Celebration Weekend | Todd Jones, Ben Palmer, Bob Hoyt

Well, good morning, church. Good morning. It

is so good to be with you guys this morning.

I wanna welcome everyone here. I wanna welcome

those of you in Prescott Valley that are with

us. I'm so glad that we get to come together

as one family. We get to worship God. We get

to celebrate God. We get to celebrate what God

is doing in our church, around the world, and

we get to see life change right in front of us

today as we celebrate baptism, which I'm super

excited about. But man, I'm still reeling from

Easter last week. That was incredible. Did you

guys have a good time out there? That was so

fun. First year we've ever ran out of parking

at Watson Lake. It's estimated over 6 ,000 people

were there last weekend that got to hear the

gospel. So, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And

that is a huge celebration. We want to celebrate

that. And one of the reasons we celebrate is

because it's a way for us to remember what God

has done. In fact, at Heights, we are... we say

that there's some things that we are for. If

you're going, what is heights all about? There's

some things that we go, this is what we are for.

We are not gonna deviate from this. This is who

we are. And one of the things is we are for celebration.

We're for celebration. And the reason is because

in Philippians 4, 4, it says, rejoice in the

Lord always. And then he says, I'll say it again,

right? And usually when he says it again, it's

like, okay, we gotta lean in here. And he says,

rejoice. We should always be rejoicing in the

Lord. In the Old Testament, it was. It was said

this way, that when the Israelites were going

through the wilderness and they were seeing God's

provision in different places, God would say,

hey, I want you to build an altar. And they were

called altars of remembrance. And the altar of

remembrance was so that when they looked back

at it, they could remember what God had done.

And the way that we build altars of remembrance

is by repeatedly talking about the things that

God is doing in our life and celebrating God.

And so this is celebration weekend. And so this

weekend, we are going to celebrate what God is

doing in our church, what God is doing around

the world. We're gonna celebrate all those things.

And there's this tendency to come in on a day

like today and go, okay, so I'm not gonna get

anything out of this. And I don't want you guys

to have that mindset because here's the thing,

we can be encouraged by what God is doing. Just

because we're not gonna hear a full sermon, you're

gonna hear from multiple people that are telling

you of amazing things that God is doing. This

is what families do. This is what the family

does is we lean into the celebrations and we

celebrate by building these altars of remembrance

and realizing, man, this is how good God is.

This is what God has done. And it can be an encouragement

to us. as we celebrate together as a family.

And so first I want to start by celebrating just

locally and celebrating with some folks who've

been a part of the family for a long time, and

they are actually moving away. And they're in

this service right now, Van and Debbie Putman.

This is their service, and we want to celebrate.

Yeah, we can celebrate them right now. But we

want to celebrate their faithfulness. to live

out what God has called them to. And they've

served in so many different ways in this church.

They've served in women's ministry through prayer,

through planning events, through teaching. They've

served as life group leaders. They've served

as handyman ministry. They've served in kids

ministry when needed. They've served in setting

up chairs. They've served in every way possible

in this church. And I want you to just hear from

them. And I want them to have an opportunity

to be able to teach you and that you can be encouraged.

God has given us gifts so that we can serve him

with those gifts. So not only celebrate them

and what they have done, but also celebrate as

a family what God can do through you. And so

I'd love for you to just turn your attention

to the screens and watch this. Each of you should

use whatever gift you have received to serve

others as faithful stewards of God's grace in

his various forms. If anyone speaks, they should

do so as one who speaks the very words of God.

If anyone serves, they should do so with the

strength God provides so that in all things,

God may be praised through Jesus Christ. We serve

because we want God to be glorified and God to

be praised through what we do. For me, it's never

been an obligation. I've always felt compelled

to serve. My father was a minister, so I was

one of those PKs that was at church early and

often. One of the reasons that I am so passionate

about any men is because we moved 15 times in

nine years when I was growing up. The homes that

we lived in were parsonages provided by the church,

and all of them needed fixing up. And because

of that, I had to learn how to do stuff. And

so that brought me an education, but it also

brought me great joy working side -by -side with

my father. stilled in me the drive to just help

do stuff for people. What I've learned in everything,

especially in the gifting that I have, teaching,

I have to rely on the Holy Spirit. It's very

easy for me to know I'm a good teacher, so just

to plan and do whatever. My teaching is thousands

times better when I remember to pray first. I

don't have a gifting for... talking to people

I don't know, and yet God called me to be a chaplain

in the hospital due to the lessons I learned

when my daughter was ill. And so I go and do

that, and I have to pray in order to go into

those rooms. I have to rely on the Holy Spirit.

There's no other way to do anything with a heart

of joy if you don't have the Holy Spirit prompting

you and if you don't obey that voice. I've actually

been doing the Handyman ministry for probably

about 35 years. As time went on, I grew and grew

and grew because the Holy Spirit was grooming

me, I think, to come here and start a ministry

here. And for the last couple of years, I've

been praying that God would raise up some leaders

that could take over. continue the ministry so

that it would be a seamless transition and so

that it would not suffer. Well, we did our most

recent workday just last week, and we had 46

volunteers, and we did 14 jobs on that workday,

and it's the largest number of volunteers that

we've ever had. And it's the largest single number

of projects in the field at one time as well.

That occurred not because I'm great. It occurred

because the Holy Spirit is raising up leaders

and team leaders and guys that are willing to

shepherd other men in the field. And that is

purely the Holy Spirit. There's no other way

to put it that God is seeing it through. And

I would say to anybody that still has no idea

what should I do, what should I do? I would recommend

that you find out what your spiritual gifting

is and then look into ministries where you can

do that. Usually you're going to need to step

into a small role and let it expand as God leads

you. But don't think, well, I don't have any

gifts. I can't do anything. There are so many

different ways to serve. And also don't feel

that you have to do everything. I certainly can't

do it all. There are things that I'll think,

oh, I could do that. And God says, and when will

you find time? And how will you minister to this?

Well, else we'll let go. So don't always say

yes. We aren't designed to do it all. It's the

body. And we need to wait and see what God has

for us, but we also can't live our life in waiting.

We need to take action and serve God. When it

comes to serving, just do it. Just step in. Everybody

can serve coffee on Sunday morning or Saturday

night. That's how you get started meeting people.

and becoming part of the church family. And if

serving coffee isn't your cup of tea, then as

you've gotten to know people, they'll say, hey,

why don't you try greeting at the door or handing

out the communion cups? Or we need somebody that's

going to be backstage doing whatever it is. But

you have to start somewhere. And the place to

start is by joining something. It doesn't matter

if you know anybody, you'll get to know them

really fast. It's worth the effort. It's worth

the time. Serving coffee will only take you a

couple hours a week. You can find that time.

Give up something else instead. It's worth it.

There's a place for everyone. If you don't know

which end of a screwdriver is up, we'll still

find you a place to work. We'll still find you

something to do. We feed our men twice, breakfast

and lunch. So food is part of what we do. There's

all sorts of stuff to do. You might think of

it even as there are a thousand different jobs

to do to make the team go forward, to make the

kingdom work successful. And all of these different

things have different opportunities for everyone.

It doesn't matter how little or how much you

bring to the table. It's all part of the family

of God. When I teach my Bible study, because

it's designed to teach women how to study God's

Word, I put together a notebook of study materials,

and then I teach them how I personally study.

sometimes are overwhelmed and their comment is,

well, how do I do this like you? I said, you

don't want to be like me. You want to be like

Jesus. And ultimately that's where ministry is

going. We are learning to become more and more

like Jesus through how we serve. We want the

people that we serve with and the people that

we serve to, to become more and more like Jesus.

So I've seen it as though when you step. on the

sand of the beach. Your footprints don't last

very long. They're filled in again by the water

and eventually by the sand. And it makes it a

seamless journey. That's what this is. We didn't

come here to make a name for Van and Debbie Putman.

We came here to glorify God. And we're leaving

knowing that he will continue because this is

his church. These are his ministries. You all

are his people. And he loves every single person.

He will not let you down. I can guarantee that.

Thank you, God, for all that you're doing. Because

nothing we do is important. Everything God does

is important. And whatever we've done, it's all

to the glory of God, not to the glory of us.

And Van and Debbie will always be a part of our

church family. They're moving states away, but

they're part of our family. And it's incredible

not only what they have done serving wise, but

that they want to continue to share that with

us so that we can, as a church, be encouraged.

And, you know, exactly what they said. God has

given you a gift for a reason. What is it that

God is pushing you? to step in and do. It's incredible

that we get to celebrate locally and we get to

celebrate what is happening within the church

and through people serving in the church. But

we also get to celebrate globally. And Heights

is incredible because we don't just have an impact

here locally, we have an impact globally. We

have an incredible global department that has

partners all around the world that we work with.

And we actually got to send teams recently to

two different locations. And so we wanna celebrate

some of these. We want to celebrate what happened

on a trip that was taken to Jordan and a trip

that was taken to the Dominican Republic. And

so the leaders of those teams want to just share

with you, hey, this is what some of the amazing

things that happened and give you a peek into

that so that as a family, we can celebrate those

teams. We can celebrate the work that's being

done globally. We can celebrate the lives that

are being changed around the world and the role

that we get to play in it. So would you just

help me welcome the leader of our Jordan trip,

Pastor Ben. Good morning, church. A couple weeks

ago, y 'all got to hear a little bit about the

Jordan trip. I was able to share a piece out

of when we visited Azraq, but that was just one

day of the trip. We spent nine days in Amman.

It's a city of about 2 .4 million people. And

we just got to experience so much that God was

doing through not only Jamel's organization,

but also other organizations we partnered with.

So I just wanted to share some more pictures

with that. And the first picture I got is right

here. And this is at their community center.

So many of you know this, but I just always want

to share it because it's near and dear to my

heart. is we partner with Jamel and this community

center through our Park Collective initiative

down in Prescott Valley. So out of our vision

fund, we give 10 % of that to Jamel's organization.

So the community center in Prescott Valley is

directly partnered with Jamel's community center

in Amman. And what you'll see here is they're

holding up some certificates, but they have created

these skill sets, and they teach them trades

and computer software. candle making, barbers,

barbershop salons, and they're teaching them

trades. Like they're empowering them to be able

to go and make their own living, make their own

money to be able to support their families. And

these are all refugees. And so within that, they're

able to also do Bible studies throughout the

week. And one of the amazing things about this

is that Jordan knows Jamel's a Christian, but

it's one of the top five organizations. In Jordan,

that helps refugees. And what the government

did was is they made those certificates official.

So just like you could get a certificate through

a university that's not a degree but still education,

the government recognizes these. So God is just

breaking down barriers that even though it's

a Christian organization, the government says,

hey, we're going to work with you. We're going

to recognize these certificates. And we're going

to do what we can to support these refugees.

And so it's just an amazing thing that Jamel's

doing out there. We also have a couple pictures

of a Syrian refugee camp we visited. And what's

amazing about this is we partnered with a ton

of humanitarian organizations that weren't just

Jamel's organization. We had doctors go out there.

just how small of a world it is, is when we met

somebody from the embassy that was dropping some

stuff off, they go, I heard you were from Arizona.

And we were like, yeah, yeah. And they go, I

graduated from Yavapai Community College. I was

like, shut up. And he goes, yeah, I went and

got my master's somewhere else, but this is a

guy that worked at the embassy, and we're having

a conversation in Amman, Jordan. And he went

to Yavapai Community College, so go Rough Riders.

But this is a Syrian refugee camp, and we were

able to go visit them. It was a camp when I went

last year of about 400. It was down to about

150. They moved for a variety of reasons, but

they were able to get medical attention. We were

able to hand out food and toys to kids. And just,

again, just trying to be the hands and feet of

Jesus, just meeting people where they are at.

One of the most special things about going there

was, so you get to experience these home visits.

Like that's a lot of what you do. So your first

time home visits, you're not praying with them.

You're not sharing Jesus with them. The country

is 99 .9 % Muslim. So your first home visits,

you're just establishing a foundation. You're

going there with food, food bags. You're going

there with medication, vitamins, kids' vitamins,

things like that. And so these first home visits

are just an introduction, and you're really getting

to hear all about their story and how they got

there. And all the stories are the same from

the refugees. They are leaving these countries

that have just been worn torn. Or they've been

pushed out by ISIS, which in their language is

dash. And you'll hear that in every story. Dash

this, dash that, dash this. Because if you're

not an extreme enough Muslim, they'll try to

kill you just like they will a Christian. And

so what I got from that was, man, these are just

normal people that want their kids safe. They

want to raise their kids in a safe place. They

don't want bombs going off. They want to be able

to protect their husband or wife. These are just

normal people. These are just people that want

to live a safe life and have their kids get an

education. And all these people had to leave

from they were dentists or carpenters or they

had real jobs and real life. But because of war,

because of ISIS, they've had to push out. And

they're in really tough situations. And that's

what I love what Jamel's doing. And I love that

we partner with him because we made these shirts

a few years ago for people. And we're for all

people. And what that means is we're going to

accept people right where they're at. But that

doesn't mean we approve. of their choices. It

doesn't mean we approve of their belief system,

but like Jesus came full of grace and truth,

that's what we're going to do. And we're going

to love people right where they're at. I was

able to meet a couple that, husband and wife

couple that started a prison ministry, and they

did not see anyone come to Jesus for 10 years.

They were only allowed to get into one prison

for several years. They were only able to meet

with one or two guys within this prison. Ten

years, they didn't see any fruit. But they knew

God was calling them. They knew God was calling

them to these prisons in these Muslim countries.

And then they started to see a little fruit.

And then they started to get into several of

the prisons. And I'm just here today to say,

if you have been chasing a dream or something

you know God has called you to, don't stop. Keep

pushing forward. Trust that you're doing what

God has called you to. And he's in charge of

that timeline. God does not move slow as we like

to think about it, you know? It says that one

day is like a thousand years to him and a thousand

years is like a day. If God's put something in

your heart that's good and sharing the gospel

and it's moving too slow for you, trust in him

and press forward because we celebrate our God

and everything he does. But we didn't just visit

Jordan over this year, this beginning of this

first year. We also got to visit DR. And with

that, we're gonna have Pastor Bob share some

things. Good morning. I had the privilege of

leading a team of 12 to Dominican Republic last

month. And what we've been doing down there,

we have a connection down there. His name is

Nelson Paulino. And Nelson was working with Vision

Trust. But about five years ago, a little over,

he felt he got a vision from God to start this

new ministry, which is called Casa Misionera.

So what Casa does is Nelson goes to every church.

In Dominican Republic, where he has a connection,

he will ask the youth pastor there, give me your

top two or three kids that are graduating high

school that are on fire for the Lord. Then he

says, I'll pay for their college for four years,

but they have to do a four -year leadership program

with me. His goal is to raise up leaders in various

fields in the country with the idea of we're

going to change this country with this younger

new generation. So we have the privilege of going

down there, and it was amazing. We worked beside

the CASA students. So we'll go with these students,

do whatever mission it is with them, and then

they take the ministry over and run these kids.

So I want to show you a quick video, and I'll

explain a couple things while the video is going

on. First of all, the only tough part about doing

Dominican Republic... We're getting out of this

bus after 24 hours of travel with very little

sleep. This is one of the churches in the Dominican.

That guy is handsome. Don't know. So what they're

doing here, that is Nelson Paulino. So he's going

to introduce this group of students that are

in Casa Misionera, and then they will tell you

what their major is in college and how they expect

and hope to change the country. We're coming

in here. This is pretty interesting, and I'll

tell you a little bit more about it after. That's

a public school, so we give a gospel message

in a public school. The next kid up in the white

shirt, pay attention to him. That boy, I'll tell

you about him in a minute. We had so many students

accept Jesus Christ that day, and that is our

team and their team praying with them. And then

those kids will follow up and get them plugged

in to local churches. So it's amazing. So I want

to tell you that boy in the white shirt, this

is a very, it's such a God story. So I was in

Dominican with Casa Misionera two years ago,

and we were in that public high school. They

kind of rushed us out at the end. We had to get

to the next thing. So I literally took a picture

with one boy. He came up and he didn't speak

English. So never got his name, gave him a hug,

took a picture, went on. This past December,

Todd and I went down there because Casa Missionero

was graduating their first four -year class.

So we went to the graduation, really fell in

love with what they're doing. It is amazing,

this idea of changing a country with these young

people. So anyway, we got back and I called Nelson

up and I said, hey, I would really, me and my

wife have been talking, we want to sponsor one

of the kids through college. And so he said,

okay, well, you're normally, you were in Nagua.

Most of the stuff you're going to do missions

-wise will be in Nagua. So he said, I'll find

a Nagua student. So he sends me a name, and I

said, that's great. We'll sponsor that boy. So

this time, when I went down there last month,

they go, do you want to meet the boy you're sponsoring?

So I did, and I met him, and I gave him a hug,

and his name is Yendi. And I go, I'm talking

to him. I go, Yendi, wait a minute. I pull out

my phone. I said, I was in Dominican two years

ago at a public high school. And I showed him

the picture. I go, is that you? He goes, yes,

I accepted Jesus that day. And now I am in Casa

Misionera. Yes. And the amazing part now is Yendi

and I talk literally every day. Yendi is discipling

five boys right now. And so I kind of try to

help him with that from our end. And then I want

to show you some of the other stuff we do while

we're in DR because I think pictures and videos

speak better than I could. So if you could show

that next video. So in the villages near the

churches, they know who is needy and who needs

money or food and prayer. So they send our teams

in there. And then we bring them food. You'll

see the kids bringing it in, and we pray with

them. And then the church makes the connection

with them after that. We had a couple building

projects they let us do with people to make that

connection to the church too. So we got to put

a roof on, and we got to do cement work, which

was really fun. You recognize a lot of these

people on that team from church. This is one

of the church service they did in the village

outside. And when they party during a church

service, they really get into it. It's amazing.

We also went to four or five other schools. Gave

gospel messages and kids were coming to Christ

everywhere. And then the CASA students will connect

them in. So they continue to keep going. So amazing

to see what God is doing in Dominican Republic.

And the privilege we have. It's a continual involvement.

So literally our team of 12 has been in touch

with these Dominican students on the weekly,

keeping in touch, helping them grow and encouraging

them. And now Pastor Todd will lead a trip down

to Dominican in June to run a high school camp.

with Casa Missionary students. So we are just

amazed at what God is doing, not just here, but

globally. So one of the things about that, we

say it all the time, we couldn't do these things

without your support and your generosity. So

thank you, because you're a part of this celebration

too.