Impact Sunday (Impact part 4)

Lord, thank you for this morning and thank you for your family that has gathered here today.

And, lord, on this special Sunday morning, we just pray that we realize all of the ministries that we have here and all of the blessings and resources that we have available to us.

And, lord, just help us use those blessings greatly for your kingdom and we just want to use what you give us to show other people the love of Christ.

And just help us continue to do that this morning and as we continue with all these ministries and Holy Spirit, we invite you in here this morning to cover us and encourage us, and it's in your son's name we pray.

Amen, amen.

In your son's name we pray Amen, amen, how I long to breathe the air of heaven.

Where pain is gone and mercy fills the streets, to look upon the one who bled to save me and walk with him for all eternity there will be a day when all will bow before him.

There will be a day when death will be no more, standing face to face with he who died and rose again.

Holy, holy is the Lord.

Every prayer we prayed in desperation, the songs of faith we sang through doubt and fear.

In the end, we'll see that it was worth it.

When he returns to wipe away that it was worth it.

When he returns to wipe away our tears.

There will be a day when all will bow before him there will be a day when death will be no more.

Standing face to face With he who died and rose again.

Holy, holy is the Lord.

On that day we join the resurrection and stand beside the heroes of the faith.

With one voice a thousand generations sing.

Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

Forever he shall reign.

So let it be.

Today we shout the hymn of heaven With angels and the saints we raise a mighty roar Glory to our God who gave us life beyond the grave.

Holy, holy is the Lord.

So let it be.

Today we shout the hymn of heaven with angels and the saints.

We raise a mighty roar glory to our God who gave us life beyond the grave.

Holy, holy is the Lord.

Holy, holy is the Lord.

Holy, holy is the Lord.

Holy, holy is the Lord.

Amen, my Jesus, my Savior Lord, there is none like you.

All of my days, I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love, my comfort, my shelter, tower of refuge and strength.

Let every breath, all that I am never cease to worship you.

Shout to the Lord, all the earth.

Let us sing Power and majesty, praise to the King.

Mountains bow down and the seas will roar at the sound of your name.

I sing for joy at the work of your hands.

Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand.

Nothing compares to the promise I have in you, my Jesus, my Savior Lord, there is none like you.

All of my days I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love, my comfort, my shelter.

Never cease to worship you.

Shout to the Lord all the earth.

Let us sing Power and majesty.

Praise to the King Mountains.

Bow down and the seas will roar At the sound of your name.

I sing for joy at the work of your hands.

Forever I'll love you, forever I'll stand.

Nothing compares to the promise I have in you.

Amen, please be seated, good morning.

In the bulletin it says Natalie.

I am not Natalie, I am the lesser half of Natalie, but she will be up to do the second part of our presentation on this Impact Sunday, which the word that we had to define and present to you is hope.

Hope, what a word.

Words have meaning.

A good friend of mine taught me that a long time ago.

His name was Donovan.

Some of you may know who Donovan is, but we often in college used to say you know, this is awesome, this is an awesome thing, this is awesome.

And he would always come back every time we said that with only God is awesome, only God is awesome.

Awesome has meaning.

Awesome has power.

So does the word hope.

If we look at hope, I want to share that.

I once read that, for those who do not know Jesus, hope is typically a verb.

I hope we win this game.

I hope you do well tomorrow.

Often used interchangeably, where we would insert the word wish, but for the Christian, for those of us in here, hope is, and should be, a noun.

This distinction is important because hope is not some work we do with gritted teeth, fingers crossed.

Hope is something we have, something we possess, something we wish to transfer to others.

Hope is something we wish to transfer to others.

Hope has been conveyed to us through an amazing sacrifice the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and we ought to take hold of it and work tirelessly to share it with those, with all of those we have contact with, because in this we have hope.

Ephesians 2, 12 through 13 says to remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

But now, in Christ Jesus, you who were formerly far off, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

And Romans 15, 13 reads One of my favorite verses when I ask what do I need to do as a Christian bound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit?

One of my favorite verses when I ask what do I need to do as a Christian?

What's my role, what's my responsibility to my family, blood and through Christ?

It's James 1.27, which reads pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and father is this to visit orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself unstained by the world.

A simple verse to read, but an incredibly difficult verse to do.

As you know, with Natalie and I, we took the last verse quite literally, as we have opened our home to those children who may need a weekend refuge, a few short weeks or a long stay.

We connect and collaborate with those in this body and other bodies who do the same.

It's hard work.

However, we've learned through that process that if we can impart just a little of our hope into their lives, then maybe the darker clouds can part for them.

Hope the noun sustains us and we hope the verb that one day they'll find hope the noun through the seeds we have planted, the work we do, how we connect with those who need hope, the hope we have.

In a moment I'm going to ask you all to stand, if you're able, and look around the room, make eye contact with a few people, look for a friend and smile.

Then I'll tell you why we're doing that.

So if everyone would take a minute, just stand up, look around the room, look at everyone that's here.

Just stand up, look around the room, look at everyone that's here, make eye contact.

Now, if I can have your attention back up here for just a second, take a moment to realize we all sit in this room.

We all may look forward, but all around us is a team, all around us is a family, all around us are hundreds, hundreds of individuals that are filled with the same hope, the same blessing of the sacrifice, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

We have a mission, we have hope.

In this room are the same people who are looking to spend eternity with God and the Father and our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ.

We all have the same hope of seeing the loved ones who have gone on long before us, and we all have the same hope of carrying that to our children, to the youth of this church, so that they will grow up with the same hope that you and I have now in our middle.

Now me in my middle age I'm not old, I'm middle-aged and those of us who bring us their great wisdom.

And so I ask the question how might we, how might I transfer that hope that I have to those in this community and the community at large?

I'm going to turn that over to Natalie to share.

You may be seated.

I'll have her come up.

All right.

So how do we as a church provide hope if we all have this common hope in God?

There are lots of verses in the Bible that say that our hope is found in God and in his word.

In Psalm 62, verse 5, it says my soul waits in silence for God only, for my hope is from him.

Psalms 62:5

He only is my rock and salvation, my stronghold.

I shall not be shaken.

And so our hope is firmly rooted in the word of God, and we have so many ministries in this church that allow us to teach that hope, from the tiniest of babies to those who are on the other end of life spectrum and are retired.

So I wanted to just share with you some of the ministries that we offer here at Stop 9, where we are offering the hope of Jesus to everyone, of all ages and all backgrounds.

First off, we have our children's ministry, and every Sunday we have dedicated volunteers who are imparting the hope of God's word to babies in our nursery all the way up through fifth grade.

And just to see these children and the questions that they ask and the things that they are learning, it's just wonderful to witness firsthand that they are experiencing the hope of Jesus and they are learning that they have this tangible thing, this hope within them that they can carry with them throughout life, and that transitions then into our youth group and as our youth become teens and we have a great youth group here and they have opportunities to reach out to their friends and share the hope of the gospel that they've learned from the time that they were young, and reach out in their schools, and we have fellowship of Christian students that goes out in the schools and we're spreading hope outside of the walls of these buildings with the youth in this community, to let them know that there's something more out there that we don't have to wish, we don't have to wonder that we can know where our hope lies.

We also have life groups, and if you're not in a life group, I encourage you to be part of one.

It's for anybody, in all ages and stages of life, where you can really connect with God's people and that shared hope that we have.

And even though there are a lot of things that can divide us and separate us, that hope is the one thing we have in common and can bring us together, and so I encourage you to get involved in a life group and to continue that hope throughout your week.

We also have various discipleship groups that are going on and being led by members of this congregation, where we are reaching out to others who don't know this hope outside of these walls and in our community, and sharing with them the love and the hope of Christ.

And then we have our Golden 60s program for those who you know, even though they're in the later years of life, that they still have that hope to hold onto.

And no matter what struggles and things come along in our lives, god's hope always remains sure and true.

And, um, we just want to encourage you to get involved in these groups.

Um, whether you're one or 101, there's something for everybody, and we're just so blessed with a family here that knows the hope of the gospel and wants to share that hope with a hurting world.

I want to end with one of my favorite verses.

I can't say my favorite because there are too many, but one of my favorite verses Isaiah 40, 31.

Yet, those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength.

They will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary, and that's the hope that we have.

That hope keeps us going, it gives us strength, it helps us to not be weary when the world tries to beat us down, and that is what the hope of Christ is all about.

And can it be that I should my God?

Would die for me.

Amazing love, how can it be that you, my God, would die for me?

You left your father's throne above, so free and infinite.

Your grace emptied yourself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race.

Amazing love, how can it be that you, my God, would die for me, amazing love.

How can it be that you, my God, would die for me, would die for me?

Holy, I come before your throne To claim your mercy, immense and free.

No greater love will there be known for.

Oh, my God would die for me, Amazing love.

How can it be that you?

My.

God would die, that you, my God, would die, that you, my God, would die for me.

Amazing, for me, amazing love.

How can it be Amazing love?

How can it be Amazing love?

How can it be amazing love?

How can it be amazing love when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul, it is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blessed assurance control that Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, my helpless estate, and has shed his own blood for my soul.

It is well, it is well with my soul, and Lord haste the day when the face shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll, the trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend.

Even so, it is well with my soul, it is well with my soul.

Amen, please be seated Good morning.

So the H that I'm here to talk about this morning in connection with our communion is healing.

Here to talk about this morning in connection with our communion is healing.

I started here about two years ago as the full-time therapist on staff and I came from prison, so I had some expectations.

I thought that when I shifted into this job it was going to be a little different, maybe than all of the heaviness that I was dealing with in prison.

And you know, my first client, my first month on the job here, someone who doesn't go to this church, someone who doesn't even live in this community, lives a community over, came in.

Never met him before.

He just so happened to call into the office.

And he came in and in our very first session disclosed to me that he was abused by an older sibling sexually from ages 8 to 12.

He was now 54, had never told a soul that in his life I'm like.

Well, here I am.

I thought it was going to be a little lighter than this.

I worked with him for a couple weeks and the very next client that he referred to me was a friend of his who was getting ready to fly out west in three weeks to pack up her son's belongings because he had committed suicide.

And these are just a few of the things that happen behind the scenes that we don't always think about, that we don't always know about, and healing goes much beyond one person's individual story, but certainly every person's individual story is important.

You know, one of the things that everybody wants to know when they come into my office is was it my fault?

Was it my fault that this happened to me?

Was it my fault that this relationship didn't work?

Was it my fault that this brokenness is now here and it feels like it's here to stay?

And that's the wrong question.

The healing that comes with Christ, the healing that comes through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, is do I still have value?

Am I still a person that matters?

Because, truth be told, maybe it wasn't our fault in that situation, but there are things that we're at fault for.

There are actions we've taken that have hurt relationships.

There are actions we've taken that have hurt ourself and other people, but at the end of all of that, do I still have value?

That's the first question that Jesus answers on the cross Do I still have value?

And he says yes.

He says not only do you have value.

You have the value that is worth me giving up my life for me, giving up my equality with God.

It says he humbled himself.

You have a value that surpasses what you could possibly understand, that is communicated to you on the cross and every Sunday morning here in communion.

It's waiting for you to accept it, and that's the first step in healing is understanding that not only do I have value, it's a value Whether I believe it or not.

It's there and it's just waiting.

It's waiting for me to accept it.

And so, as we go through communion this morning, our first step is to think about, as we think about, his body on the cross, think about the value that that represents for us, that each and every one of us was worth him paying that sacrifice, paying that consequence on our behalf.

Let's pray, god.

We thank you that you are an all-loving, all-gracious God who imparts his value to us, who is able to take away the mistakes that we might have made, who is able to heal us from the impact that the world might have had on us, that the brokenness of this world threatens to control us with, who was able to break those bonds, break those chains and remind us that we still have value in you.

We thank you for your son, who showed us what love is, and it's in his name we pray.

Amen, all right.

The second question that I get a lot in the office and that Jesus answers on the cross is so, if I have value, right, let's assume that that's true, not because I'm trying to convince myself it's true, but because someone else convinces me it's true, because someone else put their life on the line to say it was true.

The second question I get asked is how do I connect?

How do I connect with people?

What if people let me down?

What if people don't show me the value that I do have?

Or what if I fail to show them the same?

What do I do in those situations?

It doesn't matter if it's a family or a marriage or an individual who's been isolated for years.

I've probably met with nearly 100 different people in the last two years.

Probably about two dozen marriages have come through my office so far and at the core of those meetings is how do I connect?

And Jesus answers that question on the cross too, when he says not only do you have value that makes you valuable, you're worthy of love and belonging, you're worthy of connection and he shed his blood to create that covenant for us so that we can participate in that connection.

It's not going to be perfect here in this life.

It's not going to be a perfect connection here.

There's going to be compromise, there's going to be brokenness, there's going to be hurt and pain, but there's going to be healing and there's going to be repair.

And there's going to be hurt and pain, but there's going to be healing and there's going to be repair.

And there's going to be a continual growing into eternity with Christ until we experience ultimate connection, connection that we don't always have to work so hard for, connection that comes easy and naturally to us, because that's not here.

Not all your connection here is going to feel easy and natural.

It's going to feel like a sacrifice.

It's going to feel like you're putting someone else's needs before your own.

You know what that means your needs are going to be sacrificed.

Sometimes we live in a culture right now that tells us over and over again you do you.

You got to take care of yourself first before you take care of anyone else.

A big thing right now in mental health is wellness, and I'm not saying wellness isn't important, but wellness can just be selfishness Disguised as some sort of self-importance.

What we need is connection, and that takes sacrifice.

And so, as we pray, I want us to think about the reason that we can connect, the reason that we can fix broken relationships.

Sometimes the reason that we can heal is because someone else showed us how it's done.

That we can heal is because someone else showed us how it's done.

Let's pray, god.

We thank you for your son, who shed his blood to create a covenant with us, a promise that there's a relationship coming that is enduring, that surpasses the relationships we've experienced here so far, that brings us into completeness with you in this life and the next, that allows us to connect more fully, more deeply, more intimately with your truth.

We thank you for the relationships in this earth in which we get to experience even a portion of that.

We pray that you'll continue working in our life to help us be more sacrificial, the way your son was for us, and to help us lean into that connection that awaits.

It's in his name.

We pray Amen.

So the story behind how that guy ended up in my office that first month on the job here is that over a decade prior, he was working on a project with somebody in this room.

Prior he was working on a project with somebody in this room and it just so happened to come up in conversation that we had a Christian counselor on staff over a decade prior to that moment.

Now he didn't get the Christian counselor.

He probably thought he was going to get, but we had a whole turnover since then.

But that's the impact that those of us in this room have that we don't even realize.

And certainly there are a number of ministries here that provide healing in all kinds of ways Healing in a helping hand through our food pantries and food programs that we do, healing in a sense of specific community.

We have a PTSD group that meets here at times.

We have AA NA groups that meet here.

Certainly there's a lot of ministries that provide healing, but one of the greatest ways that healing is provided is through you guys, and it's not just being a welcoming community, being a community that has open doors and welcomes people in.

A lot of the healing that you guys are doing, that you don't realize you're doing is being down-to-earth Christians in a post-Christian nation, and what I mean by that is most people have experienced some kind of church in their life, by the time they're 18, they've experienced some kind of impression of church and they carry that with them, and a lot of times the reason that they don't come through these doors is because that was not a good experience.

There's a lot of people out there that don't want to come to church because they had a bad experience with a church community somewhere, and you guys, whether you know it or not, are bringing healing to a lot of people by planting small seeds, by bearing witness in small and subtle ways and saying that experience doesn't define your relationship with Jesus.

That experience, while it might have been impactful, isn't defining, and so think about that.

As we give this morning, as we offer up our giving to the Lord, we're giving more than just funds and we're giving more than just time.

In some sense, we're offering ourself to a hurting community, to a broken community, and many times we're showing people that it doesn't have to be that way.

We take for granted the fact that we have the option of sitting in this room every Sunday.

There are many, many people out there who don't have anywhere that they feel like they can go weekly and check in with people and just run into people randomly or create random connections.

There are people whose only support system is work and home.

And then what do you do if you have a toxic work environment?

Where do you go?

They might not have a lot of family, they might not have a lot of support and they might not have a lot of connection and they might not see where that's going to come from, because they think in the past their experiences have been negative, they've had poor church experiences and you guys are turning that around for them by being open, by being caring, by being humble, by being gracious.

Let's pray, god.

We thank you for all of the ways that you allow us to give back in your name, through our time, through our effort, through our money, through our voice and through our listening.

We thank you how you can take that and turn it into so much more than we could have imagined.

We pray that we'll continue to be patient as your hand works behind the scenes to guide all things for your glory, and it's in your son's name we pray Amen.

Good morning.

Today's scripture reading comes from Matthew 28.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you and, be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of age.

All right, for those of you who don't know me, Carol, I haven't even said anything yet she's already heckling me.

My name's Gary Frame.

I am one of the you picked the title elders, shepherds, servant leaders with Tommy Strasser, buddy Lawrenson and Kevin Love.

Now you know why we're in the mess we're in.

I have been tasked with.

My H is horseradish.

It's not horseradish.

I guess I prepared the wrong lesson then.

No, my H today is help, and so it's going to kind of be a combined elders report.

And talking about help 2024, it's hard to believe it's been four years ago, four and a half years ago that COVID hit, which changed everything.

I don't like to even think about it.

I don't even like to remember it.

It was such a mess.

Everything was closed, including the church.

For what?

Six weeks, I think, we were totally closed, did stuff online and we learned to adapt.

Did stuff online and we learned to adapt.

We went from one service with classes I don't remember if classes were before or after, then, was it after To three services with no classes, and then changes and changes, and changes and changes.

In four years, there's a lot that has changed here at Stop 9.

Woody has retired and Josh became our pulpit minister.

Buddy retired as a minister and Jeff took his place as our counselor and minister.

Lots of stuff has happened and, by the way, just so you know and I will admit, we do not communicate sometimes as well as we should or as often as we should we in the leadership team have been talking about Josh being the pulpit minister for several years.

This was not something that we came up with overnight.

I don't know that we ever made that clear, but it was never.

As far as I was concerned, there was no better candidate and no better person for the position than Josh, and so he just kind of slid right into that job, and I think he's a tremendous young man.

Tremendous young man.

You can clap if you want to, that's okay.

Evelyn is leading us in clapping.

Yes, and Josh was youth minister, and so the youth group has had a transition as well, transformation, and that's going to continue to happen.

Josh and Jeff have ideas about where that's going to go, and so there's change.

But you know what?

There's always change, isn't there?

There's always change in life.

The church is no different than any other facet of society.

In that regard, my H is help.

You've heard it said before.

Probably that church is a hospital where sick people come to get well.

Hospital where sick people come to get well.

Have you ever heard that before?

I don't like that.

I really don't like that.

I think we're more of an occupational therapy center.

We come here and whatever shortcomings we have, we're probably going to continue to have.

But we learned to work with what we have.

We learned to adapt to the shortcomings that we have and to use what we have in the best way possible.

I think that's what church is and that's what we strive to provide is opportunities for you to use what you have, however imperfectly, to help, to help others.

And you've heard it a thousand times Our mission is to.

Our purpose is to glorify God and our mission is to make disciples, and that's what helping is all about making disciples.

Any ministry that we talk about, any ministry that we do, has to be geared towards making disciples.

Otherwise we're no different than any other nonprofit organization.

The food bags uncoupled from Christ are just food bags.

The blood drives that we host uncoupled from Christ are just blood drives.

Take anything that we do uncoupled from Christ and it's just a nice good work and it doesn't mean that much.

But everything we do has to be directed towards helping people discover Christ.

On the inside of your Get Connected, there is a listing and I'm sure you've seen it before and Josh is going to talk about this, so I don't want to cover the same ground, but there are a lot of ministries there and they sat down and tried to think of all the ministries that we have and try to fit them into a page so that you could see them, and as we were having our first service, I thought of some more.

I think it's fantastic when we can't even list all the things that we do as a church, and not we as in the elders or the deacons, we as in the collective, we, the royal, we, we all.

This isn't me, this is you.

I mentioned the blood drives already.

We also we helped rescue a church out at Birds Run.

If you don't know where that is, get on Google Maps.

It'll tell you to go to middle of nowhere, turn left and that's where it is.

Heath Dawson heads up that ministry.

Is Tacey here?

She was here earlier.

No, she's not here.

Okay, and Tacey has jail ministry.

How many people, josh, has she baptized at the jail?

How many?

14 or 15 women?

She's on the guy's side, okay, she's on the guy's side.

Okay, she's on the lady's side of the jail, teaching them about Christ and has baptized 14 or 15 people out of that.

Isn't that awesome?

We should talk about our missionaries more.

We don't talk about them enough and we should be showing some of the stuff that we do.

But we have how many missionaries in Cuba?

Why am I always asking Josh, you should just give him the microphone.

Okay, a dozen preachers in Cuba, multitude of congregations.

And, by the way, if Cuba is ever going to become something other than what it is now, it's going to be because of Christians changing that country.

Cuba, the Bahamas, lincoln down in the Bahamas.

We have missionaries in Panama that we support.

It's not on the list.

Walk for Water that was just.

Was it last week?

Okay, we were out at two weeks ago out at Cambridge, the track at Cambridge, and we're walking around the track raising money for Walk for Water.

Do you know how much money we raised from that, josh?

Over $4,000.

Just from the very first time that Cambridge has ever hosted a Walk for Water.

We're going to drill a well out of that and that's what it's for is to drill wells in developing nations and to feed them not only water but also the living water.

Owen's Yard Sale we didn't mention that every year the Riggins host the yard sale for Owen, the Open Arms Pregnancy Center.

We have a hand in helping them and it's not on here.

Our foster families we have a tremendous number of foster families here who are willing to, as Clark said, open their hearts, open their homes to kids that need help.

We have a bunch of photographs out there on the wall in case you don't know who people are.

You can look at the photos and put a name to a face.

That needs updated regularly, regularly.

That's a ministry that's open and available.

We have a social media presence, which I mean.

Okay, I'm 57.

Anybody below 30 is a tech expert as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, so poor Josh and Jeff got stuck with doing the social media stuff.

My goodness, wouldn't it be great if we had somebody that understood social media and could take that to the next level.

That's just some stuff that's on here.

That or that's not on here that I thought should be mentioned.

A couple of others that are on here.

That or that's not on here that I thought should be mentioned.

A couple of others that are on here I do want to mention also.

We have children's ministry there, which we are constantly in need of teachers and helpers.

There may be nothing more important that this group does than to teach the kids that we have.

I hope it puts it on your heart to help teach those kids.

But we also have adult classes that need taught and teen classes that need taught.

Those can be somewhat easier because you don't have to.

You generally don't have to wipe mouths and take them to the potty and stuff.

You know that was a joke, but it can be challenging in other ways too.

But we're always looking for teachers and the cleaning team on here.

I forgot I should have put snow removal on there too.

Right Now I'm praying for no snow, that that team never works again in Guernsey County, right, but hey, you've got to clear the lot ice and snow and Mark heads up that ministry.

The other one I want to mention is life groups and we've mentioned it a couple times.

You're probably tired of hearing it, but I talked about it in my class this morning.

You will never get to know how to love other people.

You will never know how to love your fellow Christians coming here for an hour every Sunday and that's it.

I don't learn to love Greg by coming in looking at the back of his head and saying how you doing, greg?

See you later.

You got to spend time with people, and life groups is where it's at Generally anywhere from eight to a dozen, maybe 15 people per group.

We host one.

I never tell people they can't come.

We at one time had 35 people in our house for life group.

That's a lot of people.

Fortunately, I think they all bathe.

But you know, if you want to host, that's great.

We would love to have you host a life group.

If you want to attend one, we want you to attend one because that's where you're going to meet people who can help you through the problems you have in life.

Talk to anybody in a life group.

They'll tell you they've helped us through family tragedies, deaths in the family, financial problems, spiritual issues, mental health problems.

That's where it's at.

You ain't going to get that just sitting in here one hour a week.

Get in a small group.

I just want to pound that home.

If you're interested in doing this stuff which I know Josh is going to talk about here in a little bit I would encourage you, even if you think you know I'm kind of interested in that, give it a try.

The worst that can happen is you say you know, I don't think that's where my gift lies.

But if you decide you know I want to commit myself to doing that, then I would suggest strongly that you commit to doing it.

We don't just need volunteers or people who want to be in a ministry.

We need people to do it regularly.

It is extremely difficult when someone says I want to do that, but I only want to do it once a month.

Yes, I'll do it every week, but they only show up once a month to do it.

That's not only hard on everybody else, it's hard on the ministry itself.

Pray about it, commit yourself to it.

If you want to join one of these ministries, I say join.

I don't know that that's really the right word.

I think we have a fantastic church.

I have never been in a church like this before in my life ever.

Our goal as elders, as shepherds, is to lead by example as best we can, to equip you to serve.

We want you to love Jesus.

That's what we try to teach.

If we can teach you to love Jesus, the rest of this stuff takes care of itself.

Our focus is less on stuff and more on teaching us as Christians to love Jesus.

Mark said something when I was talking to him here a couple of weeks ago that really struck me.

He said you know what Customers complain, families fix.

I've had people tell me before that we need to run the church more like a business.

No, we need to run the church like a church.

Business has a complaint box.

Church has family, our family and when family sees something that needs to be done, they fix it.

They fix it.

And so what I'm saying to you is you have opportunities to fix some things.

You can complain about our society and what a mess it is, and you're the fixers.

Our job is to give you the tools to go out and fix, the tools to go out and fix On behalf of the elders.

We love you all.

We try to make good decisions, even sometimes when we make some bad decisions, god makes it work out the best.

I see God's hand in you all.

We love you and we're glad that you're here, Josh, are you up next?

Oh, we're going to sing a song.

Yes, I see that now, but fortunately I'm not going to sing it.

Oh, come on.

Gary Bryce is going to.

Oh, by the way, one of the great things that we've done, one of the decisions that we made here not too long ago, was Bryce came to us with an idea for the praise team, kicked it around for a while.

If you know anything about us, we take a long time to make decisions.

We are very slow decision makers.

Part of that is because we're old and we're slow, but part of it is because we really want God to work on our hearts and decide.

Is this the right thing to do?

And we talked about and prayed about that for a long, long time.

My humble opinion, one of the best things, one of the best things, one of the best decisions we've made in a long, long time.

So, bryce, I'm going to turn it over to you.

I'll stop talking and you can sing a song.

Thanks, gary.

Would you stand with me please?

We wanted to sing this song.

This is a newer song, a newer song in general and a new song for our congregation.

But we want to be a hand.

We want to have a hand in the Lord establishing his kingdom, and how great would it be if we could be God's kingdom on earth.

So we wanted to sing this song.

It fits with this Sunday morning, called Build your Kingdom here.

Come, set your rule and reign in our hearts again.

Increase in us.

We pray.

Unveil why we're made.

Come, set our hearts ablaze with hope, like wildfire in our very souls.

Holy Spirit, come, invade us now.

We are your church.

We need your power in us.

We seek your kingdom first.

We hunger and we thirst, refuse to waste our lives, for you're our joy and prize.

To see the captive's hearts released, the hurt, the sick, the poor at peace.

We lay down our lives for heaven's cause.

We are your church.

We pray.

Revive this earth, build your kingdom here.

Let the darkness fear.

Show your mighty hand, heal our streets and land Set your church on fire.

win this nation back, Change the atmosphere.

Build your kingdom here.

We pray, unleash your kingdom's power, reaching the near and far.

No force of hell can stop your beauty changingchanging heart.

You made us for much more than this.

Awake the kingdom seed in us.

Fill us with the strength and love of Christ.

We are your church.

We are the hope on earth.

Build your kingdom here.

Let the darkness fear Shift your mighty hand.

Heal our streets and land.

Set your church on fire.

Win this nation back.

Change the atmosphere.

Build your kingdom here.

Build your kingdom here.

Build your kingdom here.

Let the darkness, fear.

Show your mighty hand.

Heal our streets and land.

Set your church on fire.

Win this nation back.

Change the atmosphere.

Build your kingdom here.

We pray.