Kingdom Builders 2026

The world is instantly connected, yet millions still haven’t heard the story that changes everything. We sit down with Pastor Kyle Trewern to explore how a missionary family is planting Genoa International Church in a city where fewer than two percent personally know Jesus—and why prayer, partnership, and persistence are breaking through real barriers of distance, language, and culture. From a house church reading John in four languages to a quiet hospital-room miracle that turned alarms into awe, these stories show what happens when we ask for rain and bring the saddle inside.

We walk through a simple blueprint that hasn’t changed since Acts 1:8: wait on the Lord, receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and be witnesses locally, regionally, and globally. Kyle shares how everyday hospitality—meals, open Bibles, and honest questions—can help neighbors from China, Russia, and across Europe hear the gospel in their heart language, often for the very first time. Along the way, we confront a sobering image: too many empty saddles in churches and missions. Whether it’s seven pulpits open across Arizona or entire neighborhoods in Genoa without a Bible-preaching church, the need is clear and the invitation is personal.

If you’ve ever wondered how to make a real impact, this conversation offers practical next steps: pray specifically for laborers and open doors, give strategically through Kingdom Builders to fund translation and church plants, and be ready to go—across the street or across the sea. You’ll hear a warm, faith-filled challenge to move when the Spirit moves, plus a heartfelt invitation to trust Jesus and seek the Spirit’s empowering presence.

If this story stirred you, share it with a friend, leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next. Then tell us: where is God asking you to pick up the saddle—Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, or the ends of the earth?

Cornerstone
https://www.cornerstoneaz.org/

Follow Jesus
https://www.cornerstoneaz.org/follow-...

Life Groups 
https://www.cornerstoneaz.org/life-gr...

Giving 
https://cornerstoneaz.churchcenter.co...

Church Center App - Download then add Cornerstone Christian Center in Avondale, AZ

iOS
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/my-ch...

Android 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/de...

----

Instagram 
  cornerstoneaz  

Facebook
  cornerstoneaz.org  

Twitter
  cornerstoneaz.org

Transcript

The Unheard Gospel And Barriers

Jason Brown 0:05

We live in a world of instant connection. Information moves at the speed of light. We can reach the other side of the planet in a second. But for millions, the most important message in history is still out of reach. It isn't that they've rejected the gospel, it's that they've never actually heard it. These are the barriers in the way. Barriers of distance, barriers of language, barriers of culture. Romans 10 14 asks, how then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? Kingdom builders is our answer to that question. We don't just hope the message reaches them, we make sure it does. We fund the translation, we fuel the broadcast, we support the messenger. Every person on earth deserves to hear the story of Jesus in a language they can understand. Because when the ears are finally opened, lives aren't just changed, they're transformed for eternity. This is our mission. This is our moment. Let's make sure they hear. And our kids, as a result, have had a worldview that is wide because we said yes to go and to give our life after the things that God has called us to do. And I can tell you, as someone who said yes, that no one owes us anything. So we walk by faith and take a large step of faith. It takes guts, it takes moxie, it takes a solidarity in your face, saying, God, I'll trust you in this. But I'll tell you that all the way you have to make that decision, just like every single one of us, every single day to say, Lord, I trust you in this process. Friends, that's who we have with us today is someone who has taken a step by faith and said, Lord, I will go. I'll leave behind everything. I'll go and I'll plant the church so that other people may know about you, that they'll have a relationship with you, that they can also know the answer that we have found in our lives that is only found in Jesus Christ. How many people would say amen to that? This couple that we get to hear from today, and specifically in Pastor Kyle, they went and planted a church in the end of their 20s, the beginning of their 30s, and then said yes and went into missions and planted the church or planting the church in Europe. As people who planted the church in Europe, in France, I can tell you that's not an easy thing to do. It takes lots of tenacity. It takes a willingness to listen to the Holy Spirit of God for open hearts and opportunities. And I could tell you they come from good stock. He'll share a story today that I'm not going to take away the glory from about the heritage they have of ministry. But he didn't even get it to go into the fact that we as a cornerstone supported his wife, the other half of this ministry couple, as a missionary kid on the field as they served in Chile all these years ago. So it's a really cool full circle moment as he grew up in Cottonwood, where Celeste was serving, and his wife grew up as a missionary kid who came to this church and shared the story. Please welcome Pastor Kyle Trewern as he comes to share the word today.

Why Genoa Needs A Church

House Church In Four Languages

Funding, Prayer, And Partnership

Acts 1:8 And The Blueprint

Power, Miracles, And Witness

Stories Of Provision And Calling

Open Doors In Italy And Beyond

Empty Saddles And The Great Commission

Response, Salvation Call, And Sending

Kyle Trewern 3:32

Thank you, Pastor Jay. Love you, man. Appreciate you. Yeah, man, we got layers. We go layers deep in connection here, man. It is just, it feels like coming home. I'm glad to be here today. Let me let me get this. Oh I was at a church a couple weeks back and my iPad would not open up. And I just like froze. I've been in ministry like 20 years and I've never frozen on stage that bad. And Holly was on stage with me. And I'm just like that, that little spinning wheel that was on my screen. That might as well have been above my head. And she's looking at me like, what is wrong with this man? All right, we're good to go. I'm Kyle Trewern. Glad to be here today. I am, like Pastor Jay said, a an Arizona native and a missionary along with my family. Uh, this is my wife Holly and my son, our son Mark. He's 13. He'll be 14 next month. And our daughter Paisley, who is 16, and driving, praise the Lord. 16-year-old will just put it'll it'll encourage your prayer life. Let me just put it that way. And uh yeah, we are planting the church in Genoa, Italy. We've been uh previously church planters and pastors in the Boston area, and now we have the joy and the privilege of sharing Christ with people from a bunch of different places, a bunch of different backgrounds, a bunch of different nations in the city of Genoa. Genoa, Italy has a lot going for it. What it doesn't have is good Mexican food. So I literally smuggle in red chili powder from the stores here. When I when I go to like like Food City in Cottonwood, that's where they carry the good red chili there. And I'll get like the whole shelf of like the bueno hot red chili powder or the barkers, and I'll put that in my suitcase and bring it with me so that I can make my own enchiladas. Gotta take matters into your own hands. They don't have good Mexican food at all. Uh they do have good Italian food, so there's that. We'll we'll take what we can get. But not only do they not have good Mexican food, but less than 2% of northern Italians have a personal relationship with Jesus. So that what that means is that most people that we meet are missing out on enchiladas and on somebody that can share the gospel with them, which is way, way more important. When you think about how you came to know Christ, it's because somebody at some point in time, a faithful believer, put something in motion. You see, we're here in Cornerstone Church because in 1986, the Brown family founded this church, planted this church, said somebody needs to do something about the lostness of the world in this particular place. And you're probably here today. You might not have been one of the founding members in 1986, but somebody most likely invited you to church one day. Maybe invited you to church or shared their faith with you and said, I want you to meet the same Jesus Christ that I know that saved my soul, freed me from sin, redeemed my life, and I'm following him, and you can too. But because in most of Europe and in Genoa, Italy, 98 out of 100 individuals don't have that relationship with Jesus. That means most of our friends that we meet there will go their entire lives without somebody telling them about Jesus Christ. This is why we're there starting an international church in Genoa, Italy, to build a life-giving community of faith where people of all ages and backgrounds can find and follow Jesus. And it's a joy to share a little bit about that with you here today. Uh, we've got a couple of pictures. Man, I love it. We got the we got the jumbotron here so you can see like the full detail of the of the city. We're on a hillside kind of in between the mountains and the sea, and it's the whole city looks like this. And and you should hear when when the soccer team scores. There's no air conditioning, and everybody just yells, and it's really fun. We know when they score a goal, whether we're watching or not, because we just hear the the cheers. But as we walk the city, this is the central the central piazza, the piazza di Ferrari on the on the square in the city, and we hear languages, we hear multiple languages on any given day. You you might you might be sitting at a cafe and hear Arabic, or you might walk a block down and hear German, or you might be uh walk you know at one of the stalls there at that at the Christmas market and hear French. And there's this whole, because we're a port city, it's a very international city. And so there's people from all nations and walks of life there. We've been AGWM missionaries since 2021, and our first term on the field, we started a house church in our home where the typical gathering saw people from five or more countries just on a normal, a normal Sunday. And we read the Bible in four languages English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Now, my wife Holly, she was a missionary kid. Her family, they were missionaries and church planters in in Chile in South America, and so she learned Spanish as a little girl. And then our two kids, they're at the international school, and they so when when they were growing up, Holly, if she didn't want them to understand what she was saying, she would talk to me in Spanish. And I and I lived in Arizona and Texas, and so I understood enough Spanish to where I could be like, yeah, no, okay, I no, I get the idea. And so it was like they didn't they didn't really appreciate that. They're like, speak English. So then when they go to the international school, they're learning Italian, which we're all learning Italian, and uh they did such a great job at that, but also they're like, you can pick a you need to pick a second language to learn. You can learn French or or Mandarin or Spanish. And they were like, Well, mom and dad already speak enough Spanish, and Mandarin seems super hard, so let's do French. But God has used that, and we've actually they have had an opportunity to translate in the Bible study in French, and and Paisley and Mark both learned French fairly well, and now when they don't want us to know what they're talking about, they switch to French. But the word of God opens in four languages in our gatherings, and and it's just so rich and full. Like we started in John chapter 1, verse 1, and we're like, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God, the word was God. I have a question. Whoa, that was fast. And they said, in in French, it's verb. And in span, and the the girl with the Spanish Bible says, in in Spanish, it's verb too. And Italian and English, they're like, Well, Italian and English just says word. Like, why is it different? And I said, Well, I don't, I'm not sure what the thought process was there, but when you go to the to the Greek, I guess we you know, if we add the original Greek, that's five languages now. Uh, start talking in tongues in the Holy Spirit. Now we're up to six. I mean, you never know whether we're just you know Pentecostal or international in our prayer meetings, man. I don't know the difference between Swahili and tongues. That wasn't in my notes. In the beginning was the word, the word was with God, and the word was God. And they said, well, French says says verb, and I said, you know what, when we go to the Greek, it's logos, and it's the the the the he's the the animated word, the living word. And I said, you know what? I think I like French better where he's the he's the action verb. Jesus is the word that does stuff, amen. And if you're ready today for Jesus to do stuff in your life, say amen. We've also preached in established churches, new church plants, open air evangelism services. Uh, often the crowd present at these services was made up of people from countries that we can't go to, but God brought them to us. We shared our faith personally with people from over 20 different nations, including China, Russia, France, Switzerland, Italy, Latvia, USA, Kenya, Chile, India, Germany, Turkey, Panama, the Philippines, Mexico, Sweden, Japan, England, Honduras, El Salvador, Ecuador, Moldova. I don't even know where some of those places are on the map, but I met people from there. In the often in the context of sharing a meal or a coffee in our home. And we get to be a part of what God is doing. As we return to Genoa here this summer for our second term, our task is to fully establish a brand new church. So we're hoping to open a church in a location on the street there. Uh, the name is Genoa International Church, so that people know what they're coming to. Sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and making disciples. And two things that we need in the partnership of the local church to make this possible. Two things we can't do without is funding and prayer. Your monthly support and one-time cash offerings when you when you give to kingdom builders and you're you're part of all the all the missionaries that you support. I mean, I saw I saw a familiar face. I saw Johnny on the on the screen, one of your missionaries to uh to Thailand. He's from my hometown in Arizona. I remember when Johnny got saved in Cottonwood, man. That dude was on fire for the Lord. I love Johnny. I bet he's still on fire for the Lord. I don't doubt it at all. That smile, man, it's contagious. But when you give to missionaries, when you give to kingdom builders, you're supporting families like the Truerns and the Pangolinins and people all over the world to go and establish the church. And we can't do get there without the funding. The funding gets us there, and then the prayer makes us effective when we're when we're one, we're once wow, I used to speak English. I got the prayer makes us effective when we get there. And so I've got prayer cards here in the back. I've got a table back there that's got some some little trinkets and stuff from Italy. I can show you how how we make coffee with the coffee maker, the little mocha pot on top of the stove. But the most important thing on that table is these prayer cards. And what you can do is you can take them, and it's got our our picture there, it's got our contact info on the back, which you know you can you can email us and or text us and say, like, hey, we prayed for you today. That's that's good. But the most important thing is that you remember to pray for us when you see us. So you can take it and stick it in your Bible, or maybe put it on your fridge, whichever one you open more. And then whenever you see the true and family, you remember to pray for us and to pray for the lost around the world. Amen. Amen. Thank you for your your financial support and your prayer support. As we go into the word of God today, I invite you to turn to Acts chapter 1, verse 8. I believe God has a word for us. From his word. Acts chapter 1 verse 8. There was once a church out in West Texas in a town in a drought. And they were praying for rain. And they had a guest preacher come into town and he rode in on his horse. He takes his saddle off the horse and begins to carry it inside. And I said, Preacher, why are you bringing your saddle into the church? He said, because we're praying for rain. And I don't want my saddle to get wet. I wonder if anybody was ready to bring your saddle inside today. God, I pray that as we prepare our hearts to receive the word, Lord, that we would be ready. Speak to our hearts, change our lives, do what only your word can do in Jesus' name. Amen. How many of you are ready to bring your saddle inside today? Yes. Gage, help me keep an eye on the time. Here's my truck keys. If if I'm still pre- if I'm still preaching at at 1215 and haven't given any kind of kind of altar call yet, like go steal my truck. It's the old busted one. Time gets squishy when I'm telling stories, preaching the word, loving people or eating Mexican food. I love all of those things. And so we get to do a lot of that here today. Acts 1.8 says, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. This is the plan. This is an important moment. You see, Jesus, he has gone to the cross, defeated death, super cool, risen alive again. Over 500 disciples saw him resurrected physically alive. Also, super cool. And he says this. Go wait in Jerusalem and pray. And what's here's what's going to happen: you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses. In Jerusalem, that's local. Judea Samaria, regional, and to the ends of the earth, global. We see the blueprint here, and it hasn't changed. Wait on the Lord, receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and go and make disciples. He said in Matthew 28, 19, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am. I memorized it in the King James, so it's low. I don't know what that's just in there. Now it's like behold or yo, pay attention, bro. For for real, and for real, I am with you always. I mean it. I'm with you always, lo. This is a good King James. I'm with you always to the end of the age. Jesus is risen, alive. He says this, and then he goes X games mode up into the sky. I'm guessing that this is an important thing that he says. And this powerful new work of the Holy Spirit after Pentecost is the animating force, the life of the brand new church that God is is bringing forth in the world. The kingdom of heaven has arrived. And it's for everyone. And so they go and they wait in Jerusalem. And now I always have questions like I see where as I study, it's like over 500 people saw the risen Jesus. But then when we get to the upper room moment in Acts 2, it says 120 were filled with the Holy Spirit. I think that gap there is some people didn't bring their saddle inside, and they they they miss the moment. Wait on the Lord. What happens when we wait on the Lord? And in his timing and in his moment, he sends the answer and he sends the Holy Spirit. And the church is born. I'll let you read the rest of Acts chapter 2 on your own time. I encourage you to read the Bible on your own. I preached a sermon for a lady last year whose Bible was just raggedy. It was fallen apart. And it was one of the easiest sermons I ever preached because her life just exuded kindness and love and generosity. And her Bible was there on the table next to the casket. And I said, That makes sense. Read your Bible on your own time. If your Bible's falling apart, you probably aren't. Yeah. Go read Acts 2 and let it get in your guts. What happens is the Holy Spirit comes and he a rushing wind and tongues of fire, and people are baptized in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues that they don't, in languages that they don't know, and the and thousands of people get saved, and miracles are happening, and it's just we got momentum now. We got revival, we got a move of God, stuff's happening. And what happens, that we receive the Holy Spirit not just to feel good. The Holy Spirit's not a feeling, y'all. The Holy Spirit, I'm gonna say that the Holy Spirit is more than a feeling. The Holy Spirit is the the embodiment, the the the spiritual reality of the living God living inside of us, animating our spirit, giving life, the the pneuma, the the life, the the whoof. Sometimes I don't I don't think of the word it's the whoosh, the wind that powers our spirit. And this powerful new work of the Holy Spirit, it animates the the church and it gives it motion and it gives power. The power to do what? Power to for proclamation, right? What do we do when we receive the Holy Spirit? Then he says, we don't just receive the Holy Spirit and like, yay, I that was worship was powerful today. Church was good. What is church ever bad? Like I always thought that was weird. Like that church, you know, church was really good. Of course, church is good. The presence of God is there. And we receive power for proclamation, effectiveness in winning in ministry and in witness, power for victory over sin. It is possible to live with the Holy Spirit and live an overcoming life, not defeated by sin, not defeated by evil. Full of the Holy Spirit, we operate in the anointing, not just our ability. When we operate in the anointing, we're like that preacher that I heard one time that says, I want to be so full of the Holy Spirit that when my feet hit the floor in the morning, the demons go, Oh no, he's up. I want that in my life. Power for miracles. Everywhere the people of God went, the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven had arrived was accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, evidenced by what was being put back into order. God is the God that makes things right. He's the God that does miracles. He still does miracles today, and we're gonna make room for miracles in this room at the end of this service as the kingdom of heaven repairs the brokenness of the kingdom of the world. I've seen God do miracles. I walked into a hospital room late one Sunday night, so tired. Why y'all gotta have emergencies on Sunday nights when your pastors are tired, man? Don't have a crisis when the Browns are on vacation. Wait till after. You got to go on vacation. Did anybody interrupt it with a crisis? What a great church. Good job. You guys got the memo. So tired. Laying down Sunday night late, getting ready to go to sleep, and I get a call. I'm like, oh no. Somebody's in the hospital. Okay. It's so-and-so. His family goes to the church regularly. This guy, he's got he's got some drug issues and he's overdosed. And his life is hanging in the balance. And so I go. I would like to say I was like the man of faith and power in the hour, and just walking in, just like kicking down hell's door, but I wasn't. I was basically just doing being obedient. So I put on my church clothes because at 29 I still had like a super baby face and they wouldn't let me in if I didn't look like a pastor. So I put my put my church clothes back on and go to the hospital and get to the get to the ICU. And this man is he's overdosed and he's on a ventilator, unconscious. And the doctor says he might wake up and he might wait, he and he might not. Either he'll wake up tonight and he'll live, or he'll never wake up again. And the family looks at me and says, What do we do? I said, Well, we pray. And something in me in that moment just felt led to pray a pretty direct prayer. And it wasn't hype and it wasn't like, you know, calling down fire from heaven or anything like that. It was, it was, it went a lot like, Lord, I prayed that this young man would know that you are God. And I pray that his family would know that there's power in the name of Jesus. Pray that you would touch him and heal him, save his life in Jesus' name. Amen. And then alarms started going off, and then his eyes opened, and then bro sat up. I was like, Whoa! And all the ICU nurses come rushing in and they're like, What did you do? And his mom's like, What is happening? And they're they're freaking out, and they're like, What'd you do? And I'm like, I just prayed, I didn't touch him, I promise. And they're like, You gotta get out of here. So I'm you know, then I get kicked out of the ICU. I'm standing in the hallway. I'm just like, Well, that was cool. So I called the lady that called me and like, hey, I prayed for your your brother-in-law. Like, how's he doing? I was like, bro, woke up. What? Yeah, he's awake. They send him home the next morning because he was fine. We've seen God do miracles in my family's life. I remember my I'm growing up hearing the stories of of what God had done in my grandma and grandpa's life when the offering is $2.87 and they got no groceries. So grandma makes a grocery list and they pray over it, and the next day the whole list shows up on their doorstep because God answers prayer and does miracles. I don't know what kind of miracle you need today, whether it's a financial miracle, whether it's a healing miracle, whether there's a family member that has strayed from God that you're praying for that they would get saved. We believe together. We're gonna believe that God's gonna do some miracles. Amen. Pray for rain and bring your saddle inside. The kingdom of heaven repairs the brokenness of this world. The disciples understood the power in this context of the Holy Spirit to include the power to preach the gospel and the power to work miracles confirming the message. The same word that in in the Greek is it's dynamis, dunamis, it's it's it's used at least seven other times in Acts to refer to the power to work miracles in connection with God, and it goes together with gospel proclamation. You better believe I said to that young man, I found that young man that woke up out of the out of the overdose. The first chance I got and said, Bro, God has given you an opportunity to serve him for all the days of your life, and you would do well to make Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior. But we see the blueprint here that Jesus gives us is still the same to change the world. Wait on the Lord, receive the Holy Spirit, and go make disciples. We see it even beforehand in Isaiah 40, 31. It says, that they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. How many of you need your strength renewed today? Wait on the Lord, receive the Holy Spirit. They shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not faint. It's the same thing we hear we see here today. Wait on the Lord. That's where Jesus says, go to Jerusalem, renew your strength, receive the Holy Spirit, and go, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. A lot of times we want to wait on the Lord and we want to renew our strength and we want to go to lunch. But God is inviting us to participate in the Great Commission. There are no nobodies in the kingdom of God. Everybody is a somebody in the kingdom of God. You are all invited. Every single one of us has a part to play to participate in building the kingdom of heaven. You are somebody. And when you look around at the brokenness of the world, I invite you to pray, God, somebody ought to do something about this because without fail, every time I've prayed, God, there's a situation here, somebody ought to do something about it. Usually the Holy Spirit comes back to me and is like, bro, who is somebody? You is somebody if you didn't know. You are invited to make a difference in the world, fill full of the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is for everybody, the gospel is for everybody, it is available to you. And when we receive the Holy Spirit, we want it's like we want God to move, but we're not ready for God to move us. Oh man, you got it. You see where I'm going with this? Don't expect the move of God that doesn't result in you moving too. Because when we receive the power of the Holy Spirit, then we get to, we get to, we don't have to, we get to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. What is that? Local, regional, global. Local looks like your family. Local likes your looks like your workplace. Local looks like your school. Local looks like that that path that you walk every day, that God, your neighborhood where God has given you unique access and influence. God wants to impact your micro world, your regional world, the whole world. And when we are willing to move when God moves, we get momentum because we're part of something much bigger than us. Pastor Celeste and I, we were we were part of the revival in Cottonwood in the late 90s. I was a young teenager, man. And I remember missionaries coming in and preaching the gospel. Guys like Terry, Terry Pascal that told my brother and I about like roasting roasting bugs in Indonesia over a campfire, like a like a candle. I don't know if it was true or not, but we tried it. We're like, man, that sounds cool. But the move of God there sent out pastors and missionaries all over the world. Pastors all across Arizona. My grandpa cook at the donut shop. Got so full of the Holy Spirit that he started leading these old timers to the Lord because God, that's where God had given him unique access, and he got a renewed vigor and fullness and power of the Holy Spirit, and he's praying for miracles with these old pioneer guys in the in the donut shop. And it's still happening today. I was at a pastor's conference last week in Texas, and I was talking to a guy that he he he's a he leads pastors in Canada. I told him where I was from, and he's like, oh man, there's a move of God happening there. I was like, what? He says, yeah, Cottonwood, there's like these roughneck young men that are getting saved and getting baptized in the rivers. I was like, that's my cousins. This is amazing because the work of God continues when we not only receive it, but when we move with God. I grew up here in missionary stories. Every time I would cry my eyes out and then empty my wallet out. We had a speed the light. It was either speed the light or light for the lost, like a banquet thing. My brother and I, we were like eight and ten, and we had saved up some money. My brother had more money than I did at that point. I think it was after his birthday. He had like a hundred bucks. And we we were looking for these two video games at Walmart. We had the Super Nintendo, and we really wanted to get King Griffith Jr. baseball and Looney Tunes basketball. Super cool Super Nintendo games. If you were there, you know. I just told you how old I am, but that's okay. Like, bro, this guy's from the 1900s. And we're at this missions banquet, I think it was Rick Ryan preaching. And of course, we, you know, just somebody ought to do something about this. Just emptied our wallets for missions because we wanted to be a part of what God is doing in the world. And my brother Kendall, he said he gave his whole hundred bucks. And our mom was so proud of us that she took us to Walmart and was like, here's 20 bucks. You guys can get something. So we're like, all right, what if we pulled our money together? Maybe we can find something cool. And just out of out of curiosity, we went to the video game section, and I still remember on this rack. That day there was Super Nintendo games on like on sale for some reason. And my brother goes, King Griffey Jr. Baseball, 10 bucks, sweet, pulls it out of the rack, and immediately behind it, also on sale for 10 bucks. Looney Tunes basketball, let's go. I'll never forget like my mom's like teaching us in Walmart, like boys, this is a miracle from God. These games are $50 each. You obeyed God and gave your hundred bucks, and now God has provided. The Lord wanted to teach us a lesson with King Griffith Jr. baseball and Looney Tunes basketball. I remember Phil Hutzel, the missionary to Paraguay, rolling out a 20-foot snake skin named Silent Sam and teaching us about the jungles of South America. I remember, I actually remember a service with Tom Hinton, who is my wife's dad, when I was like 13, and walking up to him afterwards and being like, Man, do you think I could do like what you do? And he says, Man, I hope you get to come do it with me. And now talk about layers of connection, man. Now that he's my father-in-law now. God puts things together. We're part of a much bigger story. And now in Italy, we get we've got stories where now where we're we're seeing God do these same kinds of things, these same kinds of miracles, where God is putting us in the right place at the right time with the right people, and prayer is opening doors. I mentioned that earlier. Prayer opens doors that no man can shut and shuts doors that no man can open. Man, we had it's Easter week, and I'm in extra language school class because my brain is not as squishy as it used to be. You know, it takes a little bit of extra work to get the Italian in there. And I'm in language school, and there's some students from China, university students, and they're coming to study art and and music in the Italian universities, but first they got to learn the language. And so they're in class with me, and it's Easter week, and they said, What's this holiday? And our teacher looks at me and goes, Kyle, you know something about Easter, right? I was like, Bro, somebody back home. There's a praying grandma today. You don't get this kind of opportunity without some grant, some church grandma got my prayer card outer Bible this morning and was like, Lord, open doors. And I said, Yeah, I know a little bit about Easter. And I began to share the origin story of the crucified and risen again Jesus Christ with these university students from China that God had brought all the way to me because they needed to hear for the very first time of the risen again Jesus Christ. And of course, what we did was we invited them over at Easter dinner. This is also how we celebrate Easter, is you come to your family's house and eat, and y'all don't got family here, so come eat at us at our house. And they didn't speak English, and and we didn't speak Mandarin, so we met in the middle in bad Italian all day long, and we had a great time. But also, we knew that they were coming, and there was also a lady from Russia in that same class, and we printed off the from the Gospel of John, the resurrection story, in Mandarin and in Russian, and in English, and said, This is how we sell thanks for celebrating Easter with us. This is how our tradition celebrates as we read this story, and not only do we do we read it, but we believe and know it to be true, and that this same uh Jesus is not just a mythical character, but he's he lives, uh his spirit lives in us. And we read the story in Italian so everyone could understand in the room, and as they're reading along in their own language, and then one of our friends says, Can I read it in Mandarin? This story is really interesting to us. Yeah. And they read out loud for the very first time in their own language. The good news of Jesus Christ. God put me in the path of a 15-year-old boy that had been reading the Bible on his own just out of curiosity. And he's like, Man, I got questions. He's talking to me and he says, Man, I got I got questions. I wish there was somebody that could answer my questions about what I'm reading. Again, I just kind of left up, it's like praying, Grandma. I said, Bro, that's what I do. He said, What do you mean? I'm like, I have a master's degree in that. That's like my whole job, that's why I'm here. He's like, Really? It's like, yeah, that's kind of cool. I said, Yeah, wait till you wait till you hear what the actual Bible is talking about. That's even cooler. Because his questions were about, he had started in Genesis and got 15-year-old reading the Bible on his own, got all the way to Isaiah. And he's in the prophecies about Jesus in Isaiah. And he says, What is this about? I was like, Man, that is about my main man Jesus. Let's draw, let's connect the dots. And we went and connected the dots from the beginning of creation to Isaiah and how the whole story weaves together and is fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Because God is a miracle-working God and cares about whether every single person on this planet has access to the good news of Jesus Christ. There was a lady in our Bible study that she kept asking questions and she would apologize for asking questions. She said, I'm sorry I have a question. I'm sorry I have a question. And we're like, that's kind of what we're here to do. You don't have to apologize. And she's like, the the look of relief and the joy on her face when she said literally her words were, I've been waiting my whole life. She's probably like 60 years old. And she says, I've been waiting my whole life for somebody that could answer my questions about faith. And our hearts were just so humbled to be that person that somebody had been praying. When you obey God, you might be the answer that somebody to the prayer that people have been praying for decades. And you get to be the fulfillment of that when you partner with the Holy Spirit. And this lady, after we got through the the gospel of John together, she walked through the whole study and we said, What did you learn from from John? And she came from a Catholic background, very nominal Catholic, like cultural Catholic, like just kind of superstitious, not like that's what most cas most Catholics in in Europe are. It's just kind of a cultural affiliation. And she said, I know now that Jesus is the bridge between me and God. Oh, praise the Lord, church, that there was somebody. We got to be somebody in that moment. We got to be an answer to prayer. I've got a picture of uh, it looks like a Thanksgiving dinner, like a meal. Yeah. So we Holly's part of a group of ladies that they get together and they and they walk and we pastor. We really try to pastor our community. People ask, how many people are in your church? And we're like, about a hundred thousand, they just don't all know it yet. Because in our stretch of the city, there's about a hundred thousand people and zero Bible preaching Christian churches. So we consider ourselves to be the pastor for this whole stretch of the city. And in this city, there's this group of ladies, then they get together and they share meals and culture. And the 10 ladies are from like 10 different countries all over the place. And we invited them over to our house for again, we invited them over to our house for a meal. You don't know what to do, just be hospitable, be normal, be yourself. You can you can share your faith without being weird. In fact, you you should share your faith without being weird. That's not in my notes either. But so we got this plate of Thanksgiving dinner, and and we got they were totally weirded out by sweet potatoes with marshmallows on them. The marshmallows. So strange. But but they went with it anyway. But the beautiful part of this meal is as we're we've gathered in our living room and everybody can contributes to this meal. We say Thanksgiving is about giving thanks to God. And here's how we celebrate this. And let and we pause for a prayer of gratitude. Lord, thank you for all that you've done for us. Thank you for your Son Jesus Christ that saves our souls. Thank you for your grace and mercy to us. Thank you that you provide everything that we need. Thank you for your unending love to us. Thank you for your mercy that's new every morning. And that was that was my job with with this Thanksgiving meal with these ladies was to to pray, to carve the turkey and to and to make the coffees. And afterwards, multiple ladies there, more than one, asked Holly about it individually, and they said, that thing that you guys did with the with the thank the thankfulness, the gratitude thing, what's that called? Prayer? Yeah, prayer. I've never heard anybody do that before. They had never heard someone pray out loud, and they said, When that when you guys did that, I felt like a warmth. It felt really good. And what what the other lady said, it felt like I was in warm cotton. And it just it felt like a hug. And Ollie's able to tell him that's the presence of God. We get to be a part of what God is doing in the world. I got one more one more picture in story for you, keeping an eye on the on the time. Don't take my truck. We're wrapping it up. If we got a piano player to maybe come play something spiritual, that'll that'll help me in this thing. This was my grandpa's horse. My grandpa preached the gospel for over 60 years. He was ordained in 1960. Preached the gospel all over Arizona, New Mexico, was even part of the district leadership here in Arizona for a number of years. Had a great influence on a lot of people. Myself included. And grandpa went to heaven last year. He was a cowboy preacher. I remember him preaching a Royal Ranger powwow. He came running in at a full gallop, just dead run on this horse. Jumped off the horse while it's still moving, landed, and said, I'm Pastor Truer. And he's just immediately started preaching. Those boys, their eyes were this, he had their attention, man. It was awesome. Grandpa went to heaven last year, and after he did, he he Lord just called him home suddenly one morning. And his cowboy buddies saddled up his horse and went on one last trail ride with an embarrassment. And I was in my grandma's house looking at this picture, and something occurred to me in my spirit. There's too many empty saddles in the kingdom of God. There was a missionary that went to India. Alexander Duff was his name. He had been doing ministry there. He came back and he's preaching in Scotland at a missions convention type thing in the 1800s. He's pleading with the assembly to send more sons and daughters to India. And he has a heart attack on stage while he's preaching. Gets revived. And as he wakes up, he says, Take me back to the stage. Take me back. I have to finish. They said, What? You've had a heart attack, Pastor Dove. Lay still. He says, I must sound the call. He says, when Queen Victoria asks for volunteers, hundreds of men, young men respond. But when King Jesus calls, how come no one goes? He says, May it not be said that the sons may it not be said that the fathers and mothers of Scotland have no more sons to give for India. And there was still no response. And so he said, Very well then. Aged though I am, I'll go back. I can lie down by the banks of the Ganges River and I can die. And let the people know that there was one man in Scotland who loved them enough to give his life for them. And in that moment, someone stood up and said, I'll go. Another stood up and said, I'll go. Another stood up and said, I'll go. Pastor Duff has long since passed away. Those young men and women in that assembly have long since passed away. India still needs the gospel. Thailand still needs the gospel. Japan. Asia. All of Asia still needs the gospel. Europe still needs the gospel. People, Africa still needs the gospel. People all over the world. Don't know the good news. Don't have access. Don't know anybody that knows Jesus Christ because there is an empty saddle. Even locally in Arizona. I looked this week and there are seven churches in Arizona that need a pastor. Seventeen advertised staff positions. Now, Pastor Jay, I'm not trying to recruit your people, but I think our whole assembly of churches all across Arizona, we could probably staff those positions if we raised up and sent out. And I don't think anything would make Pastor Jay and Celeste any prouder than to send out ministers into the mission field of Arizona. My friend in New Mexico said 10 out of the 90 churches there now need pastors currently. That's a lot of empty saddles. Who's gonna preach the gospel to your friends? Who's gonna share Jesus with your family? Who's gonna love the lost in your community and in your neighborhood? Your Jerusalem, your Judea, your Samaria, your region of the world. God has uniquely positioned you to have access to the people that you have access to. He has put you in a time and a place to make a difference. How do we do that? Same way Jesus told us in Acts 1.8. Wait on the Lord. Receive power from on high. Allow the Holy Spirit to empower you, to breathe his life into you. Wait on the Lord, renew your strength. Mound up. I like that phrase, mound up. Saddle up. Some of us need to saddle up for the Lord. And say, God, here am I. Send me. Will you stand and pray? Will you stand with me as we as we pray, Lord? I pray for those that are hearing the invitation of the Lord to participate and participate in the Great Commission. Maybe the Holy Spirit is whispering to some of you, it's time to get in the saddle. On the ranch, I learned from hearing my grandpa's stories, he would ride in roundups. And on the ranch, when the cattle are all scattered across the hills. Everybody, no matter how good of a cowboy, how good of a rider you are, you get in the saddle and you go and you it's time to bring them in. It's time to bring them in because they're lost. They're in the hills. They're not where they belong. It's time, friends, to bring the lost in. It's we need everybody participating in the roundup of souls. And I wonder if there are those here today that with an uplifted hand would say, I'm willing to get in the saddle. And to be a getting in the saddle might might look like giving to kingdom builders. Getting in the saddle might look like sharing the gospel with your friends and neighbors. Getting in the saddle might be just being willing to say yes when the Lord says go. Don't expect a move of God without being willing to move yourself. If you'll say, That's me, will you lift up your hand and say, I'm I'm yes, yes. Lord, I'll get in the saddle for you. Yes. Hands going up all over the place. God, I pray for my friends that you are are prompting and moving their hearts. Lord, you have our assumed yes. Whatever the call, wherever you send us, whatever the task, Lord, you have our yes. Empower my friends with your Holy Spirit. Lord, as at the end of this service, when the altar is open, Lord, I pray that they would they would come and seek you and and Lord, for those that need to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, Lord, we we open open our spirits to that here today. I wonder how many of you ought also say, like, I've been praying for rain, but leaving my saddle outside, and I need I need God to activate my faith. I need a miracle in my life today. That might be a financial miracle, that might be provision for your family, that might be a breakthrough in your in your spiritual life, that might be a miracle in your physical body, you might need healing in your body today. If you need God to answer a prayer and you say, God, I'm willing to I'm willing to pray for rain and bring my saddle inside, Lord. I'm I'm asking for prayer and I'm willing to participate in the answer to that prayer. I'm willing to position myself to be ready for the answer to that prayer. If you would lift up your hand, I want to pray for you as well. Yes, yes, yes. There's a lot of us praying for miracles here today. God, I pray for each and every miracle that that an uplifted hand is asking for. Lord, I pray that there would be a move of faith that would say, Lord, we want to participate in the answer. Lord, we know that you are moving in this place. We know that you are able. You are miracle working. God, we have the power in the Holy Spirit to see signs and wonders, lives changed, finances provided, Lord. Bodies healed, families made whole. In Jesus' name. Thank you, friends, for having me here today. Thank you for participating in the work of God around the world. By receiving the power of the Holy Spirit and being witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. God bless you.

Jason Brown 52:24

Great work, man. Great God. Great work. We're gonna give an opportunity to respond to that message in just a second, as we're gonna have a song for you to respond. And I'm gonna challenge every person that raise your hand for one of those two things. I want you to come and make an altar with God. Pastor Kyle, myself, and others and be praying with you and for you at that time. But I'd be amiss if you didn't get to hear and respond yourself to the very thing that he's been talking about, the passion of what it means to live a life that's surrendered to Jesus, to leave a life that's after God. And maybe you've never made a decision to invite Jesus into your heart and life today is your opportunity to do so. And I want to encourage you that you would say yes to Jesus. You'd say, Lord, forgive me of my sin. I invite you into my heart and life. I I want to have a life that's after you. You have to answer for yourself. Have you embraced Jesus? The cross for us is a symbol of freedom because it's where Jesus took all of the sin, all of my mistakes, all of your brokenness, all of our errors, all of our heartbreak. He took it upon himself. And as he paid with his life upon the cross, those things are done and finished, friends. Jesus took all of sin and all those things, and as he paid for it with his life, he paid for the sin. So whenever we come and we say, Lord, I surrender my life to you, I ask you to forgive me. We are, we're embracing what he has done on our behalf. It's how we have a relationship with the holy God. There's no way for us to earn our way in. We can't buy our way in, we can't do enough good things. That's why we talk about that. We're not done yet, right? We are walking after him. We want to be more like Jesus. And so, friends, today, if you're here, you never made a decision to follow Jesus, today is your opportunity to do so. We see the Apostle Paul, he writes to the church at Rome, he says this. He speaks to us and shares with us what he has for us to do and what we're called to step up and do. He says, Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You will be saved. For it's with the heart that one believes, it's when with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Friends, today is your opportunity to say yes to Jesus. To invite him into your heart and life. As heads are bowed and Christians are praying today. If that's you, and you'd say, Pastor Jay, I just want to invite Christ into my heart and life today. I just want to do that and make that decision to follow Jesus, or maybe I have in the past and need to recommit my life to Christ. If that's you today, if you just raise your hand right where you're at. Won't embarrass you, just want to pray with you. As others have already made that decision today, inviting Christ into their heart and life, we see the hands that are there. The hand that's there. Thank you, Jesus. The hand that's there. We see the hands that are there. Thank you, Jesus. What you're doing in these people's lives today. Thank you, Lord. I'm gonna ask if everyone would if they pray this prayer out loud after me. Lord, thank you for loving me. Lord, thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name I pray. Amen. Amen. Friends, we rejoice with you, those that made a decision apologies today. What a powerful decision. If that was you, take a moment, take a shot at this QR code. We want to be able to put resources into your hands so you can live victoriously after Christ. Now, here's the challenge. Don't step back from what God has for you in this moment. Be courageous. Step out and come to this altar and say, if that's you and you're saying, I need to believe for the miracle. I need to bring that saddle inside so it doesn't get rain. Because I'm gonna expect what God is gonna answer in this prayer. That's you, you need to come to the altar right now. Right now, right now. You need to come to the altar right now. Step out of faith. We're gonna make an altar with God. If that's you, then you say, I need to step up and get on the saddle that's out there. I need to be missional about it. I need you to come right now. Need to make an altar with God. Lord, we just slip our hearts and our hearts to you, Lord, our lives to you. Lord, that we give all these things over to you. You are the God of miracles, you are the God who heals, you're the one that brings people out of a coma and makes them alive in an overdose situation. You're the God who meets our needs and supplies everything. You open the doors on our behalf. You are the God of wisdom who gives insight, knowledge. You are the one who gives us direction when we seek your heart. So, Lord, we come now asking for impartation to your presence. Asking, Lord, for the courage to say yes and go after the things you called us to do. Lord, that we would walk in the fullness of your presence. Lord, so that all may hear about the glory of God. We give this to you in this moment that you would meet us here in this place. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Celeste Brown 57:32

As you head out, we are doing a fundraiser today for missions. We have a team going to Iceland next month and some amazing individuals that are headed out this summer. And so we want to support them, we want to fund them, we want to help them. And so we are serving um Italian food out there. I know that there's uh Alfredo and spaghetti, and there's gluten-free options for those of you that need it. And so it is just gonna be a huge blessing today. So support our missions.

Jason Brown 57:58

Also, how many were blessed by the truans and by the ministry today? Pastor Kyle, what a blessing. You know, it's only possible that they go and do what they do through giving in kingdom builders. Next week, we're gonna talk about what it means to give a pledge towards kingdom builders so we can partner with people with the truans. Amen. Before we go, I want to pray this blessing over us. The Lord bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Lord, lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, I pray a blessing upon your church or people. Lord, do you empower us by your spirit to live your love out to those around us? We pray this in the powerful name that is Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Know this. We love you very much here at Cornerstone. God bless you and have a great week.