Before We Arrived - 09.06.26 - Kyle Morris

Welcome to Revive Church.

My name is Pastor Kyle Morse, and I am excited that you are with us today.

If you're new to Revive Church, uh there should be a QR code in front of you or around you.

You can take your phone and you can click on that QR code, and that'll take you to a landing page or you can find out more about our church.

But we just want you to know we are thrilled that you're here.

Hopefully, as you came in, you were greeted with a smiling face, and somebody shook your hand and let you know that we're excited that you are here.

We are excited that you are here, and we'd love to help you get connected here if you decide to make this your church home.

We have an info desk out in the lobby.

Uh, and out there, there are people that would love to answer any questions that you have and hopefully help you get connected into our community.

Right now, as a church, we are in a three-week vision series called Prepare a Place.

And what we're doing over these three weeks is last week we looked at the past, really the almost 40 years of our church's existence, and how God has been faithful through those four decades, and how the people who have come before us have actually prepared a place for us today.

And this morning we get to look at our present.

We get to look at primarily how God is using this church and this shopping center to be a place for people in Arvada and in Northwest Denver to prosper.

And so we're gonna get to hear a whole lot of incredible stories.

Uh, but before we get to more worship in the sermon, uh, I want to actually introduce you to a friend of mine.

But before I do that, I want to share the story of how we got to where we are today.

As we were envisioning the bridge, uh, and as we were thinking about a single mom with two kids, we knew that a single mom with two kids would probably need lots of coffee.

And so as we thought about what it would look like to prepare a place for a single mom, uh, we tried to figure out a way, how can we have a coffee shop here at the bridge?

And so I hunted down all of the coffee shop owners that I was connected to and invited them to come and open a shop, and it seemed like a no-brainer to me, but we couldn't find anyone who was desiring to do that or felt called to do that.

And so last summer I was actually down south at Heritage High School with my son, who was in a baseball tournament, and I have a best friend that lives down there, and so I decided to see if he wanted to connect.

And so we met at what I thought was a random coffee shop called Lost Coffee down in Littleton.

And as we walked into this coffee shop, my best friend started talking to the barista, and so I asked my best friend, Hey, are you familiar with this coffee shop?

Do you know this person?

He's like, Yes, the owner of this coffee shop actually attends church at your mentor's church about two miles up the road.

I was like, You gotta be kidding me.

So the next day, or actually that day, I texted Scott Gertie, the owner of Lost Coffee, and I said, Hey, we have this shopping center up in Arvada, and I would love to tell you about it and kind of pitch the vision of what we're trying to do to see if Lost Coffee might be a good fit.

He texted me back about three days later, he was up here touring the bridge, and he was just overwhelmed with the opportunity, and so uh they signed a lease and ended up opening a coffee shop here just a couple months ago.

And so, would you join me in welcoming the owner of Lost Coffee, Scott Garretti?

Um thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

I know you drove a long way up this morning to be with us, and but you can also check on your coffee shop while you're here.

So it's like yeah, we get working today.

I get it.

It's awesome.

Um you're a follower of Jesus Christ, I am, and you own six coffee shops, and you own this lost coffee brand.

And so I think what I think would be helpful for us is just to hear um, I know you're passionate about people, and you're passionate about coffee, and so talk a little bit about the intersection of loving people and loving coffee and how you're seeing flourishing, not just here locally, but even globally.

Yeah, well, thanks for this opportunity, and nice to meet you all officially up here.

Um, our mission is to love people, love coffee, and when I was presented with that mission, I told the Lord I can't do that.

Like everybody knows that I'm not very good at loving around.

And he said that's okay, my blood coverage.

And so it would have took a lot of courage for me to put that mission out there, but it's a man for a mission in uh in serving our community.

And then for me in serving ourselves a beautiful way.

I think I thought it was like we bring life to the races.

So when I was in the raining one night was actually my birthday, I'm like, what am I doing?

And I was reminded the word reminded me of that.

We bring life for the birthday.

That's what we're gonna do.

So we bring life to the communities we're in.

Um we hope that you can join us.

We're we're doing a little non-profit event uh Monday, uh the 17th, I think.

Uh, over here to do a cleanup at the uh open to our nature reserve.

But we start just with uh each person as an individual, whether we're serving our guests, we're serving each other.

Uh and we make that connection in loving coffee all the way back to origin.

So uh we're excited to bring that here.

Uh we hope to see, you know, a great partnership between Revive and Love Coffee.

And grateful for Kyle, uh reach out and provide this opportunity for us.

Share a little bit about the story of your supplier of coffee and particularly what he's trying to do in his community.

Yeah, so I was telling Kyle we sat with Don Jorge.

Um, and we talked we talk about hospitality, we go to Origin, we're in Guatemala.

Don Jorge and his family have built this amazing farm.

And his father was an alcoholic, and his mother passed away at five years old, and he was picking coffee to provide for his family, and thought to himself, if I could just own one coffee plant one day.

And now he owns his whole hillside, so it's really beautiful.

He has an Apiary there.

Um and so we're sitting around a table with him and he's hosting us, and we're drinking something kind of suspicious looking at our interpreter, like, should we drink this or not?

And they're just being very gracious.

And I'm like, Don hurry, what's that building out there?

And he goes, Oh, that's our church that we're building.

And I said, Oh, well, uh, when when's it gonna be done?

And he's like, Well, the Lord does the work.

We don't know, it might be two years or twenty years from now.

So I just thought that was beautiful, and then through the interpreter, he's like, Oh, you know, are you a Jesus follower?

And I said, Yeah, and he's like, We're part of the same kingdom, and he started preaching to me.

But like, this guy's put to action that loving piece where he now has built a school, um, they minister to families in the area, and there's uh a fair amount of indigenous people around there.

So it's a beautiful connection, I say, in coffee.

It's very unique.

We're connected here to our community, and we're connected to our partners throughout the world.

And so that's awesome.

Yeah.

Um, I want to make you aware of Lost Coffee's grand opening, and we have a slide, and there's gonna be all kinds of fun stuff on this weekend.

There's a cleanup time, a community service project at Tupons that you can be a part of.

Uh, there's also gonna be a bouquet flower making station that's gonna happen on one of these days.

So, fellas in the room, great opportunity to bring home some flowers.

Um, I would love for you, if you're not already, I would love for you to advocate for lost coffee, and here's why.

The reason why lost coffee is a different opportunity than anything else around us is when you choose lost coffee and when you purchase a cup of coffee, what that does is that money allows lost coffee to operate in the bridge, and their rent rate, what they pay on a monthly basis, actually goes to the prospering and the sustainability of the bridge.

So you're drinking coffee and doing good.

So in case you needed an excuse to buy the$6 latte, there it is.

You're drinking coffee and doing good, and so we appreciate the work you're doing.

And uh, yeah.

Thank you.

And I just want to pray for Scott if he'll join me.

I just want to pray for his uh it's a it's a business and a ministry.

God, thanks for Scott.

Thank you for his heart to love people really well and to love coffee and to find the intersection of purpose in those two things.

Lord, thank you for the impact he's having through the bridge and Littleton Promise.

Uh the places where he's choosing to invest, the places like Guatemala, where uh people's lives are literally being changed and churches are being built because of the sustainable practices that God is supporting in these coffees of origin.

And so we just pray for him, bless him, bless his family, protect his family, God.

God, give him ways where the gospel can just seamlessly interweave with all that he does.

Pray for his employees, God, that they would see in Scott this deep desire to host and to love well, and that they would be compelled by that to ask a question.

Pray for his leadership team, the men and women that are around him every day who don't know you, God, we pray.

Lord, that they would see God, that they would ask a question, that we would be compelled by the kind of man that he is, not because he's perfect, but because he's been broken before you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Until depressed treasures and faith, never alone.

You came along, bringing back together.

Every desire is now satisfied, here in love.

Better than you all is not him, better than you all is not him.

Some of the faith Show you my weakness failures and force for you seen all that still called me 'cause it got up.

Your mercy grace on me can you come on, sir.

Oh, this nothing's nothing, and you know this night, nothing is nothing.

Come on, need to death only, better than you know this nothing, I do that you know this nothing.

Nothing is better than you all this nothing, better than you know this nothing, and it's not dead.

So you were the word at the beginning, you were the word at the beginning, one with God the Lord most high, hidden glory in creation, now reveals you are Christ, what a beautiful name it is.

Come on, what a beautiful name it is, her name of Jesus Christ I came.

What a beautiful name it is, nothing compass to this, what a beautiful name it is, her name of Jesus.

What a wonderful name is the name of Jesus.

Sing this out together.

Death cannot hold you.

Death could not hold you, dance or before you silence the boast of sin and grave.

Every voice, the heavens, praise of your glory, for you are raised to life.

You have your rival, you have your vehicle now when the foreign god you're taking the kingdom, your coin, your text and the same.

What a powerful name it is, the name, what a powerful name it is, the name of Jesus.

What a beautiful name it is.

The name of Jesus Christ.

What a beautiful name it is.

We pray this in the mighty and powerful name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, team.

We appreciate you guys.

Can we give it up for these guys?

Well, good morning.

Eric and I have some friends that live in Opalica, Alabama.

Uh their names are John and Ashley Marsh.

And if you've been around Revive for a number of years, then uh this picture, you will recognize these people because they sat on our stage in the development of the whole bridge vision, and they were instrumental to the process.

Um, they do incredible work in Opalica, Alabama, and really throughout the entire United States, coming alongside people and resurrecting uh old little towns that have value, but the value is hard to see.

And so they do incredible things.

Even in their own little town of Opalica, they've purchased over a hundred homes, and they basically have redeemed those homes and moved the people back in without changing their rent.

It is a beautiful story.

Um, I feel compelled to share this.

Um, John and Ashley Marsh and the work that they're doing and the redemption that they're seeing in their community.

I feel compelled for someone in this room or someone watching online that maybe you've given up on your marriage or you think that your marriage is irredeemable, I want to encourage you to Google Marsh Collective Story.

And I want you to watch their story because there was a moment in time where John was in the upstairs in the attic of their home in their early 20s and he was about to hang himself.

And at the same time, Ashley was pregnant and carrying another man's child.

And in that moment, God said, I'm not saying for you to kill yourself, I'm saying for you to die to yourself.

And God redeemed it in such a beautiful way.

And so, if you're in the room, I feel compelled, if you've given up on your marriage, it is not too late.

God can redeem it and restore it and bring beauty from ashes.

I don't know who that's for, but I hope that you'll you'll watch their video and be encouraged that God brings things that are dead back to life.

A few years back, Eric and I decided to go out to Opalika to stay with our friends John and Ashley Marsh, who own this beautiful property in this basement with this walkout pool.

It's just an amazing place.

And about a week before our trip, you maybe have heard this story, we received a link by email from Ashley with a hospitality questionnaire.

I opened up the link, and there were 10 questions, some for me and some for Erica.

Questions like, What is your favorite snack?

What is your favorite color?

What is your favorite drink?

And what is your favorite flower?

What is your desired thermostat temperature setting?

What kind of pillow do you prefer?

Foam or feather?

I was blown away by this entire questionnaire because we had never received anything like this, but we filled out the questionnaire and kind of forgot about it until we walked downstairs into their basement, and every detail that we mentioned in the survey was waiting there for us.

Sparkling water in the refrigerator for Erica, her favorite brand.

Iced tea ready for me to drink, fresh hydrangeas on the table in the bedroom, a greasy bag of restaurant-style chips.

You know what I'm talking about?

With restaurant-style salsa, not the paste.

And yes, oh yes, the thermostat set to the exact temperature that we had mentioned a week earlier.

John and Ashley prepared a place for us.

They thought about us before we arrived.

And what a powerful image of generosity and extravagant love.

For someone to take the time to learn your preferences or to learn your wants or your needs or your desires, and then to prepare a place with those things in mind.

What if this kind of hospitality, what if that kind of hospitality was what Christians were known for?

Hospitality that whispers, doesn't scream it, doesn't look for applause or recognition.

But what if what if this kind of hospitality, the way that we live our lives, just whispered?

Hey, we thought of you before you arrived.

When we say prepare a place as a church, and we think about this vision for the next five years, this is the common language that I believe God is inviting us to live out at the bridge and here at Revive Church.

The language of hospitality that says we we thought about you before you arrived, not just to people who show up on our campus, but what about people that we host in our homes?

What about meetings that we have in our workplaces?

What about the way that we treat mothers and fathers and single moms and dads on our children's soccer teams?

What if everything we walked into and asked that question, what are the needs of the person on the other side of me?

How do I anticipate and meet those needs?

And so where does this I where does this idea come from?

I actually think it comes from God Himself, all the way back in the very beginning.

When you read the opening chapters of Genesis, one of the first things that we discover before God created Adam and eventually Eve is that he prepared a place for them.

There was beauty and there was provision and there was order to the world that they inhabited.

If you have a Bible, turn with me to Genesis chapter 1, and we're going to begin this morning in a familiar passage, Genesis chapter 1, verse 26.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention Genesis 1:26

Before we read that, let's pray together.

God, our Father, Jesus, the Son, Holy Spirit, we thank you for the gift of your presence.

We thank you for the gift of creation that you thought of us before we arrived.

You didn't think of us in the sense of preparing a place because you needed something from us.

You didn't think about it in terms of something missing within your character or your being, but you are fully pleased within the Godhead, and yet you chose to create us.

You chose to prepare a place.

You chose to demonstrate love, hospitality, and extravagance for your creation.

Would we be the kind of people who follow your example, who think of others before they arrive?

It's in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Genesis 1, beginning in verse 26, reads this way Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them.

And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed and its fruit, you shall have food.

You shall you shall have them for food, and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.

And it was so.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

And there was evening and there was morning the sixth day.

Now you've likely read this part of the story at some point in your life, or you've at least heard the creation story secondhand.

The account of the first humans that God created distinctly and uniquely from all of the rest of his creation.

We are the only aspect of creation that bears the likeness and the image of God.

We were created imago day, meaning in his image, and that's why you will never look into the eyes of another person that God doesn't love.

Because every person bears the image of God.

Before we get to Genesis chapter 1, 26, which we just read, the creation of humanity, what comes before this?

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Do you know?

I hope you know.

Right?

The creation of the heavens and the earth.

That's how the Bible began.

The Bible begins by God preparing a place for Adam and Eve to live.

Have you ever considered the order of creation?

I mean, think about it for a moment.

What if God would have created Adam and then the world and then the Garden of Eden?

Imagine the confusion.

Imagine the disorientation for Adam if the moment he opened his eyes, if he was surrounded by nothingness, a world formless and empty, chaos without order.

This matters.

But that's not the order that God created.

Instead, light emerged by God's voice.

The sky and the water were separated from one another, creating land and sea.

Vegetation appeared with fruit and seed-bearing plants.

The sun and the moon and the stars were created, and God gave each of them a job, and there was a designation of each of them to mark seasons and days and years.

Fish filled the waters.

My son, who's a fly fisherman, he's like, Amen.

Birds covered the skies, and land animals of every kind populated the earth.

Have you ever thought about this?

All of this was done before God took the dust of the earth and blew the breath of life into Adam's nostrils, creating him uniquely in his image.

God first prepared a place.

Now imagine this with me as Adam opened his eyes.

He didn't open his eyes to chaos or disorder.

In fact, before Adam opened his eyes and before he took his first steps, God had already curated a perfect place for him to live where he could survive.

Where there was water to drink and sunlight for life and moonlight for sleep and beef to eat.

Amen.

But there's more.

There's more.

This next passage is why Christians should never operate in scarcity.

But unfortunately, we're known for that.

We're known for sometimes operating not with an abundance mindset, but with a scarcity mindset.

We do not serve a God who operates in scarcity.

He's abundant, he is extravagant.

He's able to do immeasurably more than we could even ask or imagine.

See, God created all of this before he created Adam, but he also prepared a specific place for Adam and Eve to live.

And not just a place where they could live, a place where they could thrive.

Look at Genesis chapter 2, verse 8.

Genesis 2:8

And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east.

And there he put the man whom he had formed.

And out of the ground the Lord made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers.

The name of the first is the Pishon.

It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Hevilah, where there is gold.

And the gold of that land is good.

Bedellum and Onyx stone are there.

Like this is God's extravagance.

This is God's abundant character on all on full display because not only did God set the cosmic thermostat for Adam and Eve to be able to survive, he did much more than that.

This wasn't just about Adam's survival on planet Earth.

This was about his thriving.

God prepared a place for him to thrive.

A place where his presence could be with them.

A place where they would have not just what they need, but more than they needed.

Every tree that is pleasant to the eye and good for food, a river that flowed through it to water the gardens to make sure that everything was perfectly ripe.

A land source filled with gold and other precious metals, right?

This is beyond hospitality.

This is beauty and extravagance and abundance.

This is the God that we serve.

This is a place that communicated, hey, I thought of you before I created you.

And here is everything that you need to thrive.

Now, I realize for most of us, this is the first time that we've thought about the creation story through this lens.

But I think it's important that in this story we see the character of God.

That in the beginning there was a hospitable God.

A God who chose to create humans in his image, not because he was unhappy or lonely, but out of an expression of love and generosity.

And this humanity that he created, that is us.

He created us with thoughtful and intentional design.

And he created a place for there to be life and thriving.

He didn't create spaces with an attitude of scarcity or, hey, the bare minimum will do, or the minimum viable product.

No, no, no, no.

He prepared places with a generous and abundant mindset.

That is the God who we serve.

The God who says, I thought of you before you arrived.

Now, I believe this tagline, I thought of you before you arrived, or we want to be a church who prepares places for others to encounter the presence of God.

I believe that this is where God is leading us, that God is leading us to show what love actually looks like, and love actually looks like not just a proclamation of God loves you, but a demonstration of God loves you.

Last week I shared the story of God's provision for our church, about the 40 years of God's faithfulness to this place and for those who have come before us, the thousands of people who have prayed and who have given and who have served and who have testified to the goodness of God as a part of Revived Church.

And so all of that together, I made the case last week.

Hopefully, you walked out going, hey, this is a place that was prepared for us.

Like somebody thought about us before we got here.

Somebody thought about the seats that you're sitting in when they were installed.

Somebody thought about this campus and thought about, hey, what do what do people need when they walk into church so that all of the distractions are put aside so that people can encounter a God that loves them.

Now I want us to continue that story, and I want us to look at our present, where we are right now.

I want us to look down at our feet right now in this present moment because it's important that we see where God is moving and the activity He's inviting us to join into.

And last week we spent a whole lot of time talking about the 40 years of God's provision to this moment.

And I hope you walked out of the room last week encouraged that God has his hand on this place.

And there are things that we are doing today that absolutely no one that has been connected to this church presently or in the past can take any credit for.

We call this having front row seats to miracles.

We've had front row seats to seeing God do things that only he can do.

We can't fabricate it, manufacture it.

It's just God moving on the hearts of people to do some crazy generous things.

But this campus, Revived Church and the Bridge, it's not about a financial transaction.

It's not about a real estate deal.

This is a story about preparing places where people can encounter hope, where life can return to people's eyes.

Have you ever seen that happen?

Man, it's cool.

I get to walk around this campus every single day because we're not a church that's open two hours a week on a Sunday morning.

We are a church that literally is open every single day.

And I'm watching in these different spaces that our partners are leading and that we get to lead with them.

I'm watching life return back to people's eyes.

There's nothing like it.

You see, as followers of Jesus, as I mentioned last week, we recognize that earth is not our final home.

But while we are here, God has planted us in specific locations and places.

And he's invited us, as he did the people of Israel in exile in Babylon.

He's inviting us to seek the peace and the prosperity of our city to which he has called us to.

He's invited us to be here as exiles, waiting for Jesus' return, but not sitting on our hands, not retreating from a culture, not becoming like the culture, but instead being transforming agents to the culture.

That's what we're called to be, and that's who we're called to serve.

We're called to care about the economic and the relational and the spiritual well-being of those around us.

Why?

Because God cares about them.

He cares about us.

He knows that we were once lost and yet we were found.

And so our desire was never simply to own property.

Our desire was to prepare a place where people could experience flourishing in the name of Jesus Christ.

We wanted to create a platform of organizations and ministries and businesses and relationships that could come together for the good of our city and the glory of God.

And so, in many ways, the bridge was born out of that conviction.

How do we look at this 115,000 square foot shopping center and answer the question how do we help this place become a platform for people to prosper?

Yes, spiritually, but also mentally and economically and relationally.

And so as we thought about the bridge and as we thought about programming the bridge, we had big questions on our mind.

Now, before we talk about how we got to this place of programming the bridge, I want to put this picture up on the screen because when I think of all of the front row seats to miracles, this is the one that blows my mind maybe more than anything.

Prior to us owning the shopping center, we owned 76,000 square feet of the shopping center.

And at the time, we as Revived Church, we inhabited 76,000 square feet.

We were kind of spread out all over the shopping center, doing good ministry, but not necessarily stewarding the space that God gave us very well.

And this generation of Revived Church, not only did you support us going from using 76,000 square feet on a Sunday morning to 30,000 square feet on a Sunday morning, you paid millions of dollars to do it.

When I talk about the story of the bridge and the testimony, this is the part that blows everyone away.

So hold on for a minute.

You guys did a capital project that shrunk your church 46,000 square feet, and your people paid millions of dollars to do it?

I'm like, yeah, I don't.

Why is that?

Because this church has always been a community externally focused church who thinks outside of themselves.

And so when we were given the opportunity by God to own the bridge, we we started asking questions about our church.

What are the people of Revived Church passionate about?

What strengths, what collective strengths do we have as a church that makes our church unique?

What are we already doing in this community where we see God working?

And these questions actually led us to avatar.

When I say avatar, I mean a person or a group of people that we're trying to serve, and in the midst of trying to serve that group of people, we will end up serving a whole lot of others.

And so our avatar or the person that we thought about before she arrived was a single mom with two kids.

We thought about a single mom with two quick kids, and we began to ask the question: what if this 115,000-foot shopping center, what if it became a platform of purpose where economic, relational, and spiritual flourishing could happen for a single mom and her two kids, what would we need, or what would be the evidence that we thought of this person before they arrived and they walked around our campus and went, hey, somebody saw me.

And so we thought, okay, a single mom might need help with child care.

A single mom might need workforce training and the ability to make a good wage.

A single mom might need counseling if she's coming out of an abusive background.

A single mom might need a loving and supportive church.

A single mom might need diapers and food support for a time.

A single mom might need quality clothing that she can afford.

And of course, every single mom needs coffee and lots of coffee.

And so this is where we started.

And to be honest, every room that we walked into as leaders, we walked in and we just said, hey, we don't know what we don't know.

We lead a church, but when it comes to building this platform of purpose where we have these united organizations that are going to come alongside in order to bring flourishing, particularly to the single mom and her two kids, we don't know what we don't know.

But God knew.

And what's happened in the process is I can tell you story after story of single moms with one kid or two kids or three kids or four kids, and the bridge has absolutely changed their lives.

But I can also tell you a story about a 46-year-old man who the bridge changed his life.

And so the amount of people that are being impacted by this platform of purpose that we call this the bridge, this ecosystem of organizations coming together to promote economic, relational, and spiritual flourishing is unbelievable.

So let me let me walk through these organizations and a little bit of what they're doing in partnership with the bridge and Revived Church.

Cross purpose is helping individuals and families move beyond poverty through career development, through mentorship, through meaningful employment.

And right now, just on our campus alone, we have seen 226 graduates.

226 graduates who are now living at a wage that gets them above the poverty line.

70 of those 226 graduates, they actually went through our optional spiritual formation classes that we get to lead as a staff.

And so this year alone, we've seen a number of people baptized through our partnership with Cross Purpose.

Lionheart Children's Academy.

Lionheart is providing high-quality Christian education and childcare, allowing families to drop their children off to know what is being taught to their children.

Currently, there are 160 kids that are enrolled at Lionheart.

50% of the families who utilize Lionheart are unchurch families.

And we love it.

Every time a Lionheart family walks through our doors on a Sunday morning, we celebrate.

We're not in it for anything else other than the fact that we want to introduce families and children to Jesus, particularly at a young age, because we know in those first years it is so important because their minds are being formed, their habits are being formed.

So we get to be on the front lines of that.

Primary purpose.

Primary purpose provides a safe place for hundreds of people to come and find support every single day in overcoming addiction.

Alternatives Pregnancy Center is serving women and families facing unexpected pregnancies with compassion, practical support, and hope.

And I love Alternatives Pregnancy Center because they are absolutely unapologetically pro-life.

But if somebody makes a decision to choose to terminate a pregnancy, guess what?

They don't kick them out the door.

They walk with them in love through counseling.

And it's a beautiful picture of Jesus and the gospel.

Lighthouse counselors are helping people pursue healing and restoration.

Celebrate recovery is helping people find freedom from habits and hurts and hang-ups.

Lost coffee is becoming a gathering place where relationships are naturally beginning to form, where drinking coffee also supports community impact, not just here, but even in places like Guatemala.

The hub, which at the beginning of the bridge, this is not something we plan, but the hub is a centrally located space on our campus that Bob Brossman and Kathy Paxton, they are there in order to meet with people who have a need.

And the people that they meet with, they may have a need that there's something on our campus that we can hand a person off to, but also they have made all kinds of connections with people off of our campus, trusted partners, where we can give a warm handoff to someone who might need housing right now, or they may need something that we don't have to offer.

They're literally helping hundreds of people just by sitting across from them, showing them love and dignity, and helping them take their next steps.

The food pantry.

I mean the food pantry, I don't know if you know this, the food pantry has exploded.

I looked at the numbers of how much food we're serving.

Every number is like 144 percentage points higher than last year.

I mean, it's nuts.

They're literally rescuing tons of food and providing people with dignity and vulnerable situations.

Not only that, but this year Bob and Kathy had the opportunity to launch a senior day on Tuesday mornings.

For whatever reason, in our culture, seniors have kind of been pushed to the side.

And our church is standing in the gap and saying, no, no, no.

You have value, and not only do you have value, but we want to create a space of community for where if you need food, you can receive food, but it's also a place where you can come and you can just gather with other seniors and have meaningful conversations.

I'll be honest with you, when I come in the door on Tuesdays at 8 a.m., there are typically five to ten seniors who are waiting for it to open.

I don't think it opens.

What time is it open?

10:30, Bob?

Two hours they're standing outside.

And it's this beautiful picture.

Now, none of this in the food pantry happens without volunteers.

There are tons of volunteers every day who are making this work.

Bob and Kathy have made it a point to rescue any and all food that they possibly can.

And so there are food pickups and food drop-offs, and there are thousands of people.

Over 20,000 people will be served this year just by our food pantry alone.

CFCE serves children and families facing developmental and gross motor challenges, literally, kids who are coming onto our campus and learning to take their first steps.

Action behavior centers are preparing places for families who have children who are on the autism spectrum to grow in their skills in order to reach their potential.

PAX of Hope.

PAX of Hope is coming alongside thousands of children who are in difficult situations and providing necessary items that bring hope and encouragement.

These children, many of them, are being taken out of their home because of neglect or abuse.

And what they have, what happens is PAX of Hope provides a backpack with meaningful things for a child as they're making that difficult transition.

PAX serves nine counties in Colorado in 19 locations, delivering 13,000 backpacks.

Listen to this stat.

In PAX of Hope's lifetime, they have had 4,500 volunteers who have served 36,000 hours.

Not to mention that a few years ago, Pax of Hope partnered with Jefferson County, and now we are a place where youth who have court-ordered community service can come and they can serve on our campus.

And there are stories that are coming out of this that are amazing and beautiful.

Stories of youth and their families who are being given a second chance, who are being pointed to hope by Amanda and her team.

And it's a beautiful thing.

Haven't Hope is bringing mentoring and tangible resources to over 50 single moms and families who need support and guidance and Revive Church, which, make no mistake, Revive Church is the center of the bridge.

The bridge is Revive Church, and Revive Church is the bridge.

We're providing a spiritual home for anyone who is seeking to know more about the goodness of God through his Son Jesus Christ.

You see, over time, what has emerged on this property is not simply a collection of organizations sharing a campus, but instead it is a community who is committed to seeking the peace and the prosperity of our city through economic, relational, and spiritual flourishing.

Now, here's what's amazing as we stand back and as we look at the work that God is doing here.

There are so many things that God is doing here that we had no idea he would do.

It's almost like if you walk in faith with God and you open up a space for people to encounter him, it's almost like, yes, they might encounter him in the ways that you've planned, but they will encounter him in so many other ways as well.

There are things that God is doing that are beyond what we had hoped or imagined.

The way that people are walking onto our campus and they're experiencing one need met, but then that one need turns to two needs, turns to three needs, turns to four.

The way that this has become, in many ways, a one-shop stop for people to experience flourishing is amazing.

Right after the bridge launched, I was at the food pantry on a Saturday and I was sitting in there, and a woman came up and she sat next to me.

And we started talking, and I found out that she had two children.

She was a single mom.

She had left a relationship, and one of our revived church members had taken her and her children in to live in her basement.

And as I was talking to her, I realized that what she needed or her next step in order to experience flourishing, it was steps away from our food pantry.

That Lionheart could be a place where she could enroll her children and they could hear about the love of Jesus Christ and it would be a safe space for them.

And cross-purpose could be a place that she could enroll and take her next steps in career development.

And so she became a leader and ultimately graduated from the process while her children were at Lionheart, and today she serves as a teacher with her children at Lionheart Academy.

You can't make this up.

And on one particular Sunday, because of the impact of the bridge and because of our partners, on one particular Sunday, we baptized her, her children, and her parents on one Sunday.

Three generations of life change.

Then Brandon's story, I'm gonna cry because I'm trying not to look at you, but uh Brandon, one afternoon, I was throwing, he was throwing the frisbee out here, and I was meeting with Scott Downing, and I was compelled to just go out and talk to him.

And as we began talking, I realized that he and I are about the exact same age.

And he shared with me that he had been going to primary purpose and he had started coming to Revive Church, and he had been sober for a few months, and really sober for the first time in his life.

And as we talked about his life, and I talked about the difference that God could make, it was it was overwhelming.

I sensed the Spirit of God on the conversation, so I put my hand on him and I prayed over him, and we just both started weeping together.

And I didn't know exactly what would transpire in his life from that moment, but I knew God was doing something.

Shortly after that, Brandon applied to be a leader at Cross Purpose.

And so he started in the journey of training to become an administrative assistant.

And as that process was unfolding, he continued to come to Revive Church and he continued to come and sit on the first row for both services, and he became a leader within our guest services ministry.

And through that process, he gave his life to Jesus Christ and was baptized.

And then when Lost Coffee opened, Scott hired him to work at Lost Coffee, and he's gotten more and more connected to our church.

And in October or November, he's gonna go on his first mission trip to Kenya.

There's another story that stands out to me.

Not someone who came to the bridge seeking services, but someone who's actually an employee at Cross Purpose.

This employee got plugged into the faith classes that we were offering and that we still offer up at Cross Purpose.

And he was getting support from the food bank, and eventually we were able to hand him the keys to a car that a generous revived church member donated.

Not only the keys to that car, but servicing that car for the next couple of years on his behalf.

And so now he today is able to come to church in person and doesn't have to spend five hours on a transit every day to get here.

Can you imagine?

Then there's the story of a single mom with two boys.

She also was a leader at Cross Purpose and came to the faith classes that we taught.

She began attending Revived Church and she enrolled her oldest at Lionheart and her youngest at Action Behavior Center.

She taught at Lionheart while she was looking for a job and trying to move closer to Arvada.

And today, upon her graduation from Cross Purpose, she works as a CNA.

She dedicated both of her sons at our last celebration Sunday and is in the Revived Church membership pipeline.

She has experienced economic, relational, and spiritual transformation, largely, guess what?

Because God was already at work before she stepped onto this campus.

But the bridge and Revived Church allowed the privilege of her to come and to experience all of these resources.

I can't, like I had to narrow it down.

I gotta just share a few.

I don't have all that.

I mean I literally have more stories than I can tell of what God is doing here.

The way that He's changing the trajectory of people's lives.

Because there was a group of people, not just today, but over the last 40 years, who said, Hey, I thought of you before you arrived.

If you go back to the beginning, Adam's first experience of reality was stepping into a world that God had thoughtfully prepared in advance.

And we are seeing that on this campus every single day, people are being transformed because they're walking onto this campus and they're experiencing a place that's prepared.

Now God's doing those kind of things.

He's also doing things that we would have never thought he would do.

One of my favorite things about what has happened through the bridge is not anything that we've planned, but it's what God has planned in advance.

Several years ago, if you remember, we decided to remove a large chunk of our parking lot out here and we put a green space in.

At the time, to be honest, we were putting that green space in in order to break up the asphalt jungle.

At the time, we thought, okay, maybe this could be a place where our church members can sit and enjoy a cup of coffee.

Maybe it can be a place where our student ministry can use to play volleyball or football or whatever they want to do.

And they're certainly doing that, but we could have never imagined how that space would eventually serve one of our ministry partners.

CFCE serves children and families who are facing developmental and gross motor challenges over time.

We began to look out the window of our office.

We began to see children touching that grass with their hands and their feet, pulling on it.

We didn't know that God was creating a tactile experience on our campus.

We didn't know that in between our church and the offices in that breezeway, that that giant concrete breezeway would be used as a canvas for their art.

We didn't know it.

We didn't create the space for those children, but God did.

We didn't know that that same green space would be used every single day by Lionheart for the children to run around and laugh and play and to fill it with a foam pit.

We didn't know that that same green space, every single day, that lighthouse counselors would take out onto that green space children that they're counseling and give them a tactile experience through throwing the football to break down barriers and walls.

We had no idea.

But God did.

God prepared the place for them.

I got like three pages of stuff that I won't go into right now because the Lord has also prepared a place spiritually for us to come to the table for communion.

And so I'll hold what I have for next week to talk about the future and some of the things that we believe God is doing and inviting us to do on this campus to continue to prepare a place for people.

I'm convinced though that the future, as we look to it next week, our primary invitation is not to build new spaces, but instead, our primary invitation is to be the kind of people who represent those spaces.

The kind of people who are so filled with the Spirit of God that we are willing to meet people right where they are.

You see, this the future of this vision is not so much about the spaces that we'll continue to build.

The future of this vision is actually to look at what the Bible says as it relates to the fact that Jesus said, I'm going away and I'm preparing a place for you, but while I'm preparing a place for you, another will come.

My spirit's gonna come.

And guess what?

You're gonna host my spirit.

And so, what does it look like individually and collectively as a church to say, hey, not just that we prepare places for people to encounter God, but we prepare a place in our hearts where He is welcome.

My mentor, Brother E, who's 85 years old, he's also John Marsh's mentor.

He said, There's a psalm that says that God inhabits the praise of his people.

Have you heard that psalm?

That word inhabit, it literally means to sit down.

My heart for the future of this church is that we would be a people who prepare a place where Jesus is welcome to just come and sit.

Just to sit with us, to work through us.

And we would be a people that are so surrendered to Him that we say, God, prepare the place in me.

Work with me to prepare a place for others.

So I'm gonna invite us just to close our eyes for a moment.

God, we're just grateful.

We're grateful for the ways that you're using this church to change and transform people.

We know that it's not any work that we do on our own.

Any work that we do on our own is fleshly work.

We want to do the work that is inspired and led by your spirit.

And so as we consider this present moment where we have lots to celebrate, but we look toward the future of where you're leading us, we want your spirit to rule this place.

We want your spirit to control this place individually as we are the temple of your Holy Spirit, but collectively as we are temples of your Holy Spirit.

I pray that you would have your way here in us as we are prepare a place first and foremost for you to dwell, and then we join you in preparing places for others to experience you.

Jesus' name.

Amen.

This morning we have the opportunity to come to the table to remember and celebrate the communion.

And as we begin this, someone