Claiming Dependence | Connected Roots

So last week we dropped a shocking hot take.

You ready for it?

We live in an increasingly surface level and shallow culture.

No, you're shocked and so surprised to hear that, right?

Man, I would say that the culture is shallow if you could reduce it down to what's bought, consumed, monetized, and displayed.

And I think that's a fairly accurate description of American culture in 2026.

And the same thing can be true about individuals.

Now nobody wants to be surface level or shallow.

Nobody would consider themselves to be that.

But in order to have a surface level and shallow culture, you also need individuals that make up that culture.

That's why we need such, there's such a need right now for people of depth.

It's the type of people we all want to be around.

Like we want to be around people that cause you to think at a different level.

Like we want to be around people that ask penetrating and insightful questions, people that make you walk away just encouraged and sharpened.

People with real humility and wisdom, people that challenge you to grow deeper, people of depth.

But the world we live in is going to reject and resist this on multiple levels.

Our society is becoming more and more super individualistic and independent.

Everything is about the individual autonomy and unprincipled independence, which can easily lead to surface level and shallow.

I mean, there's a reason why the word narcissism has come up more and more and more at an increasing rate over the last 24, 20 years.

That's not a coincidence at all.

A surface level person is going to be a shallow person, and they're probably, they're probably going to be very individualistic and isolated too.

But a deep person, remember this, this is so simple.

A deep person is a connected person.

Even more so, the strongest people are going to be the ones that are most tightly connected.

Let's see if you remember this.

Anybody seen the giant sequoias in California?

Anybody seen those trees?

Incredible trees.

I get this.

These trees can grow to be 300 feet high with a circumference of 30 plus feet.

They weigh two million pounds.

Mature branches on a sequoia are also the size of most mature trees.

They can live up to be, they can live over 3,000 years, and during their lifespan, they never stop growing, which is super cool.

And they're fire resistant because they have bark that is three feet thick.

Like just massive trees.

And these incredibly massive trees, you would think they must have really deep roots, right?

Guess how deep their roots go?

About six to twelve feet.

That's it.

Like, how in the world does a tree that weighs two million pounds, a tree that's 300 feet tall, the size of a 26-story building, a tree so wide that you could drive your car through, how in the world does a tree like that only have roots that go about six feet deep and then not fall over at the first stiff breeze?

Here's how.

This is fascinating.

Sequoia's roots, they go wide and they interconnect with the roots of other sequoia trees.

That helps each of them, it supports the weight.

This network supports the massive size of each tree.

The roots connect together, they share nutrients and stability, which is why they can survive high winds and floods and fires for thousands of years.

Sequoias function as a community.

That's how.

They interconnect together for strength.

Solo they can't do it.

Those sequoias grow strong in community.

And that's exactly how Jesus designed this apprenticeship with them.

It's the same thing.

Like you should not try to follow Jesus alone.

In fact, you can't.

You can't follow him alone.

The way he designed it is for us to be connected together.

Jesus didn't have a disciple, he had multiple disciples.

Plural.

They were with him and they were with each other all the time.

Like we're meant to be connected together.

We're meant to grow in community.

Like God designed us first to depend on him, and then when we're connected to each other, we grow.

Like your connection to other people will allow you to grow spiritually.

And people being connected to you will allow them to grow spiritually.

You cannot grow into a spiritual sequoia by yourself.

You can't do it if you're isolated.

No, discipleship means we have to be connected together if we want to grow.

Now, I don't want to be flippant with this.

I mean, it would be easy to say, hey, be in community, get connected with people here.

That's how Jesus designed and intended the church to operate.

For sure.

But that can be easier said than done, right?

Like sometimes this is hard.

I mean, I would argue right now, whether you are a Christian or not, people are starving for real non-surface level community with other people.

People are hungry to be connected together.

And maybe this is a pain point for you right now.

Yeah, man, you want to be connected to other people, but this is a challenge for whatever reason.

Or maybe you've been burned by somebody before.

Or maybe you're not sure what this looks like.

Start with this have a committed and continued presence.

Man, the church is made up of people who believe Jesus is who he says he is.

People that believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that he did die and rise from the grave, people that are following Jesus not only as their savior, but also their Lord.

If that description is true of you, then you are a part of Jesus' church.

The church.

Life Bridge, we're just a small local piece of that.

That's why we're not in competition with other churches.

We're on the same team.

If another church in northern Colorado wins, that means we win and we celebrate with them.

It's also why we give money to other local churches around here just to help with something.

And we're gonna do that again in November when we get to level up.

If you are a Christian, then you are meant to be connected to a local Bible-believing Jesus-following church.

And that starts with having a committed and continued presence.

Think about this marriage is also a committed and continued presence.

Just to see each other once a month and maybe a text every five or six days, not gonna go well.

Not gonna go well at all.

And some of you feel really nervous right now.

Did you just get convicted?

Alright.

Man, Kelly and I, Kelly and I have been married for 21 years.

We have a committed and continued presence.

And because of that, both of us have grown as individuals.

One of us has needed to grow more than the other.

I'll just let you fill in the blanks on who that is.

But I think if Kelly was in here right now, and you can you can straight up ask her if you want, I think she would say that I've grown in the past year.

I think that she would say, I have more depth, spiritual growth, and maturity in year 21 than I did in year 15.

Definitely more than I had in year 10, 5, and 1.

And she has helped me grow.

Because you do not grow in isolation, you grow with other people.

This is one of the reasons why I think the church is called the bride of Christ in Scripture.

Just like two individual people grow as individuals in a marriage together, the same thing is supposed to happen in the church.

But there has to be a committed and continued presence between people.

Now, with this, do not confuse the perfection of Jesus with the church.

Like, don't do that.

I love my bride deeply.

She is incredible, but she's not perfect.

She would tell you that I'm not perfect.

Both of us have our flaws, both of us make mistakes, but even though she's not perfect, I'm still committed and connected to her.

I deeply love her.

And because of her, I'm a better follower of Jesus, I'm a better man, I'm a better dad, I'm a better friend because of her, even though she's not perfect.

The same thing happens with the church.

The bride of Christ is not perfect.

But Christians are blessed because of it.

We spiritually grow because of it.

Now, I think sometimes, man, it's hard for Christians to get connected to each other and be in community.

One, because there's a higher bar.

Man, we hold each other to a standard.

But on top of that, I think sometimes there's this unspoken expectation for perfection.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor in Germany during World War II.

He actually became a double agent who worked against the Nazis, which is super cool.

He ended up getting caught and executed in a concentration camp right before the end of the war.

He wrote a ton of books.

One of his books was on the importance of community for Christians, called Life Together.

He said this those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself, become destroyers of that Christian community.

Even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

In other words, don't fall in love with the dream church you have in your mind, because the dream church you have in your mind is a perfect one, and the perfect church does not exist.

If there was a perfect church, then you and I would immediately ruin it as soon as we walked in.

Like that, that's just the truth.

Now I know I am incredibly biased.

I am very biased.

But I love our church.

Now I think we have a strong and healthy church.

I think God's been growing spiritual fruit in here for a while now, which is super awesome.

Anything good that happens in our church is because of him, despite us as people.

Like, we're not a perfect church at all.

Like, we got our stuff.

We got plenty of issues and mistakes and flaws because the church is filled up with people.

So don't ever expect perfection.

At the same time, let me just say this don't ever put a pastor on a pedestal.

Do you know what the only thing a pastor like me can do with a pedestal is?

Fall off of it.

That's all I can do.

So instead, any pastor that you happen to know, whether it's here or at another church, just put that person on your prayer list.

And don't go chasing perfection because you're not going to find it, which means then you're never going to be in community with other people, which stunts your growth and stunts other people's growth.

Then eventually you become discouraged and you give up, or you become a cynic.

Now, what this is supposed to look like, Galatians 6 lays this out.

This is Paul writing to the church in Galatia.

He says, Hey, dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path, restore them.

And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.

Share each other's burdens and in this way obey the law of Christ.

So there's a couple things to pull out of those two verses.

Number one, you have to be known.

First and foremost, you have to be known.

If you are not completely known by at least one other person, and your spouse doesn't count, if you're not completely known by at least one other person, you are completely unknown.

Nobody really knows you.

I've had to experience this the hard way.

Very recently.

I think if you were here a few weeks ago, I talked about a friend who's just blown up his life.

And he was connected to a group with us, of us, never told us what was going on.

We had no idea.

He wasn't known to us at all.

That was painful for us, and now the fall that's affecting him and other people.

It's painful right now.

If you're not completely known by at least one person, you're very, very vulnerable and you're gonna hurt other people.

Here's what I want for you if you're a part of our church.

I want for you to have at least one, at least one 3 a.m.

friend.

A 3 a.m.

friend is somebody who you can call at 3 in the morning and it's not weird.

Like you can call them for whatever.

Like you need help with something.

Hey man, uh it's January, our heat just went out.

Can we come over to your house right now?

That's fine.

Or man, you need prayer, or you're struggling with something, you need help.

Somebody you can call at 3 in the morning, and that's not weird at all.

Or a refrigerator friend.

Like they can just walk into your house, not even say anything to you, open up the fridge, and it's not weird.

Like you're that connected.

Man, I want that for you.

Man, I have a few of those friendships in our church that I am incredibly grateful for.

Incredibly grateful for.

But the only way you can have those types of friendships is if you're willing to be completely known by somebody else.

So you gotta take a step forward.

Like you gotta take the initiative.

Western culture loves autonomy.

And there's some great stuff about autonomy, but but here's the danger with it.

Sometimes autonomous can turn into anonymous.

And that's a bad spot to be.

There's actually studies out about this now that show people who feel anonymous, they feel like they actually lose their individual identity.

They lose self-awareness.

So somebody who has total autonomy actually loses their own individual identity.

Isn't that the exact opposite of what autonomy is supposed to do?

Studies show that those people, they have an increased disregard for social norms, they have higher levels of hostility, aggression, and toxic behaviors.

That's not good.

It's because you and I were never meant for complete autonomy.

Even though our culture says that's a value, we were not meant to be totally autonomous.

Like you're meant to be connected to other people.

You're meant to grow with other people, you're meant to be in community.

We're meant for meaningful connections.

That's why God says in Genesis 1 and 2, hey, it's not good for man to be alone.

Anonymous robs you of the joys of being known.

And the irony is we live in a culture that wants autonomy but not loneliness, and yet the autonomy we want can lead directly to the loneliness that we don't want.

Galatians 6 also says, hey, if you're a part of the church and connected, you can help people get back on the right path.

You can help restore people.

James says, confess your sins to one another.

Paul now says, okay, hold up, restore each other back to right relationships with God and with other people.

That's what righteousness is.

Sin disrupts all relationships, vertical and horizontal.

My sin disrupts my relationship with God and with other people.

What Paul is saying is, hey, if you're connected and somebody's off, you can help restore them.

And they can also help restore you.

I'm not an example of this recently.

Somebody did this for me.

Staff member.

I told them about an email that I got.

Somebody just trashed me in an email.

And it was painful and it was way off base.

And I took this in a staff meeting.

I was explaining what happened and what this person said.

I was venting really what I was getting at now, looking in retrospect.

I wanted people on our staff to say, Matt, that's not true about you.

And a couple of them did, for sure.

They said, Matt, that's not true.

I was like, Great, and I just needed to hear this.

Then later that afternoon, I got a knock on my office door.

Staff member walks in and he says, Hey, can I can I talk to you about something?

Like, yeah, sure, what's going what's going on?

Closes the door.

I'm like, oh, this can't be good if he's closing the door.

I'm like, what am I gonna have to deal with now?

No, he was coming to confront me.

He said, Hey, that email you shared, that sucks.

That person sent it to you.

That's not true at all.

Your pain and your frustration is valid, but the way you responded to it wasn't good.

You crossed the line from venting into gossip and slander.

And that's not you, and I don't want you to fall into that.

He was 100% right.

100% right.

So then my brother just exposed a pattern that was off in me and a sin that I committed publicly in front of the rest of our staff.

So then I had to go back and apologize to our staff and ask for forgiveness.

And there's freedom in that.

That was a gift to be called out like that.

That's me being restored back to right relationship with God and other people.

That's what Galatians 6 is doing.

If you're connected, you can do that for other people, and other people will do that for you, and it's a gift.

Now don't try to be the spiritual police with other people, too.

Don't like first of all, be connected to them before you want to call them out on something.

And if you haven't shed a tear for someone, don't try to confront them first.

Then Paul also said, Hey, we're supposed to share each other's burdens.

Like maybe you got a burden right now that nobody else knows about.

Maybe you're carrying a weight that you're doing it by yourself.

You want to know how to tell who your real friends are?

You can tell who your real friends are when it's time to move.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Tell me I'm wrong.

Hey man, can you come over and help me move some stuff into this moving van?

Oh, I can, man.

I wish I could, but I got a I got a dentist appointment.

Really?

On Saturday afternoon, you've got a dentist appointment.

Cool.

Like you know who your friends are.

The people that show up, they help you move those awkward-shaped and heavy pieces of furniture.

God bless those people.

Those are your friends.

They make things that are heavy lighter.

They make things that you couldn't carry on your own, that would be impossible for you to carry on on your own.

They help carry those things.

That's exactly what the church is supposed to be.

Like we're supposed to be connected together to help each other carry stuff that we shouldn't or we couldn't carry on our own in our lives.

Because there's plenty of that.

These are just some of the examples.

Man, throughout the New Testament, a theme you see with Christians is together.

Together's this the theme.

Growth happens in community, learning happens in community, accountability happens in community, protection happens in community.

Man, you see throughout the New Testament, you see Christians being told to love one another, serve one another, forgive one another, encourage one another, confess sins to one another, share each other's burdens, bear with one another.

That's God saying in Colossians 3, he says, hey, bear with one another.

Translation, hey, tolerate this dude because he needs it.

Like I know he's super awkward and it gets under your skin, but bear with him, tolerate him.

You see throughout the New Testament, Christians being committed to studying biblical sound teaching together.

They hang out at each other's houses, they eat meals together, they pray together, they share resources together, they're generous together, they worship together.

Have you do you see the theme?

Together.

Like you cannot follow those commands in the New Testament, you cannot follow those examples being alone.

You have to do it together.

And together is not just so that you can spiritually grow.

For sure that happens.

But together is also how the kingdom of heaven comes to earth.

The kingdom of heaven comes to earth when the greatest becomes his servant.

The kingdom of heaven comes to earth when you turn the other cheek.

The kingdom comes when in humility you think of other people as better than yourself.

The kingdom comes when you are slow to speak and you're quick to listen.

The kingdom comes when you love your enemy as yourself.

All of that, it all presupposes being together in community.

And a strong, healthy, connected church will attract Jesus people to Jesus.

Man, what's really easy in the American church, and we got to be careful of this, it's very easy to either make, no, no, it's not easy to do this.

It's very easy to fall in a trap instead of making followers of Jesus, make fans of a church.

We don't want to do that.

Fans of the church, the bride of Christ, yeah, for sure.

I'm a big fan.

But our call is not to make fans, our call is to make followers.

When we have a strong and healthy church that's connected, it will attract people to Jesus.

That's exactly what you're seeing throughout the book of Acts.

Every single person on the planet is designed for community.

You need it, and so do I.

And if you are a Christian, it is essential for your spiritual growth.

If Jesus was in community, then you and I probably should be too.

Now, what about when this goes wrong?

Church hurt.

Church hurt is real.

So can we just talk about this for a second?

I mean, if you don't want to, I'll just move on.

I mean, if you want, we we can talk about it or not.

Okay, thank you.

Alright.

They're just trying to bring me in.

I feel alone up here.

In a church our size, you're gonna get all kinds of stories and backgrounds.

Over the years, I've heard some pretty hard things that have happened to people.

I was talking to a staff member earlier this week, and I told her the only blanket statement I will make about this is that there are no blanket statements.

Because everybody's story and experience is different on this.

You may have legitimately been hurt in the church before.

And I hate that if that's happened to you.

It could be some serious spiritual abuse or manipulation.

It could be a cult posing as a church.

I've heard that story more than I'd like to remember.

Maybe it was an individual person or group of people doing some shady things to you.

Like you may have legitimately been hurt in the church, and I I hate that for you.

I've been hurt multiple times in the church.

And here's what I've learned about it.

And this is just me, I'm not saying this is your experience at all, but here's what I've learned.

I wasn't hurt by the church.

I was hurt by people in the church.

And that may sound like semantics, but it's not.

Here's this really helped me.

Instead of lumping the entire body of Christ into one person or a group of people that hurt me, like I was able to separate that and understand I can still be connected to, love, and heal in the bride of Christ, even though these people who also claim to be a part of the church, they hurt me.

Like I realize that I have people hurt, not church hurt.

Language matters.

Language matters for our own individual healing.

Now, again, like if you're in a church, you can get hurt because people are in a church.

And over the years, I've sat down with a lot of people who've told me their story about how they got hurt at this church they used to be a part of.

And listening to some of those stories, I have to say, like, yeah, for sure.

You were legitimately hurt.

That's messed up that that happened to you.

I hate that that happened to you.

The pain, the frustration, the sadness that you have, 100% valid.

And I know it doesn't mean anything coming from me, but I'm sorry.

That's not supposed to happen.

Now, the flip side of this, I've heard other people tell me their stories, and out of love, I've had to be real with them and tell them, hey, I hear your story, but can I just be real with you?

You might not like what I'm about to say, but this is for you.

You weren't hurt by the church.

You just got told what you didn't want to hear.

Or you didn't go what you wanted.

Or they try to hold you accountable.

And I know accountability can sing at first.

Nobody likes that.

I know it can sing at first, but that was actually an attempt for those people to love you and restore you, not hurt you.

Like you can be hurt if you are in a church because people are in a church.

Now the temptation with all of that is to just back away.

Cool, man.

I can't get hurt if I just keep people at a distance.

This is safer to isolate.

I get that.

But hear me on this.

You do take a risk when you step into any community.

You also take a risk when you avoid it.

When the church gets it wrong, it really hurts.

And some of you in here right now, I'm trying not to look at you and make eye contact.

I see where you're at, and I know your stories.

And some of you in this room right now, I've heard your story.

You know what I'm talking about here right now.

Horrible when that happens.

When the church does it right, it went to eternity.

I got the scars from the hurt.

Not fun at all.

And at the same time, since I was a kid until right now, I have been blessed by so many different people in the church that I've been a part of.

I've been a part of two churches in my life.

This one and the one I was at my home church growing up that I was on staff there until I came out here.

I have two churches that I've been a part of.

I've got scars, and then I've been blessed by people since I was a kid until now.

I have grown in the church as a disciple of Jesus because of other people in the church.

And I'm telling you, the scars are so worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about it.

It's a risk to step into the community.

It's a bigger risk to avoid it.

And there's also going to be resistance to this.

Here's what I mean.

As we become a more and more hyper-individualistic culture, you're going to see more and more people live transient lives with transactional relationships.

Like being into a community, getting connected into a community is becoming less and less important for people.

The problem is, community is the soil that you're meant to grow in.

Now, there are times where you leave, like a job transfer.

Like most of us in Colorado aren't originally from here.

Maybe it was a job transfer.

Or there's a time maybe the church that you were a part of was preaching heresy.

Yeah, get out.

Like for sure, there are times to leave.

Absolutely.

But if we just leave a church just because, now that's going to create multiple problems.

Number one, it becomes really hard for you to grow if you just keep uprooting yourself and then replanting.

How many strong and mature sequoias do you know of that have been uprooted and replanted multiple times?

Doesn't really happen.

Again, there's a time and a need to uproot.

Kelly and I uprooted to come here.

Combined, we had 65 years in the church that we came from.

I mean, we were deeply rooted there, and we uprooted to come here because God called us here.

There's a time to do it for sure.

But to uproot just because you won't grow, which actually leads into the second problem.

When a tree just keeps getting uprooted, it actually messes with the soil that other trees around it are planted in.

Like I have a friend that bounced around to all different kinds of churches.

In eight years, he and his family were connected to five churches that I know of, five different churches in eight years.

Man, they would go all in with a church as soon as they got there, and then all of a sudden, for some arbitrary reason, they would bounce to the next church.

Because the grass was greener somewhere else.

And I actually told him, I said, hey man, sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because the other side has a lot more manure.

Yeah, you know, that's true too, right?

Like, oh yeah.

Man, so he would tell me, hey, we're we're leaving this church, we're gonna go to this one now, and man, we just well, the reason we're bouncing again is because we just we're not growing anywhere.

Yeah, man, because you just keep leaving.

And every time you do that, it messes with other people at that church.

They're super relational people.

So they would go all in and get connected very, very quickly.

And then they would bounce for whatever reason.

One time he told me, Hey, we're gonna leave this church and we're gonna go to this church because this new church has a better social media presence.

Like, no, no.

And then people there at that church that they just left are like, what happened?

We thought we were friends, and now they're gone.

It messes with the soil.

Dr.

Joseph Hellerman's a pastor, professor, and an author.

He says this.

I think this is really good.

He says, long-term interpersonal relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in Christian life.

People who stay also grow.

People who leave do not grow.

I want you to grow.

Like, I want you to have 3 a.m.

friends here.

Not just one, I want you to have multiple.

I mean, I want other people to grow because of you.

I want you to get the chance to see the kingdom of heaven and come to earth because of the together you have with other people here.

Like, I don't want you to be so connected with other people, your roots connected with them, that you grow into a sequoia.

Having consistent and continued committed connection to a community.

That's a lot of C's right there.

Here's one more C.

It just increases your capacity to grow.

Longevity.

So let's get practical.

How do we actually do this?

First, if you are connected, you become a connector.

If you call life rich your church, every one of us who calls life rich home, we have a responsibility to connect other people into community here so that they can grow, so that other people they connect with grow.

Man, so if you know people that should be introduced to other people, make the introduction.

Invite people into your small group.

Man, invite people to coffee or lunch.

Have people over to your house to hang out and watch the game.

Like invite other guys to uncommon.

Invite people to serve with you.

Like we want to have an invite culture here.

If you call Life Bridge your church, we have a responsibility to help everybody else always connect in the community here.

So be proactive in that.

And if you're not already connected, let me say this.

Stick with it.

Stick with it.

If you want to be connected, you will be.

It just may take some time, and it's gonna take you starting with the initiative.

Man, it's something simple that you can do.

Super simple.

Hang out in our lobby.

We have all kinds of people that hang out in the lobby.

If you start consistently hanging out in the lobby, it's going to be inevitable that you're gonna meet and get connected to other people.

And if this is home for you, if you're connected, look for people in the lobby that you don't know.

Go say hi.

Go start up a conversation.

Just don't be weird or awkward about it, okay?

Rooted.

Rooted is a layup for connection.

You get paired together in a small group of about 10 people.

For 10 weeks, you walk through what it looks like to be an apprentice of Jesus.

We do it on Sunday morning.

So you go to Rooted and come to service.

Man, it's easy.

It's an easy way.

I think the next session starts in a couple weeks, and I think today actually is the last day for registrations.

So hit the website up, stop by info.

We're trying to lay it on thick.

We're putting cards on the seats.

We're even laying it on thick with uncommon.

Tommy and I didn't just magically match today.

Like, men, register for uncommon.

Man, that Friday night and Saturday morning are going to be awesome.

I cannot wait.

We're gonna eat barbecue.

We're gonna have a good time in the parking lot, do some stuff that probably is gonna get somebody hurt, which makes it even more fun, right?

Then we're gonna get in here and we're gonna get after and worship.

And we're gonna see some, hear some legit preaching of God's word.

If you're at Uncommon, you can't help but meet other guys in our church.

Invite other guys to come with you too.

Man, do that.

In fact, at Uncommon, we're gonna unveil a new way that we're gonna try to get people connected into our church.

I'm gonna just tease that out right now.

Or get on a team.

The most connected people at our church are the people who serve on teams, they're connected with their team, and then they get to meet all kinds of people.

Growth, strength, longevity come in committed community.

Sequoias prove that.

So if you're not connected, be a connector.

I said that wrong.

If you are connected, be a connector.

And if you're not, stick with it.

Take initiative, take the step today.

Maybe it's rooted, maybe it's registering for uncommon.

Maybe it's both.

Maybe it's just hanging out.

Hang out in the lobby.

Maybe it's being here every Sunday and hanging out in the lobby.

Get on a team, whatever it is, take that step.

Because I want you to grow.

I want you to have 3 a.m.

friends.

Other people are going to grow because of you.

That may seem hard to fathom, but I promise you, if you are connected to a local church, a Bible-believing Jesus-following church, you are on mission with Him.

People are going to grow because of you.

You may not see it on this side of eternity, but they will grow because of you.

The kingdom of heaven gets to come to earth by you.

That's awesome.

I want that for you.

Man, every week in this series, we got one more week next week, but every week so far, we've laid out a challenge that we want to do each week.

If we want to increase our dependency on God, remember, Jesus was the most dependent person in human history, completely dependent on God the Father.

Well, we want to grow in our dependence on Him so that we can spiritually grow.

Well, we're not going to have a challenge that I'm going to have you go out and do this week.

We're just going to do it right now.

We're going to do the challenge right now.

So Tommy's going to come up, he's going to explain what we get to do right now as a church.

By the way, we're only wearing the same shirt because I want to be like him.

So we've got our challenge uh here today, as Matt has given us uh a challenge every single uh Sunday of this series, and so we're gonna do something a little bit different uh as we try and just depend more on God, and as we depend more on each other, there's a really simple way that we can connect with each other and also connect with God.

And uh so we're gonna do that here in just a second.

There's there's gonna be uh a time where we're gonna just break out into some groups of three to maybe five people around you.

Someone's already pumped to break out into groups, huh?

All right, come on.

So, three to five people.

Um one of the things that Matt mentioned that's so important for us to be able to do community is to be able to confess our sins to one another.

And uh, so we are not going to do that this morning.

I'm not gonna make you do that.

I'm sorry.

No, we're so won't make you do that just yet.

But three to five people, what we do want to do is to pray out loud together.

Praying is so important as you guys know this.

Praying is how we connect with God, it's how he's able to even speak to us, but it's how we can also just love it and support other people.

So as we follow Christ, we pray together.

So we are gonna have some time set aside where we're going to just three to five people uh pray over some very specific things.

And so we'll get to that in a second.

One thing that I learned uh in what Jesus when he was telling the disciples how they can pray, they asked how they should pray.

There's one translation that's leading into the Lord's Prayer that says, All you have to do is just pray as simply and honestly as you can manage.

Jesus was telling his disciples that.

And I don't know about you, the first time I heard that, I felt so free because I often felt like I had to go to God and I had to have all the right words.

I mean, I mean, I'm talking before the creator of the universe here.

I gotta know exactly what I'm saying, use big words, and all that Jesus is saying is you guys just come before him simply and honestly.

That's all that's all you need to do.

Simple and honest.

So we're gonna have some prompts uh that go up on the screen here in just a second as you guys are in your groups, and there's two more quick things for us.

If you uh find yourself, maybe this is the first time you walked into church and you're like, what did I get myself into this morning?

I have to do this, you don't have to do it.

What I want to encourage you to do is to still circle up with some people so that you can get to know them, but also just to hear how they pray, and maybe just to be able to soak up some of that and also just reflect on what community looks like for you.

The last thing I'll say is that we're gonna have a response team right down here at the front of the stage.

If you are thinking about just praying right now and you're going, I'm not even gonna be able to get a word out.

This week has been so hard that I'm just gonna break down crying, not be able to pray right now, then they've got you.

You can come forward to the front of the stage, find one of them, and they would just love to pray for you in this time.

So um, does that sound good, everybody?

You up for this?

So, three to five people just around you, go ahead and find them right now.

We're gonna have problems in just a second.

We're gonna take one minute on each of the topics to pray together.

Go ahead and find your groups circle meet each other if you have them.

Alright, and as we get a settlement, we're gonna start with our first prayer.

You can pray this in the lab in your group.

The first one is just very, very simple.

It's what are you grateful for?

What is there in your life that you can just thank God and just say a prayer of thanks to God for just being grateful for in your life?

So go ahead and take one minute.

What do you need that God can give you?

What is it that you might come to him and ask him for right now?

Maybe you need peace?

Maybe it's wisdom, maybe it's strength.

Go ahead and say some prayers and ask God for what you need right now.

I'd just love to encourage you to pray for our church.

Just pray for our leadership, for protection, pray that God would continue to grow us, that you would make us more like him, that we would just shine brighter and window for Christ.

So go ahead and pray for our church.