Enjoy Our Age // 3 Year Anniversary // Pastor Richie Fike

Welcome to the Movement Church Podcast. We want you to

know that God is for you and so are we.

You're about to hear a sermon from one of our

weekend services in the tri-lakes of Southern Colorado. God is

not a monument. He's a movement. So we're praying that

this message will move you in a meaningful way. Listen

closely after the message for ways to get connected with us.

God bless you. Thanks for tuning in.

And, you know, in between those years, there was a

lot of pain and anguish. We had some miscarriages in there,

and that was really, really hard in that season. But

what happened in those 11 years, as I was, they

and I were parenting Justice, is that we really, really

pushed Justice really hard. Can you guys see this picture

of baby Jay? Can you all see that as a glare?

This is little baby Justice when he was born, how

precious he was. Was is the key word. I remember

so vividly that when we went to the doctor at, like,

the three- or four-week mark, they measured his head, and

they said, good news, his head is in the 98th percentile.

And the kind of parent that I was, I thought,

what can I do to get him to the 100th percentile? Like,

that's not enough. Like, he has to be the best,

you know? So you can thank me that our son, Justice,

has a big head. But... I just pushed him. I

wanted him to move on from diapers at like 15 months.

I was like, we've got to move on from these diapers.

Let's at least get into push-ups, pull-ups, whatever you call them.

I wanted him cutting his own steak at the age

of three. I was pushing him. That's the kind of

parent that I was. If he was going to play sports,

I wanted him to win championships. I remember we were

in this basketball league, and they said that we're not

taking score. Anybody ever been in a basketball league where

they don't take score with the kids? I took score, okay?

I was on the sideline, and I was like, okay,

I know what the score is. And I was constantly

trying to push Justice. And this one game, I remember

so vividly, Justice was like five years old, and he

was starting. They decided to start my son. I'm beaming

with pride. My son is five years old. He's starting

on the YMCA basketball team. I mean, this is only

the beginning. You know, I'm so excited. Justice went up

the court on offense, down the court on defense. And

then he went to the bench and tapped someone's shoulder

and said, it's your turn. And just sat down. I

was like, what are you doing? You're a starter. You

let the coach put. Anyway, my son was teaching me.

about his heart. He was teaching me about his attitude

about life. I wanted to push him. I wanted him

to keep moving, keep going. And he was like, hey,

can we just slow down just a little bit? And

as it went on, justice really taught me. I became

a student of his heart, what motivated him. what shut

him down. And so I stopped pushing him as much

right around the time that he was about 10 or

11 years old. I just really started to learn about him.

And that's when we had baby Judah. Baby Judah was

like our miracle baby. He was just filled with energy.

You didn't have to push Judah. You had to pull

him back. And our attitude about parenting was totally different

with Judah than it was with Justice because we never

wanted him to move too fast. I remember so vividly

when he was trying to take his first steps. I

said to him, no, stop that right now. You sit

down and you crawl. I just didn't want him to

keep moving forward, but that's what kids do. They keep

moving forward. In fact, at Judah's fourth birthday, I said

to him, just in a private moment, I said, I

need you to make a deal. What's the deal, Daddy?

I said, the deal is I don't want you to

get any bigger. than you are right now. And so

every year at his birthday, I tell him that he

broke our deal and that I'm not okay with it.

He goes, there's nothing I can do about it, Dad.

And we have that little running joke together. I'll say

all that to say this. This year at our Movement

Church Wisdom Table Retreat, we were sitting together and we

were talking. And this was about the two and a

half year mark of the Movement Church. The conversation was

pretty frustrated, to be honest with you. A lot of

us were talking about the things that we weren't yet,

the things that we weren't able to accomplish yet, the

things that we weren't doing well. And we were frustrated

about our lack of resources. We had more vision than resources,

more direction than we had the ability to get there.

And there's a guy named Brian Poppy who leads all

of our retreats. And Brian, after about a day and

a half of listening to us, he said, guys, can

I just ask you a question? Are you guys enjoying

your age? Are you enjoying... the age that you are.

You're a two-and-a-half-year-old church. Are you enjoying your age? And

my answer was, no, we're not. Not at all. I

don't enjoy this. This is hard. We're not where we

want to be. No, I'm not enjoying our age. And

for different reasons. I want us to be more, to

do more, to have more, to see more, to accomplish more.

That's just the motor within me. And who we were

and what we were attempting and how we were functioning

was just not... me in that moment at two and

a half years old. My motor was revving like a

race car and we were moving it like what felt

to me like two miles per hour. Like in the

monument Fourth of July parade where you see those Corvettes

and they're going two miles an hour. They're not built

for that, right? They're built to move. And that's how

it felt to me at two and a half years

of age. There were varying degrees of dissatisfaction in the room.

For some, it was about leadership development. Have we intentionally

poured into you, our population? For others, it was about

financial resources. How can we be expected to do more

if we don't have more? For others, it was about

measuring our ministry against others. other ministries and the larger

scale of established churches. And just to be fair, there

were some people in the room who were very satisfied

with the pace that we were moving and with the

culture of the movement church. And by the way, I

am very pleased with the culture of the movement church.

Are you pleased with the culture of the movement church? Amen. Yeah.

And what I've realized about our story is Especially standing

here today outdoors and remembering three years ago, what I

realized about our story is that when all this happened,

when the Movement Church got launched, we didn't really have

time to think about a very important question. In some ways,

our church is three years old. In other ways, our

church is 12 years old. Because 12 years ago, a

group of people from Colorado Springs decided to come out

here and to launch a campus of another church in

Colorado Springs. And that group of people hired me five

years ago to be their campus pastor. And then 20

months into the process of me being the campus pastor

of that church, the Lord said, it's time for you

to launch. It's time for you to be a church.

And I was like, well, somebody should be the pastor.

They're like, right, no, it's you. I said, no, no,

somebody else should be the pastor. But it was me.

God was calling me to be the pastor of this,

the movement church. And so, you know, famously on our

very first Sunday together, we met outdoors at Palmer Lake. Why?

Because we didn't have a building to meet in. But

we didn't want to not meet. And so we got

together and it was an awesome day. Many of you

that are here today were there that day. And it

was exciting to see what God was doing. We met

in Palmer Lake and there was a train that came

by about 12 times to my recollection. Maybe 37 times

to my recollection. I think it was only like three.

But I remember it like several more times than that.

And that train came through, and it was really loud,

just like we just saw the train moments ago. And

it'll probably happen during our sermon. And when it happens,

everybody gets to stand up and, like, do some calisthenics

and take a break, okay, because you're not going to

be able to hear me talk. So I'm just preparing

you for when that happens. That whole season was wild.

God said to go, and we went. There was really

no time for us to ask why. Why plant a

church in the tri-lakes in 2023? Why launch out into

a town that already had churches, good churches, advancing the

kingdom of God? Why us? Why here? Why now? And

so when Poppy asked that question at our retreat, are

you enjoying your age? It really caused me to stop

and think for a moment. Why are we doing this?

What is the value of planting a church in 2026?

Here we are now, three years later. What is the value?

And I think that the message that God wants to

communicate to all of us today is that it's time

for us to really enjoy our age. Enjoy the age

that we are. In fact, tell the person next to you,

You should enjoy your age. Tell them right now. Come on,

tell them. Now tell the person that you didn't want

to talk to, the other person that you didn't want

to talk to, you should enjoy your age. You don't

look like you have much longer. Come on, tell them

right now. We're supposed to enjoy our age. age we're

supposed to enjoy our age and that's not to say

by the way that we're not supposed to have holy

ambition that we're not supposed to be looking forward and

moving forward we started this church with this mantra that

god is not a monument he's a movement And we

get to be a part of it, that God is

for you, and so are we. We started with these

sentiments and this attitude, but today we're going to talk

about what does it look like for us to enjoy

our age. We've spent the last eight weeks together talking

about the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit manifests

Himself in us. When He takes residence within us, He

begins to show evidence from without. We begin to see

this invisible God made manifest through each other. That is

like three or four levels deeper than the early church

that we're going to look at in Acts chapter 2 today.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We're going to look at what happens right after Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit has just arrived at Pentecost. He's announced

himself to the world. The movement that is the church

has begun. And now 3,000 new converts have experienced something

that they didn't have language for. Peter helped them to

turn that experience into a decision. But now it was

time to make disciples out of this group. So with

no real blueprint, no church planning strategy, these baby Christians

began to move forward. So if you have a Bible,

if you have a device, open it up to Acts

Acts 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2. We're going to look at verses 42 through 47.

It's on the screen, but I think it's probably glary.

It's probably hard to see. So here's what it says,

and I'm reading from the CSB. It says, they devoted themselves,

this is this early church, this young group of believers,

they devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings, to the fellowship,

to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Everyone was

filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being

performed through the apostles. Now, all the believers were together

and held all things in common. They sold their possessions

and property and distributed the proceeds to all as any

had need. Every day, everybody say every day. Every day

they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and

broke bread from house to house. They ate food with

joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor

of all the people. And every day, everybody say every day.

Every day the Lord added to their number those who

were being saved. Now, before we start pulling this passage apart,

there's a word in this passage that is really interesting.

And that word is they. Did you notice how many

times it said they did this, they did that, they

devoted themselves to this? Who is this they? Who are they?

There are 3,000 brand new Christians that just moments ago

had nothing in common. These were people from all over

the known world. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Egypt, Libya, Rome, Crete, Arabia.

These were people that didn't grow up in the same hometown.

They didn't have the same values and cultures. And now

all of a sudden they are devoted to one another.

It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Different cultures, different customs and

languages and backgrounds. And now 3,000 of them have put

their faith in Jesus and suddenly they have become we.

That's the miracle underneath the miracle that we're going to

look at today. Jesus took a bunch of people who

had nothing in common and he gave them himself in common.

That's what church is. If you look around this room,

it's not a room, look around this area, there are

people that come from all over the place. People from

different languages and different cultures. I'm a displaced Cajun from Louisiana,

and I'm your pastor. We don't have a lot in

common culturally, but when we come together, we have Jesus

in common. That's powerful. And almost immediately, these people start

figuring out how to live like a family. They didn't

have a church building. They didn't have programs or staff.

They had the apostles, but they had no blueprint. So

what did they do? They just started with the basics.

You guys know the acronym K-I-S-S, right? Keep it simple. Well,

one person is willing to say it. I'm glad the

rest of you didn't. Josh Neal is always willing to say,

you're stupid. Keep it simple, sheep, bro. That's what it is.

Keep it simple, right? This acronym is what they did.

Look at it again in verse 2. They devoted themselves

to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread,

and to prayer. And later in verse 47, it talks

about the fact that worship was a common ingredient of

their time together. So biblical truth, relationships, food, prayer, and worship.

That's church. Like if you really want to complicate it

beyond that, you can. And lots of churches do. But

at its purest form, that's church. Relationships, biblical truth, food, prayer,

and worship. So what does it look like for us

to enjoy our age? Number one, let's enjoy the basics.

Let's enjoy the basics, amen? In these three years as

your pastor... One of my favorite questions to ask people,

especially at like Feast with the Vikes, when we do

Feast with the Vikes, I love to ask people, so

what is it about the movement church that you're drawn to?

What do you like so much about it? And you

know what most of you have said to me? I

like the size of it. What do you mean by that? Well,

I feel like that I can fit here. I feel

like I can know people here. I feel like I

can connect to people here. The other answer I hear

a lot is, man, it's just such a welcoming place,

and there are so many welcoming people, right? That's the

culture of the movement church. And so I think it's

good that we're doing the basics really, really well. Those

are the basics. It's a very good thing that we're

getting this right. There is a reason that Maya and

Leah Habanero and Chico and Joy Lynch Do the food

for us every time we have a big gathering like this.

Because they're really, really good at it. Amen? Are you

with me? In fact, can we applaud them and thank

them for providing great food for us? Listen, I know

a lot of you Colorado people can live on like

a kind bar and a bottle of water or whatever.

But like, I'm from Louisiana. We respect food in Louisiana. Okay?

And the early church respected food. They got together every

day and ate good food in Jesus' name. By the way,

this is why we do pancakes. on Sundays. It's not

just for the sake of the food, but for the fellowship, right?

Pancakes broaden the scope of our Sundays. Our church is

a work in progress. This morning, I was so stoked

to see young people taking the lead in our worship,

and mostly because it meant I didn't have to be

on the stage this morning leading worship. I think it's

a good thing. God is doing some really good things

for people like Isaiah and Jake and Garrison and McKenzie

and Edgar and Bukala and so many other people, these

young folks that are flocking to our church and going,

can I help? God's doing something in our worship. And

this year, we really believe that it's time for us

to lock in and to focus in on what it

looks like for us to take care of the youth

in our church. Right now, we don't have a youth director.

We can't really afford to hire one. But we can't

afford to not cultivate a community for our youth. Can

I hear an amen? Because they are the future. And

so this year, we are going to be spending time

and spending effort leaning into the youth of our church.

And by the way, if you have a passion for

young people, now's the time to raise your hand and say,

can I help? Can I get involved? Right now's the

time to do that. So communicate with me. Communicate with Karen.

Communicate with Dana. We want to know if you're interested

in helping us to build a youth culture in our church.

It's time for us to do that. You know, at

our age, having more vision than resources is a good thing.

The opposite would stink. To have more resources than vision.

That's no good, right? But to have more vision than

resources means that we've got to lean in to God.

We've got to ask God to meet us in that deficit,

and he absolutely will. Now, did you notice? Did you

notice how quickly the selfless nature of God showed up

in the lives of the early church? Did you notice

that nobody instructed them to think beyond themselves? Did you

notice that there was no mandate from on high that said, okay,

now that you're a Christian, you must sell your property

and you must give it and we will all share

it and let's involve ourselves in democratic socialism, right? Did

you notice that there is no mandate that communicated that

in the Bible? And are you worried that I'm about

to go from preaching to meddling? Are you nervous about that?

That's right. I put it in there. They instinctively stopped

asking questions. What belongs to me? And they started asking,

what do I have that can meet the needs of

somebody else? This is powerful. What does it look like

for us to enjoy our age? Here it is, number two.

Enjoy the benefits. Enjoy the benefits. Look at verse 44.

It says, Again, nobody's asking them to do this. They

just see a need and they fill it. The apostles

aren't demanding this. This wasn't part of the assimilation process.

And we don't see this as a mandate in future

church plants in the New Testament. The apostles aren't demanding this.

This wasn't part of the assimilation process. And we don't

see this as a mandate in future church plants in

the New Testament. It's not demanded of people to give

everything they own. It's just what they did out of

the overflow of their hearts. It's beautiful. As freely as

grace had been given to them. They chose to give.

We understand now in the New Testament that generosity isn't

something that God demands from us. It's something that he

desires for us. You know the story, the Christmas carol, right?

The guy that's at the center of it, Ebenezer Scrooge,

he's a miser. That means he holds everything he has

to himself. Miser is the root word for miserable. Right?

Generosity brings joy. Being a miser makes you miserable. God

doesn't demand this from you. He desires it for you.

But in this moment, these 3,000 people instinctively turn away

from the culture of the world that we live in.

Come on, you know the culture we live in. Accumulation, consumerism, comparison. Right?

Always trying to compete, always trying to compare. This is

the world we live in. And they immediately go totally

the opposite direction. and just pour into one another. And

what's cool about this, and these are key words for

today's sermon, they are nimble, they are responsive, they are selfless,

and they are kingdom-minded. They're nimble, they're responsive, they're selfless,

they're kingdom-minded. That is the benefit of being a church plant.

That's the benefit of going, hey man, this is so exciting,

let's be in this thing together. You rush for the

opportunity to use your resources to make kingdom impact. That's

who the infant baby Christian church was, the little six-pound,

seven-ounce church. That's who it was. And it's who we are.

That's who the movement church is. We are nimble. We

are responsive. We are selfless. We are kingdom-minded. You may

know this, but, you know, our goal financially is that

by the end of year 10, when we get to

the 11th year budget, that we are living at 80-10-10.

Meaning that whatever money we bring in from your tithes

and offerings, that the next year that we would live,

our budget would be 80% of that. And that 10%

of what was brought in would go to missions. And

that the other 10% would go into a strategic fund.

A fund that's just ready to be responsive to whatever

comes up in the next year. How can we bless people?

How can we serve people? Where is their need? This

is our attitude from the very beginning. We're working. We're

baking this into the formula. It's beautiful. This year, our

Radius team, led by Robert Michaels, has identified two really

cool partners, and you're going to hear from one of

them next week. One of them is Scott Godinez, who's

a pastor up in Pueblo. We are financially supporting their

church plant. And another one is the Ponderosa. Andrew and

Melanie are here today. You know what's so cool about

the Ponderosa? Every time they ring a bell over there,

an angel doesn't get his wings. Every time they ring

the bell, it's because somebody said yes to Jesus for

the first time. And they ring the bell at the

Ponderosa a lot. And so we're supporting their ministry. It's

pretty awesome what they do out there. So we're looking

for ways to be nimble, to be responsive, to be kingdom-minded.

And our nimbleness is a beautiful benefit of our age.

Someone once said that when we first started this church,

and it's true, we were building the plane while we

flew it. And that was the story of the first

two years of our church. I think we're in the air.

I think we're flying pretty clean right now. It's pretty exciting.

It's pretty exhilarating to see what God's doing. I've worked

at some pretty established churches in my life. And there's

one in particular that drove me crazy. Because the most

offensive question that you could ever ask in this church

that I worked at was this one. Hey, why do

we do this thing that we're doing the way that

we're doing it? Why do we do it that way?

Do you know why that question was so offensive? Because

the answer was so deeply displeasing. The answer was, this

is how we've always done it. Right. OK, so so

do we still believe in this or it's just this

how we've always done it? That answer deeply dissatisfies me

as your pastor. And so at our church, every open

road is an open opportunity. We don't know what's coming.

And that nimbleness is part of the benefit of being

church planted. For example, this is really cool. This next year,

we're praying about doing a BBS. Addison's got a big heart,

a big dream for doing a BBS. What's the benefit

of a BBS? Ideally, kids who don't know anything about

Jesus show up and hear the gospel message for the

first time in their life. That's exciting, right? Well, most churches,

when they do VVS, especially if they have a building,

they've probably done it for 15, 20 years. They've got

all the stuff in storage. They just pull it out

once a year. And then they're able to use their building.

Guess what we don't have? A building. Right. Okay. So

do we look at that as a problem or as

an opportunity? Do you know what Colorado parents really love

in the summer? It's for their kids to touch grass, right?

They really love for their kids to be outdoors and

to experience the beautiful Colorado outdoors. So why can't we

just rent a park for a week and invite all

of Jackson Creek to come be a part of the

VBS where there's like an outdoor rock climbing wall or

a ninja warrior structure? Why can't we do things that

allow us to be nimble? and responsive and kingdom-minded. Of

course we can, right? And so I would just say

to you, if you have a heart for young people,

kids who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ,

this is the time to raise your hand and say,

I want to help with that BBS. Tell me more.

Talk to me. Talk to Addison. Talk to Dana. We'll

get you plugged in, okay? We can approach ideas like

this through the lens of creativity and not through the

lens of lack. I think when you don't have stuff...

You tend to complain about what you don't have instead

of embracing what you do. We got a lot of

good going for us. I'm excited about our church. And

so if we stay this way, nimble, responsive, kingdom-minded, if

we bake that attitude into our present, then it'll be

the story of our history and it will be the

precedent for our future. And you ought to say, amen. Amen.

What does it look like to enjoy our age? Enjoy

the benefits. Here's the last point. Look at this in

verse 46. And I'm telling you right now, when we

get to verse 47, if this verse doesn't fire you up,

you might think about switching jerseys, okay? Look at verse 46.

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the

temple and broke bread from house to house. They ate

food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying

the favor of all the people. And every day the

Lord added to their number Those who were being saved.

I'm telling you, if that verse doesn't fire you up,

you're in the wrong place today. Okay? The idea that

because these people are gathering together and being the church

with one another, that it was so infectious that people said,

I want some of that. I want to be a

part of that. And just their community loving one another

well made people who didn't know Jesus go, tell me

about this God who brings people from all these nations

together and gives them salvation. Makes them from a they

to a we. What is this? How do I be

a part of this? This is the benefit. Let me

give you the point and then we'll talk about it.

What does it look like to enjoy our age? Guys,

we should enjoy the bounty. Enjoy the bounty. There's a

guy named C. Peter Wagner who wrote probably the formative

book on church planting in the 90s. And this quote's

pretty famous amongst church planting circles. Here it is. He said,

the single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting

new churches. Tim Keller wrote a book a few years back,

really impacted me, called Why Plant Churches? And he said this,

the vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single

most crucial strategy for the numerical growth of the body

of Christ in any city and the continual corporate renewal

and revival of the existing churches in every city. This

is what we're doing. The idea is that we, what

we're doing as a church plant, is the most effective

form of evangelism that the world has ever seen. And

we need it because ever since 2019, Maybe you notice,

maybe you don't, but since 2019 in particular, there has

not been a year where more churches have been planted

than have closed their doors in America. Every year since 2019,

more churches have closed their doors than churches have replaced

them and planted new churches. There is a deficit happening

in our country, in our world. And so church planting

is massively important. It matters. It's important kingdom work. Why?

Because the way that we are living is so distinctly kingdom,

so drastically counterculture that people are drawn to it. Church

itself becomes an apologetic for the gospel. A group of

Christians enters a community, takes shape, becomes a loving, generous community,

and people go, I want some of that. They love

one another. They share possessions. They welcome outsiders. They care

for needs. They eat together. They worship together. they cross

socioeconomic boundaries and racial boundaries they raise children together they

serve their neighbors they suffer together they practice generosity and

then they invite people into it it's beautiful it's powerful

We're a part of what's called SEND Network, S-E-N-D, SEND Network.

It is an international church planting community. And in the last, listen,

I wrote this down, since 2010, 12,000 churches have been

planted by SEND Network, and we're one of them. It's

pretty exciting. And they've got this really cool attitude about

their missiology, about the way they plant churches. So I

want to show it to you, but I'm going to

need three really loud volunteers. Can I get three loud volunteers? Okay.

Ryan Michio is loud. You're loud. I agree with that. Okay.

Come on up here, Lauren. You're good. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

Get up here. Give them a hand. Come on. Okay.

I love it. Okay. Get in order right here. Get

in order right here. Okay, you are going to be,

you are going to say really loud, plant a church.

Plant a church.

That's pretty good. You are going to say, Ryan, make disciples.

Make disciples. Okay, and you are going to say, this

is the hardest one. Sorry, you got the hardest one.

Engage the city with the gospel. Engage the city with

the gospel. Louder. Engage the city with the gospel. Tell

them your names and they'll know who you are. Okay,

that's Emma. Okay, good. Alright, so look. Here's what most

people do when they go to plant a church. And

this is interesting. What most people do is they go

into a town and they... Plant a church! Okay, now

what does that mean? It means that they basically find

a storefront, they find a building, they find a place

to meet, and then they start worshiping together. They... plant

a church okay now then after they've planted their church

then they start to make disciples okay so these people

that are part of their church they're going okay we

got to make disciples out of these people we got

to figure this out uh and then after they've made

disciples then they engage the city with the gospel now

here's what's interesting That is the total opposite approach of

how Paul did it. It's the total opposite approach of

what we see in the Bible. In the Bible, what

we see is first, Paul goes into a town and he... Yeah,

that's right. I awkwardly phrased that for you. First, Paul

went in and he would engage the city with the gospel.

What does that mean? He would go to riverfronts. He

would go to where the people are. He would go

to the cultural centers and he would interact with the people.

And then he would preach the gospel after he engaged

the city with the gospel. After he's done that, then

he would? Make disciples. After these people who have come

to know Christ, then he makes disciples of them. He

teaches them how to live out their faith. After they've

done all that, they've got this group of believers that

went from a they to a we, and now it's

time to? Plan to church. Okay, do you see the opposite?

Do you see how that works? And that is the

beautiful picture of what it's supposed to look like. By

the way, many of you are either at another church

or eventually down the road you're going to move to

some other town and you're going to go church shopping.

Can I just tell you that there's really two major

questions that you have to ask before you decide to

be a part of a church. And those two questions are,

what is a disciple? And how is this church making disciples?

What is a disciple and how is this church making

a disciple? You are not ready to be a church

until you have the answers to those two questions. Now,

here's what we do at the Movement Church. We try really,

really hard to... It's your turn. How do we do that? Well,

we believe in earning the right to share the gospel

by loving and serving people well. So we have Serve Day.

Once a year, we always do that. And Karen Murphy

is constantly paying attention to what's happening in our town,

in the Tri-Lakes area, to find out where is the

need and how can we meet it. And from that,

we have seen people come to Christ. We have seen

people engage our community and be a part of this church.

And then it's time for us to... Make disciples. How

do we do that? We do that through move groups.

We do that through growth groups. We do that through

personal discipleship. And we've defined what a disciple is with

our sort of five distinctives of a disciple. And our

goal is to help people to grow in that way.

After we've made disciples, now it's time to... Plant a church. Okay,

now what's interesting is... We probably should have done all

of that for like 18 to 24 months before we

ever had our first outdoor service. And so we are

learning about this on the fly. But this process isn't

a one-time thing. It's a continual process. What it looks

like to be a church, what it looks like to

plant a church, is to do it in the proper order.

So let's give it up for these three. Good job.

There you go. There you go. Okay. Praising God and enjoying...

The favor of all the people every day that the

Lord added to their number, those who were being saved.

That's what we're doing here. That's what we're after. So

what does it look like for us to enjoy our age?

We need to enjoy the bounty. Enjoy the bounty. You're

going to hear today, just in a moment, right here

in this tank, you're going to see it here and

you're going to hear it in their testimony on the screen.

The testimony of three young people who have accepted Jesus

Christ as their Lord and Savior and have come today

to go public with their faith by being baptized as believers.

It's going to be exciting. Now, their names are already

written in the Lamb's Book of Life. Their salvation is sealed.

But today, what they're doing is they're saying to you,

to all of us, I want the world to know

that I believe in Jesus. And can we celebrate that

this morning? Is that exciting? Come on, that's exciting. It's

the power of God alive in this church, saving lives

and marking missionaries for kingdom impact. So let's enjoy our age.

Let's enjoy where we are. That's not to say that

we should all be satisfied with the things that we

don't yet have. You know, one day we are going

to be older. That doesn't mean that we have to

be old. But we are going to grow. And as

we grow, let's be nimble. Let's be responsible. Let's be

responsive and selfless and kingdom-minded. Let's be great at the basics,

generous with the benefits, and grateful for the bounty. And

let's pray that 30-year-old movement church has three-year-old nimbleness, selflessness, responsiveness, kingdom-mindedness.

Let's enjoy our age. Amen. You with me? I'm excited

to be your pastor. I'm grateful for each and every

one of you. And I can't wait to see the

story that's going to be written in the next year.

We'll probably be right back here in this field next

year at the four-year anniversary. Who knows who will be

here with us. And a lot of the people that

will be here with us next year will be here

because of you. because of your invitation, because of the

way that you live your faith in real ways. And

so I'm just excited to see what God's going to

do in the next year of our church. And I'm

excited that you're a part of that journey with me. Amen.

So what's God leading you to do next? And how

can we help? Send us an email to info at movementchurch.co

and tell us how we can pray for you and

help you to take the next step in your spiritual journey.

If you'd like to contribute financially to our ministry, you

can text the amount you'd like to give to this number, 833-725-0132.

That's 833-725-0132. Or just look us up online at movementchurch.co.

You can find the Movement Church on all social media platforms.

And we hope that you'll give us a follow. God

bless you. And remember, God is for you. And so

are we.