MetaVision: What's My Role? with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the MetaCurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at MetaCurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Over the next five years, our vision is to start enough metachurch locations where everyone in San Antonio is within 20 minutes of a metachurch that they can visit for themselves.

Then, for year five to ten, our goal is to start meturch locations strategically in cities all across Texas and eventually build those into regional hubs as well.

After that, our plan is to go into officially foreign territory and get a meta church location in every state that touches Texas.

And when we have proved that we can get outside of our city and outside of our state, then we will ask the question: what does it look like to go to the ends of the earth MetaCurch?

Are you with me?

All right, MetaCurch, how you guys doing?

Yeah.

Welcome in.

If you're new with us, my name is Clayton.

I'm the lead pastor here at Meta, and that was a small snippet from last week.

Last Sunday was Vision Sunday, where we laid out where we believe God is leading us in the next 5, 10, 15 years and beyond that.

If you missed that message, it is a pivotal moment in the life of our movement.

I would highly encourage for you to go to our YouTube channel and check that out.

God is challenging us to set our sights on big, audacious dreams and to grow our impact, to build his kingdom.

Some may see this as impossible, and you would have reason to believe so.

We don't currently have all the staffing we need, or all the money that we need, or all the properties that we need, but here at MetaCurch, we do believe in a God who makes the impossible possible.

Amen?

Amen.

Now, that okay, 1130, hang on.

We believe in a God.

You've seen this in your life sometimes.

Some of you have put your faith in Jesus, you were spiritually dead, and now you're headed to heaven.

We believe in a God who makes impossible things possible.

Amen.

I almost had 945 doing push-ups earlier today, all right?

Don't test me today.

We're getting after it.

This is what happens.

God uses his people.

And in our lives, we get to see things that we couldn't imagine when we take our movement seriously, when we take full advantage of the salvation that he's given to us, when we get a vision for our life, and try to see just how big our impact could actually be for the kingdom of God.

Here's what we've done in the series so far.

We've talked about who we are.

We looked in week two at where we've been last week, Vision Sunday.

We talked about where we are going.

And all of that sets us up for today.

And this is what we do at MetaCurch.

We focus on application.

This is the next step.

And today, the question or the message title is the question all of us should be asking.

Today, my message is what's my role?

How do I help push this thing forward?

What's my job to see God move in MetaCurch in a mighty way?

What's my role?

Would you pray with me?

Jesus, we love you.

We thank you, God.

I thank you for every person who's a part of this movement.

We thank you for clarity that the church is not a building, it's not an organization, that the church is called-out people of God.

It takes all of us, ordinary folks, who believe that with the Spirit of God inside of us, we can do incredible things.

And so I ask that you would guide our time today as we figure out what our job is in your movement.

We love you, we pray these things in your name, Jesus.

And if you're ready to find out what your role is, say amen.

Amen.

We're setting this big, audacious vision in the wake of really disheartening statistics.

Um, you know, to understand the good news that God offers us, we've got to be realistic about some of the bad news that we live surrounded by.

And the bad news is that the Western American version of church and Christianity has been sharply declining for over 50 years now.

In 1970, 73% of Americans, when polled, said that they were Christians and regularly attended a church.

1970, 73, almost three-quarters of Americans regularly attended a church.

By the year 2000, that number had dropped to 45%, less than half of Americans.

And by 2021, that number had dropped below 25%.

In a 50 year span, we went from about three out of every four Americans attending a Christian church to less than one out of four Americans regularly attending a Christian church.

The church is sharply declining, thousands of churches closing their doors every single year.

And yet we hold on to our hope in like the founding verse of Metachurch, Matthew 16, 18, where Jesus said, I say to you, you're Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

Jesus said, I'm going to start my movement.

You guys know this.

Church is not the building.

The word church, in original Greek, where the gospels were written, it's the word ekklesia, which means the called out people.

You are the church.

You are that movement.

Here's what Jesus did not say.

He did not say the Western American version of church services will last forever.

He did not make that promise.

What he did say is the church he's building, the movement he's in charge of, his actual original intention, that it cannot be stopped.

The movement of Jesus, when we get it right, is the most powerful force on earth.

And according to Scripture, it is the hope of the world.

Church is not about a place, it's about a people.

And for the church to grow and thrive and to build God's kingdom and to impact the world and to bring hope to the hopeless and stand by the marginalized and to see miracles in our lives.

We have to understand what the church was called to do.

We were not called to sit still.

We were not called to just come and attend a religious environment.

We were called to take the movement and message of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

And that is where our vision derives from is the opportunity for us to find out what it means for Metachurch to take this movement as far and wide as we can possibly get it.

Y'all saw this last week.

Our Jerusalem is our own backyard, it's our own community right here in San Antonio.

And we are dead set on in the next five years doing everything we can, trusting that God will bring what we need and open the doors for us to have enough meta church locations in San Antonio where everyone is close to a location that they can come and visit.

The call to the followers of Jesus was not to sit still and have people who don't know God come to them.

It was to go, to go into their communities, to go into their places of work, to go to the ends of the earth.

That's what we intend to do over the next 10 years to go out to our Judea, that's the rest of Texas, Samaria, every state that borders Texas, and finally to find out what it means for us to go to the ends of the earth.

So, how do we build this?

Most of you heard our big, audacious vision last week.

How do we actually pull it off?

Now, some of this work is gonna be on the people y'all have trusted to lead you as your staff, and believe me, we are hard at work trying to keep things organized and headed in the right direction.

We're gonna keep you guys updated.

Y'all know we are asking God and we are organizing ourselves to try and reopen our Helotus location next year.

So here's an update.

On Wednesday, we negotiated with the Helotus 4H and we signed our 2024 lease.

We are deadly serious about seeing where this thing goes.

But it's gonna take much more than our very small staff working hard behind the scenes because you are the church.

You are the movement, which means whether or not we fully reach our potential as a movement will come down to the level that you buy into this.

And that can be received in one of two ways.

It can be received as obligation.

I can we go again, I've gotta do this.

You guys have been in religious environments where they use a lot of fear and coercion and manipulation and obligate you to it, or it can be viewed through the lens of opportunity.

And when I read about how scripture describes the movement we call church, it describes it as the opportunity of a lifetime.

The opportunity to join with the God of creation in writing the pages of history, the opportunity to build something in your life that just might be the most significant and longest lasting part of any of our legacies.

In the Old Testament book of Exodus, there's this very, very interesting moment that I think gives us an insight into the heart of God that we have to understand if we're gonna understand what our role is as the church.

The Israelites are in the wilderness, they're waiting to enter the promised land, and in chapter 25, God comes to Moses and tells Moses to take an offering from the nation.

In Exodus 25, 1, the Lord spoke to Moses, tell the Israelites to take an offering for me.

You are to take an offering from everyone who is willing to give.

Who is willing to give.

Now, in Israel's history, they were obligated to give some things.

When they got into the promised land and they started their kingdom, they gave a series of tithes.

This was like the tax system that funded the nation of Israel.

In the Jewish law, there were all kinds of sacrifices and offerings that they were required to give.

They were obligated to give as God's chosen nation in the Old Testament.

However, God makes it very, very clear when it comes to this offering in Exodus 25, it is only those who are willing.

In other words, there's no obligation, it's just whether or not they realize the opportunity and what they might get to be a part of.

And so, what is this opportunity of a lifetime?

Now, when we're all reading our Bibles, right?

Because as children of God, God has written us these letters and we want to hear from Him God, and so we want to hear from our fathers.

So we open the letters he wrote us and then we read them, right?

Like we should be doing that.

We should be reading our Bibles.

I say that all the time.

Should be reading your Bible.

This is the kind of verse, Exodus 25, 8, that you could just zoom past and really miss the significance of.

So I want to slow down.

Exodus 25, 8.

God says, they are to make a sanctuary for me.

It's called the tabernacle.

They are to make a sanctuary for me so that I may dwell.

Say the word dwell.

Okay, now say it like we're not the second Lutheran church of San Antonio's.

Say the word dwell, so that I may dwell among them.

Dwell among them.

Live in their midst.

You see, the story starts in a garden.

And the garden narrative at the very beginning of your Bible, it's so instructive.

Because it shows God's design for his world.

And by understanding God's design, you get insight into God's desires.

And in the garden, he dwelt with his people.

He walked and talked with him.

He communed with him.

And if you know the story, mankind decided they wanted to try to be their own God.

And our sins separated us from him.

And even though we are the ones who separated ourselves from God, God still desires to dwell among his people.

It's a very significant moment because the people of Israel understood God to be above, distant, separate.

As a matter of fact, when Moses talked to God, the closest God ever got to them was the very tippy top of the mountains.

And God says, I want to go from being above to among.

I want to dwell with my people.

And so Moses shows up to the nation and goes, All right, everybody, uh Yahweh wants us to take an offering, right?

God wants an offering from everybody.

Now, this part's not in the Bible, so don't go looking for it, right?

This is me imagining, after 15 or so years of church leadership, I'm imagining, I think I'm probably right, that about 50% of the Israelites, Moses was like, God wants us to take an offering, and their eyes hit the very back of their brains, you know, like this freaking guy, another offering.

Here we go.

Moses, have you seen inflation out here?

We're dying out here, bro.

You know how much debt I'm in right now?

I'm barely buying groceries.

You want another offering.

I know.

Y'all would never think that way about your pastor here at Metachurge, right?

This freaking guy asking us for money again.

Here we go.

Okay, I've made it awkward, right?

So Moses is like, I get it.

Let me tell you what it's for.

God wants us to build a structure.

It'll be called a tabernacle.

And once it's built, God, who is above us, will come and dwell among us.

And the Israelites start tripping over themselves to get the tabernacle built.

There's no obligation, you give if your heart is moved.

God, the God, is gonna come and dwell among us.

He's gonna live right here.

He's gonna be in the midst of our community.

Where do I give?

How can I help?

Who can I tell?

How can we speed it up?

What do I need to do?

They understood the opportunity.

And they moved.

And really, what Moses was asking is a question that I think is still very, very relevant to us today.

The question is something like this.

What would I be willing to do to bring God into the midst of my community?

What would I be willing to do to bring God into the midst of my community?

You know, Medichurch, we've grown.

We had almost a thousand people here last week.

I don't know every one of you.

I know a lot of you, and I know enough about life to know that there is pain in your community.

To know that there is suffering in your relationships, to know that there is hardship and confusion and angst and depression.

What would you be willing to do to bring God into the midst of the brokenness that surrounds you all of the time?

Now, spoiler alert, our mission statement here at MetaCurch, it actually answers this question because our mission statement says we do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

We do whatever it takes to bring God into the midst of our lives, into the midst of our social circles, right into and ingrained in and infiltrating our communities.

The question is, are we really?

Are we about it?

Do we understand what doing whatever it takes really means?

Moses says, let's take an offering, and if we take this offering, we can build a tabernacle, and if we can build a tabernacle, then the God who is all powerful and spoke the universe into creation will go from above us to among us.

And we're gonna read a lot of verses right here, because I just want you to see the energy to get this thing built.

In Exodus 35, the entire Israelite community left Moses' presence, and everyone whose heart was moved, not obligated, whose heart was moved and whose spirit prompted, came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work on the tent of meeting, for all its services, and for the holy garments.

Now look at the variety of offering that was brought.

Both men and women came, all who had willing hearts, brought brooches, earrings, rings, necklaces, all kinds of gold jewelry.

Everyone who presented a presentation offering of gold to the Lord.

Now, not everybody's got gold, you know?

And here in Metachurch, we don't got a lot of the people with the gold, you know what I'm saying?

We're not a rich church, but that didn't stop people from giving what they had.

I love this next verse.

Everyone who possessed blue, purple, or scarlet yarn, right?

Some people were like, I don't have gold, but I've got yarn, you know?

I'll crochet you some curtains for this building.

Like I'll do something.

And some people didn't have yarn.

Look, everyone who possessed blue, purple, or scarlet yarn, fine linen or goat hair.

There's someone who's like, Man, I don't have gold and I don't have yarn.

And their goat walked by, they were like, I could shave a goat, you know?

There's just butt-necked goats all over Israel.

So we can get this thing built.

And the goats have it easy.

Fine linen or goat hair, ram skins.

The goats just had to get a haircut.

The rams had to give their whole skin for this, right?

Ram skins died, red or fine leather brought them.

Everyone making an offering of silver or bronze brought it as a contribution to the Lord.

Everyone who possessed acacia wood, they don't have silver, but they've got wood useful for any task.

I don't even know why you need this, bro, but I have it and it's yours.

I want God brought into my community.

The leaders brought all the women whose hearts were moved, spun the goat hair.

Not just their treasure, their talents, not just their money, their time, their energy.

The leaders brought onyx and gemstones to mount on the ephod and the breast piece, as well as the spice and the oil for the light, for the anointing oil.

They're like, I don't have yarn, I don't have goats, I don't have gold, I've got some avocado oil, right?

I will bring anything to be a part of this.

And the Israelites brought a free will offering to the Lord.

All the men and women whose hearts prompted them to bring something, for all the work the Lord through Moses had commanded to be done.

The opportunity of a lifetime.

And they do whatever it takes to get the tabernacle built.

Because the tabernacle symbolize God coming and dwelling among his people.

And the tabernacle was built.

And there's this incredible moment, a few chapters later, where the Spirit of God comes in and takes over that tabernacle.

And everyone in Israel is rejoicing.

There's something significant for those who put their hands on it.

There's something significant for those who sacrificed for it.

Some of you guys know this because in 2020, the world was kind of in a wilderness season, you know.

We decided to fundraise at the goofiest time possible.

Worldwide pandemic.

We weren't even meeting in person back then, you know, the bar.

We were meeting in the bar, but we couldn't even meet.

Everything was online, and there was like an election that I don't know if you remember is a little contentious, you know, and everyone was mad, and there were riots in the street, and we were like, you know, now would be a good time to fundraise for a building, right?

And so many of you, not out of obligation, you saw an opportunity.

You committed to make a sacrifice with no guarantees ahead.

And you guys know when God gave us this building, it took every dollar, quarter, nine, nickel, and penny to get us in here.

And I imagine for those of you who sacrificed through that season, for everyone it was exciting.

You walked in here on day one, and I pray to God you realized the outcome on your investment.

That you put hands on this, you put skin in the game on this.

One of my greatest fears in life is missing the things that God might be inviting me into.

It's a story that really stood out to me.

One of my favorite books is the biography of Steve Jobs.

You know, Steve founded Apple along with another guy also named Steve.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

You might know that, and you might know that Apple was the first ever trillion-dollar company.

That's a lot of money.

But what I didn't know until I read his biography, and what you may not know is originally there were three founders of Apple.

Before they launched, Steve Jobs asked a guy named Ronald Wayne to come in and be a 10% founder.

Owned 10% of Apple computers.

Steve had a big vision, wanted to see it through.

Ronald Wayne was in, paid a little bit of money.

The day they went to file their papers to incorporate the business, Ronald Wayne got cold feet.

He traded his 10% for the$800 that he had invested.

Today, that$800 would be$200 billion.

It's a painful missed investment.

I have a feeling Ronald Wayne thinks about that every once in a while, you know.

He could have been a founder, he could have been an owner, he could have helped build it.

He can still admire what Apple's doing from afar, he can still carry an iPhone.

But he missed out on a lot.

And look, if you're a part of Meta but you don't really believe what we believe yet, this is gonna sound wild to you.

And I hope you'll stay around because you can belong here before you believe what we believe, and that's just fine.

But if you believe that Jesus is who he says he is and he's done what he says he's done, that he's coming back for us someday, that everything we're doing in this life is an investment into the kingdom of God that's coming someday, Ronald Wayne's missed investment opportunity is nothing compared to the opportunity to invest in God's kingdom.

You know, the Psalms describe God's kingdom metaphorically, but it helps us understand the difference between how we think of value here and how value is gonna be someday.

It says the streets are paved with gold.

$200 billion, a lot of money.

In God's kingdom, it's about a mile stretch of highway, okay?

There's no comparison.

We're investing into the lives and future and history of what God is doing right here on the earth.

The Israelites were under no obligation to give, but those who saw it as the opportunity that it was got to be a part of bringing the Spirit of God right down into the midst of their community.

Here's what's so cool: God going from above Israel to among Israel is an insight into the heart of God.

God didn't just desire to be among that one group of people for that certain amount of time.

God's desire to dwell among his people is just a part of who he is.

They were in the wilderness when they got to the promised land, they traded the tabernacle for a temple.

That's where the Spirit of God lived.

Eventually, the Israelites turned their back on God and they went through several hundred years where they didn't hear from him.

It was a very dark time in Israel's history, and they began crying out for God to come back among them.

And as they cried out, they could never have imagined just how close God was going to get.

In Exodus 25, God said they're to make a sanctuary, so I may dwell among them.

John chapter 1 describes Jesus, God incarnate, God in human flesh coming to earth, and it describes it with striking similarity to Exodus 25.

John 1 · chapter mention

John 1:14 says, the word that's Jesus became flesh, and why did he put on flesh to dwell among us?

John 1:14

Jesus stepped out of perfection, he stepped out of heaven, he stepped off of his throne where day and night his praises were sung.

He stepped down into our brokenness.

He was tempted and tried in every way.

He hurt like we hurt.

All of it, so God could get close, so the Spirit of God could dwell among his people.

Jesus' work here on earth made a way for us to be back into relationship with our Father.

And not only that, he made a promise to us that everyone who believed in him would also be given that Spirit of God to live in our lives.

And so, how does it look now?

Because the tabernacle is gone and the temple is gone, and Jesus Christ has ascended back to heaven and reigns there until one day he returns.

So, how does this function now?

God's deep desire to dwell among his people.

I want you to hear how the apostle Paul describes the work of the church to a church he started in a town called Ephesus.

In Ephesians 2, he starts like this, but now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away from God have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

And I start there because you need to understand that this call and this vision and the role that you have to play in it, it is not for the spiritual elite.

It's not for the Christian professionals, it is for ordinary, regular, jacked-up people like me and like you, who once were far from God and only by the grace of Jesus have now come close to him.

You who were far from God have been brought near by the blood of Jesus.

He goes on to say, so then, you're no longer foreigners and strangers.

You're fellow citizens with the saints, and you're members of God's household.

Pay attention to this imagery built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

In him, the whole building being put together grows into a holy temple of the Lord.

Paul is using this Old Testament imagery.

And what was the temple?

The temple was God's desire to dwell among his people.

And so, how does this work now?

In the next verse, he says, In him, you, believers in Jesus, members of his movement, you who were once far from God, you ordinary, regular people, you are being built together.

Why?

For God's dwelling in the spirit.

Make me a sanctuary so I can go from above my people to among my people and dwell with them.

Jesus steps out of heaven to dwell among his people, and now it's us.

God's people, spirit-filled believers, comprised in his church, his movement.

We are now the dwelling of the Spirit of God.

We are now how God infiltrates communities and lives among his people.

This is the same thing he taught to the church in Corinth when he said, Don't you yourselves know that you are God's temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?

Here's the question I believe we have to wrestle with.

What would I be willing to do to bring God into the midst of my community?

What would I be willing to do to have the people in my life, the people in my city, experience the life-changing revelation of the Spirit of God?

Before Jesus died, he told his followers something that sounds insane.

He said, You will do the things I've done, and you will do even greater things than me.

I don't know if you know much about this Jesus guy.

He did some pretty impressive things, okay?

We're going to do greater things than Jesus.

He attached this to a promise.

A promise that believers in Jesus would be given the Spirit of God.

You see, there was one tabernacle, and there was one temple, and there is one Jesus Christ.

But even now, today, there are billions of believers.

Just at Metachurch, this one small local part of the movement of Jesus, there are over a thousand of us who call this our movement.

The reason that Jesus confidently said we will do even greater things is because there are strength in numbers.

And the spirit of God, who God is so desperate to dwell among his people, would not be confined to one location, to one temple, or even just to one person.

Everywhere the church goes, the Spirit of God dwells among that community.

And the Spirit of God is the hope of the world.

And the Spirit of God is found in the movement of Jesus.

This is why it is so critical that we don't fall into the lie that the goal of a church is to grow their attendance a little, to maybe get to buy a building once, to sit back and coast, to have a class every once in a while.

Our classes and our life teams and our Sunday services, and the reason we have staff members, and the reason we get together, everything is focused on the commissioning that was given to us 2,000 years ago to have big dreams and big audacious vision because our call is not to sit still and hope some people come to us.

Our call is to go.

Go into your communities, go into your places of work, go into your families, go into your neighborhoods, and as a movement to go to the ends of the earth.

Our marching orders are clear.

The question for us, the question for every church, is do we understand the opportunity that's in front of us?

There's no obligation.

Look, if you put your faith in Jesus, you have eternal life, no one can take that away from you.

God's not gonna hold that over your head.

If you don't give enough of the offering, I'm gonna yank that away, going to hell now, sorry.

None of that.

No obligation.

The opportunity of a lifetime.

Do we understand the opportunity in front of us?

And are we willing to go all in and invest?

Here's what Moses said.

The Lord spoke to Moses, tell the Israelites, take an offering for me from everyone who is willing to give.

And the Israelites understood what it meant for God to go from above them to among them.

They understood what it meant for God to move into the midst of their community.

And you need to know whoever you are, and whatever your journey is, and whatever stories you tell yourself about yourself of why you're not qualified for this, and leave this up to the Christians who've been Christians a little longer.

You have something to offer.

And Paul told one of his churches that you are the body of Christ, and every person makes up a part of that body.

And when one part of the body hurts, the whole body hurts.

You have something to give.

And you may not be able to bring the gold at this point in your life, but you've got some yarn or some wood or some oil or a goat to shave.

You know, you can get creative because you have something to offer.

And the reality is the majority of Christians who sit in churches on Sunday, they are content.

They've given up on big dreams.

They've given up on big visions.

And they think that the church is a service or the church is a building.

And so they have given up their responsibility to take this movement to the ends of the earth.

If it's gonna happen, it will be because MetaCurch, that's you, and that's me, took our calling seriously.

And so, how do we do this?

I think that at the individual level, we could get very specific based on your talents and your personality and your gifting and your experience and your relationship with God.

We get to all that on exactly what your actual specific role is.

But we all have, I believe, four roles to play.

And I'm telling you, most people in most churches maybe do one of these.

Most people do none of them.

Hardly anyone does all of them.

And boy, if we just ordinary, freaking normal people here at MetaCurch took this seriously, you have no idea what God could unleash through us.

Three of these are not new.

We've said them for five years, we're just attaching them to a big vision now.

Part of your role is to get here.

And by here, I mean all of the areas that you can be involved at MetaCurch.

We have three circles.

We keep our strategy simple.

If you don't know it, go watch week one.

We have our first circle, that Sunday service.

Actually get here.

You know this.

People don't prioritize the gathering together with the body of Christ.

And it matters, it matters because scripture tells us it matters.

The author of Hebrews wrote to people whose lives were on the line if they gathered together and said, Hey, I know they're coming for your neck.

If you gather together, gather together anyway.

It matters, it matters to come together.

And nobody's persecuting us now.

We have just de-prioritized the coming together of the body of Christ.

And if we want to take this seriously, we have got to rearrange our priorities post-COVID.

I mean, church attendance just went down the toilet.

If this is gonna matter to us, it's gonna matter to us.

We get here, we get here in community.

If you don't have Christian community, join a life team.

That's why we create them.

We get here in classes and programs to make sure we're healthy.

We get here, we meet together so we can move together because we are the answer.

We are how the Spirit of God infiltrates our communities and our city.

We get here and we grow here.

Too many people believe in Jesus and never pursue actually following him, never pursue spiritual growth and maturity.

And it matters that you grow because we start with the belief at Metachurch, you were created on purpose.

It actually matters that you're here on earth, and you were created with an incredible purpose.

The world needs you to unlock and unleash all that God has placed inside of you, but if you're not healthy, you're gonna struggle to do that.

And so we have programs.

We're getting ready to launch in January, a very, very significant program to help you get emotionally, relationally, spiritually, and financially healthy so nothing can sabotage the significant journey that God has for you.

We've got to get here.

It's gotta be priority.

We have to grow here, we have to take our spiritual growth and maturity seriously.

And we have to give here.

Man, I get it.

I told you, if if Moses leading Israel is anything like leading in the church, you start talking about money, and people just their eyes hit the back of their brains, man.

It's like here we freaking go again, talking about money.

Again, money is just fuel.

It's an investment, and we do invest in what we believe in.

Jesus said, Where your treasure is, there your heart is.

You invest in the things that you believe in.

And there is nothing in your life as significant as the movement of Jesus.

I have no hesitation in saying that.

We ask people to give first, that means when income comes in, blessing goes out, and the first thing you do is give to God through your local church.

We ask for you to give sacrificially, and everyone can give a sacrifice because sacrifice is scalable.

If you make a salary, we ask you to pick a percentage of that salary and give it and give it every time.

If you don't make a salary, your income fluctuates to pick an amount of money to give it and give it every time.

A sacrifice is giving what you're comfortable giving and giving a little bit more.

And you need to know this the vast majority of people, like 80% of people who come to a church, don't give to it at all, which means we are this potent and this powerful, running at about 20% capacity of what we could be doing.

If everyone would take seriously investing in the movement of Jesus.

That's a powerful thought.

It takes all of us, and if all of us play our role, there is no telling what God can do.

We get here, we grow here, we give here.

Those aren't new, I've got a new one.

It's specific to our vision where we plan to put locations all over the city.

We go where?

When we open a new spot, it's gonna take a small army of volunteers to stand that up and get it running.

Those volunteers are gonna come from us.

We're gonna vote with our feet how important we think it is to get a meta church within 20 minutes of everyone in town.

And so our prayer is to open Holotus back up next year.

We're gonna need 50 of you, maybe, 100 of you, maybe, to go out with our leadership team and help stand that thing up.

And that might mean greeting people at the door or holding a baby in the back or running something in production.

No telling what that specifically means to you, but we need to prepare our hearts to get here, to grow here, to give here, and to go wherever God calls us to go.

Here's what we're gonna do we're gonna make a commitment.

And if you're not ready to make that commitment, don't make it.

I mean, you, y'all know Meta Church.

Nobody's gonna judge you, side-eye you, elbow you to get up and do something.

Now, a lot of times, you know, in church environments, we pass out an individual card, you know, and then like a small pocket knife, you just do a blood oath, we get your social security number, your debit, your pin, you know.

That's not really how we roll here.

We're a movement, we do things together.

And so we we printed out a scaled version of our graphic for the Metavision series.

We're gonna bring it up here to the front.

We've got all these Sharpies and the band, the band can head out.

Um, the band's gonna lead us in some songs.

And as they play, I want you to pray.

And the question is, what would I be willing to do to bring God in the midst of my community?

Am I actually ready to commit to prioritizing getting here, growing here, giving here, and going where?

And if you're not, that is okay.

We've got time.

Stay in here with us.

This is a safe place for you.

But if you're ready, I want you to come up, and just like our earlier service has done, I want us to sign this together.

We're a movement, we move together, we commit together.

And so look, this is gonna be hectic.

It was hectic in the 945.

For some reason, 945, they liked our design so much nobody touched it.

You can sign all over this.

You can sign four or five at a time.

Grab a Sharpie, put your name, put the pin back, other people are coming behind you.

If you're ready to commit, a vision's just a dream until there's buy-in.

People are buying in.

People are ready to see exactly what God could do with this movement of ordinary, everyday, jacked up, normal, regular people who believe that we are created on purpose and with purpose.

Let me pray for you, Jesus.

We love you.

Our deepest desire, I think, is one of your deepest desires, Father, to see you dwell among our people, among our neighborhoods, our places of work, here in our city, and someday beyond our city.

The opportunity to be a part of that is overwhelming.

And I pray we would take full advantage of it.

We love you, and we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

If this was helpful to you and you want to help us get the word out, you can subscribe to this podcast.

You can rate and review or share it with your friends.

If you want to get connected further with what MetaCurch is doing, you can go online to metachurch.tv.

There you can learn how to take next steps.

You can learn where our different venues are at if you ever wanted to visit, and you can also give financially to help push this movement forward.

Man, I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.