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PEOPLE OF POWER - Power Of Vision // One Church Podcast, 13th October 2025

One Church Podcast

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  1. We are one church. We love God, love people, love

  2. His mission, and love His church.

  3. Welcome to the One Church podcast.

  4. Well, this is the last week of our series on people of power

  5. and the heart of this series has been to clearly restate some key

  6. aspects of who we are as a house and to do some training within

  7. that. We've looked at the power of

  8. surrender, the power of giving, the power of prayer, the power

  9. of miracles, the power of family.

  10. And today I'm going to talk about the power of vision.

  11. Couple of weeks ago Susan and I went for a few days to the

  12. Norfolk coast and I was feeling very relaxed to call in our

  13. local doctors to pick something up.

  14. And the lady at reception said we're doing free blood pressure

  15. tests today, would you like 1? And I thought, I'm as relaxed as

  16. I'm ever going to be. Of course I'll have one.

  17. So I popped behind the screen. There were two ladies sat there

  18. doing their thing. And I thought, this is a moment

  19. to talk about Jesus. That was a little throwaway

  20. comment. So we began to talk about Jesus.

  21. And as they wrapped the thing around my arm, there we were

  22. going. And I got more and more

  23. animated, sharing about heaven and what it means to know Jesus.

  24. And all of a sudden one of the ladies stopped me.

  25. And she said, excuse me, Mr Hynde, your blood pressure is

  26. very high. Let's do it again.

  27. And this time you sit there quietly and don't say anything

  28. at all. Some of you wanted to say that

  29. to me for years. And so I sat there quietly and

  30. breathed deeply, my blood pressure completely normal,

  31. absolutely perfect. What it's made me realise is

  32. this. When I talk about Jesus, I get

  33. animated, I get encouraged and my blood pressure rises.

  34. Why is vision important? Well, vision, if I'd seen in

  35. that doctor's surgery, was to sit quietly.

  36. I need to see something differently.

  37. Vision is the state of being able to see, the ability to

  38. think about the future with imagination.

  39. Perhaps you're in this room and to think about the future is

  40. dread for you. Well, the Lord wants to put a

  41. vision in you today that can turn that around.

  42. Vision is important because life passes quickly and it's so easy

  43. to be aimless in life. Work, eat, sleep, work, eat,

  44. sleep, maybe holiday, work, eat, sleep, death.

  45. Life's gone so quick and it's so easy for us to live less of a

  46. life than the 1 He chose for us. And if we don't carry a vision

  47. from God for our life, we can drift off course and miss what

  48. God wants us to do. Where there's no vision, the

  49. proverb writer says the people are unrestrained or they cast

  50. off restraint. But a God-given vision enables

  51. you to be focused on Him in your life.

  52. And we're going to read a few verses from the story of

  53. Zacchaeus and just draw some points out about vision.

  54. This morning Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through,

  55. and a man was there by the name of Zacchaeus.

  56. He was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.

  57. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he

  58. could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a

  59. Sycamore fig tree to see him. And since Jesus was coming that

  60. way, and when Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to

  61. him, Zacchaeus, come down immediately, I must stay at your

  62. house today. So he came down at once and

  63. welcomed him gladly. And all the people saw this and

  64. began to mutter, He's gone to be the guest of a Sinner.

  65. But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, Look, Lord, here

  66. and now I give half of my possessions to the poor.

  67. And if I've cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back

  68. four times the amount. And Jesus said to him today,

  69. salvation has come to this house because this man too is the son

  70. of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek

  71. and to save the lost. The power of vision.

  72. Firstly carry in your life a Christ centred vision.

  73. Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus is, who he was in that

  74. moment. He wanted to see he with all his

  75. wealth, his prominence, his natural success.

  76. He needed something more in his life and his actions showed

  77. that. He wanted to carry a different

  78. kind of vision. The Westminster Shorter

  79. Catechism is a summary of Christian doctrine that was

  80. written about 350 years ago. It's used more within the

  81. established church in our country.

  82. And question 1 is this. What is the chief end of man?

  83. And the answer is this man's chief end is to glorify God and

  84. to enjoy him forever. This is the vision for your

  85. life, to glorify God with your life, with the breath he's given

  86. you, with the 5060708090 a hundred years that you've been

  87. measured out, and to walk with him for every one of those years

  88. and moments. Of course, we carry a wider

  89. vision to reach our potential, to study hard, to train well, to

  90. be successful in our career, to to make a difference with our

  91. lives. But we are never, ever defined

  92. by what we do as a career or the education we have.

  93. When some plans don't work out as we thought, you can always do

  94. something different. Always.

  95. Because you're not defined by that.

  96. Perhaps you love the title that you have.

  97. Perhaps you have love the letters you have.

  98. And well done. If you've studied hard,

  99. congratulations. But the vision of your life is

  100. bigger than that. Recently I preached at the

  101. funeral of somebody who, when they realised they couldn't do

  102. the career they wanted to do, made a tragic decision with

  103. their life that the world would be better off without them.

  104. What their parents and what I would love to say to them and

  105. I've said to them in that moment is just do something different

  106. with your life than that. Do this, do that.

  107. Do anything that He caused you to do.

  108. When you get the right goal of vision in your life, other

  109. things fall into place. When you have a purpose that

  110. you're going to glorify God and walk with Him, other things fall

  111. into line because your gaze is somewhere else.

  112. To worship Him with deep devotion and to walk with Him

  113. every day and be available to Him.

  114. This is a Christ centred vision. Carry one, but also take action

  115. in the vision. Because He was short, he could

  116. not see over the crowd, so we ran ahead and climbed a Sycamore

  117. fig tree to see him. There was a passion and a hunger

  118. in Zacchaeus. He was short, but he refused to

  119. be discouraged by the circumstances.

  120. He had to run, but he refused to give up.

  121. He had to climb, but he refused to be overwhelmed.

  122. My mother told me I'd be over 6 foot.

  123. She lied. Even with stocks, I never even

  124. stocks and exaggeration and a little bit of lifting up at the

  125. feet, 59 and a bit was as high as I ever got.

  126. Two of my sisters are huge. They're over 6 foot.

  127. It's not fair. But ultimately the size I am

  128. does not matter. I am a giant inside.

  129. By the way, Zacchaeus was short and he could have seen it as a

  130. discouragement, as a limitation, but he still wanted to see

  131. Jesus. He still, he had to run ahead,

  132. probably unaccustomed to running culturally, but maybe as an

  133. individual. It's probably because my picture

  134. is of him. Zacchaeus is a small kind of

  135. route, ratun sort of man, sitting behind the booth.

  136. I think it's probably a programme I've seen.

  137. He had to run, but he also had to climb.

  138. But he refused to be overwhelmed.

  139. We have to put feet on our face and vision and take action.

  140. You're going to face, like Zacchaeus, discouragements and a

  141. temptation to give up and feel overwhelmed.

  142. That's part of life. But if you keep it simple and

  143. you say, I'm going to live a life with a vision to glorify

  144. God and walk with him forever, then you can take action.

  145. You'll face discouragement, yes, but you can keep going.

  146. You may have to run ahead at times when it's tough, put your

  147. shoulder to the wheel because nothing comes easily.

  148. You have to press through in prayer and believe God, but you

  149. continue to walk, not to be overwhelmed but to keep climbing

  150. and growing, staying close to him.

  151. Thinking of the last 40 years of my privilege of walking with

  152. Jesus and the last 20 here almost in Leicester, of some of

  153. the challenges we faced as a house, some of the tests that

  154. have come, some of the discouragements we've had to

  155. walk through. And yet as we've continued to

  156. say, you are #1 and we're going to keep going with you.

  157. Look what the Lord has done. You've got this Christ centred

  158. vision. Take action, spend time to pray

  159. and listen to him. This morning I, I got up early

  160. and it was foggy outside. I'm just sitting there.

  161. It was quite cold in the room where I was.

  162. But I realised that though there were many things to pray about,

  163. the Lord wanted me just to stop and let him love me and love on

  164. me. When we set time to pray, it's

  165. taking action in the vision. When we listen to worship music

  166. and we worship him and we speak it out and we read the Bible,

  167. it's, it's taking action on the vision.

  168. He's got us. When we talk about Jesus to

  169. others, it creates a difference. I got a free pass recently to go

  170. to a a local gym. Now Susan and I are privileged.

  171. We've got a little gym in our garage and I have a running

  172. machine, she has a a rowing machine and we basically just do

  173. our thing. And ultimately the walk between

  174. the house and the garage means we get there quite regularly.

  175. But on this occasion I got a free pass in one of the nicer

  176. gyms of less than. So I went there for the morning.

  177. I like, I like going to a gym. You meet the man who thinks that

  178. you've come for your guest pass and that you're going to take a

  179. year's subscription and he takes one look at you and you go, he

  180. goes, you realise he's discouraged because you've just

  181. come for the freebie. We walked in and I go on the

  182. machines and I try and work out different ones of the cardio

  183. machines and you, you burn off enough calories to justify half

  184. a chocolate bar that you eat at the end of the session.

  185. Put it all back on. I know it's more than that.

  186. And Susan went swimming. I walked past the pool and went

  187. in the sauna. I like to go in a sauna to talk

  188. to people about Jesus. Now there were a lot of ladies

  189. in there that wouldn't have been appropriate me to talk to, but

  190. there was one man sat in the corner, chiselled, not an ounce

  191. of flab on him, looking like Hercules.

  192. So I thought pretty similar body shapes.

  193. I'll go and sit next to him. When sat next to him and he got

  194. his eyes closed, everything about this man said don't talk

  195. to me. So I waited and I sat next to

  196. him and waited, and I'd lost about half my body weight with

  197. the heat of the sauna by the time I was near that point where

  198. I would need to be carried out. And he opened one eye, I kid you

  199. not, sat next to me, He opened one eye.

  200. I was in there like a flash. Hi, mate.

  201. Hey, there's a nice gym. This, isn't it?

  202. You could see the joy in his heart that I was talking to him.

  203. It's a great gym, isn't it? Nice Small talk, small talk,

  204. small talk. And I said quite a few people

  205. upstairs. He said, aye, there's lots of

  206. people here on a Monday trying to get rid of their weekend

  207. sins. It was like an invitation from

  208. him for me. I said, that's fascinating.

  209. I said, do you know that you can never get rid of your sins?

  210. It's a gym. For that you need Jesus.

  211. And he said, I've heard that. And then he closed one of his

  212. eyes and I got the feeling that if I'd have said any more, his

  213. chiselled frame would have removed me from the sauna.

  214. But I left him with that thought.

  215. See, when you talk about Jesus, something happens.

  216. We take action, we take action the routine of including him,

  217. walking with him, we carry a Christ centred vision.

  218. We take action in the vision, we walk with others in the vision.

  219. Look Zacchaeus, come down immediately.

  220. Jesus stands under the tree. Hey Zac, down you come.

  221. I'm going to stay at your house today.

  222. I wonder if his first thought was we haven't had the Hoover

  223. round. So he came down at once and

  224. welcomed him gladly and in response to Jesus call, he

  225. immediately invites Jesus into his house and he invites others

  226. come and his life is changed and he gets a new vision for his

  227. life. I want to encourage you to keep

  228. including Jesus in your vision. Nothing wrong with having plans.

  229. I want to tell you though, every holiday comes to an end and it

  230. will never fulfil the need in your heart.

  231. I love holidays. I love chilling, I love

  232. stopping. I love Sabbath resting.

  233. I love a cooked breakfast. I like pancakes three more than

  234. Susan has. I love peanut butter.

  235. I enjoy life. I love laughing, I love crying.

  236. I love stuffing. I enjoy a movie.

  237. Watching my football team lose still moves me emotionally.

  238. I love all those things. But at the end of it, all those

  239. things come to the end and only Jesus remains.

  240. I was so stark this week as we put the coffin of Margin to the

  241. ground in a beautiful little private family gathering.

  242. I want to tell you there were no possessions in that coffin.

  243. Nothing she'd ever bought was there.

  244. War with others in the vision, war with Jesus.

  245. Keep including Him in your vision.

  246. What do you want me to do with your life?

  247. What do you want me to do today? You say I'm 60, I'm 70, I'm 80.

  248. What am I meant to do with my life?

  249. Stop love Him and say want me to do anything today.

  250. You will be amazed what happens in your life when you place Him

  251. at the centre of your vision, when it becomes about you.

  252. I meet some people and their lives are so small.

  253. Their lives are the things in their garage because where their

  254. treasure was, their heart is gadgets that they'll use

  255. occasionally. Things that will drift away make

  256. something greater. The call in your life.

  257. A person wrapped up in themselves, somebody wrote,

  258. makes a very small package. But when you are united with

  259. Jesus, you can do all things as He gives you strength.

  260. Pray about everything. Consider what He thinks.

  261. Apply His word to the decisions you make.

  262. So much pastoral work is picking up the bad decisions that people

  263. make in their life where they didn't get wisdom from others.

  264. People come and say, you know, I'm unhappy in this

  265. relationship, this job, I've moved house, it's not working,

  266. all these things. And now and you want to say, did

  267. you pray about it before you made those decisions?

  268. Did you include Jesus in that decision?

  269. Did you say, I've got this vision to do all these things?

  270. What do you think? It's much easier to give wisdom

  271. than to rescue, to say don't do that.

  272. Let's pray and wait a bit longer.

  273. Including Jesus in your vision, but also including others.

  274. The Proverb writer says this. When you walk with the wise, you

  275. become wise. I received so much wisdom from

  276. other people when when I first became a senior leader.

  277. You know, you could feel like you've got to have all the

  278. answers. I watch leaders now and you talk

  279. to them. And when they talk, it's as

  280. though they're trying to teach you in everything that they've

  281. got. I'm the church leader.

  282. I've got all the wisdom you need.

  283. Well, I need to disillusion you about your senior leaders here.

  284. We're wonderful people. We've got some great ideas and

  285. we've got a bit of wisdom, but ultimately we're simply

  286. listening to him and doing what he wants us to do.

  287. And let me tell you, you need to be in a church like that, not in

  288. one where it's all together and they think they know everything.

  289. Staying humble as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens

  290. another. I'm so sharpened by the people

  291. around us. The gifts surround us, the

  292. talents surround us. I sometimes sit at my desk and I

  293. go, I can't believe it, Lord, all these people you brought to

  294. work with us. And I go back to me at 19 with

  295. my OC DS and my sadness and my regrets and my complete lostness

  296. and I go, God, look what you've done.

  297. All the glory to you. Keep involving yourself with

  298. others. It's why small groups are so

  299. important. Listen, if you only come here on

  300. a Sunday, one in three weeks, I want to call you to a real

  301. faith, something deeper. Because when you fall in love

  302. with Jesus, it impacts your diary, it impacts your wallet,

  303. it impacts your decisions, it impacts your calendar.

  304. It impacts everything of your life because you want to put in

  305. first. Don't be a one in three person,

  306. be in a small group, build a community with others, share

  307. food with people, do life in an appropriate way with people and

  308. be in the house regularly. I know sometimes sports clubs

  309. meet and it can be a challenge with your children.

  310. I know, but my boys are 36 and 35 and I still believe.

  311. I want to say I know it's not easy at times.

  312. I still believe. Seek first the Kingdom of God

  313. with your kids. Let them see you worshipping in

  314. church. I sat in the first service this

  315. morning, the three little boys behind us on that second row and

  316. in the worship, these boys, I think the oldest was 9.

  317. They sang their hearts out a little bit of heaven on row 2.

  318. And you see your kids come to church and they, they, they get

  319. involved and they, they, they get make friends.

  320. And then they come on Friday night like it was in here, this

  321. room full of young people, seven of them giving their lives to

  322. Jesus. Atmosphere, noise, mess.

  323. I love it. I don't want to be in it every

  324. week, but I love it. I want to celebrate it from a

  325. distance. I, I am so excited by, by what

  326. happens. And you bring your kids and, and

  327. just perhaps you get them friends and you get them and you

  328. find them. And then one day they say I want

  329. to be baptised, and then they come back and they say I've been

  330. filled with the Spirit. And then when they're older,

  331. they love you. They love him the greatest.

  332. I've got to tell you, probably the greatest joy in my life is

  333. that my kids love Jesus. And I know that is painful for

  334. some of you. Don't give up praying for your

  335. kids. You're the prodigal.

  336. As we pray, they'll come home. Don't give up.

  337. They're just working on their testimonies.

  338. But listen. Let your kids be passionate

  339. about Jesus. Small groups counsel things I

  340. know so important. Walk with others, carry a Christ

  341. centred vision, take action, walk with others, Speak life

  342. over your vision. The people swore what was

  343. happening began to mutter. You got mutterers around your

  344. life. Do you need to get some new

  345. friends who speak life into you? I know we want to be witnesses,

  346. but you don't have to surround yourself with gossip and

  347. criticism and negativity and hate.

  348. You take love in there, build yourself up.

  349. He's gone to be the guest of a Sinner, they said.

  350. Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord.

  351. Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the

  352. poor, and if I've cheated anyone out of anything, I'll pay back

  353. four times the amount. Can you imagine the queue the

  354. next day outside his house, everybody queuing up?

  355. Thank you, everyone got paid. I believe Sakis was criticised

  356. for even thinking of having Jesus in his house, they

  357. muttered, but the decisions changed his life.

  358. When you have a Christ centred vision to glorify him and walk

  359. with him, you may face opposition.

  360. The world hates you, Jesus said If it does, it hated me first.

  361. They persecuted me. They will persecute you.

  362. They treat you like this because of my name.

  363. Following Jesus can be offence to many people when you carry a

  364. vision from him to love him and walk with him.

  365. The enemy hates it because if he can get you focused on things

  366. and followers on your social media and distractions and spend

  367. your whole life looking forward to a holiday, if he can do that,

  368. that's great. Distraction keeps you away from

  369. serving Jesus and winning your neighbours for Christ and

  370. inviting your friends to come and hear about the gospel.

  371. The power of vision. Speak life.

  372. You know your tongue has the power of life and death.

  373. We should, we, you should think about that.

  374. We should all think about that. The power of life and death and

  375. those who love it will eat its fruit.

  376. Some of us too often speak negatively over ourself.

  377. I should do that. I am that I'm useless, I'm

  378. rubbish. Change your language.

  379. I'm loved, I'm precious in his sight.

  380. There's a lady said a little picture over her bed that says

  381. today I will not should on myself.

  382. Think about that. Speak life over your yourself.

  383. Carry this vision, take action on it, walk with others, speak

  384. life over it. I have to tell you that I am

  385. doing my best to live like this. I carry a Christ centred vision.

  386. This is my life. I want to do what He wants me to

  387. do with my life, wherever He takes me.

  388. To finish strong, to die empty. I take action on this by praying

  389. and stopping. I think as I get older I'm going

  390. to stop more and realise that I cannot do it without Him.

  391. In fact, as I look at the vision ahead of the house and what God

  392. wants to do, as I look at our journey to further develop this

  393. site to Createspace for people who are currently lost, it's

  394. beyond me. But it's not beyond Him.

  395. And we're just called to be servants.

  396. I walk with others in the vision, keeping myself

  397. accountable, talking, reflecting, listening, speaking

  398. life over the vision, telling stories, reminding myself of His

  399. goodness. I live as a loved child of God

  400. and as a church we we carry a Christ centred vision.

  401. If you've had experience with church that's hurt you, I'm

  402. sorry, but don't let that be your finish post We're sorry.

  403. Get some healing and start again.

  404. Because the church's people and people sometimes can hurt, but

  405. ultimately the heartbeat of Christ in the church is love and

  406. you can be part of it. We carry a Christ centred

  407. vision, which is why as a house we love God, we love people, we

  408. love his mission and we love his church.

  409. We take action on it. We love God by staying Jesus

  410. centred and father hearted. The revelation of the Father

  411. Bible believing, spirit filled. We love people.

  412. All people, all nations, all generations, all disciples.

  413. What an honour. Last week, 76 nationalities in

  414. our nation's day, across the day, across the whole of what we

  415. are, with all our sites together.

  416. If you missed that, watch it on our YouTube site, The 11:30

  417. Gathering. We love His mission.

  418. This is why the vision of this house is to reach the lost,

  419. serve the poor, change the world.

  420. And we love His church by planting out, by celebrating

  421. other churches and by being a servant leadership house.

  422. And as a church, we walk with others in our trustees.

  423. Here we watch over the financial integrity, the practise and

  424. health of the church, the care of the staff.

  425. We were together. This Thursday was a precious

  426. time in our eldership. We watch over the doctrine of

  427. the house, the prayer of the house, the people of the house,

  428. the prophetic heartbeat of the house.

  429. And working with others, we celebrate unity.

  430. And as a church, we speak life over the vision, which is why we

  431. talk about it regularly, which is why we share stories, which

  432. is why we say what we're believing for.

  433. And sometimes we go, this is hard.

  434. A few days ago, I sat at the the bedside of a lady who was about

  435. to go and be with Jesus. And it was hard because we

  436. wanted something different. We wanted her to be healed and

  437. to go on in life and able to love her kids.

  438. But even in that moment he is enough and to be able to just

  439. say to that Lady that he was going to come and take her to be

  440. with him and everything was all right.

  441. You have a vital part in the vision.

  442. Never underestimate it in your own life.

  443. Recently we, Susan and I, wrote to everyone who is part of the

  444. house. If you didn't receive a letter,

  445. it's because you've just joined and that's why you didn't

  446. receive them. But we signed around 1000

  447. letters and sent them to every couple or individual adult in

  448. our church. Takes a long time, but it's

  449. always such a privilege. And we talk about our vision and

  450. our vision offering that we're about to come to the 4th 1:00

  451. and we talk about the story. And I want to just share that

  452. with you for a few moments here because we joined one church

  453. started about 3 years ago, two churches coming together, laying

  454. down their their names and becoming one church.

  455. And instantly we found ourselves in this building with the chance

  456. to develop it. It was, it needed development at

  457. that time. And in 2023 we shared this

  458. vision. Some of you never saw this

  459. booklet and it talked about how we were going to develop here,

  460. that it would become the centre of our administration together.

  461. This is before anyone gave a penny and it is now.

  462. We talked about IT being the centre of many midweek

  463. ministries for children, youth and students and seniors.

  464. It is now. There were more children in our

  465. Sevens through Elevens group here on Tuesday night for a

  466. normal Tuesday than at any other time in our history.

  467. That's this week. We talked about IT becoming a

  468. training and releasing centre for the whole of our church.

  469. It is becoming that. But IT being a community hub for

  470. the area, well, it is and it's becoming more people walking in

  471. from the streets, from the businesses, coming into Wake

  472. Coffee, finding their way into church, getting saved, being

  473. baptised. That was the story of somebody

  474. last week who was baptised in this room, a barn for the bride

  475. we said it would be. And it has a blessing for the

  476. wider church, a building for the city.

  477. It's here if you talk to anybody, try it.

  478. Which church do you go to? I go to the church on Frog

  479. Island. I know that one.

  480. It's, it's a prominent building, which means there's no excuse to

  481. not invite anybody to it. And we prepared in 2023 and in

  482. such a memorable moment, the people gave over 605,000 lbs and

  483. we renovated this building. We we sold another building, we

  484. borrowed some money, £2,000,000 development of what the Lord's

  485. done and then it all as a church.

  486. We carried a Christ centred vision.

  487. We took action in that vision, we walked together in the vision

  488. and we saw life happen through the vision.

  489. And then in 2024 we knew we needed to strengthen.

  490. The church was growing, we had to put stronger things in place.

  491. We strengthened sight by planting our Loughborough site

  492. that's been meeting this morning.

  493. We strengthen open hands our amazing compassion work which we

  494. love so much, with the centre in Saint Matthews Estate reaching

  495. hundreds and thousands of people in a year, but many every week.

  496. We strengthen plans by doing a study on the building next door

  497. #12 that is ours. Should we bring it down?

  498. Should we renovate it? Should we sell it?

  499. We strengthened our citywide impact by investing more in our

  500. relationship with other churches.

  501. You'll never hear us being negative about the wider body.

  502. You'll only ever hear us celebrate what God is doing

  503. everywhere. That's the type of church we

  504. are. We strengthen our buildings by

  505. doing some repairs here. We paid off some of our

  506. mortgage, we strengthened the reserves of the house and we

  507. prepared the people. We wrote to the people and we

  508. all gave together on that day in November 24.

  509. And over 300,000 lbs was invested and we strengthened.

  510. And in in that journey we carried a Christ centred vision

  511. together. We took action in the vision

  512. together. We walked together in the vision

  513. and we saw life happen. And then at the end of 2024 for

  514. our 2025 vision offering, we talked about bringing down and

  515. building up. There used to be a ramp on the

  516. at the end of #12 there we brought it down and put banners

  517. up to declare to the city that He is the way, the truth and the

  518. life. We invested more in bringing

  519. down our mortgage, building up the community by running our GO

  520. weekend, which was dozens of projects with hundreds of people

  521. impacting the city. We trialled a new community hub

  522. here for children from the area. Brought in a youth alpha from

  523. Braunston, Began a new little ones in Loughborough, Increased

  524. our emphasis on being together. Developed a new movable prayer

  525. tent, continued to invest in refreshing the equipment in our

  526. children. We prepared the end of last year

  527. and this year and the people have given and honoured pledges

  528. all the way through the year. So much has been given and in it

  529. all we carried a Christ centred vision.

  530. We took action in the vision, we walked together in the vision,

  531. we saw life happen through the vision and then you get another

  532. letter. This is our vision offering for

  533. 2026 that we will bring in November. 3 weeks today and

  534. we're going to bring down the building next door because we're

  535. closing it at the end of December and initially it will

  536. be dozens of new parking spaces which we need, but the dream to

  537. reinvest and see something for the glory of God and we're going

  538. to listen to Him on what that looks like.

  539. We're going to continue to bring down the mortgage.

  540. You know that we've invested just over £400,000 into our

  541. mortgage bringing it down over the last three years.

  542. I'm so grateful for that vision. Well done church, and we're

  543. going to build up accessibility, having a lift on the side of

  544. this stage so everyone for productions and wherever can

  545. find their way on this stage if they would like to. 1 Church,

  546. compassion, expanding the reach of compassion and mission.

  547. And just this as a house, how we bring that together, a second

  548. year of go investing more in United, expanding site community

  549. projects, pioneering a new gap year course, etcetera.

  550. And any all we're going to carry a Christ centred vision and take

  551. action in the vision, walk together in the vision and see

  552. life happen through the vision. So what should our response be

  553. today? Well, firstly to the message I

  554. brought, it should be this. And I urge you to do this, to

  555. pause here on this moment and make this a holy moment for your

  556. life to say I, I'm going to for the rest of my life, carry a

  557. Christ centred vision. I'm going to take action.

  558. I'm going to do things for the glory of God.

  559. Here I am Lord available for you.

  560. I'm going to involve others in my vision so that I make good

  561. choices. And I'm going to speak life over

  562. the rest of my life. If you will do that honestly,

  563. that response can change everything in you.

  564. And to our vision offering, how should we all respond?

  565. Whenever we as a leadership write to the church about money,

  566. there's always been a pause in our hearts before.

  567. Because I'm aware that this is already a generous house.

  568. I'm aware that we already give so much away from what we are to

  569. different projects and people. And I'm aware that for some this

  570. is a testing time and a challenging time, but remember

  571. this, Please remember this, that whenever giving is talked about,

  572. it's never firstly a money thing.

  573. It's always a heart thing. Lord, you can have my heart.

  574. You can have everything. And what this opportunity for us

  575. this year, because we do, we need hundreds of thousands of

  576. pounds and to do what the Lord has called us to do.

  577. Yes, true. But it's firstly for you and me,

  578. it's a heart thing where we sit in the presence of God, as Susan

  579. and I did a few weeks ago. We say, God, I have my loafs and

  580. fish, what would you like me to do?

  581. And the Holy Spirit speaks and you go, OK, with your help, I'll

  582. do that. And some people bring big loaves

  583. and some people bring smaller loaves, and some people, what

  584. they can bring maybe is just their heart.

  585. And God values all of them equally.

  586. And we do it together. I can't wait for the 2nd of

  587. November. I can't wait.

  588. I'm already decided. We're already in.

  589. We're already getting ready. I love it, my little part of

  590. what we do together. The power of vision.

  591. The power of vision in your life, the next part of your life

  592. can be the most significant part.

  593. Stop thinking that things are over.

  594. That's it. If you're in your 90s, I believe

  595. your last few years, months, weeks can be deeply significant.

  596. Firstly, you just have to come and say, Lord, here I am, send

  597. me, I'm available to you. I wonder if you would do that

  598. even now. Are you willing as a Jesus

  599. follower to say here I am, send me, I'm going to include you in

  600. my vision. I want to carry it for you.

  601. Go on, do it, do it and this house will be behalf of the

  602. house. We're going to do that.

  603. We're going to carry a Christ centred vision.

  604. It's going to be more and more about you and less and less

  605. about us. Do the journey over this next

  606. three weeks. Please be here on the second.

  607. Bring your heart. Let's do it together.

  608. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine

  609. upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards

  610. you and give you peace.