Whatever It Takes: Week 1 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.

I believe that you guys are joining us at a pivotal moment in the life of MetaCurch.

You have just tuned in to learn about something that will shape the lives of people in our city and beyond for generations to come.

MetaCurch was built out of a passion, and this passion eventually became our mission statement.

It goes like this we will do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

We will do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus.

God has been so faithful to that desire.

We are a relatively young church and a young organization, and God grew us to the size of our building in under one year.

We added services, we tore down walls, we did whatever we could to reach as many people as possible, and God continued to grow us.

He grew us in many ways.

He grew us numerically.

Most importantly, as we continued to keep our baptistry full and continued to see people making very real life change.

It was almost two years ago now that we first started talking about this vision of more of a permanent home as a base of operations for this movement we call Metachurch.

We began praying for and giving towards a building off of Southwest Fortin and Marbach.

Many of you know it as the old super Kmart.

Over these last two years, we have worked tirelessly and we have prayed tirelessly.

We've continued to knock on that door and ask that God would open it.

We didn't know how to do much of what was in front of us, but God has continued to provide every step of the way.

We're gonna see that more and more as we work our way through this series.

Now, as you guys know, I'm a huge believer in transparency and leadership.

And so what I want to do right now, before we take one step further into this series and into this moment, is I want to give you the bottom line right up front.

I want to tell you what we're doing in this series and how we are attempting to do it.

We are raising money to build out almost 40,000 square feet of that old Kmart.

The way that we are getting to our goal is we are asking for every person that is MetaCurch to make a three-year financial pledge to help us fund and afford this permanent home for MetaCurch.

This is a gift that is above and beyond your normal offering.

And listen, we're gonna talk all about the practical implications, but I want you to know up front, before we hit the emotions, before we get into scriptures and stories and songs, we want you to know what we are here to do.

And if this sounds crazy to you, I'm glad and I hope that you will stick with us today.

Before we go any further, let's center ourselves in scripture.

Would you pray with me?

Father, we love you.

We feel, in one sense, the weight of this moment.

As we are moving forward to help shape the future of this movement, in another sense, God, there is no weight, no pressure at all.

This is your movement.

We are here to build your kingdom.

We are asking for your provision.

And so, right now, we choose to put our trust and our faith in you.

I pray that you would open our minds and our hearts to see not only how we move forward as metachurch, but to drill down on what your church was meant to be.

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

Amen.

We are seeking to fund raise, we're asking for a sacrificial offering, an offering that is above and beyond what you already give to help fund this movement.

And I don't think there's a better example of this kind of offering than back in the book of Exodus.

This is right after God used Moses, this hero of the Jewish scriptures, to go into Egypt, where the Israelite people, God's chosen vehicle for his plan of redemption in our Old Testament, to set them free from Egyptian bondage.

And right where we were walking in in Exodus 25, God has sent the plagues to Egypt, and the Pharaoh finally let his people go, and they crossed the Red Sea and now they're in the wilderness.

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

Exodus 25:1

You're to take my offering from everyone who is willing to give.

And this is the offering you are to receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze.

And that makes a lot of sense.

Because if you have gold and you have silver and you have bronze, and you go to the few big hitters, the ones who can write the big checks, the six figures, the ones with the two-story tents out in the wilderness, the people who have got it going on, you just get the gold and the silver, and you can buy everything else you need to build what you need to build.

But God wasn't done.

He said, Receive from them gold, silver, and bronze.

Those are the obvious ones.

But he continues.

Receive from them blue, purple, and scarlet yarn, fine linen and goat hair, ramskins dyed red and fine leather, acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil and the fragrant incense and onyx, along with other gemstones for mounting on the ephod and the breast piece.

And sometimes when it comes to fundraising in 2020, we tend to think we just have to get a small group of people who can give a large amount of money.

And if we get them, they will take care of the rest of us.

MetaCurch, I have news for you.

We do not have those people.

If we do, we're not aware of them or they're hiding among us.

If we have those people, we hope you will identify yourself at some point during this series.

But for now, what we are sure of is we are not a financially wealthy church.

We don't necessarily have the people who are gonna bring the gold, who are gonna bring the silver, maybe not even the bronze.

But God is teaching us something through the offering he is asking for.

He is giving us insight into how God views us and our ability to make a difference in his movement.

He asks, if you've got the gold, bring it, that's fine.

We'll certainly use it.

But he goes on to talk about the yarn.

You may not have gold, but maybe you have some yarn.

And maybe you don't have yarn, but maybe you have some goat hair.

You don't have goat hair, but you have a goat and you got some clippers.

Now you've got some goat hair, you've got some onyx.

I don't know what onyx is.

It sounds like something I learned about in chemistry.

But maybe someone's got some onyx, gemstones, anointing oil.

You see, oil is a lesser gift in the eyes of the people, but God is prioritizing it right along with the gold and the silver and the bronze.

What's God telling us?

He's telling us that everyone has something that they can give.

Everyone has something that they can give.

And we are trying to take a large mountain.

I mean, we are ascending a steep climb.

We are setting a big goal and a big dream.

And if you look on the surface, it doesn't seem to make sense.

But God told Moses, if everyone will do everything that they can do, the call to this kind of offering, this kind of sacrificial gift, the call is unique to the person.

If you've got gold, bring it.

But that's very few of us.

Everyone has something they can give.

And here's what I believe about the Kmart sitting right down the road from us right now that if everyone will give everything that they can give, sacrifice is scalable.

God isn't asking you, if you only have the yarn, to bring the gold.

He's saying, Bring the yarn, bring what you can bring.

Because if everyone will bring everything that they can bring, we believe that God will do the rest.

So, what are they getting ready to build?

In verse 8, God says, They are to make a sanctuary for me, so that I may dwell among them.

Now we're a few minutes into this message, and somebody who is sitting on this live stream right now, it's like I'm gonna read your mind because you are thinking, Pastor has lost his ever-loving mind.

We're fundraising right now, we're fundraising seven months into a global pandemic.

We're fundraising when the economy is like this.

Now, now's the time.

Now we've always known he's a little crazy, but Pastor has lost, he's lost it.

Why now?

And I think this is such an interesting moment in Israel's history because we know the plan.

God had given Israel the promised land.

And the Israelites, when they were back stuck in bondage in Egypt, they would talk about it.

The land that's flowing with milk and honey, the land that has endless resources, the land that represents rest, rest from their enemies, rest from their work, rest from their bondage, rest in the presence of their God who has given them this land, who has set their name on it.

And Moses comes and he leads them out of Egypt, and now they're in the wilderness, and they're in the wilderness on the way to the promised land.

They're on their way to the place and the space where it will actually make sense to take an offering and make a building.

As a matter of fact, you get to the promised land, you probably don't even need an offering.

You'll have all the resources you need, everything to build it.

It'll be there in the land.

You can just take it from the land.

You don't have to bother me, bro.

I don't have to give my yarn, I don't have to give my oil.

Let's just wait.

Let's get to the promised land and then we can build it.

That's what makes sense.

And God said, build it now.

Build it in the wilderness.

Build it when it makes no sense.

And right now in our world, we are in the midst of the metaphorical wilderness.

We are wandering.

We are coming to church right now, in this moment, without being able to come together in person.

We're wandering.

Our world feels like it is upside down.

The political frustrations and fighting, the racial unrest, not to mention a virus that has shut down our country.

If we were ever in the wilderness, it's now.

And Israel was in the wilderness.

They're on their way.

They're headed to the promised land.

God, could you hold up just a little bit?

Could you wait?

Because when we get to Canaan, when we get to the promise, we'll build it.

We promise.

It'll be easy to build it there.

I mean, right now we're we're on the move.

We're gonna have to build it, you know, where we're able to take it down and put it up and take it down and put it up.

And it's like it's it's not gonna be as good.

I mean, we could really build you something nice if you just wait, give us a couple years, let us get out of the pandemic, let us get people back in the seats, let us get going.

And God said, build it now.

That it's not a call to wait to get out of the wilderness, that it is in the wilderness when we most need God.

And here's why it matters.

I want to go back to verse 8.

It says, They are to make a sanctuary for me, and here's what it all comes down to like this is the bottom line.

This is why we even care about a bigger space.

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

When you read about the Israelites leaving Egypt, the Spirit of God was guiding them.

And the way that He was guiding them is in a cloud by day, a cloud that is in the sky, leading them, and a pillar of fire by night.

And where the cloud went, they would go, and where the fire went, that's where they would go.

And when the fire stopped, they stopped, and when the cloud stopped, they stopped.

That is what was leading them to the promised land.

And what does God say?

You're going to make me a sanctuary, you're gonna make me a space so that I may dwell among you.

God's desire was to go in the wilderness when it doesn't make sense, when it's not the right time, when the resources aren't plentiful.

He says, What actually matters is that I go from dwelling above you to dwelling among you.

From above you to among you.

You can see me while I'm above.

You're aware of me while I'm above, but our God is not a distant God, and it is in the wilderness when we most desperately need proximity to our God, our Father.

Build it now so I can quit being above and I can start being among the Spirit of God coming into the midst of Israel, living among them, securing his promise and their purpose, bringing proximity to his people.

What exactly were they building?

The next verse says, You must make it according to all that I show you, the pattern of the tabernacle, as well as the pattern of all of its furnishings.

The tabernacle was a portable building where the Spirit of God dwelt among the people of Israel.

It's where he guided them, encouraged them, affirmed them.

It's where they worshiped him, sought him, and found him.

It is believing that we are to do whatever it takes to get people to Jesus that causes us to have to radically prioritize the Spirit of God living among as many people as possible.

Now we're talking Old Testament, and in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God lived in spaces, lived in a tabernacle, centuries later lived in a temple.

But after Jesus died and the veil was torn, we have a new reality.

The Apostle Paul tells us about it in 1 Corinthians 3.

He says, Don't you yourselves know that you are now God's temple, and the Spirit of God lives in you.

And we call Metachurch a movement because the church is the people.

You are Metachurch, you are the movement of Jesus.

And it is in you that the Spirit of God is found.

And every time that we do whatever it takes, and someone comes to Jesus, the Spirit of God takes more ground in our city and in our world.

And if you know me at all, you have to know I don't actually care about building a building.

I care about making space for people's souls to meet God's spirit.

I care about doing whatever it takes to make as much space as possible for as many souls as possible to meet God's spirit.

This pandemic is wreaking havoc, not just on our health, but on our minds and our hearts.

According to the CDC, over 40% of adults have reported either brand new or increased mental health issues since COVID lockdown started.

That includes depression, substance abuse, and suicidal thoughts.

These statistics that we're seeing are proving what we already know.

Teenagers taking their own life, teen suicide is rising dramatically.

Alcoholism, all of these things.

What are people doing?

They are looking for hope in the midst of a hopeless world.

This pandemic has highlighted something that we knew at some level, but now we can no longer ignore or deny it.

That as humans, ourselves, alone in this world, without something to guide us, without something to lead us, without something to fill us, empower, and encourage us by ourselves, we are completely incapable of handling this world.

Every person requires hope.

Every person requires hope.

The reason for that is because the moment that you are born, you begin your path to death.

I know.

I hope you came to get encouraged today, because that is about the most bleak picture I can paint for you.

The first breath you take is one breath you will never get back on your path to eventually dying.

And it might happen at 40 and it might happen at 104, but everyone dies.

And that reality forces us into a position where we require hope.

And people who don't know true hope, the hope of Jesus, are forced to find it elsewhere.

And to be honest, there are things that this world offers that seem like they offer us hope.

And some people put their hope in their relationships, and some people put their hope in their addictions, and some people put their hope in their career, and some people are living vicariously through their kids, and all of their hope is in their kids, making that team and getting that date and having that popularity and getting the career someday, and some people are putting their hope in their wealth.

And here's what happens, and it's so sad is that sometimes people can go for years or decades or even lifetimes putting their hope in the things of this world that cannot bear the weight of their hope.

And some people put their money in their wealth, and they're good at making money, and they build some coping mechanisms and some skill sets and they put it all together and they pursue it, and man, they make that money, and they make that money, and they step on whoever they have to step on, and they do whatever they have to do, and they ignore their family and leave them behind work 90 hours a week, and it isn't until the end that they realize there's no one to put in their will.

There'll be no one at their funeral.

They've ruined every relationship that they've ever had because their hope was in wealth, and at the end of your life, wealth will not hold the weight of your hope.

And here is the opportunity and the opposition that we've been talking about through this whole pandemic is that the things people put their hope in, that for all the rest of our lives and all the generations right now, we've been able to get away with it.

To feel like, man, my marriage is the thing that my hope is in.

My kids, my wealth, myself, my power.

And what this pandemic has done is what for some people would take 60 years to come to the end of their hope.

It happened in six weeks.

Everything we put our hope in has proven in a matter of months to not be able to hold the weight of our hope.

What does that mean for us?

What does that mean for the movement of Jesus?

What does it mean for MetaCurch?

It means that we have a world, a country, and a city of San Antonio where God has put us, where everyone is coming face to face with the reality that there is nothing in this world that they can put their faith in.

And we have the answer.

We have hope.

And when we say hope, we don't mean wish.

Man, I I wish this would work out.

When we say hope, it's a promise, it's something that we can build our life on, and Jesus is the one person who can actually hold the weight of our hope.

I believe that there will be a spiritual awakening coming out of this pandemic.

I believe people are going to be forced to ask the big questions of why it is that everything that has held their hope in this world all let them down at once, and we have the answer.

The question is will we have space?

You know.

As well as I do, that there are people like me, and perhaps people like you, jacked up people, people who found themselves at a point in their life where they were broken and lost, who will not walk into the doors of almost any church.

But for whatever reason, God has blessed Metachurch to be a safe haven for people like me and people like you.

It matters that we exist, and it matters that we have space for as many souls as possible to meet the only thing that changes things, the Spirit of God.

In Exodus 35, 29, it says the Israelites brought a free will offering to the Lord.

They weren't forced to give it, it was of their own free will.

All the men and women whose hearts prompted them to bring something, if you had your yarn and you wanted to hold on to your yarn and you're in the wilderness and you're not really sure you want to give it up, because you might need to weave some somethings to make some money down the road somewhere.

It's your prerogative.

Everyone whose hearts prompted them to bring something for all the work that the Lord through Moses had commanded to be done.

This is the kind of offering that we're looking for.

It's the kind of offering and how we're asking for it to be given because it is an offering of your free will.

Israel had some expected offerings.

They were mandatory over time because they had to give them in order for the nation of Israel to function properly.

They were operational.

Operational offerings.

That's what we ask for every week when we say, make sure that you are funding this movement that you're a part of.

So we can operate.

Not in place of, above and beyond.

That's the kind of sacrificial offering we're looking for.

Above and beyond.

It was also similar to this offering because its goal, its intention was to make space for the Spirit of God to do the work of God among the people of God.

Not a building, a home base for the most powerful movement that the world has ever known.

We are asking everyone who is a part of this movement to make a three-year financial pledge above and beyond their normal offering.

And so why three years?

Why a three-year commitment giving to this month after month for 36 months?

Why three years?

You know, for most of us, if I were to say what I need is I need everyone to give seven thousand dollars today.

Just get out your checkbooks.

I know nobody has a checkbook, get out your cash app, get out the MetaCurch app so that you go online and you can give.

I need seven grand.

Not a big deal, just everyone, seven grand.

Most of you just don't have it like that.

I don't have it like that.

If you need seven grand today, today, I don't have it.

I can't write you a check.

It's gonna take me some time.

However, broken down over three years, if you were to give$200 a month, every month for three years,$200, at the end of three years, you will have given to this project$7,200.

I can't write a check for$7,200, but I can sacrifice to make room for$200 a month.

Here's how quickly it can happen.

If 400 people give$200 a month for three years, if 400 out of our 1,200 plus people at MetaCurch were to give$200 a month for three years, it would be$2.8 million.

It happens so quickly when everyone does everything that they uniquely can do.

We believe if that happens, that God will do the rest.

Now, uh I'm not playing like$200 isn't very real money.

Very real money.

I get that.

It is a huge sacrifice for most of us.

But what I am acknowledging is that for the average family, the average income earner, there are many, many things in this world that are getting$200 a month from us.

And for some of us, it's gym memberships, and for some of us, it's cell phone bills, and for some of us, it's cable TV packages, and for some of us, it's Starbucks drive-thru every morning, and for some of us, it's what we're eating out instead of cooking in.

And what we're asking is for you to consider uniquely whether God has blessed you with resource and you're you're one of them that can bring the gold, or whether you are dealing in yarn, what does a sacrifice look like for you?

What does it look like to make space in your life to make space to reach lives?

What does a sacrifice mean to you?

And there are people who will give$20 a month, there are single parents, there are college kids who have already made pledges, 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month, and they are really having to rearrange some things to give that much.

That's what they can give.

And some of you, you would never even feel$200.

And what that means is you need to ask, what does a sacrifice mean to me?

If everyone does everything that they can do, God will take care of the rest.

We'll talk a little bit more about the practical pieces of the pledge, talk about what that looks like, how we make it, when we're pledging, and how we actually get online to do that.

But first, I want us to talk about this building.

We are creating space.

We've attained a lease at 2015 Southwest 410 near Marbach Road.

Of course, most of you know this as the old Super Kmart.

Currently, there is a charter school there, as well as an incredible pizza company.

Now, we have talked about this Kmart before, and many of you have been praying for this and actually giving towards this for a long time.

And some of you got really concerned because Incredible Pizza came in, and you knew that we were looking at the far right side of that building, and they painted the whole thing red.

And maybe you even thought that they took our space.

The good news is they did not.

Our space is still very much secure, and also it is very much painted bright red.

That's something that we can take care of a little bit later.

We will have around 40,000 square feet of that building on the far right side.

And here's a few highlights.

The auditorium will hold over a thousand seats.

We currently have about 1,200 people before the pandemic who were coming to our services.

This is going to create immense, immense space for us to reach new people.

There are eight designated children's classrooms, including two large gathering rooms.

We will also have from Monday to Friday a learning center called Little Dove Learning Center operating Monday through Friday, who will be serving that community with daycare, preschool, and after school care.

There are so many parking spots, which has always been an issue for us.

There is room for consistent spiritual formation classes.

And part of the heartache has been that we have not had room, not just to hold the number of children that we need to hold, but also to hold the classes to help us get spiritually, emotionally, financially, and relationally healthy.

This opens up opportunities for all of that.

We have a lobby that is designed for connecting people to intentional Christian community and helping people take their spiritual next steps.

And also, for any of you who have attended at the 151 Saloon, they have sparkling.

We will have sparkling, sparkling, clean bathrooms.

And can I get an amen in the stream for some clean restrooms?

And I gotta be honest, a couple of years ago, we thought this was our first step.

And God showed up.

And he opened a door we weren't even looking for or asking for.

We didn't call Helotus, Helotus called us.

And the money came in and the passion was there, and we caught the vision and we started a Holotus venue of Metachurch.

It almost felt backwards, like, no, no, no, God, we're gonna we're gonna get a permanent space and then we'll start adding new venues.

And God reversed it, and God was moving.

We only got to operate for about three months, and we'd already baptized 11 people in Helotus, Texas.

And what it did is it showed us that there is a very real, economic, and efficient, effective way to spread this movement.

We will build this auditorium as a digital hub, and we believe that God will bring the leaders to open new meta church venues anywhere where doors open.

We grew to a thousand people in a bar.

We can put a meta church in any, any building.

God is just getting started among us.

Now, let's talk money.

Some of you are the money people, and you've been waiting this whole time.

Can I get some numbers on this?

Can you make them make sense?

The full out-the-door price of this project, built and furnished, is three million dollars.

Now, that is a big number, and that is a lot of money.

I understand that.

We're looking at 40,000 square feet.

And we have looked at what other people are building and what other people are buying and what other people are able to construct to get the same floor plan, the same amount of space to reach the same amount of people, if we were to buy it and build it, it would cost us in the in the range of 10 million dollars.

Over three times the cost.

When you talk about banging for the buck on a project like this, it is more than a business decision.

We're talking about people's lives.

We have had people come in already.

Our staff, our board, many of our volunteers have already made their pledges.

And to date, in this$3 million project, before we've ever even gotten started, today it's starting.

We already have over$1 million.

We are a third of the way there because right now, less than 150 people, less than 150 people have given everything that they can give.

And God is already doing the rest.

And we are asking you, we are asking you to join us.

Now, we started in scripture.

We started on a spiritual foundation, and the danger of going into all the details and practicalities is that we can sway off of what this is actually about, the actual mission.

When I became your pastor, my second sermon ever, I taught a lesson that I have reiterated almost every single time I've been on stage since.

And that is that the church equals people, not place.

The church is the people you are the church.

It is not a building, it's not a service, it's not an organization, it's not just a staff.

You are the church, you are the movement.

And the day that we forget that is the day that we are doomed.

And so, if you know me, you know that.

You know that's that's that was the heartbeat of MetaCurch.

It's to change how people thought about church.

It's not a building, and now we're asking for you to help us raise three million dollars to build a building.

The tabernacle was a place, it was a building.

But more than that, it was a tool that God could use for his message and his mission.

It was never about the tabernacle, it was about the Spirit of God going from above to among.

And the building is just a home base.

It's creating space for souls to meet the Spirit of God.

It's creating room for broken marriages and suicidal teenagers and uh people who are giving into their addictions, living without hope, people who don't know why they exist and why it matters, and if anyone would miss them if they were gone.

For single parents, for the rich, the poor, the in-between.

It is about creating space for as many people as possible.

It is about doing whatever it takes to get people to the hope that is found in Jesus.

We're not giving to this to build a monument to the greatness of Metachurch.

I promise you, this building will be functional, not fancy.

That's how we're building 40,000 square feet for three million dollars.

It will be functional, not fancy.

Clean bathrooms.

We are giving to make space for the Spirit of God.

We are giving to reach our city.

We are giving to bring hope.

We are giving not just for this generation, but generations beyond.

When you reach someone for Jesus, you begin to change not just their life, but family trees.

We are giving for children or grandchildren who may run from God.

We're giving because we believe that it matters to have a space where all people are welcome, a space where people can belong and be loved even before they believe.

We are giving because there is a world that does not have hope.

And we know hope.

His name is Jesus.

And there's nothing more important in our life than getting that hope in front of as many people as possible.

We're not giving out of obligation.

We give because we see an opportunity in front of us to be a part of something significant.

Here is our plan moving forward.

First of all, you need to know that you can find all of this information, and you can set up and give your pledge at metachurch.tv slash whatever it takes.

You can also get there from going to metachurch.tv and clicking the banner at the very top of the home page.

Setting up your pledge, we have tried to make it as easy as possible.

We're in a season where everything's virtual, everything's digital, and so your pledge is digital as well.

However, I want you to know our pledge day, officially when we're asking for pledges, is not for two more weeks.

Pledge day will be October 18th.

Maybe you're wondering why.

Wait.

And you don't have to.

You could give right now.

But over the next two weeks, we're gonna be sharing more of the story of how God has been leading us to this decision.

We'll be doing some QA's on social media.

We'll be getting you the information that you need to make the sacrifice that you can make.

Also, we are asking you to pray and to prepare.

This is a spiritual move and a spiritual decision.

Should not be taken lightly.

We're asking you to go to God.

We're asking you to pray, and we're asking you to prepare.

We're asking you to look at your bank statements, at your budgets.

Maybe you've never had one, and maybe the way that you sacrifice is this is the time where you make a budget so you can give the greatest sacrifice you can give.

We're asking you to pray and to prepare.

To ask yourself, what does a sacrifice mean to me?

And not to just focus on the sacrifice in your prayer, but to focus on the significance, to focus on the souls that are living without the hope of Jesus.

We're asking you to pray and to prepare, to do whatever it takes to reach lives just like these.

And so almost wondering why would I matter so much to God.

I actually grew up with nothing but a fear of God and the fear of asking any questions and uh it's uh sacrilegious to do something like that.

And then you're questioning the authority of God and and the church and and uh the work like that.

I felt like I was just missing uh a connection for for a while.

I felt like I don't believe in this god.

I didn't grow up with my with my dad.

Like anyone who grew up without their dad wonder now and again like what that might have been like and kind of feel that hole um in my heart at a time.

One of my first experiences that really impacted me uh going to Metaturch was walking into the building and seeing a really truly diverse group of people from all different backgrounds.

And everybody's just welcome.

And that was one of the first things that truly made me feel like everyone's a family here, and everything like we can ask any questions we want, we can we can talk to each other, we can be a real community of real people, of real imperfect people.

When I came to Metachurch, I felt I felt like I could actually ask the hard questions that you don't normally get to ask, and uh that really took my nihilistic worldview, my view of God, and completely flipped it.

What coming to God has has done for me is that I realize now um that I've always had the perfect father, really, really in the perfect sense, guide me in in the way that he intended for my life to play out.

I started playing music at MetaCurch uh every week.

I started uh chasing my dream as a as a music producer because I felt like God was calling me to serve other people and help them create music and uh to help them you know fulfill their dreams as as performers.

Metachurch has shown me that this is the right purpose.

This is what I've been training and practicing for all these years, for this very moment of being able to serve the kingdom of God.

That seems to be the most important thing that I've ever done with this gift.

I constantly see uh the hands and feet of Jesus moving in Metachurch, you know, but we're constantly helping the community and doing whatever it takes, especially during these hard times.

I think the growth that I see and feel with MetaCurch is um just a strong foundation that we have in our faith that in a time of much divide has only made us stronger.

This is why we exist.

These are young people who serve here, sacrifice here.

But they came here not having that ultimate connection.

They needed a safe space, they needed a place like Metachurch.

I'm so glad that you joined us today.

This is a watershed moment in the life of this movement.

Pray and prepare.

And let's see just what God is going to do through you.

Would you pray with me?

God, we love you, and uh, we thank you for bringing us to this point.

God, I so look forward to next Sunday where I get to tell more of the story of just how much you have shown us your favor through this whole process.

I ask God that we would take these next 14 days, that we would look to you, that we would look to the future, the potential of what you could do through us.

I pray that you would continue to challenge us to not see the church as something that we go to or something that is outside of us, God, that every single person would own.

They are the church.

They are this movement.

And I pray that we would all do whatever it takes to push this movement forward.

We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hey, we're going to continue getting more information about this in front of you.

That means it's extra important that you follow us on social media, keep up with us on Facebook as well as on Instagram.

We are asking for this, whatever it takes, offering to be above and beyond how you are funding the operation of this place.

As always, we want to remind you to give generously to what God is doing here.

You can do that at metachurch.tv or by downloading the MetaCurch app.

I want to thank you again for being on this stream with us today.

I love you guys.

Y'all continue to be safe and to be the movement.

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.