The Shape of Mission -- Incarnational Mission

What it is so you know just to get everybody caught up if

you've been around i-90 for the last few months you know that we're in

a very it's kind of a long it's a long process honestly a

long process of making a move we are

and this is not news here we're currently under contract to sell this building

and we're going to sell to another church which is which is great a chinese

speaking church is going to be coming in here and that transaction is moving

forward but it's dependent upon replacing two of our septic systems because

they're just extremely old.

I have a little timeline that I have kind of used to keep you updated.

And this is the last version from two months ago, and it continues to be valid.

So we've been, if you've walked around the building, maybe especially the kids

ministry, you maybe noticed some giant holes and you thought,

well, that's an interesting landscaping choice.

But those big holes are actually, that is for the septic system.

So, you know, the designer comes in, digs some holes, does some tests.

And so we're moving forward with that. We've have two new systems designed and

the applications have gone with King County about two weeks ago.

And they said it would take about two weeks for them to review them. So right on schedule.

Hopefully those get done soon. But as soon as we get approval for those designs,

we will go to bid and get them installed as soon as possible.

And so yeah so in terms of our timeline assuming everything

goes well with installing those they'll likely be

done late april early may and

once those are complete in terms of the sale we will close five days after king

county gives their their blessing on those systems so that's how the contract

works but that's not the end of our time in this building we have at that point

an option to have three months of renting back.

So if it gets done in early May, which is sort of what I'm expecting,

then we would be able to be in this building all the way through kind of early to mid-August.

So like we've got time, but of course, you know, the timeline is starting to move forward.

But then of course the big question that has been kicking around and that many

of you have asked me and I've been given very unsatisfying answers to,

to this point is where are we moving? What are we doing?

And if you've been around, we've talked about that. We've been open to options.

We are kind of praying that the Lord would indicate where we should go.

But of course, it's not an infinite amount of space.

We've said, okay, from Issaquah to Snoqualmie, those are east or west a little bit by a few miles.

It's kind of the latitude which we feel like,

would be good. And we've, we've asked you to pray about that.

You've been praying for a couple months now, and we took some surveys,

you know, and had you guys fill in your, your input, your, your feelings and,

and where you felt the Lord was, was, was leading you.

And over the course of, you know, several months, you know, looking for buildings

and exploring things and the results of the survey have all proved to be remarkably inconclusive.

So really, I mean, really to the point where it's like 30% don't like this,

30% don't like the opposite. And you're like, well, that is interesting.

And I don't, you know, we don't know what to do with that.

Well, we do know what to do with that. We need to just keep praying because

there's, there, it seems to have been like, in terms of just making this choice,

thinking our way out of it is not, is not really an option.

And not only that, I mean, we're constrained by the realities of real estate here.

You know, we have, we've sort of a minimum size of a building that we would

need. There are some zoning considerations.

There's parking considerations. There's budget considerations, right?

And so when we take all those things into account, you know,

the list of potential options is smaller.

And over the months, we have looked at a lot of different spaces and,

you know, eliminated many on the basis of those things.

And then, you know, actually once, maybe twice, sort of, we tried, we found a spot.

We thought, oh, this could really work. And let's ask the landlord to drop a

lease. and they said, well, we just don't like churches. Literally.

Twice this happens. So that's a really good excuse. I guess they don't like

money either. But so it goes.

So we've been open to a lot of options, but up to this point,

up to recently, not much has been moving forward.

But all along, you know, the prayer has been, our prayer, the elders' prayer,

and I think what we've all been praying, is that God would plant us in the right spot.

You know, there's no question that personal preferences come into it.

If you know me and you've talked to me, I have a preference about where I'd like the church to be.

You know, that's a piece of information, but it's not the only piece of information

because the most important thing

in our prayer has been that this is God's church. It's not my church.

It's not your church. It's not any one of us individually, our church.

We don't really actually get to just decide and to just decide what's going to go on here.

And so So we've been open with this range of possibilities and explored the

options that have come up.

And with all just with a confidence, right? As it, as it, as a,

like with an expectation that God, he's sovereign.

He knows what's going on here. We've, we've really felt through this process

of discernment that God was, was calling us to make a move, but,

but didn't have the clarity and where to go, but, but we're confident that God

is going to direct us and is going to continue to direct us.

And, and perhaps is, is now making some things clear.

So what I wanted to tell you about today is that we have been praying and we

found a building that we are very interested in and are moving forward with

a feasibility study of this building.

And rather than tell you where it is, I just want to show you a picture because

I think you'll recognize this building if you've been around Snoqualmie.

So this is right downtown Snoqualmie.

Some of you guys are like, oh yeah, I know that building, right?

And well, which I think just proves the visibility arguments, right?

Because you literally know where this building is. It is right downtown Snoqualmie.

This is it's called the railroad building sorry i'm i oh shoot i hang on i had

a timer i need a timer today because this is one of those ones where i could

go off you know you know how i am and i don't want to be that way but i am and

so i'm gonna make i'm gonna do us all a courtesy.

35 minutes and then five more

let's just

be honest let's be honest okay so

like this is a building that we've come across it is

an 11 000 square foot building which to

give you some context this whole building is 4 000 square feet this

this whole building right here so it's an 11 000 square

foot building right in the heart of downtown snoqualmie and i don't mean just

like next to the heart next to downtown snoqualmie like right in the middle

of it and i am yeah just just pleased to say that we've kind of agreed theoretically

on a price and then we are we are in this phase right now of feasibility.

So like when you rent, you ask all your questions first, and then you sign a

contract and that's the contract.

When you buy, because this is a purchase, you sign the contract first,

and then you have a period of time in which you can walk away free.

So we're at now on, I think we have 25 days left or thereabouts,

where we are just asking a bazillion questions, you know, getting the building inspected.

There's a lot of questions to ask. And so I want to say this,

you know, as clearly as I can, that this is, we are stepping in thinking that

this might be the place, that this might be the right opportunity.

Again, for 25 days, we can just walk away with zero consequences.

At the end of 25 days, we have to give them a $100,000 non-refundable deposit.

So we're going to decide within 25 days whether or not this is moving forward or not.

Because, yeah, I don't think I need to explain that one to you.

So I am just asking you guys to start to really pray about this thing.

If this is not what the Lord has, we can walk away and we will walk away.

But if this is what the Lord has for us, then we want to just have clarity.

And I'm asking you to pray about some specific things, six areas,

because any move like this is complex in some ways, okay?

So number one, I've got a list. Would you pray this Thursday at 11 a.m.

As we have a meeting with the town of Snoqualmie? We think from a zoning perspective, this is fine.

But until you act, having dealt with municipalities and church buildings in

the past, what's on paper and what it should be is not always what it is.

And so we're hopeful for a productive meeting with the town this Thursday at

11, just to lay out what we think we'd like to do and to see,

is this feasible from their perspective,

from a zoning perspective, from a building perspective to allow us to do what

we want to do with this building?

So please pray for that. And that's a very important question.

Please pray over the next couple of weeks, we have inspections lined up.

We're going to get this building thoroughly looked at from HVAC to electrical

to the sewer system to all these things because it's important that we know

the condition of this building.

And so we're just praying for just total clarity that we could know if there

are any problems with the building that we would be aware of them.

And that's going to factor into our decisions. So please pray for that.

We're going to be interviewing church designers this week to help develop a remodel plan.

I'll explain more about the building itself, but the great thing about it is

it doesn't require a ton of work.

It would not require a ton of work to get us to where we need to be on this,

but there's a few other things that need to happen.

Number four is just pray for the tenants.

So it's top and bottom. On the bottom floor, there's like retail spaces.

Those are going to stay. We would be landlords of those retail spaces,

which actually pays for all the income we need.

We need to generate a little bit more. We need to do some financing that would pay for all of that.

So it's a financially, it's actually a beneficial move to make this move.

We will talk about all that as we go along here.

But there's also some in the in the second floor, about a third of the second floor is rented.

Two thirds is not. But we need to have some discussions with those tenants.

We're looking at the leases now. And you know, it's complex.

I'm not saying, oh, this is so easy. There's this big empty building.

I'm saying there's a building and an opportunity that we're praying through.

And there's a lot of questions we need to answer.

And there's complexity to it, right? But there's gonna be complexity no matter what.

But I'm optimistic. Did you know that about me?

I'm generally optimistic and I am optimistic that we can make some forward momentum

and it may look like some give and take with our tenants for a short period

of time till their leases expire.

So we're gonna have to look into those things and really develop a clear plan

and have some discussions.

That's probably the biggest sticking point, if I'm honest, What I anticipate

being the big challenge is figuring that out.

We also want to do that in a way that honors them and isn't,

hey, we bought this building, get out.

Kind of like, you know, being jerks, not a good witness to Christ. So pray for that.

Pray for the financial provision, the financial provision side of things.

We will talk about the finance later, but you know, this is a little bit of

a move and moving takes money.

I mean, so pray for that. And then the most important thing,

honestly, that this would just be confirmed by the Holy Spirit as we all pray about it.

I think we want to want what God wants and we want to seek what he has.

And I do believe this is a huge opportunity.

And I'm going to talk about that further here.

But I'm, I mean, I mentioned that I have a preference and my preference is not to be in Snoqualmie.

I've told it, pretty much anyone who asked, I've told them that.

And we've looked at a lot of buildings in Snoqualmie and I didn't really like any of them.

But I saw this building and I thought, darn it, Lord, you know,

I have to like this because it's really a good opportunity.

And I'm not dispositioned to like it.

I'm just 100% clear. If you want an unbiased opinion, that's my actually very

biased against this particular location. But I just see so much potential in it. I cannot deny it.

In terms of the things in the novel that I wrote you guys, you know,

my 12-page paper that I wrote you guys,

describing kind of the missional opportunities, this checks every box.

All the things that I was hoping for and I'm praying for and what I think is

that churches in this kind of culture, in this kind of moment,

need to be in order to reach cultures.

Like, it does all these things, and we'll talk about that more.

So I'm just asking you guys to really, really pray and to really take some time.

Even if you're kind of temperamentally against it, as I was,

would you just come check it out?

And I'm going to give you guys all an opportunity to do that.

So we've scheduled a tour and a vision night for Tuesday, April 8th.

So that's not this Tuesday, but next Tuesday at 7 o'clock, we can gather,

walk around the building.

Do not, please, Lord Jesus, don't just go in there in the middle of business

hours and ask all the tenants, So when are you leaving, you know,

we're going to get you out of here. Please don't do that.

You can walk around outside all you want, you know, just casually.

Drew and Marilyn did some scoping out. They went into all the businesses and

just struck up conversations. I appreciate that. They didn't give any clues

that they were scouting, though. It is good.

So so be, you know, just be respectful of their of their space.

But if you want to get in there and see it, please plan on being there Tuesday

the 8th just to take a look.

And if you cannot make it, not because you like, you know, have a nap scheduled,

but if you're just out of town, you can't possibly make it, you can reach out

to me and I can figure out a time to get you in.

But I'd rather not do that 17 times. So please try to be here on Tuesday,

April 8th, if you want to walk around at 7 p.m. Again, that's the address in Snoqualmie.

And I'd really just encourage you guys to do that. So...

Yeah. With all of that said, and we're going to kind of weave this into the

rest of the things I have to say today with my 26 minutes that I have left.

I want to take the rest of our time to just kick off a very short series that

we're going to be doing from now until Easter, and I'm calling it The Shape of Mission.

And my hope is that look as we're as we're really

just in this mind frame of considering okay we want to understand what is the

opportunity before us you know like like if we are moving at this point like

like if that's happening what is the opportunity that we have in front of us

because i truly believe that this this is not motivated by certainly not by

convenience it's not motivated by,

at least i think it should not be motivated by anything other than a great desire to be,

participants in God's mission to reach this area, the east side of Seattle, with the gospel.

And when we think about mission, I think we need to have a lot of clarity because

I can say, oh yeah, you want to be an effective church, a missional church.

I was at a thing yesterday, and I was talking to a guy, and he found out I was

a pastor, and his first question was, well, is the church growing?

Because that's the only thing that matters.

And I'm like, Like, wow, I'm not sure if it's the only thing that matters.

You know, it set off in my brain all these kind of questions because I 100%

believe that a growing church, a church that's reaching people really does matter.

But is that the only thing that matters for a church?

Is that the only thing that matters? I mean, there's a popular Christian commentary who I like.

I've learned a lot from, but he has this saying and I dislike it.

He says, we will do anything short of sin to reach people for Jesus.

And I'm like, it's obviously intentionally provocative. He's just saying,

we're going to be full out on mission.

Whatever works, that's what we're going to do. And the truth is that I am super

uncomfortable with that because I don't think the only question when it comes

to mission is what's the most effective.

Because then you're just like being utilitarian about mission.

And then you're asking yourself this question, well, what else is the church for?

Surely the church has some other purpose, some other essential characteristics

than just being on mission.

So I think when I think about the shape of mission, what I want to do is just

to think through these questions, these tensions that we have.

Yes, we absolutely want to be a church that is reaching out and effective.

And I think there's lots of things that we can do to achieve that.

But we also want to hold those things along with the other callings that we

have. I mean, ultimately, who are we?

We are a worshiping people. we are people who want

to see and know and experience God on

a personal level and that's so important and there's a

value in and of that see because if it's only about mission then

then I just need to give until I till I drop dead and

I don't it doesn't matter if I'm worshiping because I just have to be you know

handing out tracts or doing whatever the thing is that's going to be missionally

effective right but yet we are so much fuller than that I think we have yes

mission and we always need to keep mission at the forefront but we also have

a purpose beyond that I've given you guys this quote a couple of times over my series in Matthew,

because we've talked a lot about mission in Matthew,

right? But this quote by Christopher J.H., right?

I think it's so essential to center mission because it is important.

He says, it's not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in

the world as that God has a church for his mission in the world.

Mission was not made for the church. The church was made for mission, God's mission.

And so, yeah, I mean, I can affirm this. We have these tensions that we manage.

Yes, we have to be missional.

And yet that is not all that we are.

That said, I think there's a way to not make these two goals being missional

and being what we're called to be like missionaries.

To make them like tensions to manage, but things that we can integrate together.

And that's what I think is our opportunity right here.

Christopher Wright's point is that the church's existence comes from,

it's initiated by God's action in the world.

The only reason we're here is because God has set his sights upon broken people,

sinful people, broken nations, broken systems in this world that we live in.

And he says, I want to redeem it.

I want to reconcile all this stuff. I want to take away sin.

And I want to fill the world with my presence.

And I want to restore things. And so out of God's desire to accomplish these

things in the world, the church has come into existence.

We've talked about that quite a bit over the last couple weeks.

But given all that, I think it would be wise for us to consider what does being

a missional church look like?

What does being sold out for that, participants in this mission,

and yet also doing, you know, just being a church, having a life of our own

as a church and integrity of our own, what does it look like?

And how does a living, breathing collection of saints that we call the church

live out this purpose to be on mission?

Since we've already spent a long time kind of talking about the news,

I don't really have much time left to get into a mission. But I want to lay

out some preliminary considerations that we'll look at over the next couple

of weeks as we continue on in this series.

There's a theologian named Alan Hirsch. He's a missiologist.

Missiology is the theology of mission, right? It's right there in the word.

And he has a really good framework that I'm kind of laying out and I want us

to look at over the next couple of weeks.

He argues that our ideas about mission and our ideas about church or ecclesiology,

so our ecclesiology, our theology of church, and our missiology,

our theology of mission,

is all actually has to flow from our Christology, our theology of Christ,

our ideas about who Jesus is.

He, and I think helpfully lays out in this diagram,

points out the fact that who Jesus is, What he came to do is actually like the

master concept through which we have to filter questions about what is what is the mission?

How does the mission play out? And particularly, how does the church participate in the mission?

Because if I come to this framework that I'll do anything short of sin for the

mission, then actually I'm going to shape the mission a lot more like me.

And my ambitions and my hopes, then I am going to shape it like Jesus and the

way that he went about his work and what his hopes are.

So what Hirsch is laying out here is just this kind of correction that we always

need to keep in mind because we can come up with great ways to grow a church.

The question is, if Jesus was here in our time, is that how he would grow the

church? Because that matters.

If how we organize a church or where we situate a church or what we devote ourselves

to, like we could reach a lot of people, but in the end, are we reaching people

and making them disciples?

Because that was Jesus as his primary concern.

You can get a lot of butts in a room and a lot of dollars in the bank account,

a lot of tithe money coming in and you can get great worship services going on.

And you can make disciples in large groups or you can make consumers.

We've seen it, and honestly, I don't care to name names.

I don't know, because I can only stand outside of other churches and say,

I don't know what the fruit is going to be over the long term.

But I'm really convinced that any church that wants to have its own integrity

and be a place where God is worshipped needs to subject itself to this kind of correction.

And any of our methods, any of our missiology and ecclesiology needs to reference

back to Jesus and what he was like and what he was about. And he was calling

the church to go make disciples of the nations.

Jesus' life and his ministry has to be the guiding paradigm for mission and

the guiding paradigm for ecclesiology, the organization of the church, what it's about.

And we would be wise to start here and ask this question, what was Jesus like?

What kind of ministry did he do? And how was his way of approaching the world

and the needs of the world and the mission of God unique?

And Hirsch helps us out, understanding that this framing leads us to a need to study this question.

What is Jesus's unique approach to ministry?

He lays out what he calls the four Ps of incarnation, right?

So he understands that, well, Jesus is God in the flesh, God incarnate, taking on flesh.

He's come down like God could have stayed up in heaven and done a lot of things,

right? He could just yell really loud and maybe finally we'd wake up.

But for whatever reason, God decided that the best way to advance his mission

in the world, to reconcile all things to himself, was to have Jesus come down,

God himself taking on flesh and dwelling among people.

And these four Ps, or at least his observations about things that are unique

to the ministry of Jesus that we need to hold onto as a church.

And his first one is proximity.

Proximity. So let's talk about proximity. I've got another slide for that.

He defines proximity as to get close to the people that he's called us to love.

So in terms of how a church lives out the missional incarnational principle

that Jesus lived out, is that we too need to get close to the people we're called

to love, the people we're called to serve.

And look, I mean, it's absolutely fundamental to what Jesus did.

John 1.14, this is the statement of John's gospel, like introducing this whole

framework to understanding Jesus's ministry is that the word,

that's the eternally preexistent logos, God, the second person of the Trinity,

existed before time, and he became flesh.

He dwelt among us. We call him Jesus.

We observed his glory, the glory of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

You know, Jesus walked around and he was an astounding person,

but he was so astounding because all, Scripture tells us all the fullness of God dwelled in him.

Like everything, every attribute of God, like was just fully radiating in the person of Jesus Christ.

And Jesus didn't stand up far away from people. He went to them.

I mean, that's what we've been looking at in the book of Matthew.

Jesus, I mean, yeah, he's a little bit obscure. He's out there,

but he lets people come and touch him.

He lets people come and know him. He goes into their homes.

He asks them about their lives. He doesn't just say, oh, I'm God.

I've shown up. Go ahead and worship me.

He goes to where people are. He meets them in the midst of their needs. There's proximity.

And when I wrote my paper to you guys, right? You know, I framed it.

As a missional issue of that our location is like, it's great.

I mean, if this were, it's a beautiful setting, right?

We have a wonderful church out here, but what we are not is we're not in close proximity to people.

We are kind of away, which creates on one level like.

From a very narrow framework, a marketing problem, right? Because,

right, right? But that's not even the big issue.

What it also does is it makes us have to be a church that is not collectively

in close proximity to people because we're between two places right now.

I mean, that's just, I don't think anyone can argue with that.

Now we can mobilize and do better. You can always work around stuff.

And I think we've been trying to do that in being involved hands-on in our homes

and in our communities. and we can continue to do that.

But I think honestly, the opportunity that we have is just to really be in a

place to be close to people and to try to see our life, our life as a church,

like just weaved into a community.

And this particular opportunity, it's a huge way to do that.

We want to be close to people.

And I feel like God is kind of just serving that up to us.

There's another, the next P, they're all P's. because, you know,

pastors can't help themselves.

Presence, which is similar to proximity, but it's really just going on to the next level.

It's to be around beyond proximity and engage in a meaningful way.

This move, this particular location, helps us take steps towards proximity and

towards presence in a community.

Now, we could do that a lot of places, right? But we've been waiting for the

doors to open, and this has been the open door, and it checks this box.

Maybe God has something else. I really, when I say this, I really believe it.

If God wants to surprise us, I'm all for it.

And I'll look like an idiot. Great.

I don't mind. If God looks like a master craftsman and I look like an idiot,

then nothing has changed.

It's great. It's wonderful. I could be, Katie asked me beforehand.

She's like, are you nervous to stand up there and say this right now?

I'm like, well, I don't, I mean, no, not really. Because.

I'm okay with being wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about all this. Maybe this is all for nothing.

And I just wasted 35 minutes of your life, you know? 12 minutes left.

And that's okay, right? Because I still think these things are valid and true.

And I think wherever we're called to proximity and we're called to presence.

And so there's some unique things about this building that I want to point out

to you in terms of being presence.

Number one, if you've been to Snoqualmie, right?

There's a really well-defined neighborhood there and there's lots of houses

right there and there's lots of Section 8 housing downtown Snoqualmie.

There is uniquely socioeconomic diversity downtown Snoqualmie,

which is something that I really liked about Issaquah when I thought, I want to be in Issaquah.

And it's really unique to the Valley, like being like a community like that.

So we have an opportunity to have a really well-defined neighborhood where we

can just say from the casino down to the river to, you know,

the high school over to, you know, whatever, the bridge up to Tocul.

We can just say that's where we're going to just pour our love and our care into people.

I feel like that's a huge opportunity to just have some clarity where we can be present with people.

And don't get me wrong, you're going to be in your neighborhoods and you're

going to have opportunities to be present among your neighbors and your friends,

but this gives us a collective way to gather together.

Also, it is a 0.5-mile walk, an 11-minute walk from Mount Tsi High School,

the largest high school in the state, right?

Or maybe second largest, I don't know, whatever. It's a very large high school.

There is a huge opportunity to just reach out to kids and people who do not

know Jesus and to serve them.

And there's also, I put a picture here of the backside of the building.

So the building runs from Railroad Avenue to Falls Avenue. So it takes that full area, right?

The downstairs in the front of Railroad Avenue are three retail spaces,

and those will remain retail.

The backside has two retail spaces. One is unoccupied, and one is currently

occupied by Snoqualmie Ice Cream.

Enough said. No. But as you know, they're just there temporarily because their

building had a fire a year and a half ago or something like that.

And they're redoing their space. And we believe their intention is to move back

to their space and to vacate that space when they're done.

And our intention is to open up a cafe.

If you ask me, and this is just Trey, a board game cafe, but I'm a nerd and that's okay.

It doesn't have to be a board game cafe, but I think it'd be awesome.

That is to say a place, a place where we can actually run a business as a church,

right? But run a business that is creating opportunities to just meet people.

Because the fact is, around here, we went out to Reach Ministries on Sunday.

And Aaron and I, I roped Aaron, poor Aaron, into going with me down to the waterfront and handing out...

I don't have them anymore. Jesus cards, really fun.

I was so nervous. Aaron did so much better than me, right?

And you know what? Not a lot of people wanted Jesus cards down in the waterfront of Seattle, right?

You've noticed maybe when you start to talk to people about Jesus,

they put up walls and they're not interested.

But if you invite people to a board game cafe and you trick them into being

into a church and they don't even know it, that's honestly, like,

honestly, it's the first step towards unweirding church.

Because for whatever reason in our culture, in this time, in this place,

people have decided that Christians have three heads and are weird and are cannibals,

you know, or whatever it is.

But the truth is that Christians are just people who love you enough to tell

you that you're ruining your life.

Right? And honestly, like, that's a good thing, which we don't need to.

I'm not saying we need to go around, you know, yelling at people and stuff like

that. But to have a place where we can begin to intentionally interface with

people who we would have no real opportunity to connect with at a time,

to me, is a huge opportunity.

Because anyone will come to a board game cafe because everybody loves board games. Duh.

Right? And I mean, there's a huge need to create places where people can gather

and just for not a bazillion dollars just kind of hang out.

And we can staff that with pastors and evangelists who are just caring about

people and loving people right where they're at.

And to me, it just seems like such a huge opportunity.

I love this idea of being present and proximate to people. Does that make sense?

You'll see it Like if you can't imagine it right now Come on April 8th And like,

I won't literally paint a picture because it's like stick figures won't help you, but you'll see it.

You'll be able to see it. You'll understand what this could look like.

And we are going to get pictures done, by the way. It just takes a little while.

There is an opportunity for us to be present with people. And this,

I think, could be really for us like a really strong format.

As when the Lord opens up the door, we want to go and plant churches.

Because what churches have done, if you notice this, what churches have done

over the last 30 years is they plant outside of town. Why? Because they need big parking lots.

And there's the expectation people will come to us. But the truth is they're not anymore.

They're not coming to us anymore. We have to go back to them.

We have to be present with people. I'm deeply convicted about this.

And that means that we need to be more efficient and squeeze into smaller spaces

and sometimes get into commercial zones where people are gonna be like,

what's the church doing here? And we're like, well, we'll show you.

We're here to serve you. We're here to love you. We're here to be a light of

Jesus in this place where you can't ignore us anymore.

We're just going to annoy you with the light of Jesus. I'm excited about it.

And I think, again, as a way of reaching urban areas in general,

and particularly in the United States in this time,

to be smaller footprint right in the middle of a place, I think it just makes

it easier to reach people with the gospel.

Because that's exactly what Jesus did. He didn't say, well, the truth is that

sometimes he did say, I'm going to go be out in the desert Come find me right

But most of the time Jesus was among people You would have me if you said Sometimes no,

Okay Third P.

Powerlessness You know,

I think of Philippians 2, 5 through 8. This is like, this is the craziest thing about Jesus.

This is the thing that has been so offensive to people about Jesus throughout all history, right?

Different cultures are offended about different things about Jesus,

but everyone is offended by Jesus in this way if they actually understand what Jesus did.

What Jesus did is this. He had this attitude.

He existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited.

Instead, he'd emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant,

taking on the likeness of humanity.

And when he'd come as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the

point of death, even death on a cross.

What does Jesus do? Jesus says, I'm God. I created all things.

Literally in Colossians, I think, it says that all things hold together because of Jesus.

I mean, that's like a pretty amazing thing. He's like the glue that keeps the

universe sticking together, right?

I mean, that's a huge claim, right? And it's an even huger claim that that kind of God,

that kind of creating all powerful God would just come localize himself and

then subject himself to wicked people and be crucified and die for us.

That's the most scandalous thing about Jesus.

And it has been through all time because we believe that we win when we're strong

and we win when we're self-sufficient and we win when we're smarter.

And Jesus said, no, you win when you trust God to be the underwriter of your

life, to be the one who brings power and resurrection because he's the one who actually has a plan.

He's the one who actually has a mission. And so we can just give ourselves away.

We can leave it all on the field for the sake of Jesus, for the sake of the

gospel, because he shows up the way God showed up when he resurrected Jesus from the dead.

And so we can be people who are there like as servants in the midst of people.

Hirsch defines powerlessness in terms of the way it looks like in a church is

that you demonstrate that you have needs.

You don't have all the answers. You share your doubts and your weaknesses and

the trials that you face.

So we don't have to be a church that's just like, ah, we're just,

we've got all the answers. We've got everything solved. We've got everything.

We're just a church that's there with people and just says, hey,

look, what we proclaim is not, But if you live a Christian life,

you'll be rich. That's not the gospel.

If you live a Christian life, your family will work out and all your kids will

grow up to be good little boys and girls. That's not the gospel.

What we proclaim is that God invites us to trust him.

And even through difficulty, even through trial, even through persecution,

even through hopelessness, even through challenging circumstances financially

in the nation, that we can just rely on Jesus.

We can be people who trust him. We can be weak and strong at the same time.

That's what Paul says. When I am weakest, that's when I'm strong.

We're not going to be the biggest church in town. Already, 11,000 square feet,

not the biggest church in town.

And that's okay. But we can be a church who's mighty in trusting ourselves to the power of God.

That's what I think we have the opportunity to be here. And the final thing,

the final P that Hirsch points out, the thing that Jesus did when he came and

was incarnate is he was proclamation.

I mean, he was telling people about the gospel.

Titus 3, 4 through 7 says, When the kindness of God our Savior and his love

for mankind appeared, he saved us not by works of righteousness that we've done,

but according to his mercy.

Through the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

He poured out his spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ,

our Savior, so that having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs

with the hope of eternal life.

This is the news that we've been sent into the world to proclaim.

And we get to be people who are there sold out for Jesus in the midst of a world

that is organizing itself to forget about him.

We get to be a faithful witness to God right in the center of town.

If this is what God has for us. Again, it's an if. I'm not saying this is what

is definitely going to happen.

We need the Lord to work and we need him to continue to do these things.

But the gospel, here's the thing

is, the gospel is such good news and the world is desperate to hear it.

The world is desperate to hear it. They're not even aware of their desperation.

And the worship team is going to come up. I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

We're ending right now before the alarm went off.

Look it, we have good news to share and it's uncomfortable to do it sometimes.

It's uncomfortable to be people who are just like, nope, we really believe this

crazy thing we called the gospel,

that the kindness of God has shown up in the person of Jesus Christ and his

love for mankind has appeared in Jesus 2000 years ago.

And he's expressing that love through dying for sinners. And that to us is what we call salvation.

That becomes the most meaningful fact of our life.

And so like, you know, we're becoming people and witnessing to the power of

God. We're witnessing to the gospel in the midst of a community.

And we're talking about not how great of a church we are. Woe to us if we start thinking we're great.

But we get to be people who get to talk about how great Jesus is and who are

just saying, no, we're going to create opportunities for us to be able to share

the gospel with people. Because that's what this is.

Wherever we go, honestly, if it's not this, we have to create opportunities,

open up pathways to be in the midst of people so that we can be witnessing to

the gospel, so we can witnessing to what he's done in us and is doing in us.

We have a message and we need it to go out. We need it to be proclaimed.

And so that's my prayer. as we get ready here and as we seek the Lord for this

time, that he would make us people who want to proclaim and equip us to be that, equip us to be that.

All right, so I'm gonna pray for us and then we're going to do some worship

and we have communion today, right?

Which is great. Like what a way to remind ourselves of the gospel.

So let's pray. We'll get worshiping and then I'll come up and lead communion in a little bit.

Jesus, we still stand like,

you're the author and finisher of our faith, Lord. And so we stand incomplete

here as we await for your direction as a church.

God, I pray that you would give us hope and expectation for good things.

Lord, that you would show us what it would mean for us to be people who step

into and are shaped by your mission, God.

Not just losing ourselves in the midst of all that,

but as the church that we are, the church that has great community and who loves

you and where there's care and hope going on, Lord, that you would just also make us a light.

Lord, that you'd shape us according to your mission, Lord.

I believe that over the last time that I've been able to be here,

Lord, you've been preparing us for something.

So Lord, the season of preparation, I believe, is coming to a close and consummation,

the next thing, Lord, whatever you have for us, Lord, I'm just looking forward to it.

So we wanna be people who are willing, Lord, to go where you're going and Lord,

excited about what you have for us, Lord.

Lord, make us excited. Don't make us drum it up and fake it, Lord.

Lord, give us fullness of your spirit. Lord, unity that comes from you,

excitement that comes from you, Lord.

If we're skeptical, we come to you with our skepticism. We don't act like we're not.

We have doubts, we don't act like we're not. We are powerless, Lord.

We need you, Lord, to fill us with your hope and your expectation and your spirit.

So Holy Spirit, would you knit us together, give us hope, Lord,

and confirm, if this is where we're going, would you confirm that among us?

And make us excited, I pray in Jesus' name.

Hey, so why don't we, as we're just singing this song, why don't you guys come

up, take your bread and wine, grape juice, back to your seats there,

and we'll do communion together here in just a moment.

Music.