Level Up | Part Two

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Our desire is that today's credit and criticism.

Can someone say wow wow wow?

Wow wow! Right on.

We're moving.

We're moving.

I don't know if I mentioned this last week, but I've been really asking God what like just to give me, because I'm such a visual person, to be able to see things.

Like I was playing golf the other day, and I was just watching the guy in front of me.

I was playing with a really good player, like a really good golfer, and I was watching him play, and I thought, I thought, I I haven't been able to see my own swing.

And I thought, you know what I do?

I get one of my friends just to record my swing to see if there are areas of improvement.

And let me tell you this right now: don't ever get someone to show you your swing halfway through your game because it's not the time to adjust, it's not the time to change.

But sometimes when you get the perspective of yourself from another from another arena, and you get that individual to critique or to look at the way you're moving, um, you actually realize and start to see your own flaws.

And you start to get, yeah, some of the guys I was golfing with are like, yeah, we see we could see them a long time ago, Brody.

But you know, and I used to golf, I used to golf with my dad, and it it was uh, we haven't golfed in a while.

I asked him today, I said, man, we haven't golfed in a bit, and but I just haven't golfed in a bit.

And he'd be like, I'd be lining up on that ball, and uh he'd be like, open the face of the club.

I'm like, oh, okay, what does that mean?

Like an open face?

I'm like, all right, just lay that thing down, back.

Okay, head down.

All right, got it.

Chin into your elbow, okay, got it.

Keep your head down, chin into the other chin, bend your wrist, move your knee.

I'm thinking, this is crazy.

How many golfers have we got out there today?

How many professional golfers who has ever made money playing golf?

See, it's a challenging sport to play.

And I realized when I was playing, when I was playing, I thought, you know what, I need to level up my game.

And so the first thought I said is I need to buy bigger clubs.

Because I thought, hey, if I could get a bigger club face, it's more forgiving, right?

I thought I'd be the guy with the big telescopic club with a big head on it like that big.

I'd never miss the ball.

But as we're talking about moving forward, I believe God gave me a visual of a train.

And this train that is uh moving forward.

And if any of you have ever seen a train like, you think, how can this large uh machine move forward and advance, go from point A to point B?

How will it ever move?

And the fact is it moves really slow to start.

In fact, there's a lot of engine work at the beginning, but as it starts to move from point to point, and all the carts or the boxes line up and start pulling one piece at a time after it moves from cart to cart until it hits the back, and then the engine, then the effort and the work actually starts pulling that train along the track.

As soon as it gets moving, it's actually hard to stop.

And the way I'm seeing the church right now is the church, in the church today, we have got a lot of movement ahead of us.

We've got to start working, we have to start moving.

And so the the first point of last week's uh message on this level up series was we have to make that into be have that ideal that we're gonna start.

We're gonna start moving.

We're gonna start from somewhere.

Now, I don't know everybody's story uh in the church today.

I don't know everyone's story in their homes and in their relationships, but I know that everyone has a place where they they need to move.

You need to move.

You look at your own life, you think, okay, I could move here.

Maybe it's a personal element, maybe it's a family element, maybe it's a work element, but we're moving.

And today I want to talk about a critical, a critical part of leveling up, of moving forward, gaining that momentum, is that we were never called to walk the journey of life alone.

When you turn to your neighbor, and this is really important, say, I was never meant to walk alone.

You were never meant to walk alone.

You were never meant to walk alone.

This is a really, really important piece.

It's a it's a piece that we were never designed.

Uh, this year I did uh the uh marriage ceremony for uh for the Melots, and uh one of the parts of their ceremony is that it was good that man was not alone.

It was good Malachi was not alone.

And she nods her head.

Yes, that's very true.

We saw the way he lived before, and it was good that he wasn't alone.

From the very beginning, God was really intentional in instructing us to find a mean means of community, find a means of joining together to move life forward.

And so we were never meant to be alone.

So the scripture backs this up.

1 Corinthians 10, 12 says this if you're standing firm, if you think you're standing firm, you're confident in standing firm, be careful so that you don't fall.

In other words, don't become so confident in yourself that I'm a lone ranger, I'm okay, I can make it alone, I'm alright.

I'm okay to be my individual, and you're standing alone.

The Bible says be very careful because those people who stand alone, be careful that you don't fall.

Be careful that something doesn't come and take your knees out from underneath you, pull the rug out from underneath you, and quickly you're on the floor.

In order to level up, there are places that God is going to move you that are gonna require you to be in the context of community.

Places that God wants to move you that you cannot go alone.

You cannot go there alone.

It's impossible.

There's some places where you needed to go on your own to make individual commitments, to make individual declarations and confessions for you and you alone.

But in order to move forward, you can't go alone.

No one in Scripture moved alone.

Jesus had his disciples, he wasn't alone.

When he sent out his disciples, he says, go two by two.

He sent people out on their own, he sent whole communities out together.

Don't be alone.

When you're isolated, you're not only in a dangerous spot, you're limited in your ability to the pace and the distance which you can move.

When you're on your own, it's it's a dangerous place.

In the the Bible often talks about the church and people as sheep.

And the the most dangerous place for a sheep to be is by himself.

It's the most dangerous place for for us all to be is isolated and alone.

We're beginning to see the results of this lifestyle in actual culture today.

Um, even though we're very socially connected in terms of the systems that are in the world today and the programs that are in the world today to connect people, we're finding that society is much more isolated.

And it's amazing because, in the context of people being together, they can be alone.

So you're in a dad's in a minivan or a truck or an SUV or whatever dad wants to drive, I guess.

A Tesla.

Dad's in the vehicle, and it's so quiet because the Tesla runs on electricity.

And uh so they so that you don't even hear the engine.

And so it's there, they're driving, but the thing is, dad's listening to the radio, mom's on Instagram, kids are on their phone, another kid's on an iPad.

They're all isolated together but alone.

And the church has actually facilitated this in terms of realizing this in culture, and that you may notice when you come in, we greet you, we take, we take time to actually recognize you, but at the same time, we uh the lights are low, and some people can actually come in with lights low, they come in, they sit in the back, and before service ends, they get out and they can back out and they can go right to their vehicle.

They can be a part of a church and assemble at church every week and never align with where the church is going together.

We lower the lights, and we've even even cultures press that, you know what, don't even, we should be careful who's praying for somebody, and does this person pray for another person?

We should even people have said, Brody, you know, don't don't get people to high five.

Don't get people to like greet the neighbor beside them.

That's kind of like awkward, isn't it?

I'm like, I do it because I don't want you to be alone.

Get to know the person behind you, get to know their name.

We said, why do you close the doors until quarter to ten?

So that people can rub shoulders out in the lobby, because the worst place to be is when people come into the sanctuary or into the ministry center here, and they they come into this ministry center and there's one person over here and one person over there.

And literally they'll look and go, Well, I don't want to be over there.

There's one person in this section, so I'm gonna go over here just as to not invade their space.

Invade their space.

If you come in and there's someone sitting by themselves, sit right beside them.

We are a church that's leveling up.

We're a church that's realizing the people beside us that we need community.

And oftentimes the person who needs community the most is the person who's isolated and alone.

So the question isn't: should we greet, should we meet, should we gather together?

The Bible is actually really, really uh, really, really um clear in this matter in that we should be gathering together.

We should be hanging out together, we should not forsake the assembling of each other together, gathering each other together.

That's never been a question of the church.

And yet we find today Christian um dialogue and Christian argument that says, no, no, no, you don't need to be at church.

And I'm saying, yes, you do.

You need to be at church.

And we even communicate it, like we have, we stream online, and that's wonderful.

But streaming online was never meant to replace shoulder-to-shoulder engagement, eyeball-to-eyeball engagement.

It was meant that if you're away, you can still connect with where the church is going.

But we want, we don't want you sitting in your bed or on the couch at your home.

As wonderful as that may sound, we don't want that.

We want you here.

Because there's something that you can experience here, you'll never experience on your own.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this.

He said, Is the fellowship of the cross to experience the burden of the other of others, of the other?

If one does not experience it, the fellowship he belongs to is not Christian.

You cannot have intimacy with Christ and remain aloof from his body.

We cannot worship God the Father and still as certain one in word or deed, I am not my brother's keeper.

We need to be together, caring, supporting each other.

I can guarantee that challenges people go through, and I can I can show you the trend.

People start drifting off because they become isolated and alone.

I can tell every situation that I engage with as a pastor or a team engaged with as pastors, we can track it back to the point that people stopped stopped connecting.

They stopped connecting.

And I I watch, and there's always been great argument, oh, you know, we're making this choice because of this, and we're making this choice to disconnect for this reason or whatever it may be.

But the farther they disconnect, what we've discovered is people who disconnect rarely reconnect.

Rarely reconnect.

The danger of disconnection is is is incredible.

Like it's very, very important that we realize it.

So let's look at the New Testament church and what it what church, what this gathering and this networking looks like.

Acts 2, 41 says this.

Verse 47 says, Those who accepted his message were baptized.

And about 3,000 were added to their number that day, and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

And the fact is, this is pretty exciting.

When God is in this on the scene, uh things get really, really exciting.

They get exciting.

And if people really uh connect with how good it is, they they'd want to, they'd want to be baptized, they'd want to come and be a part of the church, they'd want to serve, they'd want to be a part of a growing church.

And aren't you glad you're part of a growing church?

Aren't you glad you're part of a place that's exciting to come and be a part of a worship experience and shake hands with someone beside you and connect with someone beside you?

It doesn't have to be a large church, but there ought to be in a church, in the New Testament church, the contemporary church, the modern church, there ought to be life in that church.

There ought to be growth in that church.

There ought to be a sense of movement and momentum in that church.

This shows something that is that is exciting.

And I realize there are a lot of things that are exciting.

Vacations and parties and all these events are great.

It was so great last week.

We had our after party, and people didn't, uh service ended about 11:30, and people were still on site at 2 o'clock.

And I was just so proud of those of you who I about five or six families I was able just to meet with.

You introduced me to neighbors and co-workers, and you were bringing them to church.

I thought that would an awesome thing to have the church reaching out to their community.

There's also this 2020 principle, and uh it's in the book of Acts, Acts 2020, and it's this 2020 vision that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you, but have taught you in both two places.

I taught you in a public place and I taught you from house to house.

These are two things, publicly teaching and house-to-house teaching.

There are two venues of growing your faith.

These two things seem to be quite opposite.

Um people think, well, a big venue is different than a small venue.

And some people actually uh describe their relationship with church as you know, I go to a big church or I go or I'm part of a small church.

And they say, Well, what's better, Brody?

Should I be a part of a big church or a small church?

Or what should I look for, big church or small church?

And I'm saying right now, don't think about big church, small church.

Think of both.

Think of being a part of a big church, a corporate church where there's 250, 300 people in a place together, worshiping God together, but find yourself a small church within that church where you can join together with a tight group of and community of people to actually grow your faith.

The fact is, we need to be both a big church and a small church at the same time.

Your faith, your your experience, and your your relationship as a Christian will never grow in just a big church experience or just solely in a small church experience.

You need both ends together.

And so we're gonna talk about that today.

We believe our church must grow larger and smaller at the same time.

Both ends.

So today we're gonna talk about that and uh why it's important to be a part of both.

So let's let's look at what a big church looks like and look at some of the myths surrounding a big church, which we would be considered a big church in North America.

Uh, people who go to small churches usually say these three things about a big church.

Uh, we do we need quality, not quantity.

We need quality, not quantity.

And some even use a statement to even just stay small, to look at their church and go, you know what, this is how we, this is why we stay small.

We don't want to grow big.

And they actually look at it and say, well, God just needs a few good people.

And that's one of the myths of church is that you need uh quantity will diminish the quality of the ministry.

Another myth is that God isn't interested in numbers.

In fact, he is there's a whole book of the Bible called Numbers.

But he knows every hair on your head, he knows a sparrow, each sparrow that falls to the ground.

Numbers matter to God because each person, each person may be writ recognized as a number, but each person has a soul, and each soul is important to God, so each each number is important to God.

It's gonna make a difference.

I have like we went hiking last night, we went for a hike, um, and uh I started the hike with three kids, and if I end the hike with two, it's just a number.

No, that number makes a difference.

One of those kids is still on the mountain somewhere, and that's the way we gotta see it.

Jesus used that parable.

There are not there were a hundred sheep.

At the end of the day, he counted 99.

He didn't go, oh, that's good enough.

No, where was that one?

The number mattered to God.

So numbers matter.

Numbers matter.

Wouldn't that be wonderful if we were a church of a thousand?

Not like from a work perspective, that's a lot of people engaging, and it's a big organization, but that means a thousand people are rallying towards the call of God and finding their purpose in God.

Numbers matter.

Big churches, another one, are impersonal, they say.

And that has a slight truth to it, but many of you know if you've been a part of a small community, small communities can be really impersonal too.

And it's not about the size of the community, it's about the attitude of the community.

So I was just so proud of you last week when we invited our neighbors to the church, and we saw many people come to church last week.

I was so proud that they their their replies back were man, you've got such a friendly church, you've got such a great church.

We just feel so welcome and embraced here at the church.

It was awesome.

People were shaking our hands and getting to know our name, and it meant a big, it meant something big to them.

Uh, big churches don't have to be impersonal.

So let's talk about the truth about a big church.

The truth about big churches, God wants everyone to be saved.

Would you say amen?

Amen.

If you agree with that, church isn't really for us.

The church doesn't exist, so you get like Bible study care for your kids, or kids' church, or Sunday school, or you get a nice message, or someone will sing music for you.

Church doesn't exist for that, for that sake.

The church exists to be the hands of Jesus, it exists to be the body of Christ to the world, it exists to be the light on a hill, the city on a hill, the salt of the earth.

It exists to show the world what can be.

What is yet to come, what is opportunity for them to act.

Actually, embrace and receive the message is to go into the world to fulfill the Great Commission.

And the church doesn't exist for those of you who are here.

The church exists for those who are not here yet.

It's a community of people.

Now you can grow in the church.

Your spiritual relationship with God can develop in the church, but you know where it will develop best is when you start, you know where you start developing best as a person is when you have kids.

Start realizing things about yourself and you start teaching and training and supporting and helping another person.

You'll never know what true purpose is until you help someone else discover theirs.

And that's why it's so important that you actually realize, recognize, discover your own purpose so that you can help others discover their purpose as well.

And that's why we embrace our next steps program so wholeheartedly.

Because we want you to know what it is and be a part of what it is and connect to what it is to actually help grow the church.

Luke says this: go into the country, urge anyone you find to come in so that my house would be full.

He wants a full house.

God wants everyone to have that invitation to be a part of his great kingdom.

Next, there is strength in numbers.

There is strength in numbers.

There's so many things that you can't do when you're small.

But there is power in the joint venture of one another, the joint community connection.

I was thinking about this.

One person, I was having lunch this week with uh one of the guys in our church, one of the business guys in our church, and I said, you know what, it'd be great.

One person may have$10,000, and that's wonderful.

What we could do with$10,000.

But what if a hundred people brought in$10,000?

Then you have a million dollars.

And imagine what you could do with a million dollars.

When you think of things just as a one-off, like I'm just one individual going on to shape the world, uh, you're you're gonna be limited by your own capacity.

But when you have a hundred people beside you, arm in arm, linked together, imagine what God can do.

The Bible even warns about those who go alone.

Says, listen, if one person goes out on his own, watch out, because if he falls, there's no one to pick him up.

But if two people are walking together, that guy falls, there's someone else to help.

I remember being taken out for my birthday, and it was supposed to be a treat, it was torture.

Uh my buddy said, pack up some, pack up some snow gear.

We're gonna take you snowboarding.

So I packed up all my snowboarding stuff, and he ended up taking me a uh skidooing.

And uh I they took me to this place where there was powder, and I'm not really a fantastic, it was my first time actually on a skidoo, and I remember get sinking my the skidoo, just burying it in the snow.

And I tried to lift that skidoo out of the snow, and I thought, where am I?

I'm at the top of like some big white trail.

If I was out on my own, I'd be dead up here in waist deep snow, and it was only my friends who came by and said, Hey, we realize you're stuck, pulled the skidoo out of the trench, helped me get it out.

If I was on my own, I would have been hooped.

But because I was with a group of people, I was I was alright.

Ecclesiastes 4.12 says this though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.

A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

It's different when you're in a fight on your own versus when you're on a fight with someone guarding your back.

You're with someone guarding your back, all of a sudden the the um the odds go up for you because you've got two against it.

One against ten, you're in trouble.

Two against ten, you even have a chance.

Relationships must be a core value.

Can a big church be personal?

And I hope to say yes.

Really, it's in the attitude of the people that are here at the church, but I hope to say yes.

You must have relationship as a personal core, and that's why one of our core values at KCC is that people belong here.

You need to you need to know that you belong here.

You can't come in shy.

Come in, announce yourself, grab a hand, get engaged.

We want you to be connected.

We want you here.

Um, the biblical model is this, that of 1 Thessalonians.

This is uh what how it reads.

We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel, but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us.

Paul is saying, listen, I didn't just come to you to like to speak from a pulpit.

I didn't just come to like get in a seat on a Sunday.

I came here to share my life with you.

And what's been great about KCC in terms of why I believe in KCC is because in my growing up, I experienced that community.

I experienced it.

I experienced it with the ball hockey leagues, everything from ball hockey to prayer nights.

I experienced it from golf-a-thons to the water slides, it was fun events and spiritual events, it was conferences and the beach days and the park days.

There was a sharing of a community together.

Big churches can be personal, and big churches, if relationships are a core value.

And today we just want to affirm to you that relationships are important to us.

Paul didn't just preach this, he went to lunch with people, he spent time with people, and we want to share our lives with each other.

And we hope that you do too.

It's great when we always try and keep our Sundays sacred.

Keep Sunday sacred.

Make sure you're getting to church, but not only you're getting to church, but make sure you're in you're taking church with you after church.

Find someone that you can go and have a Costco hot dog with.

Like, I don't care, whatever it may be.

You're going, you're going out, it could be a light lunch, it could be just, hey, let's grab something and head out to the park.

Let's just connect together, make relationship.

Next, small church.

And by small church today, I would say that uh we do big church on the weekend, we do big church on Sunday, but we do small church between the week.

And small church would be defined as our connect groups.

You may have seen out in the lobby today, we have a board out in the lobby that lists about 10 of our connect groups where we can, where you can connect with someplace.

And we know some groups are open, some groups are closed.

We know that you have groups already internally with your your community as well.

But we want everyone to be a part of a connect group.

So let's talk about some of the myths about small church, our connect groups.

Number one, people say it's a waste of time.

Waste of time.

I'm too busy, I have too many things going on in your life.

How many of you are busy?

How many of you are busy?

I know about the busyness.

I know about the busyness.

Some people say, Well, I was already at church this week.

I went on Sunday.

That's my space.

And I'll see you next Sunday.

But what happens between Sunday to Sunday is really important.

It's important for your marriages, it's important for your family, it's important for your kids.

Where is there that connection?

Number two, it's not what I want or need.

And some people say you're not talking about what I want.

I don't need to go to a small group or a small church or connect group, whatever you want to call it.

I don't want you to, I don't want to go because I'm not with the people I want to be with or uh or talking about the things that actually interest me.

I want to be in a group with my friends.

I want to be in a a place where I want to be.

And I'd have to say that we actually have a whole bunch of different groups that allow you to find that space where you just fit in.

And lastly, there's some myths about small churches that it's it's really awkward, and I get it.

There's this view that, man, if I go to someone's house, we're just gonna sit in a circle, people are gonna pray, you know, it's gonna be like a kumbaya session, it's gonna be really awkward and weird, and they're gonna want to be my friends forever, and it's and they're gonna make sure I'm committed, and next thing you know, I'm gonna be their Facebook friend, they're gonna be calling me every day.

And it's just like this oddity, that space that people think that a small group is all about.

And it's awkward.

I just want to break down some of these myths today.

What is it about small church?

Because we want to be a big church and a small church at the same time.

Small church is a place where you can really make a difference and journey with people who are going on the same track as you are.

It's really what it's all about.

It's about lining up with people who are on the same track as you're at and you're on.

And I want you to know that Kinect groups are not a waste of time.

Some of my greatest moments of spiritual development personally happened in the context of a small Kinect group.

I remember I was a part of Kinect Groups where we learned about how to discipline your kids, how to, or I should say, how to love your kids on purpose.

Uh, I was a part and it helped me in developing my kids.

I learned some truths about that I still use today on my wife.

Like, is this awesome?

It's like, do you want to go golfing or do you want to go hunting?

Which one do you want?

Hey, one of the two.

Give them choices, let them make the decision.

But you've got it, you've got it already set up with the kids.

Do you want to go to bed now or do you want to go to bed in one minute?

I'll go to bed in one minute.

Yay! You're still going to bed.

Um, I remember times that, and I think my parents, this is going back when I used to oversee a youth group.

And I remember we hosted a time when I was living at home, and I remember my parents, I think, loved having a small group at their house because I would vacuum like every Thursday morning trying to tidy up the house, right?

Because we were bringing people over.

I remember it was in that space that some of the real close relationships were actually really built.

We had people in every room, every room of the house.

The house was full, the whole house was alive.

Our neighbors knew.

Church was happening on 260 Terra Court on Thursday because Connect Group was happening at the house.

Doors open, shoes get kicked off, foods on the table, people are going in your fridge, my parents' fridge.

It was awesome.

Eating the pepperoni in the freezer, it was great.

It's where I learned, actually, where I learned to pray.

I remember we had small groups in the morning, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Kinnect groups in the lobby.

And it's where I learned to pray.

It's where I learned to hear from God.

It's where I learned to take what God was telling me and actually share it with another person.

I remember prayer groups and people coming to that space and actually growing in their faith.

It's where I recognize I studied the scripture with other people and I got to hear different perspectives of the scripture.

These connect groups were really important.

It can also become a reaching place, a place where you can invite someone to come to a home instead of coming to church on a large scale, invite them to a place on a small scale and make those invit those relationships.

Right now, uh we have a real personal group to me, is one that meets on our wet on Wednesdays with a number of guys from our church.

It's one hour from four to five, right after like some of the guys that come in right after work or try and get off work a little early or eat up their lunch hour, and they're they're there at, and we we're there so that we can be closed at five o'clock so that we can get home, dinner with our families.

And it's a great opportunity for me to just bounce things off, other guys, other peers, and other people so that I'm growing in my faith.

So it's a place where you can grow.

And I want to tell you as a pastor, you cannot grow in big church.

You can't grow in any church by just showing up on Sunday morning.

You need you need to grow in the context of relationships because God designed it that way.

God designed us to be together, to bounce things off one another, to have that community that connects on a smaller level.

Let me just share with you real quick, I don't have it on the slides, but I'm gonna say that there are four areas of your life, and and uh it's not on your notes here today, but let me talk about the first area.

The first area of your life is called the arena.

And the arena is the place that you know about your life and everyone else knows about your life.

And this would be the arena.

They know what you wear, they know how you dress, they know how you greet people, they know how you smile.

They can kind of get an idea of what's going on in your life.

It's everyone is a part of this great arena of life.

And it is an area of your life that is exposed and semi-vulnerable in that and that people you're making connection with people.

I learn a lot from you just by the first impression, who you are, your your gender, your ethnicity, your where you grew up, the way the way you're carrying yourself, your the gestures and the way you uh the way your expressions are.

There's a lot that happens in the arena of your life.

It's a very specific area.

It happens in this area.

But there's another area of your life, it's called the mask.

It's the mask, and this is the area I know about, I know about me, but you don't know about me.

It's the area behind the mask.

And this is an area that you don't know about me.

And I need to be in an environment where I can actually take the mask off and actually show who truly Brody is, who truly Brody, what Brody is feeling, what Brody has become.

And it's not like I live a duplicitous life, it's just there are things I'm not gonna share with a huge community of people that I'm gonna share in an environment of people that I that know me and care for me and who trust me.

And you can't do that in the context of a big it of a big church.

It can only happen in a Kinet group, it can only happen in a smaller community.

It's where I you learn why what causes Brody to lose his cool?

What happens where where, you know, what happens when the temper, when when this the real soft areas of his life are touched?

How does he react?

What's going on inside of him?

That's a really important place.

I believe everyone needs an area where they can drop the mask.

Another area is your blind spot.

This is the area where where you know things about me that I don't know about me.

Called your blind spot.

You see things in me that I don't see in me.

Everyone has a blind spot.

Everyone has a blind spot.

You just don't know what's in that blind spot.

You need someone to help you see what's in that blind spot.

And so, truthfully, I won't be able to receive from someone if they're gonna share something with me unless they really care for me.

And so, if someone who I don't know is just gonna say, Hey, I'm gonna tell you, well, you don't see, I'm just gonna point it out to you, it's gonna go over like a lead balloon.

But if someone who's close to me, like Malachi or Mark, or I'm out golfing one day, like this week, I was out with Mark, and and you know, he can talk to me about something he may see about me or in me that I don't see in myself.

And I gotta eat it up, I gotta own up to it, because that's what true community is, where somebody shares with you those things that you don't see, and all for the purpose of making you better.

And the last area is a layer of potential, and we all need to be in an area where we discover it, develop your potential, and grow in it.

And this can only happen in a specific environment.

So today, like today is our first uh uh class for our next steps program, and our next steps program is is designed to be able to help take you through this, through a journey of helping you discover your purpose.

Because when you discover your purpose, is is the place where you can actually help others, and it's where you can find joy in actually serving one another because you'll never know what it's like to actually live it out until you're actually doing it.

You can say you know what it is, I can say, man, I'm a great hunter.

Until I go hunting, I just never know.

I'm a great fisherman, but until I actually put my line in the water, I can't really say I am.

You actually have to start doing it.

So knowing that you have a purpose, knowing you have a call is great.

But what are you gonna do with that call?

What are you gonna do with the purpose God has called you to?

The Bible says iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another man.

One woman can sharpen another woman.

Meaning every one of us needs to be a place where there's a little friction, grinding off the edges.

If you want to get sharp, you need to be with people who will make you sharp.

It used to be church would do that at the altar, right up here, at the front of the stage, is where you'd have sharpening sessions.

And it was really sometimes really awkward and really because you're telling someone you don't know some of the things that you're having challenges with, and you're trying to find that sharpening space up here, and it's not ideal, it's not where it needs to happen for true growth, true development, true support, it needs to be in the context of a connect group, a place where you actually can grow.

So today I want to I want to tell you that it's also a place where people actually know who you are, they know your name.

And 1 John 3.16 says this we know what real love is because Christ gave up his life for us, and so we also ought to give up our lives for our Christian brothers and sisters.

And we ought to know each other's name, connect with each other.

There's man, I do not want people coming in and leaving without getting connected.

Getting connected.

If I know you're connected, I'm gonna ask you, you know, how long have you been coming?

Uh how do you hear about us?

Um, you know, this the space of um where where are you connected?

Have you heard about our small groups?

I'm gonna ask you those questions.

Have you been through our next steps program?

It's super important to us.

It's one of the four pillars of our church is to actually be connected because you are not intended to live life alone, and you're not intended to actually uh grow in that, grow isolated.

The only way you level up is you level up through community, big church and small church, large group and small group, connect groups on a personal level and on a larger level.

So if you have it all together today and your life is all perfect, wonderful, then connect groups are not for you.

But all of those who need a little help, I'm gonna tell you how you can get involved.

I've got two slides up here.

The first is a picture of our website, kccceda.net.

This is uh a few of the areas where we actually have provided for you to be able to connect.

To a number of our groups.

kcc.net is a resource for you.

If you look through the groups that are already going and happening and starting, some of the youth ones, young adult ones are starting in October.

But if you look and you're like, oh, there's a great group there to connect to, we encourage you to connect right away.

If you're just looking at it and you're like, man, I don't see anything there, but I really want to be a part of a group and I've got an idea, we're encouraging you to join or to start a group.

And there's a way for we've got people in place and ways for you to start community.

Oftentimes we find that people who are new to church, the best way for them to connect are with other people who are new to church.

And so new people work really great with new people because everyone's this in a space of beginning.

So together you can make that social network and create connections.

And we want to be a support to you and help resource you and keep you on track and grow together with you.

Um I want to just conclude today.

There's another way on our app.

On our app today, you'll see uh KCC.

You can look at it for Kelowna Christian Center under KCC.

There's one of the little uh icons there.

It's called Connect Group.

You click on that connect group and you can review it all through the app there.

So you can search it there, and then today we actually have uh a team that'll be out in the lobby who will answer some of your questions.

We are just launching this now in September.

We've got some team meetings coming up this week, and we hope to grow.

I would love to see dozens of connect groups happening within the church, places where you're connecting on all on even multiple layers.

My daughter started youth this week, and I was really excited.

She came home, she said, Dad, Malachi's such a great preacher, and I'm like, that's great, it's because you never get to hear me preach on a Sunday morning.

But Malachi's awesome.

She said, Man, I learned so much.

Malachi, we had like almost 70 people out on Tuesday night.

It was awesome.

Uh great night.

And uh, and the first thing I said is, hey, what have you talked about your Kinect group, where you're getting connected?

And she knew her, she knew uh the name of the people leading her Kinect group, and she's already excited to get connected early.

So if my kids can do it, you can do it, okay?

My challenge to you to this week is to be a part of the big church.

Look at it.

Say, hey, this week, numbers matter to God.

Who can I bring?

Who can I invite?

Who can I bring to church this week?

In the lobby, little table just outside the doors.

There are uh invitationals there.

You're welcome to take them.

Just to invite someone with information about the church, the time, the uh the information as to address, where to come to church.

I encourage you, bring someone to church with you.

It'd be great for you to be a part of the big church.

And secondly, take some time this week with your kids, with your spouse, just individually, and go through our connect groups and find a place to connect.

Amen.

Amen.

Would you bow your heads with me?

Father, I thank you that you're a big God and a small God.

You're big enough for the universe, you're small enough for our heart.

Lord, I thank you that you've given us a big church and a small church.

And thank you, Lord, for the ways we can together, when we blend those two, those two together, we can make a difference in our community.

Lord, we love you today.

We celebrate your church today.

We celebrate you as the third cord that together with you, Lord, we will not be broken.

And so we thank you today that you're continuing to set people free and to raise people up under out of the mud, putting their feet on a rock.

You're taking isolated people and bringing them close and bringing them into community.

And we thank you, Lord, that the church is growing in Kelowna.

Amen.

Give God a hand and Malachi, come on up.