Sermon

There Has To Be A Place... For Everyone

Crossing Church with Clayton Hentzel

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  1. Crossing family. How you guys doing today?

  2. You're doing well man. I hope so.

  3. I don't know if you're here today because you want to close

  4. out of here or you're ready to start a new one, but I want to

  5. welcome you to those of you here at 48th Street.

  6. Macomb Kirksville, 929, Pike County, Hannibal Lima, Mount

  7. Sterling Keokuk, mom, with Jacksonville online, and inside.

  8. I'm so glad that we have the opportunity to spend some time

  9. together today. I, I have a quick favor to ask,

  10. okay. Get you at all of our locations?

  11. Just to stand up for just like 30 seconds.

  12. Could you all stand up for just a second?

  13. I know, I just got ucomfy trust me.

  14. Just just just just I don't ask for favors often.

  15. I know there's some of you gather around all of our

  16. locations that you're here for the very first time you lost a

  17. bet. It was you know in case you

  18. forgot to give someone a Christmas present.

  19. So they said you had to come to church.

  20. I get your here and I just need you to know you are surrounded

  21. right now by some of the best people on planet Earth.

  22. These are the changes. Retire.

  23. On a rainy day. Bring you something to your

  24. house, kind of people. And let me, let me prove it to

  25. you. Okay, there are many of you

  26. across all of our locations that if you were to put the last two

  27. years of your life into one word.

  28. The word you would probably use. Is loss.

  29. You lost a parent. You lost a grandparent, you lost

  30. a child, you lost a friend. You lost a neighbor.

  31. You lost somebody that you worked with, for 20 years at

  32. work. You lost somebody.

  33. I know here's the big risk. If you would say than the last

  34. two years. If you fall into that category,

  35. would you just put your hand up? Now, Crossing family, if you see

  36. a hand up with you go and put your hand on them, and we're

  37. going to pray for those people, across all of our locations.

  38. There better not be a hand waiting up with nobody next to

  39. it. Take it will take some time at

  40. all of our locations. I can't imagine carrying a found

  41. a loss. You're in it.

  42. You're in it. I want to give you three Bible

  43. verses make sure that if someone's a hand up, make sure

  44. there's someone praying with them. first of all, I want you

  45. to hear this before, we pray some 3818, says, the Lord is

  46. close to the Brokenhearted and he saves those who are crushed

  47. in spirit, Psalm 147, he heals the Brokenhearted and he binds

  48. up their wounds. This is this one.

  49. Take this one to the bank. Second Corinthians 1, praise be

  50. to the God and father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, the father

  51. of compassion, and the God of All Comfort.

  52. You are worshipping a God, who comforts you, who binds you and

  53. heals, you would you pray with me?

  54. God, that is exactly what we're asking you to do right now.

  55. Only you can see the full weight of the profound hurt and pain

  56. and loss, that is being experienced across this entire

  57. region. And God, there are people in

  58. here that the wounds are old and there's some that the wounds are

  59. fresh. There's some that are still

  60. navigating unbelievably dark times and they're worried if

  61. they're ever going to see themselves on the other side of

  62. it. I'm praying that you would use

  63. this church. To love them to care for them to

  64. be your hands and your feet, and your heart in their life in

  65. Jesus name. I pray.

  66. Amen. God bless you guys.

  67. Would you have a seat? We're going to we're going to

  68. actually do this for the next five weeks.

  69. We're going to spend a little bit of time, just praying for

  70. our people at the beginning of every message.

  71. So you know, get used to a little bit of calisthenics on

  72. the front end. But I think it's incredibly

  73. important because there is profound weight that gets

  74. carried into our church every single week.

  75. And I want to make sure that we take a little bit of time when

  76. we can to try to address it and give got an opportunity to

  77. minister to it. And I need you to know if you

  78. raised your hand, hopefully the people around you, they would

  79. love to love. Well, if you give them a chance,

  80. I titled this sermon there has to be a place.

  81. I put this line. I first, put this line in a

  82. message. I preached a couple months ago

  83. on, when we were going through the sermon series, and intimate,

  84. personal relationship with Jesus.

  85. And I was talking about the New Covenant, And I've circled back

  86. and watch that sermon a couple of times because every time I

  87. watch it like it has an emotional impact like it it

  88. moves me and you know it's kind of weird to be moved by your own

  89. sermon. But God used that moment in that

  90. message you know that message might not have been for any of

  91. you that message that might have been for me but it seared

  92. something in my heart that there has to be a place where people

  93. can find an Summit, personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

  94. The second thing that happened is I was doing some study on the

  95. life of Jesus. I kind of knew this from Bible

  96. college but I just didn't realize how profound this was as

  97. when you look at the life of Jesus.

  98. And if you were to trace his footsteps, if you could have put

  99. a GPS tracker on his Birkenstocks, you would have

  100. been amazed at how much time he spent by the Sea of Galilee.

  101. If you were on planet, Earth used to At the highest possible

  102. chance of meeting Jesus near the Sea of Galilee.

  103. Well, there are great ministry moments that occurred in other

  104. areas, and in Jerusalem, most of his ministry, occurred near the

  105. Waters of and in the towns, and Villages built on the banks of

  106. the Sea of Galilee Galilee was his Quincy.

  107. His Macomb, his Kirksville. His Hannibal Jerusalem was his

  108. Lake of the Ozarks. He would go there and something

  109. big and memorable would happen. But most of the time, he was at

  110. the Sea of Galilee and incredible Ministry happened on

  111. these Banks. And over the next couple of

  112. weeks, as I was doing that study, it became clear that this

  113. needed to be the first sermon series, I preached as your lead

  114. pastor and this sermon series is six weeks long.

  115. I'm going to preach the first five.

  116. Okay. Jerry's going to preach the

  117. sixth one. Okay, in fact Jerry just so you

  118. guys are, you know, for those of your nervous, Jerry's going to

  119. be preaching 22 times this year. I'm bringing in a guest speaker

  120. four times and I'm going to preach the remaining.

  121. I'm asking that from now until Super Bowl that you guys would

  122. go on this journey with us. And I believe that not only the

  123. trajectory that will happen in your life individually, but what

  124. could happen in our church collectively, if we were to go

  125. on a journey to be a place for everyone, that God could do a

  126. marvelous work in our midst. I wanted to spend the these

  127. first five weeks, really zeroing in on who we are.

  128. Where We are as a church where we're going and how we're going

  129. to get there. So a couple months ago, I had I

  130. met with our elders and I also had an opportunity couple weeks

  131. ago to meet with our campus pastors.

  132. And I, in this meeting, I showed him this graphic.

  133. And this is a spiritual Spectrum.

  134. Now, this isn't like scientific. Okay.

  135. So don't be like where did you get that Clayton?

  136. Okay, but it - 52 plus 5. So minus 5 would be a person

  137. who's a complete atheist. Who doesn't believe in God maybe

  138. if they believe in God, they hate God.

  139. And a plus 5, you know, would be your grandma, right?

  140. They love Jesus, a whole bunch, they Faithfully served them,

  141. they've she's got crosses on all of her walls.

  142. She has little prayers, she has her Bible in six different

  143. places. Okay.

  144. Totally sold out follower of Jesus Christ.

  145. Okay. And then everybody kind of Falls

  146. somewhere in between people who hate God and your grandma.

  147. And then right here is where a person starts, an intimate,

  148. personal relationship with Jesus.

  149. This is where people get baptized Yes, can understand

  150. that. And so I asked our campus

  151. pastors and I asked our elders. Where do you think we, as a

  152. church? Do our best work.

  153. Like, where do we win as a church on this?

  154. Spiritual Spectrum? Where do we win?

  155. And almost universally, it was from minus 2 to, plus 2 K.

  156. Which, you know, everybody was, like, probably like - 5 to +5

  157. know, if we really zero it in, where are we?

  158. Well, I don't think they're wrong.

  159. I think our elders and our campus passes were, right.

  160. We're really good right here. And part of that is because here

  161. at the Crossing, our mission is to help people.

  162. Find an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

  163. That zero is where we focus, helping people find and start

  164. that relationship with Jesus. In fact, you should hear that

  165. every single week at all of our different locations that people

  166. can find an intimate personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

  167. Now, I know hear me, I know, for some of you that could get a

  168. little old when we say we're moving to a time of decision, we

  169. walk down the steps and we start talking about an intimate

  170. personal relationship with Jesus.

  171. You're going I have heard it. For the 100th time, or the

  172. 1000th time. I know, I know, I know.

  173. I know that you hear at every week.

  174. But I need you to know every single week.

  175. There's somebody at our church who's hearing it.

  176. For the first time. For the very first time in the

  177. last two years 5412, people have walked through our different

  178. doors for the very first time. And they heard it on Christmas

  179. Eve. A 20 year old young, man, his

  180. birthday was right along that and you know what he asked for

  181. for his birthday. For his family to come to church

  182. with him. There has to be a place that

  183. backs his play. That is ready to tell them the

  184. good news. You may have heard it for the

  185. thousandth time but you'll be glad we're saying it.

  186. When it's your kid that you bring to church when it's your

  187. parent when it's your spouse, when it's your friends, you'll

  188. be so glad you'll be waiting on the edge of your seat for us to

  189. share that good news that message of hope.

  190. So hear me. If you're getting tired of

  191. hearing it, it might be because you haven't brought anybody in a

  192. while. Dukey, we survived a tough one

  193. there. Alright, so here's what you need

  194. to know. We are going to keep saying it

  195. proudly and boldly because we believe that Jesus is for

  196. everyone, and everyone deserves a chance to meet him and God has

  197. blessed our commitment to helping people find an intimate

  198. personal relationship with Jesus that zero moment that I was

  199. showing you on that spiritual Spectrum in the last two years.

  200. 1050, people have been baptized You're at one of our different

  201. locations it's because we're telling people about it every

  202. single week and our mission fuels us and we've made other

  203. big commitments to God and to one another, to make sure that

  204. we keep reaching people, you've heard about these commitments.

  205. One of them is outward, we will do whatever it takes to reach

  206. people who are far from Jesus. I need you to hear me say this.

  207. We unapologetically prioritize trying to reach people Over,

  208. trying to keep people. Well, we feel a spiritual burden

  209. to grow people in Christ. We believe that there must be a

  210. place dedicated to helping people far from God Drawing

  211. Near. Why is this important?

  212. Well, it's because it's important to me.

  213. Because it was at this church. That a girl who was far from God

  214. Found Jesus. She became my wife, she

  215. eventually helped her father who didn't go to church and didn't

  216. speak to her for 13 years. He started coming to this church

  217. and he found Jesus and a girl named Lisa who we invited to

  218. live in our house was far from God when she started coming, she

  219. found Jesus here, I'll tell you more of her story.

  220. Next week there has to be a place.

  221. You know people that were once far from God and you're going

  222. there has to be a place. That's willing to reach out to

  223. people who are far from God and bring him close.

  224. Another, one of our commitments is downward, we will gladly give

  225. up the things we love for a future generation.

  226. We love even more right now. We are revamping our entire

  227. 02:18 Ministry. We've been working on it for six

  228. months, we're going to debut it the weekend after Super Bowl,

  229. we're going to have an entire series about it, we now more

  230. than ever. We need to make sure Sure, that

  231. kids are getting an opportunity to find a relationship with

  232. Jesus Christ before they make some of the same mistakes that

  233. we've made. Can I get an amen?

  234. At that? Okay, those of you've made

  235. mistakes. So why is this important while

  236. tell you it's important to me because my sons are 8 and 10.

  237. They're in that Ministry. And while they have two good

  238. Godly Parents, most of the time I want as many reinforcements as

  239. I can possibly get around them. The other reason why this is

  240. important to me is my successor, Is in one of our Crossing

  241. locations. In kids ministry right now and

  242. some of you are going pulley can't get here fast enough

  243. Kenneth but thank you, gotta wait some time, but we want to

  244. start raising that kid up as soon as we possibly can.

  245. Here's another one relevant. We will do fresh things in fresh

  246. ways to reach people. No one else is reaching.

  247. There will be times when we change things up, there will be

  248. times when we start new programs and they'll be times when we

  249. shut others down and hear me, we will do this for the express

  250. purpose of keeping our church doors from becoming a time

  251. machine where it's 20:22 outside in the parking lot and it's 1995

  252. inside the auditorium. We have to make sure that that

  253. doesn't happen. I remember Andre my

  254. brother-in-law, you know, he he met my wife and he lived in

  255. Jamaica was a missionary. And so they got married and she

  256. had to bring him here to the states.

  257. And Andre is worshiping in the Macomb campus for the very first

  258. time two songs, he had never heard before.

  259. He was singing, you know, our songs and he was like Full Tilt

  260. like at a level 10 worship, like he was going all-in.

  261. And after the service I asked him, how were you able to

  262. worship because you didn't know Of the songs and Andre, you

  263. know, shame on him. Looked at me and said, Clayton,

  264. I'm a mature Christian, I can worship Jesus anywhere.

  265. Anyhow, I don't need to know the words to the song to be able to

  266. worship Jesus like, RI you can shut up, okay?

  267. I don't need that can't hear me. Those of you who are mature

  268. followers in Jesus, and you can play whatever song you want in

  269. your radio. You can clip it on on Spotify,

  270. when you're getting ready in the morning, you can get your

  271. worship exactly the way you like it all week long. but for an

  272. hour a week, Could you have a some freedom and some

  273. flexibility to give people who are far from God?

  274. An opportunity to connect with him?

  275. Maybe the more mature we become in Christ, the less preferences

  276. we have on how we worship Christ.

  277. Here's another one, innovate. We will take big faith-filled

  278. risks and never insult god with small thinking and safe living.

  279. As a church, we have taken some big faith-filled risks.

  280. We've had major wins, but we've also had brutal losses.

  281. I remember when we close Paducah, I drove down to be a

  282. part of that last Sunday. And it was excruciating, the

  283. pain and the hurt from closing that campus Still Remains in

  284. different forms to this day. And I remember driving back and

  285. feeling the strong compulsion in my heart and so I figured, I

  286. might as well tell you. That I wouldn't have it any

  287. other way. I would rather launched a campus

  288. and try and reach people and later have to shut it down.

  289. Then be a church that never tries to be a church that never

  290. takes risks and a church that maintains a perfect track

  291. record. I think, I think God and His

  292. gospel in his message, deserves more from us.

  293. Not all seed that is sown. It takes root, but God has

  294. called us called you and me to plant the seed and to water it.

  295. But who's the one who supplies the growth god?

  296. So, let's go and let's find opportunities for us to partner

  297. with him and sometimes we'll win.

  298. And sometimes we may lose, but at least if we lose, we lose

  299. trying to make a difference instead of trying to preserve

  300. the status quo. Here's another one, another one

  301. of our commitments will make leaders We will develop leaders

  302. who honor God, and inspire people and they will change the

  303. world. I have so much to say about

  304. this. I've been having this feeling

  305. this strong desire, my heart for a while, now not to double or

  306. triple or quadruple, but exponentially expand this part

  307. of our church and there's going to be way more on this in the

  308. future. But for the time being we there

  309. needs to be a place that gives people an opportunity to play

  310. and learn and grow and develop. You have done this for me.

  311. But I want to make sure I make a place for other people to be

  312. able to do the same the couple weeks ago.

  313. I was talking to a couple that are actually here today, and

  314. they go when you first started preaching, you just wore us out.

  315. You talk so fast and Jerry used to always about Clayton, Slow

  316. Down. Slow down, slow down, but he

  317. didn't pull me off stage. He kept giving me an

  318. opportunity. He kept giving me more reps to

  319. become a communicator. I got a message from, I don't uh

  320. sweet person in our church and they sent me a card.

  321. And then they just were thanking me.

  322. And one of the lines was I really don't appreciate your

  323. sense of humor. And I'm like, yeah, you and my

  324. wife can start a support your support group and she goes but I

  325. but I appreciate your heart. And listen, I'm going to be, I'm

  326. trying to get skinny but I'm probably going to be a fat funny

  327. guy for those long as you're here and I can't.

  328. It's how God made me. I have an edge to me.

  329. I'm going to say stuff and you're going to go.

  330. That was really funny and I'm going to say some stuff in your

  331. like that. You shouldn't have said that and

  332. you can send me the email and I'll probably agree with you,

  333. okay? But we need to give people an

  334. opportunity to grow because we don't know what they will

  335. become. Here's another one we grow, we

  336. will never. We will never stop measuring

  337. changing and moving for growth because nothing matters.

  338. More to God than people. We want to have a laser focus on

  339. leveraging, everything in our power to join God in his saving

  340. work. There has to be a place

  341. dedicated to reaching growing baptizing and discipling people

  342. that Jesus died for. Or how about this one?

  343. This is another one of our commitments were one.

  344. The church is the hope of the world, and we can accomplish

  345. infinitely more together than apart.

  346. We are the church. Our locations is Where We

  347. Gather. But you and you and you and me,

  348. we are the church and we take what God has given you and what

  349. God has given you and what God has given me.

  350. And we put it together and then we place it.

  351. Collectively in God's hands. There's no telling what he could

  352. do. Us.

  353. It is our commitment to this Mission and these core values.

  354. Our faith in God, our trust in his scriptures, the enabling of

  355. His Holy Spirit, and your desire to follow God and Reach.

  356. People that has caused the crossing to experience.

  357. Tremendous success recently. The Crossing Church, we have a

  358. lot to be thankful for. We were just listed as one of

  359. the 100 largest churches in the country.

  360. We were also listed, yeah. We were also listed as one of

  361. the fastest growing churches in the country and we were a

  362. handful of churches that were actually on both lists.

  363. Yeah, it's amazing. As I stated earlier we've had

  364. over 1,000 baptisms and 5,400 people visit our church for the

  365. very first time. We have 11 locations in 10

  366. cities that are serving 22 counties.

  367. In fact, if you want to know what our church looks like, this

  368. is what our church looks like. This is us when Jeff Bezos goes

  369. UPS in space. He can see our church.

  370. It's huge. Our church spans, over 10,000

  371. square miles, when you drive into it, it takes hours before

  372. you can drive out of it. But let me put it in

  373. perspective, this is Puerto Rico, this is Connecticut,

  374. Delaware Rhode Island combined. This is New Hampshire.

  375. This is Maryland. And here's the crossing, we're

  376. bigger than six states. Yeah, like, you know, Jerry's

  377. like technically the governor, the spiritual governor of this

  378. of this region. Okay, each week we have over

  379. Thousand people attend physically, at one of our

  380. locations, this does not include R5 inside locations or the two

  381. to four thousand people here. This two to four thousand people

  382. that join us every week online. All of this occurred while we

  383. were in the throes of covid-19. Speaking of pandemics.

  384. Did you know that historically churches have always grown on

  385. the backside of a pandemic? Check this one out.

  386. It was the Roman Empire that went from crucifying Jesus to

  387. 300 years later claiming Christianity as its National

  388. religion. How could that happen?

  389. Well historians would say there were two plagues that occurred

  390. during that time. One occurred in 165 in which

  391. there was a 25 percent mortality rate.

  392. The other, one happened in 249 ad and it was how Christians LED

  393. and loved during He's devastating pandemics that

  394. changed everything here in America, the Spanish Flu of 1918

  395. devastated, America, 50 million people died worldwide of the

  396. Spanish flu and on the heels of it.

  397. The church exploded in growth as Revival took place.

  398. Tyler Mackenzie, who spoke at Men's Conference this year?

  399. He said this, we would never pray for this pandemic.

  400. But we were made for it. I don't know how long the covid

  401. and all of its variants are going to be around.

  402. I don't know what kind of political challenges lie ahead.

  403. I don't know what kind of racial tensions will have to be

  404. navigated. And I know that when you're

  405. tucking yourself in at night and be while you're getting ready to

  406. go to sleep, I know you would never pray for any of the

  407. problems that America or this world is facing, but I need you

  408. to know that we have been equipped with the Holy Spirit

  409. which means we were made for moments just like this.

  410. It's in our spiritual DNA, the church has overcome and

  411. ministered and thrived in the most devastating of

  412. circumstances. There has to be a place that's

  413. ready for that for the last year or so you may have heard me

  414. talking and maybe you kind of felt like I was putting my

  415. finger in your chest and poke in you a little bit.

  416. It's because I was you might have been going I mean listen

  417. this past year I've popped off about masks I've popped off at

  418. the mouth about no masks I've popped off about vaccines.

  419. No vaccines I've popped off at the mouth about build a wall.

  420. Tear one down. I've popped off about

  421. Republicans. I popped off.

  422. Democrats, I've done my best part to kind of make everybody a

  423. little mad. And you might be going Clayton.

  424. You know, what's the Burr under your blanket?

  425. Well, I'll tell you. I have people in my family who

  426. are vaccinated and people in my family who aren't I have people

  427. in my family that vote for republicans and I have people in

  428. my family that vote for Democrats.

  429. I keep saying that there has to be a place for everyone because

  430. I want to make sure that there's a place for me and my family and

  431. for you and yours. I've always been so profoundly

  432. proud of this church. I was worried a little bit about

  433. how this church, how you guys would handle a young, Pastor

  434. mayor and a single mom with a bi-racial kid.

  435. Now, you'd never done anything to make me think that you

  436. wouldn't be good with that. But I had grown up in churches

  437. where I was pretty sure that I would have been pushed out.

  438. And I'm so unbelievably thankful that you guys leaned in and I'm

  439. asking for your help to make this church, a place for

  440. everyone, but it is going to take every single one of us to

  441. make that happen in order to do that.

  442. I want to give you a couple verses and there's this intimate

  443. moment that we get to peek into Jesus hard.

  444. It says this in Luke chapter 19, but as he, this is, Jesus came

    Luke 19 chapter mention

  445. closer to Jerusalem and saw the city ahead.

  446. He began to everybody say this word.

  447. Jesus looks out and he sees a large group of people And he

  448. knows that they will not trust in him and he knows that they

  449. will not believe in him. He sees people that are sheep

  450. without a shepherd. He sees the least and the lost

  451. and the broken and his heart. Brakes.

  452. If you want an Old Testament story, God calls a prophet named

  453. Jonah and he tells him to go to a town called Nineveh and Jonah

  454. does everything in his power, not to go to Nineveh and preach

  455. the gospel of repentance. And so he fights every way he

  456. can, eventually you've heard the story, he gets swallowed by a

  457. fish and God spits them out on dry ground at Nineveh.

  458. And and Jonah goes into town and he preaches and check this out.

  459. Guess what happens at the end of his sermons, the entire town

  460. repents of their sins and start calling on God and Jonah.

  461. Is angry about it. Because he knows that God is

  462. full of grace and compassion and truth that he's slow to anger

  463. and abounding in love and so Jonah goes out of the city

  464. builds himself, a little Shack in the desert and he lays down

  465. in it and it gets really hot. And so God causes a plant to

  466. come up and provide him some shade.

  467. And then God, kills the plant and makes Jonah hot all over

  468. again. And Joan is angry.

  469. I want you to see what God has to say, to Jonah.

  470. But the Lord said you have been concerned about this plant

  471. though. You did not tend it or make it

  472. grow its spring up overnight and it died overnight.

  473. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh in

  474. which there are more than 120,000 people who cannot tell

  475. their right hand from their left and also many animals.

  476. Do you hear God's heart? God has a heart for cities

  477. because cities are comprised of people, and you might be going

  478. Clayton. This would be a great sermon in

  479. a different place because none of our cities have 120,000

  480. people in them. Yeah, you're right.

  481. But I told you the very beginning that we are a church

  482. that Services 22 counties. And if you add up those counties

  483. there are four hundred and eighteen thousand people in our

  484. communities. And what would it look like for

  485. this church to make sure that there is a place for 2% of them?

  486. Or 4%. Or 5% or 10%?

  487. I'm asking you can you can you try with God's help to start

  488. seeing our communities through his eyes?

  489. I'm asking you to join with me and try and start seeing and

  490. hurting for our communities with his heart.

  491. There's some of you across all of our locations that right now.

  492. If you were to take a truth test, you would say Clayton.

  493. I need time to heal. And if that's you, I want you to

  494. know that this is going to be a place where you can heal and

  495. there's some of you right now and you're going Clayton.

  496. I need time to mourn and I want you to know that this church is

  497. prepared to mourn with you. There's some of you are going to

  498. Clayton. I need time to recoup and I want

  499. you to hear me say this is going to be a place where you can

  500. recuperate. But if there's a couple of you

  501. out there, they have a little left in the tank.

  502. If there's some of you out there, you're a car guy.

  503. It's time for us to find another gear.

  504. If you're a golfer, it's time for you to get out a bigger

  505. Club. If you're a painter, it's time

  506. for you to get out a bigger brush.

  507. If you're an accountant, it's time for you to sharpen a new

  508. pencil. If you're a Knitter, it's time

  509. for you to get another hook. I threw that in there because my

  510. mom's a Knitter, okay? If you're a brewer it's time for

  511. you to start another batch. I'm saying, if the world around

  512. us is going to need a church, A place to find Jesus and grow in

  513. Jesus. If there's a chance that on the

  514. heels of covid that people are going to need a place of hope

  515. and healing that I've been asking myself this question.

  516. Why not here? Why not with us?

  517. And why not now. Together, my prayer.

  518. Is that we can make this place? The hardest place to get to Hell

  519. from on planet Earth. The many years from now.

  520. Our children and our grandchildren. we'll say, I was

  521. lucky enough to be born in a county that had a church called

  522. The Crossing and made a place for my mom and my dad, and they

  523. made a place for my uncle and my aunt, and they made a place for

  524. my grandma and my grandpa. They made a place for my

  525. Republicans and my Democrats. They made a place for my

  526. massacres in my no massacres. My vaccine hers, and mine o back

  527. Cedars. The made a place for my sisters

  528. and my brothers. They made a place for me and my

  529. life is forever different. A my eternity is forever

  530. changed. Because there has to be a place.

  531. There has to be a place for everyone but it's going to take

  532. everyone to do it. And I say that place is here and

  533. I say that place is with us and I say that place needs to start

  534. happening. Now, Crossing Church.

  535. Will you join me in that we're moving to a time of decision?

  536. so, those of you in this room and those of you watching

  537. online, if you have never started an intimate personal

  538. relationship with Jesus Christ, This church is crazy about that.

  539. That's what that's what eats us up.

  540. That's why we serve, that's why we give, that's why we raise our

  541. hand in worship. That's why we clapping the video

  542. is because we know what it's like to be lost.

  543. And we know what it's like to be found.

  544. And if you're going Clayton, that that's me.

  545. I'm lost. We want to help you find Jesus.

  546. Listen, it's not us that you need to find its him but we can

  547. talk to you about him. We can show you the way we can

  548. answer your questions. There's some of you you've been

  549. on the fence for a long time. You've never started it.

  550. I get it. I'm going to talk about those

  551. people next week. I hope you come, but I get it.

  552. You've been watching. Other people start that

  553. relationship but it's never been you.

  554. If you have questions about that looks like or how to start that.

  555. We would love to have an opportunity to talk with you

  556. today and just a few moments, all the weird people around, you

  557. are going to stand and sing and some of them are going to come

  558. up to the steps but if you want, you can either talk to somebody

  559. in your row or you can come and talk to somebody who's going to

  560. be over there by the baptistry and we'd love a chance to talk

  561. with you about what that looks but that looks like and what it

  562. could mean for you. To the rest of you in the room.

  563. The Christians. I'm asking for your help.

  564. It would you start off this new year?

  565. Would you start off this sermon series?

  566. With me on your knees asking God to make this a place?

  567. And when I say this a place, I'm not saying this building, I'm

  568. saying with you I'm have to say this in a couple weeks.

  569. I'm gonna have to tell her whole church.

  570. I'm not your pastor. I'm one of them.

  571. I'm one of them, I am not going to be at all of your kids As

  572. baseball games. I'm not going to marry all of

  573. your kids. I'm not going to bury all of

  574. your parents. I'm just one of your pastors and

  575. there are infinitely better pastors on our staff than me.

  576. But the truth of the matter is, is what I'm hoping is that

  577. sooner rather than later, you will start to see yourself as

  578. the pastor, the pastor of your home, the pastor of your

  579. workplace, the pastor of your neighborhood, the pastor of your

  580. street, the pastor of your school, the pastor of your

  581. friends that you would be their Pastor that you would love them,

  582. and lead them, and guide them and direct them.

  583. That the place that I'm referring to is not the building

  584. of the Crossing. The heart of the people of the

  585. crossing and would you get down on your knees and say, God, I

  586. need you to make room in my heart.

  587. For the people in my life. But God, in view of your mercy

  588. and view of everything that you've done for me.

  589. This is not a time for me to shrink back into small living

  590. and safe living. But it is a time for me to give

  591. my very best to you because that's exactly what you gave to

  592. me. man, I wonder I wonder what happens when a church 10,000

  593. square miles big gets on their knees and prays for God to open

  594. their heart for the people in their lives.

  595. I wonder what he'll do. But we'll never know unless you

  596. do it too. Would you stand with me?

  597. See this moment in our hearts, God.

  598. Embedded in our memories. How much you loved us, how much

  599. you pursued us how much you sacrifice for us.

  600. And God, help us have a god-honoring response to that

  601. use the people in the sound of my voice.

  602. Whether in this room or to the thousands watching online to

  603. start something, to finish, something to continue the work

  604. that you've started in US. Got as we get down on our knees,

  605. meet us in this moment and take all the ground.

  606. You want to take your name? I pray.

  607. Amen. Got as we get down on our knees,

  608. meet us in this moment and take all the ground.

  609. You want to take your name? I pray.

  610. Amen.