Attend the Weekend | Connect Class Series 1

Church isn’t just something you attend.
It’s something you become part of. 🧩

In this special Connect Class experience, we’re breaking down the heart behind Fierce Church and what it really means to follow Jesus here.

Our mission is simple—but powerful:
We develop prevailing followers of Jesus Christ who walk with Him step-by-step.

That means:
Not perfect people
Not finished people
But people who are growing every single day ✨

And as we step into Year One of our 15-year vision, we believe God is calling us to build something deeper:
A church where:
🤝 People feel seen and welcomed
🔥 Faith is lived out, not just talked about
📖 The Bible actually shapes how we live

This isn’t just about sitting through sermons.
It’s about:
Taking steps
Having conversations
Growing together

✨ In this message you’ll discover:
What Fierce Church is all about
How our mission connects directly to the Bible
What your next step could look like
How to move from attending → becoming

🙏 Ask yourself: Am I just watching… or actually growing?
💬 Comment “I’m taking a step” if you’re ready to move forward
🔔 Subscribe for more from Fierce Church
👉 Watch more here: https://www.youtube.com/@FierceChurch

You don’t have to have it all figured out.
You just have to take the next step. 👣✨

Transcript

Connect Class Series Preview

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We're in the Connect Class series. This is a fun series, just so you know. It's fun today. It's going to be even more fun next week. Next week we're going to have tables in here, chairs in here. We're going to have food in here, and we are going to connect uh relationally during the actual sermon. And the following week, we're going to do the very same thing. I think you're going to love it. We only do it every couple years when we do it actually as part of the service. So you're not going to want to tune in today, but also the rest of the weeks as well. Here's what I think is probably true. Every one of us has been to a church service before. If this is your first one, I hope it goes really well, man. But if if most of us have probably been to a church service before, and you walked out of there thinking, I don't know if that did anything. Maybe even real quiet. You didn't tell anybody you were thinking of that. But there was something about, I don't know that that did anything for me. And maybe what you were meaning was, I don't know that I really felt connected to God in any meaningful way, or that that moved forward in any meaningful way. Sure, maybe it was nice, maybe it's even like a compelling message, but you didn't feel like, and maybe you didn't even expect to really connect with God in any meaningful way. Well, here's some good news. That is not how Jesus invented the church to go. That really was not his goal, that people would just kind of like connect to connect. Some of you came from a background where you've seen churches like, well, you know, I don't know why God wants me to go, but it's kind of my offering, so here you go. I'm not dissing that, okay? I'm just telling you the Bible doesn't teach that's what church is about. The Bible teaches that church is about connecting personally with Jesus Christ and being stretched to grow closer as you walk with God. That's a biblical metaphor, by the way, walking with God. When we walk with God, that means I'm learning to do life with him more and more and closer and closer. So I say this all the time, but I was gonna say it again. Whether you're watching online or you're here in the room, please try to take out of your mind, hopefully, you're not really here to watch something. You're here to interact with someone. And that person is Jesus Christ, and he's here to interact with us. And so, what we're gonna do is read it through this connect class series, and we're gonna go slow. We're gonna slow down. We want everyone to understand this is what we do, this is why we do it, this is why we do all the church things, this is how all of it plays into a strategy to get God what God is after. Let's start with the mission of Fierce. The mission of Fierce Church is to develop prevailing followers of Jesus who walk with him step by step. Let me point out two things about that. That there's a whole there's a lot in there, but let me point out two things. The one is the walk. That means we're walking, we're going the distance, we're getting closer and closer as time goes by. Would you say that you're you feel like I'm closer to Jesus than I was a year ago and a year before that, and a year before that? I'm not dissing your walk with God. I'm just saying that's how the New Testament paints it, and that's what we need to be aiming at. And we walk with Him step by step. That means we take a little step and then we keep going and then we keep going and then we keep going. And so we invite everybody in here today to take a first step. Actually, last weekend might have been a first step. That's what we call the big day. And that allows me to introduce you to the process. We're gonna call it just keep moving. Just keep moving. Big days. That's like Easter, that's like Christmas Palooza, that's where we invite the entire community to say, hey, why don't you come? We're just gonna throw a party and we're gonna have a good time. And hopefully during that good time, they get familiar with the space and they've realize we're not all wackos, and it's okay to go to this place. And you're gonna walk out still alive and just fine, and no one's gonna try to steal your money or anything like that. Like it's gonna go great. And they get comfy with it, and then they come to Sunday. And Sunday is this day, and that's where, so that was a step, okay? So keep moving. That was a step. Big day to Sunday. And Sunday is really important that we understand what's supposed to happen on Sunday. Here's what the statisticians will tell you. I've been studying this this week. If you go to church one time a month, even if it's an awesome, awesome church, you might be like, Oh yes, that was so good. You're driving away. And what that was a lot like, it was like a cold plunge. It was like woo, here we go. But internally and externally, likely nothing is gonna change much if you go one time a month. Because you're you're you're getting so little of the cure that you're just not gonna move forward a lot. You're not gonna feel like you're walking or growing nearer to Jesus. Now, if you go twice per month, here's what happens you will begin to contemplate through the week the word of God should influence my actions. You're just thinking, oh, I was gonna do this, but now I'm thinking about this because the preacher said that on last Sunday, and now I think maybe I should do something else. That happens at two times per month. Now, if you go four times per month, guys, you're gonna develop something we could just call hunger. That means you're gonna start to sense I got a taste for that. I want to get a little bit more of that. Think about it this way. If it's Friday night and five o'clock and you start thinking, I'll tell you what, I could use as a pizza. You're thinking about pizza now. Now you're thinking, well, I'll tell you what, how would I get a pizza? If I was gonna get a pizza, how would I do it? And you're thinking, I got a whole plan. I know how I could get pizza if I want it enough. That hunger may leads you into decisions. When you start to go four times per month, assuming other things are going well as well, you will start to develop hungers that just make you want to do the things that we're talking about here, that the Bible is teaching here. So that is step by step. We go from Sunday to connect class. Now we're getting a two for today. We're pushing those two together. We're getting connect class and Sunday all at the same time. Really, the point of connect class, though, is to not only understand the vision and the mission and the values, it's to connect with other people. That we're limited with what we can do that right now today, but we're gonna do it next week. Um, and you're gonna see that that that is definitely part of what helps us keep taking steps, keeps walking. Ultimately, then you get into communities, we get into small groups, we get into stuff like fierce men, we get into stuff like uh serving, giving, and inviting. All of that keeps us moving. The danger is stagnation. The danger is people come in, and you've you've known this, you've seen this, people come and they'll sit in a chair. And dude, they'll sit for two years, five years, ten years, but they didn't do anything else. There's like, all right, well, yes, I'll just sit here. That is what we call not taking a step. That is just stagnating. And here's what happens because the Lord wants us to keep taking steps, he's really gonna stop blessing that after a little while. Sometimes people come in here and they listen to the message, they're like, oh man, yeah, that's really good. I feel like maybe God was speaking to me through that. And you will find if you just sit there long enough, that will wear off. And what that is, is that's the Lord saying, All right, I mean, I gave you some good food. Let's go. Keep taking steps, keep coming, just keep moving. So today we're on the first step and we're asking the question: what should someone experience when they come to Sunday? We're at Sunday, we're at the weekend. What should somebody experience when they come to Sunday? Here we go. As people attend the weekend, we want them to experience, number one, Jesus' kindness. Jesus' kindness. Why? Because the first thing we need to know about creating a great church is that the church is not the point of the church. Jesus and encountering Jesus is the point of the church. So it doesn't make sense to try to have a great church without encountering Jesus first. Jesus is the main character, man. He's the main star. And so we want people to encounter his kindness. Listen to this. This is the night before he's crucified. This is the final lesson that Jesus is telling his disciples. He says, guys, before I go, let me make sure you get this. A new command I give you, love one another as I have loved you. So you must love one another. He doesn't even say just love one another. He says, as I've loved you, by this everyone will know that you're my disciple. Have you ever noticed that Jesus loves you specifically and he loves you with honor? Jesus loves you. Like he wants to hear your heart, he wants to hear your prayers, and he will answer your personal particular prayers because he cares about you. And he wants us to love other people specifically. He wants us to learn about them and to care about them and get to know their lives and see what would be love to them. And he loves us with honor. This is the story of the prodigal son. Remember? This is an image of what it's like when we come home to Jesus, when we come home to the Father. The Father sees us coming. He's super excited. He's not saying, Well, maybe I won't let you in. He's he's like, he's running to see you. He throws a robe around your back. He puts a ring on your finger. He says, I don't care what anybody says, this is my child. And I'm super proud of him, and it's all good. I've got his back. That's what God does to us when we come home to Christ. He doesn't put any roadblocks in the way, he honors us. And God wants us to honor people, which leads us to the first fierce code. This is the culture. This is the things that this is the way we do it here, is the way to understand the fierce code. This is, hey man, whatever any other church does, this is how we do it here. And the way we do it is honor is the culture of the kingdom. Honor is the culture of the kingdom. And Jesus says, by this, everyone will know that you're my disciple. Meaning, I he says, I want people to look at you and say, dang, I could use a little bit of that. I don't know what's up with their God, but maybe I should consider their God because they love each other so well. And one of the ways they love each other is honor. That means, so so now we're gonna put it in the strategy. We want people to feel honored at the big day. We want people to feel honored from the jump when they come into this church. We want them to experience Jesus' kindness. We want them to experience us dignifying them and respecting them and not giving them a thousand hoops to jump through. We're not going to um uh talk smack about other Christians. Of course we're not gonna talk smack about them, but we don't want to have a culture where that's what we do at this church. We don't do that here, okay? Like we don't talk smack about us, we don't talk smack about other churches, we just don't do it. If you have like a real thing with gossip, can I just say there's other churches I would love to recommend? Because we don't do that here. That's not what we do. That kills what God is trying to do. That's poison to a church's bloodstream. And so we just don't do it here. We just don't. We honor people on arrival because we know it's scary to go to church, dude. Do you know this? You know this. You've done it recently, maybe. I go to other churches, dude, and I'm afraid as a pastor. I'm like, what are they gonna do? Who knows what's up with these guys? It's scary. I remember one Sunday, my wife and I were probably about 23 years old. We had a little baby in the carrier, and we go visit this church. And guys, it wasn't great. I'm just gonna tell you, it wasn't. It wasn't that good. Especially their greeting system was not very good. And we're like, you know, we're looking at each other, like, I guess we'll keep trying. And we we're stepping toward the door. We get to the door to go out. And a young lady who's 16 years old runs up to us. She goes, guys, guys, guys, guys, I'm just so glad you came today. And we were like, dang, this chick ran to come get us. And we're like, well, we don't like anything else, but we'll stay for you. Like, that was cool enough for us just to stay because you honored the fact that we came here. Somebody said, Hello. We like it that you're here. So what do we do? We want to just to acknowledge folks. That means you as a person, if you are a fiercer, you're taking responsibility. You're gonna say, like, you're gonna acknowledge people, you're gonna have small talk with people. And sometimes we don't like small talk. We might think, well, small talk isn't real, and I'm just a deep person. I can't do small talk. Give me something deep to talk about. How many know somebody like that? Hey, dude, can I just encourage you? Small talk is a way to minister to people. Small talk is, yeah, it's it's not a ton, it's not very meaningful necessarily, but it calms people down. It puts people at ease. This is where you just say, hey man, tell me what you do for a living. How long you've been coming to the church? What are some of your what if what do you do on a Sunday afternoon? When you leave here, what are you gonna go do? That is small talk, yes, but it's letting people drop their guard and find commonality. And then maybe in a little while after you've known them all, sure, go deep. But start with, dude, if you go too deep on someone and they come in here, it's the first Sunday, you're gonna like freak them out. They're gonna be like, oh, this is one of those kooky churches. Yeah, don't do that, please. We don't want to be the kooky church. How might God use your kindness? That's the question. Because, friends, fierce church has got to be known by Jesus' kindness. So as people attend the weekend, that's what we want. We want them to experience Jesus' kindness, but then also we want them to experience Jesus' presence and his voice. Ooh, it's about to get really good. By the way, you can give me a lot of amens when you start to like some of this stuff, okay? Um his presence and voice. What makes this different than just some kind of Christian country club? I'll tell you what it is. It's Jesus' presence and his voice. It's the idea that there's something else here going on. There's something from heaven. It's not just talks, it's not TED Talks. It is Jesus Himself coming to communicate with open hearts. He uses the scriptures, he he illuminates them and begins to speak to hearts. And this is the way the Apostle Paul said church should go. He was rebuking the Corinthians and saying, you guys are getting some weird stuff you're doing. But make sure whatever you do, you do this. 1 Corinthians 14, 25. Do church in such a way, essentially, as they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed and they will fall on their knees. This is guests, and worship God, declaring, God is truly here among you. That's what Jesus wants people to experience. They want, He wants people to come in here to tune in online and be like, I don't know, man, something else was going on there. I feel like God was talking to me. People have literally come up to me and said, Did you have somebody follow me or something like that? I'm like, dude, how much money do you think this pastor makes that I can hire spies to come look through your windows? Like, no, dude, that's the Holy Ghost. That's Jesus. He knows all about your stuff. And he will cater the message to him, no matter who's speaking, he will cater God's word to you to say, hello, I'm talking to you. I came when I grew up, I went to a church that, dude, they were good people, and and they even, you know, they talked about the Bible in a very honorable and respectful way, but I did not get the sense that many people at all really were doing life relationally with God. They were doing church, but they I did not get the sense that they knew Jesus. I definitely didn't get the sense that anybody was particularly inspirational that knew Jesus. We've got to be characterized by Jesus' voice. And here's how we do it. Are you ready? It's another fierce code. Nobody gets healthier on cake. Sounds a little strange at first. Let me break it down for you. Nobody gets healthier on cake. There's a biblical metaphor of milk and meat. Milk is it's the stuff that is easy to swallow. It's like, it's like baby milk. Okay, we start, we start with somebody who's brand new, maybe to the things of God, and we say, hey, let me give you all the encouragement. Let me tell you about God's loving will for your life. Like He's got a vision for you, He's behind you, He's for you, He'll forgive you. It's all the stuff. It's it's like feel good stuff. And dude, God wants us to feel good. That's good. It's good to start with milk. But then the Bible says, we've got to press on and get into meat. Meat is higher challenge. Meat is saying, okay, quit being a goober to your workmates. Like that, I mean, that's that's not verbatim, but but it's stuff like that. It's like, dude, repent of maybe your pride. It's it's that kind of high challenge stuff. And so what we want to do, there's churches that may read good at one or the other. We want to try to be both. We want to start people encouraging, but never be afraid to lovingly explain the way into higher challenge. Why? Because without higher challenge, you've seen this, people don't actually get captivatingly closer to Jesus without higher challenge. Why? Because Jesus said, if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it. Every time people are like, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and obey, I'm gonna lay my life down. Jesus gives them a little bit more of himself. And dude, you can tell when somebody's been with Jesus like that. And so we say, hey, everybody, start where you are. We're gonna put the cookies on on the on the lowest shelf for everybody to find them. And we're going to gently and lovingly explain our way into, and bro, let's keep on growing, let's keep taking our steps, let's keep moving so we can grow closer and closer to Jesus Christ. Because what the world needs is it needs Jesus Christ. So here's my request for you. Would you pray? I pray for you guys all the time, just so you know. I'm just asking, if you're gonna pray anything for me, pray that the anointing and the unction of God will be present in the sermons at fierce. Pray that we would have something from God. Because, dude, I there's nothing in me. Only God is God, and only He can cater stuff to our hearts the way that they need to be. So, for real, when you pray for God's anointing in here, dude, it shows up better. So please just do it. Slap your neighbor on the elbow, say, just do it. Here's one more. As people attend the weekend, what we want them to experience, we want them to experience Jesus' kindness. We want them to experience his presence and voice. And then, out of everything else, the most important thing is Jesus' message. This is the message. This is the message from God. This is the announcement. People can be made right with God, they can be forgiven by God and have a relationship with him just because Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for their sin and now invites them to be close to him. That's available to anybody and everybody. And here's what gets wrong with churches, okay? They get inward focused, and this usually happens the longer the church is in existence. They just begin to like navel gaze and they make it about the Christians rather than the people that aren't there. They make it about all their preferences. Well, I like this and I like this kind of music, and I like when we do these kinds of things. And baby, those will always be meaningful. And at the same time, we're always gonna tilt the playing field toward the one who does not know Jesus Christ. The way we're gonna do this is try to get as many people as possible to hear the gospel in a way that feels honoring to them, in a way that helps them keep on moving. We're gonna do it because that's what we're here to do. Why? Because the stakes are life and death. The stakes are beyond life and death that people hear and understand the gospel. And the gospel, clarifying it, that's not just the Bible. That means it's the message of forgiveness through Jesus. It's really high stakes because just I mean, think about how long you're gonna be dead. It's a long time, baby. It's a long time. Life and death. That means eternity with God forever in his presence, or eternity without God, forever separated from him. Those are really high stakes. And so here's what we do we do everything we can to pepper in all the time, and you'll get sick of me hearing it. Hopefully that means it's working. You'll get sick of me hearing, or you get sick of me saying, talking about the gospel, and here's the relational version. It's my favorite version. There's a lot of theological ways to explain the gospel, but here's my favorite version. It's the relational way. It starts with this. Check it out, see if you can perceive it. Jesus likes you. That's step one. Jesus likes you. It doesn't begin with you're a scumbag, you're a sinner. It begins with Jesus likes you. He came for you willingly, he wanted you, knowing everything about you. Jesus likes you. Check it out, dude. Jesus likes you more than anyone else likes you. Jesus likes you, even though you've behaved in ways that completely disrespect and dishonor the honor him. He still likes you the most of anyone that likes you. He's the one who likes you the most. Here's number two. He's able, because of the cross, to forgive you. He's able to do it. It's within his power. Now that's where the sin came in. Yes, every one of us needs to be forgiven, but he's willing to forgive us. He's able to forgive us for anybody. Somebody say anybody, anybody who will trust and receive his forgiveness. When we say trust, that just means you say, okay, just like a little child, just come just as you are and you say, okay, I just believe it. I just trust that you're not lying to me. I trust that you actually do want to save me. You actually do want to get close to me, and you're willing to and able to. That's the relational gospel. Now here's a more biblical framework for it. It starts with our fallenness. Okay, this is Ecclesiastes 7.29. God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path. What this means is every one of us is malfunctioning from the start, in one sense. We've got sin in us, and what it causes us to do is think about fallenness as the desire to do my own will instead of God's. That's what fallenness is. You can't get away from it. You always have it. I desire to do my will rather than God's. That's the malfunction. Romans 3.23 says this way everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious standard. Everybody's got the disease. Okay, I'm gonna reveal something to you, and I'm gonna ask you not to judge me because I know some people you just you like to judge this kind of thing. My favorite show is the Walking Dead. Deal with it. Okay? It just is, alright? Now, some people like that's not Christian to watch. Look, you don't know, alright? What did you discuss it with Jesus already? Me and him are cool with it, okay? Just so you know. In The Walking Dead, I'm gonna give you a season one spoiler, okay? So if you don't want to hear it, put hands over your ears right now, okay? Here's what it is. You know, in The Walking Dead, there's zombies. That's that's what's going on. In The Walking Dead, everybody's already infected. That means it's not just you can okay, you get better by a zombie, you become a zombie. It's no, if you die, you will become a zombie because everybody has the disease. It's just airborne, it's in the air. That's a little bit of a silly parallel, but it's in the air. Everybody's fallen. Everybody's malfunctioning. Everybody isn't loving like Jesus. That's where we start. God takes the initiative to come rescue us. First John 4 10. In this act, we see what What real love is, it's not our love for God, but his love for us when he sent his son to satisfy God's anger against us. God's anger was rightly so against our sin. But Jesus, the Father, looks at you and says, Son, I love them. Go get them. And not just people, you. He loves you, he wants you forever with him in heaven. Check this out. It's a free rescue. It's a hundred percent free. Romans 10, 13. As the scripture says, everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved. You don't have to, dude, you we're gonna see baptism in a couple minutes. You don't have to get baptized to be saved. You don't have to go to the church class, you don't have to come to connect class, you don't have to go to like a journey somewhere across another continent. No, baby, all you have to do is say, Jesus, save me. That's really it. And he will come, why? Because he wants to. Because Jesus likes you. And he's able to, and he wants to. He does it absolutely for free. And it's complete. Those who belong to Christ Jesus are no longer under God's sentence. All the all the arrest warrants that were against you, Jesus took them, took them on himself, paid all the penalties in your place. There are no more arrest warrants. Every time you and I even still sin, there's no condemnation for those that are in Christ. You are free from that forever. It's complete rescue. It's totally complete. And one more thing about it, it's 100% permanent. Meaning what when you really trust Christ, when you've really asked him to come into your heart and he's birthed inside you a desire to seek him and walk with him, baby, it doesn't rub off. You can't mess it up because Jesus isn't relying on your strength to keep it, he's relying on his strength to keep you. See, he knows that we still behave a lot of the same ways. We're still going to sometimes choose our own way. He says, You just keep on returning to me when you stumble. Just fall down, get up, and come back to me, and I will forgive again and we'll keep on moving. That's a lot of theology all at once, dude. Let me give you one more that's a little more simple. It's the one I like to share with people when I'm sitting with them at a table at Starbucks. Here we go. This is the bridge illustration. You might have seen this. It starts with us stepping out from under the umbrella of God's commands. And when we stepped out from under that umbrella, the whole world got really bad. And now there's a chasm between us and God. And in that chasm is death and hell and division and self-worship and war and all the bad things of the world. Now we have to deal with that, and we're cut off from God relationally. But because of Jesus Christ, he says, I'm gonna build a bridge through the cross. Through the cross, we come to God through Christ, and now we are reconciled back with God. We skip all the hell and we're with God permanently, forever in heaven. That's the bridge illustration. That's why the gospel is so important, my friends, because the gospel, without the gospel, none of it happens. If we don't help people accept the invitation from Christ, nothing changes in the world through Christians, nothing happens at all. You don't have any power from God. It's only the gospel that does it. The gospel, listen to this and it's gross. The gospel is the birth canal of the kingdom of God. Think about it for 10 more seconds and then never think about it again. But that's what it is, okay? It's it's through the gospel that we are born again into spiritual life. That's why everything we do, do guys, we're gonna help the poor, but it's not primarily about helping the poor. We're gonna have like cool music in here, but it's not primarily about whatever music you like. We're gonna reach people online, but it's not primarily about online stuff. It is about the message of Jesus Christ that takes people from death to life now and forever. That's what we do here. That's what it is. That's the mission. All right, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon. If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it. Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel. Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out. Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out another podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at BibleLeadership.com. And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.