How to CHURCH // From Good to Great Churches // Gary Brandenburg

Welcome to the Movement Church Podcast. We want you to know that God is

for you, and so are we. You're about to hear a sermon from

one of our weekend services in Palmer Lake, Colorado. We pray that your

faith is provoked, your mind is renewed, and your heart is awakened as

you engage the Word of God. Stay tuned after the message for ways to

get connected with us. God bless you, thanks for tuning in. In

nineteen ninety nine, on July thirty first of that year, a beautiful young

woman named Dana Joy Cotton said, I do to this guy right here.

So we're celebrating our twenty fifth Anniverse this summer, and yeah, that's awesome.

It's exciting. Applaud for Dana. Uh And and so we almost immediately

hit the road. We and four other guys were in a band called Face

Down, and we traveled the country and at one fateful week we were in

Tyler, Texas, and a guy who I had known from Baton Rouge named

Todd Hanky, who was the worship pastor at a church called Grace Community Church.

Uh, he saw us play, and you know, we were talking

after and he said, hey, I think you're a pastor. In fact,

I think you're a worship pastor. And I was like, ah,

nah, dude, you're crazy. And you know because I was like,

we're living the life, We're living the dream. Uh. And so then

about six or eight months later, we were kind of at a place where

our band was coming to a close and we didn't know what was next.

And I remembered that moment with Todd Hanky, and so I called him and

I said, Hey, remember how you told me you think I'm like a

worship dude or whatever. And He's like yeah, and so I said,

well, maybe I want to give that a shot. So he invited Dana

and I to come out to Tyler to live actually in Lyndale in like a

shack for a summer with There was no ac in that apartment. I don't

know if you remember that or not, but Shelton the drummer, you remember

that guy anyway, So we lived with this drummer in his like shack at

his house, and we were interns at Grace Community Church. And that's where

I met a guy who I have since looked up to and just thought the

world of one of the one of the best communicators one of the greatest people

I've known, really genuine, really honest and just a loving pastor for so

many years. So I would like to introduce to you to my friend.

I'd like you to give him a big movement church applause for Gary Brandenburg.

Everybody. He's going to teach for us today. Thanks buddy, Thanks Fike.

That's that was really good. That was about the second best interdew I've

ever heard. I did an event one time and the MC looked at me.

I was sitting at the table up front and MC leans over to me

and goes, I have no idea who you are. I don't have a

bio. Could you just introduce yourself. That's the best introduction I've ever heard.

So that was a good introduction. Man. I am so glad to

be here. I was just standing here looking at you, and for me,

honestly, it's it's almost like a full circle experience because in nineteen eighty

three we planted a church. We were in the Bay area of California and

planted a church. And my friends Lorne and Eileen, who are I'm staying

at their house. They live in Littleton now, and they were part of

that Young congregation, and we you know, we met Gosh, we met

in the backyard, we met in a school, We met in a seven

that the Adventist Church. Thank god they worship on the wrong day because we

could use that, you know, they meet on Saturday, so we could

worship there on Sunday. And so it's great to be here and to be

with you. And I've thought a lot about It's brought back some great memories

about church planting. In fact, I think, you know, I've got

a sermon planned that I'm got to get to. But just driving down here

from Littleton today, it was like maybe one of the best three point sermons

that I could possibly give to a young church. And it was right there

on the fruit and God just blared it at me. It was up on

a sign and it was three points. I was driving along and it said

fog ahead, low visibility, use caution. I thought that is such a

good message for a young church, because I've been through that, there's fog

ahead, there's decisions to make. You kind of get lost in the fog

sometimes and you got to make a call and so and then there's low visibility

in this culture today. Are you kidding me? There's low visibility. For

sure. I've got a friend. I'm so thankful for my friend who in

fact, he's so worked up about politics. He says, I don't think

I can vote for either of the presidential candidates. And he's serious about this.

He says, I'm going to write your name in. And I said,

yeah, right, He goes, I'm serious, he says, I'm

going to write your name in. I can hardly wait to introduce myself down

and say a former presidential candidate. Add that to my resume. So it's

a foggy time, it's low visibility, and use caution. And that's where

I want to kick off this morning. Careful, be careful how you plant,

Be careful about the habits that you create, Be careful of what you

present to this community. And and and I'm gonna ask you this just start

with a question. If I moved to this area and I asked you,

Hey, you know what, I'm new in the area, and uh,

could you recommend three really good churches to me? And you can't use movement,

okay, but in your brain right now, if you could think of

three really good churches that you would say to me, you know, you

really do want to trade this church and this church and this church. Wonder

what you would say you got that in your head, maybe you got maybe

a couple of them. Okay, here's the next question. What is the

criteria that you just used to recommend those good churches? I love air quotes,

don't you air quotes? But I hate air quotes? But I just

did it. But can I just take a stab at it? Here's and

I would say this is probably true of most people. Here are the criteria

for good churches. One, there would have to be good preaching, or

at least it would have to be preaching that kept me from falling asleep,

or at least it would have to be preaching that was short, because nobody's

ever heard a bad short sermon. So the preaching, you would evaluate it

based on the preaching. Then, secondly, it would have to have good

music. Right now, we're gonna call it worship. We kind of get

confused sometimes about that, but we just you know, it's got to have

kind of a cool vibe to it, like the ojas, and so it's

got to have good music. The third thing is it's got to have good

programs. Because now, and I'm speaking because I live in Dallas. Okay.

I pastored a church in Dallas for seventeen years. It's the consumer capital

of the world, I think, and people come to church with a consumer

mentality. I just know. And they come and they check out the facilities,

especially parents. They check out the children's facilities. And I was just

waiting for someone to come and go, oh yeah, you know, we

were kind of hoping for a pirate ship. I mean, there's a church

in Dallas. They got a slide for the kids. When they leave the

children's area, they come down a slide. I mean it's like, so,

you know, facilities would be a big deal. Got to have a

Starbucks coffee shop and the lobby, and then the fourth thing would there'd be

programs for the kids, and then the beauty of the facilities, so preaching,

music, programs, facilities, and based on those four criteria, I

want to take you to a passage in the Book of Acts and take it

to a church they didn't have any of that stuff they they had. I

want to take it to a church where the where they had no facilities.

They had no music that that I that I can read about in the New

Testament. Uh, they had no programs. And can I say this humbly,

Uh, the preaching was just okay. I mean, if you read

the sermons in the Book of Acts, and I'm being serious about this,

if you read those sermons and you took those sermons and you just changed a

couple of things, and you took it to Denver Seminary, or you took

it to Dallas Seminary, to the preaching department, and you submitted that for

a grade, you wouldn't get a very good grade. I mean there were

no three points, There were no poems, there were no stories. There

were but men were they powerful sermons and they were a great church. And

that's sort of really what I want to talk about. How do you go

from being a good church to a great church? And one of the big

differences I think in the church today and the Church in the Book of Acts

is the difference between the state of the art and the state of the heart.

So many churches I go to today they've mastered the state of the art.

You love this fight. So our worship pastor he was big on the

state and he was really good, and I love the guy and he uses

his gifts and abilities to the glory of God, But sometimes he would do

things and I didn't know why. Like, for example, you know,

if you're going to be a cool church, you gotta have smoke. I

don't know why we have smoke, but I think it's because the lights look

cool going through the smoke, and and and so one time I asked him,

Jason, I said, why do we have smoke? It looked I

thought maybe the worship band was having a smoke in the green room or something.

Now, but I said, what, why do we have that?

And he answered it exactly the way I thought he would. I don't know,

I never thought of that. I said, yeah, I know,

So let's think about it. Okay, I know it hurts sometimes to think,

but let's let's let's think about why we do the things we do.

Now, I told him, and I gave him the answer. I said,

I wish you would say this. So now, if I ever asked

you again, say this. The Bible talks about using everything we have to

worship God. If you got drums, beat the drums. Anybody's seen that

YouTube deal with a girl that's singing oceans she's keyboard. That cracks me.

I just saw it recently. She's singing oceans playing keyboard and the guy on

the drums just goes crazy and he's doing a drum solo. It's like,

what But I love the fact that, you know, this guy is just

so into he wants to do what he does to the glory of God.

And so, you know, think about all the things that they used in

the Bible just to make a joyful noise and to worship God. So I

don't know if Jason ever got it or not, but he's a good man

and he was learning. And that's the state of the art. But what

I see in the New Testament is the state of the heart. I like

what Eugene Peterson says, and this is particularly poignant for me. I pass

her now for what from nineteen seventy seven, however many years that is.

And Peterson says he describes what happens when we focus on the state of the

art. He says, the pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of

shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeepers'

concerns, how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from

competitors down the street, and how to package the goods so that the customers

will lay out money. And then when I read that, I thought,

Wow, that's how you feel sometimes in the church. So let me invite

you if you have your Bible. I'm in Acts chapter four. If you

have a device or some way you can follow this. I think we're going

to be able to put it on the screen. But let me read you

a passage that I think tells us the things that made the early church great.

And the question this morning is how does a church go from good to

great? And the answers here in these seven verses in Acts chapter four.

So here's what it says. Now. The full number of those who believed

were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the

things that belonged to him was his own. But they had everything in common

and with great power. The apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of

the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not

a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands and

houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold lated at the apostles

feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Thus Joseph

and was also called by the Apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement.

A levite, a native of Cyprus, sold a field that belonged to him

and brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet. So I just

want to pick out some characteristics. I think of a church that is a

great church, and how do we go from good to great? First one,

is this a great church enjoys great unity. Verse thirty two says that

they were of one heart and one soul. We use that as an expression,

but what a great way to explain these people that were so close and

they were so committed to one another that they were of one heart and one

soul. In fact, if you've turned back to Acts chapter two, you

see these people were committed to the things that mattered most in spite of their

differences. Uh. I think one of the one of the miracles. I

never thought of this before I started looking at this, because you know,

there are a lot of miracles in the Book of Acts, and we love

miracles. I've had people ask me, you know, I read the Bible

and I'm not sure about Christianity because I don't know what to do with all

these miracles if anybody ever says that, because there are good thinking people that

go, come on, man, you're talking about Jesus walked on water,

seriously feeding five thousand people with that little bit of lunch. And I don't

know. Here's my answer to that. I use it every time. I

say, you know what, once you get past Genesis one one, the

rest is easy. If God created everything we see, if every atom,

every molecule, every planet, every organ in your body, if God did

all that, you're telling me he can't have somebody walk on water. So

there are a lot of miracles about. But here's a miracle to me.

If you look at chapter two of Acts, this is this is pretty amazing.

Where did these people that were there in Jerusalem? Where did they?

Obviously it was Pentecost, which which was a Jewish festival. Before the Day

of Pentecost, they always celebrated Pentecost, but it meant something different once that

happened. But if you look at chapter two, verse five, it says

this, now there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every

nation under heaven. By the way, that's a little Hebrew hyperbole. Hyperbole's

overstatement. They weren't from every nation. It's just a figure of speech.

It's like you say, man, I went to the mall and there were

a million people there. No, I don't know how many were there,

but it was some less than a million. But when you say that,

everybody knows what you mean. So they're saying your people from every nation under

heaven. But I'll tell you what. It's close because if you everyone was

hearing the word of God preached in their own language. Jumped down to verse

nine. Here they are you ready, Parthians, Meads, Elamites, Mesopotamians,

Judeans, Cappadocians. I don't know what a resident of Pontus would be

called, but pontificator, I don't know. Pontificators, Asians, Phrygians,

Pamphilians, Egyptian, Libyans belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome. There

were Romans there, both Jews and non Jews, Cretans, Arabians, you

get in the picture. Here. This is I'm telling you. I think

I have a new appreciation of this. This is a miracle. All of

these people from all of these diverse places on the planet, they come together

and they worship to God and their one heart and one soul. How do

you do that? You talk about DEI I mean, this is this is

miraculous. I get to see this regularly. I work for Mercy Ships and

we have two hospital ships in the world, ones in Sierra Leone, ones

in Madagascar. And when I go to those ships, there are people on

those ships. Our ships have about people from about fifty different countries on the

ship serving. And so to go on that ship and to be around people

from all of those different places and then to come together with a common purpose

and to worship together a common savior, it's it's amazing. So these are

the people that gathered together, and they were of one heart, and they

were of one soul. Listen, Good churches do a good job talking about

good things that God has done for good people. Great churches focus on taking

the stunning message of the Gospel to those God misses most. Because I travel

a lot these days, I'm getting tired of it. But a lot of

times, if I'm going to one of our international offices somewhere in Europe,

I'll stop in and look at you know, there might be a beautiful cathedral

there, Old European Cathedral. And one of the things that's so cool to

me, you're going you look at the stained glass and some of them are

just just gorgeous stained glass windows. And one day I was I was looking

at one of the sting glass windows and I thought, this is interesting.

They're telling the story with the stained glass, but they're telling to the story

to the people that are inside the church. I think they should turn the

glass around. Now. Obviously they're they're they're you know, they're teaching their

people the story of the gospel. But isn't it the people out there that

need to hear the story of the gospel. So great churches focus on taking

the stunning message of the Gospel to our communities. And I believe that unity

is a convincing sign of the presence of God. When God conceived the church,

he didn't envision a random collection of solo performers all trying to make a

name for themselves. He wanted to show the world a diverse group of people

sharing a common commitment to make his name great. And he envisioned a symphony

orchestra. I want to come back to that at the end. All right,

So good churches enjoy great unity. Here's the second thing I want you

to see. Back to ask for a great church experiences great power. Now

hold on to that because when we think of that, we tend to think

of impressive, miraculous deeds. The church has been plagued with that. We

always want to see something miraculous, something impressive, something, and some people

even fake it so that you know they can satisfy people's desire for that.

Go back to four point thirty two full number of those who believe one heart

and soul. There's the unity. No one said anything that belonging was his

own. They had everything in common and with great power. The apostles were

giving testimony. Now, some of you know the word power. The Greek

word is dounymous. It's where we get the word dynamite. But I love

this because the little prefix to this great is mega. We use that right

so that they experienced mega power and and and mega dynamite. And we need

to be careful how we handle that power. Uh, we need to be

careful with that. I one of my one of the writers I've always appreciated

Henry now And and and Henry now And once said the temptation to consider power

an apt instrument for the proclamation of the Gospel is the greatest temptation of all

and we get in trouble when we focus on power. Nevertheless, they were,

they were experiencing great power. Uh. Church history tells a sad tale

about the decline of people who, rather than being stunned by the power of

the Gospel, they were stunted by the lust for power. And uh.

And I would say it's still among us, and it's still causing some embarrassment

for what I would consider true followers of Jesus, that people that you know,

want to show off their power. A great church takes great power from

the rights. I almost did it. I didn't do it because what I

was going to bring was probably all of us. We have one of those

like gas cans, like to put fill your lawnmower and stuff, and if

you run out of gas, and that's how you need to get the gas

can. And I was gonna use my friend Lauren's gas can, but then

we realized it's stunk so bad that we didn't want to drive smell in the

fumes all the way down here, so we didn't bring it. But I

was going to show you a gas can I've done this before where I shake

the can and it's got liquid in it, and I said, I don't

know what's in this can, but I'm going to take a match and take

a look and see what's inside. Because there are a couple of different kinds

of power, right, So, uh, if you put a man that

you're going to be impressed. It'll be an impressive display of power. But

here's the interesting thing that I don't think a lot of Christian people think of.

But if you take that can and you pour it into the gas tank

of a four thousand pound vehicle, you can propel that vehicle three hundred miles

down the road. That's power, but not very impressive because we've gotten so

used to it. We see it all the time. We don't really think

about that that's power. See the power that you see some Now, there

are some impressive things that happen during this intermittent period of time between Jesus being

on the earth and the Church being established. There's some impressive miracles that go

on. But to me, some of the most impressive stuff isn't the stuff

that explodes. It's just, for example, how all of these different people

can come together with one heart and one soul to me. So don't get

caught up. And you know how big we are, how powerful we may

look. So a great church enjoys great unit. There's four of these,

right, enjoys great unity, experiences great power. And here's the third one.

A great church exhibits great grace. And I love that word verse thirty

three. With great power of the postles given testimony the resurrection Lord Jesus,

and mega grace was upon them all. Now see, we read the word

grace. Here's what happens in church. Oftentimes we read words that we really

don't understand, but we've heard them so many times we just repeat them.

And grace is one of those words. Like I remember when I first became

a Christian living in southern California. I was at a church and they would

sing songs and I, I didn't grow up in a Christian home. Church

was new to me, and they would I still remember this one because I

never said, you know, And here's the problem. When you are not

an insider, you're a little afraid to ask questions. Like as high school,

I'd go to a Bible study and they'd say, well, let's talk

about Zachia is and I'd been given a Bible by my parents because i'd just

become a Christian, and so I started thumbing through the z's. I was

looking for the z's found zachariaz F and I where's zach he is? I

didn't ask anyone because I was too embarrassed. And they would sing this song

and they would remember this, bring forth the royal didim and I would go,

what is that? And do we really need to bring that in here?

I mean, what now? Just in case you're wondering, it's a

crown. It's a king's crown. But I didn't know that. So we

use words that we don't know, you know, things like raising your ebenezer,

you know, stuff like that. In church language. Grace is one

of those. I know. If I asked you grace, somebody in this

room would say this, grace is God's unmerited what exactly That's a great definition.

Someone else might say, there's an acronym g R a c E.

God's riches at Christ's expence. That's not bad. But for me, grace

is God doing for me what I could never do for myself. It's God

doing for this church what you could never do for this church. That's grace

to me. A couple of years ago, friend of ours, her birthday

is the same day as mine, and her husband was the CFO of a

go old company. They have out ranch and so you know, they they

got stupid money. So he builds a dance floor for his wife and a

barn on their ranch because they're gonna have a big She was turning sixty.

They have a big blowout birthday party for her, and we were invited.

So we thought this would be fun. So we got we went. He

had a wet country western band, he had a square dance caller. He

was teaching us to do the cotton eye joe, and you know, so

we're all out there dancing, and uh, you know, I'm getting the

hang of it, you know, but I don't know about the rest of

you men, but a lot of men like me. I could run a

ten k, but but he asked me to dance, and I just about

five minutes, I go, oh, I'm tired. I can't, I

can't, I can't be out here anymore. So I'm sitting down. Well,

I'm watching and there's a guy out there on the dance floor, and

I'm thinking to myself, what's he shouldn't be out there because he's like,

he's got no rhythm and he's doing all this, and I'm thinking, you

know how you know you do this in the twinkling of an eye. I

just got so judgmental in my mind, thinking, Oh, he shouldn't be

out there. He doesn't dance like me, you know. And he's dancing

with a young girl. She was maybe like in her late twenties, beautiful

young girl, and I assumed it was his daughter because she was doing the

same stuff. And I thought, this has got to be hereditary, you

know. And I'm going through this in my mind and my wife is sitting

next to me, and she turns to me and she says, oh,

isn't that wonderful. I felt insulted. I thought, that's wonderful. Did

you not see me out there? And she could tell I was kind of

puzzled, and she said, oh, you don't know. I said,

I don't know. What. She said. That man had a brain aneurysm

last year and they didn't think he'd be able to walk again, and he

came and he's out dancing, and he wanted to dance with his little girl.

And she's copying every move, and I just thought, God help me.

And I realized, if I can't define grace in that moment, I

sure could show you grace. And God looked down from heaven on our plight

and all of us uncoordinated, all of us, you know, have one

deformity or another. You know, some disabilities are just more obvious than others.

We're all disabled. Sin has done that to us. And God looked

down, and rather than reject us, he says, come on, come

dance with me. Let's dance together. That was great grace in that place

that I love the verse it slipped by me so many times. I bet

it has you too. Two Timothy, Chapter two, Verse one. Paul's

giving instructions this young pastor named Timothy, and he says, this Timothy my

son. Now he wasn't his biological son, but he had adopted him in

the ministry. He says, Timothy, my son, be strong in the

grace that is in Christ Jesus. That slipped past me so many times until

I realized, because when you think about it, you go, how do

I do that? How do I what He's saying to Timothy. Timothy,

every day, embrace the grace of God. Understand that. I know you're

overmatched. I know you're in Ephesus, I know you're young, I know

you have stomach problems. I know you you want to leave, but I

want you to seek God's grace every single day. Be strong in the grace.

And that was what was upon these people. Mega grace was upon them

all. And then at the end of this little series. And if you

read two Timothy chapter two, it ends round verse eight or nine where he

says, remember Jesus Christ. And you look at that and go seriously,

I mean, how would we forget? But we do, don't We remember

Jesus Christ. So I think it's so important that we surround ourselves with gracious

people, surround ourselves with people who are Christ centered people, people like my

friend Matt when I lived in Tyler, Texas. He was an arthopedic surgeon,

great guy. And in those days I was running. Now I only

run when I'm chased, but we would run together. And one day we

were running and we're running down a sidewalk and my friend Matt just goes,

WHOA, And I thought you'd seen a snake or something. He just and

pulls back, and then I see him ben down and in the grass and

nestled in the grass. It was a crisp ten dollars bill. And I

don't know about you, but I'm telling too many confessions here. But I'm

thinking, how come he doesn't need ten bucks? He's a surgeon, for

crying out loud, I need ten bucks. I could buy like two locktays

at four bucks for that. So it goes through your mind really fast,

right, And then he picks it up, he folds it up, and

he puts it in his shorts. He's got a little pocket in there,

puts in his shorts. He goes another ten bucks for habitat for humanity.

I was so convicted. I mean, I made a decision right then and

there. I would never run with him again. It was just I didn't

need that kind of guilt on Great grace. The last thing is this verses

thirty six and thirty seven. There was not a needy person among them.

They would bring their stuff and lay it to the apostles feet. Thus Joseph,

who was also called by the apostles Barnabas, which means son of encouragement,

a levite native Acipria soda Field belonged to him brought it to the money

and laid it at the apostles feet. And here's this is so important to

me because it's so lacking today. A great church ensures great care. I

like what Luke does here. He does an interesting thing. He introduces Barnabas

to demonstrate what encouragement looks like if you think of his life, just a

couple of things. Barnabas he was the one that vouched for the apostle Paul

and Acts nine. Because nobody want to let Paul be part of him because

he had persecuted the church. Barnabas Us was sent to the Gentiles in Antioch.

When the apostles heard that that the Gentiles had experienced the Holy Spirit UH,

Barnabas took John Mark. Remember that Paul didn't want him uh and and

so Barnabas took John Mark with him because Paul had fired him and and wanted

to send him home from Pamphylia and and and it has a happy ending because

as a result, John Mark grows in his faith UH and experiences the grace

of God through Barnabas and eventually reconciles with Paul. And Paul in his dying

days at the end of two, Timothy says, send Mark to me.

So uh Barnabas took care of of John Mark, and uh church. Great

churches ensure great care. And I think this is the Achilles heel where a

lot of churches that I interact with we're so busy chasing the world's definition of

greatness, the great music, great preaching, and great programs, we fail

to prioritize great care. The question for greatness in this world will diminish our

capacity to care. And Jesus declared that the quality of our faith is directly

related to the quality of our care. Check this passage out from Matthew twenty

five. We all know that this is where the parable the talents are.

But as you read further into Matthew twenty five, watch this Jesus says,

come, you are blessed by my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from

the foundation of the world. I was hungry, You gave me food.

I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you

welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and

you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. Then

the righteous will answer and say, Lord, don't When did we see you

hungry? When did we see you thirsty? When did we see you as

a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did

we see you sick and in prison and visit you? And the King will

answer them and say, truly, I say to you, as you did

it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to

me. Great churches care greatly for people. So enjoy great unity, movement,

experience great power. Maybe not impressive, but nevertheless great power, exhibit

great grace, and ensure great care. You're here and you say, well,

I don't know what do you What am I supposed to do with this?

Well, here's something I would challenge you with. If you're not part

of this church, you're not quite sure you're really yet part of it,

I would I would just ask you to perfectly consider being part of this church

and being part of this kind of church that I just went through with you.

And you might say, well, I don't know, I don't know

what I would have really to offer there. Well, what I would say

is, here's what you have to offer. Just play your part. You

have a part. Great churches give people opportunities to just play their part.

Any of those things that I mentioned, like, for example, some of

you are great encouragers. All this church needs encouragers. Some of you might

have a powerful way of communicating the scriptures. We need people like that.

You have a part to play, and I would challenge you to play your

part, because, as I said earlier, God is not putting together a

bunch of solo performers trying to impress people with their gifts and skills. God

had in mind when he invented the church a symphony where every person plays their

part. So I close with this years ago, about the time that I

met Fike and Dana and I. It was in the early it was no,

actually it was probably a little before I met you. Uh. There's

a symphony orchestra in East Texas, the East Texas Symphony, and they're good.

I grew up on the desert of the Mohave Desert in southern California,

in a little town, and I knew nothing about symphony orchestras. I mean

to me, classical music was anything before Lennon and McCartney. That's you know,

that was and I'd heard Classroom every once in a while to hear it,

and I liked it in really short doses. But so I didn't know

a lot about class I didn't know anything about symphonies. So we some people

in our church gave us tickets to the symphony. Now this is the cool

thing about being a pastor. I mean it really is. People give you

tickets to stuff that you don't that they don't want to go to. So

uh yeah, so we had we had a couple of tickets, and I

thought, I'm going to be a big dog and We're gonna make this a

special night. I'm gonna take my wife out on it. We have three

little we have three children under the age of three, so uh, you

know, and so I'm thinking, we're gonna go out. We're gonna make

a big deal out of it, you know, date night. So we

go out, we go to the symphony. It's a new experience for me.

I mean, we got dressed dressed up because people would be dressed up

there and Tyler in those days. And we get in and we sit,

we got great seats, and everybody's oh hi, you know entirely that's a

big deal. Oh Hi, you know it's oh hey, you know,

oh I hate her. Hi. You know this is it's it's a whole

different culture. So uh, but we're there, you know, we're at

the symphony. I'm feeling good about it, and uh so uh and you

know how it works. So all the people, all the instruments, all

the people in the sympathy are they're warming up. So there's this this cacophony

of sound. There's orange and there's strings, and there's all this noise.

And I'm sitting there listen to all this. And then this woman, the

lady conductor, beautiful lady, tall, statuesque, she comes out onto the

stage and everybody got quiet, and she turns the audience and she bowed,

and then she turns the orchestra and she does this, and it sounded like

it sounds right now. It was like I wanted to say, just hold

that for about two hours, because those three kids make so much noise.

I'd love to just hear silence for a couple hours. It was so quiet.

Then it happened when that lady brought her hands down. I'm telling you,

it was like the heavens opened up. I had never heard a sound

like that because I'm right there in front, and the music is hitting me

and I'm I'm getting tears in my mines and I'm thinking, this is unbelievable,

and I'm just basking in this sound of this symphony. And then I

had this spiritual experience where I literally looked up with tears in my eyes and

whispered, Oh God, make the church like this, because everybody was playing

their own instrument, but they were playing off of the same sheet of music.

They were committed to the same thing, and yet they had their part

to play. And then it happened. There's a guy in the back and

he's holding one of these This is the truth. This is how ignorant I

was of the something. I don't even know what he is. I don't

even know what you call him. Is Hee the triangle guy? Is he

the triangulator? Is he the percussion a triangularist? I mean, that's how

stupid. I mean, I know what he is now because I learned through

that experience. But he's back there. And I was so caught up with

that guy because I thought, this is so odd, and they're all the

violins are bowing and the opos are blowing, and he's back there just going

and I'm so caught up in him. I'm leaning forward now, I'm going,

come on, bro, I know your time is coming, and I'm

gonna be there for you when it comes. And he keeps doing this and

then it just the right moment he goes and that's it. He's done.

Honestly, in my mind, my first thought is that's it. And my

second thought was, man, I hope your parents aren't here. They paid

twelve years of music lessons and you get one thing. I was undone that

night because I kept thinking would I have done it that way? Or would

I have gone I'm not playing that stupid dry agle. I mean that person

down there in that first year, that's what I should be doing. He

just played his part. And I promise you if he had not done that

and we had driven him, there is no way on God's green earth I

would have ever turned to my wife and go, you know that is pretty

good. But that one number it needed a ding. But I'm gonna tell

you something. The person who wrote that score, in their creative mind,

they said, right there, I need that sound. I need a ding.

And one thing I know is if you need a ding, you gotta

have a dinger. So that's my challenge to you, be a dinger.

God has giving you guys. It's so funny because we've been talking this morning,

and you know, Richie plays me up. That's great. But I'm

a nobody. Honestly, you know, I'm not gonna nobody's gonna go,

hey, we have a conference coming up and Gary Brandenburg's nobody knows who I

am. I'm just a dinger. But I'm gonna tell you what. I

love the ding. I'll play my part til Jesus comes back. And you

have a part to play. And here's the thing. You please the God

of the orchestra, the God that put this together, the God that brought

this church into existence. And if you'll just say, I just want to

ding, and then I challenge the leadership of this church. Help people find

out how to ding, let them, let them have a part, and

I believe God will bless this place and you will reach people that you're not

even thinking about right now. Father, thank you so much for this morning,

and thank you for each person here, and thank you for what you've

started. And here I love the website that says we're not a monument,

We're a movement. And so help us to be that. Help us to

be a movement of people who love you and who exhibit all the things that

the early church did. Help us get our minds off of being a good

church and focus on being a great church. Because you've shown us how,

so help us lead us. We pray in Jesus' name. So what's God

leading you to do next? And how can we help? Would you send

us an email to info at Movementchurch dot co and tell us how we can

pray for you and help you take the next step in your spiritual journey.

If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, text the amount you like

to give to the number eight four three two one, or look us up

online at Movement Church dot c. You can find the Movement Church on all

social media platforms, and we hope that you'll give us a follow God bless

you, and remember God is for you and so are we.