Grow In Groups // Let's Get Moving (John Wilson)

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. That's the message for ways

to get connected with us. God bless you. Thanks for tuning in.

I just wanted to introduce myself. I had the pleasure of sharing a few

weeks ago. My name is John Wilson, and I'm a member of the

teaching team here, a new member of the teaching team and just get the

pleasure of learning along with you and sharing God's word with you. So I

just want to say thank you for the opportunity this morning to our pastor of

many of those that are investing in me. Also want to introduce my beautiful

bride and family right over here. This is Christine and John and little Jacob

there in his paw patrol outfit. Well done, very cool, Jacob,

Well done. This is my fam. Right here is my wife Christine,

my better half of course, and then our lovely crew. There's a lot

of us. However, I've learned that our family doesn't have the biggest family

in this church, of course, but we are fairly large and just love

love community and love the community within our home. One of the things that

is unique to me and Pastor of Fike has actually come and seen this personally,

or maybe some of you have been to my house to see this.

We really like to party, like we really joy. Not like high school

like you know what you're thinking of tailgating kind of stuff, but like six

year old, eight year old bird day parties. Anybody else like into this?

No? Okay? Oh got yeah, I got one, perfect,

thank you? Yeah, eight year old coming up soon. We did a

little you know, Harry Potter action just recently. I tried to be Dumbledore.

Not quite right. We we did the Ninja thing, you know,

that was pretty fun. I tried to be you know, I don't have

the wig and all that for since WU for all you Ninjago fans, no

ninjographan okay. And then we did like the princess party, you know,

as the caller, you know, invite the you know, announce the princesses

as they come in to do that kind of thing. Anyway. We love

community. We love engaging with all types of different people. Sometimes we'll have

up upwards to thirty to forty people at our home for these it is pretty

wild, to say the least. Anyway, all that to say, we

enjoy community, and that happens to be kind of where I'm going this morning

is talking about our vision for our church, specifically in growing in groups and

so as as patchifi I said, we're a young church or a new church

with kind of a rich history of reaching our community, and we want to

continue to make that impact. And we see that by doing a few different

things, one of which is growing in groups. Like we think that community

happens better in circles than rose. We think rose is the starting spot,

and we think that groups is kind of a great opportunity to invite people into

relationship with us and to help us grow. We believe that we need to

be living on mission. We need to look into our community see how we

can make an impact and share the good news about Jesus. And we believe

that we live on mission outside of this time, we believe in serving in

sincerity, looking for opportunities to bless other people, finding opportunities to make a

difference with people. And finally, we believe in giving generously. Like I

think there is a a lot of truth in there being cheer and joy when

we take of our resources, time, energy and effort and give to the

community of God and also to our community. So that is our vision as

a church, and that's you know today as we get moving and this continue

to get moving. In this series, we are going to focus around growing

in groups, and I hope to answer four different questions for you, some

that are very practical in nature and some that are more philosophical in nature.

One is, why should we grow in groups or you know, what's even

the purpose of or why should you gather like in groups around the Word of

God? What does the Bible have to say about growing in groups? What

are growth groups at the Movement Church? And then, finally, like I

said, the more practical, how do you actually get involved and get going

here at the Movement Church. So there's a couple of passages. And I

have an amazing volunteer this morning, and miss Martha who's going to be joining

me up here if wen't my joining me now, actually don't see her currently,

Oh there you are give her a warm applause. Here, very nice,

I have a microphone for you. I'll get it right here for you.

She's going to read from the Book of Acts for as you can hop

up here with me if you want Acts, Chapter two, verse forty one

through forty seven. If y'all wouldn't mind just joining me in standing in honor

of God's word, I'd love to read this passage together. Thank you Martha

for doing this with us today. Starting in verse forty one, those who

accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number.

That day, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and a fellowship,

to the breaking of bread and a prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at

the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together

and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone

who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,

praising God and enjoy the favor of all the people and the Lord.

Added to their number daily, those who were being saved. This is the

word of the Lord. Give it up for Martha. Thank you so much.

You guys can have a seat. Thank you so much. Martha put

this down here. So let's pray together as we kind of dig in deeper

to this Lord Jesus, we just thank you for the opportunity to be in

your word today. We pray that we would hear it and apply it.

And God, would you work in our lives. Would you give us courage

to engage in the body, to take risks, to get to know each

other, and to deepen our relationships around your word? Challenge us this morning

in Jesus' name. Amen. So the first kind of place I wanted to

go this morning is to ask the question why grow in groups? What's the

purpose? Or really do we need that? Is it necessary? I think

there is a growing trend in our culture of isolation and I actually experienced this

kind of firsthand. Some of you know I work in consumer technology. I'm

the guy that helps get personal technology into your hands, specifically a lot of

Apple stuff if you're Apple fans, any Apple fans A little bit, okay,

I got some waves, Okay, cool, But yeah, I've worked

in this field for nearly fourteen years now and see a lot of folks that

have a lot of technology in their hands. The guy that I am not.

I don't know if you know what this is or not, but this

place is a place you go for tech support. It's called the Genius Bar.

I'm not this guy, Like, I'm not a technical support guy.

I don't if you come up to me afterwards, I think Sue Cressman's done

this before. I should say, John, how does this work? And

I always look right back at her and say, I have no idea.

So I'm not this guy. I'm not hip. I really don't know like

everything with it. I always laugh with some of our technicians because I literally

don't know what the answer is to most of this. So that's not me.

However, from my experience engaging people with technology over the years, it's

interesting somebody could have every form of technology available. An iPad, you know,

whatever other type of tablet is out there. I don't know if there

is another tablet, just kidding, a Mac, an iPhone, you know,

a galaxy, whatever, whatever it is, those different items that are

out there. They can have all of them, but seemingly be incredibly isolated

like feel lonely, disconnected from people, and it's crazy. It's like they're

connected all the time to everybody everywhere around the world. My wife even just

last week was texting her mom in Uganda, right, So it's like the

world is connected, even to the most remote areas of our world. Yet

for some reason we feel very isolated. We try to engage in some of

the social media platforms, we share about our lives in these contexts. Other

people share about their lives in this context. Sometimes we wonder is that really

their life? I'm not really sure, But at the end of it,

we still don't feel as connected as we would in this in person type of

gathering. There's something unique about gathering with other people together in a specific place

versus doing this virtually. So to illustrate this, there is a Harvard Business

Review article called Work and the Loneliness Epidemic. This gentleman named Vice Admiral of

Vivic Murphy is actually our surgeon General for our country currently and was a few

years ago, but he put out an article at the Harvard Business Review and

he says this. He says, loneliness is a growing health epidemic. We

live in the most technologically connected age in the history of civilization. Yet rates

of loneliness have doubled since the nineteen eighties. This may not surprise you.

Chances are you or someone you know has been struggling with loneliness, and that

could be a serious problem. Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with the

reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, and

even greater than that associated with obesity. But we haven't focused nearly as much

effort on strengthening connections between people as we have on curbing tobacco use or obesity.

Loneliness is also associated with the greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia,

depression, and anxiety. He highlights this that loneliness and weak social connections are

associated with reduction in lifespan. So he does what any good doctor would say,

right, He says that loneliness is not good. Instillation is not good.

Our bodies, our minds, our souls crave people. We need people.

We were made this way. Now, Vivic I don't believe as a

believer, however, like he does, see this unique way in which that

we have been wired is for people. Like he compares it this is vivic

here, our surgeon general. He compares it to smoking like fifteen cigarettes a

day, saying, hey, that is the same, like being alone and

isolated is the same to your health as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. And

so I would argue, you know, I learned early on that cigarettes were

not a healthy thing for my body. But I would argue that community and

connection between people is the best health that you can have. And so you'd

say, Okay, John, I see some value to connecting a community with

others. But why the church, Like why the people at the church.

For many of you, I think there have been a history of hurt maybe

at times in the church, or maybe a misunderstanding around the value of it,

like as you go to that and honestly, you're not alone. There

is a lack of confidence in the church. And there is a recent poll

actually since nineteen seventy three that the Gallop organization put out, and you'll see

this trend downward of confidence in the church. It starts at sixty five percent

back in nineteen seventy three seventy four, and over the years you'll see these

this downward trend all the way even now and it's continued here into twenty twenty

four. Of just this lack of confidence in the church. This gentleman,

Justin Murphy is his name, or sorry, Justin McCarthy says in this article,

confidence in organized religion top confidence in all other institutions from nineteen seventy three

to nineteen eighty five, and even after falling amid televangelist scandals in the nineteen

eighties, it registered as the majority level consistently until two thousand and one,

and after the Boston Globe and two xpose revealed Catholic church leaders were aware and

did not take take strong action to stop serial sex abuse by priests, confidence

and organized religion dropped sharply to forty five percent for obvious reasons. Between twenty

ten to and twenty seventeen, it regularly registered in the forties, and since

then in twenty eighteen, in twenty nineteen, Americans confidence and religion has been

below the forty percent work. It's safe to say there is a lack of

confidence in church, the institution itself, and there is a lack of confidence

in the people. So that's the question is should we just give up on

it altogether? Like as the confidence you know, wanes and there is some

really difficult things that have happened over the years. The question is, well,

should we separate ourselves from that or isolate ourselves from that? Now,

obviously I'm going to say no, and I want to give you a few

reasons as to why that would be. Is that I think that there is

a compelling reason, based on the grace of God, to push into community,

into the community of faith. So let me talk a little bit about

the grace of God. And maybe you've heard this one hundred times, maybe

you've never heard this before, but I'll share this with you. Is that

we have a God who knows you. We have a God who knows your

deepest, darkest secrets. He knows the worst of you. He knows the

harm that you've brought other people, He knows how you've hurt others. He

knows your deepest, darkest sin. Now, similar to the church that I

just painted the picture for you, there has been all kinds of wrong that

has happened in the church over the years, but similar like in this situation,

God himself sees our sin individually, and he doesn't give up on you.

He says to you, he says no, I want you. He

begins to chase after you. He doesn't give up, he doesn't abandon you.

He seeks you out. This is the gospel, Like, this is

what you see like in John three sixteen. Right, God so loved the

world he gave his son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have

eternal life. Right, you see it again Romans at eight. He says,

therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are Christ Jesus,

because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit of life, sorry,

who gives life, has set you free from the law of sin and death.

He goes even further, he says, but God demonstrates his own love

for us in this while we were still sinners. Christ died for us.

God knows you, he knows you're not going to get it perfect, you're

not going to do it right. Yet he pushes in and he says,

come follow me. And that is the gospel. Like that is what distinguishes

our faith above anything else. It's not about continual hard work and effort.

It's about receiving the sweet grace of God in your life. And I want

to invite you and challenge you that like although you may have or may have

a lack of confidence trust in the institution of the Church at times in your

life, or even from the relationships that have happened in your life like I

have over the years. This demonstrates this picture that the churches us, that

it's not something we should give up on, but it's something we should push

into and chase down like God does. So I would argue we should live

just like Jesus illustrates that although he knows the sins that we have, he

pushes toward us and not away from us. And I want to give you

this opportunity if that's the first time you've heard that that the grace of God

is not earned, that the grace of God is something that is given to

you as a gift. I want to challenge you that Jesus is ready for

you to follow him today and that later in the service, I want to

invite you to take the step to invite you to that a little later in

the service. Second reason to not give up on the church altogether is there's

people in this world and in this church. For we I think about people

in this body that embody exactly what this is. It's people that reach out

to our community and they purchase gifts for parents and give it. That's amazing.

Right, we did that this past year. Right, that's amazing.

That's a loving body. That's a community that reaches into this world. I

think of some sweet families in this church. I guess I won't name him

to embarrass him too much. That when you come in the door, they

hug you, they ask about your life, They will reach into their pockets

and give you whatever they have to walk through this life with you. This

is a community that I think is worth the risk. Yes, it could

be hurtful at times because people are people. You might rub somebody wrong,

your personality may not mix entirely with somebody. But I would argue that the

Movement Church is the body where you could see Christ working and where can you

could push in and get to know others and see what this community is really

about. We are imperfect people saved by a perfect creator. I want to

invite you to take to take that risk with us, because it's worth it

in the end. So let me go back again. We talked about why

we could grow, why we should grow in groups, and I highlighted some

of the loneliness epidemic in this world, your need for people, like what

the Bible, you know, really what God really wants from you and his

his desire for you you to continue to press into the church as a group.

But now I want to look at a little bit closer what the Bible

has to say about this, and really like what has been illustrated for us

by the early Christians of what that looked like. We'll push into a little

bit of the logistics of the church as well here shortly, but let's talk

a little bit about from Acts four forty one and forward. We see Peter

preach the sermon right after the Holy Spirit had come at Pentecost, and there

are about three thousand people that came to faith at that time. All his

disciples is three thousand people. And they started devoting themselves to teaching, to

fellowship, breaking of bread, which is a favorite of mine, and to

prayer. And then as they were filled with all this awe, the believers

were together. They had everything in common. They provided for each other,

They sold property, they'd give it to anyone as in need. Every day

they continue to gather together in the temple courts, and they broke bread together

in their homes. They ate together, and they had glad and sincere hearts,

and they praised God, and God added to their number as they went

a few observations. I've just been out there? Is it they ate together?

Which is fabulous. I don't know if you you know, have shared

a pizza or you've had some you know, some sort of breaking bread,

you've already had donuts, you know, toward the back here. There's something

unique that happens when food is around. So Christine and I have led small

groups for you know, over eleven years, and in that time, it's

funny when we have food and when we don't have food, there is a

distinct feel or difference like in that environment that we're in. It's tremendous.

Would you have that? It gives people something in their hands they can work

with. Do we have any folks from the South around here? Any Southern

types? Yes, very nice, very nice couple couple of folks has anyone?

Does anyone remember this kind of thing? Anybody potlucks? All right,

podlucks? So what do you do at a potluck? Anybody your best dish?

You don't stop buy pizza hut, you bring your best dish. Some

people do that. It's okay, but this public style, right, you

got the spread. I don't even know who these people are, and these

these here you got lots of different dishes, right that that appear that everyone

contributes. I remember there was a sweet lady I grew up with. Her

name was you Need a Cooper, and she had the best homemade strawberry ice

cream I've ever had in my life. I mean, to this day I

think about this ice cream because I don't really eating ice cream, but these,

uh, but yeah, you you bring your best like and you have

quite a spread. And it's interesting. In recent months selling Christina, I've

joined some groups that more support group oriented, and it's funny just having a

drink in your hand when you feel really vulnerable and you don't know anybody at

a specific group, it makes all the difference. You feel like you're grounded.

You know, you got you got your stuff, you know, right

in your hands, so nobody could get past your drink or something. I

don't know what it is, but it gives you something to connect with people

around, like for example, if the coffee is not good, you get

to talk about that the coffee is not good with somebody there, right,

Or you get to say, hey, I love this cast role. How

did you make this castrole? Oh well I bought these ingredients at the story

or whatever. It gives you a connection point, right. It gives you

something to talk about, bicker about, depending on the situation. But it

grows community as you go. So that this is an all time favorite of

mine food and this will be at our new growth group. You shameless plug

coming in February. So second point, they met together often, so it's

interesting in it it says that every day, every day they got together in

the temple courts every day. You know, man, it is difficult to

even like for us even to get here on Sundays at times, isn't it

right? Like I mean negative ten degrees. You are the remnant. Thank

you all for coming this morning. I appreciate y'all very much. And but

this is this is an interesting practice. They were consistent, they were frequent,

frequently getting together. They were faithful, They were in proximity like with

each other. And that's what I would encourage you from this passage that we've

seen, is there is something about coming back over and over and over again.

If you want community in your life, if you want rich connection with

people. It's interesting. Consistency, faithfulness, frequency, proximity, it changes

it. You have the opportunity to actually know somebody because you saw them there

last week and the week before that and the week before that. Life happens.

However, most of the time. Committing to that, you will see

community begin to breed in your life and it will be incredibly valuable. Uh.

Third thing I see in this passage, which is that they prayed and

they discussed God's word. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to prayer.

And I think when you see that in a group environment, there is

just distinct power that comes to that environment. When you do this, when

you pray and connect with God with several different people, his presence becomes very

apparent. You become very aware of him. And when you bring the word

of God to an environment like that, his word becomes real. Think about

this. When God created the world, he said, right so like in

Genesis one three, God said, let there be light, and there was

light. God said, let there be a vault between the waters and between

the waters to separate water from water. He said, let the water under

the sky be gathered to one place and let dry ground appear. And then

it says and it was so there is power in God's spoken word. And

when you speak his word in an environment like this, or an environment in

your home or wherever you are for that matter, God shows up and there

is power unique to that place that you're in because of His word. Finally,

sorry, The fourth observation I see is that they took care of each

other. And this is pretty pretty intense. They sold their property and possessions

to give to anyone who had need. That's intense. That's a commitment like

to each other. But I want to highlight not the fact that they sold

all of their property and possessions at times to provide for needs. I want

to talk about the reason like that they would do something like this. You

see, I think they had a good sense of what property and possessions were

for. I think property possessions money is not for us. I think property

possessions and money is to be stewarded for the Kingdom of God. If you

see it that way, it becomes less about hoarding, about wealth, accumulation,

about status about the group that you're part of, becomes about what does

God want me to do with what I've been given. Sometimes that might be

this, sometimes that might be very small. But if your attitude and your

posture toward your possessions and your property and your money and your energy and your

resources is outward facing, it changes the way that you see that to expand

the Kingdom of God through others. You'll see this kind of illustrated in a

body kind of way of one Corinthians twelve. He says, just as a

body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts form one

body, and so it is with Christ. And he goes down a little

bit further. He says, if one part suffers, every part suffers with

it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. It's

interesting there is this unique thing in the body of giving and receiving. There's

a sense of taking what God has given you and then giving that to others

gratefully and cheerfully. But then there's something else that we don't talk about a

lot. Is the receiving end of that. This is something I really struggle

with, is are you willing to receive the help from others that you need

in your life? See this is a body, right like when you go

look at this if we are a body with many different parts, different talents,

different giftings, like to serve the body, we have to be willing

to let that other part of the body help us when we need that.

And that's what I would argue the body is get is this giving posture,

but it's also a receiving end of that. So I want to tell you

a story about two different people. You may know these people as I talk

about them, but I won't share their names with you. But here at

the Movement Church, this person serves fi Fy. They give their time,

they give their energy, they give their expertise to ensure that the Movement Church

is successful, that we have a way forward. They give their They give

with their hands, starting with tearing down things in the morning or in the

evening I'm sorry, or after service. They bless others financially, They bless

this church financially. They create opportunity for our church and also for individuals to

feel supported and have a way forward. See they they have a sense of

stewardship, willingness and cheerfully like give of their heart. And if you don't

know what I'm talking about, stick around for a while. You'll meet them

and know who they are. Second example I want to give you is somebody

that demonstrates the receiving piece of this really well. This person gives of their

time and energy, they give of their resources to bless others. But they're

not too proud to receive blessing from others. In fact, they gratefully receive

it and bless it and bless those that have given it to them. And

not only do they do that, they receive it and they steward it to

the glory of God in their life. And again, if you don't know

who I'm talking about, stick around. You'll meet great folks like this that

are willing to give and willing to receive. Final part I'll share in this

is they grew in number. When you look at this passage here, this

is a massive church if I've ever seen one. The Lord added and the

Lord added to their number daily, those that were being saved. I think

a set of Lagos, Nigeria. And it's interesting. As you know,

Pastor Fik has shared a few times, as healthy things grow and as we

move forward, like I think that healthy community grows as well. You'll see

people attracted in a very lonely world to a very unique experience where it's not

that everyone is perfect or acts perfect, or that we even expect everyone to

be perfect. In fact, we deal with the fact that they're not.

We have conflict, we work through that conflict, We love each other through

the difficulties in our life, and that on the other side of that is

attractive. I would say to people, you'll see this in our church.

I think our church continues to grow because of this addictive piece, that this

piece that it really distinguished us as a church. So we've kind of covered

a few different areas. We talked about why we grow in groups, what

the Bible has to say about it, and I want to kind of push

into what growth groups are here at the Movement Church and eventually just quickly share

with you like how you can get involved and so growth groups at the Movement

Church, like I've shared with you earlier, we believe that community happens better

in circles. We believe this is where we invite others into a greater to

influence us and make a greater impact on our community. We will fellowship together,

we will discuss the Word of God, we will pray for each other,

we will support each other, and we will meet consistently, like in

a lot of different settings. So there's a few principles that kind of guide

our growth groups here. One is community, like we want to foster and

grow community through food, through fellowship, connect about life, build friendships,

and be open minded to people that are very different from us. Throughout that,

we believe that these need to be Bible based. We need to open

the Bible when we're together, and you'll see that as we do that,

that their prayer focused. That we spend time asking God together for the needs

of others, but we also celebrate the answers to prayer. Finally, we

believe that they need to be mission driven. They need to be driven by

the empty chair, the person that's not there and who we can invite.

And this piece I even see is like a social gathering for some of these

growth groups. I think there's a great opportunity for us to invite neighbors.

I have a neighbor that I want to invite to our growth group that I

think will really benefit from community with other believers, and I think it's time

that they get involved and hear about the truth of that. So that's growth

groups at the Movement Church. I want to the next slide can be a

little overwhelming. So just want to like prepare you for this, and you

might need your phone like for this, because this is, you know,

something you may need to take a picture of. So I'm not sure you're

going to remember all of this, however, this is These are the groups.

I know. It's a lot, I know, but these are the

groups that we have like in our community. The ones of color I'll describe

here in just a moment, but we have we have several groups that are

meeting currently. We have some adult or family growth groups. We have a

youth growth group that's meeting. We have some men's groups that are getting together.

And you'll kind of see this as laid out what kind of group it

is, how often it meets, and then what days it meets and where

so Colorada Springs, Monument, Palmer Lake. But yeah, these groups,

the ones in white there are available. The one at the top is another

shameless plug. My wife and I are starting one on February the ninth,

and so if you're interested in getting involved, I would love to have you

as part of our group. In Colorado Springs, we have a group here

in Monument that is packed, like there are so many people in this group.

It is amazing like how it has grown over time. So we'll probably

you know, look to grow that one out of that, and then we

have another one in April that will be that we're talking about or as a

potential that is coming up. I just want to put that in your mind

that that's a midweek type of stuff that is potentially starting in April. So

that's some of the options that we have. And then obviously the men's groups

are meeting. These are all opportunities to connect and grow in group together.

And so again if you're interested in that, those are some opportunities that we

have to do that. So again I just want to walk through again why

we grow in groups, what the Bible said about it, you know what

the growth groups are here. And then finally I want to talk about how

we can get involved. There is kind of this next segment. We will

need our cell phone. Does everybody have a smartphone this morning? Anybody not

have a smartphone? Thank you, John, appreciate that. Yes, we

have not an endowed smart devices, so you'll need this. Can everybody hold

up your smart device for me? Whatever it may be, It's okay,

I know I'm an Apple guy. It's okay. If it's something else,

that's fine. If you can hold that up for me. This right here

is a QR code. It's interesting. I haven't tried this on Android,

so I must apologize if it doesn't work entirely. However, I would encourage

you to hold up your camera. Just open your camera app and hold it

up for us here and in there it should give you a banner that pops

down and says, hey, send an email to growth at Movement Church dot

co. So this is a new email address we've added, and this is

literally for that. If you saw something on the list prior or you're saying,

hey, it's time for me to lead or be part of a small

group at the Movement Church. This is how you do that. As you

can reach out to this. I monitor this and so you even see it

gives you, like a little a little blurb like in your message there to

send to me. And if you are interested in leading or getting involved,

I want to invite you to do that. Now, a couple of expectations

I'll just put out there. We are a growing church and we have some

wonderful, wonderful new editions that are coming like to our growth, to our

groups, but your expectation of that they need to just be tapered with the

people. May the group may not be right next to your house. It

may not be people from all the same walk of life as you. Necessarily,

they may not all use the same version of the Bible as you.

They may like eat different foods than you. They may have just a very

different view of life than you. Even that is the unique nature of groups,

and it may have a different a lot of different types of people that

are in the group. So I just want to make sure you're aware of

that as we move into that. So we've talked through just some unique opportunities

this morning of you know, the value behind growing in groups, what the

Bible has to say about that, how growth groups will continue to function moving

forward here at the Movement Church. And I'll give you an opportunity to get

involved. And I would love to hear you hear from you at Growth at

Movementchurch dot Co to share that. So now as we kind of close out

together, I want to take the opportunity just to invite you to respond to

this. And so we have a few opportunities now, I just want to

invite you to one is I want to challenge you again you need community in

your life. And if you know you don't want to email, you don't

want to text, you know want whatever, you just want to talk to

me in person. I'm going to be toward the back here in a little

while. Some of our leaders will be back there as well. I just

want to invite you to respond to that and to share like your need for

community in your life and see if we have some options like for you to

get involved with that. Second is is it time for you to give your

life to Jesus. It may be time for you to respond and say it

is time that I set aside the life that I've lived and I'm ready to

begin this life a new following Jesus in my life. 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'd like to

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

at Movementchurch 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.