Vision Part 3 - Pastors C.F. & Nicole Rainey

Welcome to the Lone Star Church podcast.

Pastors CF and Nicole Rady are here to share the Word of God with you each week, helping you grasp the fullness of God's plan for your life.

We hope you'll be blessed by this week's message.

If you live in Northwest Missouri or Southern Iowa, we invite you to join us in person on a Sunday morning.

For more information about us, visit our website at lonestarchurchorg or find us on Facebook, instagram or YouTube.

And so we shared a couple things.

Let me just go over a couple of scriptures that we've talked about about vision.

So in Proverbs 29 and verse 18, proverbs 29, 18.

Man, this is why we talk about vision.

Look at how serious God takes vision here.

Where there is no vision, here in the New King James says people cast off restraint.

King James says people perish.

I know, things die where there is no vision.

Dreams die where there is no vision.

Goals die where there is no vision.

Amen.

So vision is important.

Happy is he that keeps the law.

And then Habakkuk 2.2.

Habakkuk 2.2 says where there is no vision, is it the same thing?

People cast off their sin.

I'm looking at what you have here.

I didn't look it up.

I put the same.

We put the same one.

There we go.

The Lord answered me and said write the vision, make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it.

So we talked about the importance of seeking God to get vision and then, when you get it, you need to write it down, which is why we made notebooks available to you.

We went over all kinds of studies by all kinds of people with lots of letters after their name and everything that said people who make goals, write them down, revisit are more successful in life.

And so he said look, don't just have a goal, write them down, revisit are more successful in life.

And so he said look, don't just have a goal, write it down.

Write it down, revisit it to see if you're making effort towards getting to that goal.

Amen and the thing about revisiting it.

We won't camp here, but just want to say really quickly the thing about revisiting it is you'll go back and revisit that and kind of look at those things that you've written down and what I have found is the Lord just will add to it, and I he that's the kind of God we serve he adds two things he doesn't take away.

And so, um, revisiting it, we'll add to it, and he may add like little details or give you direction on how to take, you know, the first step or even the second step.

And so that's why it's really important, because if you just write it down but never revisit it, you're going to go back to the excuse me, you'll get to the end of your year and you're like, well, that never happened, or I never went forward with this.

What I felt, like it was in my heart, and what it does, it keeps it in front of you and then he adds steps to it.

Amen.

And so we talked about all those things and about the importance of getting a vision from God.

I know God has a plan for your life, every individual in here.

God has a plan, right From the very youngest to the oldest.

Notice, I only looked at the youngest, I didn't look at anyone when I said oldest, but from the very youngest to the oldest, god has a vision, a plan for your life and it's so good.

And you really start to see that when you have children, because you look at those infants and you just think, man, there is destiny, god has a destiny for them.

You have all these hopes and dreams for your kids and sometimes they fulfill them, sometimes they don't.

But ultimately the thing we want is what God has for him.

Your plans can be good, but God's plans are better.

We sang it today his way is better, amen.

And so we talked about that.

And then we started talking about the vision of the church and we said that there are four things that Nicole and I really sought God and prayed about a number of years ago.

When someone asked us really what's the vision of Lone Star, we prayed about it and we came up with these four words.

We have it on all kinds of stuff materials, shirts, and on things, on our announcements as well as on most of our printed material and that is to reach, connect, grow and impact.

Those are the four things.

If someone says what is Lone Star about, you can at least say man, reach, connect, grow and impact.

And so reach, the first one is reach the laws.

It's the most important one.

The rest of them aren't necessarily in order, but reach definitely is number one.

That is, the number one goal for this church is to reach the laws.

Take the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We see it in the Great Commission.

There, at the end of the gospels, mark 16, starting in verse 15, jesus said go, preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, to all creatures.

Those who believe shall be saved, those who believe not should be damned.

These signs shall follow those who believe, and he lists those signs that will follow.

But the number one goal of Jesus, of God, is to get people born again.

And so we went to some verses and we'll just recap a little bit.

2 Peter, 3, in verse 9.

Have you ever thought, boy, I really wish I knew what God's will.

Was you ever thought about that?

What is God's will Number one.

His word is His will.

But there are certain scriptures that explicitly say it's will Number one.

His word is his will, but there are certain scriptures that explicitly say it.

And here Peter says the Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but he is long-suffering.

Aren't you glad God is long-suffering with you?

He's patient with you.

Man, oh man, you start to get around other people, right?

Your kids.

Sometimes you ever feel like not being long-suffering towards your children, patient towards your children.

Aren't you glad God's patient with us?

But look at what it says God is not willing.

He's not willing that any would perish, but that all.

Everybody say all, all would come to me.

So how many people does God want saved All?

Let me ask you a question Does everyone get saved?

Nope.

So people will say well, whatever happens on this earth is the will of God.

That's a lie.

That's a lie.

Not everything that happens on this earth is the will of God, and this scripture proves it.

Why?

Because God says he's not willing that any would perish, but that all would come to repentance through Jesus Christ.

And so it's up to us to make sure we're doing what he's called us to do, sharing the gospel with people so that they would get born again.

Amen.

We see that in the early church, with the Great Commission man, you see it, and here can't reach the lost by yourself.

We see it Jesus, when he sent him out, he sent him out what?

Two by two.

And then we see the early church.

It's not just relying on each other, but we definitely, number one, have to have a reliance on the Word and on the Spirit of God.

Because guess what?

They were sharing the gospel with people.

And you know how many people over a course of 40 days really were serving God?

120.

They got 500 people born again early.

Right, there's a group of 500 Jesus spoke to after his resurrection.

500 people got born again, but after a period of weeks, only 120 of those 500 were really faithful and serving God.

But then what happens?

Day of Pentecost, holy Ghost moves.

They're all praying in other tongues, spill out onto the streets.

They go from 120 to over 3,000.

So we can't just rely on our preaching and on each other.

We definitely have to rely on the Holy Spirit to help us reach the lost.

Give us ideas to reach people.

I know the Holy Spirit will give you an idea.

There is someone in everyone in here's life that you know you're supposed to share the gospel with and you've thought boy, I just don't know how to reach that person.

I just don't know how to reach them.

They're hard-headed.

I remember years ago I was working before I went to Bible school, so I didn't have the knowledge I have today.

I'm working for Tracer and I'm in a F-250 pickup driving across the country from Tucson, arizona to Jacksonville, florida I tend about the entire length of the country I'm driving.

I'm with this guy and he's unsaved.

We're just talking, we get talking about Jesus, things.

He's like I just don't believe in any of that.

I'm like I'll just share Jesus with you.

And so we're talking and he just keeps.

That's all.

I'm trying to walk in love and share again.

I'm born again, but not spear-filled, and I'm young I think I'm like 20, 21 years old and finally we get to the point after a course of a few hours.

He's just negative.

I'm trying to be like Jesus.

What would Jesus do?

And he's just.

And finally I go.

You know, just go to hell if you want to.

I'm done.

I know that's not the way God wants you to do things, but I look back now and I think, boy, the Holy Spirit could have given me a way to reach him, and maybe the Holy Spirit says you're not supposed to reach him.

Go talk to someone else to have them reach him, or pray for someone else to reach him.

But the Holy Spirit has ideas that you'll never have, amen.

But number one we want to reach the lost.

Number two we talked about connect and man, nicole is honestly, Nicole is really good at connecting people together and obviously our number one goal is to connect people with God through what we do here at the church, but also to connect people together and grow community.

Yeah, I think that one of the things that we've had to learn, one of the things that we've had to learn especially with pastoring- because it's been like 21, is it 21 years Coming up on 22.

22.

So 21, almost 22 years is that we had to learn how important it was for the body to be connected.

I mean, the Word of God likens the church to a natural body, and anytime you have a part of a member of your body disconnected, your function is different.

Maybe you can't function properly when you lose a member of your body, and so there's something that is so beautiful when it's in harmony with each other and it's connected right, and that is why you know, overall, you are the body of Christ.

But then you're made up of this local body, and one of the things that we were seeing, especially in the very beginning of pastoring, is P.

I mean, I think Sunday school started at 10 and service started 11 was our original times and we would see people come in either at that right at that 10 o'clock time and then, um, right when it ended at noon, they would just leave very, very quickly.

There was no um visiting or like talking to get to know one another.

Uh, we made the joke.

We had to get you know the West side, to connect with the East side.

Well, in the beginning it was just East side.

This was all we had.

We had, like you know, six or seven people that sat right here and they were all over the age of 60.

It was just CF and I.

We, we were in our thirties and we were the youth group, so, um, so anyway, we've definitely grown in that in that regard.

But, um, we just we needed to figure out.

And then once we kind of were going through our, our change of how we do things, and God kind of turned the page here at Lone Star and how we function, um, when he started nudging on our heart about two services and we had already started doing we changed it.

From Sunday school we started doing connect time, or linked up excuse me, is what we called it and it really did.

By doing that and then starting our two services, it really opened up the door for each service to be able to connect with one another.

So it wasn't like two different churches, in that it felt like one, even though each service was different at a different time.

But just how we're compacted together and how important that is to be together and to function as a family.

You know, I always say this Jesus had the three, the 12, the 70, and so on and so forth.

You don't have to be super close with every single person that sits in here, but you are to be connected to them, amen.

There's a supply in your heart that you bring to each person or that you bring to whatever area that you're called to work in, whether it's greeters or you're helping Kim out in the kitchen area.

There's a supply in your heart that you bring to that specific area that makes it better.

Every person.

In fact that's my sermon tonight.

The title will be Awaken to your Supply.

The Lord gave me that very specifically for tonight's service.

But anyway, there's a supply in your heart that you have, that no one else has, that you're called to give to other people, and it makes the organization better, it makes the people around you better.

But whenever you withhold and you don't give that, there's a lack of supply and you might think, well, what does it matter if I?

It matters.

Amen.

It matters.

Let's say you lose a hand or you lose a finger.

Well, eventually you learn how to do life without that member, but you've had to retrain yourself and you have to do things differently, where, if you had all 10 there, it just works beautifully and so your supply matters, and so that's why we stress connection, connection, connection.

We have connect groups We'll talk about those that are going to start up in the spring and that you be connected to your local church.

It's important.

And the importance of connection to local church you think about in the Bible.

There are certain things Sometimes people say, well, all I need is me and God.

Well, there are certain times in the Bible that God told someone you think about the book of Acts he woke up, he said the guy had a dream and he said you need to go find Peter, because Peter has something to tell you.

I mean, there are people that God wants to tell you something, but you need to go find who God wants you to be connected with to hear it.

Pastor Mark talks about that.

He said that there are things that God will only speak through a pastor or a minister, that he won't speak to you directly, but he's going to use a man of God to speak through, and that's why it's important to get to services, to get to church, to get to special meetings.

Amen, because how many of you want to hear from God?

How to get to church, to get to special meetings?

Amen, because how many of you want to hear from God?

How many of you need a word from God?

Sometimes You're like I need a word from God.

Well, if you're not connected where you're supposed to be connected, guess what?

You have disconnected the flow of God to speak to your heart, to your life.

So connection is important.

Growth, right, reach, connect, grow and impact.

And so growth, spiritual growth, isn't just something we should do, right?

Oh, you know it'd be good to grow up.

No, I mean, it's a mandate from God throughout the Bible.

Colossians, chapter two.

Let's look at a couple of scriptures here real quick.

Colossians, chapter two.

We'll look at verses six and seven and then we'll go over to Hebrews.

God doesn't mince words when he talks about spiritual growth.

It says as you therefore have received Christ Jesus, lord, so walk in him.

Verse 7.

Rooted, built up in him, established faith, as you've been taught, abounding in what things?

Even so, he says, as you began, you need to continue on in these things.

And then let's go over real quick to Hebrews, chapter 5.

Hebrews 5 · chapter mention

Hebrews 5.12.

You'll enjoy this.

You ever enjoyed discipline before.

This is a great discipline.

Scripture for yourself.

All right, listen to what the writer Hebrews says, right to these believers.

He says for, though, by this time you ought to be teachers.

How many of you can read this with a little attitude?

Do you think it came?

You ought to be teachers.

You still need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

Verse 13.

For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness.

For he is a baby, let's go on.

But solid food belongs to those who are full age, that is, those who, by reason of use, have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Finally, verse 15.

Here is that it okay, that's the end of it.

Praise the lord, but?

But you just look.

So so here god is saying uh, we know when you get born again, the bible says you become a newborn baby in christ jesus.

I know babies are supposed to grow right when we had our babies, and you take them to the doctor for that first visit, that eight-week visit usually is your first visit.

You know what they do.

They measure them, they weigh them, they're seeing are, are they growing right?

And then every time you go, do a wellness check, they tell you oh, this is how much they weigh, this is how long they are.

And you chart them.

They say they're in this percentile, they're this.

How many know?

Just as you're supposed to grow naturally, you're supposed to grow spiritually.

You're supposed to grow spiritually.

There are things.

When you first get born again, you look at it in the Bible, you're like I don't really understand that.

No, because that's solid food.

What you need is you need some milk.

You don't give a baby a steak.

Come on, boy, let's go.

I need a football player, eat that steak up.

No, you give milk.

And then you get to the point and what do you do?

All of a sudden you go for milk and then you add a little cereal to that milk.

Right, a little rice cereal or something.

And then you go from that and you get the little jars of baby food and they're labeled right, one, two, three, and they're just pureed and they're small.

And then you go to the next one.

It's got a little texture to it.

And then you go, sudden, they're eating solid food and all of a sudden they're growing.

Would you think it odd if your child at five years old was just a few pounds heavier and a few inches longer than they were when they were born.

You would be like there is a problem, doctor.

But yet as Christians sometimes we don't look at ourselves that way.

There's a problem If every time something goes on, I need someone to hold my hand, I need someone to spoon feed me, I need someone to get the bottle for me, then there is a problem spiritually.

There comes a time he says you ought to be teaching other people about Jesus and yet you still need someone to hold your hand.

So it's not right.

You're still on milk, but you need solid food.

So what's the Bible telling us?

We're supposed to grow up, amen.

Yeah.

So we do a lot of teaching on that here at this church and I've taught a lot about the renewing of your mind.

How many of you have heard us teach on that, the renewing of your mind?

I know and I know Abby and Gracie and all the other kids that kind of grew up with Annie as their children's teacher that she did the illustration of the egg right and she would have an egg and she would talk about the threefold nature of man and how, even though man is born again and he, his entire spirit, is changed, he has been made a new creature and a new creation in Christ Jesus.

Paul says in Romans 12, 1 and 2, he addressed the other two parts of man where he says your soul and your body need to change, even though they've been redeemed by the blood.

They need to change.

So it's the renewing of the mind that change, and CF mentioned it with connection.

That's why we go to church, that's why we read our Bible, that's why we discipline our thought life.

Not every thought that comes to you is a thought that you must take right.

We have to learn.

The Bible says this in second Corinthians that we have the mind of Christ and you're like I don't know if I really do.

We have his written word and his spoken word, and so growth takes just like what and I saw this when Pastor CF was talking why do they have the baby food labeled one, two and three for different stages?

Because there's things babies can't swallow until they're mature enough to swallow.

There's things in your life that you must chew on, spiritually speaking, that you must look at day in and day out, even if it's Ephesians, chapter one, 17 through 21.

For you know, god, give unto me the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of who you are.

You know, you take things like that and you're like, okay, I don't understand this, but I'm going to take this scripture and I'm going to meditate on it and I'm going to chew on it and I'm going to let it transform my life, and then, all of a sudden, you're chewing on that and you're chewing on it, and you're chewing on revelation, knowledge cup, and then you'll be able to swallow it.

And so that's why we take our time, that's why we encourage you Renew your mind to the word of God, because that's the part of you, the mind is the part of you that is the most influenced by the devil is your thought life, not your spirit.

But your thought.

Life is the most influenced by the devil.

So renew your mind.

That's where growth will begin in your life.

Amen, amen, real quick.

I want to go to Ephesians, chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Look at verses 11 through 16 here in Ephesians 4.

So this is Paul writing right, ephesians 4, 11.

And it says he himself talking about God.

Jesus gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying that word edifying means building up right of the body of Christ.

So right, we see apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers.

There are five of those, what we call ministry gifts, listed here because it says he gave them.

So these are gifts that were given to who, given to the body of Christ.

These five-fold ministry gifts, why are they there?

Why do you need a pastor?

Right here, it tells you you need equipped, amen.

You need equipped, amen, you need built up, edified.

That's why you need a pastor.

I can just do it at home, online.

No, you need equipped, you need edified.

And it continues until we all come to unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man.

I know God's trying to perfect you, yes, right To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So look what he's measuring you against Jesus.

He's trying to get you to be more like Jesus.

Amen.

Next verse, that we should no longer be children.

Look at the person next to you and tell them grow up, grow up.

Amen.

It says you don't want to be children anymore.

So what happens with children?

Look at what happens with children.

They're tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, everyone that knocks on your door peddling something you believe it.

Here come the Jehovah's Witness, here come the Hare Krishna's.

Here coming right, whatever's coming the more.

Oh yeah, I'll join that church.

Oh yeah, that sounds right.

No, it says you shouldn't be tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, cunning craftiness, of deceitful plotting.

But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him, christ, right the head.

And so we're supposed to grow up right.

God did not intend us to remain babies.

The way you get born again, you become a baby.

But you're supposed to grow up.

Problem in the church sometimes is we just baby, everyone man.

I am my mother's son and I say that in the most kind way but my mom tended to baby us and I was the baby, hey now.

Hey, now, don't be pointing fingers in here.

We don't call out our brother to Christ, right, talk about him all the time.

But I was the baby for quite some time before Glynnis had to come around.

But I was the baby, right, and my mom tended to baby us.

Well, I kind of have some of those characteristics.

Just yesterday, sitting at home with my baby, the 11-year-old right, getting ready to be 12, sitting there and she played basketball.

We came home and I was like you want something to eat?

I was like let Dad go get it for you.

And so I got it for her.

And then, right, let me take your plate.

And Nicole's like she can do that.

And I'm like well, I'm going to do it anyway.

And then I took the napkin, wiped her mouth.

I actually did that because I was like let Daddy wipe your mouth here, but, like when Bo was little, nicole's like he can cut his own food.

So I'm like well, he doesn't have to do that.

She's like he's 12.

It's like well, you know, but that's just my personality.

Well, how many know that's not good.

Right, little baby is okay.

Right, it's okay, it is okay, little baby is okay.

I keep telling myself that.

But right, you can't do it.

And within a church you can't do that.

Why?

Because then you just have a bunch of babies and then you look and you say, well, why is nothing getting done?

Why are we not spreading the gospel?

Why do we not have people to volunteer?

Why do we don't have people to teach?

Why do we have people who don't want to host the connect group?

Why do we not have any of this?

We're going to do this and we don't have any of this.

Well, because we've got a bunch of babies.

I think as parents, not to go down this road, but just to say this really quickly I think as parents, the hardest thing to do is to figure out if you're nurturing them or if you're babying them, and so that is just a learning curve in itself, and we've kind of had to learn that along our road.

But in the body of Christ Jesus, he wants.

Let the weak say I am strong.

He goes to weak places in our lives and he fills us up and he nurtures us.

But on the other side of that and it's not, those two sides aren't far from each other there is growth with it.

So with your own children, you can look at them and think, okay, I'm going to nurture you and I'm going to love you, but at the same time I'm going to be like grow up, change this and fix.

And it's not all the time.

You go through seasons in your life, especially with your children, and everything's fine.

Then all of a sudden you're like no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I can see the immaturity there.

Well, the Lord does the same thing with us.

He's not correcting us all the time, but you'll go through seasons and almost almost kind of, at the end of that season.

He's like okay, you're getting ready to go to another one.

Fix your face, fix this.

Let's get this straightened up because you can't.

You can't go into the.

You can't go to the next glory level um, playing with baby toys.

You've got to shed some of that, shed some of that thinking before you could go.

You know we go from glory to glory.

You can't go to the next glory level if you're still messing with stuff that he's wanting for you to get rid of, and childlike behavior that he's wanting to get you to more adult-like behavior.

And so, even though correction is hard, and sometimes when you can feel that correction coming, in fact, that's the part of our life where the testing comes from God.

Will they obey me of our life where the testing comes from God?

Will they obey me?

That's the testing part.

Will they obey me with what I've told them to do?

And that's what we wrestle with Our flesh wrestles with obedience, and so, anyway, you know, we just Well, and it just it goes to.

So if we were to go to Nicole's parents' house, so they have this little sub wall there beside their fridge where they have marked their grandkids' height.

So there's Annie's boys and R3, and they've marked it.

See, ya, I think I've grown a little recently, but right, they've marked their eyes.

So there's this measure of where you're.

You should be able to look at your Christian walk, your spiritual life, and realize, hey, I see growth in my life, I'm able to mark that.

And if you can't, well then there's an issue.

How many know there is no mark of Lucy here and then a year later, lucy's here.

Sometimes they're close to the same, but there's always, especially as they're maturing, there's always some growth.

So if we're not growing, then we need to look within ourselves.

And one way to see if you're growing or not is if you read the Bible, if you pray personally on your own, because if you don't, if the only Bible you get is when we spoon feed it to you every Sunday.

Think about that.

How would people look?

Right, kim and Scott go out to eat after church and Kim's like here you go, scott, here comes the airplane.

People be like man.

That guy needs to grow up.

There's something wrong.

So if the only word you're getting is spoon-fed to you on Sunday mornings, then guess what you need to decide?

I need to grow up, especially if you've been born again for some time.

Right, you got born again a few weeks ago.

That's the way it works.

Right, you're learning to feed yourself.

But if you can't feed yourself, you need spiritual growth in your life.

You need to be able to get that and then get to the point where you can chew on some of those deep things.

We're going to finish with the last one and we're not going to get deep into this because, honestly, it's really self-explanatory.

Is impact Right?

Reach, connect, grow and impact?

People should know that Lone Star Church exists.

It should impact the world around.

We see that with the early church.

So listen to this.

These are scriptures.

You hear in Acts.

They say these men have turned our world upside down.

They've thrown our city into an uproar.

Everywhere that they went with the Holy Ghost and the Word of God, it changed things.

And they were religious people.

It wasn't just worldly people.

Worldly people didn't give as much trouble as the religious people did.

But there's got to be an impact, not just as a church, but guess what?

Each of you, as individuals, members of this church, members of this body.

You should be impacting your household.

You should be impacting your community.

You should be impacting your workplace, you should be impacting things.

And it doesn't mean everywhere you go you're just preaching Jesus to people.

No, everywhere you go you're living Jesus.

Nicole and I were talking about something the other day.

In a certain way, in fact, we were talking about Lucy the other day and she had a situation in her life and just the way she handled it, I told Nicole.

I said just the way she handled it, without saying anything.

She showed people Jesus.

Because I didn't want to show anyone Jesus in that moment.

But it was just right.

She was able to show people what love looks like, what forgiveness looks like, what patience looks like.

How do I know that's making an impact on people?

Amen, and I look at it.

I just finished, praise the Lord.

I don't know how many weeks of teaching English every single day, but Friday was my last day of that and handed it off to someone else.

But I look at that and that last day, even though I'll still be in the building every once in a while, subbing a day here or there.

Man, there were kids come up, mr Rainey, thank you so much, and shaking my hand and we're going to miss you.

I'm like I didn't tell them about Jesus.

I couldn't tell them about Jesus.

I couldn't in that sense.

But you know what I could?

I could show them that I cared about them.

I could show them that there's someone that thinks they're important, someone that thinks they can do it, someone that thinks they can do better.

Just showing God to people does what Makes an impact.

I can't tell you how many kids have come up to me years later as adults and said Mr Rainey, I really appreciate when you were our sub, or I really appreciate when you coached me on this team.

It made a difference in my life.

I know what you do in people's lives is making a difference if you allow God to come through and so reach, connect, grow and impact.

Can you guys remember that Right?

Someone asked you what is the vision of Lone Star man?

Lone Star is about reaching people for Jesus.

It's about connecting people to God, connecting people together.

Nicole mentioned linked up.

When we did that, we got rid of Sunday school and people said why would you get rid of Sunday school?

Every church needs Sunday school.

Well, I had a friend, pastor Caleb Moran, said CF, start taking metrics.

He goes you need to know everything you do and whether it's successful or not.

If it's not successful, quit doing it.

And so here were our metrics.

When we did that, we had 8% to 12% of people that attended worship service came to Sunday school 8% to 12%.

We decided before we had two services, we decided to get rid of it.

Do linked up.

We prayed about it.

I mean, we didn't just do it to do it, we prayed about it.

God said do this coffee, bagels, muffins, whatever we could get, same time as Sunday school.

Same exact time we went from eight to 12% showing up for Sunday school to 95 to 98% of people showing up for linked up to 98% of people showing up for linked up, connecting together, talking, building community.

All because why we spend a little bit of money every year every Sunday to buy coffee, to buy bagels and muffins and have wonderful people that are willing to serve and put those out.

Do you see, all of a sudden, the difference that made in this church 8% to 12% to almost 100%, almost like 95%, 98% of people showing up Same time.

Nothing changed except what we did.

And then we decided, hey, we still need Bible study and important things.

So what do we do?

We added Elevate on Sunday nights, which is a Bible study.

We added our Connect groups.

Right, the vision of this church.

So everything we do, right.

We've got some new things that will be coming up that we'll talk about as we get closer to those with Meet the Pastors Night, our connect groups will be starting back up here in the spring.

We're already scheduling some people.

We have Reverend Joe Morse who preaches on End Times.

We'll be here in April.

Connect Nights we're planning to do some things.

Our Kids Camp, which is our VBS, will be in the summer.

In July Our Rise Women's Conference in August, youth events and different things that we're going to continue to have.

Everything we do, everyone we have come in, it's all about what Reach, connect, grow and impact.

We're trying to get everyone to realize this is what God's called this body to do.

And impact we're trying to get everyone to realize this is what God's called this body to do.

And this is where we're heading, not only in 2025, but every day of that year.

Thank you for tuning into the Lone Star Church podcast.

We hope this week's message strengthened your faith in God's word.

Remember, if you live in Northwest Missouri or Southern Iowa, we invite you to join us in person on a Sunday morning.

For more information about us, visit our website at lonestarchurchorg or follow us on Facebook, instagram or YouTube.