State Of The Church 2023 | Clayton Hentzel

Oh, crossing family. I love you.

I hope you guys are on the other side of all of your Christmases

and you had a good one. I have one more Christmas to go,

and then I am done. I'm done opening gifts.

I'm done buying gifts. I'm done and I am so glad that

you guys are here with us today. I want to say a special shout

out to those of you who are new to The Crossing.

Take advantage of the QR code on the seat in front of you and get

connected or take advantage of the information that we have at

the info bar out in our lobbies. Well, one of the things that

kind of happens around Christmas, maybe you guys have

experienced this is you end up spending time at Grandma's house

or grandpa's house and you start going through old pictures and

people start, you know, sending you pictures of, hey, this is

what we saw. I got a couple pictures sent to

me and then you're like, Oh my goodness, I looked way better,

right? You see yourself 5/10/15, some

of you, 50 years ago, did they have cameras?

50 years ago, it was like that. I get it.

It's cool. Like, your horse got freaked out

when they took the picture. Anyhow, when you're doing that,

you look at the picture and you kind of see when you were young,

like, which kid you have looks the most like you.

You find out just how poor your parents were when you were

growing up. How many of you had that

experience? Like, Oh my goodness, how did we

live? You remember what it was like

when you had a full head of hair.

Ladies, right. It's just one of those things

you're you're taking a look at pictures and you're going, wow,

this is kind of heartwarming and a little depressing, right, when

you look at old pictures of yourself.

To give you some context, I I brought some pictures of me.

OK, so here's this one. Look how big my ears are.

And I hear that ears never stop growing.

And I have huge ears already in like 20 years.

I'm just going to be boots and earlobes.

That's where we're going to be at.

OK, here's the next one. OK, yeah, that's me in high

school. I put those clothes back on so I

could get my picture taken for prom because I took a lot of

clothes off on the dance floor in high school.

Wasn't good. OK, here's the next one.

This is when I went through the earrings with the long hair face

and I got a couple speeding tickets that I had to get taken

care of, which is why I lost all my cool factor.

Maybe. Anyhow, I miss him.

That's the best I've ever looked.

OK, here's the next picture. This is what it looks like when

I don't have any product in my hair.

OK, if you're guys like, man, Clayton is a bit of a prima

Donna. It's because I look homeless

when I don't have product in my hair.

OK, here's the next picture. This is during COVID when I had

to get my government maid ID. If you guys remember that I, you

know, I look like I'm like, this is what I want my prison picture

to look like. OK, LEXIS, I I don't look well.

I'll be honest with you. I haven't seen the sun.

OK, OK, here's the next picture. OK, this is funny.

That's not my wife. That's my best friend's wife.

When they got engaged, my gift to him was.

I went and took engagement pictures with his fiancee.

Seriously, I got another one. So that way he would have a

picture of his two favorite people on his desk at work.

So I was like, congratulations. And I took his fiancee out and

got engagement pictures with her.

Don't be my friend. It's dangerous.

OK, here's the next one. This is when we, Jennifer and I

just got married. This is back in Soul Patch days.

I looked great. Kennedy, look young Jennifer's

still a fox. OK, OK, here's the next one.

Here's night to shine. You guys might wonder, why do I

have a beard now? It's to hide this this thing

right there that I believe. And I I don't want to say

something that's wrong. I think that's supposed to be a

neck. OK, here's what happens when you

look back. Some of it's heartwarming and

some of it's depressing, and we're going to spend some time

today as a church looking back at so many things that we have

to be thankful for. And at the same time, some of

the things that we're going to be looking back at are going to

be a little depressing. And to those of you who are

watching online, and to those of you who are part of our online

community, I am incredibly thankful that we get the

opportunity to be a part of this church with you.

And my hope and my prayer is that God is going to use us in

this upcoming year to do a great and mighty thing.

And to those of you who are joining us for the first time, I

already kind of told you to take advantage of the QR code or the

info bar. But I just want to say something

at the very front end, because some of you might be visiting us

after spending time with us on Christmas Eve in order for you

to get the great, the best experience, not just at our

church but also in life, it is critical that you get connected.

I'm actually going to be talking a little bit more about that in

later on in the message. And if you're here and you're

bringing people to church with you, I want you to make it a

priority not just to bring them to church with you, but to help

them get connected to people. So that way people miss them

when they're gone. People are there for them when

they're hurting and they're struggling.

And if you're not one to talk to people just yet, take advantage

of the QR code that's on the seat in front of you.

So that way, it's at least a way for you to start that

conversation. Well, you've seen horrible

pictures of me and what I used to look like.

And golly, it's not going to look, you know, 20 years, I

don't want to see me, OK, So stop taking pictures of me

today. I don't even want to know what I

used to look like. But this past year at our

church, there were so many incredible moments of ministry

that happened because you supported them, you created

them, you funded them, you birthed them into reality.

We had one of our best years ever on social media as a

church. And if you're wanting to kind of

stay connected with certain things that we do here at our

church, we are one crossing on all of these places.

Facebook, Instagram, we have an app, which is, you know, I just

forgot about that. You can follow all the old

sermons on YouTube. You can share them with

somebody. If you hear somebody going

through something like, oh, you might want to pay attention to

this or Spotify. We need to figure out how to do

Apple Music. But I'm just going to tell you,

Spotify is a game changer. You can hop on there.

Follow us. Biscuit, who works at our

church, makes epic playlists. I've been devouring our weeds in

my garden playlist, but they make playlists for all kinds of

stuff, and it's just a way for you to stay connected with God

and not fill your mind with bad stuff.

All week. There's some guys working at my

house and they were just listening to worship music while

they were doing work. And while you're going about

your day, put your air pods in so you don't have to hear your

wife and just just just spend time with the Lord, right?

That was for you fellas. OK?

Each week you hear me talk to our online community.

This is going to blow you guys away.

This is what online attendance at our churches look like since

2019. Online now I want you to notice

this 200,200 thousand, 103,200 and 9213 thousand.

You know what surprised me about this is you'll remember that

this was the year our church was basically all online and we have

more people watching us online today than we did during the

pandemic. That's why you see us making

some huge moves in the area of our online experience is because

we're trying to do our best to make sure that they have a great

experience. And you guys get to see that

those of you who are at our locations before the service

starts, you're actually joining with our online audience in what

you see broadcast in your auditorium.

And that's why we've changed and upgraded this online experience

because we have so many people. In fact, there are more people

that watch online than any of our other locations.

It's our largest community. But to those of you who are

online, let me say a couple things to you.

Online is at its best at its best when you're using it to

stay connected, when dealing with sickness and travel and

vacation. Online is at its best when you

or a friend are using it to check out a church before you

attend in person when you move to a new community.

However, online is at its worst when you use it to avoid weekend

services and being connected to community.

If you live in a community where it's too far for you to attend

or to drive to attend a crossing location, I want you to know we

will work with you to help you find a great church in your

area. You probably already know this,

but there are better preachers, better pastors out there, and

you and your family will be blessed by God inside of His

plan for community. Watching me and Jerry online is

not the very best way for you to grow spiritually in my

experience as a pastor. Here's what I've noticed is that

those who begin to neglect physically gathering in the

assembly end up growing cold in their faith and weak in their

walk. Here's what I mean by that.

There's less evangelism, less personal growth, less serving,

less caring for others, less meeting, less meeting of the

needs of others, and less discipleship.

And what appears to me, don't hate me, OK?

It appears to me that they end up being lulled into spiritual

complacency and give up participation in God's glorious

mission. If you're going Clayton, forget

you. I'm just going to keep watching

online. At the very least, you should

find a way to serve, and the way you could serve is by joining

the team of our chat hosts to make the experience better for

those who are wanting to participate.

In fact, there's a group of people in Peoria, IL that do

just that. They gather together and they

participate as chat hosts for all of you who are watching

online. And if you want to simply serve,

just type it in the chat. Hey, I'd like to serve and we

will connect with you and help you become a contributor instead

of just being a consumer. Then another thing we did this

past year is we launched Marriage Retreats.

You guys heard us talk about those.

Jerry Nelson done an awesome job, we had seven marriage

retreats, 94 couples attended, and we have so much more work to

do here. One of the top five things that

people say that they are wrestling with have anxiety over

worry stressed out about is what their marriage.

Marriages are struggling and we want to come alongside people

and be a part of the solution. We have three scheduled for the

spring and a fourth one planned if we go into overflow and then

we'll put a whole roster together in the fall.

Then we had crossing camp as a church and crossing camp was

epic. In fact, this is what was

happening at crossing camp. You'll notice a bit of a low

spot there. In 2020 we didn't get to have as

much camp as we were hoping to have.

But this past year, after having an all time record last year we

had another all time record this year, 13% increase.

Now here's the thing that will blow you away. 521 of those 1300

and 1300 and 79521 of them were campers who attended for the

very first time. 37% of the kids who went to crossing camp this

year had never been before and to those of you who participated

in funding scholarships, you helped make that a reality.

We had women's conference this year where the ladies at Yeah,

proud of you ladies they still had.

They still pulled off 1 during a during COVID.

Lucky they set a monster record last year and then this year

check out what happened. We set another all time record

Ladies Barna Research in partnership with the Lutheran.

Our ministries recently did a survey and this is what they

found out about moms is that moms are seen as confidence

providers of support and the drivers of faith formation.

That's why Rise is so important, is we're equipping the women in

our church because more often than not, your kids are going to

come to you when it comes to the formation of their faith.

Which means we need to make sure that the women in our church are

equipped with everything they need to help be a part of that

process. So ladies, can't wait to see

what we do. This year we got problems

because we can only fit 1200 people in 40 8th St. so we're

going to have to figure out where we're how we're.

Who knows? It'll be a mess, but it's the

kind of mess that we want, right?

Then we talk about men's conference.

Men's conference is also on a pretty significant journey.

What do we got here for Uncommon?

We got blasted during COVID. Then this year we set an all

time record. We didn't beat the women.

And don't you think my wife doesn't let me forget it.

The women are like, yeah, well, we figured, OK, well, yeah,

whatever. But why is this matter?

While women are critical to the formation of a faith, men are

critical to the beginning of a faith.

When a kid is the first one in a family to come to faith 3.5% of

the time, the rest of the household follows.

So if a kid starts their faith 1st 3.5% of the time, the rest

of the family follows. When a mom comes to faith 1st

17% of the time, the rest of the family follows.

But when a man comes to faith first in the home, 93% of the

time the rest of the family follows.

Pay attention. Men are critical to starting the

faith. Women are critical to the

formation of the faith, which is why we do our conferences all

the time. But God's been doing something

else. Through our men's conference in

2022, we had a church reach out to us and say, Hey, would you

help us to do an uncommon conference at our church?

So in 2022 we got up early in the morning, we flew to Conway,

SC to Ekklesia Christian Church and we hosted an uncommon there.

Then last year we had a bunch of other churches call us up and we

had seven uncommon conferences across the country.

We had them in Quincy, IL, Conway, SC, Loveland, OH,

Manhattan, KS, Phoenix, AZ and Washington IN.

And in fact, we held four men's conferences in eight days.

It was busy. And then while that was

happening, more churches called us up and said, would you come

and bless us and help us have a men's conference in our

neighborhood. And so this upcoming year we are

going to have 12 men's conferences.

I'm thinking by 20-30 we're going to hit all 50 States and

we're able to do that because of your generosity.

We don't charge these churches. We pay it on our own dime to

show up to help them be able to have a men's conference in their

own backyard. And some of these churches are

small churches that are going, we don't have the resources to

be able to reach all the men in our community and we say how can

we help? And they can't get over the fact

that there's a church that's not trying to sell them something

that's got a back end deal on the other side.

We just go, how can we help? And we have a team of people at

our church who just work behind the scenes to help make those

things a reality. Then last year, we launched a

new initiative called In Your Corner Events.

You've seen a lot of these. It began with the 12 days of

service and 2485 of you served to help make that a reality.

But check this out. 844 of you. This was your first time joining

The Crossing to make a difference and be in the corner

of our communities. Then we did the frigid 5K, which

we're going to do again this year, and we had 754 people show

up for our first ever 5K, and we were able to take the revenue

from that. We took $10,000.

We divide it in half, and we sent $5000 to two different

organizations that specialize in rehabilitating those who have

been in sex trafficking and rescuing those who have been in

sex trafficking. And we think there's no greater

'cause that we can be a part of. Then we did car care, where we

brought in cars from anybody who was in the Foster and adoptive

system, anybody who's a single mom or a single parent, those

who are connected to our military.

And 694 of you partnered with us and we did 150 no.

And 152 of you were for the very first time, serving alongside of

our church. And we ended up cleaning 190

cars. And boy, I was tired when we got

done and we did that all across all eleven of our locations.

Then we're like, this isn't enough.

We should do more for our communities.

And so we did for education. And on for education, we blessed

702 educators in 260 school buildings.

Think about this. I didn't know our church was big

enough to hit that there were actually 260 school buildings.

But apparently there's a lot of school buildings out there, and

we were in 260 of them. And you might be asking

yourself, why does The Crossing do all of these things?

Well, it's because for years, Jerry and Allison put forth a

set of core values that governed as a special set of statements

that dictated how we preach our sermons and deploy our resources

and engage in our initiatives. For some of you, this is brand

new information. It'll be good for you to kind of

understand the heart of this church.

But for others of you, you've heard this many, many times

before. But this is a great opportunity

for you to reflect and maybe re engage.

So these core values that kind of guide our church are these

one we're going to be outward. We will do whatever it takes to

reach people who are far from Jesus here at the crossing.

We unapologetically prioritize those we are trying to reach

over those we are trying to keep.

There are a lot of people at a lot of other churches that found

Jesus here and ended up going to church someplace else.

And you know what? God bless them, I'm glad that

they found a place that they're happy and I can't wait to hang

out with them in heaven. But this church is

unapologetically for your friend, for your family member

who doesn't know Jesus yet. So sometimes when you don't like

what we say or how we say it and what we do and how we do it, and

you're like, is this guy doing the same invitation again?

Yep. And if you're mad, don't care.

Because we unapologetically are rooting for people who are going

to hell to find Jesus. We are about filling the empty

seats around, not by compromising on the gospel,

sending a weak message or something.

That's not true. We're not trying to entertain

people into heaven, but we believe that God is real, Jesus

is alive, the Bible is true, the cross is transformative and hell

is hot, and we're going to do something about it.

And when that frustrates you, find another place.

I mean it because I don't want to compromise our mission for a

person who already knows. Jesus, you're like, oh, we

should have come in two weeks. OK, next one downward.

We will gladly give up the things we love for a future

generation. We love even more if you're old.

We love younger people more than you.

You're like, this guy knows how to grow a church.

He's, he's selling. Yeah.

What I mean is, we want to be a church for your kid and your

grandkid. If you could have anybody

sitting next to you today, who would it be?

There's got to be a church that is going to be intentionally,

downwardly focused. I just had an opportunity to go

to Mount Sterling for their Christmas party.

Check this out. 25% of the Mount Sterling High School goes to our

church and gets together and reads God's word and treat each

other like brothers and sisters in Christ.

I walked away from there. My heart was so stinking full.

I couldn't. I was dangerous.

My heart was so happy. I never had a high school youth

group when I was growing up. If I could have got serious

about Jesus earlier, do you know how many?

I would have had a different picture at prom.

I would have. I would have had more clothes

on. How many of you made bad

decisions in high school and college?

I don't know. I'm not sure.

OK, All right. We're also honest at this

church, OK? I wanted them to find Jesus as

early as possible. How many of you wish you'd have

found Jesus like, 15 years later than you did?

OK, I know how for some of you are like, man, it's New Year's.

I'm going to get serious about Jesus after I get drunk.

OK, But seriously, when you come to a relationship with Jesus

Christ, like you want it yesterday, not tomorrow.

My successor is in crossing kids ministry right now.

We got to make sure we're doing a good job of raising him up so

he's way better than me. Relevant.

We will do fresh things and fresh ways to reach people no

one else is reaching. There's going to be times when

we start things up. There's going to be times when

we do new programs. We're going to shut some

programs down. The whole reason we do that is

we don't want this church to be a time machine where it's 2024

in the parking lot and 1983 in here.

If you worship at a church that meets all of your preferences,

it will not reach the people you care about.

I go to those churches all the time, and those churches are

dying because everybody in that room got exactly what they

wanted. They got a church that was

designed for them, not for the mission.

When Jesus showed up, he frustrated everybody because he

kept saying this. I have come to seek and save

that which was lost. And if our church, it's going to

be like Jesus, we have to seek and save that which was lost.

We innovate. We will take big faithful risks

and never insult God with small thinking and safe living here at

the Crossing. We're going to try stuff.

Some of it's going to work and we'll be super thankful.

Sometimes it'll flop and when what happens we'll go, we're

sorry, we were wrong, we messed up, it didn't work.

But I would rather be a church that tries and fails than be a

church that never tries at all. So when we lose, just so you

know, I'll be the most ticked off person in the room, but I'll

also wear it as a badge of honor that we're a church that's at

least willing to try to help people find a relationship with

Jesus. Not all seed that is planted

takes root, but our job is to sow the seed and water the seed

and pray that God brings the growth.

We will make leaders. We will develop leaders who

honor God and inspire people. And they will change the world.

You guys have done this for me. You put up with me, well, you're

still putting up with me. God bless you, but you have made

it possible for me to grow as a leader at this church, and I

want to make sure I feel like I have a holy responsibility to

make sure that I do this for others, and I need your

partnership in order to do that. We don't just make leaders.

Here's another one we grow. We will never stop measuring,

changing, and moving for growth because nothing matters more to

God than people. We want to have a laser focus to

leverage everything in our power to join God in His saving

mission. There has to be a place that is

committed to reaching and growing and baptizing and

discipling the very people that Jesus died for.

And the last One of our core values is this.

We are one. The Church is the hope of the

world, and we can accomplish infinitely more together than

apart. We are the Church.

Our locations is where we gather.

That is not the Church. That's just where we hang out,

You and me. We are the Church.

And when you take what God has given you, and I take what God

has given me, and we collectively put it in the hands

of God, there is no telling what He could do in our midst.

And it is our commitment to these core values, to our faith

in God, to our trust in His holy scriptures, to the enabling of

His Holy Spirit and our desire to follow God and reach people

that The Crossing has experienced tremendous success.

I'm just going to give you 2 little snapshots.

Last year in our communities, we had 2720 people come to our

church for the very first time. That raised their hand, filled

out AQR code, met with somebody in the back and said, hey, I'm

new, and there are who knows how many more who just show up and

walk out and we don't know they're here.

That's why we want to work hard to make sure that people get

connected. But out of this group of people,

652 of them got baptized. I don't think I have enough time

to tell you the story. I'll be quick.

Thursday of last week, Macomb Campus Pastor's dad called him

up and said, hey, let's go to lunch.

He goes, hey, I got this guy who I'm going to be bringing with

me. And so they're sitting down and

they're talking. And the guy who his dad brought

didn't go to church anywhere. And I hadn't been to church in

like 16 years. And he's sitting there with the

staff eating food. And he's like, I just figured

the church would judge me, you know, because I've got tattoos.

And our worship leader does what our worship leaders do.

He's like, I got a whole sleeve. And so they invited him to

church. And so he texted his wife and

said, hey, I'm going to church in Macomb.

And he shows up for. And his wife's like, what?

I've been trying to get you to go to church forever with me,

but you didn't go. But now somebody else invites

you and you're going to come to church.

So he shows up for church on Thursday night for our Christmas

Eve service and he goes, this is awesome.

He goes, I I need a Bible. I need to go get a Bible.

Well, the person on the staff went, we have Bibles.

Here's the Bible. And he's like, where do I start?

And he's like, well, I would start here.

And he tells him where he should start.

And he's like, well, that's where I'm starting.

And then his wife is kind of like, well, I want you to go to

church with me. And I live in Pike County.

And he's like, well, guess what? We have a church in Pike County.

So on Sunday, he showed up in Pike County and he got baptized

and you just clapped at his baptism video.

It happens just like that. We've had so many incredible

ministry moments. It is impossible not to thank

God because we don't deserve it. But it's also depressing because

in our communities there are people all across this spiritual

spectrum. You've seen me talk about this a

bunch, from minus fives to plus fives, and for just a second I

want you to pretend that like the plus side doesn't exist.

I just want to talk to you about people that haven't started

their faith. And in our own communities

today, right now, there are thousands of people that don't

have a relationship with Jesus. And these numbers in my opinion

are inflated because I don't know, there's a lot of people

who could could even go to church and I wouldn't say that

they were a follower of Jesus. So there's probably way more

work to do here than what I'm going to show you.

But at all of our locations, I want you to show show you how

many people self identify as having no faith in Jesus in

Adams County. 22% of the people, 14,000 people in Adams County

self identify and say I have no relationship with Jesus.

In McDonough County 20,000 people, 62% of your population.

When you're in McDonald's. Every other car is going to

hell. Adair County 14,000 people, 57%

of the county. Let's go to the Pike County 58

percent 9000 people. Marion County, Missouri 11,000

people or 40% of the population. Brown County 4000 people or 56%

of the population. Lee County, Iowa.

This is my, this is where I grew up, 17,000 or 50% of the people.

Warren County, 10,000 people or 43% of the population.

Morgan County, 18,000 people or 51% of the population.

In our region, there are 418,000 people who don't know Jesus.

That's why we're hoping to debut a new discipleship strategy, a

new connection strategy, and a host of other things to try and

reach our community. And we're going to try and help

new communities reach their communities for Jesus Christ.

So I preached the Christmas Eve message on Thursday.

And then I went home and I started writing this message on

Friday. And at about 11:00 at night, I

realized I had written my Easter sermon.

I was like, Jennifer, what happened?

I was like, I was supposed to write the sermon for this

weekend. Not an Easter message, but I got

done with it. I was like, this is a heck of an

Easter message and I'm not going to burn it on the 50 people that

show up after Christmas Eve. This is how God works.

You set an all time attendance record on Christmas Eve and then

right after that you have New Year's Eve, which is where you

have nobody show up. So God bless you who are here

and the two people in Keokuk. And just to keep you humble, so

hear me. What I'm about to tell you is

like the first quarter of my Easter message.

And, you know, you might start thinking of a friend that you

want to invite to Easter this year or just come back because

that's where you're going to get the rest of the sermon.

But if I get asked to go speak at a high school, a graduation

ceremony, I always do the same spiel.

I kind of got like a, you know, I do my little dance there, and

this is my dance every time I go there.

So you're just getting 1/4 of the sermon, but every story that

you've ever heard, every story that you've ever heard has three

common elements. Ready.

A character, Right. You got to have a person who

wants something great, who's willing to overcome obstacles to

achieve it. Pick your favorite movie right

now. Does it have a character?

Oh yeah. Do they want something great?

Yeah. And do they have to overcome

obstacles to achieve it? Yeah.

Cliff Notes version If you want to have a great life, a great

story, you got to have a character who wants something

great, who's willing to overcome obstacles to achieve them.

It's not a great story if there's no obstacles.

I got a great story. Me, Clayton Hensel, a character

wanted McDonald's for breakfast, and I drove there and got it.

You're not going. OK, whoa.

Who's going to be competing for rights to that story?

OK, I can't wait to see Brad Pitt, Fat Pit play Clayton

Hensel in the upcoming drama. OK?

Nobody. Nobody's paying to see that.

You, me, we're a character. Serious question.

As you get ready to write your New Year's resolutions, do you

want to do anything great? Dare to do something that makes

a difference, that causes ripples and waves?

I'm going to lose 10 lbs. Nobody cares.

Like that's the greatness at your funeral.

Hey guys, Listen, this guy used to weigh 250, but laying here

easy, 235 maybe 240. Nobody's.

That's not going to be your great story.

Do you hear me? Oh, you're like, OK too much and

is willing to overcome obstacles to achieve it.

My question is this, here at the crossing collectively as a

character, do we as a church want something great?

You better believe it. Our mission is to help people

find an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

The great thing that we want is the great thing that God sent

his Son Jesus to accomplish. Our hope is to make this region

where you and I live, all 10,795 square miles, the single hardest

place on planet Earth to get to hell from.

We want to see the Great Commission accomplished in our

region in our lifetime, and we are willing to put everything on

the table to make that a reality.

We know Jesus's last words in Matthew chapter 28, when Jesus

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

came to them and said all authority in heaven and on earth

has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples

of all nations, baptizing them in name of the Father and of the

Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey

everything. I've commanded you, and surely I

am with you always to the very end of the age.

That is the thing that He is calling us to, the great mission

that He wants you to give your life to.

There is no greater purpose, no greater thing, than you can

Orient your life to than the mission of God.

However, there are obstacles that we are going to have to

overcome to achieve it. For some of you, it might be

consumerism. Instead of watching the service

go by, you actually become a part of what God is doing.

For some of you, it's going to be you overcoming your

preference. For some of you, it's going to

be overcoming your apathy. For some of you, it's going to

be overcoming your schedule. For some of you, it's going to

be overcoming your priorities. For some of you, it's going to

be overcoming your fear, your worry, your rejection.

For some of you, you're going to be going.

I just don't know enough. At some point in time, when will

you desire reaching people enough that you will learn to

know enough? You put the time in to know

enough to be confident in sharing your faith.

Luke chapter 19, verse 41 says this.

Luke 19:41

This is Jesus. But as Jesus came closer to

Jerusalem, he saw the city ahead and he began to weep.

I think if Jesus was blowing out his birthday candle and you were

to ask him what did you wish for?

I think Jesus would say I wish my people had my heart for their

city. That when you see your neighbors

and your friends and your Co workers that your heart would

break. That you would weep for the

people around you that don't have an eternal hope that this

is all there is, and that that breaking of your heart would

recalibrate your life, and you'd be willing to overcome all of

the obstacles to help people find faith in Jesus.

I want a better story for me. I want a better story for you.

I want a better story for all of us collectively, and I'm praying

that God will write one. We're moving to a time of

decision. To those of you who don't have a

relationship with Jesus Christ, I need you to hear me say this.

You were made to be in relationship with Him and to

fulfill his purpose. And I want to tell you, don't

put it off any longer. You were destined to be in

relationship with him and to accomplish his mission, and all

the things that we try to do to fill the hole that's already

inside of our hearts will never fill us up.

But it's when you finally say, you know what, I'm going to live

the way I was created to live, which is for him, for his

mission, for his purposes. You will not regret it.

And if you have questions about what that is or what that looks

like in just a few moments, when the people around you stand and

sing, there's me, somebody right over by the baptistry who will

help you start to write a better story.

And you can join the 652 people who already started a

relationship with Jesus Christ this year.

To those of you who already have a relationship with Jesus, who

is the person that breaks your heart?

Who's the employee that you want to see come to faith this year?

Who's the neighbor? Who's the friend?

Who's the enemy that you want to see?

Come to faith. What I'm asking you to do is

maybe you want to come up here to the steps and get down on

your knees, or maybe you just want to do it right where you

have. Would you spend just a little

bit of time on your knees praying that God would use you

this year to write their better story?

That this year you allow God to start writing your story into

their story. By doing that, God is able to

write himself into their story. You're going to have to overcome

stuff to make this a reality. For some of you, it's going to

be the fear of having the first conversation.

It's going to be the fear of sharing your story.

It's going to be the fear of making an invite.

But God deserves better from us, and they deserve better from us.

So would you spend just a little bit of time asking God to help

you overcome those fears, those challenges, those worries, those

anxieties to accomplish His mission?

Would you stand with me, God? I'm asking you to help us, help

us in a big way. God help us to be about your

mission and your calling and your desires.

God, we want you to use us to make heaven bigger and hell

smaller. God this year we want to see the

people that are on our hearts and our minds right now sitting

next to us. We want to see them praying next

to us at the steps. We want to see him walking down

the steps into the baptistery. We want to see him coming out of

the baptistery. And God, we want to see them

bring their friend and their neighbor.

God, We're asking you to use us. You name I pray.

Amen.