Fierce Church Sermons

You’re Making a Difference 🙌 | Freedom Sunday at Fierce Church

• Fierce Church

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It’s FREEDOM SUNDAY at Fierce Church — one of our most exciting days of the year! 🎉

Today, we’re celebrating what God is doing through YOUR generosity — both inside and outside the walls of Fierce! 🙌

We’re helping fund:
✨Churches around the World
🌎 The International Justice Mission (IJM) to fight human trafficking
🎥 Our own Production, Digital Media, and Events Ministries so more people can encounter the love of God online and in person

God calls us to use our time, treasure, and talents for His Kingdom. When you give, you’re making an eternal impact! 💪

🔥 Be inspired to take part in what God is doing:

👉 https://fierce.church/give

SPEAKER_09:

We all get to decide every day. Every day we get to decide. Am I gonna be a taker? Or am I going to take action? Am I gonna be a taker? Or am I going to take action? Am I just gonna watch and let everything come to me and be about me and try to get all that I can get? Or is it possible that I'm here on purpose? And there's things God wants done on this planet for my time with regard to me, with regard to you. I think it's that one. And all we need is willing hearts. No matter what generation you're in, the people that know their God will stand firm and they'll take action. Now, importantly, it says the people who know their God. It's the people who not people who know about them. See, a lot of folks know a lot about God, but there's a difference between knowing stuff about God and knowing God. When you know God and you're knowing God, you become bold, you become active. You say, I can't just sit here, I can't just take, I've got to take action. And we get to know God not just by hearing stuff about him, but we hear it and then we think about it and we apply it to us. See, we can all know, everybody with Inside My Voice can know God loves you, God loves people. Great, good factoid to put in there. That's good. It's not until we start to meditate and ruminate on that thing, and we say, whoa. No, it's personal. God loves me. He loved me and he delivered himself up for me. And it's when we begin to think, it's not just that there are sinful people somewhere in the world, it's that each and every one of us is born in sin and we constantly betray God all the time. We commit cosmic treason. And if that's not just true of, you know, like out there somewhere, that's true of me. Like I did that, that was personal. And yet God personally loves me. That's how you get to know God. You reflect on those ideas and you say, God, yeah, that, yeah, yeah, that's true between you and me. Those who know their God in this generation, in this hard generation, in this generation that feels like the tidal waves are coming against you. Those who won, they stand firm. So that means they stand against the tide of the culture. They just said, I'm not gonna be knocked down by this. I might get bounced back a little bit, but I'm not gonna get knocked down. I'm gonna stand firm, but I'm not just gonna be content to stand here. I'm gonna take action. I'm here for something. I'm here to make some stuff happen. And today we're gonna talk about what those things are that we're supposed to take action about. Jesus had just gotten out of the desert. He'd just been baptized and then he went into the desert and he was tempted by the enemy. And he had to pass all the tests that our first parents didn't pass. He had to hear the devil tempt him again and again and again. But you know, because he's Jesus, he passed every one of those doggone tests, even though none of us can. He passed them for us, and then he goes into the synagogue and he gets up to read, and he's given the scroll and he goes to the prophet Isaiah, and he's about to tell everybody okay, it's time. It's time, now's the time. Now's the time for Jesus to step into his role. Now's the time. This whole story has been about Jesus, and now it's time for Jesus to say, the main character's here, just so everyone knows. I'm here now. And we're about to do this thing. You can say amen anytime you want. And this is what Jesus says. He says, God's spirit is on me. He's chosen me to preach the message of the good news to the poor. He sent me to announce pardon. Somebody say pardon. Pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind. To announce this is God's year to act. Good news, he says, that's the gospel. You'll see it in a lot of translations as the gospel. What that means, it's the message that God is here to save me and to save you and to save everybody who puts their trust in him. He's here to restore and fix what was broken in us and in the world. He's here because the message of the gospel is God didn't give up on the sinful planet. Rather, he stepped into it and said, I'm just gonna take the penalty and the burden for everything they've done. I'm gonna rescue them. I'm gonna make all things new, and I'm gonna start with individuals and slow, I'm gonna slowly I'm gonna spread this good virus into the rest of the world over time. And eventually I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna lay the smack down on the hell disease, and it's all gonna be over, and King Jesus is gonna be reigning and ruling forever heaven on earth. And everyone's gonna say, Look what the Lord has did. I'm so glad he got up and read that morning, that morning, the scroll from Isaiah. I'm so glad he did it. The gospel is now check this out. Oh my gosh. Paul says the gospel, Romans 1.16, is the is the power of God. It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. Which just means it's it's not just like it's a good message, like, oh, that's a powerful message. No, the gospel itself, the content itself, the Jesus needs to save me. There's power in that. That very thing has the power to save. If we believe it, if I believe, yeah, that's true. God did love me and He came after me in my sin and He paid the penalty for my sin, and He grabs me and says, I want to be yours forever, just say yes. That very power, if we'll believe it, boom, there's a born-again spirit that happens inside of us. We get born from above, Jesus talks about. That very thing is the gospel, that seed being implanted into us, and it's slowly germinating and making us new people, and that's his will for the entire world. And and with his little people they're now infected with the good disease, he wants them going throughout the planet, spreading freedom, and declaring, hey, death is now turning backwards, and everything you ever did wrong can be forgiven. You can be reconciled to God, and if you're in prison in any sense, you can be set free. Because of your God, and that shows up. Jesus has a mission. He told us what his mission was: it's to bring the good news, it's to announce pardon to the prisoners and recover the sight to the blind, it's to set the burdened and battered free. So, what does he want us to do? He wants us to join him in his mission to bring good news. Let's watch our video.

SPEAKER_02:

Hope is powerful. It stirs us to look beyond what is and imagine what could be. Yet, for the problems in our world, hope alone does not guarantee change. It takes hope in action to do that. Right now, millions of children, women, and men experience some of the worst forms of violence every day. Violence that forces families into slavery, locks women in rooms to be used for sex, exploits children across the internet, and makes homes unsafe and abusive.

SPEAKER_03:

You'll be slapped, you'll be kicked, you don't have the power to fight back. If you do so, you know that it depravity will be more than what you were given before.

SPEAKER_02:

This continues because perpetrators think they can get away with it. I hope will not stand for this.

SPEAKER_05:

Unify the one everyone's lights surviving power.

SPEAKER_02:

This is the global movement of justice, prioritizing the protection of people from violence, building a world where traffickers cannot enslaved. Systems of justice serve every person in their community. So that survivors cannot only come together and make dignity.

SPEAKER_06:

And their mental well-being, they will not be exported anymore. The entire world would be a safe of place. Everyone.

SPEAKER_02:

Together, let's courageously engage in the work of justice today. And relentlessly move toward a safer tomorrow. Until all after. And with it, justice is unstoppable.

SPEAKER_09:

Do you think Jesus cares about that? It's Jesus that is doing that. It's Jesus that is doing that through his people. That's Jesus fulfilling his mission that he talked about this day in the synagogue. Do you know this is our 15th year of doing something we call the freedom offering? Every Christmas, we come together and we say, we're gonna take a few months out of the year, and we're just talking about bringing freedom to other areas in the world. And we've done this year after year. And so I just gotta applaud some of you. Do you know there are victims that are free today and recovering because of stuff you did at different Christmas times? You did it. That's because you decided I'm not just gonna be a taker, I'm going to take action. That's what you did. But we still gotta think about today. Because today, there's little boys and there's little girls, and they wake up every day and they're still trapped. They're still afraid, they're still gonna be abused today. There's moms that can't defend their kids. There's dads that can't find their kids. And it just goes around and around. It continues and repeats and continues and repeats. And that's why we do this thing called Freedom Sunday and a freedom offering between now and January 31st. And I gotta tell you, yo, you could hear this as like this is a fundraiser deal. Yo, it is not a fundraiser deal. This is fueling a vision of Jesus' to do what he wants done on the planet. That's what it's about. It's about being more than a local church. It's about saying there's things out there that are happening and I care about it, and I want to change it. And so we do this every year. And one of the things we're trying to do is say, as far as it depends on us, as God's disciples, we're gonna be agents of transformation. We're gonna be agents of freedom. We're gonna be agents of hope into our world. We can't fix everything, but we can start fixing some stuff. So that's what we're gonna do. Slap your neighbor, say, that's what we're gonna do. So let's join our master in his mission to bring the good news and to set people free and to extend God's favor. So between now and January 31st, we're gonna try to raise$30,000 to give to men multiple initiatives that we're gonna talk about today. And I gotta tell you, man, maybe you're like, oh man, did I come here for like this? Is this the thing I came here for today? I don't know what you came for today. I don't know what you're watching for today, but I know the Spirit of Jesus has a way that he can take anything and speak to your soul exactly where you're at, but I don't think it's chance. I think that it's on purpose, and he wants to climb right into our hearts and say, I care about this stuff, by the way, and I want you to. Here's what else we're gonna do. So not only International Justice Mission, which we've given to for years and years and years, we're also going to give to the Thailand Initiative. This is an organization we've been partnering with for years, and there are missionaries in Thailand. Here's what happens: there's young boys and girls who have no healthy place to grow, they have no healthy place to belong. And so these folks have a sports ministry. They've got this community center. Hey, man, we're just gonna use this for the gospel. We're gonna invite parents and kids to play. We're gonna let them play, and then we're gonna teach them about Jesus and teach them to pray. And so we get invited. Hey, can you help us fund this thing? Can you make sure this thing stays up and running? Can you help this thing be a lighthouse to a people in darkness who need the light of the Savior? Will you help us if you're as a church? So far we've said yes. But I'm gonna invite Elena Bowman, or sorry, Elena Bennett Bowman and Bennett out to talk to us about this. She's our next steps pastor. You guys know her. She's so great at her job. Give it up for Elena Walken. Hello.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09:

Thanks for hanging with us today.

SPEAKER_00:

I feel fancy, but also excited.

SPEAKER_09:

It's easy to see feel fancy next to me. I guess that all the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Is that how Kenzie feels?

SPEAKER_09:

Um Let's talk about the Thailand initiative.

SPEAKER_00:

And all this cool stuff.

SPEAKER_09:

Um hey, would you tell us the stakes, Alina? Like what happens? What happens if we don't do this? What happens if we don't step in and say, hey, we want to participate with this?

SPEAKER_00:

So they bought a building, which is awesome, but it is not a built building that was built yesterday. Um and so it needs updates. And um it has basketball lines, but they also do volleyball. They want to add pickleball to it. Um, floor needs to be done. They want to make a room for like a prayer room. Um and uh and so as somebody who has kids, I think what what could not happen if we don't do this is people would be like, well, I'm not gonna like sign up for this place. Um because they don't take it very seriously. Yes. Um but uh so if we join in on this, we can help update it and help reach these kids. 1% of Thailand knows that Jesus loves them. 1%. So 99% of Thailand kids, teenagers, adults go to bed not knowing that the God of the universe made them and loves them. And what they're trying to do is use sports ministry that can unify people that have all sorts of differences and yet they love basketball, um, and use that as a as a tool to tell them about the God of the universe that loves them. And so um that's what we get to to partner with. And honestly, like I I I also like sometimes think about it this way like if we can help these families know the love of Jesus, we can also be on the offense of what is happening um with the the kids and the slavery and all of that terrible stuff that is going on. So um it's it's all good. There's just a lot of good stuff that's going on.

SPEAKER_09:

That's so dope. Can you just walk us through a little bit more? What happens when a kid or family starts to go to this place? What happens?

SPEAKER_00:

There, it's so that's a good question. I so when Rick came here in August, part of his role when he came here was um to help us know about everything that is going on in the Thailand Initiative, um, which is several missionaries. And after he came here and got to know some of us, we figured out that being a part of sports ministry was our next step, which means we're gonna be partnering with Dustin and uh Melissa Leland, who are a part of this um sports ministry. And so I am just learning all about this, and I don't have the perfect answer for that, but um, we're gonna keep learning about that. And eventually we would love to see a group of like five, seven, eight people go to Thailand to be a part of this sports ministry and see what it's like. With the hope is that it's going to be self-funded through partnering. They partner with public schools. Did I say that part? They partner with public schools to make this happen. Um, and so they do these sports um tournaments and leagues, and that will that should pay for itself. Um, what we're doing is just kind of helping helping the building and getting the getting it continuing going. It's already going. They want to grow it though, um, and add more leagues. So um I hope that sort of answers your questions.

SPEAKER_09:

That answers a whole lot of questions.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm really good at talking. I'm gonna ask my husband.

SPEAKER_09:

You you have crushed it today. Thank you so much. Guys, would you get up for her and give her a hug next time you see her? Tell her she's an excellent pastor because she is. Sure. Yeah, thanks. Um guys, I want you to imagine for a second. Imagine another place that's that's kind of like the world that you live in. There's people that are called to ministry, there's people that are becoming Christians, there are people that are trying to become disciples, but they don't have near the resources that we have. We're a very rich place, we're a very rich nation. So, what that means is they can't train pastors the way that they should be trained. They don't have space to have church like we do. And even what they have is falling apart. So there are there, God is doing something amazing in Mexico, and we've got missionaries, Converge missionaries, that's the network that we're a part of. And they go down there and they train pastors and they build, renovate buildings so that as the gospel spreads with fire, there's enough training and enough space to see more and more people come to Christ. What that means is the Spirit of God is moving and they're trying to keep up. And we got to keep up too. We got to help them. This is a part of our crew. Um, Abraham Delgado, he is the director of this new Mexico initiative of church planting. We actually helped Abraham plant the church years ago, uh, Casa de Oracion, um, over in around lake. And now he is bringing it to Mexico. And guys, we want to be this here. We want to be a part of those churches being planted and those pastors being trained. And at some point, Abraham's gonna let some of us go with him. So I want to encourage you to get ready for that. But I just want you to think this through. We have so much, and there's folks that, dude, they just don't have what we take for granted, they just don't have it. And it's part of our master's mission to extend God's favor to others. A lot of favor on us from a material perspective, from a financial perspective. He wants us to extend his favor to our brothers and sisters who need it. Dude, I can remember as a young Christian looking at some of the older ones, some of the seasoned ones, some of the ones that should have been way beyond me, and being like, dude, where are you? What are you doing? I'm a young kid and I don't know what to do. And I'm looking around for my elders, I'm looking around for the ones who should bring bringing me direction and help. And I'm like, are you out? You know, like where are you? Are you out to lunch? Why aren't you helping more? Why isn't your head in the game? I'm a young disciple. Help me, help me get to know this God of mine. And it burns in my heart. Peeps, we gotta be those people. There's people that are looking to the heavens and asking that question, where is everybody? Is this it? There's no one to train us, there's no one to help us. We've gotta proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. We've got to be part of. You might you might have missed it because of the translation we use, but if you go back to that text, this is God's year to act. This is the year of his favors, a more literal translation. And what Jesus is talking about there, this is the prophesied, or what what the what the year of Jubilee was really all about. The year of Jubilee, in the Old Testament times, the Israelites had a whole year of Jubilee that was every 50 years, all debts get erased, all land gets restored. And that was to keep people, families out of continuous poverty. For us, it's the permanent year of Jubilee in Jesus. What that means is all sin and debt is erased. You and I owe a debt to God, apart from Christ. And Christ comes in and says, debt's erased because of my blood, year of Jubilee, permanently forever. That's a message that many of you, many of you watching, many of you right here, you've gotten the message. You've heard it. You're like, yes, year in Jubilee, my sins are covered, my sins are forgiven. They're as far away as the east is from the west, they're at the bottom of the ocean of forgetfulness. They'll never come up again. We've got that message, but we need to expand, extend God's favor to others. And my friends, it's not just out there somewhere, it's not just global, it's really local. Do you know the reason this church is here is because in two different times people came together and said, the fire's got to be here. The fire's got to be in Grays Lake and Round Lake and the surrounding communities. The favor of God, the message has got to get out to people for the next hundred years. There's got to be someone in here saying, Yo, God cares about you. Your debt can be erased forever. You can be with him in heaven forever. Well, that has been a part of how this all got here, and we need to extend that. And so that's why we need to make sure that keeps happening here. We need irresistible on wraps that turn fun into first steps with Jesus. We work really hard here at this church, like to make stuff happen so people far from God can come to know God. And here's what we found out Um, most people's first contact with us is not gonna be right now on a Sunday morning here. They're gonna be checking us out online. Hey, y'all, we know you're out there. That's what you're doing right now. Awesome. Make sure if you're nearby, you gotta come pretty soon because it's way better. It's just way better, man. But another thing we do is a thing that we call big days. These are on ramps. We're trying to pump it up and make sure that people start to think maybe church could be fun. Because here's the deal I went to church environments when I first became a Christian. Guys, I just want to be super honest. I was like, I'm here because, you know, I want to know more about God and I love Jesus, but I would not invite anybody here. Like, this is not fun. In fact, I would be embarrassed. I'd be like, like, even if I brought somebody, I'd be apologizing on the way. Like, okay, well, they're gonna do this weird thing, man. You gotta flow with it, okay? Because I don't know, I don't know why, I don't know why they do it. It just was not fun, it was awkward. And so we've got to work very hard. I learned from that we've got to work very hard to make sure people are having fun. And we kind of like push back against all their preconceived notions that Jesus is awesome and Jesus' people know how to have a good time. So that's why we do big days, and that's why I'm gonna invite our pastor first ups, Carla Gavilanas, up to the stage. You know her, you love her.

unknown:

Hey.

SPEAKER_01:

What up, Carla? Thank you. I also feel fancy sitting here now.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, that's what I'm telling you, man. All the time.

SPEAKER_01:

That's my plant.

SPEAKER_09:

Hey, um, Carla, so just to fill everybody in, it seems like big days like Christmas Palooza coming up tend to have the most success for us as a church. Like we've tried a lot of different things. That this tends to have the most success connecting people to our church and then to Jesus. Yeah. Why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_01:

Man, it is, first of all, fun. So it's low stakes. People are coming in. And honestly, I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of people who are new to church. And um, one of the things that's common to hear is that there's a lot of church hurt from their past, or people that are Christians have left a very bad taste in their mouth. And honestly, that's one of the unfortunate fallouts I think that we just experience as a society and with social media getting greater and greater. Um, this is a chance to rewrite the ticker tape in their mind about what church is. The Bible says that we will know they are Christians by their love for one another. And so when they come in, this is low stakes. We're not here to preach at them, we're not here to throw a track in their face or anything like that. We're just having fun. This isn't necessarily a church potluck, it goes to the next level. So we're providing something fun for their family. It gives them an opportunity to come out and have a day of just like relaxation and joy with their kids for free. So that's that's an automatic win. And it's also just a tool in our tool belts as believers here at church. We can invite them to this. And this is such an easy win. Like, come to this, it's gonna be fun. We're gonna have low stakes energy. We get to interact with people. It's a huge win.

SPEAKER_09:

That's really helpful. Do you think though maybe we should just phone it in?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm not sure what that language means.

SPEAKER_09:

Do you think we should just kind of like halfway do it, be like, ah, it doesn't matter. Let's just make it, you know, play cards.

SPEAKER_01:

No. No. I mean, I should I know how to throw down with some cards. Uh, I can make those fun too. But I think that there's just this level of, like you said, we are we are ready to severely inconvenience ourselves to reach people that are far away from the Lord. So when they show up, we don't want them to see something that was half baked. We want to see them, we want to show them that we cared enough to put hours into this event for your family. Yes. Because we care about you, we care about the next generation, and we've made a space for you. It is an it's an example of excellence that we pour into it.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah. I'm sold. Um, what do you think?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09:

What do you think is limiting this kind of an on-ramp from being even more successful?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you know, so I know we're talking about finances, but even more than that, I need the buy-in of every person here. Come on. The buy-in that this isn't just a church pock look, this is evangelism. This is an opportunity.

SPEAKER_09:

Come on.

SPEAKER_01:

We got to do our part. So I put on the event. I have a team of people that help me do it. Invite your friends, invite your coworkers, invite your neighbor, make it your own thing. This is your house on that day. So you get you get to be the person that's showing them hospitality, you get to be the person that's showing them around, having fun with them, but own it, buy into the idea that this is our opportunity to really go all in and um win people over. Like the message we want to convey here is that Jesus not only loves you, he likes you. And if we get to be little Jesuses running around here Christians, right? Little, little Jesuses, then we get to show them too that wow, you came in here and it was a good idea that you came in here, and we like you, and you belong here. So that is that's what I need more than anything is the buy-in.

SPEAKER_09:

Carla, that tears it up. Thank you so much. You rocked it. Hey, that's she's an awesome pastor. Give her a high five, too. I'm so glad I work with like the dopest past. I just gotta let you know because you don't know this. You have the awesomest pastors in the world. Just so you know, they go here, and it's chicks like those two. Hey, um, also the next generation matters. And so we're gonna keep on giving to the next wave of fierce faith. Here's the thing, dude. We're all gonna die pretty soon. I mean, not like real soon, not like today. Okay? But you, anyone getting older, you know, dog gone, this is going fast. Like this thing just speeds up. And so we gotta keep pushing the gospel message down. We gotta get it in people's brains in a way that they like, in a way that seems fun, in a way that how many know that this stupid thing, this thing is trying to indoctrinate your kid every single day? And it's telling them all kinds of stuff that contradicts God's word. And so we need fun spaces that are well taken care of, that are warm and safe, that are experiencing the love of God so they can hear, oh, this this Jesus thing is a real thing. The people I go to church with really know him. We need we need spaces that are functional, we need spaces that are uh inspirational, we need ones that have working cabinets and all kinds of stuff, and working toys and all that kind of stuff. We need to provide for our kids to say, kids, you are like the Most important thing in the church. You teenagers, you young ones, you need to you need to love this and then carry the fire. Somebody say, carry the fire. You need to carry the fire. Hey, do you want? Do you look at your world and be like, man, what the heck is going on? Do you want to fix anything about that? Then know your God and take action. Know your God and take action. Don't just post about it. Don't just rant about it. Know your God and take action and do what the master wants done. The master said this. I don't just mean a physical building. I mean he wants them close to him. He wants them relationally tight with him. He says this. The master told his servant, go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in so that my house may be full. God says, here's a problem. Fierce, you can't just hang out on the street corner and be like, hope somebody comes. Hope somebody comes. Hope somebody comes. No, you can't do that. No, you need to go out and grab them. You need to get where? You need to get online where digital natives are hanging out all the time, eight hours a day, watching their phone. They won't watch me for 45 minutes because they're not gonna come here. They're not gonna come here. They're not going to come here. Okay? Most of them. Most this many are gonna come. They're gonna be like, I'm I think I'll go to church. Most of them are out there. And so we need to get right up in their face and say, Jesus loves you. Jesus is the thing you're looking for, the thing you're scrolling about. It's Jesus. He's the answer. He's the thing you're looking everywhere for. It's Him. So connect with Him now. Connect with Him now. What does that mean? Guess it means we've got to be thinking every year about investing more and more in the future and on going into the highways and byways, or we'll call them the digital lanes with the digital natives and dragging them in and saying, This is your God, worship Him. Let's invite one more guy up here, Pastor Brandon. Brendan, you're great looking too, buddy. I just gotta tell you.

SPEAKER_08:

Thanks. I feel fancy as well.

SPEAKER_09:

Yeah, I mean you look fancy compared to me, but that's that's normal. Thanks. Hey, um what? I mean, here's the here's the thing. Y'all don't know this, man. Unless you're unless you serve here, you don't know what this guy does. Okay. So every Sunday morning we come in here and we're trying to get this thing all together hours before anybody arrives here. And it's great, it's beautiful, and the the bands always sound awesome, and things are working, but also things are falling apart. Just things go out. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, that doesn't work, and then there's a weird buzz. Like there's all kinds of stuff going wrong, and we're racing around all morning, okay? Multiple ones of us are racing from room to room to room. Oh, gotta get over the camera and get and say hi to everybody, and gotta get back in here and practice again and and run the thing and whatever and move this. And all the time there's tech that, like, duct tape that thing, man, get that thing okay. I wish, I wish that wasn't the case, dude. Now we've got such talented, awesome rock stars like this one who leads them that by the grace of God we pull it off. But you gotta know, dude, like tech gets old and breaks. It just does. So be mastered. What frustrates you most about our current setup? And what can't we do yet that we need to?

SPEAKER_08:

Okay. Um I don't know if it's a frustration, but it's a point of passion. Um so I think um I think of this church on Sunday morning, this gathering, largely, I think of it the analogy, I'm an analogy guy. And it helps me to think about the analogy of God wants to have an encounter with his people. He wants to have communion with his people. The king wants to have communion, a beautiful communion with his bride, the church. And I think about when I take my wife on a date and we go to a restaurant, the point is not the food. The point is the yeah, the interaction, the engagement, right? Um, and I've I've had restaurant experiences that have enhanced that, and I've had restaurant experiences that detracted from that. I've never had a restaurant experience that was so good that I failed to connect with my wife. I've had the opposite happen. Restaurant experience that was like it was so bad. We it was like the whole thing just got derailed, you know. Um, and I think of that when we when we come in here, we prepare all that stuff, like Mark was saying, I think of it like we're a restaurant staff. Like we're in the kitchen and we're we're putting these ingredients in and these spices and these recipes. You know, we're gonna plate the food in such a way. All of it is to support and serve the table, the king and his bride. And we we want to take your hand and Jesus' hand and put them together and take a step back. And the server and you know at the table should be attentive and anticipating your needs and coming to the rescue and bringing you more water, whatever you need. Um, that is our heart as we do it. And so it's an area of passion, maybe frustration at times, of like, you know, we have the stove that we have, we have the ingredients that we have, we have the atmosphere, the lighting, the music, the aesthetic that we have. Um, but I know all of those can work together better. They can work together to create a more immersive and um cohesive environment for facilitating that interaction in in a less distracting and more enhancing way. So that is how I think of it. Um and what I think what what we can't do yet. So I think uh it was in I think it was in Romans, Paul said, Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But like a good teacher, like that's true. But then he asks questions. But how can they call on the name of the Lord if they've not believed? And how can they believe if they haven't heard? But you know what else? How can they hear if it's not preached? Well, and and now if you think of it, how could it be preached if no one's sent? And then that iconic verse, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. And I think you know, in Paul's day that was literal feet. Yeah. If it was going somewhere, it was some a human was in the room taking it there. And that's not true anymore. Like that that is still true. There are places in the world where you know we're giving to those places. You saw that video? Like, there are places in the world that need humans to go in the room, but guys, we have such an opportunity to um to do that digitally, that I could I would connect our our digital efforts. It used to just be literally, it used to be like somebody's old phone in the back of the room, and we were lucky if we rem remembered to hit go. Like pre-COVID, that's what it was. And post-COVID, it's much better now. Um, but yeah, there are there's just ways that we could if we with with better stove range, with better lights, with better, you know, music, and that that back to the restaurant analogy, we could facilitate a better connection, I think.

SPEAKER_09:

So that's really helpful, buddy. One more question. So there's people at First Online right now. What do you want them to feel in addition to all that's happening in here for our folks, what do you want those folks to experience when they tune in?

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, that's great. Um, I want them to feel like they've already got a friend here. Like in the first five seconds, like you've you're just watching your friend. And or not watching, but interacting with your friend even. So I hear about this. I heard about it last Sunday in Connect class. If you who went to Connect class?

SPEAKER_09:

Me.

SPEAKER_08:

Who's going next?

SPEAKER_09:

Me.

SPEAKER_08:

Yeah, you should go if you haven't gone. But I was I was sitting at a table and somebody was like two or three people around the table were talking about how blown away floored they were when they walked through the door. It was like overwhelming how welcomed they were and how loved they felt. We're killing that in person. But the the digital thing is still very much that camera phone in the back of the room version. It's it looks and sounds better, but it's the same format. And to Mark's point, there's a generation that is on their phones all day long, but that won't do, they won't tune in for the fly on the wall version of what's happening somewhere else. They don't want to watch us have an encounter with the Lord. And to them, it's it just doesn't work the same way. So um there's you know, there's there's ways we're we're trying to kick around different experiments of how to make a more engaging format. We're doing that pre-show welcome thing, and the goal is to like like how cool would it be if you could you could tune in to to watch but really participate with truly participate with church where you're the the person's looking at the camera talking to you, and you can submit like a prayer request, and then they pull up their phone on the other side of the screen and say, Hey, Tony and Phoenix needs prayer for this right now. Let's all global community pull over right now. Let's pull over the church service right now and do church for Tony and Phoenix. So that's the that's the hope. That's the the heart behind it. But yeah, friend immediately and um like they're having an actual like that that encounter is not just you have to come to the restaurant here. The analogy kind of breaks down, but like you have to come in person here. But that that that is the hope and the heart behind even the digital is that it's not just tuning in and watching a show, it's actually having moments with the Lord on your way to work or on your lunch break or whatever, as you pull out your phone, you're you're interacting with the Lord.

SPEAKER_09:

Man, that's really helpful. You're good at this.

SPEAKER_08:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09:

Hey, um, the the the agenda here, guys, is to really stir you up. I mean, that's what it's about. It's really not about, so now give. I mean, I want you to be so filled with the Spirit of God that you'll do essentially whatever He asks. This this holiday season, I want every one of us on God's agenda, whatever that looks like, in multiple different ways in different lives. But here's how it works, okay? So between now and the end of January, you can go online, fierce.church slash give. And we're doing a little bit different this year. So in previous years, you just kind of gave to the whole fund. You could just, hey, what I give, we're gonna we'll divide that by six or how many priorities there are, and that's like how it works. This year, you can give to all of them, like just hey, give it to everybody, give it to all the priorities we talked about, or you can give it to which one makes your heart beat the most. Like you can give to different ones, whichever one you're like, I want to see God move in that thing. Whatever that is, you can give to that thing. I would encourage it, just so Brad knows how this works. It doesn't totally help if if you already tithe or you give with regularity, it really doesn't help to take from that and then give to the freedom offering. Um, that just makes the lights not go on, you know, as as well. Things don't get paid for. Um, so it really is beyond what you're already giving. But I want to encourage you to prayerfully consider this and respond to Jesus. Why? Because Jesus has a mission. And dude, like it's now or never. You don't know if you'll be around next Christmas. Like, let's do this now. Let's be about the business of our Father right now. Um, can we bow our heads and pray together? God, sometimes um we're surprised that you would choose us, that you would use us. The problems in the world are so big, and the message seems so stifled at times that we're like, God, why would you ever use us? Thank you that you though you use the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. And we want to ask right now for this coming season, Lord, I pray first it would be characterized by fire, relationship with you, authentic relationship with Jesus. I pray as we walk with you, Lord, you would burden our hearts for what burdens yours. And you would give us not only awareness of things that should happen, but give us burden for what you want us to do about it. We pray that you would meet these needs and way beyond these in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Hey, thanks for tuning in today. If God has used the Ministry of Fierce in your life, please consider paying it forward with a financial gift at fierce.church slash give. If you want more resources like this, check out all of our channels at YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Check out our podcasts, and check out our blog at fierce.church slash blog. If you haven't already, please consider sharing this to help people you know take their next step. We'll see you next time.