm just turned down so that I can't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Debbie might have that turned down.

I'm not sure why.

Um, this is dangerous 'cause I

mentioned, you know, everybody's been

up shoveling this morning, so this just

got real comfortable and real relaxed.

So we'll try our best to, uh, to walk

through some things here together.

Uh, from the very beginning White Rock

Fellowship, our church family held

onto this idea where faith finds a way.

Now you might interpret that

as we're gonna do dumb stuff

that only God could produce.

Yes, that's true.

We're gonna take risks and

stretch and do things that are

ridiculous and that's also true.

But it's because God is the God of

all hope and the idea of faith and

hope are so intertwined that they

really can't be differentiated.

Where hope finds a way

where faith finds a way.

That was kind of the story of,

of our church family years ago.

In what, what year was this?

1996. I think.

Holy cow.

I have hair.

Yep.

That's still slender and trim.

That's a great picture.

Our family came here

to Noblesville, right?

Mm-hmm.

Right.

You don't wanna have any of this stuff.

I got you looking at that stuff.

Yeah, you have to hold that.

You gotta hold that right in front of you.

Those people.

You gotta hold it way up

in front of your lips.

Way up in front of my lip there.

Okay.

Yeah.

I don't recognize those people.

No, no.

That looks like,

yeah.

Anyways, moving on.

Guess traumatizing for all of us.

We came to Noblesville to try to

reach people for the Lord, and we

started in like your Our House, right?

In our house right there in cul-de-sac,

right over here in North Harbor.

Yeah.

We tried to school a little bit.

They let us do that for a couple weeks

and then eventually we made our way

to the four H building over there,

put up this little billboard in town

and put up some flyers that said, do

you hate church, but love God, white

Rock Fellowship, the alternative.

That was popular.

It was.

We had a lot.

Still there are people

that still remember that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh, there, they'll call and say, are

you the people that put up that sign?

Yeah.

Say, yeah.

Now, one of the things maybe

that goes in here that we ought

to put in right at the start.

Okay.

They used to say the sign of a good

church is one that never had enough money.

You never had enough people and you

never had a way to get anything done

that you really wanted to get done.

So we were a really good

church right from the start.

That's, that is good.

That is good.

Hey, there's some of those people who

had no idea what they were doing with us.

No, that's not quite true.

They, they made up some of our

early nucleus of people who, uh.

Is that at a bap?

That's at a baptism, isn't it?

Out there at the, that's a baptism over.

Yeah.

Sorry guys.

This might become one of those moments

where dad goes nostalgic and we're sitting

around Thanksgiving talking about that.

Back in the day moment, that early

group had no idea what they were in for.

Eventually leaving.

Do you see Yeah, Jerry and

Melissa in there anywhere?

Uh, not in this one, but hang in there.

Hang in there.

Okay.

This is even like pre Jerry and Melissa.

This is, no, it's not.

Jerry and Melissa were

there from the beginning.

Jerry and Melissa skipped

the baptism service.

They did.

We'll just keep, we'll just keep moving.

Okay.

So eventually God brought us this, this

amazing parcel over on Highway 38 where we

got busy building a church building That's

Jamie up there putting up some plywood.

Nice job babe.

Looks impressive.

And, uh, we put some signage up

and kind of got busy working.

Uh, it's the building where life

church meets now that, uh, we built

years ago and, uh, could tell.

And this amazing crew of staff

guys, which only two are left.

I don't know where the other

ones got free and took off, but

God's done some neat things.

They ran, they ran, God allowed us

to do some really cool ministry.

And, uh, that facility, that's

a really pretty picture there.

And, uh, look at these

young guys right there.

Oh, handsome young fellows there.

Those kids up there, Jerry and Ron.

It's good to see you guys up there.

I think that's Mike not paying

attention in the back row too,

but he's not here today, right?

This is our young adult group.

Speaking of young people, rusty

and Debbie up there on the left

corner, there's Jerry and Melissa and

Scott, you're hiding out in there.

Grace, you're Tracy.

So Tracy's trying to duck.

It's not working.

Tracy, we see you in that photo, but

young adult canoe trip in the White River.

All kinds of fun.

We had some dramas.

Very dramatic group of people

still, uh, still a crazy crew.

It's kind of traumatized.

And of course.

The horse trough that, uh, kind

of was all part of our adventure.

Our youth group, like

Ryan and Russell there.

And, uh, Allison's in the middle.

Allison's in there, right in the,

that's a great picture there, Allison.

Then I think we got, even like Nick

and, uh, Jarret made it into our kids

program stuff, man, we had so much fun.

Did so many crazy adventures.

Vacation Bible schools and cowboy

kids rodeos and there's Clayton

up there and Dorian and Susie's

still clowning around at White Rock

Justise there and Serena and Nick.

All kinds of adventures

that we had together.

We took men's retreats to Pine River,

Minnesota and kind of staked our

claim to some really good things

that, uh, God was at work doing.

That was kind of that whole chapter over

on Highway 38 that God led us through

and, uh, eventually some things played out

with the denomination that we had started.

White rock with and we ended

up having to go, well, we were

still going the same direction.

They kind of took a hard left and we ended

up having to kind of step away from that.

And the Lord took us to the Great Escape

Theater, which was kind of a crazy cool

God thing where we got to do church

out in the community for five years.

It didn't always say

White Rock at 10 o'clock.

There were some other inappropriate

names above our marquee when church

started, but uh, we loaded in.

You don't realize like in five years

of loading in that it only rained on

us five recorded days in five years.

I don't know what we were doing

wrong those days, but man,

it brings back some trauma.

PTSD trying to set up as fast

as you possibly could to get

ready to do worship and to lead.

And we would pack out the theater.

You know how hard it is to pay attention

when it smells like popcorn at church?

Lemme tell you that we got the

goof off in the kids' wing.

That was a ton of fun.

Hang out with these little

turkeys like Josiah and Taylor.

Wow, that's a little rough man.

Joe and his bathrobe.

Gotta make that one in

there, so that's good.

Our, our youth group kids, they had

a great time playing dance, dance

revolution all the time, so that was cool.

I think that's Preston up there,

Patty hiding out there in that space.

And of course the horse

trough made it there too.

We got to do some baptism out on the,

on the, uh, what do you even call that?

The patio or the front curb Get away.

Yeah.

I dunno what Rusty's doing.

You on it or no?

No.

You're singing.

Singing.

I'm kidding.

Got to do baptisms in

the front of the theater.

That's a pretty big deal.

Most people don't get

baptized at the theater.

And while we were out in the community

for five years doing church at the

Great Escapee Theater, meanwhile

up on Kerrigan Road, which is right

here, Sculley and Kerrigan Road.

We were busy digging our own grave

or no, that's not totally true.

We were setting up shop, um, pretty.

Pretty interesting that these,

these two guys, we like to

call them the dynamic duo.

If you've ever worked with Eric

and Derek, I'm sorry that we don't

have a piece of plywood for you

two guys to carry around up here.

Yes, we definitely,

definitely, we blew that.

We'll get you one next time.

This, uh, this section right

here wasn't always here.

It was just that front section.

The Lord allowed us to

purchase that property.

Uh, when we left the other building, uh,

kind of walked away from everything we'd

invested and, and, uh, put into that.

We, we walked away from what, uh,

they figured that we didn't put in that

we as a group of people put over $900,000

of material and labor into that building,

and it's part of our legacy that Andy just

touched on, but we have never lost track.

Of the principles that we believe

in from the very beginning.

And we voted 100% of our adult

membership, 100% of those who

attended and weren't members.

And we even voted 100% of all of our

kids that were too young to vote.

And we walked away with nothing

and moved into that theater.

Oh, we had a, a trailer and

some, some, uh, sound equipment.

Sound equipment, yeah.

And we had Rusty.

Yeah.

So he got to come along and God

has honored that all the way along.

Yeah, he has.

Yeah.

And you know, we put these signs up

right away because as we left the

building over on Highway 38, the

Lord, uh, really had sitting here for

us, uh, fully furnished, uh, state.

Approved daycare, um, that we were

able to move our kids on the rock, uh,

children's program with 75 families.

We got to move right up there.

So during the week we got to do

stuff out of this building, run our

daycare ministry in our community,

and still do church in the theater.

But God had more plans for this space.

He brought us this amazing, uh, barn.

You know, when somebody gifts

you a barn, you don't say no.

That's what we've learned.

But if you were a part of that adventure

over in Zionsville, somebody was tearing

down this huge field house barn to put

up a subdivision, and they said, if

you can tear it down, you can have it.

Which that was the kind of

deal my dad's always into.

So yes, as a church,

we, we tore down a barn.

I mean that some churches

do barn raisings.

We do barn tearing downs.

It's a totally, it's a totally different

kind of thing, but that's where our

basketball court stuff came from.

That's underneath your seats right there

underneath that blue carpet back there.

Are 3,654 individual strips of the

bird's eye maple floor floating floor

that were numbered, we took apart.

Mm-hmm.

The teens numbered every

one of those floor.

Uh, Joe Murray likes to take credit for

numbering every single one of those.

What's that?

Joe Murray likes to take credit

for remembering every single

one of those Joe's in here,

so doesn't get to talk back.

Okay.

Okay.

And we stored those in

somebody's garage for five years.

Yeah.

At least not in a controlled area.

Brought 'em back in and put every one

of 'em back in in order and we didn't

even have to repaint a line on 'em.

So that's quite a

miracle in and of itself.

We have a lot of people who like puzzles.

That's the problem I think.

Well, there is that.

So we were able to, to take a bunch

of that stuff, recycle some things and

use some to help build the addition

that, uh, is next door where we do

our children's ministry stuff in.

Got to build that together

as a whole group of folks.

And God was at work doing

some really cool things.

We got some playground equipment

donated, uh, that was pretty epic.

Just a lot of cool things that God

did in that space to allow us to add

on that addition that's next door.

And uh, do some cool ministry.

We got to do fish fries and we

got to make chocolate covered

bacon and do stuff at the fair.

I don't know what Nate's doing.

Um, we did a lot of cool adventures

with children's ministry and

youth ministry gave us a place to

operate and do all kinds of stuff.

And we were even for a couple

years there, I think it was about

almost two full years, we got to do

church in the building next door.

And uh, there's a horse

trough still at work.

Still at work.

I think in this corner up here, there's

like Jerry and Melissa and Nate's

asleep and Scott's pretending to pray.

Yeah.

So I mean, there's a few people

in there that, uh, might recognize

themselves in that space.

And then eventually God allowed

us to expand over into this

section of the property.

And, uh, we got to work building what

we're in right now, this worship center.

Lots of people did a lot of work and

it's still standing, which is impressive

with the crew that we put to use.

But uh, in one day we put

all of these walls up.

So I guess we did kind of do some, uh,

barn raising a little bit as we got going.

And everybody worked hard.

A lot of great father son moments there.

And there were a lot of mother daughter

moments too, but the moms wouldn't

let us play with the hammers as much.

So cool stuff that God did.

And we worked together to build that

whole thing out, put on the trusses.

Safety was a premium.

Hard hats, as you can tell

with your kids on the lift.

A lot of cool stuff.

And God really allowed us then to

have this space where we are able

to do a lot of cool ministry things.

And of course, you know, break out

the horse tr again, look at that

sharp looking guy right there, huh?

Very much so.

Uh, where faith finds a way.

Alright, Debbie, we can bring those

lights back up because gotta go

ahead and wake everybody back up.

Yeah, I know, right?

I was getting comfortable too.

That was pretty nice.

Pretty nice.

Yeah.

You better wake everybody up right

in this section, right, right here?

Yeah.

That's good.

Good work, Finn.

All right.

Okay, so, so you ready?

Yeah.

Alright.

Well we were here at the start.

Obviously Andy was here at the start.

Rest of our family, we

felt called to come here.

You know, that's a term that.

These days, a lot of, uh,

pastors are looking for a job.

Uh, nobody should be looking

for a job in ministry.

They're, they're too many hours.

Too few pay for that or too little.

Uh, but we felt called

by the Lord to come.

And so we came.

That's how we got into all the buildings

when you saw the four H area there.

Okay.

That was the joke became, if you can

find us, you can attend church with us.

Because there were all sorts of mornings

we'd show up and they'd say, oh, oh,

you're not in this building this morning.

You're in the one over there.

And so you went from here to there.

And then there were a few mornings where

we showed up saying, oh, we're sorry.

We double booked.

We don't have any place for you.

And so we'd.

Shove everybody in a car and drive

to our house and say, okay, we'll

have church in our house today.

And so we just did that.

Whatever it was, we would do it

because that where faith finds

the way is really, really and

truly the message of our church.

And God has been faithful

over and over and over.

Amen.

Now, one of the things that you do

when you start a church is you make

sure that you have lots of funding.

You need to have funders behind

you who will underwrite everything.

Okay.

I thought it said there

needs to be thunder.

And so we looked for thunder

instead of thunders, and

that's kind of where it went.

We just said, if God wants us

here, he will provide the way.

Now how, I don't know.

I built a lot of houses and redid

a lot of things, whatever I could,

I made Ron Harper, when he started

coming, he had to get up on the

roof and help carry shingles.

Right, Ron?

Okay.

I, I wanted, I wanted some acknowledgement

of that when we were insulating this whole

building, we did that one day, put up

all the fiberglass insulation everywhere.

We walked out there after dark and

rusty laid on his back on the concrete

and he said, you tried to kill me and

with all the heartfelt emotion I could.

I said, yeah, but I failed.

And he said, yeah, but you tried.

I said, yeah, but I failed.

It's okay.

Right.

And you're still okay?

I dunno.

Okay.

Well there is that.

You know, we did whatever he could have.

Andy would've showed all the you.

He doesn't have time to

show you all the pictures.

We got all these little kids running

through the footers out here and

helping to put the footers down.

We didn't know that you could

like, raise millions of dollars

and pay people to do stuff.

No, we thought you had

to build it yourself.

That's right.

If you build it, they will come.

Correct.

Was that the Okay?

I just, and, and everything that

isn't perfect is just a beauty mark.

You know, you could look and we

built the building over in 38.

We built this, we did the addition there.

You know, we kept, we looked for

this place over here because it

did have a daycare and at that

time there were three daycares that

closed in the Noblesville area here.

And the people got a notice that in

two weeks the daycare is closing.

You need to find another

place for your kids.

And we had almost 70 kids.

And our church board said, you know what?

We made a commitment to those people.

We have to keep that commitment somehow.

That's what I mean about principle.

And God honors principle,

when you are willing to stand.

He finds a way to make that work

sometimes at the last minute.

And we have paid down our debt to buy

this, to put up the building over there.

To put the building here.

Uh, and since it's a good time

for Thanksgiving, we should have

done this last week when you were

talking about thankful giving.

Man, we messed up Andy.

Okay.

I have my own little

private dream, if you will.

I started this whole mess.

Of good things.

The church and bad things.

Church.

Church.

The church.

Yeah.

The church.

Yeah.

Well, I, we don't call it the mess.

I started the mess with you too.

You wasn't for me.

You wouldn't be here while your mother is.

Well, yeah, but there

is that, so go to that.

That be good?

Yeah.

We shouldn't have even brought that up.

Okay.

Josiah told me he was

thankful for grandma and I.

Yeah.

The other day she said I wouldn't be here.

Yeah.

Without you two.

So see, it runs in the family.

He understands.

That's good.

Okay.

Listen, we've always been about

natural church development here.

Yes.

It's always good natural

church development.

You bet.

And thank you Gray and

Andrew for doing your part.

So far you've done twice

as much as everybody else.

Yeah.

Okay.

But it's been just a, a dream of mine

that by the time God was done with me.

That we would have that debt paid off.

And we have, we can put the

number up there if it's there.

Yeah.

Well before we do though, I was just

gonna say real quick, 'cause some

of you may be newer to White Rock.

My, my dad has been a church

planter his whole life.

And so we as a family were, I mean,

I went to four different elementary

schools, two different junior highs

and three different high schools.

And Jamie thinks that I have

issues, but I don't understand.

I don't see it.

But we moved all the time and all

over the place to just go where

God wants us to go with nothing.

Like I think dad's life verse

was, you know, Hey disciples,

don't take a cloak with you.

Don't take a purse, just show up.

Right.

And we just did those things.

We would just go to places.

We would go to places you're

not really supposed to go to.

I was telling Jamie the other day

about that big megachurch out in

uh, Portland, that your buddy from

college ran and invited you to come

be the, uh, pastor of evangelism.

Yeah.

And I would've been in high school out

there that whole time at a big church

and wouldn't have to build stuff.

Mm-hmm.

And I looked back at that and instead

we went to a place called Holyoke,

Colorado, which I mean, you can't

even look it up 'cause nobody wants

to even talk about it from Holyoke.

Right.

This little town in the middle of nowhere

with nothing in the church that the

basement or the floor was caving in.

Right.

Yeah.

Because we knew that's

what God wanted us to do.

Yeah.

So part of the legacy of this

crazy adventure of White Rock has

always been just what does God

want us to do And let's go do it.

Yeah.

It didn't matter if we could, that,

that was, I didn't even know people

had those kind of conversations.

Right.

Can we afford, that's not a conversation.

Should, should, like are we capable?

That's not a conversation.

Mm-hmm.

It's just simply what

does God want us to do?

Amen.

And then we walk in

faith and try to do that.

And so all along, that's

been the adventure.

It was, it was a crazy miracle to be

able to get into the four H building

when back in 1996 you could meet at a

school for, what was it, four weeks.

And you had to have plans approved

and property built, uh, to be

able to get that clearance.

'cause the schools wanted no churches

coming in and, and renting space.

We couldn't find access to anything.

We tried everything.

And the four H building

was, we thought a godsend.

And then when we got property over

there on Highway 38, we were blown

away at all of the possibilities.

And we put everything into it we could.

And it's crazy, but when we say

we built it, like it wasn't,

it wasn't like we contracted.

We literally like drove the screws

and the nails and, and all of us like

who were part of a church, the people

in those pictures, they're tired.

You, you're tired, right?

Like we've built stuff with our bare

hands and we've worked together and

we watched God do miraculous stuff.

I still remember at that building

over there, I was in charge

of putting all the nails in.

Uh, we had pinned up the,

the flanges for the windows.

Yeah.

And you were going somewhere And I

was in charge of going back off and

nailing off all the flanges, right?

So there's like maybe 50 nails

in a flange all the way around.

And in the back of my truck

I dug out a styrofoam cup of

nails and that's all I had.

And I was like, well Lord, you know,

there's that whole Elijah Bread thing.

I'm just gonna start and see what happens.

'cause we had to get this stuff done and

I just started just pulling nails out.

And guys, I nailed off like, what

was it, 16 windows and I can't do

that math, but it was cup after cup

after cup that should have been.

And God, just like you had people

show up who were willing to just.

Do the work for nothing.

For things, correct.

I mean, God just did miraculous things.

You know one of, one of the

things I'm wanna interrupt you.

No.

That you're talking about right.

Interrupted Jesus Square, every

building that we have built for

the church, God, God, God just did,

like you say, incredible things.

But not only that, there were people that

came to help not getting paid, but they

just came to help and ended up giving

their heart to Jesus right there in the

construction project, down in the trenches

where we were digging the sewer lines.

One guy that was a salesman

for the company drove all the

way from over east of Green.

Which one's?

Which one's?

East, Southeast, Greenfield.

He lived east of there.

He called me, he.

I need to come up, check on the project.

I said, great.

Come on up.

I'll be here.

He pulled into our old driveway

there where we still just had

gravel and dirt and he sat there

and never got out of his car.

He just started crying and

he said, I was just praying.

I was, I didn't know what to do.

And he said, the only thing that

kept coming to me was go up to

that church that they're building.

There will be help there.

And so we stood out there beside his

car and he gave his heart to Jesus.

And those things happened over and over.

They happened here.

They happened because it was like,

if we're a church where God's

gonna be, then he needs to show up.

And he did.

And I, I will talk about the

financial thing here in a minute.

Not just that one, but all the way along.

We had to find God, show up and do

things that we were incapable of doing.

If God didn't show up,

it wasn't gonna happen.

That's what Andy's been

talking about there.

And as a church, you know, you

guys over the years have asked me

to write down the story of these

things so it doesn't get lost.

And maybe my wife will get

busy and get that done for me,

but

it, it, it is a miracle that we are here.

Over in that building on 38, we as a

church led over 600 people to Jesus.

And all, but a handle, handful of

them went to Grace, went to Northview.

I always would say, you know, you guys,

you could at least show up and try us one

Sunday and see if we're worth attending.

And, uh, but it's okay.

They made their way into the kingdom.

Yeah.

And you know, it's been an adventure.

And when we needed to see God, you

know, most people never experience

God doing something beyond themselves.

What, what's a verse was, I can do all

things through Christ who strengthens me.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Our idea of that is I can do all

things myself because I don't know

how to have God do something I can't.

Okay.

When you experience that as a church,

what that does is it's helped you to

say, well, okay, if God could do that,

then I bet you can do more than that.

And so we would start there.

So that's the biggest lead in

I can do for the next part.

Well I think, I think the

bottom line is just simply this.

You guys are part of the legacy.

Amen.

Of hope that God has been

at work producing in us.

And man, the, the things that

God has done and the things that

our God is capable of doing.

I like to use the word ridiculous

'cause they're just ridiculous.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, there's just no reason.

There's no rational reason

for some of the things.

God is able to just make happen.

And he has been so good and so

faithful and he has walked so.

Kindly with us through our

myriad of crazy adventures.

Uh, and we've tried really hard to

be faithful to him and to walk in

obedience and, uh, you know, as a

church just could not be prouder of

our family and what you guys have done.

Yeah.

And, uh, and we're excited

about what God's doing.

And, um, you were gonna say

something about, uh, wanting

to, to knock some things out as

your big checklist for Correct.

So one of the things that is a part,

and if you're new here, you need

to hear this so you understand it.

If you've ever gone to church anywhere,

almost every church has a ruling

body, which would be their board

or whatever they want to call it.

And that is a business board.

Do you know the difference

between that and.

What do we have?

A spiritual board.

Spiritual board, business board.

You sit down and say, this

is how much money we have.

This is what people we have,

this is the opportunity we have.

Now what can we do with that?

That's a business board.

Okay?

A spiritual board is sitting down

together as a group, getting on our

knees before God and saying, okay,

God, what do you want us to do?

And when we understand what it

is that he wants us to do, then

it's our job to sit down and say,

huh, okay, how can we do that?

And there's numbers of you who've

served over the years in those places,

and it's not necessarily a comfortable

place to be, but it's a good place.

And so the piece of property that you're

setting on here, I forget what we.

Even had to pay for this and

then had to put into it to add

the addition and the addition.

But, uh, when we thought nobody would

work with us, bless Farmer's Bank because

they did the Farmer's Bank, and when we

dedicated this building, they were here.

And, uh, they just stood beside

us and every time there was a

hiccup, they said, no problem.

We'll make it work.

No problem.

It's good.

So we were very thankful for them,

but we, we had quite an indebtedness.

And I'm gonna put this up here.

This is what the indebtedness is today.

Maybe you're gonna put it up there.

Okay.

299,581. Okay.

The tax appraisal on the

property where you're setting.

We didn't put that up there, but it's

worth mentioning is $3.5 million.

Okay.

There are people that have

talked to us that they would

like to buy our property here.

Okay.

And then we'd have to

build somewhere else again.

Yeah.

I'm, I'm totally against building again.

I've had enough, uh, okay.

In working with the bank, that figure

is 5.5 million and we have in AEB of

299,000 now through the grace of God.

Well, and maybe getting us down

from this 300,000, like Yeah.

When we left over on Highway 38,

we, we had two properties that we

had purchased as a church to try to

expand and then we had to try to.

Sell those.

And I'm pretty sure that was around

2008, which was a great time to

sell property sell as I recall.

Uh, so we, we incurred some

indebtedness on that and we had to

buy this property up here to move the

daycare to added some, some expense

to that building and then being able

to, to pay for all this building.

And so over the years, um, you guys

have done an incredible job together as

a church to whittle this down to being

under $300,000 as our total and complete

indebtedness, uh, as a, as a whole church.

Um, which is crazy, uh, given

all of the different crazy

adventures that we've been on.

Uh, so we're excited about that.

And we also have, um, in hand

here we have $132,000 that is, uh,

designated to go to debt retirement.

Um, from our board, we've been, we

have some savings and some things

we've been working on with some of our

grant stuff and some different things.

And so we have about 132,000, um, that.

As you know, when we're ready to,

we can put that right to our, um,

total indebtedness, which brings us

to a total of $167,581 of really what

we're, uh, remaining here as a balance.

When the bank does a commercial loan,

they have a whole process cost almost

$10,000, and I was able to secure a

commitment from them that they're gonna

do a one year extension starting in

January, and we're gonna try to retire

that $167,581 without a $10,000 appraisal.

Said it's a little silly for us to want

a big commercial appraisal on a property

that's less than 10% of that's well.

He was saying it's, it's getting down

there close to 1% of your entire thing.

We are covered.

So that was great.

So here is what I would like to

propose to you as a church family

and help me to retire this.

The church has retired as a family,

but I'd love to see this go away

while I'm still here and preaching.

Lemme pause you there real quick

because the one thing I hate in

the church is talking about money.

I hate it.

We never talk about money, we just don't.

Jesus talked about money

more than anything else.

He talked about.

Do you know that in the New Testament,

his parables and his teaching on money

are the highest percentage of everything

he talks about, which is crazy.

Mm-hmm.

And we just don't talk about money.

Probably because we grew up in the

church where everybody's just always

talking about money and it's like.

Dude, we're all, I mean, our church has

survived all of these crazy things on one

ma amazing principle that as God's people,

we are a church of faithful tithers.

People who commit to the Lord

and say, Hey, 10% of everything

I have, Lord is yours.

It's not even mine to kind of play with.

It's just, it's yours.

And obedient giving and tithe and

offerings have been a principle

that God has honored through all of

that crazy journey we showed you.

And so, yeah, go ahead.

Oh no, no, please.

I asked.

I asked Pete and Susie the

other day, 'cause they've been

here for 20 something years.

They said, how many times have

you heard me preach on tithing?

And she said, maybe twice.

You know how we preach about tithing?

If God said it in his word, we

do it because his word is true.

And so you don't have to preach on giving.

You just preach on God's word being true.

The national average for churches

of every size tithing, how many

people tithe that on average?

Anybody guess 2002 to 3%

is average.

Our church has always been around

80% without talking about time.

If you believe God's word, which you

preach, then you're talking about it.

God honors that, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so, so here we are talking

about money, but only because

there's this older gentleman that

I love a lot who's been part of the

crazy adventures in my life from.

Really the time I began.

And as you kind of step into this

season of life, looking at this,

this is a, this is something that

my dad has been pestering me about.

Amen.

We should really talk about knocking

this out so that every dime that comes

in through ties and offerings doesn't

have to go into any debt service.

We don't have any mortgage.

We can just put everything we

have into ministry and not have to

mess with any of our indebtedness.

And I've been like, yeah, yeah, dad.

Yep, we should do that.

We should do that.

And then finally I beat him down and I got

honoring my father and mother.

Right.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, he is not wrong, is he, Tim, that

we should get rid of our debt, right.

That uh, the one who's in debt is

in slavery to the lender for sure.

And as a church, we've been attacking

this and attacking this, and

it's really in a position where.

We're gonna really, it's time.

Take care of it.

We have, God has been so faithful

in the midst of that because

we've been faithful to him.

He's been faithful.

Amen.

Now here's, so tell us

your sneaky plan, dad.

Yeah.

Here's, here's my sneaky plan.

Okay.

If you've ever been part of any church,

anywhere other than here, you know,

they'll have pledge cards and they'll

do all these things and whatnot.

Okay.

That's not our style.

Pam, bring my bucket up here.

Would you

had to get up here, here, up here.

Somehow she makes me look so much better.

Okay.

Some of you, very few of you.

But some of you will

remember the offering bucket.

For a long time our treasurer

used to work at Red Gold.

And when he came, he said, man,

you want, you want a, we got

a deal on an offering bucket.

This has been around for

almost 25 years, guys.

Okay.

And every Sunday, that offering bucket

just sat in the back of the church.

We never took up an offering.

What?

We never took up an offering.

We just set the bucket back there

and whatever came in, came in.

And we were able to operate

for a number of years.

And so, as you can tell, we're not

into, uh, running a campaign to do

anything, but we have roughly 100

families that attend the church.

And being the mathematician who still

stands in the back every Sunday and.

It takes attendance, not

attendance, but counts.

How many people are here?

Uh, some things you can't

get rid of after 50 years.

And I said, you know what?

If we just put out the option to

people to say, over the next year,

I am going to trust God to bring

1% of that amount in, and at the

end of one year, we would do that.

Now, for some people, that

would be an absolute miracle

for that much money come in.

We're not talking about

taking outta your budget.

I want you to pray and say,

God, if you want me to do this,

you bring it from somewhere.

You know, if you wait a table, somebody

gives you a $50 tip and you say, huh.

Oh, hey, thank you.

Thank you for reminding me of that.

Some job that you're totally

unexpecting that comes outta nowhere,

but so that you know, I know it's

just easier for some of you to just

write a check, say, there you go.

And that's fine.

Yes.

So you said, um,

I can't hear you.

Come on up here.

You said 1% for, what does that

break down to for $1,675 and 81

cents over the course of a year.

If you're doing it on a budget,

that's $134 every month.

But I am not asking you to sign a pledge.

I'm not asking you to,

between you and God.

If you wanna do that, say

God, would you do that?

Some of you will be happy to take care

of 2, 3, 4, 5%, whatever it is, just.

So that it helps meet

what everybody else does.

But I want to see at the end of the year

that all of us are still invested in that.

Nobody's gonna come and say,

well Andy, how you coming?

You putting your 1% you get, it has not.

That's between you and God,

whatever comes along there.

Just kinda like the reason we dug

out the old bucket is because we're

gonna make life hard for Abby.

Okay?

There's an offering basket back

there to put your offering in.

This is totally separate from any of that.

This isn't tithe, this is God

moving, working, doing something.

So you can watch him do it

and every Sunday this will

be back there in the back.

If you have something goes there,

just stick it in the bucket.

We'll keep the lid.

We'll keep the lid off so you can

actually put something in it and

man, let's see where God takes that.

It'll, it'll, it'll be fun.

And that's the thing, guys, just so

you can appreciate this, this is a man

that I spent a lot of my life with and.

The idea that this would be fun was

definitely something we lived out.

And sometimes it meant going

to Holyoke and sometimes it

meant doing the craziest things.

'cause we thought that's

what God wanted us to do.

When we teach on tithing.

And when you read the scripture about

tithing, and one of the reasons I feel a

little convicted sometimes I don't talk

more about giving and finances is because

when we're not faithful and when we don't

step out in faith and trust God to do

some crazy stuff, we kind of miss out on

some of the cool, crazy stuff God does.

And I don't wanna rob you guys of

that and I don't mean to do that.

Um, my dad gets excited about ridiculous

things like, Hey, everybody could

give 1% and bring this money in and

see you gotta do something crazy.

It's gonna be awesome.

They're gonna don't.

Amen.

You need to let the church know.

I'm like, ah, you need to let the

church know Dad, this is a Marty Jam.

Uh, but truthfully, this is an

invitation to be part of something

cool that we think God's at work doing.

That's what this is.

This isn't some kind of guilt trip.

This isn't some kind of like,

man, sign up and get your 1%.

Not at all.

In fact, I'll probably be like, wait,

don't miss the ties and offerings.

'cause that helps us operate every month.

Right?

Like that's important.

Um, this is an invitation to help watch

this thing disappear and watch God own

outright all of the property, all of the

facilities, everything that we have, and

be able to have everything that comes

in through ties and offerings to go to

operational ministry and rock and roll

with that and be done with that stuff.

Yes ma'am.

Once, once this is done.

Mm-hmm.

You retire.

What is it?

Release then?

What do we usually spend every month?

What frees up like 50 some thousand

dollars, $54,000 a year That won't

be going to interest and, and debt.

That's significant.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, the treasure said,

don't gively to this.

Use the bucket, figure it out.

Separate with one of.

What?

So if you, if you do your tithe,

the treasurer said tithe is not

the place to put this right now.

Tithing is the bucket.

Okay.

Or that, that is the I got you basket.

I got you.

I got you.

Uh, the app.

Don't use the app.

Oh, just the bucket.

This is just money in the old bucket.

All right.

Hey.

Yeah.

I don't know how to tithe

on the, on the internet.

You write a check, you put

it in the basket back there.

Good night, Pam.

Come get this.

It's confusing.

Hunter.

You can just carry out, you know

what, you should take it back to mom.

Why don't you just take it back to mom?

That'll be Oh.

'cause I'm not done.

Oh, you're not done.

I'm not done.

All right.

You can't push me outta the way like that.

I, I'm just hugging you.

Just hugging you.

Yeah, I know you're

trying to get me outta me.

Okay.

Yeah.

Lemme see this.

Please.

No, I, no, you take care.

I'll give it back.

I promise.

I just, I just gotta say, I don't

know if anybody else is feeling it.

You know, I've been here for nine years.

And I couldn't be more excited

about what this church has done in

my life, in my eternity of my kids.

The conversations I've had, and I'm

not trying to glorify myself or them.

It's what God's done through them and

to me, into my kids, into my wife,

and to my father, into my mother,

into their spouses, and to friends

that are been my friends for decades.

I'm talking what God

has done in this place.

I couldn't be more excited

about pouring into this place.

So Whoopty do about giving some money.

This place, the way they

love, they love real well.

And so this matters.

This is huge and I'm excited for it too.

So there's no apology or like, this

is awkward, we're asking for money.

Couldn't be more excited

to give 16 75, 81.

Alright, sounds good brother.

Okay, the last thing I want to say here,

did you, no, he didn't turn it off.

Debbie turned it off That, no.

Okay.

The last thing I want to say is, you

know, we showed you where we were at and.

And Andy kept coming

back to the horse trough.

You know, our $14,000 baptismal.

Super nice.

Which 20 years ago, that's

what it would've cost.

Put in a baptismal is $14,000.

We have a red gold bucket

and we have a horse trough.

We baptized people in.

You know what I'm saying?

We're sitting around money somewhere else.

Speed.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay.

The money that comes into our

church is invested right here.

That's the whole thing.

The church is people.

When Jesus comes back, you're

sitting in a pile of ash right here.

None of this building is going to heaven.

Amen.

Only the people that are in it.

So yep.

Now I'll take the bucket and go

back and sit with your mother.

Alright.

Thank you very much.

All right.

Well, he is the God of all hope.

And this morning, thank you on this

holiday weekend for your patience

and sitting around the Thanksgiving

table and listening to a few stories.

Uh, but God, it's his story, you know,

and our journey with him has been

crazy and wild and fun and exciting.

Uh, but I'd probably been bored

outta my mind if he just did some

boring church vibe with us, man.

God is good.

And, uh, I'm thankful on this holiday

weekend for you guys being a part of our

church family, thankful what God's doing.

And, and listen, this isn't

like a closing chapter.

This is just rearranging all this

stuff, getting it settled so we

can take the next crazy adventure

to hang a left of the god's.

God coming next, which I

don't want to talk about.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much

for your amazing love for us.

Thank you that you are the

God of amazing expectation.

Confident expectation.

You have been at work, you continue

to be at work, you're faithful.

Even when we're faithless.

You remain faithful 'cause of who you are.

You've been leading all along the way.

You're at work in our lives

and we're so grateful for that.

Thank you for the privilege of just

being on this adventure with you.

And God, I pray over this calendar year

ahead that in looking at this desire,

Lord, to totally eliminate all of the

debt that we have as a church, that

God, you would just do some super cool

things to just show off who you are.

Lord, don't let us be people who just

in our own strength try to do things,

but Lord that we would pray and that we

would ask and that we would be obedient.

To respond when you move.

And so Father, I pray that for each of us,

for all of the families that are part of

our congregation and our church family,

Lord, that, that you would bring in the

resources that we need to knock this thing

out to honor you in faithfulness here.

And Lord, just remind us who you

are in the midst of it, I pray.

Thank you so much for the time together

today, and thank you for the next

chapter that you're writing in our story.

We're excited for what you're

doing and just thank you.

In Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.