The Eucharist

I need to start off by telling you a story about my childhood.

Um when I was maybe eight or nine years old, uh I remember my dad and my grandfather uh came in and they were rushing around, me and my brother.

Get ready, get ready, we gotta we gotta go, we're gonna go do something special.

And so we're thinking, yay, something special, this is great.

And we got and we rushed uh over to this hotel where they were doing some kind of convention or something like that.

And a great man named Roger Staubach was the the speaker at this thing.

And so if you're not a football fan, Roger Staubach is easily one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.

Um he was just incredible, and but at being eight or nine years old, I really didn't know um who he was, you know.

So we're gonna go meet this great football player, and I saw him and I was like, he's old to be a football player.

Um but uh and so we went, we rushed to this place, and um I got to meet him, and he even threw a ball to me, and oh my god, it was awesome, you know.

And he wrote on a football to Josh, Roger Staubak, signed it to me, just specifically to me.

I got this football signed by Roger Staubach, you know.

But to me, it was a football.

And what do you do with footballs?

You throw them and you kick them, and I remember my dad uh on the verge of uh a panic attack every time he saw my brother and I just in the yard, just boom, Roger Staubach, yeah, you know, and he would try to explain to us, no, this is priceless.

You don't understand, this is priceless.

It's it's no longer just a football, it's it's this thing that's signed by this great man, and it's priceless.

You can't just throw it around and and treat it like a football.

And so I I remember that very vividly.

My my my children uh I have an eight-year-old or seven-year-old son, a five-year-old daughter, and uh and adults and children, we don't always get along on these things, right?

Sometimes they treat my very expensive iPhone like a football.

Um and I remember one time my son found a rock.

Just we were just in a parking lot, like walking to a restaurant.

He found a rock that he thought was amazing, it was the most amazing thing, and then he left it at the restaurant, and he we had to go back and get this rock.

It's so special to me, daddy.

It's so special.

And I'm like, we we do not see the same value on these types of things.

There's we have a misunderstanding in this area, and he gets frustrated, he sounds like a teenager, he's like, You don't get me, you just don't get me, daddy.

You don't understand.

So, adults and children, we don't always see eye to eye on this.

But today I want to talk to you about communion.

And communion is much like this football that I had.

Not because I throw the bread or whatever, but communion is something that I didn't really see the value of it.

I knew what it was, I knew that we took the bread and we took the cup, and I knew it was to remind us of the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but I didn't understand it fully.

And sometimes now I feel like going to people and going, no, no, no, you don't understand, don't treat it that way.

It's priceless.

You can't understand or see the value of this until you begin to understand why Jesus Christ instituted this practice for us and what it meant to him and what it meant to the church throughout the history of the church.

And sometimes today the church just treats it sort of like it's supposed to be just something for our carnal remembrance.

That because Christ said, do this in remembrance of me, that it's just supposed to be something that we just remember and recall in our minds, but that's it.

There's nothing else going on there.

There's nothing else to it.

It's simply bread and simply the cup, and there's nothing else going on there.

And I'll never forget the day that a very close friend of mine named Pastor Chad Sykes, who's on staff here, he said to me, made this statement, it changed my life forever.

He said, I have become very convinced of the real presence of Christ in communion.

And from that moment forward, it launched me into uh years of my life of studying what takes place in communion and what is actually happening in this time.

So we're continuing the series on Jesus today, and I've titled the message Jesus the Eucharist.

Jesus the Eucharist.

Now, um, for some of you, this might be a term that you're not very familiar with.

For some of you, depending on your church background, you may be familiar with this term.

In fact, it may carry a little bit of baggage with you.

It may be something that you are resistant to.

So I want to explain quickly why I'm titling the message today, Jesus the Eucharist.

Um, the Eucharist is not a bad term for communion.

In fact, it's in the biblical text.

It's a Greek word, Eucharisteo, and when it says that Christ broke the bread and gave thanks, that Greek word is Eucharisteo.

And so now today we've come to the place where we can call communion the Eucharist, in short, for describing this time where we take the bread and the cup, and we can just call that in general the Eucharist.

It's okay to call it communion, it's okay to call it the Eucharist, but I think that I've called it today the Eucharist because I want us to re-evaluate what we believe about this moment of the Eucharist.

What we believe about this time.

And I call it Jesus the Eucharist because I believe that he is the Eucharist, that he is absolutely fully present in this moment, in this time of taking in the body and the blood of Christ, that he is there.

And so the church in many ways has lost this thought and this view of him being there and present.

And what happens is then we look at it and go, like I did for so many years, this is simply bread and simply the cup.

It's simply food and simply drink.

There's not really much else going on here.

And so I've looked at it this way as being just simply food and simply drink, and there's not something else to it, uh, a deeper or heavier meaning, or something else that's actually taking place and going on at that time.

But luckily, we have several instances in Scripture where this thought is addressed.

And in 1 Corinthians 11 specifically, Paul writes to the church in Corinth and he speaks directly to this thought of treating the Eucharist as if it's simply food and simply drink.

And so I want to take a look at those scriptures right now.

I want you to try to pay attention.

Paul is very frustrated.

Rarely do we see Paul in Scripture this frustrated about something.

So I want to see as I read this scripture if you can pick up on his frustration and read uh how truly frustrated he is.

So I'm in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and I'm gonna start off in verse 17.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

And Paul says, Now, in giving these instructions, I do not praise you.

Right there, he starts off.

I'm a little bit mad at you, I don't praise you.

Since you come together not for the better, but for the worse.

This is an encouraging letter so far.

First of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you.

Now I'm gonna skip down to verse 20.

You'll see it on the screen.

Therefore, when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper.

For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others, and one is hungry, and another is drunk.

Then this is the best part.

What?

exclamation point.

What?

I mean, that's the only place I know of in scripture where there's a one-word sentence like this that just says, What?

exclamation point.

I think he was dictating this letter.

Um, maybe Timothy was the one writing it, and Timothy was like, You just screamed what?

Do you want a question mark or an exclamation?

You seem mad.

I'm gonna go with the exclamation point on this.

Do you not have houses to eat and drink in, or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?

What shall I say to you?

Shall I praise you in this?

I do not praise you.

Now I'm gonna skip to verse 29 because this sums up exactly what he's frustrated about in this.

Listen to this for he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself.

And what was it that they did wrong?

Not discerning the Lord's body.

In essence, he's saying, You have treated this as food, and some of you have come into this situation and you've said, Look, there's bread and I'm hungry, and there's wine and I'm thirsty, so I'll just take this and drink.

And he's going, Some of you are full, others are hungry, some of you are drunk, and others haven't had any at all.

Do you not have houses?

There's a place where you can go to your house and you can eat food.

This is not simply food, and it's not simply drink.

The problem with what you're doing is that you're not discerning the Lord's body.

You're not discerning and using your discernment to realize that he is here and he is present in this moment.

That we take Christ seriously when he said, This is my body, and this is my blood.

And for that you drink judgment on yourselves because you do not discern his body.

We know in John chapter 6 that Christ said, If you do not eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you shall not spend eternity with me in heaven.

John 6 · chapter mention

And when he spoke this, there were disciples, not in the group of twelve, but in the larger group, there were disciples who said, This is a very hard teaching to understand.

And the Bible says, I don't know if you've ever seen this or not, that there were disciples who walked away from him and came back to him no more.

The people had such an issue with what he was saying that they walked away from him and did not come back to him.

If today you're struggling a little bit with this teaching, it's okay.

It's okay to wonder and try to question what is actually taking place in this moment, because you might be surprised as I was to find out that Jesus didn't go running after them, go, no, no, no, wait, come back.

You didn't understand me.

Ah, it's cool.

I was just uh I was just talking, you know, let's kind of forget I said that.

Come back.

They left and they never came back because he said, This is my body and this is my blood.

Now, for some of you who uh maybe based on your church background, you're more familiar with this concept, or uh, or maybe you've studied this subject a little bit, you might be saying, This sounds like something that I've heard of.

It's a really big word, but it's called transubstantiation.

And so uh I'll explain it to you for those of you who are not aware of this, but this is a doctrine that says that at a certain moment the priest blesses the bread and blesses the cup, and that at that moment it physically becomes his body and physically becomes his blood.

So this is a doctrine that that is is prevalent in in some denominations.

And uh and so I I want to address that because you might be saying, okay, wait, you're saying that he's present there in that moment.

Is this uh is this that we believe in transubstantiation?

I personally, and we as Gateway Church, we do not believe in transubstantiation because I don't find it in scripture.

I don't find in scripture that there's a certain moment where a priest or someone can bless it and it physically becomes his body and it physically becomes his blood.

So I say it this way: we don't have a right to say that he's not present in the Eucharist because he said that he was.

But at the same time, we don't have a right to say how he's present in the Eucharist because he never told us how he was.

And so we can't take it that far and say that we know that it physically becomes his body or that physically becomes his blood, but we can certainly say that he is present in that moment because he most certainly said that he was.

We can certainly believe that he is there in this very spiritual way, that he shows up in this moment, that he is there and present with us.

And listen, that shouldn't be so hard to believe.

I'm perfectly happy to say how he is present is a mystery to me.

I don't have to know how he's present, it's a mystery to me.

But that shouldn't be so hard to believe.

Would you say that during worship, whenever we uh come together as a body and we sing songs during worship, that if you surrender and you raise your hands and you sing with your voice, that when you do those things, you do something physical, but something spiritual takes place at the same time?

Right?

We believe that and we know that.

We know that when we come into that place and we surrender, we contribute our physical part to this, that he does something spiritually.

Why would we have such a hard time believing that in the Eucharist and in communion, when we do this very physical act, he shows up in a very spiritual way?

And that he's there and that he's present in that moment, and that he wants to do mighty and miraculous things.

So I want to ask and answer three very important questions about the Eucharist today.

And the first is, is the Eucharist a symbol?

To that I say, yes.

The Eucharist is certainly a symbol.

It symbolizes his death and resurrection.

And so it symbolizes many things.

My dad used to uh lead us in communion, and we would use what looked like little saltine uh crackers, and then he would take that and he would break it, and he would say, This bread is broken in the same way that his body was broken.

And there are holes in the cracker, and he would point to those holes and he would say, These holes represent the holes in his hands and in his side.

And the cracker was burnt a little bit on the top, you know, the way they are, and he would say, These, you can look at these and you can remember that he was bruised for our iniquities, that he was bruised for our transgressions.

And then he would take the juice and he would say, and this represents the blood of Christ that was poured out for you.

And so, yes, it carries a lot of symbolism.

But Pastor Marcus Brickin said this to me one day.

He said, I would think of it this way when you're thinking of it as a symbol.

Um, say you're driving down the street and it's uh snowy outside, the roads are bad, and somebody has slid off the road and knocked a stop sign over on the side of the road, and the stop sign is buried in the mud and the dirt and the snow on the side of the road.

Um, not very many of you would pull over to the side of the road, oh no, this stop sign, the poor stop sign.

You'd get out, nurse it back to health, and clean it off and plant it back in the ground.

Um I I like to ignore stop signs anyways if I get a chance to, so I wouldn't care very much.

But um this the stop sign is still a symbol for something, right?

It has a specific shape to it and and uh it's a specific color, it's a bright red to get your attention.

Um probably the fact that it says stop huge over the front of it, that tells you something, you know, so it symbolizes something to us.

But you wouldn't care very much if you saw it just buried over on the side of the road in the dirt and in the muck.

But let's say, for example, that you're driving down the road and instead of a stop sign on the side of the road you see an American flag.

What would you do then?

Many of us would stop and pick it up and say, this doesn't deserve to be on the ground, and we would clean it up and we would take care of it because that symbol symbolizes that somebody died for our freedom.

That in America that we have the freedom of religion and and that that means something to us, and that there were people who gave their lives so that we could have freedom.

So certainly communion and the Eucharist is a symbol, but how much weight it carries with you should matter to you.

For example, we take the Eucharist in a very sacred and special way because we remember that there was someone who did die so that we could have freedom and so that we could have eternal life.

So to the question of, is the Eucharist a symbol, I say yes, it most certainly is a symbol.

And the second question would be, is the Eucharist more than a symbol?

And to that I say, yes, it's far more than a symbol.

There's much more taking place in the time of the Eucharist than just simply taking in the bread and the cup.

There's far more that's happening and taking place in that moment.

It is much more than a symbol.

The Bible says that people were getting sick and dying because of their misuse of communion.

If it was simply a symbol, why would that be taking place in the church?

If the Eucharist is just a symbol and it's just for you to remember that you're going to go to a special place one day, then why wouldn't we just go ahead and choose to die and go there right now?

If all it was for was for your remembrance of what he did and an anticipation of where you're going, if that's all it was, why do it at all?

But the truth is that it is for here and now.

It is for here and right now that it's a sacrament that Christ gave us to intercede with us, to commune with us right there in that time and in that moment.

That when we physically take him into our bodies, that he is there and he is present.

That his body and his blood enters into our body.

And there are testimonies and stories from all over the world of people being healed simply by the act of taking the Eucharist, by bringing their faith to that moment and saying, God, you are here.

And I believe that you are a mighty and miraculous God, and that you still do miracles, and I believe that you are here and you are present in this moment.

So, yes, it is more than a symbol.

There's so much that is taking place in this time.

In fact, I want us to remember the story of the walk to uh Emmaus, on the road to Emmaus.

It can be found in Luke chapter 24, and I'll read to you in just a moment from there.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

But if you'll remember that there were two gentlemen walking along on the road to Emmaus, and Jesus Christ himself was walking with them, but they did not know that it was Jesus.

Their eyes were blinded to the fact that it was Jesus, and he walked with them, and he taught them about the prophets and the scriptures.

And in many ways, that's how we come to church, and we learn more about the scriptures and prophecy and all of these things.

We learn more about who he is and what he is.

And sometimes he's here and we don't even know it.

We're walking with him, but we don't even recognize his presence.

And I believe that he did this specifically, whenever after his resurrection, he did this time, this specifically, so that we would know what actually takes place in the Eucharist.

So you'll remember that they were walking along and it was growing towards the end of the day, and Jesus was like, Hey, peace out, I gotta go.

And they said, No, no, no, come in and we'll feed you dinner, come into our home.

And so he did.

He came into their home and he sat down to eat dinner with them.

And in Luke chapter 24, it's in verse 30.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

This is what happened.

Now it came to pass as he sat at the table with them, that he took bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them.

Then their eyes were opened, and they knew him.

You see, I think this is a a symbol for many times of the way that we are in church, and we come in and we hear the word and it's good and it feeds us, and we get to know more about Christ.

But it's in the moment of the Eucharist when we take the bread and it's blessed and broken, and in that moment, our eyes are opened, and he is revealed to us.

And in that moment, we know him in a way that we had no way of knowing him before.

And this, this story, is a symbol for what can take place when we interact with God in this way during the Eucharist.

So then the third question that we need to ask and answer today is what is our part in this?

So you say that's great and that's good, but what is our part?

What can we do whenever we come into this time of communion?

And so I want to read to you from back from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and now I'm going to verse 27.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

And Paul says, Therefore, whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord.

But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Now I've heard a lot of really bad teaching on this scripture right here because Paul says to examine ourselves.

And uh many times, I'm sure some of you have heard this teaching too, many times people will say, you are to examine yourself and to see whether you have been good enough that week in order to take communion with us.

Have you been good enough this week in order to participate in the Eucharist with us?

And so you have to evaluate what have I done this week and what were my sins, and and and am I worthy enough to take communion at this time with the body?

And I want to tell you that type of teaching is completely wrong.

Because if we are to come to this moment and evaluate whether we are worthy to sit at the Lord's table and to take his supper that he provides for us, I can tell you with beyond a shadow of a doubt, not one of us in here is worthy to sit at his table.

Not one of us is worthy.

We must be invited by him to sit at the table.

In fact, in the second letter to the church of Corinth, Paul explains what he means by examine yourself.

He uses these exact same words.

It's 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 5.

2 Corinthians 13:5

He says, Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith.

Test yourself.

Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?

If you want to know how to examine yourself in this moment, it's to test yourself to see if you believe that there was no way that you could have ever earned your spot at this table.

Test yourself to see if you believe that it is only by the body and the blood of Christ that we are even allowed to come to this table and participate in this moment of the Eucharist.

And in just a moment, we get to do something that we've never done in the history of the church.

We've taken the communion many times, but we get to take communion at every campus at exactly the same time as one church body celebrating in the Eucharist together.

And so we'll do that in just a moment, but before that, I want to tell you a fake story.

It's not real, so don't get too worked up about it.

But it's a fake story, but I want you to place yourself in this story.

It was originally told by a great man named Matthew Kelly.

And so I'm going to tell you this story, but but place yourself in this story if you can.

I want you to imagine that you're driving to work one day, and in a third world country, far from here, there's a new strain of the flu that is very contagious.

It spreads really quickly, and uh 4,000 people are infected with this disease.

And the doctors have said that there is no cure for this disease, that it is uh something that spreads very quickly, and the most certain outcome, you may live months or you may live years, but the most certain outcome of this disease is most certainly death.

There is no way around this.

The doctors have not discovered a cure.

It begins to spread rapidly all around the world, and eventually different countries begin to close their borders and shut down their borders.

No one in, no one out, because of the fear that this disease may enter into the U.S.

And then one day on the news you hear the tragic news that there are six people in a New York hospital that have contracted the disease.

From there, it spreads quickly, and within just a few months, you yourself are infected with this disease, and everyone you know around you is probably most likely infected with this disease.

It seems to be spreading rapidly, and pretty soon we're we're wondering what is going to take place with this world that we have known because it has spread so quickly, and we know that everyone is gonna die.

But one day, good news comes out.

Uh they say we've discovered a way to make uh a cure for this disease.

The problem is we need one person who's not infected with this disease.

So we would like all of you to rush to your nearest hospital and we'll take a test and we'll find the person who's not infected with the disease.

You yourself, you pick up your family and you go to the nearest hospital and you get in line, you go in, they take a sample of your blood, and they tell you, go wait in the parking lot because we want to rapidly find out if there's somebody who's not infected with this disease, and we need to we need to find out the results very soon.

So you go out and you wait in the parking lot, and you wait there for hours with nervous anticipation, and finally the the doors burst open to the hospital where you are, and the doctor comes out with a megaphone and he says, Congratulations, we have found someone who doesn't have the disease.

Well, the crowd goes crazy at this point.

I mean, there's cheering and laughter and joy, and he he says the name.

We need so-and-so to come forth, and you don't hear the name over everybody around you who's who's cheering and still screaming, and you say, What did he say?

What name did he say?

He says it again.

I didn't catch it, what name did he say?

He says it a third time.

I still didn't, I didn't hear what name did he say.

And at that moment, you feel a tug at your jacket, and you look down, and your only son says, Daddy, they call my name.

Well, at this point, you pick him up and you rush into the hospital.

You say, Doctor, here's the person that you called.

It's my son, he he's the person that you called, and he says, Great, we're gonna take him back to the room and prep him, but we're gonna need you to sign some forms before we do this.

And so they take you into a room, and the doctor says, These are the forms that we will need for for your release, for your consent.

But before we do that, I need to tell you something.

You say, Sure, doctor, what what what's what's going on?

And he says, Well, we've checked, and your son is the only person in the whole world who's not infected with this disease.

But we didn't expect it to be a child.

Doctor, what does that mean?

I don't I don't understand.

What is that what are you talking about?

And he says, I'm so sorry.

But in order to do this, we're gonna need all of the blood from your child.

And he won't live through this.

Doctor, how can I do that?

How can I give up my only son?

The doctor says, I don't I don't know what to tell you, but just remember that it's for the life of the whole world.

There will be no one left if you don't make the sacrifice.

Let's say that you did for a moment.

The doctor said, I'm gonna give you a moment to go into the room and say your last goodbyes to your son.

You go in there and your son says, Mommy, Daddy, what's happening?

Where are you going?

What's gonna happen to me?

Why have you forsaken me?

Let's say you did give up your son, and the world was grateful for this, and they said, you know what, we want to have a memorial service for your son, but not just one memorial service.

We want to do it on a weekly basis.

And on a weekly basis, we will come together for this memorial service to remember his tragic death, but also to remember that we only have life because of his sacrifice.

And so we will mourn his death, but we will celebrate the fact that we have life because of this.

As a mother and a father, how would you feel if over time people stopped coming to that memorial service?

And said, Well, I have more important things to do.

My social life is very important, I'm very busy at work.

As a parent, you would say, Do you not remember that you wouldn't be here if it weren't for the sacrifice of my son?

The true part of this story is that every single one of us in this room was infected with a disease called sin.

And the most certain outcome was death.

And there was a father who gave his son for you.

And there was a son who gladly laid down his life so that you could have eternal life.

And this is the price that he paid for us.

We come into this moment of the Eucharist, remembering and mourning his death, but celebrating the life that we have because of him.

Knowing that there would be no other way for us to have life if it weren't for the sacrifice that he made.

I'd like to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes with me now.

I'm gonna ask the worship team to come out.

And as I said just a moment ago, we are gonna take communion between every campus at exactly the same time.

And in just a moment, the worship team is gonna lead us in a song as the elements are passed out.

I want you, through this song and through this time of prayer, I'd like to take a moment to repent.

To repent because I remember that there's no way that I could earn my place at this table.

To repent for being guilty of the body and the blood of Christ.

Then I'd like to ask you to ask the Holy Spirit to show up.

To take this moment, ask Christ to be present in this time of communion, that he would be here.

And there might be an area or a way that you need Christ to show up in a mighty and miraculous way in your life.

My wife one time needed something desperately in her life from God.

And so she just prayed, she said, God, when I go into this moment of the Eucharist, I pray that you would do this.

And he showed up in a powerful and mighty and miraculous way and totally changed the situation that she was dealing with.

So, whatever need it is that you have today, I would like for you to bring this to this moment of the Eucharist.

And I'm gonna pray now over the elements.

A prayer of confession and a prayer of praying and blessing these elements.

And then as we worship, I would like you to really enter into his presence and ask God to do something mighty and miraculous in your life.

Take a moment to let the Holy Spirit nudge you about ways that you can surrender and ways that you can turn away from self-reliance and toward a dependence on God.

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed.

By what we have done and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart.

We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us.

That we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your name.

If you'll hold on to the elements during this time, during the song, I'll come back up and I'll lead every campus in a time of communion.

But right now, Father, we pray that you would show up in a mighty and miraculous way during the Eucharist.

And we pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Now let's join into worship.

Crimson price life demand.

Oh, the blood how Jesus washes me.

Oh the blood of Jesus shed for me.

What a sacrifice saved my life.

It is my victory.

On the night that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was handed over to suffering and eventually death.

He at the Last Supper took the bread and he broke it.

He blessed it.

And he gave thanks to the Father.

And he said, Take eat this.

This is my body.

Do this in remembrance of me.

And then he took the cup.

And he said, This is my blood.

Which is shed for the sins of many and for the new covenant.

Do this in remembrance of me.

And now, as I said just a moment ago, this time is for the mourning of the death of Jesus Christ, but it's also for the celebration of the life that we have.

And so today I would like for us to make a proclamation, a declaration that can be done right now here and at every campus.

And I'm gonna say three phrases, and I would like for you to repeat after me, but not with a small and ungrateful voice.

I would like for you to repeat after me with a powerful voice proclaiming his death and his resurrection until he comes again.

So now repeat this after me.

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

And Christ will come again.

Let's thank him for that.

And in just a moment, we're gonna go back into just one more song of worship, but we wanna pray with you today.

If you had something today that you were believing for in the Eucharist, let us pray with you today.

Let two or three gather together and believe that Christ is here, that he is present, and that he's gonna do something mighty and miraculous in your life.

So at every campus, we'll go back into one more song and the altar ministry team will come forward.

But if you need prayer for anything at all that's going on in your life, we want to pray with you today.

So right now, Father, I pray that you will draw every person who needs a word from you today.

God, we pray that every person who needs prayer will come forward, that they will see you and experience you in a mighty and miraculous way.

We pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.