Not Your Ordinary Church Service: Cool Sucks | Part 1

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

This morning we're starting a new series called Not Your Ordinary Church Service.

Not your ordinary church service.

I don't know if you've asked this question, but have you ever wondered, like, what are we doing here?

Not necessarily like on planet Earth per se.

I'm sure you've asked that question, but like here, like this gathering together, you know, why do we come to church?

Why do we gather?

Why do we sing?

Why do we do all of these things?

Why don't I just kind of podcast John Mark Comer or Levi Lesco or whoever your favorite, you know, preacher is and download the latest Maverick City track and call it good?

Like why the in-person gathering together?

What is that all about?

And if we are gonna gather, what does a not ordinary church service look like?

You know, I grew up in the church, son of a pastor, and I've been a pastor myself coming up on two decades.

And I as I was thinking about this, I realized I don't think, I can at least I can't remember ever hearing a series about church service, like what we're doing in this context.

I certainly have not preached it, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today, um, and through the series.

This is a series where we're going to walk through what we're doing here in our church service and what God has for us.

Next week, the sermon title is The Afterglow.

The Afterglow.

We're gonna talk about worship and prayer.

Week three is one in one ear, and it's all about preaching and the word of God.

Week four is gonna be messy church and gathering and community.

Week five, water plus wine on baptism and communion, and then week six, which is our birthday, September 12th, don't miss it.

Uh be one big celebration.

Uh party people, which is celebration and joy.

Now, here's what's amazing.

Think about this.

This is pretty cool.

From the very beginning of the early church, when they gathered together to today, regardless of culture, whatever continent, whether it's on Africa or Asia, South America, here in the US, all five of those elements have been present in what the church and the people of Jesus do when they gather together.

Isn't that cool?

We do this all together across the globe.

And so we're gonna talk about what does it mean to be the church?

And the sermon titled today is Cool Sucks.

Can you go ahead and say that to your neighbor?

Cool sucks.

Come on now.

Cool sucks.

There you go.

And I was really tempted.

You know what I really wanted?

I wanted a t-shirt that said cool sucks, and I really wanted to make, you know, um stickers that said cool sucks, and then I realized I was trying to make cool sucks cool there.

And I was like, okay, wait a second, I shouldn't be doing that.

But the reality is, is in the church today, at least in America, we're enamored with cool, aren't we?

We're enamored with new, we're enamored with next.

Like the pastor needs to dress really hip, wear really cool glasses, have an amazing popping Instagram game.

I was trying to sound cool, I don't know if it happened or not, but I don't normally use the word popping, but I'm trying to be hip with it there.

It didn't work.

Fine.

The worship team.

The worship team is this combination of this indie rock band that has this kind of emo style that is gonna be up on stage and you come to see, and then let's just can we talk about coffee for a second?

Because I can't worship Jesus without coffee.

Um, but you know, you need verve coffee, not Kirkland brand, because I worship Jesus better with Verve coffee than Kirkland brand, and we're enamored with cool.

We're enamored with what's hip and what's trendy.

And here's the question: what if God has more for us, friends?

What if God has more for us than we're currently experiencing in our church gathering?

If there's a richness, a depth, a belonging, a participation, a transcendent moment that God longs for us to have when we gather.

You know, after a year plus of not being able to gather, don't you want just more than an ordinary service to just go back to the old motions?

Don't you want a fresh encounter with Jesus?

See, I'd like to suggest that God wants more for us than we're currently getting in our gatherings together.

He wants more for you than you're currently getting.

And listen up, he wants more from you, from us, than we're currently giving.

You know, I remember I was nine or ten.

My family had just moved from Texas to Santa Cruz, California.

My dad was the new senior pastor at Santa Cruz Bible Church.

And think about this, it's 1990, it's Santa Cruz, Surf City.

By the way, I was not cool at all.

This hick boy in Surf City, Santa Cruz, that did not go over well.

Um and I do this is my first memory of that church.

I remember sitting in the front row with my parents because when you're the pastor's family, you have to sit in the front row.

It felt more like a punishment, and all eyes were on you when you're a little kid.

And then there was these like thrones on the stage, these big chairs, and the elders in their three-piece suits were sitting on the stage.

It was formal, it was reverent, and it was boring.

In fact, there was one pastor there, wonderful man.

Um he didn't get to preach a whole lot, and so he took that time to preach that he didn't get uh when he prayed.

And he prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed.

You know, as a nine-year-old or 10-year-old, I um I had this like little Casio stopwatch, and so the game for me was to time his prayers and to see how long his prayers went.

And you know, in church, then I would just see if he could beat his record.

His record was a little over 15 minutes, by the way.

I mean, the I mean, I love prayer and all, but that was a little long.

It was reverent, it was boring, it was stiff, it was long.

You know, I remember when drums first were able to be a part of worship service, like the drums, and I'm a drummer.

I remember the very first time I saw a drum set, I'm like, this is what I want to do.

I fell in love with the drums, and drums were kind of controversial back in the day because they weren't reverent enough, they were allowed at Santa Cruz in the early days.

Um, they had a drum set and it was off to the side.

It couldn't even be on the stage, it was off to the side, and then instead of plexiglass like we have today to kind of control some of the sound, there was a big wooden, oh, you think of it like a cubicle, a wooden cubicle with foam on the inside to deaden the sound.

I remember one Sunday evening, yes, because you back then you did Sunday evening church as well.

Now, Sunday evening church was more casual than Sunday morning church.

And so I would sit uh behind that wooden cubicle and watch Paul Sampson play the drums.

It was awesome.

It was one of my favorite like growing up church experiences, like just sitting there during worship and seeing them playing, like, I want to be like you one day, Paul.

And then one time I decided to stay back there during my dad's sermon.

Big mistake, by the way, especially as a fidgety nine or ten-year-old.

And I put, I was sat on the stool, the drum thrown right there, and I decided to kick my feet up onto the snare drum.

I lost my balance, and all of a sudden, in the middle of my dad's sermon, the snare hit into the cymbal, and there's this crashing, and there was this bang.

And that was the last time I was able to sit back there and watch Paul Sampson play.

And the church in days past, maybe it was so relevant or religious that you were afraid to make a mistake, you're afraid to be real.

In fact, you got dressed up on the outside, but you would never show anybody what's going on on the inside.

And then over the course of time, the pendulum has swung from reverence or rigid to relevance.

How do we be hip?

How do we be cool?

How do we stay connected with what's going on?

How do we make sure that when you show up, you go like, man, that was awesome.

The band was awesome, the environment was awesome.

I don't know why I'm saying awesome like that.

Honestly, I was a little confused myself.

And see, reverent to the extreme brought about a uh bit of a fake church.

Afraid to show up, rigid religious.

Relevant to the extreme has brought about a shallowed, self-centered Christianity.

And the truth is, when we look at both of those, we actually need both reverence and relevance.

See, we threw the baby out with the bathwater with rigid and stiff and boring, and we need reverence.

The reason you're here today, by the way, is you need a transcendent moment with your creator to encounter a holy God who can wholly satisfy.

That's what your soul needs.

And it's reverent and it's awesome and it's amazing, and you need relevance for the gospel to meet you right where you're at and to speak to what you're going through.

And the gospel and the gospel of Jesus meets you where you're at, but it will not leave you where you are at.

We need, as we gather, a new expression of the church that's both reverent and relevant.

So the question is, how do we start that as we regather?

How do we begin to be that kind of church?

For the last several months, there's been one passage that's just been echoing in my mind, just like rattling my soul, and it's like Jesus just saying, Ryan, this is this is what I've been up to from the beginning, and it's what I'm up to in this moment.

I think as the church we lose sight of it and just get into our old norms.

And he's like, no, no, this is what I'm about.

If you have your Bible, would you open up to Matthew chapter 9, verse 14?

Matthew 9:14

Matthew 9, the context, the context is Jesus' disciples, uh, they're not following the religious norms.

Neither are the Pharisees or even of John the Baptist disciples, and he's being questioned on this.

Like Jesus, there are norms about how we go about church, norms about how we worship, norms about the way we do things here, and they're not doing it.

What's up?

Explain yourself.

And he does.

We pick it up in verse 14.

Then John's disciples, that's John the Baptist's disciple, the one who prepared the way for Jesus, came and asked him, How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but you and your disciples do not fast?

There's three major disciplines or spiritual practices in ancient Judaism.

One was prayer, the other was fasting, second was fasting, and the final one was the giving of alms or giving to the needy, that this is just what spiritual people do.

And his disciples aren't fasting.

I mean, the Pharisees, in fact, they fasted twice a week.

What's up with that?

And Jesus answered, How can the guest of the bridegroom mourn while he's with them?

The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, then they'll fast.

He's not saying they're never going to fast, but there's a time and a place, there's a moment, and the time and the place or the moment is not now.

He goes on, No one sows a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.

Neither do people pour new wineskin into old wineskin.

If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined.

No, they pour new wineskin into new wineskin, or new wine into new wineskin, and both are preserved.

Jesus gives them three pictures to answer what he is up to.

What is Jesus up to, and how is does he change everything about the way we interact and worship God and how we relate to God Himself?

The first picture is the picture of the wedding.

Says, How can the guest of a bridegroom mourn while he's with them?

The picture of a wedding.

Now, uh an ancient Jewish wedding lasted seven days.

It was a party.

It was not something that you just kind of showed up to.

It wasn't necessarily destination, but it was a destination wedding.

You're gonna be there a while.

In fact, um the custom of the day was that you wouldn't mourn, you wouldn't fast, or do any work during the wedding itself.

Why?

Because the focus is the celebration of the bride and the groom uniting into one new life together.

Now, I just want to draw some parallels about the wedding picture for what we do when we gather together as the church.

The wedding picture here is first that the wedding is both sacred and celebratory, isn't it?

There's something sacred happening that one man and one woman are standing before God, and they're making a covenant commitment before God and before others about their relationship.

It's sacred and it's holy and it's celebratory.

And when we gather, it's the same.

When we gather, there's it's a sacredness, there's a holy moment when we gather, and there's the celebratory reality that we are here in the presence of the one who loved us, who saved us, who gave his life for us.

We're forgiven, we're redeemed, we're adopted, we've been made new, the Spirit of God lives inside of us.

So how can I not celebrate with my family members?

First is celebratory and sacred.

The second thing is who's the focus of a wedding?

Help me out.

Who's the focus of a wedding?

That was a murmur.

Try it again.

You guys, that happened to the last service too.

The bride, what happened to the groom?

The bride and the groom, the bride and the groom people are the focus of the wedding.

Come on now.

And the bride.

Yeah, the bride looks wonderful.

You're amazing, it's awesome.

But there's a there's a groom standing up there as well.

Okay.

The bride and the groom.

Friends, when we gather, don't miss this.

This will change the way you worship.

When we gather, Jesus is the focus of our gathering.

See, the church isn't all about you and me.

The church is all about Jesus, who loves broken people like you and me.

And so when we gather, we come to the bridegroom and say, it's all about you, and you're the focus, and you get all of our attention, all of our affection, and I'm lifting and directing my eyes towards you.

Picture number one is the wedding.

Picture number two, then he goes on and talks about this patch.

Now, if you're not a seamstress or have never patched anything, this may be a little bit foreign, but it's pretty simple.

If you have an unshrunk piece of cloth and I put it on these old jeans and I got a big old hole, and I put that on there and I sew it on there, the minute I wash it, that unshrunk piece of cloth is gonna what?

Shrink.

When it shrinks, it's gonna pull at them and tear and make a bigger hole.

This actually explains why some people have really struggled with Jesus.

Because what we want Jesus to do, by the way, is to add him to our life to make our life better, our old thing.

Jesus didn't come to be added to your life, he came to bring you brand new life.

And we keep trying to add him and wondering why the whole just gets bigger.

And he's going like, no, no, no.

Listen, if you try to add Jesus to the old life, to the old forms of religion, not only will it not work, it will make things worse.

And then the final picture: the wineskins.

Now I know we're pretty familiar with wineskins since you can go down to wine and porium and get yourself a wonderful new wineskin for all of your ventinine needs.

I don't even know if ventinine's the right word there.

So in the ancient day, you had two ways that you went about winemaking in two forms.

One was in a large jar, uh clay jars.

Many people who had large vineyards, they would make it this way.

You'd go to purchase a new uh, you know, some wine from them.

You would bring your wine skin, and it the wine is still in the fermenting process, even in that regard.

And so a wineskin was simply goat skin that was sewed together, it would be watertight.

They actually did a specific type of you know, tanning to it uh to prepare it so it didn't have any goatey aftertaste, which is wonderful by the way.

And so you had this incredibly uh wonderful, traveling, watertight vessel.

And yet, wine in its fermenting process, what?

The gases begin to get released and it expands.

And so when you put it into the wineskin, you close it up, it expands.

A brand new wine, uh brand new goat skin's gonna stretch.

But once it's already been stretched, it can't stretch anymore.

And so if you put new wine into that already used wineskin, all that's gonna happen is it's gonna break apart.

And here's what Jesus is saying, and this is so important.

Jesus brings about a newness that cannot be confined within the old form.

You need a new wineskin to hold the new work Jesus is doing.

Jesus is up to something new in his church.

And I believe in this season, friends, that all of the shaking of the last year, could it be that Jesus is going, no, no, I want us to, I want to see a new work in the West.

He's doing a new and fresh work in the Middle East, by the way.

He's doing a new and fresh work in China, by the way.

He's doing a new and fresh work in South America.

And could it be that this season in the life of the church and what we're going through is he's going to do a new and fresh work in us?

And the problem is what I hear people saying is I can't wait to get back to the way things used to be.

I can't wait until church fills the way it used to.

What if that's not the goal?

What if we're needing something new all together?

I want to give you four old wineskins that I believe need to be replaced in our gatherings for us to experience the fresh power and work of Jesus.

Four old wineskins that need to be replaced.

There are ordinary ways of doing church, and we want to step into the new, not ordinary service.

The first wine skin is this church as an option.

This is how we think about church, and I'm putting me in it as well.

Church as an option.

It's one of many options.

It's as a result, optional.

And the way we think about options is we kind of hold out until we get the best option, right?

And so, you know, if I have a better option, well, maybe I'll do that.

If it's a sunny day, I'm gonna go to the beach.

Maybe, you know, if I had a late night out, uh, you know, the better option is sleeping in.

We church treat it as an option.

I'll go unless I have a better one.

You know, and if I miss it, I'll podcast it later.

Who cares?

Church, I hear this as well.

Church is just something to get over with so I can get on with my day.

I know it's a good option.

I know I should do it, but I just need to get it done, right?

I need to get it behind me.

The old wineskin is this is optional, church is an option to church as a priority.

Church as a priority.

Every single week we have the opportunity to gather with the saints, to lift our eyes and see who Jesus is, and to once more be reminded of his grace and his uh power in our lives, to worship the risen King.

We aren't gathering simply to learn about Jesus, we're gathering to be with him.

You know, the early church, they didn't call Sunday Sunday per se.

You'd never see that actually in the New Testament Sunday.

Sunday actually refers to the sun god, it's a Babylonian thing.

Didn't refer to refer to it.

You know what they called it?

Called it the Lord's Day.

Why?

Because Jesus rose from the grave on Sunday.

And so they would pause and worship together to remind themselves of the finished work of Jesus every single week in community.

And said, This is your day.

It's all about you, it's all because of you.

You are the bridegroom, my attention and focus is on you.

And here's what's incredible.

When you look at churches around the world, specifically in closed countries, meaning countries where it's illegal to be a follower of Jesus, well, you where you'll be persecuted, you'll be thrown into jail.

Guess what?

Those people, those believers, they gather in secret.

They gather at night.

They gather in house churches.

They'll worship with a whisper just to be together because there's something so powerful and profound when we gather together in the name of Jesus that is just incredible and he wants to do a work.

And they say it's worth it even if we'll be persecuted.

And where we would shift, now that's an option.

Yeah, it's all right.

No, no, no, to a priority that we get to be with Jesus, with his people.

Old wineskin, is church as a consumer.

How does this service meet my needs?

We talk about it in our culture a lot of today, like church shopping.

Hey, I'm just gonna go here or there.

You know, I like the music over here, I like the teaching over here, I like the small groups over here, so then we move from church shopping to church hopping, you know.

And so some people, I I've talked to somebody, he's like, Yeah, yeah, no, I come here Sunday morning, and then I'm part of a small group over at this church and here, and I'm a consumer.

How does it meet my needs?

Well, this week was okay.

Ryan seemed to be a little intense.

I'm not sure how I like that.

He wasn't preaching for a while, he had some pinup stuff, you know, so he'll probably cool off next week.

From consumer to contributor, asking the question: what can I contribute to the body of Christ?

Listen, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead now dwells inside of every single believer.

You have been supernaturally gifted by God to not only belong to the family of God, that's amazing.

Hello.

Anyone excited that they're a part of the family of God, that you've been adopted and you've been redeemed?

I'm preaching to myself at this point makes some noise.

That's amazing.

And then you've been gifted to build up his church.

It's the reason Paul talks about it as a body, that we're all part of the body together.

And when you don't bring your gift to the table, part of our body's limping.

You know, I've been in a walking boot and a cast for months, and now I'm starting to walk a little bit better, but I limp a little bit still after my Achilles uh injury.

But the church is like that, because we have a church where only a few people are contributing instead of going, no, I'm a contributor, I'm showing up and I'm a part of this.

Oh, I dream of a day when the church in the West isn't limping, but together we're saying we're the church and we're bringing what God has given us to the table to be a blessing to one another.

From a spectator, old wineskin, to a participant.

I think this is the cousin, a consumer, contributor, spectator.

We come and watch a service, evaluate a service.

Maybe we treat worship kind of like the opening act of a concert.

Ah, that was nice.

I don't necessarily have to be there.

The main act preaching, I'm gonna come in there and just look at this, and you know, we watch people welcome, we watch all this, we're just kind of like sitting and watching and staring, instead, shifting to a participant.

I'm participating in this moment.

Like we don't just have a welcome team, we want to be a welcoming church, and that takes all of us.

We don't just have a worship team, we have a worshiping church.

Where we go, no, no, no.

We have people that are leading the way to the throne of God, but but I'm going with them.

They may be, you know, uh just ahead of us on the leading up to the mountain of God, but I am running with them to Jesus.

When I come and I hear from God's word, I'm not just kind of going, oh, that was pretty good, or man, that one joke, it didn't really didn't land, Ryan.

Try better.

Okay, I I got my Bible, I have my pen, I have my notebook, and I'm asking, like, did I like it?

I'm asking God, what did you say to me, and how do you want me to respond?

I'm participating and engaging.

And finally, old wineskin view church as self-actualization.

With new wineskin, surrender.

This is where many today see and approach church.

Self-actualization.

How do I discover myself and live my best life?

And church helps me do that.

The church exists to make my life better and more fulfilled.

And back to the patch, that's the reason many are struggling with Jesus.

Because you're adding a little bit of Jesus, trying to fulfill your life, and Jesus never said, discover yourself.

He said, Die to yourself, deny yourself.

It's not about being self-centered, it's about being cross-centered.

Jesus said, anyone who would come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me, where it would surrender my preferences, surrender, you know, my rights, surrender my job, my future, my desire to be married one day, or or desire to have a family, surrender my brokenness, where I bring all of it at the table of Jesus and say you can have it all.

It's that type of church that changes the world.

It's that type of church that's not an ordinary church service.

You know, next to old wineskins, I just wrote in red along here, cool sucks.

And then on new wineskins, I just wrote Christ Supreme, where we get a vision of his about Jesus and for him, and I'm all in surrendered to you.

You know, I wanted to help like paint a picture and give you some pictures to help, you know, make this really lock in and kind of define some of these experiences or expressions of church that we've been having so you can understand their place.

And so I have a three pictures for us about our experience of church.

And the first picture is uh the energy bar.

And I just raided my pantry.

I had no idea how many energy bars I had in my pantry.

Uh, first, I have the builder bar.

These are amazing, by the way.

I eat one almost every day for lunch.

I had one this morning for breakfast here.

I got a bunch of cliff bars over here.

Um, I have a kind bar, which to me is just kind of a healthy quote, uh Snickers, you know.

I'm like, okay, love you.

Thank you very much for that.

I have a Laura bar, I have a one bar.

I don't even know what that is.

It has a donut on the front.

That looks awesome, but never had that.

I have more of these things.

I have a keto indulge mocha.

Hello, thank you very much.

Having that after service there.

And here's what this represents.

This represents our online experience, our online church.

And part of what it is is the reality where we have to accept there is some things about this where you just need it at a time, but you don't want to live off of it.

Like this is something like, you know, you're podcasting someone, you're listening to this, and it's so good and it's so helpful.

And honestly, this is all we had during our our really shelter and place season, right?

And we're so grateful for it.

We're so thankful that we have it, but we got to recognize what it is.

It's awesome and it's good, but you don't want to live off of it.

I actually eat too many of these.

Public confession.

Um, I need to get a little bit healthier on that.

There.

The first is the energy bar, and that's what our online podcast is, and it's so wonderful that we have it, but it's not your primary source of your uh nutrition.

The second is what I'd say our is our old way of doing church or our ordinary church service, and it's really kind of the fast food option, really.

I have Chipotle here, I have in and out here, I have a jack in the box, and I have a pokey bowl right here, it's used, it's gone, it's already eaten, you cannot have it there.

And and this is all about why do we do fast food?

It's fast, it's convenient.

Grab and go.

It's it gives you more than this.

But again, if you live only on fast food, well, you know what's gonna happen there.

And by the way, there's seasons in life where this is all that you can do, right?

So you just had a brand new baby, you've been up all night long, and you're just trying to get to church when you can and just kind of just get your head above water.

Got it.

There are seasons, but you don't want your entire life to be lived off this way, and it's this grab and go mentality, and the church that's not so ordinary, and this is a crock pot.

I know some of you have no idea what that is, um, is the potluck dinner.

This is not an ordinary service.

Now, let me explain the potluck dinner because most of you have never been to a proper one.

Because today, if you're a bachelor, you go to the potluck, you grab a bag of chips and some you know, salsa and show up, and you think you did a potluck dinner.

No, thank you.

Or maybe you're a little bit more sophisticated, and so you went over to Whole Foods and got something behind the counter and brought it in as packaging.

Or if you're like me, you take it and take it out of its packaging so it looks like it's homemade.

Uh, there.

See, a potluck dinner, a real one, is where every single person brings their best dish.

Where they show up and go, This is my best dish to the table.

And you know what?

When somebody's missing from the dinner, you have a dish missing.

This is what it's designed for us as the church, where we'd say, When I show up, I'm gonna bring my best dish.

I'm doing that every Sunday.

Our worship team, our team, our welcome team, our kids team, our youth team, and where you say, I am a part of this, and this is what Sunday is intended to be, where it is this community relationship around the table, and we all bring to the table of Jesus together.

And so let me just give you just a few um application points as we close.

This is what I want us to do.

This is what, as we step into this next season, not your ordinary church service.

Here's what I'm asking of you.

First, would you commit to attend the rest of the series?

We got you made it this Sunday, awesome.

Make the next five.

Oh, I had some plans, I was gonna do a bunch.

Maybe you just adjust those.

Would you commit to attend the next six weeks?

For some, you come one out of every three weeks, and this will change just the rhythm of your life in such a good way.

When you do come, as you come, would you prepare your heart?

Like you come and you're actually already prepared for what God's gonna say to you.

Meaning, read the teaching scriptures in advance.

We're posting that on our Insta.

We're gonna put it in our email.

Would you play the Awakening Spotify where you're able to listen to worship as you come in?

We're having the songs that we'll be singing over the course of the next month on there.

Would you pray?

God, would you speak to me and through me?

Would you speak to me and through me?

Commit to attend all six weeks.

Start preparing your heart.

Friends, I gotta tell you, you have no idea how it will change your encounter today if you just started with those two things.

Three, would you arrive 10 minutes early and stay 10 minutes late?

We have an hour, 15 minute service times.

So I'm asking 90 minutes of your time.

Arrive 10 minutes early.

You know, my son just started uh basketball at Willow Glenn High School.

You know what coach said?

10 minutes early is on time.

I would love for that to be in our church.

10 minutes early is on time.

By the way, those who call Awakening Home, do you know when those who are new typically show up early.

And when we show up late, you know what it does?

They're like not able to be connected into the body of Christ and be loved.

I love the community that happens here.

Oh, that we would say, we want to get early here so we can have community and connection, and we don't want to miss the first song.

It's not a throwaway song, it's it's it's it's entering his gates with thanksgiving, and I want my heart to be prepared and be present there.

And then finally, would you ask this question?

Every single Sunday, who can I encourage?

God wants to encourage, God wants to speak to you, He wants to meet you, and He wants to speak through you.

Ask this question: Who can I encourage?

And maybe you're discouraged.

You're like, no, no, no, I don't have any encouragement in you, in me.

And I just would you lean into that?

Because it just might be that the act of encouraging someone might be what you need in that moment, and God will use that to deeply encourage you.

Not your ordinary church service.

You know, um, when I was pastoring in a land, I was young, 20-year-old youth pastor, and I had this guy from this major conference where churches sit down with me, and he's asking, hey, how can we better serve the church?

And then somewhere along the lines, I asked him, I'm like, Well, where do you go to church?

And he's like, I don't.

And then he began to share some of the heartache and pain as he walked through some real deep addictions and began to share that in the context of the church, and he got deeply wounded.

And I think that's where some of us walk in, hurt, wounded.

And it was a little bit later that I got hurt and wounded by a particular church in Atlanta.

And to the point where I really was wrestling, do I want to be a pastor anymore?

I love the drums, my brother's in music.

I was like, maybe I'll just be a drummer, move to Nashville and do that thing.

And I remember sitting with Jesus as I was spending time wrestling.

What God do you have next?

And it was just so clear.

He said, Ryan, I want you to help make my bride more beautiful.

Like I think for some of us, even as I'm talking, the Seneca goes, yeah, well, church is kind of broken out here.

And I'm just gonna hold and wait until, you know, everybody gets their act together.

And by the way, we're not a perfect church and we have all our own flaws and mistakes, and I'm not a perfect pastor, and I have my own flaws and brokenness.

But what if we began to say, it's not their problem?

And wait until they get their act together.

But we said, guess what?

We're the church.

And together we in this one moment can help make the bride of Christ more beautiful together.

As we lean in.

God, how do you want to make us your church?

You know, I asked the band to play this song New Wine.

It's been a song that's on repeat for the last several months, and the chorus says this make me a vessel.

Make me an offering.

Make me whatever you want me to be.

I'm just gonna ask as uh as we sing this song, would you just take your hands and cup them like they're a vessel?

And go, God, would you make me a vessel?

God, would you make me an offering?

And then that big bold prayer, would you have the courage to pray?

God, would you make me whatever you want me to be?

Would you do the work right now?

Holy Spirit, in our midst, as we meet together, would you move and you would you work?

And for some, you're wrestling with God right now, and there's a tension, and that make me and that break me, you're going, no, no, no.

And it's the Spirit of God drawing you, and would you say whatever you want, whatever you want, that surrender in this moment, he will meet you there, but you have to say, God, I surrender.

Whatever you want to be.

God, would you make us your church?

May we be helped to make your bride more beautiful?

May we not just go through the motions as we regather, but would you do a new movement in our gatherings?

In Jesus' name.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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