The Church We Dream About: Growing in the Right ways

Anyone here climbed Mount Rainier? Has anyone here climbed Mount Rainier?

Good, I can make up a bunch of stuff and no one will know.

I am not an expert at all in mountaineering. I think you knew that about me, even if we've just met.

But I hear, and I've talked to some people, and I get the sense that a lot goes

into climbing a mountain.

It's not something that you just decide to do. You probably shouldn't decide

to do that later today. It wouldn't be a good idea.

And I've heard that particularly for Rainier, Like I have some friends who've

done it a couple of times and you need to like, you need to get a permit.

You got to like enter a lottery to get a permit and you're not guaranteed to

get one. And then as you come close to the actual date, when you've been issued

your permit, you have to watch the weather. And if the weather isn't good,

you totally cancel and you're out of luck and you have to just try again next year.

But there's like, there's a lot of logistics and planning, but there's more

to it than that. I mean, you have to be ready. You have to be physically ready.

You have to hire a guide, probably if it's your first time. to know the right

way. You need to get the right kind of gear.

And you all love that. Everyone here loves their gear. So that's not a problem at all.

You have to keep a really close eye on everything. You have to make time in

your schedule. I mean, you got to take off work. You got to prepare. You got to train.

And that's not it. You need to be up for the challenge. You need to be in physical shape.

You need to get ready, your body ready to do such a grueling thing.

You need to be sure that you can lug a heavy backpack, and not only just carry

a backpack, but do it at high altitudes.

And you need to study what route you're going to take and just ensure that you're

ready to conquer the task.

And then on top of all that, I'm sure there's like mental readiness, right?

Got to develop a mindset of somebody who could or would climb a mountain.

You got to be crazy, right?

Not only climb the mountain, but also come down from the mountain,

which I hear is the most important part. Gotta be hyped up.

Let's just think about that. I'm going to put that in your brain and we'll come back to it in a second.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've been doing a short sermon series.

This is the last one. This is it. We're going to make it in three.

I wasn't sure if we could do it in three, but here we are.

And it's called The Church We Dream About. And it is what pastors call a vision

series. We're just thinking about the church and where we're at.

And especially because throughout 2026, throughout this whole year,

our elders and our staff and everyone's spouse was invited to be a part of that as well.

We've been going through a process to just clarify our vision as a church to

understand who we're called to be, kind of what is our approach,

what is our strategy for doing church.

It's been really great. It's been, I think, really unifying for the team,

empowering, I think, in a lot of ways.

And it's been important because leading a church, I think, is a lot like climbing a mountain.

There's a lot that goes into it. It's a big endeavor, and we have wanted to,

be prepared for what lies ahead in this new season for us as a church.

We want to know where we're going We want to know what route we intend to take

As we make our way towards the summit We want to know even what is the peak

we're trying to get to We need to know and answer the question What do we need along the way?

How do we prepare ourselves as a church?

And so that has been helpful to get those questions answered And clarified a little bit,

The last two weeks, we've talked about part of our vision statement in the last

part. This is the last week. I'm going to give you the last little bit of it.

But just to catch you up, we talked the first week just about our desire to

keep things simple, to be a simple church focused on the gospel,

and that that is, in fact, simplicity focused on the gospel is our missional strategy.

Like that is enough, I think, just to be a church where people are growing in

the gospel, in their love for the Lord is enough.

Last week, we talked about particularly the focus on community and being a community

of love, where we are equipped to care for one another, to minister to one another.

We think that that is essential, that we be a church who are using our gifts

and callings and growing into those things.

That is, again, part of this missional strategy. When the church is engaged

in loving one another, that is ministry, and that is how we move forward.

And today, we're just going to finish up with this last paragraph. So this is it.

I'm going to give this to you. Our goal is not growth for growth's sake, but spiritual health.

We believe a healthy church forms people, raises leaders, and sends them out.

As God brings growth, we will respond by scattering, planting,

and serving so that His life continues to multiply far beyond us.

I'm just going to point out just a couple things here. And the first one I want

to talk about is the opening statement.

Our goal is not growth for growth's sake but spiritual health this is then this

is the thing that gets me the most excited.

I've been excited to see over the last couple months the church has been been

growing like people have been coming it that's fun that's encouraging looks

like every some people are on vacation today but the last three weeks we've

not had enough enough seats in here and,

it's august so of course we're on vacation this is when we do this.

So that's been fun. It's been encouraging. And I like to see all your new faces.

Hello, new faces, if you're new.

I think it's so great. Glad to see so many people here. But as we grow,

I think it's really important for us to define where we're going and what we're intending to be.

We need to keep our eyes on the goal, which I think is clearly the goal of what

the church is called to, that the church would be spiritually healthy,

that we would be growing into spiritual health and becoming spiritually healthy people.

Not just a lot of people, because that's nice, but that is not really the goal.

The goal is that we would be spiritually healthy people, that we would be growing in discipleship.

So what is a spiritually healthy person? An important question.

I'm sure there is many ways to define it. I think the Bible gives us many pictures

and ideas and concepts of what spiritual health looks like, but I just want

to look at Psalm 37 for a moment to pick one of the many examples.

And I think there's a lot in Psalm 37, we're going to spend some time there

this morning, that can give us a picture of what the shape of spiritual health looks like.

So Psalm 37, 4, a pretty well-known verse says, Take delight in the Lord,

and He will give you your heart's desires.

That is a good thing to keep in my mind. We're going to keep making our way

through this psalm in a second, but I think it's just like that opening,

well, the fourth verse here, is a good picture of spiritual health.

Spiritually healthy people are delighting in the Lord. I mean,

that is a very good, I think, thing to aim at in terms of what we're called

to be. Yes, we worship the Lord.

Yes, we serve Him. Yes, we obey Him. Yes, we delight in Him. We love Him.

We are people who are just like overflowing in our desire to know God, to walk with Him.

Spiritual healthy people delight in God. And in doing so, they accomplish the stuff.

They get what their heart really wants.

I think it's very clear in this psalm, and I think as the Bible kind of lays

out the vision of what a Christian life is—,

is that we love God and we love people and everything else takes care of itself

as long as we get clarity about what the most important thing is.

The book of Psalms, too, is a really fascinating book. David wrote this song in particular.

He was, in case you don't know about David, he was an important king.

He brought Israel right into the cusp of its best times. Like,

peak Israel was David and early Solomon. And then things kind of went down from

there, right? You know the story probably.

And this psalm that David wrote became particularly important to Israel later on.

Because the book of Psalms, as we have it, as we have this collection of various,

psalms, poems from different writers, it was arranged for Israel as a prayer

book during their worst time.

During one of the low points, about 400 years after David was alive,

Whoever edited this book and brought these psalms together was creating a prayer

book to see Israel through a dark time.

It was at that point when Babylon had come in, destroyed the city of Jerusalem,

taken Israel captive. And I mean, just the people were decimated. They were discouraged.

They felt like they had no hope. Their identity was gone. All the things that

they were after were just, I mean, they seemed to have no way forward.

But in that moment, as they're in exile, they begin to remind themselves of

what they're really called to.

They've been people who are called to delight in the Lord. And they can do that.

In Israel, in Jerusalem, and they can do that in exile.

Because they had been called to be people who are not only just doing things

for God, they had a mission, they had a calling, but they've actually also been

called to be people who are called to spiritual renewal, people who delight

in God no matter where they are.

Because they had experienced what happens at this point, what happens when they

fail to delight in the Lord, when they just say, well, we're just going to do

things for God, but we're not actually going to love him.

We're not actually going to care for him. We're not going to delight in him

for his own sake. They'd experienced what happens when they fail to do that.

It's interesting, though, as you kind of read the story, you read the Old Testament,

you see what Israel was up against. See, Israel had a lot of zeal,

at least in different moments.

They were able to, throughout their life and throughout their life as a community,

hype themselves up at different times to work themselves up and to rededicate themselves to the Lord.

I mean, you can imagine, even though as we read the book of Exodus and there's

lots of complaining and there's lots of negative stuff happening in Israel,

I mean, it was a hard thing to leave the place they were at and to follow God into the desert.

They had done—as much as there's a lot of failing in that book,

there is a lot of obedience. There is a lot of zeal.

Some people in Israel were really calling God's people to go and to have some

guts and to go into the promised land.

But that wasn't just hyping themselves up and doing the thing and white-knuckling

it through was actually not the fullness of their calling to be spiritual, healthy people.

And we see that throughout the book of Exodus, throughout the earliest books

in the Bible, and throughout Israel's story.

And Paul actually points out about his Jewish brothers in Romans 10, their issue.

He says this, I can testify about them that they have zeal for God,

but not according to knowledge.

Paul understands the issues that have plagued Israel throughout its existence

is not a lack of zeal. And in fact, Paul understands zeal really matters.

You won't set out to be spiritually healthy without a little drive,

without a little passion, without a little excitement to seek the Lord.

Like apathy won't get you to spiritual health.

Without an intention to pursue God and to seek him, you're not going to go anywhere.

And I think actually one thing that evangelical churches have historically done

well is that we're people who care about zeal.

Like, you know, like evangelical worship, like it's like bringing worship to

the next level, trying to achieve that height of expression and love and devotion.

We understand, I think, in the evangelical tradition that to be excited about God is a good thing.

The word enthusiastic comes from the Greek word for God, the theos, the theusi there.

And it means to be in God. We actually have this sense that to be excited and

joyful and praising is a part of our worship and our delighting in him.

Like that is an important thing that we need to pursue. We need to be enthusiastic.

We want to, and I would say this, we want that to be a part of our culture here.

We want to be people who are growing in joy and growing in excitement.

And like just hopeful, hopeful people.

But I think that we need to understand that.

To be spiritually healthy, we need zeal, but we also need zeal according to knowledge.

I think spiritual health is both of those things together. It's zeal and knowledge.

Zeal alone might be nice, but I don't think zeal is enough for us to progress.

I might be really zealous right now in this moment to go and climb Mount Rainier,

but the headline will say, foolish pastor dies falling into glacial crevasse,

right? I mean, we know how that ends, right?

I am not prepared. I am not ready.

I do not have the knowledge, the practical understanding of what that's going

to take. I do not have a path forward.

I might have a lot of excitement, but death is going to be the result. That would be foolish.

Zeal alone cannot get me where I'm going. And I think knowledge does matter.

But I think the other side of this is that we need to understand what knowledge

is. Knowledge is not just something in my head.

I don't need to be the smartest person in order to have knowledge of who God is.

You all know, you may know this about me. I make it pretty clear that I really like Dallas Willard.

Dallas Willard is a theologian. And his definition of knowledge is this.

Knowledge is the ability to represent, that is to think about,

talk about, and deal with a subject matter as it is on the appropriate basis

of thought and experience, which sounds complicated, but it's not.

To know something as it is, to be able to talk about and think about and understand

the reality of a thing because we think about it and because we've experienced

it. That's what Dallas Willard says knowledge is.

This is important for me to understand because it means that I don't need to read another book.

Necessarily. I actually need to know things as they are.

I don't need to read only about God or know about God, but I need to experience

Him and know what it's like to follow Him.

I need zeal, excitement for who God is, plus an accurate reality-based idea

or a mental map of what are the challenges that come along with a life with God.

These are really important things. Like when I'm climbing up the mountain,

I want to know what's challenging about this stage or that stage,

What's challenging? What are the things that I need to be prepared for at this

point or that point in my pursuit, in my summiting of the mountain?

I need zeal plus knowledge and a realistic understanding that zeal alone,

that is trying harder, hyping myself up just to have more faith when I'm lacking faith.

You know, isn't that the best thing to do when you lack faith?

You just say, faith harder. Doesn't that always work?

In my experience, it does not. But just do it, the Nike approach to spiritual

health has never really gone well for me. And I don't think it will go well

for you. I don't think it can get me where I need to go.

So what do I need to do? Let's go back to Psalm 37 again, okay?

And I want to show you what I mean. because it's unexpected how we progress zeal plus knowledge.

Can I get that one up there? I didn't write down the, of course I didn't. There we go.

Okay, so take delight in the Lord. He will give you your heart's desires.

Good calling towards zeal and knowledge, delighting in the Lord.

And here's the way that David charts out the course that we take in delighting

ourself. He says, commit your ways to the Lord.

Trust in him and he will act, making your righteousness shine like the dawn,

your justice like the new day.

Be silent before the Lord. Wait expectantly for him.

Do not be agitated by the one who prospers in his way, by the person who carries

out evil plans. Refrain from anger and give up your rage. Important.

Do not be agitated. It can only bring harm.

For evildoers will be destroyed, and those who put their hope in the Lord will inherit the land.

A little while, and the wicked person will be no more. Though you look for him, he will not be there.

But the humble will inherit the land and will enjoy abundant prosperity.

David highlights what delighting in the Lord looks like. And it's not just zeal.

It's not hype yourself up. It's not give more and do more and get more excited about God.

Just power through and do the thing.

The knowledge that he highlights here is actually a surprising thing because

David has walked the path of delighting himself in the Lord.

And so he knows what it takes. And it's not more work. It's not more zeal.

It's not more hype. It's things like commitment, trust, silencing yourself before

the Lord, which is not something any of us, I think, are particularly good at

in our natural strength. It's just waiting.

How is the strategy to do something waiting? That doesn't compute to us.

And yet, according to this knowledge, this understanding that he had about how

it is to walk with the Lord, It's about refraining from anger and agitation

and not getting so worked up and angry and impatient, but silencing myself,

hoping in him yet again, humbling myself yet again.

This is the way of knowledge that David understands is the way towards true delight in the Lord.

Because Israel had been zealous, right? They had taken the land.

They did the thing for God.

But when it came to these other things, commitment, trust, waiting,

hoping, humility, refraining from anger, they did not do these things.

And so they did the thing they thought they were called to do in their own strength.

And yet, was that leading them to delight?

Was that leading to spiritual health? I think the resounding answer from the

Old Testament is no, that was not the way.

There is another way. So let me ask you, just to put this question in your head,

how is your commitment? And commitment is one of those words I think that gets

us really like, oh, I'll try harder.

And does your commitment look like trust, waiting, non-agitation,

refraining from anger, humbling yourself, and just a steady hope in the Lord?

And when you fail to exhibit these habits, and when I fail to exhibit these

traits, what is the way forward?

Is it more hype? Is it more zeal? Is it trying harder to not be angry?

You've tried harder to not be angry?

You're just going to get more angry. Is that the train? Okay.

Throwing more willpower at the problem is, I think it is not the way forward.

I've grown up in the church, been around a long time, and I have been struck,

by this fact, that I know what I should do.

I really know what God calls me to do. I just don't know how to become that

person who would do those things.

We need zeal according to knowledge because the reality is that the way to spiritual

health is not, I think, as simple and direct as we might think.

It is not the mere exercise of willpower that's going to get us there.

There are things happening in your heart and my heart and obstacles along the

way to spiritual maturity, to delighting in the Lord. There are hang-ups and

hurts and doubts that all of us have.

And the solution is not to just faith harder. There are weaknesses that we need

to address within ourselves.

And just more willpower is not going to get us through those things.

So what do you do? We'll look at what Paul says in Galatians 5.

He says this, The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

The law is not against such things. Now those who belong to Christ,

Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

See, something Paul understands, he understands the complexity.

Not even the complexity, but he understands the way forward.

He has knowledge about the spiritual life.

He understands that oftentimes what we miss in the spiritual life is that we're

not just called to stop doing things and start doing other things.

I mean, that is a way of summarizing it, but that's not the most direct path

forward where we just stop doing this and we do other things.

That's not the most direct way.

What Paul understood is that we have to actually, as we come into Jesus Christ,

as we come into maturity, we crucify the flesh with his passions and desires.

Just before this passage in verse 21, in the prior verses, he highlights what

are the works of the flesh. And he talks about anger and pride and all these

things that get in our way.

And then he lays out the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

But he's not just saying, stop doing this, start doing this.

Don't just by your willpower do these things. Instead, what he says is that

you need to learn, we need to learn, Christians need to learn to keep in step

with the Spirit by crucifying our flesh with its passions and desires.

I don't like that word, crucifying, but I guess it's really Christian, right?

Jesus, he had some experience with crucifixion, right?

But I mean, this is like one of these things. part of being a sinful person

and I am a sinful person, you are a sinful person. That is what the Bible tells us about ourselves.

And we think that that's like so icky and gross and stuff like that.

And so we'll stop being icky and gross by just trying harder. No.

We stop being stuck in sin by trusting ourselves to Jesus, but by putting our

sin right up there, letting him pay the price, understanding that we've been freed from it.

Part of being a sinful person, though, is that we have our passions and desires,

the natural things that we want, even after we come to faith.

Even after we come to faith, our passions and desires, which are in and of themselves,

built in parts of who we are that can be used for good.

Like when my passion and my desire is rightly focused, it is the greatest strength that I have.

It is your greatest strength as a human being, as a person created to worship God.

When your passions and desires have been crucified, have been set to Christ,

when it's no longer you who live, but Christ lives in you, like Paul talks about

earlier in Galatians, like that is the beauty of being a person.

But the corruption of sin is that our passions and desires are misdirected.

St. Augustine talks about our desires, and he says that the issue in the sinful

heart is that our desires curve in upon themselves.

Instead of being directed towards God, towards delighting in God,

towards loving God, towards loving other people, we just have this, like—.

I'm not a golfer, right? But we slice every time. That's about how I golf.

That bad. I know. I'm embarrassed. It's sad. I'm not athletic. We slice every time.

Our desires and our passions curve. But spiritual health involves growing under,

the work of the Holy Spirit, not by just trying harder,

but giving more of our heart and our life to God letting him work out the stuff

that's going on deep inside of me, the fact that I want to want God,

but I don't know how to want God.

I don't just get over that by trying harder. I let him come in and straighten things out.

I let him come in and work upon what's going on in my heart.

That is, I think, the call to spiritual health. And as a church, I'm saying this,

We want to grow as spiritually healthy people. That means that we want to grow

as people who are understanding passions and desires, which are,

James says, making war against us.

Like, I mean, that is the language, like the serious language.

Like, and so how do we come and how do we resolve the conflict and how do we

let the spirit come in and like work out in his gentle and kind and gracious way,

work us towards maturity and straighten

out us and teach us what it is to delight in God and to love God.

And I already talked to you about how much I love Dallas Willard.

Dallas Willard makes this really great point.

He says that in the modern world, we have lost spiritual knowledge.

The modern church has been so excited about the new and exciting stuff that

the modern world has that we have, I think, in a lot of ways,

we've lost a sense that this really is our calling, that spiritual maturity,

that working on what's going on in the heart and the soul is the primary thing that we're called to.

And that is how we grow in love. We don't just try harder to love.

We don't get on mission by doing bigger and better things for God.

We get on mission by first saying to God, okay, I have a life with you now.

You've paid the price for my sin. So it's no longer winning or losing because

I know where I'm going because Jesus has invited me into the family.

And yet as a good older brother, God is a good Father, He wants me to grow into maturity,

and I'm not going to fail, and somehow, oh, I'm going to be worried about what's

going to happen to me, because I just, you know, it's like it takes the sting

and the shame and the guilt away, but God still wants us to grow into maturity.

So how do we pursue that as a church, okay? These are just very broad breaststrokes,

because I don't have, I'm running out of time already, but a couple things that

we want to do as a church that I think will help us recover and stay focused on spiritual health.

The first one is we wanna practice corporate spiritual disciplines together.

We're going to do in September a whole, we do this every September,

the end of September, a whole series on the become practices,

these things that I've been asking you guys, asking and asking,

asking, and I think eventually you're going to do them,

as a church, like things that we can practice together, things that will help

us along this path with pursuing delight in the Lord, dealing with the stuff

in our hearts, pursuing maturity.

So we want to do those things together.

Not going to talk again extensively about those things right now,

but these are practices that we can all partake in together.

They're not things that are about outputs, that is saying we're not going to

just do things so that we can accomplish things.

They're things that we're going to try to do, which we will likely fail in.

And in failing in them, we will say, what's it going on in my heart?

That's the problem that needs to be dealt with. And that'll be different for you than it is for me.

But there's lots, like one of them is that I should bless two people every day.

That shouldn't be that hard. You can bless them in every way.

But I go many days without blessing people. What's going on?

Why is it that my inward thoughts and my inward desires are so curved back into myself?

What is it about me that is so focused on myself?

And in the context of grace and the love of Jesus Christ, the secure,

paid for, like freedom that comes from Jesus, like I can ask that question in

a way where it doesn't feel like I'm afraid to ask that question.

I can say, God, I know you've called me to be a person who blesses others.

And so what is going on and how do I work out these issues?

That's what spiritual disciplines do. They help us to ask these questions.

Another thing we can do, and this is my favorite, learning from dead people.

We can learn from dead people.

Again, like I said, I think in the modern world, we've gotten so excited about,

the methods that churches use and the new worship.

And it's all great. I'm not against any of it necessarily in and of itself,

but I think we've lost...

Many of the best things about the Christian tradition. People have been following Jesus for 2,000 years.

And many of them know a lot more about patience and waiting and humility than we do.

And we should try to recover some of those things. You'll notice that in my

teaching, I try to listen to some dead people.

We read scripture, also written by dead people. Dead people now eternally alive. Wonderful.

And we base everything off of scripture but we also just want to understand

that scripture is not as a document it is not a spiritual handbook it's kind of the rules and bounds,

one of my favorite theologians who writes about scripture describes scripture

as the documents of mission they're like the primary source material where we

see what's going on and then there's a lot of wisdom and direction in it but.

The question that many of the things that we have going on in our lives are not directly answered.

According to Scripture, how do I get over screen addiction?

Well, unsurprisingly, the disciples did not mention screen addiction, right?

So, I mean, yeah, there's a lot of data that is applicable to addiction and things like that.

But, I mean, I think we really can learn from people and embrace the historic Christian tradition.

There are so many good things that Christians have been working on and learning

about how do we grow in prayer? How do we grow in humility? And we can recover

those things and study them.

And then lastly, we just want to be a culture where we have zeal and knowledge.

We don't, I don't want to, I was hesitant to say the word knowledge because

I don't want to say, well, we're just going to pursue in our heads.

I know we need to be a culture where we are, we are, we're excited about the

Lord, where we are cultivating faith, where we are really like,

like leaning into pursuing, pursuing the Lord.

That's probably an area where we could grow as a church and where I could grow personally.

But we want to be a joyful and excited group of people who are zealous for the

Lord, but we also want to be zealous according to knowledge.

We want to cultivate faith and an awareness that there's spiritual formation

happening in my heart all the time, and that I am being formed.

I am either loving the world more or I am loving the Lord more,

and that there are things within my heart, biases, and things that I just need to deal with.

Richard Foster wrote a great book about spiritual disciplines, I think in the 80s.

He says, the goal of the Christian life is not simply to get us into heaven,

but to get heaven into us. And I like that little saying.

We are called to be people who are partnering with God, who are enjoying Him,

who are delighting in Him.

Getting saved is so important. We are going to keep preaching the gospel.

We're going to keep inviting people into the kingdom.

And as they come into the kingdom, inviting them to this growth and maturity

where we are becoming more Christ-like over time. as we crucify our passions and desires?

Will we want to give people a way forward in that, how to take their next step?

And that really is the goal.

Let's see. You know, like, what good, and this is the question I'm going to

leave, and then we're going to move on to the last little bit here.

What good is a church where the people are not growing in the fruits of the

Spirit, not growing in love, and not growing in joy, and not growing in peace,

and not growing in patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control?

And here's, I asked that question, but I got to tell you, I don't want to find

out the answer. Let's not find out the answer together.

Worship team's going to come up. here, but we're just going to talk about the

last little bit of this as we get ready.

The last sentence here is, as God brings growth, we will respond by scattering,

planting, and serving so that his life continues to multiply far beyond us.

I, bringing back this climbing of a mountain image, if growing a church is like

climbing a mountain, then we need to know what summit we're aiming for, right? What is the peak?

I am not excited. And I'm going to say this, God can do whatever he wants with this church.

But as I pray, and I think our team prays and thinks about what are we really

called to, the summit that we're aiming for is not megachurches.

It is not a church of a thousand people in one big room, right?

That would be difficult in this building, certainly.

The summit that we're aiming for and what's in my heart and what is

my hope, and again, God can do whatever he wants, is that we would grow as a

church right here, maximize this place, and then begin to plant other churches,

small to medium-sized churches in this area.

To me, for a host of reasons, I think that is the best missional strategy for

the greater Seattle area.

I could talk to you for an hour about why I think this makes more sense than

trying to become a megachurch.

So I'm just saying that our hope is to scatter, plant, and multiply.

We want to be a church that multiplies, not through just growing bigger and

bigger, but by planting other churches.

And so just i want to highlight just just three things of how we're kind of

going to go about pursuing that as or how we how we envision how that we will

go about pursuing that and i just focus on some some short-term things that will,

be important as we as we start to climb the mountain here the first thing we're

going to do is we're going to maximize this building so some people are new some people,

are not are not new but it's good for me to remind you about this space so we

bought this building about a year ago. We owned upstairs and downstairs.

We are using 3,600 square feet right now as a church.

But you may not know this, but behind this wall, there's another 40 feet of

building that goes that way.

Currently, that is space that is leased to some other tenants.

But at the end of the year, those leases are coming up and we're not going to renew those. And so.

Towards the end of the year, I think one of them is up in January,

but as those spaces become unoccupied, we will have access to them as the church,

which will give us about 5,500 square feet altogether.

And so, you know, what we're going to do over the years is we're just going

to try to maximize this space.

If we keep growing and, you know, come September, October, we're feeling the

pinch, we'll probably at some point have to do a second service.

And then once Once we start to have a greater need, like need for greater space,

what we're going to do is remodel and reconfigure this whole upstairs because

it was built out for office spaces.

And at some point, we will be able to maximize the space and optimize it.

We'll also hopefully at some point be able to, initially we had this idea of

having a cafe downstairs that could also double as a lobby. So we could run

a community cafe and have some extra lobby and coffee space.

Those are things that are just like down the road, I think, in the medium term.

But what we want to do is really to use this space, use the entire upstairs, use it well.

We'll have some more kids space so we can do some more like middle school programming.

And oftentimes these rooms in the back, these kids rooms are really full.

They're starting to get really full, especially the first to third grade.

Why do we have so many first to third graders? It's amazing.

So, you know, we're going to continue to be in this place. We're going to maximize

the building. We're going to do everything we can to make it as efficient as possible.

And then we're going to try to fill it up. I mean, we're just going to fill

it up. But the reality about this building is that's a wall.

And, well, that's not the outer wall. But there's another outer wall on the

other side of the bathroom is there.

And that's as big as this building is. And I think that's plenty big.

I think if we maximize this space and we continue to grow, We could grow to

a congregation of about 300 or so, and as we start to go past that,

we could start planting churches. And I'm excited about that idea.

With that in mind, we also just need to focus on leadership development.

This is a weak area for me. I'm not good at this.

But I'm really understanding that it is something that I really need to focus

on, because if we are going to grow, not only just grow in this space,

but grow to plant churches. We need people who are competent and trained up

and able to do these things.

If you have been itching for a little bit more, let's figure out what that looks like.

Let's figure out how you can grow in your abilities and start to use them more.

We are going to need to think about, again, if we're climbing a summit and the

goal is to plant churches, we need to think about how do we get those leaders

in place to be able to do that.

And then the last thing, just to wrap it all up To bring it full circle Is that

we're going to keep keeping it simple.

Complexity, I think, will be the enemy of being able to plant a church.

Because if we start to do too much and overextend ourselves,

then we're not going to be able to sacrificially send people out.

And then it will be sacrifice. There is sacrifice in it.

But I am excited about the possibility of what can happen if we really commit

ourselves to saying, all right, Lord, we know you love this crazy area that we live in, right?

We know that a lot of Christians, peace out of here. But we think that you have

something for us as we stay and commit ourselves.

And as we seek to see this area re-evangelized for Jesus,

we think that there can be something really beautiful and good if churches just

come in, get close to their communities, which is what we intend to do here,

be close to communities that really don't want much to do with them.

They're going to have to have things to do with us because we're here and we're not going away, right?

And we'll put ourselves in downtown areas where there's people around.

You know, the tendency in church planting for the last 40 years is,

well, you got to get a really big piece of land outside of town so that you

can build your big building because there's no way that you can grow your church

unless you have a giant building. And we're going to do the opposite.

We want to put churches right in downtown areas where they're close to people

and where they're smaller footprints, but able to get close to people.

So that is, again, as we set out, that is what I hope we can make the most of

that opportunity of where we're at.

We can serve this area. And that's another big thing in this upcoming year.

We want to get on the street, serving people as much as we can.

I know that was a lot. These were important things for me to just lay out about

long-term destination. I'm excited to be... Well, okay.

Church in the park next week. I'm excited to be back in the Word together in the weeks ahead.

But I just want us to just take a moment right now and just quiet ourselves

to wait upon the Lord for a minute and to ask Him to do the work.

You know, this is the thing. Like, we plan.

We're thoughtful. We try to.

Understand where the Lord is calling us in the future so that we can be prepared

for it. But ultimately, we need His strength and we need His Word.

You know, like, this is the thing. He's like, I can choose. Oh,

I want to be a better person.

I want to be a person with the fruits of the Spirit. I don't want to be a person

who's doing the works of the flesh. That's a good intention and zeal and that

kind of desire to move on from old things onto new things is a good starting point.

But ultimately, it is Jesus who matures us and it's Jesus who calls us for it.

And so as a church, I just want us to give ourselves over to him.

So Lord, would you show us your vision for this church?

Lord, if we are wrong, if we've misunderstood, we just give it back to you. Lord, correct us.

Lord, we want to be led and corrected by you. Lord, when our hearts are seeking

after other things, Lord, teach us to delight in you.

And Lord, we want a great measure of your spirit. Lord, it is you, Lord, who are you.

Lord, we want all of that. And so, Holy Spirit, we welcome you in this place.

Lord, we welcome you into our church where we ask you,

to be our pastor, Jesus, to lead.