Vision Sunday

How's everybody doing?

Okay.

Good morning.

I love this.

We got some good, good, uh, exciting rainy day festivities going on here at Commonplace Church.

Uh we are part of our Vision Sunday, which is uh an exciting time, I think, for for us as a church, uh, for just uh myself, just even as a pastor here at Commonplace.

Um it's an opportunity to just share, hey, where where are we going for this year?

And uh I just um I think you know God gives us different seasons and different uh opportunities throughout different uh just times and journeys as far as being a church body, being a church family.

And and I'm just excited to share where we're going.

And uh once a year we do this.

This isn't uh every Sunday.

Um typically we do teach just directly from the Bible, but we will don't worry, we'll be referencing the Bible today.

This is not just like my own kind of uh ideas, okay?

And let's start there because the reality is we do have um a clear objective to what we're doing as a church, and that comes through the Great Commission.

It's in Matthew, back uh before right after Easter, we did a like a short series, but a deep dive into the Great Commission.

And it says this it says, Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven on earth have been given to me.

Go therefore make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, teach teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.

Behold, I am with you to the end of the age.

So we have a clear objective of what we're supposed to do, and that's a beautiful thing, right?

So we know where we're going.

But here's why vision I think is important.

Because the church is is uh the joy of the church is we're these local expressions and different contexts.

Well, Jesus allows us to have different visions on how we get to that objective.

And so that's what Vision Sunday is all about.

We get the opportunity to share, hey, this year, right, in the context we have, in the season we have, where where are we going?

What are we gonna see?

What do we want to see?

Because here's what vision does.

Vision helps each particular church body move closer to that main objective.

That's that's the the joy of that.

Think about it um as far as like, you know, if you a student, if you uh you have a clear objective, right?

You want to graduate.

That's that's the goal, right?

Uh maybe get a job, of course, right?

But you want to graduate.

Now, your vision for grad to getting to graduation as a kindergartner is probably different from that of fifth grade, right?

And that's different from someone who's maybe a senior.

And and that's the same thing with the church, right?

Different places where we're we find ourselves, we find ourselves in different lanes and um approaches towards vision.

So here's where we we came from.

This past year we uh saw movement.

That was our our big vision for the past year that we're just uh just ending right now.

And that call was to move towards uh God, move towards others, the church, and then move towards those outside of the church.

That's our our our joy that we saw this past year.

And and honestly, I this was one of my favorite years as a church.

I'm I'm just being honest, I don't say that every year, but it's true.

This was one of my favorite years as a church.

I feel like we saw God just do some powerful things.

You think about Sunday nights, just youth ministry, right?

40 plus kids every Sunday night, just hearing the gospel.

Uh you think about things like a VBS, right?

We had like 70 kids just hearing the gospel.

You think about just seeing the Great Commission in action as we had people just baptized this year, right?

It was such a powerful thing.

So we we lived out that vision this year, and I'm just grateful for that as a church.

Well done.

Um, and so here's kind of where we're where we're going, because what we did is we invited people right into this process, right?

We we invited people closer to these monumental moments of steps of just recognizing, hey, we want to go towards God, we want to go towards others.

And so here's how I want to start this vision, okay?

Uh, when there's monumental moments that take place in my life or my family, I have a um an approach that I just I don't know, I just love.

Um I don't know if the people who receive that love it, but um, here's my what I tend to do.

My communication is letter writing.

I tend to write letters.

In fact, you know, birthdays, graduations, anniversary, things like that, you can expect in my family a letter, a letter from dad.

Now, do they like it or not?

I'm not sure.

But uh it's it's what what it takes place.

And now, listen, I know, of course, I'm nobody's um, I'm not anyone's dad or husband in this uh church, right?

Other than my wife and my kids, but uh there's a church body, right?

But but I do consider this church to be family.

So because of that reality, I kind of want to offer something different today, just a different form of communication.

I want to share our vision for our church family uh through letter form, if you will.

And so I'm gonna give it a try.

We'll see how it goes.

Um, but truly, from my heart, I just appreciate the opportunity to share in any communication way towards this church, but um this is one I value a lot.

So here we go.

Dear commonplace church, grace and peace to you all.

I want to offer this letter to you as an expression of love, consideration, care, encouragement, and hopefully excitement.

As I have the honor of sharing this year's vision for our church, and I want to start this letter by acknowledging the one who sits at the source of all things, God.

Not to just thank him, give him a shout out, like for all he's done, like some sort of like award ceremony, but to declare beyond even what he's done by first declaring who he is.

Declaring how good, worthy, powerful, kind, mighty our God is, praising him for who he is, offering the words that David declares in Psalm 8, Lord, O Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

You have set your glory in the heavens.

Our God sits above, he's majestic, he's a God of wonders, our God whose heart is for redemption, the one who shows his love for us, as Paul writes in his letter to the church in Rome by sending Christ, it says, But God shows his love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

A God who extends a kind of love that no human can fully categorize, can truly grasp in its depths, a God who freely offers that love to those who are humble and willing to receive it.

And so this letter flows from a recognition of his character, of his love, a love that is a present banner over each one of his children, a love that will eternally cover those he calls his own.

The love of this Trinitarian God, Father, Son, and Spirit, whose existence and love it sits as the primary foundation for the church, for his people, and for this correspondence.

Now, not to plagiarize another letter, of course, but to help paint the reality of the one who sits at the core of this vision, mission, existence of the church, I want to use Paul's offering from his letter to the Ephesians to help set the foundation for the letter to our church.

It says this blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, even as he chose in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.

He predestined us for adoption to himself, his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven, things on earth in him.

And so as I begin this letter with this recognition of the one who's worthy is all, offering praise and adoration for his great love for us, acknowledging the joy he has for the gathering of those who desire and declare his name, those known as the church, the bride of Christ, the desire from God for that bride to flourish, to prosper, to bring him glory.

So to the collective known as the bride, as the church, the one who Jesus receives, the one that Jesus loves even in all its blemishes, spots, and bruises.

I want to thank you for your commitment to living from the honor of carrying this title, the church.

Thank you for your commitment to not merely existing under a title, but to truly living out the reality of what this title, the church, offers to God's created world.

Thank you specifically for your commitment to the local expression of the church, commonplace church.

A commitment that looks like gathering consistently on Sunday mornings, even when 9 a.m.

service means an early wake-up.

Commitment that looks like serving one another as the church, using the gifts, using the talents of grace uniquely bestowed upon you, like Peter, he writes in his letter, as for each received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace.

Those talents include for some arriving before 9 a.m., even hours before, to make sure things like sound, music, preaching offered with quality.

For others, it's video and tech, ensuring that those within our church family who are unable to be physically present can remain connected through things like live stream access.

There are musicians who arrive hours prior to service to practice, to rehearse, to pray for the service.

We have those who offer hospitality, setting up coffee, snacks, and of course, sugary candies that all the kids attempt to take by the handful like it's Halloween.

Speaking of kids, those who show up prepared to welcome and teach the children at commonplace.

And of course, those who serve through welcoming, who stand expectantly waiting for people to arrive at the gathering, ready for a smile, a handshake, and simply we're glad that you're here.

Now, of course, these offerings they go far beyond Sunday mornings.

We find these offerings through things like our youth ministry, our women's ministry, our men's ministry, our commonalities group, our prayer gatherings, so many other spaces.

Even those who do the behind-the-scenes work that keeps this church fiscally responsible, budget planning, bill planning, all those things people, most people never see.

This church lives out its identity that has been given so powerfully through the way it gives its talents.

Of course, this church also acknowledges its identity through generosity, through offering things like financial gifts and treasure to meet the needs of operating as a church.

And I think though it'd be short-sighted not to acknowledge the investment this church makes in declaring its identity as the bride through the time that it offers.

Time given to one another in fellowship, time given living on mission.

Which brings me to the challenge of this summer.

Calling this church to throw parties.

And yes, we did make our 20, so let's go, church.

But that achievement required this a precious commodity that our culture values greatly.

Time.

Time.

Yet here's the reality: God truly honored that time that was offered.

I heard from one party host whose neighbors would probably not consider themselves to be Jesus followers, but who, after meeting some of church friends who were at the party, they said something like, Wait, those are the people from your church?

Like, really?

I mean, they weren't weirdos or oddballs.

I believe God uses those interactions to break down misconceptions that those outside the church might have.

Misconceptions that might otherwise become barriers to them coming to know Christ.

I think a theme for the parties was not whisk not witnessing about Jesus weirdly, witnessing about Jesus wisely.

So thank you for seeing the time of the value intentionally used to connect with one another as a church and those outside of it.

So here's what I want to point out.

I believe that intentionality served us so well for where we were heading as a church.

And I believe that invitationality also did so.

Because what we did was we extended invitations.

We were invitational to those in our lives.

And in that process, we began moving towards something incredibly valuable to the heartbeat of this church.

We moved towards what we're calling living an invitational life.

This summer, our church showed, our church began to show the joy, the fruit of invitational living.

An invitational life is at the heart of this letter.

It's at the heart of this vision because I truly believe the Spirit of God is bringing us into a season where He's desiring each one of us to live out our faith, live out our lives invitationally, to live these lives of invitation.

Now, by invitational living, I want to make sure I'm clear about what I believe this season is calling us into.

For anyone who might think Pastor Kirk just discovered Evites, or maybe Pastor Kirk didn't get invited to a summer party and is calling us to be invitational as a way to feel included.

Thankfully, none of those scenarios are what I'm referring to.

Here's what I truly believe.

I believe intent invitational living is absolutely vital in this season of our church's development, our church's formation, our church's establishment.

And here's why what I believe makes this invitation so vital.

Within this call sits a key element, not only for the church as a whole, but for each one of us individually.

When it comes to our own faith journey, here's what's true invitation sits at the core of even our belief systems.

The reality of the Christian faith is this it exists within the offering of invitation.

Here's what faith is at its core.

Isn't it an invitation?

Faith ultimately is an invitation to trust.

It makes me think of the incredible chapter in the letter of Hebrews.

Look at what these verses say.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

For by it, the people of old receive their combination.

But by faith, we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

This passage, it reminds us that the whole construct of the Christian faith is this it's an invitation to trust.

It's an invitation to believe that what has been said, what has been shared, what has been offered, what has been revealed to us through the scriptures, through the incarnation, actually is what's promised to be.

And what is actually is true.

To be a disciple of Jesus, there is no other way around it, but to recognize our faith is invitational.

But what is the core invitation?

I believe it's an invitation to do this.

To trust, to trust the one who is the object of our belief, to trust him even when we don't see.

It's what Paul he offers as he gives a same invitation in his letter to the Corinthians.

He says, walk by faith, not by sight.

And so here's what that invitation is it's an invitation to trust beyond what we're able to view.

Now, look, that sounds basic.

I recognize that.

But here's the thing.

As much as we might acknowledge that the core reality of our faith is living from an invitation to trust God in every area, by faith, well, not always, by sight.

The truth is this.

I wonder how often we actually live from that invitation.

In our personal faith journeys, in our journey as a church, how often do we rather would we just prefer trusting in what we see rather than what is unseen?

Being primary, primarily practical, pragmatic, even at times preferring the predictable.

I know I tend to operate more with that desire than just trusting even what I don't see.

Yet I don't believe that God desires us, but yes, I yet I truly believe, I'm sorry, that God desires us to be captivated by the all of his power, by his might, by his work, by his wonder, to do things like even to move the mountains, to do the impossible.

And so that's the first invitation I want to call us towards in an invitational living in this vision is this that we accept the invitation to trust God in areas we aren't truly able to see the outcomes.

Invited into this season towards a greater trust in the areas that we, if we're honest, we just can't see a pathway forward.

Maybe for some of us it's that sin struggle, it's that pattern.

We just feel trapped.

We can't see a way out.

Maybe for others, it's a broken relationship.

And from our vantage point, there's no way this thing could ever be restored.

We just can't see it.

Maybe others, it's a career burden, it's a it's a financial strain.

Just can't see how, how it could be possible.

And in that, just maybe preferring the pragmatic or the practical paths in our lives.

Or maybe the term is just preferring to hold on to control, control in those areas.

Where Jesus is inviting us to surrender, hand those areas over to him.

Because I wonder, even as I write this letter to all of you, of course to myself, when it comes to living out our walk, our faith journeys as followers of Jesus, as the church, is it possible that we just might find ourselves preferring the practical, the pragmatic, the plain sight, but in doing so at the expense of accepting a key aspect of our faith, an invitation to trust.

The invitation to trust God, especially when we can't see, when we have no access to the outcome, to trust him in those places where we want to remain in control.

But he's inviting us to surrender and to trust.

You know those spaces that we've compartmentalized.

God, I'll invite you into this area of the life, but I'm gonna remain in charge of these other areas.

I know in my life, I know what that looks like.

I I welcome the invitation from God to let him show me how and where I can best minister and care for people.

God, yes, lead me, I trust you.

But when it comes to something like maybe finances, an area I imagine most of us tend to hold pretty tightly.

I know I I can tend to decline his invitation to trust, to put my faith in what he has the power to do, to provide, to sustain.

But but as I hold my tight grip, I might be missing out on what?

An invitation.

I miss out on the moments that strengthen our trust, our faith, even our worship.

I tend to miss those Peter at sea moments.

If that's not a familiar phrase for you, here's what I'm referring to.

In the gospel accounts, there's a story of Jesus' disciples, and they're in a boat, and Jesus has gone away to spend time in solitude and prayer, while his disciples they head out into the water.

And as they're at sea, the waves and the winds they begin hitting, smashing the boat.

The boat is being rocked.

Uncertainty logically sets this group into panic.

But as they're trying to figure out how to sustain, how to maintain, how to just stay afloat, along comes Jesus.

Jesus shows up.

Not in some sort of rescue tugboat.

He shows up how?

He's walking on the water.

Now, I know with AI these days, we might be able to make a simulation of someone like walking on the water, running on the water, but there's no AI in this account.

Jesus did the miraculous.

And as he's doing the miraculous, his disciples are captivated.

There's no option to practically explain this away.

There's no pragmatic observation about how one might use science to water walk.

They're left in awe.

All of the miraculous, all of the what's the supernatural.

And Peter responds, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.

And I love how Jesus responds.

He does so with what?

With invitation.

He says, Come.

Peter.

Here's your opportunity to live an invitational life.

If you truly have faith that I am the God who does miraculous, live from that space of invitation.

The invitation to allow me as your Lord, as your savior, as your rescuer, as your God to call you into deeper waters, into the unknown.

An invitation that continues even when we find ourselves like Peter stepping out and starting to panic, when doubt starts to creep in.

Well, we're reminded that Jesus, he doesn't invite Peter into the water to drown.

Instead, when Peter starts to sink, Jesus invites Peter once again towards him.

Inviting Peter to reach out once again for him.

Even that moment, it becomes another invitation, an invitation into a deeper level of trust, a level of trust in Jesus that declares, even though I'm struggling to understand, even though I'm struggling to believe, I want to invite you, Jesus, to move powerfully in my life.

And so my hope for invitational living is that we first and foremost we invite God into our lives to do what Paul shares in his letter to the Ephesians, to allow God to do much more than we can ever comprehend.

Look what it says now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than we can ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.

Amen.

So this first invitation that I desire for each one of you, for myself, as a disciple of Jesus, is that we would truly take God at His word.

We would take this season to invite God into that space, to receive the invitation to meet Him in these deep waters.

And so let's enter this season in inviting God to deepen our faith, to bring a depth to our trust.

In a season as a church, I want to call us just into this greater invitation to do this, to experience more.

I believe this season of inviting God to allow us is this space of more of His presence, more of His power, more miraculous, more deliverance from things like addiction, more restoration of marriages, more physical healing, more financial provisions, more patterns of sin, maybe both current or generational, more destroyed, more strongholds cast out in the name of Jesus.

It's an invitation for more.

It's this.

It's more of offering this of this offering of life that we've received in Christ, that invitation to be extended to those in our lives, to others in our lives who've never taken that step.

Because an invitational life also includes this.

It's an invitation for life to those around us.

So here's my prayer for us.

As we experience more of this invitation from Jesus in our own lives, we extend that same invitation from Jesus to anyone who will listen.

An invitation to receive life.

That's the offer that comes from the gospel.

And it's the calling of the church to be messengers of the good news.

Paul writes this in Romans.

He says, For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

But how will they call on him and in him whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe of him when they have never heard?

How are they to hear without someone preaching?

How are they to preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

So, church, my prayer for us is that as Jesus has done the miraculous in our lives, making us new creations, forgiving us of all of our sin, cleansing us, gifting us life abundant and eternal, we wouldn't just sit back and say, That's a sweet deal for me, but not move towards living invitational with others.

Others we know who are seeking what we've found, desiring the hope that we've been inviting into, the hope in the gospel.

My prayer is that we would do this.

We would act like lepers.

Now let me give some context to that.

There's an account in the Old Testament, 2 Kings chapter 7, where there's four lepers and they're sitting outside a city while an enemy of Israel, the Syrians, have been encamped nearby.

2 Kings 7 · chapter mention

These lepers, they make a choice out of desperation.

They decide to risk their lives by entering the enemy camp and surrendering to themselves because their need for provisions was just so great.

Their level of brokenness has made them open to finding hope at any cost.

But as they enter the camp, they discover the Syrians had abandoned it, leaving behind a vast amount of provisions.

And so these four men, they began enjoying the bounty that they've discovered.

But at some point, they became convicted.

Because they knew that others were starving.

They knew that the people of Israel were unaware the Syrians had fled.

And these lepers, they recognized they had done nothing to earn what they discovered.

They didn't deserve those gifts, and yet they were given them.

And they realized it would be wrong to keep those treasures to themselves while others desperately need what they have found.

And I think that's what I mean by acting like lepers.

In the gospel, we've been given so much.

Jesus tells us in Matthew 13, the kingdom is like a treasure.

Through the gospel, we've been invited into access to God, forgiveness of sins, this life in Christ.

And if that's true, my hope, my prayer for myself and for all of us is that we wouldn't hide that treasure we'd been invited into.

That we wouldn't keep it to ourselves.

But rather, we would invite all people into this invitation of life.

That's what this vision is about.

It's a season of invitation.

The invitation found through the gospel.

And so from so for today, my ask for us starting today is I want us to just start to acknowledge where in life at this moment God has placed you.

You find yourself wherever you are today by God's design.

And so as you recognize his placement, I want to offer just three spaces for exploration of where God might be calling you to extend this invitation for life.

The first space is where you live, within your home, neighbors, who might be open to receive this invitation for life.

Second, where you work, or if you're a student, where you go to school, where you exist within your career, classes, who might be open to this invitation for life.

Last, where where you play?

What spaces do you encounter for things like recreation or enjoyment and who might be open to this, receive this invitation for life?

I had an encounter this summer where I went to a brewery to watch a World Cup game.

And I brought my laptop, my Bible, and tried to multitask.

But I was watching the game, I had the opportunity to share with the, I think they're called brew tenders, what I did and what I was working on.

And I extended an invite to explore faith, even check out the church.

I'm not sure what came from that after I left, but the one thing I was reminded of, and I want to remind all of us, is that our call is just to extend the invite.

We have no power to save, transform someone's heart or life.

That is the power that only God holds.

But we do, we do get the opportunity to live invitationally towards others.

So I want each of us just to take time and ask God to bring those people into our minds, bring them into our hearts, extend this invitation for life, life invitationally.

So as I close this letter, I want to share a few final invitations.

I want to invite this church family into a space of uh vulnerability and transparency, and it's a personal space.

Leading into the summer, towards the end of June, after VBS, I shared with our elder board that I believed I was burned out.

Honestly, I think I'd probably been burned out the year prior.

But by the grace of God and through support of so many, I continued my role.

And as I shared with the board, I asked for a few weeks to find restoration.

Ultimately to have time with the Lord, but also have time with my family as my son was preparing to head for college in the fall.

That time was granted, and I want to thank the elders of the and uh sorry, elder board, and and um I want to thank this this church family for allowing me that space during that time.

And in that I really began praying, praying through vision and direction for this church.

And at some point I had the opportunity to get away uh to a place called Restoration Farm.

And in that moment, that that place focuses on offering pastors and ministry leaders rest.

Now, part of the process was those who led that ministry gave a prompting to do this, simply consider the reality of my calling.

Why do this whole pastoring thing?

And I'll be honest, I really had to sit and pray through that, to pray through the process because some of you uh are aware of the history of this church, it has not been an easy road.

Facility moves, big transitions, some ups, some downs.

And I know that same question, why keep doing this, has been tossed around at different difficult moments.

Things like why ministry, why even this particular church, commonplace church?

And as much as that question felt challenging and uncomfortable, I couldn't help but feel grateful for the invitation to really take those questions to heart.

Now, because I'm in I've been in the ministry world for many years, I could easily respond with the commonly used answer of calling.

I feel called to this.

And that's not an incorrect answer, but here's what I felt the Lord invited me into with this question.

Why?

What about this particular calling commonplace church?

It makes me truly believe that this role is worth devoting myself to.

This loving community, people who pray for one another, people who care for one another, all those, but what the spirit really placed as the most pressing why was this.

As a church, as a pastor, we get to be invitational in the area that God has placed us.

We get a picture of the communities that we exist in, finding hope, life, transformation.

We get to do that locally.

Now, sure, other organizations, clubs, teams can be invitational, right?

I can invite you into my pickleball club, but here's the difference.

When it comes to the invitation, the church has charged to extend, we get to watch God do the miraculous.

We get to see our Lord and Savior, whose blood was poured out, whose body was bruised and beaten, offer forgiveness of sin to anyone who's willing to repent and receive that invitation.

We get to see stories, even within this church community, commonplace, of people who received an invitation to check this church out.

And they accepted that invitation and they took a step of faith.

And maybe, listen, some maybe have had unhealthy church experiences before.

Maybe some were turned off by others.

Maybe they felt like if they walked into church, God would grab a lightning bolt and strike them down.

Yet those people, they felt safe to say, okay, okay, to the invitation of another person to simply come and see.

Just like Philip tells Nathaniel.

And the come and see turned into come and be.

Believe, receive.

And so for me, that's my why.

Because there's so many unfinished stories of redemption in this area of Morris County alone.

And we have a God who is calling us and he's inviting us into this role of watching him do what we never thought could be done.

Rescuing the person we wrote off years ago, redeeming the marriage we all thought was destined for divorce, the parent-child relationship that had become painfully estranged, restored.

All from this, from Christ's invitation to life, to live in his life that he gives, and his people's willingness to invite others towards life.

And so I am grateful for all of you.

I'm grateful for the elders for allowing me time and space, for God to invite me into remembering the joy of what being part of a local church offers.

The joy of what this particular local church means.

The opportunity to call us not to just settle for merely pragmatic, cautious, cautious expressions of faith, but invite him to do the impossible in whatever area of life he desires.

The invitation that calls us to take a deep, a step of deep faith and trust when we can't see.

And that's that's how I want to close this letter.

As a church leadership, we feel that God is inviting us into the space of greater trust as we seek the next best steps for facility for commonplace church.

As we lean into this season of invitational living, and as each one of us who are part of this body of believers begins inviting people into our lives, it's steps of faith, even towards steps to come into the church, youth group, connect groups.

We recognize that if the church begins activating in this invitational way, it's only a matter of time before the current space we gather reaches capacity.

And so right now, we don't know where the Lord might be leading us.

We don't know what other opportunities might even be open.

We don't know all the details.

We don't know all the possibilities or options, but here's what we do know.

In this season of invitational living, we are invited as a church family into a season of stepping out together into deeper, deeper waters, a deeper trust.

Because listen, right now, if I'm honest, I would feel so much more confident and comfortable standing here and saying, here's the practical plain step forward, here's the steps, here are the exact options.

That would feel safer to me.

But I don't believe God is inviting us into a faith that's built upon comfort or temporary securities.

I believe that, like Peter, he's inviting us into greater trust, inviting us into greater considerations of this God who moves the mountains, of this God who walks on water, of this God who raises the dead.

This is the same God who could do the impossible, the same God who can make away with right now.

We might not see one.

So I just want to close this letter by saying thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to share this vision with you.

Thank you for allowing me to propose this invitational life as a step forward as a church.

And lastly, I just want to recognize the potential oddness of reading a letter when typically there would be more of a sermon or message presented.

Yes, I do love writing letters, but I also intentionally wanted to offer us a letter as we prepare to enter our next series, which is built around letters, the epistles, letters from one of Jesus' apostles, John, letters that, like the one I've crafted our church today, John is crafted to be read, studied, understood, and lived out by the church.

And letters that offer us this greater reality into the character of this invitational God, who he is, what he's like, why he's worth trusting, why he's worth surrendering our lives toward.

And so I'm excited to explore these letters with you all.

Thank you for allowing me this space this morning.

Sincerely, Pastor Kirk.

Um I just want to actually offer two more invitations.

Um first, I three.

First, I want to pray for us.

Second, um I want to give out invitations to this to this next step.

And so, John, if anybody else wants to help, John, uh just wants to pass those out.

Um and I also want to invite up uh a time of communion, that we will uh partake in the Lord's Supper.

I actually want to take that from Mark because I'm gonna invite Mark up here.

Mark is gonna lead us through a time of communion.

But before we do, I just want to pray for us.

And uh I just want to thank you guys for allowing me to share this morning.

But let me pray.

Father, we uh we thank you that you're inviting us into just a season of greater trust, Lord.

Lord, into a season of surrender.

Lord, I just pray right now, God, we're whatever area we might find ourselves where we are just we're clinging so tightly, Lord, to something that you are calling us to to allow you to work powerfully in God.

Would you would you invite us, Lord, into the character of who you are, God?

Would you invite us to just trust you, Lord?

Even where we can't see, God, what we can see is we can see who you are, we can see the evidence of what you've done, we can see your love.

We see the cross.

Lord, we see this picture of the greatest picture of love, of sacrificial love.

And in that picture, we we know that we can trust, God.

So Lord, I just thank you.

I pray also, Lord, that we would just take steps of just being invitational, Lord, to those you've placed in our lives.

God, whether it's home, neighborhood, work, wherever it might be, God, I just pray you would you would just bring about those opportunities, God.

Lord, we want to see people come to know life, true life, life abundant, life eternal.

And we thank you, Jesus, that you made it away.

It's only it's only through your blood, it's only the power of the cross, Lord.

And so we praise you and we thank you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.