Vision Month: Give Love

We're beginning this year a little bit differently.

We're doing something we've never really done before.

We're spending our first month of the year talking about who we are as a church, talking about our vision.

And just so you know, as a general rule, we don't talk about ourselves very much.

We are really busy talking about Jesus and who he is and what he can do.

But every once in a while, it's really important for us to make sure that we're on the same page.

And I believe that 2018 is a year where we are taking a big step forward as a church.

It's a year, I believe, where the name His Hands is going to stop being our name and it's going to become our identity.

When you think about the name His Hands, that's kind of a bold name.

I didn't name the church His Hands.

That wasn't a decision that I made.

That was before me.

His hands is sort of a rubber meets the road name.

Because when you think about the hands of Jesus and what he did by hand, it's powerful.

Jesus healed people by hand.

Jesus served people by hand.

Like when Jesus washed his disciples' feet, which was, by the way, an act that only the lowest ranking servant in a household would do because let's just face it, past age five, feet are gross.

And Jesus washed his disciples' feet by hand.

Jesus saved us by hand.

He did.

He opened up his hands and he allowed those hands to be nailed to a cross, the same hands that had touched lepers and healed them, the same hands that had touched the blind and healed them.

He let those hands be nailed to a cross so that he could pay the price for our sin, so that we can know that our sin is done.

It is over with.

That's by the way, the reason that following Jesus is not a religion.

Christianity is not a religion.

A religion is the things you do to please God, but in our faith it's already been done.

So it's a relationship now.

Jesus did a lot by hand, and if we're going to be his hands church, my goodness, we should have picked a different name, right?

Like we should have been his good intentions.

That would have been a way easier name for us to live up to, you know, like, hey, I'm sorry, we just we tried our best.

But we're his hands.

And I love that name.

I believe this year is the year where that becomes our identity to this community.

That we are the hands of Jesus to this community, that we're gonna reach out and give the love of Jesus to this community in ways we never have before.

I'm excited about that.

But if we're gonna do that, then we've got to be unified.

We've got to understand who we are, what we believe, where we're going.

We've got to be moving in the same direction because if you think about something like a chariot, it's not it's not a powerful thing because there's a bunch of horses.

It's a powerful thing because there's a bunch of horses going in the same direction.

And I believe this is a year where God wants us to move.

So I'm so excited that we get to do that together.

I'm excited that we get to talk about who we are, what we believe.

Our vision wrapped up in a really simple statement is this we love people to Jesus.

If you're here for the very first time, I know this is forward, don't freak out, but we really love you.

All right?

Not in a weird, creepy way.

We really love you because we know how much Jesus loves you.

And we we put something that Jesus said into practice, something he said very boldly.

He said, the world will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another.

John 13, 35, the world will know that you're mine.

You will prove to the world that you belong to me by the way that you love each other.

So we love people to Jesus.

We want you to have an actual experience with the love that God has for you, because we believe that real love is a game changer, and the love he has for you is unlike anything else you will ever experience in this world.

We love people to Jesus, but but we need some help putting that into action.

And so God over the years has given us some clarifiers, some words that allow us to figure out how we're gonna go about doing that.

And we've got these three words that begin with G conveniently located behind me on the screen: get, grow, and give.

And we've been talking about those words, and like I said, there may or may not be a fourth G word added to that list next week.

I don't know.

I cannot confirm nor deny, you'll just have to maybe be here.

But today we're talking about the word give.

Two weeks ago we talked about get, how we can receive more of God, how we can be filled with his presence in ways maybe we never have before.

We want you to receive from God.

We have so many experiences designed just for you to receive.

Last week we talked about growing, how we need to mature.

We need to grow up.

We don't just want to get from God, we want to grow.

We want to move forward in our faith.

We want to mature.

There's a verse in Hebrews that says, now let us press on to maturity.

In the book of James, the Holy Spirit communicates to us that God desires that we be complete and mature, lacking nothing.

We want to grow up.

But we want to do that so that we can give.

I don't just want to be a consumer in God's kingdom.

I want to be a contributor.

Because when you're a contributor, you feel more joy and passion than you ever do when you consume.

Think about the things in your life that fill you with the most joy, the things that give you the most fulfillment.

They're probably something that in some way you contribute to.

We want to be contributors, and when you stop and think about it, it's amazing that we get to contribute to God.

And we're talking about giving today.

And again, if you're new, I'm glad you're here today.

You're gonna learn a lot about us today.

Jesus said in Matthew 6.21 that where your treasure is, there your heart is also.

And so when we talk about something like giving, it shows what we value.

We're gonna talk about serving today, what it looks like to contribute in the church, to serve, to give to what God is doing in our church.

This this conversation, it's really designed for those of us who call his hands home.

And so if you're visiting, you know, listen and learn, but don't at any moment feel like we're trying to challenge you or anything like that.

Know this on the forefront.

We don't talk about giving a whole lot.

Like I'll mention it on Sunday mornings because it's a reality.

But we're not a church that like harps on this.

We talk about it once a year usually, and today just happens to be that day.

So you either won or lost the church visiting lottery.

Um, depends on how you look at it.

But I actually I love talking about giving.

I really do.

I don't feel awkward at all.

I love talking about it because to me it's it's amazing that I actually get to give to God.

Because what that means is that God looks at me and he says, I have something to offer.

Which is mind-blowing when you think about it.

Like if you ever watch a superhero movie, when superheroes save those who need saved, they just make sure they're safe and then they basically say, Leave me alone, I have to go do something important.

Right?

I've saved you, I've rescued you, stay put.

Let me get back to doing the saving.

But when Jesus saves us, he doesn't just say, Cool, I saved you, stay here, don't get in my way.

He says, Hey, will you come with me?

Will you join me in my saving?

Will you partner with me?

It's amazing when you stop to think about how high God's opinion of you is.

We see that so much in Scripture.

For example, in 1 Peter 2 9, Peter's challenging the people following Jesus to live like they follow Jesus, to live differently.

And he says, You're not like that, for you are a chosen people.

God has chosen you.

Anyone ever been the last person picked for a team?

You are not in God's kingdom.

You're chosen.

He says, You're a chosen people, you are royal priests, a holy nation, God's very own possession, and as a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness and into his wonderful light.

God has picked you for his team.

And God looks at you and he says, Hey, you have something to offer.

You can play a role in my kingdom.

And that's mind-blowing to me.

It's mind-blowing that God would ever look at me or anyone else and say, I need you, I need your help.

And we get to use our time for God, and we get to use our talents for God, we get to use our resources for God.

I don't know about you, I don't feel like I have an abundance of resources.

I drive a 2006 Scion, it's paid for, I'm happy about it.

The left mirror is duct taped on, I'm cool with it.

I don't care.

I don't have a ton of resources, I don't feel like I have a ton of talent.

My only true talent has always just been talking, which is a talent, maybe, right?

Depending on who you're talking to.

It's amazing to me that I get to hold a microphone and talk about Jesus.

Do you know how many people in my life have told me to stop talking?

In school, I sat at a desk called the island.

And it didn't work.

I mean, my whole life, seriously, my whole life, I have vivid memories of everyone who's ever known me telling me at some point you talk too much.

Stop talking.

I know you've thought it.

It's okay.

I know some of you saw how many cars were still here when you pulled in, and you're like, what's going on?

I'm gonna do my best today.

That's all I can offer.

I'm his good intentions right now, okay?

But the fact that God would look at me and say, Hey Justin, do you want to talk about me?

I'm like, yeah.

Seriously?

Like he let he lets us use what he's given us for his glory.

That's awesome.

Sometimes we we see the word give and we just go, oh man, here we go.

I just think it's cool that we get to give to what God is doing.

I think it's amazing that he allows us to take a part in his kingdom in this world and building that kingdom.

So that's what we're talking about today.

We're talking about what it looks like to give what he's given.

You know, in the context of church, we're gonna look at this in two different ways.

This is probably gonna be the most like meeting-like conversation we've ever had, and it's really cool for me to lead like a church meeting, because I'm basically a 12-year-old at heart, and this feels very grown up.

So I feel, I don't know, I feel good.

Uh we're gonna look at what giving looks like on an individual level, and we're gonna look like we're gonna look at what it looks like for us to give as a church.

So, how can we all as individuals contribute to what God is doing here?

And how can we as a church come together and contribute to our community as the church?

We don't want to be a church, we're gonna be the church.

Not the church like the best church, but I mean the church of Jesus.

We want to be his hands to this community.

So we're gonna talk about that.

Now, when we say give, really we mean two things.

You know, one of those is financial, we'll talk about that.

That'll be a really easy conversation.

Um, but we also mean like your service, your talent, your time.

When I was in college, Megan and I were going to a church in Kansas City.

We were dating at the time.

I was really hoping to seal the deal, so I took her to church.

So, guys, if you're dating, it worked.

I don't know.

That's all I can say.

It worked.

So we go to this church, we're college students, and it was it was really cool for me because it was the first time in my life that I got to choose which church we went to.

I love the church I grew up in.

I grew up in church from fourth grade on.

A family invited my family to church when uh when I was in the fourth grade, and I was really mad that we went because I thought it was boring.

The very next week, the husband of that family got arrested for embezzling money from his company.

We never saw them again, but we had enough time to start going to church because of them.

So I'm a Christian because a criminal invited me to church, which is kind of cool.

Um, you know.

Like I said, God will use your talents for his purpose, like whatever that is.

Um and I love the church I grew up in, but when I got to college, I got to choose my church, which was kind of cool.

I'm like, oh, I'm gonna visit these places, I'm gonna pick the place, and I picked this one church.

I thought it was awesome.

I really enjoyed it, but it's like anything else.

At first, it's amazing, right?

First time you're like, oh, it's so cool because it's new.

And then after a few weeks, it was, you know, it was okay.

And then there's always that one Sunday where you're like, that wasn't as good as last Sunday.

That happens, by the way.

If you're here for the first time, I'm trying to set a low bar today.

That's my goal.

Okay.

But but after six months, I'm going, I'm kind of over this, you know, and there's so many churches you can go to that you can always just go to another one and have that new feeling anytime you want to.

I walked out of church one day and I looked at Megan and I said, I just don't think I'm getting anything out of this anymore.

It's one of the first times that God ever spoke to me, very directly.

He kind of punched me in the gut.

Because when I said, I'm not getting anything out of this, I heard as clear as day, God speak to me.

What are you putting in it?

And I was like, Uh.

Interesting point, God.

And so I started volunteering.

And then I interned at that church.

And I wanted to work with high school students.

Because I thought high school students, you know, it's so awesome to work with teenagers and high school students, and I could remember high school really clearly because I was in college, and you know, I'm this college student, I can really help show them the ropes and be there for them.

And the church said, cool, you're gonna work with middle school students.

And I was like, No, please.

I mean, who has fond memories of middle school?

Anyone?

One, two, one, two P you were probably really tall and athletic.

Good for you.

Because, like, middle school for me was the most awkward time in my life.

And being around middle school kids makes you feel like you're in middle school again.

If you've ever served, this by the way, is a great endorsement to join the middle school team.

Um, you might be the most secure person in the world, and you start hanging out with middle schoolers, and you're like, is this and is this how people dress?

I don't know.

Please tell me I'm okay.

But I fell in love with it.

And I started working with youth, and I interned for two years at that church, and if it wasn't for that church, I wouldn't have come here, and if it wasn't for this place, I wouldn't a lot of things, I wouldn't be who I am.

I've been I've been here for 11 years.

I love this place.

And for me, being here started by me saying yes to serving at a church, and I'm glad that I did.

And when you serve, you give your talent to something in church, it changes your experience.

I know that the people who walk out of here on a Sunday with the most joy are those that are contributing and giving themselves to this.

Because we all have a part to play.

That's the beautiful thing.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul is using this example of a human body to describe how it works in the church.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

He says the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body.

And so it is with the body of Christ.

Some of us are Jews, some Gentiles, some slave, some free.

Those were sort of identities in that time, in that culture.

We could use a lot of words to say the same thing about us today.

He says, we all have been baptized into one body by one spirit, and we all share the same spirit.

Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part.

And if the foot says, I'm not a part of the body because I'm not a hand, that does not make it any less a part of the body.

And if the ear says, I'm not part of the body because I'm not an eye, would that make it any less a part of the body?

If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear?

Also, that would be terrifying.

Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?

But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it.

That means that you are who you are on purpose.

That means that you have something to give.

That means that who you are is useful.

And I want to make sure you understand this.

There's seasons where we don't need to volunteer.

In fact, a few years ago, before I was in this role, I was working with our kids, and I had this woman on my team who was just amazing.

Like she was a natural with the kids, like one of my best volunteers I ever had.

And she reached out to me and she said, Hey, I need to step back.

And I was like, on the outside, I was like, Cool, totally understandable.

But on the inside, I was like, No, like, not you.

I'll trade you.

I'll let these three, you know, they're great people, but like she was my all-star.

And she said, My husband just started coming to church, and that's a big deal for him.

And I just feel like I really need to be in church with him for a while.

And I was like, okay, you know, that's more important.

It really is.

And there's seasons where where we need to step back and not be involved, and there's no pressure at all.

But I'm just saying from personal experience that when you get to use your time, your talent, just who you are, to serve people, whether it's it's being on the first impressions team and helping people feel the love of Jesus before they hear about the love of Jesus, whether it's working with our kids' areas, like there are things here, if you want to, that you can engage in and you're needed and you will enjoy it and you'll have camaraderie.

I'm just letting you know that that exists.

And that part of us giving is understanding that we ourselves have something to give.

Maybe you have a cool ringtone on your phone and you just want, you know, I'm just teasing, don't feel bad about that.

That's awesome.

Is that Asa?

What's up, Asa?

I haven't seen you in a while.

Good to see you.

Okay.

Um, if you ever do want to volunteer, we're gonna do something different this year.

Again, this is kind of vision month, right?

We're talking about how this is gonna work this year, doing different things.

We're doing something super like mature and grown up.

We're we're a professional church now.

We're gonna have, we're gonna have this thing called orientation for new volunteers.

Because in the past, here's how volunteering has worked at his hands.

You join a team and we go like awesome.

And it's it's as if you're a child who says, I want to ride a bike, and we just put you on a bike and then push you and go, you can do it.

And that works sometimes.

Sometimes it does not.

And so this year we're gonna do something different.

We if you ever want to volunteer, here's here's the first step.

It's really simple.

Here's a phone number.

I put it on the screen earlier.

All right, we're going all digital.

Uh you can text V-O-L to that number, which just says, I'd like to volunteer.

You can also go to the connect desk and talk to a person, absolutely.

But right now you could do that, and then we'll send you the information you need about the first orientation or the next orientation coming up, and then you can go to that and decide if this is something you want to do, and decide if this is something that that fits with your life right now.

Decide if this is something God's calling you to do.

You can serve, you can, you can play a part.

Part of us giving is understanding that we ourselves are something to give, and I think that's pretty remarkable.

Now, the other part to giving is is finances.

I thought one person would at least say woo, apparently not.

You know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No, you missed your chance.

No, no.

Here's the truth.

I I used to be really nervous talking about money in church because I think I felt responsible for all of the pastors and churches who have done money so wrong for like ever.

And I feel like I'd have to stand up here and apologize and give this long list of like now, just so you know, some disclaimers.

We don't this, this, this, and this, and this.

And I God really freed me from that a couple years ago.

It's been sort of a process because the truth is I'm actually really proud of how finances work here.

And I'm not responsible for how it's worked in another place, so I don't have to worry about that.

And so uh so I love talking about finances here.

Number one, I'd want you to know this, and we're gonna talk about this individually, and then we'll talk about us as a church, is we're a nonprofit, and we are awesome at that.

We are super good at being a nonprofit, okay?

Which is uh which is actually a really good thing because this is not a business.

I have heard people, and I understand that there's business elements to anything.

Yes, we have a budget and we have bills and all that kind of stuff, but but this isn't a business.

Money is not the point.

Money is not what fuels this.

In fact, I uh, you know, being a pastor, I get people that send me information about how to be a good pastor, because apparently I'm not one, and uh, you know, I'm always like, thanks.

And this one person sent me a video clip of this company that helps churches get their people to give more.

It's like a whole strategy, and uh, I'm not good at strategy, so you might be able to tell.

But but I click on the video and and this voiceover comes in.

It's like a really cool graphic.

Like, this was a well-done video, very well done, and kudos to them.

And the very first words were, we know.

It wasn't that one of those voices, you know.

At his hands, we value authenticity, so I'm so glad I don't have to talk in like the voice.

But this was the voice.

It was like, we know that money fuels your ministry.

And I went, click.

You know, because well, yeah.

Number one, if money fueled our ministry, it would have been really discouraging at the time because we were in a pretty tight season.

I'd be like, well, dang it.

Uh but number two, I just don't believe that.

I don't, I don't believe that at all.

I believe that the Holy Spirit fuels this.

And I believe that the love of Jesus fuels this, right?

And I just do, and I've seen that happen.

So, as we start talking about money for just a few minutes, really quick, I just want you to understand that.

And by the way, we've never we've never passed a plate or a bucket on a Sunday morning.

We've never had a giving campaign or a pledge drive.

There have been no thermometers on this stage in 11 years.

Zero.

Okay?

And and I'm happy with that.

I think that's great.

I don't know what'll happen in the future, and who knows, there might be a time when we have a legit need and we need to like do something.

I don't know.

But what I believe is that if we all trust each other and trust God, that the things that need to get done get done.

So our approach to financial giving is really simple.

It's a verse in a book called the Bible that we're big fans of.

2 Corinthians 9 7 says this.

And if you guys could leave this on the screen, you must each decide in your heart how much to give, and don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure, for God loves a person who gives cheerfully.

I'm just gonna dissect that for a second.

It says you must each, this is a conviction that we have, and again, this is for those of us who call his hands our home.

If you consider this your church, and I would say that except in a very, very small number of circumstances where it's literally impossible to give, I look at this in conviction and say, okay, each of us is supposed to give.

It's not a question of should I or shouldn't I?

And I know it's hard for us to process that sometimes, but it's it's something that we're all called to do.

We are all called to use what God has given us for something more than ourselves.

So it says you must each decide.

But then it says something really powerful.

It says you must each decide in your heart.

That means it's between you and God.

How cool is that?

That means it's not my place or my job or the church's job to tell you you should be giving this.

This is how much you should give.

You should give this percentage, you should give this amount.

It's between you and him.

Which means it gets to be a part of your relationship with God.

You must each decide in your heart.

Now, there are principles in scripture that that help us make those decisions.

There's a principle of percentage based giving in the Bible.

Sometimes it's called tithing.

Tithing would be 10%, but that's not a rule.

You don't have to give 10%.

But percentage based giving is a great principle.

It's scalable, it's really practical.

I'll tell you My wife and I started tithing several years ago, like really tithing.

For a long time we had kind of tithed, but we said, you know what?

We can do this.

Let's just do this.

And this was probably seven, eight years ago.

We started just like, we're gonna do this no matter what.

And we saw God do some crazy things.

Like, we got super rich super fast.

We did not.

We had four children super fast.

We have no money, right?

I'll tell you what did happen.

When we started tithing, we stopped seeing money as our security blanket.

Because it's not.

Like money is not our security, God is.

And we had situations and scenarios where God showed up in powerful ways that only God is the explanation for.

We had a day where we were literally like out of money.

We looked at our bank account, and I'm sure many of us have been there, or maybe none of you, but people in the a lot of people in the first gathering have been there.

You guys are all great.

Um and we look at our bank account and we were like, we're like, we have$20 in our bank account, and what are we gonna do?

And we'd been giving faithfully and tithing, and we were like, God, we prayed.

God, we're doing what you asked us to do.

Like, you need to do, like, not saying you're doing a bad job, but you need to come through.

At the time, Megan was working at a school as a teacher, and the school's budget was really tight because the economy had, it was back when the economy really tanked back like 2009, 2010, and the school had asked her to work that year for half salary.

And, you know, it was better than nothing.

So we said yes.

And that had been going on for several months, and and that night we just prayed, God, we like we need something to happen.

We're doing what you asked us to do.

And the next day, this is so awesome.

The next day, the the headmaster of the school, it was a private school, came to Megan out of the blue, walked into a room and said, Hey, Miss McTear, I just want you to know that starting this month we're gonna start paying you your full salary again.

And we're gonna pay you all the back pay that you haven't been paid this year.

Isn't that awesome?

Like, that's such a God thing.

And that that just I'm not saying that if we would have given 9%, that wouldn't have happened.

I don't believe that at all.

But I do believe, I do believe that whenever you're doing what God asks you to do, you can just pray differently.

There's just a different confidence in prayer, there's a different approach to God.

When, you know, I I by the way, I don't do that all the time.

There's a lot of times I go to God and I'm like, now God, I know I haven't been there, and I, and you know, and I know you love me, and there's all these things that, whatever.

But it just gave us a boldness in prayer.

It broke us from the spell of believing that money is what fuels us and what we need.

When you when you give a percentage of your income, you realize that you don't need 100% of your income to live.

Most Americans believe they need 110% of their income just to get by.

And it doesn't matter if you make 30 grand, 300 grand, or 3 million, if you poll Americans, they all believe they need to make more money to live the life they they need to live.

We believe that we need it all.

And God reminds us that, hey, actually, you don't.

And when you live that way, it's powerful because it frees you from things.

It frees you from a false sense of security that comes from a number and an account.

And an understanding that God's actually given you something to take care of you.

That's why he doesn't ask for 90% ever, right?

But but it's it's so that you can trust him and see what he can do.

In fact, I'll read this verse in Malachi chapter 3, verse 10.

Malachi 3:10

It's the only time in the Bible you'll really find God say, Hey, test me.

He says, Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there'll be enough food in my temple.

And if you do, says the Lord of heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you, I will pour out a blessing so great that you won't have enough room to take it in.

Try it, put me to the test.

So God just asks us to trust Him.

And at the end of the day, I want you to know this that when it comes to how we do giving here, you'll you'll never receive like a letter or an email that says, eh, we haven't given in a while.

Uh that doesn't happen.

We don't we don't keep track of that really.

We don't care about that.

We're a family.

This is not a business, which means you're not customers.

Because if you were customers, we would market to you and we would sell to you.

We don't do that.

Families don't market, families don't sell, families trust.

And so we trust God to speak to you.

And we trust you to respond.

That's it.

It's as simple as that.

And so when it says you must each decide in your heart, I would just encourage you to pray and say, God, put something on my heart.

Tell me what you want me to do, and then commit to that, and then see what God does.

And we trust him to do his part, we trust you to do yours.

Then it says, Don't give reluctantly or in response to pressure.

And so if you feel pressure, don't give.

If you feel pressure right now, don't give.

Ever.

It says, God loves a person who gives cheerfully, which means it should be something we enjoy.

And again, I think that's that mentality of going, actually, I can give to God.

That's cool.

That's awesome.

And so that's in a nutshell how giving works here at his hands.

We trust God, we trust you with your time, your talent, and your resources.

We are by no means a rich church.

And we're not trying to be.

We want to be his hands to this community, we want to see God move, and he's always provided.

It's so cool.

The stories I could tell that would take way too long.

He is always provided.

But if you consider his hands your church, this year I would ask you to pray and make a decision in your heart and then commit to that and watch what God does with it.

It's as simple as that.

Now, that's how it works individually, right?

You can serve on teams, you can give.

But I want to talk for a few minutes about how it works kind of corporately because as a whole, this is a pretty powerful thing.

Last year, because you give, those of you who give financially, for example, we were able to give$220,000 to this community, which is so awesome.

I mean, that's really cool.

I uh I would love to personally write a check for$200,000 to something that I believe in.

I would love to do that.

I can't.

I don't see that happening in the near future.

Um I can't individually, but we can as a whole.

And that's something that's really powerful.

As a church, we give over 10% of what comes in right back to the community every single month.

And we do that in a variety of different ways.

We have we have ministry partners.

Um, we have organizations and ministries that we partner with and we say, hey, we're gonna come alongside you financially, we're gonna commit to you, we're gonna help you fund what you're doing.

Part of that is because as a church, we don't believe we have to have our name on everything.

We don't need everything to be like his hands, this.

If we see great organizations doing amazing work, we realize that they're better at it than we are, and it's a lot better for us to help them do what God's told them to do than for us just to try to do our version of it.

And so we want to support them.

And so I actually want to bring someone out on stage to talk a little bit about the organizations that we support, and we're gonna try to do this lightning fast.

She's an amazing person.

Her name is Sheila Keefe.

And so, Sheila, will you come out here?

Let's all hear it for Sheila.

Come on, make some noise for Sheila.

Yeah, it's on.

There we go.

So we decided that Sheila needed like a walk-in song.

Like if you're at like a baseball game, and we were like, what song fits Sheila Keith?

She didn't know about this today.

We just did it.

Alex, will you play that again?

Because I do think that this, if you know Sheila, this is this this song just fits Sheila.

Oh no.

Here we go.

Gloria Stefan.

I mean, it's Sheila.

All right, that's enough.

That's enough.

I'm sorry.

Um that's the most Gloria Estefan that we have ever played in his hands church, right?

Wow.

Who knows?

Maybe it's the start of something new.

So Sheila's been on our team for four years, on our staff.

Uh, but the this last year we moved her into a new role, and this is so exciting.

I think in a lot of ways she has the hardest job here.

Um go ahead and tell everyone what is what is your job?

What do you do?

Don't look.

Do you know what you do?

I have no idea.

So I do all of care and outreach.

Care and outreach.

What that means is she's in charge of helping people and helping people help people.

That's really what she does.

Um, and so Sheila is the person on our team who helps take care of needs here in the church.

We we have families that are in need, and we find out about that.

Sheila is the first point of contact, and she's working all the time.

She gets more phone calls than you could even imagine.

Um and she's also in charge of the ministry that we're doing outside of these walls, like the outreach that we're gonna do in the community.

So, all of our ministry partners, she's the one that that is talking with them and keeping up with them.

So, can we talk like we gotta do this lightning fast?

I'm gonna try.

Here we go.

Because we've added some new ones, which is really exciting.

So, ministry partners.

Let's start with the three we've had for a long time.

Okay, so we'll go to Papa's Pantry.

Papa's Pantry, which does what?

Quick.

So Papa's Pantry is a food pantry, and what they do is um they help people or assist people that need food, but they also will help assist people long term, uh, helping them get a job.

They have uh resume training, they do um they'll give them clothes for an interview if they don't have clothes for an interview.

It's just a long-term more of a So it's to help people meet an immediate need, but then to get them back on their feet.

Yeah, it kind of gets people back on their feet.

Cool.

So that's Papa's Pantry.

Yeah, we've got the Hope Center.

Hope Center, love the Hope Center.

I love them all, they're all my favorites.

Um, but Hope Center is uh for crisis pregnancy.

So they do a lot just with a lot of girls, and not only that, uh we help facilitate um a group here for mothers that are post-abortion.

And so counseling counseling for that, which is a big group, it's a support group.

And also we're getting ready to do something called Embrace Grace, which is gonna um support women that are um that are in pre crisis pregnancies.

Yeah, the crisis pregnancy thing is kind of big.

Um obviously it's a big issue in our country.

Um this is a personal belief.

I think it's probably the number one core issue uh that we face as a nation is is what how do we value life?

And what I love about the Hope Center is it's so of God that we live in a culture right now that tells women they can't.

Like any any girl that goes to another type of center will be told you can't be a mom, you can't do this, you can't, you can't afford it, you can't, you don't, you can't, you can't, you can't.

And the Hope Center looks at women and says what God actually says to us is actually you can't and we'll help you.

And I think it's beautiful and it's awesome.

And so we've been working with them for years.

So we've got we've got Papa's Pantry, we've got the Hope Center, we've got Cherokee Family Violence Center.

Cherokee Family Violence is uh a center where women can go that are in a violent situation.

They can help um at a moment's notice to go to a shelter, but they also have a long-term facility there.

I believe they have 79 apartments on their grounds where women can go and live until they can get on their feet, and they also help them get jobs.

And they go through counseling, their support groups.

I actually went to one in December, a great support group for kids.

Uh they have all kinds of stuff there for they help the whole family unit.

Families can actually like escaping abusive relationships, they can live there for multiple years, right?

Uh yeah, I believe until they get on their feet.

That's awesome.

Okay.

So those three we've been working with for a while, but we've added some new ministries that we're partnering with in a big way this year.

Could you talk about those real quick?

Never alone.

Never alone.

What is Never Alone?

So Never Alone is another food pantry, but it is uh it's a food pantry where anyone can go.

Um so if somebody didn't have groceries for the week, they could go there and get groceries for the week.

They also offer a clothing closet, um, they'll help with housing uh assistance, and they'll also help with like electricity, stuff like that.

But they're um pretty incredible because uh I have said before, they're in a they're in a very small building, but they do massive amounts of work.

Massive amounts of work.

It's like a thousand people every single month.

It's incredible.

Last year they gave away 350,000 pounds of food.

And I believe over two two million dollars in clothing and food.

And and and we're actually one of the first churches that's ever come alongside them and said, hey, we want to help you guys out.

And I know they're really excited about that, which is cool.

Um so we got never alone, they're new.

Who else?

Uh turnaround kids, but they're kind of new.

Turnaround, okay.

So turnaround kids is basically like a it's like it's not an orphanage because what happens is when kids don't have a home and the parents either don't want the child or can't take care of the child, they go to the turnaround kids.

The turnaround kids take legal guardianship.

Yes.

And the goal is is the goal is to reunite the families, but that doesn't always work.

So they'll see a child all the way through college and get them set up an apartment, whatever.

And right now they they only have 39 kids.

They only have 39 children.

Um if if those children don't get reunited with their families, uh, they they're the parents, like they're the their family, and they take those kids in.

And we've been working with them for several years doing things like every single child that has a birthday in the turnaround kids, they get their birthday party for here here for free in our playground, and we've done stuff like that, yeah, which is great.

But this year we want to come alongside them and we want to say, hey, we're gonna do we're gonna do this.

And financially we're gonna support them.

And this is actually really cool.

I know I can tell this story, I'm not gonna use specific numbers, but I went out to meet with them a couple weeks ago, and you know, they're in a new home, which is really cool.

It's a god thing, how it even got to that point.

We don't have time to go into it, but they still have some financial needs, and we'd already decided through prayer what the amount per month was that we were going to give them.

And without me telling them that amount, I hadn't told them this yet.

They start telling me about what's going on, they're updating me, and they said, and and it's amazing, God's worked it out that we our mortgage is only this amount per month, and it is to the dollar the exact same amount that we're able to give them every single day.

Pretty incredible.

So we're able to pay their mortgage, which is super cool.

Super cool.

It's a great thing.

Um others?

Yeah, one need.

One need.

One need is awesome.

One need's amazing.

Yeah, I love OneNeed.

So we uh partner with OneNead, and what it is is a lot of people that um have needs that come to us for needs, they go online, they fill out a uh submission form to start the need process.

And um, Rodney from One Need will contact them and help me vet uh because I get lots of calls, so he helps vet those for me.

And yeah, OneNeed helps helps Christians, people who have said yes to Jesus, help other people.

Yes, and it raises funds through a network of believers across the country to meet needs in people's lives.

The idea, kind of like we said, we can't all individually meet a single mother's need, but together we can.

Last year, partnering with OneNeed, we raised$24,000 to meet needs in this community alone.

Right.

Is awesome what they do.

And so it's super cool.

Really big.

And and real quick, talk about talk about how those ministries work together sometimes.

Okay, you want to tell a story?

Go for it.

Okay.

Okay.

So before um before the holidays, I got a call from Hope Center.

It was on a Friday afternoon, um, and they were out in their mobile unit, which is a unit that has um ultrasound machines where girls can come in off the street and get an ultra pregnancy test and ultrasound.

This young girl, young lady had come in, and um what happened is she was from Alabama and she had come here under the pretense of modeling, and what it really was was sex trafficking.

And so she found herself pregnant, and um she didn't want to go back on the street, so they needed immediate help like to get her somewhere safe, and so that does kind of take a process, and so we were able to partner with one need, and we were able to put her in a hotel uh until she was able to get into she's in a long-term facility now, so she was able to get in the hotel somewhere where she was uh looked after, made sure she had food, that kind of thing, because they're high risk at that point of going back into it.

Yeah, so we so she came to us through the Hope Center, Hope Center reached out to us, said we know you guys love to help.

Can you help?

We partner with one need, we provide the immediate need, and it's all it's this how it all works, it's super cool.

Yeah, um, we also have his family foster care, which which we don't have time to go into tons of details.

I know, I hate it.

No, but what tell us So His Family is our foster care um support group here ministry.

We support um we support seven foster kids right now that are in foster foster uh care here.

We do it through respite, um get get togethers, tutoring, uh taking kids back and forth.

There's just all kinds of ways that we that we're able to come alongside foster parents and give them the support that they need.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

And a lot of that came through I'm feeling called.

Let's talk about that super quick.

We're good.

We didn't practice this.

You can, can't you?

That's okay.

Um, okay, so at the back and on our mobile app, if you go to the connect page of the mobile app, you'll see something that says I feel called.

Yeah.

At the back four columns, you'll see I feel called cards.

If you want to go old school and use paper, that's fine.

Go ahead and tell them.

So basically, what it is, you fill out a card, I reach out to you, come in and meet, and you just pour out your heart about what God feels that you're called to do, and then I'm able to help come alongside and help facilitate that.

And it's really cool because just this morning I met with somebody that's now gonna help me connect the dots.

That's something I've been working on since May.

So the Lord really, really works through the I'm feeling called.

And I've I've lost several people have been connected together to go and do what they feel called to do.

Right.

The idea there, guys, is really simple is that you're the church.

And so, yes, there will be times that we as a church leadership team are like, hey, this is something we're gonna do as a church.

We need you to partner with us, but you are the church, which means that God's gonna put something on your heart one day.

That's right.

And when he does, it may be something you're like, I don't know how to do this.

Well, don't worry about it.

Let us know that you're called, and then we'll come, as Sheila said, alongside.

We'll come alongside you.

Um I knew that was coming.

I knew you couldn't go.

One conversation without it.

I love her voice.

Um, we need to get you to record our phone greeting.

It'd be so awesome if someone called his hands, like, hey y'all, welcome to his hands.

That's right.

Uh that's exactly how we can.

We meet on Sunday, and then it'd just be awesome.

It would be great.

Um I'm gonna do it this week.

But the I'm feeling called stuff is huge because it means if you feel called to something, we want to know so we can help you do what God's called you to do.

And just in the last year, since we've been doing that, again, Sheila will meet with you.

She will help you.

We've had we've had a group for widows that started because of that.

We have a group for people who are who are providing care for their parents, like caregivers.

There's a group for that now.

There's all this amazing stuff happening because you're feeling called.

And Sheila wants to help you do what you feel called to do.

So if we can just one more time hear it for Sheila, she's doing an amazing job.

We're doing a lot of stuff.

Before you go, I got you one thing.

Uh uh.

Number one, don't let it go to your head.

They do that for everyone.

Okay.

I'm not.

Good.

Number two, I just want you, and worship team, you guys can come out, um, finish this sentence.

This is kind of a big thing for us this year.

In 2018, it's time for his hands to go hands-on.

Hands-on.

All right, I'm gonna talk about that and we'll wrap up.

Okay.

You're good.

Sheila's good.

Sheila, she's awesome.

One final thing.

And I've done better than I did in the first gathering.

I'm just gonna say that.

I said at the beginning, and the whole reason we're talking about all this, like us giving individually.

So whatever God puts on your heart, it's between you and God.

Serving, it's between you and God, right?

It's it's something whatever God puts on your heart, you are useful to God's kingdom.

How cool is that?

But together we we get to do something powerful.

I said earlier that we're his hands church.

And that's either gonna be a name on a building or it's gonna be an identity.

And I believe that this is the year that it becomes our identity.

And here's the simple truth: we cannot be his hands church and be hands-off in this community.

It is great that we write checks to these awesome organizations, and I love that.

We will always do that, by the way.

It's it's important for us to share what we have with our community.

So we will always financially support great ministries, great causes.

That's great.

We're never gonna stop doing that.

But if that if that's the totality of what we do, we're missing it.

Because we are his hands, which means we've got to go hands-on.

The entire concept of Jesus, by the way, is that God wanted to go hands-on with us.

Because he could have fixed us from afar.

But he rolled up his sleeves and he jumped into our mess.

And he wasn't afraid of how messy our mess is.

He went hands-on with us, and if we're gonna be his hands, we've got to go hands-on, and so this year, we're going hands-on in our community in a big way.

One of the things that Sheila's working really hard on is several Saturdays this year.

We're gonna have days that we're gonna call something.

We don't really have the name yet.

They might just be called hands-on days.

Um, I wanted, okay, I'm gonna say this.

I wanted to call him H3O.

I know my team said that's dumb, but just hear me out.

You guys might have veto power, I don't know.

Um, it's like his hands, hands-on, h3o.

See?

Yeah.

That's what they did.

The point is, it doesn't have a logo, it doesn't need a logo, that doesn't matter.

It's gonna be really simple.

There are several ministries that we're meeting with.

There's there's people in need that we are meeting with, and we are planning on going out to them to serve them.

The way it's gonna work practically is several Saturdays this year.

Our first one is on March 17th, so put that on your calendar.

We're gonna meet here as a church.

We're gonna meet together, we're gonna drink some coffee because we're good at that.

Okay?

And then we're gonna go out and we're going to serve our community.

We are going to go hands-on.

We're gonna we're gonna go help out incredible ministries like Goshen Valley Boys Ranch.

We're gonna have a big project up there where we can roll up our sleeves and help them do what they're doing, and they're an amazing ministry.

Um, we're gonna go to the turnaround kids' home, and we're gonna do some work, do kind of a special project for them.

There's there's a veterans family that we're working with right now, and we're gonna do something to to serve a veteran in our community that needs some help.

We're gonna do, it's just hands-on stuff.

Like we're gonna go, hey, we're the church, we're his hands.

Let's get hands-on and let's be his hands to this community.

Let's move from being his hands in name to his hands as an identity, and let's serve people like Jesus does.

You know?

It's gonna be awesome.

It's gonna be awesome.

Now, I want you guys to know how hard I have worked in the last 30 minutes to shorten what was in the first gathering.

It's at least 15 minutes shorter.

And I'm not gonna ruin that right now by talking more.

I know that this conversation is, it's not, it's again, this isn't a business.

We're not marketing.

It's not fancy.

It's not us trying to like wow you and go, hey, yeah, let's, woo! It's just us saying this is what churches do.

This is what it means to be the church.

It means we look at who we are and what we have and we go, God, it's yours.

Tell me how you want to use it.

And when we have that heart, and we humble ourselves and we say, Whatever I have, God, it's it's I'm putting it in your hands.

Man, does he do amazing things?

And so I just want to say, as family, because that's what we are, I love you guys.

I trust you guys.

I trust our Father.

And I believe that this year we're gonna get to do some things together that are gonna change people's lives.

And I cannot wait.

And I'm so glad that I get to do it with y'all.

Um, will you pray with me?

Jesus, thank you so much for this church.

I'm so grateful for every every person here.

And Jesus, we're mostly thankful for you, and for the fact that you went hands-on with us, that you went hands-on in our lives, that you don't look at us, you don't get freaked out by how messy we are, by how many issues we have, because you know we got a lot of issues in this room right now.

But you love us.

You love people, and we want to be that love to this community.

We want to love people to you, Jesus.

We want to show people who you are, what your love is really like by the way that we love them.

And the only way we can do that as a church is to give.

It's to be generous people, generous in heart.

So, Lord, I pray in your name that you you help us.

That you help us give what you've given to us because you've given us everything.

We love you, Jesus.

We we ask all this in your name.