"Coming Home" Pt.1

Hi, this is John O'Zanting, 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.

Well, Evolved Family, that is most certainly our prayer for us, for you, for everybody watching today and every day.

In this season and the seasons yet to come, we're just we're so grateful that God is doing new things.

New things in your home, new things in your marriages, new things in your life, in your family, in your workplace.

And the goodness of God is something tangible and beautiful.

When we walk in obedience, when we walk in humility, when we walk in a lifestyle of worship, when we find our identity in Christ, we can trust that God's doing a new thing in us.

And we're excited together today to start a new series for this month that we're calling coming home.

And the truth is there's lots about the last six months that hasn't felt like home.

And we've been we've been talking about just all of the change tension, all the change, all the stuff that we're none of us are really used to.

But it got me thinking about uh my childhood growing up.

And in Chatham, Ontario, the youngest of four kids, we moved a lot when I was a child and a teenager.

In the first 16 years of my life, I think we moved 11 or 12 times.

My dad was a builder, and he would build a home, we would move into it, we'd stay in it for a little while, put it on the market, sell it, make some money, move forward.

So we moved a lot.

But I never had a sense of not being at home.

I never lost the awe and the rest and the peace that's attached to that sense of family, right?

Because the beautiful thing was, regardless of the physical structure, our new address in all the different houses that we lived in, the core values of what made the Xanting family, the Xanting family, were intact.

Mom and Dad were always present, leading those moves.

And as kids, we would just come in line, pack up.

I remember one stretch where we had three houses in the same block.

We just, I don't think I even unpacked the house.

We just stayed out of boxes.

But but the core values of family and time together and sharing meals around the table and and being a part of church community, the core values that made us us never changed.

Right.

Regardless of the house that we lived in, right?

So during COVID, as a church community, we haven't gathered in a home.

We haven't been in a home together.

We've been outside of our normal experience.

We've been scattered.

Scattered in homes, scattered in vehicles, scattered in workplaces.

We've been scattered.

And we haven't been able to love and experience and lean into the gift of, I'll say, the embodied church.

In other words, the gift of one another being together.

The actual like connection part.

And almost in some ways, by going online, created a different type of home for church.

Yeah.

A different kind of room to at least be able to connect, you know, through a screen.

But there's still something so different about it.

It's been amazing.

But different.

But different.

And when we look back to uh the Bible and the book called Acts and the Early Church, they were a scattered church, but they were scattered with the purpose of gathering.

And then they would scatter and they would gather.

And they would scatter and they would gather.

And that's something we've actually taught on in the last two years, one of our series.

And it's been it's been weird.

But we want to tell you how grateful we are for everybody that's just prioritized this experience online, this digital.

Weird and beautiful at the same time because this has caused us to, as a church, innovate and create and and come up with different ideas.

And but there is still something about gathering in smaller spaces and going back to our roots.

Yeah.

And I think that our um one of the miracles we love is that our our family, our evolved church community, has grown during this season and is growing still.

Yeah.

So and that's happened through all of us, through small groups and through this experience and through time together in parks this summer and everything we've we've built and grown in.

It's still fostered that sense of belonging, that sense of hope, and that sense of growth in our lives.

Right.

We've been reflecting lots as we approach our second birthday coming up on September 23rd.

Evolved Church turns two.

We've been reflecting on what it was like for us and the whole team that was with us two years ago.

And we shared something on our very first Sunday in our pre-service team meeting that we want to share with you right now.

So have a look at this video clip.

Here we go.

It's actually about one.

One child that needs encouragement, one family that needs a family, one broken soul that needs hope, one couple that needs a greater purpose.

It's for the one that we exist.

And it's just one more day till we get to meet everybody and experience just what it means to belong.

That picture of one is still who we are.

Yeah.

It's still in our hearts to create room for one more, continuing to set the table for guests.

Only now we just know that it's time for a bigger home, time for a bigger table, time for a new room.

Yeah.

Our values and a very real and living God who calls each one of us his own, has made himself at home in us, within us, continues to foster a sense of home and evolve, a sense of family, a sense of connection and community.

And you know, it's something we've talked about since the very beginning is like how do we keep you know growing as a family?

Family doesn't stop growing.

You know, grandparents, um, they don't want to, my parents would love to have more grandparents, grandkids.

More because there's you know, we we that a healthy family continues to grow and continues to like embrace, you know, all the new sons and daughters and and grandkids, and and it's just like for generations, and and we know that that from the very beginning of our story of Evolve has been the call that we've had as a church to continue to open up our arms big, to add more chairs to the table, to have a bigger table.

And we are so excited that God has just like continually led us to um new steps in being able to do that.

And we are so excited about what's happening and taking place right now in the middle of COVID.

Right.

And we want you to know today that we have been praying, we've been learning, we've been researching, we've asked for wisdom, we've sought godly counsel, we've prayed more, you've prayed with us, and we believe that now is the time for Evolved Church to come home.

This gift of a family through online has been beautiful.

We've seen our church family grow.

But the the the coming together, the gathering together in person, our government has made way for us to do that since July.

And we just know in our hearts it's time for us to come home.

And we're still, we still so want to keep the uh online as part of our home.

It's like an extension and a room and a space for those who are still not quite comfortable to come in person.

Yeah.

You know, when we launched two years ago in the rec room at South Common, um, there was just something beautiful about that space.

And Nicole and I want to make it so clear that the rec room and the relationship with Cineplex in Canada has been such a gift for us, such um just like a favor piece.

It was miraculous how that building came.

Like unbelievable.

Yeah, and and how we were able to grow.

And their staff are amazing.

Absolutely incredible.

Yeah.

Back in July, we kind of looked at our our stewardship financially as a church.

We looked at our monthly spending, uh, the rec room where we were on a contract from year to year, kind of renewing annually and making changes, our HQ space, this space where we're recording from our office and our warehouse.

We did some simple math and we decided, as faith-filled people, it can't hurt to ask, right?

If this is what we have to work with.

If we take what we've been spending at the rec room on average and what we spend here at HQ.

Let's see what's out there.

Let's see what's out there.

Maybe there's something.

And uh we we met an amazing guy named Will, and a first phone call with Will.

I shared with him what we were working with, what we were looking for, where we were looking for space to gather, and he said, I he says, John, I I've got a piece of low-hanging fruit that I want to show you.

And we kind of laughed.

Yeah.

But we we walked through this this beautiful building, and it had been built out and designed like it, like it was for a church.

There was a big room to gather people and other medium-sized rooms and some smaller rooms and some offices.

And we I remember walking through and just like, again, this is the first place that we've seen, you know, looking, and we and we weren't anticipating, kind of finding something like that fit right away.

And so we're literally like stepping through and seeing these spots and being like, that's gonna be the kids' area.

That looks like it's you know, could be this and could be where we could do this, and youth could be here, and it was just like this same kind of peace that we had, and same kind of vision that we had when we stepped in for the first time to the rec room.

Totally.

And and so we went back a second time, we went and looked at a bunch of different other spaces in the city, and we brought some of our leaders back to the space.

We went back a fourth time.

At every visit, we just felt like the Holy Spirit was saying, This is your home, this is what I've prepared for you.

And the beautiful thing is we're we're stepping into a season this month where Evolved Church is still who we are, still at our core, still sharing the values, still building family.

Yeah, just our house is gonna look a little bit different.

And I thought about so much about my childhood experience that the core values and the sense of family and the connection one to another is what makes a home a home, not the physical building that we gather in.

Theologically, Jesus' church isn't a structure or a building, it's the embodied people, it's the gift of being together and one another.

And we can't help but sense that God is leading us into something magnificent and beautiful and breathtaking and bigger and quicker than we imagined.

But he's provided something for us by way of a gorgeous facility less than two kilometers away from the rec room, where we'll have a permanent home to do ministry out of seven days a week, 24 hours a day, yeah, and spend less money every month than we have been spending on two different spaces.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

And we are so pumped.

I think that's the part is like, you know, with COVID happening, with all of the changes and nobody knowing what's happening in the future and all of these different things, to be able to have a space that we can actually do smaller groups that are safe, that we can actually meet in person that is safe with the rec room.

Uh, the spacing and just the amount of people that we could only fit in that space was just not feasible.

Right.

It wouldn't have made sense.

And so to have this beautiful gift that we are walking into that God's just laid out for us is just unbelievable.

So that we can do like women's stuff, we can do guys' stuff.

Whatever we can do.

We can do whatever we dream, we can do it whenever we want.

Moms meet up, um, small groups, youth, young adults, kids, families, marriage events, worship nights, uh, time to pray, Sunday gatherings, opportunities for us to, with Alberta health restrictions, plan things that are safe, plans, plan things that you're gonna feel safe to be able to bring your friends to and bring your kids out to child dedications, baptism, and uh volunteer teams, next steps, seeing seeing our core grow, opportunities to start things with food banks and whatever we can dream and plan together as we pray and believe God in faith for more, yeah, we're gonna have a home to do it out of.

This is incredible.

And even statistically, as we've been talking with our board and other church planting families across Canada, it's been amazing that in less than two years, God's leading us into this so clearly.

And on average, it takes about five years for a church plant to begin to put down roots in a permanent home.

But the gift of having a permanent home for us to do life and ministry out of, here it is.

So from September, from right now until the end of December, the end of this year, we are launching a campaign called Coming Home.

And this is an opportunity for us to share this gift, share this good news, not just with our Evolved Church family, but with the community that's around us.

And an opportunity for each one of us to look into our hearts and say, God, thank you for what you're trusting to us as leaders in your church, to all of our volunteers, to all of our leadership teams that are watching.

You are so much a part of this beautiful family, and we're so in awe of how God's leading us with faithfulness, with goodness, um, with new things.

And next week we're gonna talk a bit more about that idea of what new things we feel God is leading us into as a part of this series.

But so, church, the big news is that we have a new home.

Yeah.

And we are so incredibly excited.

Um, we hopefully will be able to get in there September 15th and start doing some work and start like um there's different there's different parts of this.

Most of it is really put together for us, but there is still some pieces that have to come together in the sense of well, with the rec room, we didn't have um, we didn't have to buy lights or sound staff or you know, um different things for rooms and and tables and all these things.

Well, now we're coming into a space where we actually need to buy all of those things in order to get into this building.

Yeah, and it's actually so exciting because we can actually um pick the things that we need for this new home and actually place them and and use some of the stuff, actually, pretty much all of the stuff that we've had for the recruit, repurpose it, and repurpose it, the things that we've been setting up, the kids' toys, all of those kind of things, and bring it right into this new home.

Yeah.

And one of the things that's strong on our hearts is uh how can we be open-handed with Jesus' church, the way that so many other people have been open-handed with us?

And we we know pastors and churches in our city that through because of COVID, because of politics, um, because of other really difficult circumstances, don't have access to facilities.

And so, what would it look like for us to create a ministry home that we could share, that we could be open-handed with and invite other churches and ministries to have a space together, to have a safe place to do ministry out of.

And to get there, there's some stuff we need to invest in.

We need to buy chairs, we need to buy a sound system, we need to buy lighting, we need to get some furniture for kids' classrooms, uh, some kind of hospitality, kind of coffee stuff, that's a big part of us.

We have to pay for everything for the COVID systems and Alberta Health systems and signage and cleaning supplies outside patio tables and chairs so that we have secondary spaces when it's seasonal, some paint and flooring, some decor, some kitchen, meeting room setup, some exterior and interior signage, just everything, advertising, changing some of our printing materials with a new address, all the costs involved in getting into this home, it's actually not a lot in terms of finances.

We need to raise uh$136,000.

And and as of today, um this this online experience is happening in early September.

We've already seen over 25% of that already come in before we even asked.

People that were walking with us, that heard about this, that we that God did something beautiful financially in their lives, they said we want to give.

We've actually seen over$35,000 pledged already to this coming home campaign.

And and that's just like, oh my goodness, God, you're already showing up strong with what we need before we even knew we needed it.

And you know what?

I remember like this seems kind of like wow, this is big.

I mean, this we're in the middle of COVID here.

I mean, you know, things are kind of crazy.

And I remember like us like a couple years ago, um, like it was actually last summer.

Last summer.

Last summer.

And we were um we were talking about God's been so good, this is amazing.

Um, like when we first church planted, yeah.

I remember having like that kind of faith that was like step on the edge kind of faith, the kind of like where you're hanging on by your fingertips, right?

You know, um, just moving to a new city and and trying to launch this thing and how God just showed up time and time again.

Yeah, like this if not for God, we're toast, right?

Like, yeah.

And I remember us sitting down last summer and just being like, we never want to never want to lose that kind of faith.

Yeah, that kind of faith, like God help us to always be those kind of leaders, those kind of that this is this kind of church where we just step into faith using wisdom and faith.

Yeah, and um it's no sooner than like you know, a year later that God's like, trust me, hey, are did you really mean that last summer?

Because I'm gonna ask you to take some big steps in faith, like raising big kind of money in COVID, like taking an you know on a new building and bigger table, making bigger rooms, throwing open doors for more people, and just sort of stepping in.

And so I just want to tell you as your leaders and be honest with you, this is big steps for us as a church, this is big steps for us as leaders.

And um, but we know that God is with us and that he has us, yeah, and he's literally put all of this stuff in place, and we just get to like, you know, trust him and and come together as a community.

And um, it's gonna require faith from every single one of us.

For those of you that are brand new to Evolve, there's a space for you here.

You're part of this.

For those of you that have called this church home for the last two years, we're so grateful that you're you're on board with this.

Even this past week, as we met with our all of our volunteers in the parking lot of the new building and prayed together, shared this vision.

There's a sense of awe of how God is leading us right now.

But it's gonna require faith.

Faith in your life, faith in your home, faith for your family, faith for your kids, faith for your marriage, faith for your neighbors, for your for where you live, where you do life, but faith for us collectively, together, embodied as a part of Jesus' church as we step into this new season.

And there's a beautiful story in Matthew 17 that talks about a kind of faith for miracles.

And it's it's a story about a dad whose son is um taken over by an evil spirit, and the world we live in is is consumed with uh darkness.

That's no surprise.

And this dad came to Jesus and said, uh, my son's consumed by an evil spirit.

Some of your disciples prayed and couldn't cast out the evil spirit.

And and Jesus uh in Matthew chapter 17, uh, this dad says, I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn't heal him.

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

And and Jesus says, You unbelieving and perverse generation.

Wow.

Which is like it feels a bit like a harsh rebuke to his disciples.

Because I mean, like they had faith to pray, right?

But but Jesus' response is big.

Um He says, How long shall I stay with you?

How long do I have to put up with you?

Bring the boy to me.

Wow.

And I'm thinking, man, if I was one of the disciples, I'd be like, you know, kind of Jesus throws us under the bus here.

And um, but the teaching comes after this.

Here's the moment where the disciples come to Jesus and say, Why couldn't we drive this evil spirit out?

And Jesus replied, Because you have so little faith.

Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move.

Nothing will be impossible for you.

And Jesus replied, This kind of faith, this kind can only come by prayer and fasting.

And the connection in Matthew 17 is is between Jesus' rebuke, unbelieving and perverse generation, and then the call for his disciples to pray and fast.

To unbelieve, to be unbelieving means we're disconnected from the Father.

And some of you watching today feel disconnected from God.

Um and it's not maybe that you don't don't believe, you just you just feel a little bit lost right now.

And and the idea of perverse or having perverse habits in our life means to be too connected to the world that we live in, too attached to the world that we're a part of.

To pray is to intentionally connect with God.

If we're unbelieving, and that means we're disconnected, to pray and take time regularly, daily, to pray in faith, that means we're we're leaning in to connect with the Father.

To fast is to actually be intentional about disconnecting something from our lives where we're too connected to the world.

Of people choose food, some people choose social media or television or entertainment.

Some people fast from working out every day because that's become their God.

Whatever's really distracted you from your spiritual growth, from your faith.

But unbelieving means disconnected, perverse means disconnected from God, perverse means too connected to the world.

So to commit to pray is choosing to stay connected to the Father.

And to commit to fasting is choosing to stay disconnected from the world that we live in.

And I love that idea of prayer and fasting.

Doing 21 days of prayer and fasting isn't new to us as a church family.

We've done it twice a year since we started.

But this coming week, on September 8th, we are starting 21 days of prayer and fasting.

21 days where as a church community, we're saying, God, we want to be intentional about how we connect with you and purpose-filled about how we're staying disconnected from the world's system or the temptation of the world that we live in.

I think we just, you know what, in a season that like COVID and in the past six months and and all the stuff that's that's happened already this year, you know what, I think that the enemy just really wants to keep us like low-key and like, hey, nothing new is happening, I'm gonna keep you down, you know, jobs are uncertainty and keep you bombarded with depression and things that are like trying to hold you back.

Right.

But what if what if the God that we serve is actually who he says he is and and what he says he does in the middle of these kind of things, always and forever has done, is build new things and new rivers and new roads that need to be built, not just for our church community, but in our individual lives.

Are we willing to rise up, church?

Are we willing to rise up and take time out of our schedule and schedule it in with a God who does miracles, with the God who just wants to whisper in your ear that there's creative ideas for who you have and speak in inside of you and get rid of depression and create these new spaces for you to enter into this year?

2020 is not the worst year ever.

No, it's been a difficult year.

There's been things that have gone on.

But as we look into the end of 2020, what does God want to do in our hearts?

Greater things has He had for us.

Yeah, and we just know that this season is gonna require faith.

And that's our prayer for you, that your faith would feel elevated and raised up in this season as we pray and fast together over the next three weeks.

Faith for your jobs and for your health and your kids and your school and trust and confidence in the leaders and the government, your faith in your individual walk and your individual growth, but our faith together, faith for healing, faith for victory, faith for new relationships and small groups, faith for team and volunteers and for freedom in our lives, faith for salvation and growth and finances and for occupying streets in our city with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Faith that as we step into the season of pioneering a brand new home for evolved church, that we're gonna see God do greater things in the days and weeks and months and years to come than we've experienced in the last two years together.

We're believing together that this 21 days of prayer and fasting will be a massive catalyst for us as a church family.

A reset in our hearts, a reset in our minds and in our spirits for the presence of God, but an uprising of faith in us, not only as individuals and families, but as a body.

And you know, where you know the where there's um all this talk about the church sort of like, you know, going um nowhere.

What if God wants to actually like fire up the church and remember the passion uh for his house and for the people that are still hurting, and if not hurting even more right now.

Church, we gotta rise up.

We gotta still continue to bring our hearts before him and let him just bring that passion.

Yeah.

And it's still on us to foster belonging, to teach about hope, and to create spaces for that one more to grow in their walk with Jesus.

So we know that as our faith is raised up in the next uh weeks to come through this 21 days of prayer and fasting, starting September 8th, we also know that faith without works is actually dead.

And so there's gonna be some coinciding steps that we can all take together.

And so, what are what are our next steps?

What's our action attached to this faith season?

Number one, it's to commit.

We want to ask every single one of you to commit to 21 days of prayer.

What does that mean?

It means what can you fast before September 8th?

Pray.

God, what can what's what's causing me to feel too connected to the world, too connected to the anxiety, too connected to the stress.

For some of you, that's social media and Facebook.

You need to fast from that for 21 days.

Other people, it's it's food.

Foods become your comfort and your safety, foods become your rest, foods become maybe it's food.

For others of you, uh, it could just be entertainment.

You've been filling your emotions and your imagination just with endless entertainment, uh, but that's actually causing you to feel disconnected from God.

Pray.

Commit to 21 days and just ask God, what should I fast from to disconnect from the world?

And then when will you pray?

When will you be intentional about connecting with the Father?

When will you lean in and carve out time daily to just sit with God, journal, read your Bible, and pray?

We're gonna be doing morning devotions from September 8th for 21 days.

Every morning.

Live on Instagram and Facebook at 7 a.m.

every day.

Log in.

Just if if uh if you work at that time, you can tune in later on throughout the day, but be a part of the devotions that we're gonna be sharing and teaching throughout 21 days of prayer.

So that's the first action step.

And you know, I just want to say, you know what, both of us um like fasting is is actually a new thing for us.

Right.

Um, we didn't grow up doing it.

So for some of you that this is like, wow, I've never done this before.

I don't, you know, I don't know exactly.

There's no right or wrong way to do it.

It's really just about carving out some extra time to listen in to God's voice in your life.

And so, whatever that is, like just even just close your eyes and like ask God, God, what do you want me to sort of like give you extra time in or give up right now in these 21 days?

And just take you know, a baby step, and that baby step, God always matches your faith.

He always matches it, like so big.

Yeah, and so as you create space and time for him, he's gonna do something significant in your heart.

The second action step, the first one was commit, commit to this 21 days, pray, fast, be a part of this.

Um, if the faith that we need in our lives and as a church family is connected to this season of committing to connect with the Father and disconnecting from the world, be a part of it.

Secondly, we want to invite every single one of you, including us, uh, to pray and to give towards this campaign.

Um, so many of you, uh we believe in percentage giving and setting aside something regularly that we give to this house every month.

We've done that from day one.

Lots of you do that where you've sacrificially given finances a percentage of what comes into your home.

You give back to Jesus' church, and we're so grateful for that.

But what can you and your family commit to this campaign?

We want to ask you to take some time and pray about that.

Over and above what you regularly give, between now and the end of 2020, between now and December 31st, what could you pledge to give towards this remaining about$100,000 just to help us get into this new home?

We know that some of you are in a place where you could give$10 a month between now and the end of the year, and that would be a lot for you.

And we see that and we acknowledge that, and we're grateful for that kind of sacrifice.

Somebody else watching might feel moved to do greater than that.

But I think the gift of family, uh, from the from the youngest of our home to me, the oldest in our home, we all contribute wherever we're at.

And that's our hope and prayer that we would all just pray and say, God, what can I do to be a part of this coming home campaign for Evolved Church, to set aside something every week or every month between now and the end of December to give towards as a pledge towards this campaign.

Over and above your regular tithes, monthly contributions.

How can you sacrificially invest into our legacy of making room for one more?

There's also going to be volunteer opportunities and work bees and projects and moving and packing and other opportunities for you to give of your time, give of your energy.

But um, sometime today, or in the next couple of days, we would love for you to go to our website, evolvechurch.com forward slash coming home.

And there's a button there that says make a pledge.

It's a little simple form that you can fill out.

Um, just uh after you've taken time, um, if you're married, do this with your spouse.

If you got kids, do this as a family.

Yeah.

Just ask God, what can we pledge towards this campaign between now and the end of 2020 uh to make room for more as together we're coming home.

We want to pray for you.

Yeah.

And uh there's also um within this next way that you can also be a part is we're gonna be raising up more teams in our house.

Yeah, and there is a spot for you.

Maybe you've been just sort of waiting and deciding whether you should take a step in um like rolling up your sleeves and being part of some of our teams.

And we just want to say you're significant, God has talents and abilities that this home needs.

And so um pray about it.

Pray about giving of your time and joining a team.

Yeah.

But we want to pray before we kind of close out our service today, turn things back over to Ryan and Mikaela.

We we want to pray.

Um, and I want to encourage you, right where you are, wherever you're watching, if you're in a home with your family, would you just grab someone's hand?

If you feel comfortable, even just it might feel a little awkward, but stand to your feet, stretch out a hand in faith.

Even with the kids running around.

Just take a moment and pray with us for this campaign for this season that we're stepping into.

Father, in Jesus' name, we declare in faith that greater things are yet to come.

Yes.

You are doing a new thing through us as a church family.

We are in awe of what you've done over the last six months as our family has grown, as new people have found faith in you, people have put their trust in Jesus for the first time, people have found community and their hearts and their homes and their families and their lives have been enlarged and enriched by the goodness of God.

God, it is still our dream and our desire to create a place for everyone to belong, find hope, and grow in their journey.

God, there's room for one more.

As we create bigger wounds, as we set bigger tables, as we create more space, as we step out in faith into this beautiful new building that you've clearly laid out for us as next steps.

God, we trust you.

And we just pray for everybody that's a part of this uh service today online, everybody watching, God, that over the next couple of days, as we take time to pray, God, that you would just settle in our hearts what we can sacrificially set aside to financially pour out and be a part of this coming home campaign.

God, for people that have maybe been feeling like they're sitting on the sidelines, God, that their gifts and abilities would just feel just bubble to the surface.

They would feel like they could contribute with their time, with their with their energy, with their talents.

God, we can all do something.

Would you move our hearts?

And as we take 21 days to pray and to fast, we just ask that our faith would be enlarged, that the miracles we're believing for in our homes, in our families, but in this beautiful church family, the miracles we're believing for, would that we would see the goodness of God through this season of prayer and fasting as we intentionally connect with you and intentionally disconnect from this world that we live in.

God, we lean into your presence, we lean into your heart.

We thank you for what you've led us into.

You're so good, God.

We love you, we honor you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

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.