We Believe in (Young) People

Man, what a good day so far.

Oh, well, uh last Sunday, we started a brand new series called People.

Jesus always, always married the idea of loving God and loving people.

Serving God and serving people were not two different categories, two different approaches, two ways of living.

To Jesus, they were one and the same.

Jesus said, let no man separate what God has joined together.

And because Jesus, God and the flesh, joined together the idea of loving God and loving people, what that tells us is that what we think about people, what we believe about people, the way that we treat people, the way that we love people is every bit as important as what it is we think and believe about God.

The two go hand in hand.

In fact, I'll go so far so far to say this: what we think about people actually reveals what we really think about God.

You want to see what someone really believes about God, watch the way they treat people, watch the way they talk to people, listen to their opinions of people, and you will discover their opinion of God.

And so we're spending our summer talking about this subject called people, and this is so relevant to us because we're all one of these things, we're all one of these persons, these people, and we're gonna find out as the summer goes on what God really says about us and what God calls us to, because look, we can all be honest, people are often the problem in life, they're the problem that we see, but people are are also the solution.

People are also the point.

Everything that Jesus did was for people.

If you read the Bible, practically everything that God has done in history has been for us, for our benefit, so that we can know him, and so people are the mission.

And I'm so excited this summer to talk about people, to come together as a church and just plant our flag in the ground and say, this is what we think about people.

We want it to be known, we want our reputation to be known in that way.

Now, last week we got started with a really simple statement.

It was just this we believe in messy people.

As a church, we believe in messy people.

This is not a place where we ask everyone to clean up and shine up before they walk through the doors.

Jesus had this way of choosing messy people, people with problems, people with struggles.

They were the ones that he called to be his followers.

They were the ones that he entrusted his mission to.

He said it himself.

I didn't come to call those who think they're perfect.

I didn't call come to call those who think they're righteous.

I came to call those who know they need help.

So we're all we're all messy.

We're all messier than we'd like to be.

But when we have Jesus in our lives, we have a God who believes in us.

He believes in messy people.

And because Jesus believes in messy people, we believe in messy people too.

Now, today we're gonna we're gonna put a little twist on that statement, just change one word.

This is the the focus of our morning.

We believe in young people.

As a church, we believe in young people.

I said it a few minutes ago, today's Father's Day.

And so for Father's Day to give our Father in heaven a gift, we're just bragging on young people.

We're we're talking about the kids that we get to invest in here, the next generation.

Today is about our commitment to and our belief in the next generation as a church.

And it's it's been an amazing morning so far because we've gotten to watch a video where all these high school students gave their lives to Jesus just a few weeks ago because of you, because of this church.

We got to sit and witness six kids give their hearts to Jesus.

And let me just say this about what we got to see.

There's this tendency that when someone gets baptized, gives their lives to Jesus at an older age, middle of life, and they have a story.

And maybe they've been through a lot and they've been at rock bottom, and now they've found God and they've they've rebounded and their life is on a totally different track.

We look at those baptisms and we say, Man, that is powerful, and it absolutely is.

But then we'll we'll look at a kid, a seven-year-old, getting baptized, and we'll kind of go, Oh, that's cute.

And see, to me, the seven-year-olds are the most powerful baptisms to watch.

In fact, there was an evangelist a long time ago that used to go around and travel and preach, and people would raise their hands and say that they'd given their lives to Jesus, and people would often ask this person, how many people gave their life to the Lord?

And he would say something like, Oh, 85 and a half, and people would usually say, Oh, is the half was that a kid?

And he would say, No, adults count as half because half their life is over.

It's the kids who count as one.

And what he recognized there wasn't devaluing someone that comes to Jesus as an adult, but what he was recognizing is the power in someone who gives their life to God at a young age and has their entire life ahead of them.

The stories that we'll never have to hear.

The stories of struggle and pain that we're never going to have to hear, because these kids give their life to Jesus and they live their entire lives connected to him, and they're going to avoid so many of the traps and so many of the pitfalls that we've experienced.

That isn't cute, that is powerful.

So I love, I love watching kids go on with Jesus.

That's the best to me.

You guys may have realized this.

Uh, the worship team this morning was a little bit younger than our normal crew.

Every single person on stage leading us in worship this morning has grown up here at his hands.

Every single person that led us just now, seriously, like half of them started coming here when they were high school students.

About half of them have been here since they were in junior high, the people that were just on stage leading us.

They they've grown up here.

What an honor to be led in worship by young people who have grown up in our midst.

You know, Alex, who was standing right here, he's the one with the cool hair.

Uh I met him when he was in the sixth grade.

He's in the sixth grade.

And Eliza, who's standing right here, I met her when she was in the seventh grade, I'm pretty sure.

And I've watched them grow up, I've watched them mature into these unbelievable, unbelievable followers of Jesus.

They commit their lives to him.

And if you come here on a Thursday, you would be blown away by how many young people, people under the age of 25, are here at this building working, serving, doing whatever they can.

Our interns, I mean, it's just it's endless the number of young people that we get to invest in today.

And as a church, we want today to be a day where we declare and we let it be known that we believe in young people greatly.

We believe in them because God believes in them.

And trust me, the next generation, the next generation needs the church, needs Jesus' followers to tell them who they really are.

Because God believes in the next generation much more than the world does, and we need to be people who let the next generation know what we think about them.

We need to be people who invest in them accordingly.

And I'll just be honest up front, I hope today is a momentous day for our church.

I hope that we respond today and as a church commit to invest in the next generation like we never have before.

I hope and pray that there is a line at the Connect Us when we're done today for people who are wanting to sign up to be part of a kids' team.

Who want to help out in the garden and in the grove and in the tree house and over in the arena with junior high and high school kids.

I hope it's a long line today.

I hope that those of us who maybe haven't given financially start to give financially today because we invest in the next generation.

We'll talk about that.

We believe in investing in kids because we believe in them.

I hope today that some of us are stirred and called by God to make a decision that changes our life forever and the lives of kids in our community.

I hope today is a day where a lot of ground is made up in terms of the kids in this community and our commitment to them because trust me, kids need the church desperately.

My life has been changed in large part because as a kid, as a kid, the church believed in me.

And we want it to be known today that we believe in the next generation.

Now, it's pretty normal as we get older, it's pretty normal that we develop a little bit of disdain for younger people.

We kind of develop this back in my day syndrome.

I don't know if you've experienced this, where you look at the next generation, you look at young people, and you start comparing their experience with your own, and you kind of start saying, you know man, they've got it easy.

Back in my day, right?

Back in my day, we tend to put this shine on the past and we act like because in our day things were maybe harder, that makes us better, and so we'll look at the next generation with a little bit of disdain.

I found myself starting to do this.

I'm now old enough to do this.

I have I have kids, and I'm starting to have experiences now with Liam and Lily and Judah where I'm looking at their life and I'm thinking, man, they've got it easy.

You know, back in my day, it was different.

And it's it's really silly because it's not like the world is that much different than it was in 1983 when I arrived.

Like my grandpa, for example, he was born in 1917.

And so if he wanted to give a back in my day to me, it would have been pretty epic.

You know, back in my day, we had to walk, we had to ride horses, we had to do all kinds of crazy stuff back in my day.

My back in my days are weak with my kids.

Just last week, Liam wanted to watch the new Lego Batman movie.

It's out to rent.

And he's like, Dad, can we watch the new Lego Batman movie?

And I said, Yeah, let's do that.

Let's watch a movie tonight.

And so we we opened up our Amazon app on our TV and we selected rent, and for$5, we rented the Lego Batman movie for 48 hours, and and we just started watching it instantly.

And it was like, can we watch this movie?

Yes, boom, done, and we start watching it, and I started thinking, man, man, my son's got it easy.

Back in my day, back in my day, if you wanted to watch a movie, you had to ask your mom to take you to Blockbuster video, right?

And you had to get in the car and you had to drive to Blockbuster, and sometimes just going there and getting that video and bringing it home could take 30 minutes.

And if your mom had to go to the grocery store, it could take like an hour.

Back in my day, that that's what the world was like.

It still cost five dollars, and you still had it for 48 hours.

But but back in my day, when you were done with that video, you had to take it back.

And yes, your mom would generally do that for you, but it still had to be done, and if you didn't rewind the tape, they would charge you a dollar.

That's what the world was like back in my day.

It's pretty brutal.

You know, it's pretty normal for all of us as we get older to look at young people and a young generation and go, man, they've got it easy.

It's pretty typical of history that many generations look at the next generation and believe that we're doomed.

This is this is the generation that's gonna mess it all up.

And all this work that we've been doing as a civilization for thousands of years, it's about to go out the window because of the next generation.

That's normal, but but we've got to be so careful, so careful as the church, never, never to do that.

Never to let ourselves do that.

Because disdain for the next generation will quickly turn into disbelief.

And Jesus, Jesus believes in the next generation.

Jesus always believes in young people.

His life is an example of that.

In fact, once Jesus' disciples came to him and asked him a question, we see this in Matthew chapter 18.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

It says, About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

They're wanting Jesus to pick one of them.

They want Jesus to say, It's Peter or James or John or one of them.

Who's the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

And Jesus called a little child to him, and he put the child among them.

And then he said, I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.

So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

Now, this is one of those moments that at first glance can just be kind of cute.

Jesus calls a little child to him, sits him on his knee, and says, You guys need to be more like these guys.

And we can look at that and go, oh, that's that's really sweet.

But when you really think about what Jesus is saying, it's pretty powerful.

He's saying, the greatest in the kingdom of heaven is a child.

And we might look at that and go, man, I have kids.

How can kids be the greatest?

They have so much to learn, right?

Kids have so much to learn.

But as I as I think about my life and I think about myself and even where I'm at right now versus where I want to be in my relationship with God and in life in general, it's not so much what I need to learn that holds me back.

It's what I need to unlearn.

And what keeps me from being the man that I really want to be, what keeps me from being the man that I feel like God is calling me to be is much more often what I need to unlearn, what I need to let go of, all the holdups, all the attitudes that I've picked up along the way that get in my way of just accepting God and having faith in him.

And yes, kids have a lot to learn, but they don't have a whole lot to unlearn.

That's why they're so receptive to the Lord.

That's why it's so easy for a child to say, I believe, and to have strong faith.

Because they don't have this mountain of things they need to unlearn.

And Jesus made it so clear in his life when he interacted with the religious leaders of his day, with the Pharisees, that what they needed to unlearn is what was holding them back in their relationship with God.

And so he preferred to work with people who were kind of like blank canvases, who didn't have a whole lot of that.

Jesus didn't just express his belief in young people with words and illustrations.

Jesus lived this out on a day-to-day basis.

For example, the disciples, these 12 men that follow Jesus everywhere he went.

When you think about the disciples, it's pretty normal to picture them as being these middle-aged guys with big burly beards.

That's how they're always pictured in illustrations.

In movies, maybe that you may have seen.

In fact, if you watch most movies or even just illustrations of Jesus and his followers, it always looks like Jesus is the youngest.

He began his ministry at 30 years old, so he was young.

But see, rabbis were always older than their students.

And so it's not a case that Jesus was the young guy with these middle-aged guys following him everywhere.

Jesus, at 30 years old, was by far the oldest in the group.

In fact, we know this from an interesting story.

In Matthew chapter 17, the disciples and Jesus are traveling around, and it says on their arrival in Capernaum, the collectors of the temple tax came to Peter and asked him, Doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?

Matthew 17 · chapter mention

Yes, he does, Peter replied.

And then he went into the house.

But before he had a chance to speak, Jesus asked him, What do you think, Peter?

Do kings tax their own people for or the people they've conquered?

Peter responds, They tax the people they've conquered.

Well then, Jesus said, The citizens are free.

However, we don't want to offend them, so go down to the lake, throw in a line, open the mouth of the first fish you catch, and you'll find a large silver coin.

Take it and pay the tax for both of us.

Very odd story.

Peter is a fisherman by trade, and it's amazing how much Jesus makes Peter fish.

It's amazing how many miracles happen in Peter's life on the lake.

And sometimes I think Jesus just liked to mess with Peter and make him do things that were nuts.

And if you know much about Peter, he kind of had it coming, right?

And so he's like, go fish, you're gonna catch a fish, there's gonna be a coin, and Peter's just like, What in the world?

But what's really relevant to our conversation today is that last line.

Peter catches the fish, he pulls out the coin, and Jesus says, okay, go and pay the temple tax for both of us, for me and you, Peter.

He doesn't say for all of us, it's just Peter and Jesus that have to pay the temple tax.

And the reason for that is because Peter and Jesus are the only ones old enough to have to pay the temple tax.

In Exodus chapter 30, verses 13 through 14, we get the law that the temple tax came from.

Exodus 30:13–14

It said each person who is counted must give a small piece of silver as a sacred offering to the Lord.

This payment is half a shekel based on the sanctuary shekel, which equals 20 quraws.

All who have reached their 20th birthday must give this sacred offering to the Lord.

And so the reason that Jesus and Peter are the only ones who pay the temple tax is because Jesus and Peter are the only ones over the age of 20.

The rest of the disciples are 19 years old and younger.

That kind of paints the story in a different light, doesn't it?

When when you read the Bible, it's really easy to harp on the disciples.

I do that.

They come off as really challenged people most of the time.

But it puts things in a whole different perspective when you think about the fact that everywhere Jesus is going at 30, 31 years old, he's being followed by these guys who are teenagers.

And Peter's probably in his early 20s.

And when the church is first getting started, when Jesus goes back up to heaven and he says, Hey, I leave everything in your hands.

I trust you guys.

You've got this.

I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit, but this mission, this message, it's in your hands.

Jesus is leaving the most important mission and message ever in the hands of a bunch of 20-year-olds.

Why?

Because Jesus believes in young people.

Jesus believes in the next generation.

And we say this pretty often, it's very simple.

I just I think church should look like Jesus.

I think church should just look like Jesus.

If we can do church and have it be something that people look at and see Jesus, then we've we've accomplished something great.

And if church should look like Jesus and Jesus believes in young people, then we should be a church that shows that every chance we get, we believe in young people.

We believe in young people and we invest accordingly.

Because when you believe in something, you invest in it.

Just the truth.

When you believe in something or someone, you invest in that.

That's what Jesus did.

He spent three years in his life investing every single day in this group of teenagers because he believed in them, because he saw them for who they could be.

I heard a pastor say once that we have to learn how to see every person as pre-great.

Every person is pre-great.

Some of the people that really frustrate you right now, they're just pre-pre-great.

But see, everybody is pre-great.

My wife and I are driving here this morning, and our kids in the backseat are just they're just fighting.

And we've got three kids, and the way our cars lined up, they're all in one row, and so they're just kind of squished together.

And Judah, our youngest, who's just over a year, he's pinching Lily.

He thinks it's really funny.

And it gets a real rise out of her, and then Liam is is he's jumping on, and she's surrounded by these two boys, and he keeps invading her space, and Judah keeps pinching her, and she's just like screaming, she's losing it, and Liam's laughing, and Judah's laughing, and we're in the front seat being like, quit it, quit, stop, everyone stop, and we're just kind of trying to keep this contained.

And and there's certain moments where as a parent, we look at each other, as parents, we look at each other and go, man, what are we gonna do?

You know?

They seem pre-great.

But then for every one of those moments, there'll be ten where they blow us away.

And there'll be several where we realize that the stuff that they struggle with, it's it's our fault.

I mean, if the next generation isn't doing well, whose fault is that?

They didn't raise themselves.

We believe in the next generation.

The next generation needs the church to believe in it.

And so if you're here today and you're young, we want you to know that we believe in you greatly.

We believe you're gonna do great things for God.

We believe you have the ability and the capacity to change the world that we live in.

And we're gonna invest in you as a church accordingly.

We're gonna pour everything we can into you.

We believe in investing in the next generation.

That's why, for example, in this room we're sitting in now, we call this the big room, if you're new.

We've been here for 10 years.

We've never renovated this space once.

No significant changes.

That'll happen one day, it'll be fun.

We'll do something different, that'll be exciting.

But every single one of our kids' areas has been renovated multiple times in 10 years because we invest in the next generation.

And let's be honest, our culture invests pretty heavily in trying to win the minds and the hearts of the next generation, right?

Marketing companies spend more dollars trying to grab the loyalty of young people than any other demographic.

And I think it's okay as a church to invest heavily in the next generation.

We have this saying here at his hands, kids don't get leftovers.

So when we do something for kids, we we go all out.

For example, if a kid comes here for the very first time, and they're over in the grove or the garden or you know, the treehouse, any of our kids' areas, they're gonna get a postcard in the mail at some point in the week that says, Thank you so much for being here.

And if they bring that postcard back, they get a Bible.

We love to give kids Bibles if we want every kid to have God's word.

And when they receive these Bibles, they are like really nice Bibles.

They're hardcover and they have these beautiful color illustrations.

They're they're they're nice, but they're the nicest ones we could find.

And guess who pays for that?

You guys.

And you may have not realized this, but as you give here, you you're you're part of what you're doing is you have provided literally hundreds and hundreds of Bibles to kids.

And they've been really nice because when they receive their very first Bible, for most of them, it's the first Bible they've ever had, we want them to have it feel like the treasure that it is.

And so we don't skimp.

Kids don't get leftovers.

Right now we're working on this project called the Lounge.

I talked about it last week.

We're changing our service times in the fall.

We'll talk about more of that more as the summer goes on.

And one of the things we're doing is we're building a new space for our volunteer kids, because volunteer kids have to be here for both services most Sundays.

And we want volunteers to be here for both services because we want them to be able to serve and be served.

We want them to be able to get to get some worship time, to get a word from God, but we also want them to give, and so that means they've got to be here for both, and their kids have to be here for both.

And we don't want volunteer kids to take one for the team.

We want them to have the best experience.

And so we're building this space called the lounge, and it's a space where volunteer kids can go for that second service that they're here for and have a blast, and it is nice.

It's gonna be so awesome.

We have not cut corners.

And I had someone ask me this last week like, do you ever feel worried that someone's gonna look at what we're doing for kids and for young people and the spaces that we have?

And if you've ever seen the grove and the tree house and and the big playground and the spaces we have for kids, you can tell that that stuff's not, it wasn't like bargain bin stuff.

We went all out.

And this person asked me, Do you ever think people are gonna be upset about that?

That.

And I'm like, well, I've never had someone come to me and say, We gotta stop, we gotta stop this stuff with the kids.

You know, it's just too much.

Church, when I grew up, church was miserable for children.

And our kids, you know, back in my day, you just you just sat in church and you just daydreamed to get through it.

You know, we're making it too easy on these kids.

Never had someone say that.

But I I don't worry at all about I don't worry at all about that when it comes to kids stuff.

I I don't think the church in America invests heavily enough in the next generation.

I don't I don't think that we're anywhere close to overstepping our bounds when it comes to investing in the next generation.

Because when you when you believe in something, you invest in it.

And what's really great about young people is that a little investment goes a long, long way.

You think about it like a stock.

Everybody wants to invest in Apple now or five years ago when it's mature and it's it's doing great.

Everybody wants to invest in that, but it takes a lot to buy a very small number of shares.

But it's the people who invested in Apple back in the 70s, when a little could buy you a lot of shares, they're the ones who have benefited the most.

Young people, a little investment goes a long way into winning shares in their hearts.

And so a small investment goes a long way, how much will a large investment go?

We believe in investing heavily in our kids.

And so I say that just to be really clear.

If if this is your church, if this is your home, and you know, you know us, you've been here long, we don't pass plates and buckets, we've never done a giving campaign, it's not what we do.

But but I'm telling you, when you invest here, you invest in the next generation.

Heavily.

As a church, we invest in the next generation.

And so we need, as a church, to be generous so that we can invest in young people because we believe in young people, and when you believe in someone, you invest in them.

To those of you who do give, thank you, by the way.

Keep it up because we're gonna use it to do everything we can for the next generation to know the Lord.

But look, that kind of stuff, that that's all great.

Them having really cool spaces and nice spaces, that's awesome, but it's all kind of worthless if they don't have great people.

Because something else that we say a lot when it comes to our kids' areas is that kids don't need something, they need someone.

And so as a church, we not only invest in the next generation by by making sure that their experience is awesome, we invest in the next generation by by giving them amazing people who will love them to Jesus.

Amazing people who will walk with them in life and be a resource to them and be a big brother, a big sister, a mom, a dad.

We in we invest in the people who invest in kids.

Because our kids need that.

I'm blown away by the quality of people who work with our children.

And if you have kids, you've experienced this.

You've experienced what it's like for your kids to leave on a Sunday morning and be like, wow, when can we come back?

When can we come back?

I had a mom tell me that she brought her kid here one time, and every single day during the week, her kid was like, when can we go back to church?

When can we go back to church?

And I probably heard that story 10, 20 times.

And that's not just because there's a playground, and it's not just because there's there's awesome stuff to do, it's because there's great people loving on those kids and encouraging them and inspiring them and giving them attention.

And we have no control what their life looks like on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

Life is just as hard for kids as it is for us.

But we do have control of that hour and a half, those two hours on a Sunday morning or on a Wednesday night when our high school kids meet.

And we want our kids to be surrounded by incredible people who love them, who serve them.

And it's funny as I think about our kids' teams here at the church, they're the only teams where we can never have too many volunteers.

Like the coffee team could have too many volunteers.

And Rain, if you're in here, Rain leads our coffee team, she's awesome.

I'm not saying that the coffee team does not need volunteers, okay?

So if you like coffee, part of us loving kids is caffeinating their parents, okay?

So by all means, join the coffee team.

But there would come a certain point where there's just too many people on the coffee team.

There's just a certain point where there'd be like, all right, the kitchen is full, there are too many cooks in the kitchen, literally, and so coffee team is good.

There will never be a day where we're like, yeah, we don't need any volunteers in the kids' areas.

That'll never happen.

Because I've learned this.

Number one, the more volunteers we have helping with kids, it just means the more kids God's gonna send us.

That's how He tends to work.

But the more volunteers we have in the kids' areas, it just means more personal attention than each kid gets.

And so on a Sunday morning, if there's 25 first graders at the second service and there's three volunteers there, that's awesome.

And those kids are gonna get loved on and taught too.

But if there's if there's six, seven volunteers for those 25 kids, they're gonna get that much more personal attention.

And they need that.

And so I've been praying this week.

Like, God, double our kids' areas.

Stir in people's hearts that they're gonna they're gonna serve in our kids' areas.

If you're not on a volunteer team, join a kids' team.

You're gonna be so tired on Sundays when you leave, but you're gonna feel like you accomplished something because you've accomplished something, you've helped win shares in a kid's heart for the Lord, for Jesus.

That's a powerful thing.

It's funny, sometimes we think about the things that would disqualify us from working with kids.

Like sometimes we we look at our age, and and we're a church that's very diverse in terms of age.

I mean, we've got a lot of people in a lot of different generations here.

That's awesome.

And some of us might say, I I'm like, I'm not cool enough to work with kids.

You know?

I'm past my years of being cool.

By the way, I'm 33, I am past my years of being cool.

That's clear.

I know that because I look at what young people wear and I'm like, I can't, I couldn't do it.

I can't.

The jeans are just they're too tight.

I don't want I can't do it.

Around the ankles, the whole jogger thing.

I can't, I can't.

I won't.

I never will.

This is it.

You know?

You know who my kids think are the coolest people alive?

Their grandparents.

I mean, when when the grandparents show up, we don't matter to our children at all.

Like they look at us and they're like, yeah, you guys can leave.

And they just reach out their hands and they want to be around their grandparents.

And you know what?

And in our kids' areas, we need volunteers who can be like big brothers and sisters to those kids.

And we need volunteers who can be like spiritual moms and dads to those kids.

But you know what else we need?

We need spiritual grandparents serving in our kids' areas, helping out in the garden, in the grove, in the treehouse, and even even with our teenagers.

You know what teenagers need so badly?

And teenagers, if you're here, just hear this for what it's meant to be.

They need wisdom.

They need wisdom, they need people who have lived enough life to see things for what they really are.

And so many of us in this room, we have so much wisdom that God has blessed us with as we've we've lived life, and that wisdom needs to be shared.

You are never too old to invest in the next generation.

Ever.

So I'm just telling you, join a kids team today.

It'll bless you.

It will bless you.

I cannot tell you what it feels like.

I'll do my best, but I can't describe what it feels like to watch as these kids on stage lead us in worship today.

Because I've gotten to be part of their lives for a long time.

I've gotten to listen to their stories.

And I'm telling you, some of these kids have have come from some pretty tough situations.

And when I watch them lead us in worship, and I watch what God has done, the fact that I have memories of them at 12 years old.

It's there's a joy in my heart that I can't even put into words.

I want everyone to have that joy.

Sometimes we think that we just we don't have enough to give to young people, but I'm telling you, a small investment goes a long way.

I'll share one more little story with you.

When I first started working with elementary school kids here at his hands, it's because I was made to.

I came here to work with teenagers, junior high and high school kids.

That's what I did for a long time.

And I kind of understood junior high and high school kids.

You know, you can have a conversation with a seventh grader and you can talk and you can kind of create a relationship there.

And then I was made to start working with, I was made to start working with the elementary school kids.

I was pulled into a meeting, and Steve and Doug, who were my bosses at the time, said, Hey, uh, starting next week, you're in charge of the elementary area.

And I was like, What?

I uh I don't I don't I don't do that.

That's not, I don't know what to do.

And I'll be honest, I was very intimidated by the little kids.

I just didn't know how to engage them.

I didn't have kids yet.

I'd kind of forgotten what what that age was like.

My my siblings were older than that, you know, and my youngest sibling was past that age, and it was hard for me to even figure out how to how to engage with them.

And I remember being in there that very first morning.

And here's all these kids, and they're totally different than teenagers.

And they're just like they're wild and they're they're crazy and they're nuts, and some of them, and this this is a parents hear this.

Some of them are coming in with like coffees.

Why would you do that?

Why?

Like, why why would you give your child caffeine and then take them to church?

Why would you do that?

Come on, don't be a jerk.

And so I'm sitting there like, what do I do?

And I remember this this first grade boy, this first grade boy walked up to me and he just stared at me.

And I was like, I just stared back.

I didn't, I what do you do?

He's in first grade and he's just kind of looking at me.

And I'm looking down at him, and I'm like, hey, buddy, like, and then all of a sudden he just went like this.

He held his hand up and he made a lightsaber noise, and he went, whoom.

And I'm like, uh, whoom.

And we sit here and we have this fake lightsaber battle for like three minutes.

That's what we're doing.

No word spoken, not one word.

We just sit there and we do this, and he like does this with his hands, and he's like, and I'm like, ah, and we're just doing this.

And then there was a moment where he was just done, and he's like, and he just walks off.

And I'm like, okay.

And I would I would wonder so often as I worked with those kids, like, am I making any impact having lightsaber battles?

And then and then over time, I got to know that kid's mom a little bit, and I learned that at home there's no dad.

There's no dad to have lightsaber battles with him at home.

He didn't have male attention.

And so that time here on Sunday mornings, that was the only time during the week where there was an older guy willing to pretend those kinds of things with him.

And over time I really got to know that kid and talk to him.

And I've watched him grow up.

He's in high school now.

And I see him here at the church a lot.

And I see him on Wednesday nights, and I see him worshiping, and I see him in small groups, and I see him helping out in places in the church.

And not that long ago, I was having lightsaber battles with him when he was in the first grade.

And so if you're here and you're like, man, I don't really understand kids, and I don't know.

Look, if you can have a fake lightsaber battle, you can make an impact in the life of a kid.

It doesn't take a huge investment to make up a big ground.

As a church, we believe in young people.

That's what this morning's about.

We're committed to the next generation.

And we need to be a church.

We have to be a church that invests in the next generation.

Because if we don't, someone else will.

And so I just want to encourage you.

I want to encourage you to be open to investing in young people.

Do you believe in young people?

Then invest in them.

And that doesn't have to be here, by the way.

There's all kinds of ways you can invest in young people.

But if you join a team here, if you give here, if you do anything here, I'm just telling you, as a church, we are so committed to that.

We will never stop investing in the next generation, ever.

We will never stop believing in young people.

And so if you want to invest in young people, be part of this in a way that you haven't before and watch what happens, watch what God does.

Have the joy in your heart that comes from watching a generation grow up loving Jesus.

There's nothing like it.

There is nothing like it.

We're going to wrap up and be led and worship by our young, but not that young worship team.

They don't want me to.

I mean, they're like some of them are in their mid-20s now, and so they're still young, you know, but not that young.

But before that, there's one more thing I want to share.

I said earlier that I really have been praying this week that people would say, you know what, I'm going to start investing in his hands because his hands is investing in the next generation.

I prayed that people would start to serve on teams.

Like I said, I would love to see a giant line out there to say, I cannot wait to work with kids.

I need to experience this.

I need to give the wisdom that I have and the time that I have to serve them.

But I also said that I hope that I hope some of us in the room would be stirred today and moved by God to make a decision that changes our life forever and the lives of kids in our community, because not only are we as a church passionate about investing in the kids that are here as a church, we're passionate about investing in the kids in our community.

That's why we give so much to organizations like Papa's Pantry and the Cherokee Family Violence Center and the Hope Center.

These are organizations that are working with families and young kids and rescuing them from very difficult situations.

And so it's an honor for us to give thousands and thousands of dollars to them.

Because we don't just want to invest in the kids here, we want to invest in the kids around us.

And a few years ago, well about a year ago actually, we started a new ministry called His Family Foster Care.

And God just really put it on our hearts that there are a lot of kids in this community that don't have parents, or they don't have parents that are able to take care of them.

Foster kids are probably the most at-risk kids in our country.

And what's really crazy is that if you look at the numbers of foster kids, if every church in America had one foster family, there would be absolutely no need for de facts.

In the sense that that's literally the number of churches there are in the country, churches, is the same number, like roughly with very, very close, the same number as the number of foster kids in the country.

And so if every church in the nation just had one foster family, every foster kid in America would have a godly, loving home to be part of.

And so Brian and Lisa Van Dyne have been part of our church for a long, long time.

They're amazing people.

They have served in our kids' areas, they still do, they're incredible.

Brian is in charge of our facilities now, he's on our team, our staff full-time, he's incredible.

And uh and Brian and Lisa have been foster parents for a long time.

And now they actually lead our foster care ministry, his family foster care.

And so I asked them if they would sit down with us and share and just give us their story and talk to us about what that experience was like for them.

And uh, it's five minutes long.

I just want to show you guys their story.

I want to introduce you guys to them, and I want to ask you as this plays to pray and to listen.

I know it's a big thing, like you don't walk into church on a Sunday.

It's one thing to say, I'm gonna come in, oh, I might join a kids' team, you know.

It's another thing to walk out and be like, I might become a foster parent.

I was not expecting that when I walked in this morning.

But I just want it to be clear and known that there are kids in our community that need us.

And if we believe in the next generation, we're not gonna let that be lip service.

We're gonna take care of kids.

And so take a look at their story, we'll come back and we'll finish up and we'll worship together a little bit more.

Originally, it's funny, we were only gonna have two kids.

That was our plan.

We were gonna wait three years and then have two kids.

Two years apart.

And then we were gonna be done.

Well, we waited three years, and we had two kids, two years.

Two years apart, just like we had planned, and then God kind of stepped in and said, you know, you're not done.

Um we ended up having a couple of more kids, and um.

I guess when our youngest was three, Lisa and her mom had been talking about something and uh about not really fostering at first.

It was she had found out about this ministry where um babies that are born to drug-addicted moms a lot of times are just left in the hospital, and the moms just ditch and leave.

And so that was kind of something Lisa and I first talked about.

And something that we wanted wanted to do.

And the only we had no idea how to get baked.

The only thing we knew was we probably needed to be licensed foster parents to do that, and so we went through the training and got licensed and all at the time thinking this is why we're doing it.

And then um, we got our first foster placement, and our minds completely changed.

We started fostering with a plan, and that was our plan.

And God allowed us to use our plan to get to his plan.

And when we finally got to his plan, it was very different than what we thought we were going to do, but it was the right thing.

Over the years, we have fostered, I believe it's 18 or close to 20 kids over the 10 years that we were foster parents.

Um of them were only in our home for two or three days, some of them four or six weeks.

I think the longest placement we had was almost a year, it was 10 or 11 months.

And uh we got this little boy when he was one, and we had him for 11 months.

We met his birth mother early on, maybe the second or third day that we had him in our home.

And she was the hardest, most uncaring, no-emotion person I'd ever met.

She was she had this air of I could not care any less that my child was taken away from me.

She was angry, not at her child being taken away, she was just angry.

And over that 10-month period, we saw her life drastically change.

And she became this loving mother.

And as hard as it was for us to have him leave our home after almost a year, it was so exciting because she had she was a completely different person.

She loved her children and she couldn't wait to get them back.

That was like probably our favorite placement, I would say, for me at least.

Uh, he was such an amazing little boy, and we got to see him reunited with his mom.

People will say that that's one reason they I could never foster because I could never give them back.

Um, but you can when you go to it with the mindset of these aren't my kids.

These are God's children, and I'm gonna do what I can for them while they're here.

And um, and when you see these changed lives in these families, how can you not give them back?

That's her family, and that's the whole basis of the foster care.

It's not taking people's children away, it's building families.

And um, when you look at it through a different lens of um building a family and building a life and building hope, then it kind of changes how you respond to people and how you really go into the whole thing.

I have a family and it is um it's my greatest joy.

So if I can help you get your family, then that's what it's all about.

Another question people ask a lot is how does aren't aren't you afraid of how it's gonna affect your children when you bring these broken kids into your home?

And the easy answer to that is is no, I'm not.

I mean, I am, but I know that God's in control, and I know beyond any reasonable any kind of doubt at all that my kids are better people because we did this.

So the question I always ask is how is not how is it gonna affect my kids if we do this, but how is it gonna affect my kids if we didn't?

My oldest son, Chris, actually, I overheard him talking the other day, and he said, one thing I have to know about my future wife is that she's gonna have to want foster.

To have your child say that is amazing because his heart has been forever changed because of what we did in such a positive way.

I wouldn't change anything.

There's nothing I wouldn't give up to do what we did.

It was it was so obvious this was what God called us to do.

It's what we're passionate about, and there's no cost too great, you know.

I would make the same decisions over and over again.

I love them.

They're awesome.

A few years ago, O'Brien had talked to me about how he was frustrated because they really felt like God was telling them to put the brakes on fostering.

And he's like, I don't feel like we're done, but God's told us our family's you know full.

They have six kids, so they're full.

And then all of a sudden, this opportunity came along, and he's like, Oh, okay, that's why.

We're done fostering, but we're ready to train another generation of foster parents.

If you want to do that, if you want to be a foster parent, I want you to know that you can be part of that here and we'll support you as a church.

We'll come around you, we'll help you.

You won't be on your own.

In fact, today, if you want more information, um, there's gonna be a desk out in the lobby, and you'll see the His Family Foster Care logo there.

Just go up and get more information.

We're gonna have a little meeting next week about you know what that really looks like.

And if anyone's just interested in being a foster parent, it's a huge thing.

Just come to that meeting next week.

I know that's a big thing to ask.

Hey, consider being a foster parent.

But for all of us, for every single one of us, I just want to ask us today as a church, for church's people, it's a family, as a church, believe in young people, believe in the next generation, and let's invest accordingly.

Let's be a church that is committed to the next generation.

Let's be a church that's committed to investing in young people passionately, to investing our time, to investing our resources, to giving ourselves to the next generation, because I'm telling you, I've said it many times.

The next generation needs the church.

The next generation needs Jesus, and we need them.

And so let's do this together.

Let's be the let's be there for our kids.

Sound good?

Can we do that?

All right, let's respond today.

I'm serious, respond.

We're gonna pray.

And we've got one more song to be led in today, so pray with me, please.

Jesus, thank you for this church.

Thank you for all the young people that are here, thank you for all the not young people who are here to invest in the young people, and Lord, just remind us that in your eyes, we're all young.

An 80-year-old is a young person to you, Lord.

I just pray that you would fill our hearts with a desire to respond today, that it would be a day of action, God, that we wouldn't just sit here and go, yeah, yeah, young people are important, and yes, the the next generation needs us, and so, you know, I'll I'll try to think about something to do.

Help us walk out of here today committed.

Let's be as let's be as committed to the the next generation as you are, Jesus.

Let's believe in them.

Let's take action and give what we have to support them, to encourage them, to make sure that they know you and they can be led closer and deeper in their relationship with you.

Lord, thank you for the gift of this morning, and God, we love you.

Happy Father's Day.

Amen.