Vision Sunday

Hi, this is John Ozanting, lead pastor of Evolved Church, and this is the Evolved Church Podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

We hope that you find today's message encouraging and full of hope for wherever you're at.

So good.

Well, our focus today for Vision Sunday, uh, we're in the middle of a series that we've called Upper Room, and just teaching through John chapter 13 through 17 uh from the story of scripture, where Jesus spent this dedicated time with his disciples physically in an upper room and teaching them about what he was about to do in going to the cross and equipping them for what they would need to carry on the mission and the message of Jesus after he died and rose again.

John 13 · chapter mention

And some powerful teaching.

Uh, and we've we've every April we have a Vision Sunday, and that's today.

Today is Vision Sunday.

What we're focusing on today for us as a community of faith and as a family on mission is Lord, what what are you asking us to steward right now in our city?

What are we up to as a church?

Uh, we know in October we're gonna continue to champion all of the national and global things that we get to participate in as a church family.

But for today, what are you doing kind of here in our city or in our province?

And what are some of the things that we what we've seen you do through our collective sacrifice and our collective yes as a family on mission?

Um, something to pray about tomorrow, Pastor Nicole and I were driving down to Calgary all day Tuesday.

We're gonna be with um a couple from Calgary who have said yes to uh a couple of years of praying about moving to Swift Current to plant a new church.

And and you know God's in it when somebody moves you from Calgary to Swift Current.

Who's hands up for Swift Current?

And uh anybody here from Swift Current?

Okay, few, because uh like I didn't want that to come across back.

We've gotten to know uh James and Alana quite well, and and we we've been asked to coach them in their church planting season.

And so, as a church over the next year, we're gonna be encouraging and coaching and training and resourcing this couple and their teenage daughter as they as they move in the summer from Calgary and begin building a lunch team.

And and and so we're gonna be spending all day Tuesday with them and some of the other leaders from our church planting family called Ark.

Uh, and and just it's not something for you to pray about.

But but know that that's one of the things that God is using us uh to be a part of in our lifetime as something he's doing in the nation.

But today we want to spend some time celebrating uh this current season uh for Evolved Church here in Edmonton as a part of what God's doing right now.

And to set the tone, I want to invite you back into the book of John, John chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

In verse 6, Jesus tells his disciples, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

No one can come to the Father except through me.

That's a powerful statement from Jesus that I want to encourage you to just pay attention to today.

In a cultural moment, in a world system that's telling en masse, telling humanity that it's okay for you to just find your way.

What's your truth?

You know, what's the life that you want to build?

As Jesus followers who champion the mission and the message of Christ, I want to give you permission today to unapologetically and passionately and boldly declare actually, when it comes to way, true, and life, it's Jesus.

I will build my life on that.

I will lay down my life for that truth.

It's his way, it's his truth, it's his life that I find myself in.

And Jesus says, it's it's through him that anybody can come to the Father.

No one can come to the Father except through Christ.

In verse 7, Jesus says, if you'd really known me, you would know who my father is.

And from now on, you do know him and you have seen him.

And Jesus is saying, God and I, we're we're one.

I'm in the Father, he's in me.

Because you know me, because you've spent time with me, you can know and understand the Father.

And he's preparing his disciples to do life without him physically present.

Verse 12, I tell you the truth.

Anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I'm going to be with the Father.

You can ask for anything in my name, and I'll consider it.

I'll think about if you're good enough.

Why do I joke about that?

Because that's for many of us, that's our theology.

Yeah.

And I want you to hear the words of Jesus when it comes to asking in faith and our prayer life, collectively as a family on mission and individually in our surrender to Jesus.

We we gotta take him at his word.

Greater things you're gonna do because I'm going to be with the Father.

You can ask for anything in my name, I'll do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.

And yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

What a powerful teaching to prepare our hearts for Easter.

Yeah.

We're stepping into the next two weeks of Palm Sunday and Good Friday and Easter Sunday and this moment of remembering Jesus' sacrifice and his death, but also remembering that God's still in the business of bringing dead things back to life and seeing our brokenness made whole because of Christ.

And there's an urgency in us to continue to declare this message, to make this truth known here in our city.

Here's what happens.

We, you know, we we ask Jesus to come and be Lord of our life, and we say this prayer, and it's so significant, and so many of us, you know, we couldn't even keep quiet about what Jesus had done in our life in that initial moment, and we're telling everybody about him.

And here's what happens.

We kind of settle into uh the Christian life, kind of like the good life, and and we and we and we forget verse 12.

Right.

I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and greater works is what we are called to.

Come on.

We forget to have faith and continued faith for what God wants to do in and through our lives.

We forget the power, the resurrection power is actually living inside of us and meant to move through us.

Not just in our seats in the church, but outside of the seats, outside in the world that we live in, in our homes, in our schools, in our workplaces.

We are called to a greater faith and to stay in that and not get comfortable Christians.

Yeah.

And that's faith.

That's faith.

We take him at his word, and then we move in response to what he's already said.

And if the complacency and the safety of the Christian faith would have us rocking back and curious if God can still do it, well, I'm not gonna step out.

I'm just gonna wait and see what God will do.

And but that's not faith.

That's fear.

That's fear.

And we're invited to consider a desperate faith for God to be God, an unwavering response in how we choose to trust Him, trust His timing, trust His word, especially when it's hard, especially when it costs us something, and most certainly when it's not easy.

That is the Christian life that we're invited into.

There's always this tension between like our vision for what could be and the provision of God, the supernatural that we're believing God for.

And can I say courageously step into the vision while you're believing God for the provision?

Can I courageously give you permission to not wait anymore?

To just turn the dial of your desperate, passionate faith in God?

When is the last time you laid a hand on somebody and prayed for God to do a physical miracle in their body?

When is the last time you put your hand on a couple and prayed for God to intervene and save their marriage?

When is the last time you knocked on your neighbor's door and said, Can you come over for dinner tomorrow?

We just sure love to hang out with you and get to know you.

Yeah.

When is the last time you said yes to participating in being salt and light in this earth?

We're living in a desperate time.

Right.

I think even this week amplified, and just like we prayed about, like Jesus is still the hope.

Yes.

But we are living in a desperate time where people do not know where to turn.

Right.

And yet we have the answer and we keep it so quiet.

It's actually time for a desperate faith.

Yeah.

It's time to actually get uncomfortable.

I didn't sign up for some sort of Christian niceness.

I actually signed up to surrender my attitudes, my fears, my whole life to the way of Jesus.

And I don't want to settle for anything less.

Come on.

Yeah.

I'm tired.

I want a desperate faith, and maybe you do too.

You want to be shook up a little bit.

The world needs you.

We were created to be a people set apart, holy, for his name's sake, the people of God who live focused not just on ourselves, not just on our own needs, but to be a family on mission with the hope of Jesus.

Always figuring out how can we look up and around with our lives, with our time, with our energy, with our homes, with our resources, and sacrificially give towards what matters to the heart of God.

We're a family on mission.

That's right.

Will we continue to be a family on mission?

Is our high challenge today, willing to say, God, our hands are up.

Lord, here we are.

Would you send us?

Send us out.

Scatter us out from this beautiful gathering to be salt, to be light in a dark and weary world.

I think one of the things that as your pastors we talk about is this sense to um, you know, God said so many amazing things, and we're going to continue to just share a few stories and celebrate because you know, sometimes it can get uh as you're taking territory, as you're stepping in and seeing God move in such powerful ways, it can get easy to be familiar.

It can get easy to want to maybe sit on the sidelines for a little bit, on the bench for a little bit.

And I want to tell you, as your pastors, we have the same temptation to just sort of roll back and sort of sit on the bench.

And maybe could we just watch a little bit, God?

Could we just like you know, enjoy what you're doing a little bit?

And I'll put it this way, I think like six and a half years ago, it's seven years this month that we moved here from Winnipeg to plant.

But us together as a local church on mission over the last six and a half years, we've we've said yes to desperate faith so many times.

Like we said yes to in desperation to like planting a church in the rec room, setting up and tearing down every Sunday.

That was just like we're really curious and how God used that season.

And we said we said yes to pioneering through a global pandemic and saying en masse, hey, I respect that you're over here and you're over here, but together as a family on mission, let's be right in the pocket, right in the middle, sacred space, and champion the way and the truth and the life of Jesus, regardless of your politics or your opinions.

Let's honor Christ.

And we saw God do significant things through those couple of years, and then we were pioneering by saying yes to stepping into a building, and then we were pioneering by saying yes to moving upstairs, and then we were pioneering to saying yes to doing ministry to university students on campus at the U of A.

And I feel like all we've done is say yes and pioneer and do new things and have desperate faith.

And there is a temptation for us to be like, can we just rock back and just sort of enjoy what you've done for a hot minute?

So let's just take a minute to enjoy what God is doing.

Can we have a break, Lord?

I'm never gonna call you to the front lines here.

Because here's the thing you know, I want to tell you about um a beautiful um person who started watching online in December.

Yeah.

And um, she actually heard about the the campus starting and and just started watching even before campus had started.

And on that Sunday, she watched online and she gave her life to Jesus.

Alone in her dorm room.

And then she started coming out here on Sunday mornings and to prayer things and started coming out to campus now that it's started, and and her life is forever changed.

Yeah.

And that's not just because of campus, it's also attached to our online team, and it's attached to what God's doing here, is attached to the worship and it's attached to how you're laying your life down.

And here's what's awesome she's from the East Coast.

She didn't grow up part of a church family.

But what if, as a as a community, as a family on mission, what if we could just walk with her over the next couple of years and disciple her in the way of Jesus and then seed her, like scatter her back home out east to champion the way and the truth and the light?

What if her whole family gets saved because of her passion and her zeal?

What if her friends and community there get to encounter like one person's life has has this residual impact.

And so when we tell you a story, know that there's gonna be potentially like dozens, if not hundreds, of other stories connected to that one story.

Right.

And and and it's profound that that we get to be involved in this kind of work right now.

I think like um one of our, I love this story, one of our young adults who plays football has been talking about Jesus with his football team.

Got more baptized.

And he got baptized recently, and and he said, Hey, could I have a could I have a whole case of Bibles?

My whole football team is like, how do I get a Bible?

How do I start reading the Bible?

And so we've we've given him an entire case of Bibles, and he's just given them away to his whole football team in in and he's just sharing Jesus.

And why?

Because that's what we're called to do as a family on mission.

I just think in the last month we've seen herniated discs completely healed, we've seen cancer diagnosis wiped off the map, completely healed in Jesus' name.

We've seen hearing healed, we've seen like bones healed, we've seen profound miracles of God's provision and restoration and love.

And we've seen just passion for rooms where we gather to pray.

Man, I keep we keep telling you this, but you need to come to prayer on Wednesday morning.

You need to get into the room, you need to get into the prayer room on Wednesday mornings.

You need to get in there and join us with this like hunger and desperation as we're believing God together.

We've had 37 people say yes to Jesus in the past three months.

In 2025, as a church.

We've had 17 people water baptized only this year, five more tonight at our campus.

A bunch more next week, Sunday.

Another nine next week that are signed up, and that could still there's room for you.

We celebrate that.

This could be your step.

I love that we have over 220 people engaged in a small group right now.

I love that about our church.

That number is the number that I actually we care about the most as your pastors.

Like, aside from like anything that we count as a church, uh, you know, there's there's church metrics.

The number that I care most about is how many people are setting aside time a couple of times a month to go in a home and open up their Bible with a few other people and say, Jesus, yeah, change us.

That disciple being discipled, making disciples.

Even with like you know, 30 to 40 um people that are showing up there to the Bible.

332 people that have said, I want to help out, I want to roll up my sleeves.

That is over half of our congregation.

That's incredible.

And we think like this team that's come together to serve campus, over 40 people that are, you know, every Sunday night, they're heading downtown to the University of Alberta and serving students.

Um, tonight we're at the Dinwoody Lounge for our worship gathering.

Come be a part, come see that.

And then next week, you know, they're back in square one for our community nights and and small group.

And it's just beautiful to see what God's doing through us as a family in this season.

You know, and I it and like back to to what we had said.

You know, it can easy it could be easy to sort of just take a back seat and be like, hey, wow, this is great, God.

I love seeing what you're doing.

But God's actually calling us to stay on the front lines, to not settle, you know, set settle back into just being on you know on the bench.

And some of you may have felt like your walk with Jesus feels a little dry.

Or like, God, are you even there?

I want to encourage you to get into the front lines.

I want to encourage you to start stepping into where you actually see God move and work and where you have faith for somebody else.

Right.

It will change your life.

Who's your who?

Say that again, Pastor.

Who's who's your who?

You know, the best frontline work you can do is out there.

I bet if I were to go around the room, I bet every single one of you could name at least one person.

One person that you're like, man, if they would only encounter the love of God.

I bet you could all name just one person if you're like, man, if only they had a real encounter with the Father's love, a real understanding of the work of Jesus Christ, their life would be forever changed.

I bet you could all think of one person.

Who's your who?

Who's your who?

And let me ask you today: will that fill you with such a deep and holy turmoil and love to compel you to just find your courage to use your voice, find your courage to ask them some questions, find your courage to pray with them, find your courage to bring them out to your small group or invite them into your home to share a meal.

Find your courage to invite them to join you Good Friday or Easter Sunday.

Just find your faith, find your courage.

If that person is on a path where their life is being destroyed because they don't know God and they're they're defaming the way and the truth and the life of Jesus, you could do something about that.

Together we can pray and believe God for your who.

Who's your who?

Because we're in this beautiful, fruitful season of ministry as a local church family.

And I want to remind your heart of your calling.

Yeah.

You've been called out, you've been set apart.

You have from the youngest to the oldest of us in the room.

And sometimes we forget to come close to Jesus' heart and to feel the ache of his heart for one more person.

And I want to encourage you in your quiet time this week to come close to God's heart because he's literally holding back all of eternity for one more person to come close to him.

And if you've lost that fire, who have you forgotten to who have you stopped praying for?

Who have you stopped asking or telling your faith to?

Who's God's highlighting, even as I speak, He's highlighting somebody right now that you know you need to continue to believe for and stand in the gap for?

I want to call you out.

I want to call you off the sidelines.

I want to call you back to the front lines of faith.

And for some of us, when it comes to the cost and what we're willing to pay, probably a month and a half ago, I had a guy ask me, he said, Hey, Pastor John, can I ask you a question?

I was like, sure.

What's on your heart?

He's like, Well, I've been around here for a while, and you know, there's two services, and they're both pretty full.

And I'm like, is this becoming a mega church?

And I'm like, what do you mean by that?

Well, I don't really want to be a part of a megachurch.

So I said, well, why does that matter to you?

And he's like, I don't know.

I was like, could you could you just sit in that for a minute?

Like, why does that why does that matter to you?

And when when I sat in it with him, it was connected to actually some pain from his past of being a part of a large congregation where he didn't feel known or seen.

And I said, let's just get mega church off the table.

Right now, we're stewarding two services as a family on mission.

Two quite full services.

We need to we need to make our sanctuary bigger.

Maybe in the fall we need to add a third service.

I don't know.

Or maybe we need to take half of you and say, Will you help us plant a new church in the north end somewhere?

Or in Devon or in Beaumont or in St.

Albert or in Spruce Grove or in Sherwood Park or in Ardrossen.

Like, I don't know.

Like, um because the real issue is who are you willing to say no to?

Sorry, God's doing something beautiful here.

You can't come.

You can't encounter Christ here because we don't, we're afraid of being a mega church.

What that really means is you're afraid that you're you're not gonna have significance or value, you won't be known here.

You won't get you won't get to have lunch with the pastor.

Trust me, lunch with us isn't that special.

Definitely.

I'm more concerned with who you're taking out for lunch.

Yeah, who are you pastor?

Can I can I shepherd your heart for a second?

We're we're not that we've never said we're at the top, we've always said we're at the side.

If you've been around any length of time, this is a team of people leading together.

We're not special.

Trust me.

Trust me.

This is about the mission that's on your life.

And will you say yes to praying and contending for and sacrificing for one more person, one more family who needs a family, one more couple who needs redemption and healing.

One more young adult who needs greater kingdom purpose.

Like, what is it?

What is it going to cost us?

We're not about increasing our influence or our impact.

Honestly, come in close.

Come to Welcome Lunch next week.

Ask us whatever question you want to ask us.

We are about Jesus' name being famous on our watch, in our lifetime, in our city, together as a family on mission.

Our hearts are gripped with this holy awe and holy fear that we cannot rock back and get familiar.

We can't.

We can't take his provision and his favor and his presence and his blessing for granted anymore.

We cannot lose sight of the deep impact and the power of the mission and the message of Jesus Christ to deeply transform one more life in his name.

And so lean forward.

Lean in.

Refuse to lean back.

Say yes.

Be a part of this with us.

Come on.

We shared this word that we felt like God has given us for this season.

And we shared this at our team night this past month.

And I want to share it with you as a church.

And it's in Isaiah 54, 2 to 3, and I want to read it together.

Yeah.

And it says, Enlarge the place of your tent.

And let the curtains of your inhabitants be stretched out.

Do not hold back.

I love that.

Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.

For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.

This isn't just a word for us as a church, but this is actually a word for you individually.

There's a command here to think bigger, to expand your world.

Has your world gotten small?

When's the last time you invited somebody into your world and expanded the tent of your life?

There's a command here that calls us as a church to expand our tents.

Did you know this year we've had three couples come to us and say, I feel like there's a call of ministry on my life to plant a church or to be a part of pastoral ministry that is unheard of, and it's our job to steward them and to expand our tents to send them out.

There's a stewardship piece.

There's a stewardship piece that you will be held accountable for for your life.

Yes.

What did you do with the time and the resources and the gifts that God gave you?

And so let's walk through this.

What is that tent actually?

Powerful pictures in Isaiah 54.

The first one is just the imagery of the tent.

Enlarge the place of your tent.

Let the curtains be stretched out, is the picture.

And the tent represents our shared life as a community of faith and your individual life as a believer in Christ.

The ministry that's on you, the ministry that's on us.

How are we enlarging the life, the shared life, the Christian life that we get to participate in together?

And it signifies the potential for an increase of impact, an increase of footprint, an increase of impact.

And make no mistake, again, this is not about your influence or my influence or our influence or even Evolve's influence.

This is about Christ's influence on planet Earth, Christ's impact in our culture, Christ's impact in our society and in our city, and this increased influence and impact is solely about the gospel truth of Jesus being shed abroad through our shared sacrifice together.

Will we enlarge our tent?

So, first of all, the imagery of the tent.

Second, this beautiful phrase, do not hold back.

And this statement emphasizes the need for you and for us and for all of us together to overcome fear, to overcome hesitation, to actively pursue God's plan for growth and for expansion and for seeing other people and reaching lost people in Jesus' name.

There is a couple in your world that need to walk through freedom with us this fall.

There's a family in your world that needs to be invited into your small group to experience open and honest and vulnerable spiritual growth and conversation.

There's a young couple that you work with that need to step into the room to experience prayer ministry on a Sunday morning.

Someone laying hands on them and praying with them in Jesus' name.

There is a family that you know that needs to be a part of your small group and serve on your team and come out to Easter.

Like this matters, our faith to overcome fear and hesitation.

And I just want to say would you leave here today if you leave with one thing?

Stop holding back.

Leave with permission to stop holding back.

Do not hold back.

I'm afraid to share my faith.

Share it anyways.

I'm afraid to pray for somebody.

Pray anyways, because it's actually not about the words, it's about you inviting God into that.

That's right.

Don't hold back.

Number three.

He goes on to say, lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.

In the tension of the cords, the cords are being stretched and pulled.

If you are not feeling stretched and pulled, you have not pulled out your cords long enough.

Your life is not meant to be easy.

Stop working to find easy ways and fast ways.

And the world will constantly push this at you.

That you need to find the quick ways and the and the ways that feel easiest.

That is not Jesus' way.

He never said our way would be easy.

He actually said, Would you allow me to stretch you and to pull you and to change you and to grow you?

And then he says to actually like put in your stakes.

And so when it's hard, usually we would actually want to run.

And we try to switch churches or we switch jobs or we switch the things because it feels a little painful.

And what if God is actually saying pull harder and stick them in deeper?

Deeper into his word, deeper into his presence, deeper into who he is.

Don't switch up and jump ship early before God has already worked through the very thing he wants to do in you.

Keep growing, keep digging in deep, keep peeing your stakes, and keep stretching your cords.

Cords and stakes represent the need to develop.

Develop in us the necessary character.

Set apart, holy, his namesakes.

Develop within us the necessary resources to sustain growth and to sustain building a strong foundation for the future of what God's doing in the city of Edmonton.

But what's the season of life and renewal and growth?

What's it gonna cost us together?

What's it gonna cost us to be more disciplined in our daily practice with Jesus?

More disciplined in our love for neighbor and how we read our Bibles and enter into the story of Scripture and how we pray and how we fast, how we Sabbath rest, how we're generous with our whole lives.

What will it cost us to expand our sanctuary or plant a new church somewhere here in the city or outside of the city?

Or what will it cost you to open up your home and engage with a small group?

Say, let me, how can I help lead?

Right?

How can I help disciple other people?

What's it gonna cost us to train up and invest in new pastoral leaders and couples called by God to be sent out to plant new churches?

What's it gonna cost you to create margin to volunteer your time to snuggle a baby in kids' ministry or serve in our youth ministry?

What's it gonna cost us to add a third service?

Maybe you won't see Timmy because you go to first and he goes to third.

Just have coffee with Timmy.

Coming to church isn't about seeing your friends.

Stop believing that lie.

The gathering of the saints is for the equipping of our hearts to do the work of ministry.

This is not a social club, this is not a cruise ship.

Right?

Just you know what, because that's where you're like, oh, three services.

I'll never get to see so-and-so.

You can brunch tomorrow, but let's go to war today.

Come on, come on, we have to we have to pay attention to this.

And I love this last part about our generations taking their place.

Your life has impact to the next generation.

Verse 3, you're gonna be able to do that.

And it actually also says we're not supposed to run from the desolate places.

Oh, come on.

We're actually supposed to send our people to the desolate places.

We don't run from the darkness we're seeing right now, we run into it.

Yeah.

Jesus never was afraid of the hurting and the broken and the darkness.

He ran right.

Because he knew the light that was in him.

Right.

And so we get to do the same.

I love that.

And same with our kids.

Will we be spread abroad to the right and left?

Will we let our offspring possess nations and people desolate cities?

Oh, I pray that we will.

I pray that we will.

As we close today, I want to share a story out of 2 Samuel.

It's in 2 Samuel 24, and there's a lot leading up to this moment, which you could uh encourage you, even just this week in your quiet time, read through uh 2 Samuel 21, 22, 23.

But in 2 Samuel 24, uh Gad, one of the faith leaders, comes to King David and says, Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Aruna the Jebusite.

So David went up to do what the Lord had commanded him.

And when Aruna saw the king and his men coming toward him, he came and bowed before the king with his face to the ground.

Why have you come, my lord the king?

He asked.

And David replied, I've come to buy your threshing floor and build an altar to the Lord there so that he will stop the plague.

Aruna says, Take it, my lord, take the threshing floor, use it as you wish.

Here's the oxen for the offering, here's the threshing boards and yokes for wood to build a fire.

I'll give it all to you.

Oh, that's a sweet deal.

Right?

I'm like, if you're David in this story and you've come to sacrifice and build an altar, and some guy's like, here you go, take it all.

I'm like, Oh, that's great.

I'll give it to you, your majesty.

May the Lord your God accept your sacrifice.

Listen to the king, his response, no, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.

So David paid the price.

He paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and for the oxen.

And then David built an altar there to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings.

And the Lord answered David's prayer for the land, and the plague on all of Israel was stopped.

A few things to notice.

Number one, there's a crisis with God's people, there's a plague on the earth.

Number two, there's a directive from the Lord to the king.

Go and build.

Number three, there's a shortcut offered.

Just take it and use it.

Here you go.

But number four, there's a conviction, I'll pay the price.

I refuse to offer up to the Lord that which has cost me nothing.

And number five, there's an obedience.

The price is paid, the directive is established and built, the offering is given.

And number six, the miracle, the provision of the Lord.

The Lord responds, He hears the prayer, and the crisis is resolved.

The plague is stopped.

Now, what are the implications and the parallel for us as active participants in the work of Jesus?

There's gonna be a cultural crisis for us to respond to.

There's gonna be a plague on the earth, there's gonna be a moment where Jesus' church says, This is awful, somebody has to do something.

Lost and hurting people need Jesus.

Who's gonna go?

And then there's gonna be directives from the Lord to go and build.

Go and build a daycare, go and build a coffee shop, go and build a university campus, go and build a new church in a new city somewhere, go and build.

And there's gonna be shortcuts and temptations to take an easy way out, to compromise.

But there needs to be a resolve and a conviction among us as a people of faith, a refusal to offer up to the Lord that which costs us nothing.

And then there needs to be obedience.

Our hands are up.

Here we are, send us.

We're gonna pay the price, we're gonna go, we're gonna build, we'll say yes to participating in this vital kingdom work.

And then make no mistake, we will see the supernatural.

We will see the miraculous provision of the Lord.

We will say families finding family in Jesus' name.

We will see young adults released into greater kingdom impact in Jesus' name.

We will see a whole generation of young people stirred towards deeper surrender.

We will see grandparents and their kids and their grandkids and their great-grandkids saved by the power of Jesus Christ in response to this beautiful, unique, sacred, special moment that we find ourselves in right now as a family on mission.

Will we continue?

Will we continue to be a family on mission?

Willing participants to say, God, our hands are up.

Here we are, send us.

Will we count the cost?

Will we respond in obedience?

Will we make the sacrifice?

Will we pay the price and will we see God move?

So on this Vision Sunday, there's three things I want to invite you to consider how you can be involved in greater measure today and in the season ahead.

Three next steps that you could take.

You could take one of these steps, you could take two of them, you could take all three.

Number one, pray.

Number two, serve.

Number three, give.

Will you pray for this family on mission?

Will you contend on your knees before the Lord and believe with us to see God work and move?

Will you begin to serve, volunteer your time?

Will you say, How can I get involved in greater measure?

Or will you sacrificially give of your finances and your resources to the work that God's inviting us to do?

So a few things we want to just share with you by way of update projects locally connected to what we've seen God do so far, so far.

Um we have a daycare upstairs.

Praise God.

That that uh that work is completed, that work is finished, Mini Explorers is up and running and growing, and we are believing that by September they will be at full capacity.

Yeah, yeah, which is an answer to prayer.

Yeah, uh, because uh what you probably don't know is that Mini Explorers Daycare was not able to pay Evolved Church any rent in 2024.

And so that was$149,000 in lost revenue, yeah,$149K, just short of$150,000 that we didn't, that we carried as a church last year.

And can I can I graciously and and with so much faith say we ended 2024 um over and above?

So like it um we we we weren't hurting and we and we still we still gave more away last year than we've ever given away as a church.

Yes, like it is a profound miracle, yeah.

Over three ended in the is it in the black that you're doing good, in the red that you're not?

Yes, red is bad.

In the black?

In the black.

We ended in the black.

That's the one.

We ended in the black, not in the red, which is like a hundred and fifty thousand that we carried.

Um and so we're we're continuing, even right now, we're in a season where they've asked to pay us less rent, and our landlord has agreed to us paying less rent so the daycare can pay less rent.

Like it's we're in a season of just like figuring that out to love and serve mini explorers to see them thrive.

And and so like that represents hours and hours of behind-the-scenes conversations and emails and meetings with boards and and and we're actually looking at actually expanding the daycare into another whole room for before and after school programs, yeah.

Uh, which is also in the works for launching in September.

Incredible.

So in the middle of hard, God still does miracles and provision.

And so maybe that's you, you're struggling, and that's uh you know, a little beach builder for you.

Our coffee shop.

Um, good news.

We're working right now with Alberta Health Services.

Like, what do we need to get uh food handle safety certified to get a coffee shop open?

Uh the timing of that, the approval of that, the timelines on that.

We're hoping our dream to open up Evolve Coffee Monday through Friday and Saturdays if we can to the Edmonton Research Park in South Edmonton, the city as a whole.

Um you need to can you pray with us?

Like, why coffee shop?

And here's the thing we've already had our neighbors, and and you're supposed to reach your neighborhood first.

We've already had our neighbors knocking on our door because they heard that we were gonna open a coffee shop.

Right.

Saying, Hey, is this open yet?

Can we come and sit in your space, which is a church?

Like that makes no sense at all.

Right.

Right?

It's such a gospel operation.

It's such a beautiful place to just be community, to create safe places and and peaceful places for people to work and and hang out, and so that's that's the heart of that.

And the good news is like from Acts 2 right through to today, it's Jesus' church that have been on the front lines of the best hospitable care.

Yeah.

And so a gift of hospitality on this house allows us to love and serve people practically.

Uh, I personally can't think of a better way to do that except coffee.

But uh, another update is um the resource center that we are opening, we're just waiting to build partnerships.

But we've already started partnering with City Serve, which is a local charity here, who gets all the Amazon refunds.

So all those things you just return.

It actually goes to this place, and then we get to go pick it up and it's full and give it away.

Yeah.

And so we actually are creating this resource room.

We've already started that we are gonna have kids stuff, kitchen stuff, like whatever the needs are that arise, we're able to just respond and uh and do that.

So that is still in the way.

We are this year taking this wall out, a couple of offices over here, just to widen our sanctuary completely, adding about another 50 to 75 chairs, uh, just reconfiguring this room a little bit for optimal like sight lines and placement of the stage, and so that everybody can feel like they're in this sweet little living room.

Um, but that's some construction, um, some paint, uh, some demo, some pulling up vinyl flooring, uh, some some concrete work that needs to be done, uh, some chairs we need to put.

We need, yeah, we need like 50 chairs, and those chairs are about$90 a chair.

Yeah, so if you're feeling really good in those chairs that you're sitting in, but I also want to let you know that somebody else paid for the chair that you're in.

Come on.

And at some point, we actually have to have somebody else have faith for somebody else's chair that's gonna be sitting over there.

Yeah, and so maybe that's you.

That there were we made a whole different um, you know, little pieces that you can be involved in meeting a need and maybe making a way for somebody else to find out.

Actually, in the lobby, we have a needs list wall.

And after first service, a guy who's been in our church for six months, and he's we we've had a few conversations, and he's he's waiting to get on team, waiting to get into a small group.

God's healing him up.

And he came up to me and he pulled this card out of his pocket and he said, Pastor John, I have$90 because I want to spy.

I want to buy a chair for somebody else to experience Jesus like I have here.

And uh and I was like, oh man.

Um and so that he's already said yes to one of those chairs.

Um and then we just put we put all these needs on individual cards.

Like you could you could help us buy a uh a table for the coffee shop or a couch or an ice maker for the the coffee shop or um Um so also Love Yag, I want to update you on that.

Mark on your calendars May 1st.

If you love um our city and you want to help with some of the projects, everything's gonna be a good idea.

Brainstorm some new ideas.

Um, even this past week there were so many different projects, and you can actually help to be a part of that.

But we are planning block parties, pickleball days, all sorts of neighborhood stuff um right here.

So that's something else you can be a part of.

Our kitchen upstairs, we need to buy a couple of deep freezers, um, some food storage for a new team, hot plates for cooking.

We're starting a brand new team called what's it called?

Made with love.

Made with love.

And so if you love to cook, yeah.

Um, so some of the things that we actually want to do is to be able to have a team that just bakes and cooks and has a whole bunch of stuff ready for meals prepared so that uh as needs come up, we can actually just respond to them.

Yeah, families in crisis.

And so maybe that's you, but you want to be a part of that team or university students experiencing food poverty and so we need countertops up there, we need some kitchen stuff in order to get that going.

And then we're we're also excited that we have we have consistent space booked in the Dinwoody from now until 2026 on campus at the U of A.

We have access to Square One Coffee every Wednesday or every Sunday night in Windsor Park, their brand new location for our community nights with campus work.

Uh, we've booked the Horowitz Theater for September 28th, uh, which seats 700 people in partnership with five other local churches in the city and all of the chaplains and Christian groups on campus.

We're doing a huge outreach night to kick off the university year.

Uh, that as a church, we're spearheading and leading together on September 28th, the Horowitz thing.

We're just believing God for uh a powerful night of encounter with you with up to 700 university students on campus at U of A.

And um one of the one of the big needs we're right now for our worship gatherings in the Dinwood, we're renting a sound system every month.

And so we're believing God to just purchase our own great portable sound system that we can use for worship gatherings and other events on campus.

Um, we need to invest in our own sound system.

And so that's a little bit of an update of some of the local um initiatives that we talked about in the fall.

Uh, and our invitation as a family on mission today, a family that's willing to say, God, we want to we want to be a part of this, is will you consider doing one of three things?

Or two or three of three things?

Will you pray?

Will you serve?

Will you give?

Will you pray for these initiatives?

They're all there, I think they're all on our website.

That's live today.

They're up on our website.

Will you serve?

Will you say, how can I get involved in uh demoing a wall or um cooking food or serving university students in Jesus' name?

Or you're like, Pastor, I've got I've got margin.

Um somebody here, somebody here could buy a$90 chair today.

Somebody here could buy a sound system today.

Yeah.

And you just feel stirred in your heart to say yes to being a part of the financial provision to match the vision for what God's doing in us in this season.

Would you stand to your feet with us?

Yeah, as we close the thank you so much for listening to today's message.

If you're ever in the Edmonton area, pop by for a visit.

And if you need any more information, visit EvolveChurch.com.

We hope to see you soon.