SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Joe.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the pastors here.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are uh new or newer, I want to welcome you.
SPEAKER_00: You uh showed up at CVC today on a little bit of a unique Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna blow right in that microphone the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you showed up at CVC today on a little bit of a unique Sunday because one time a year we do what is called our state of the heart sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And basically what we're doing this one time a year is we're doing some self-assessment.
SPEAKER_00: We look back into our history as a church a bit and we look forward, and what we're trying to ask is, Lord, are our hearts individually aligned with yours?
SPEAKER_00: And is our heart as a church collectively aligned with yours?
SPEAKER_00: And what areas might we need to make some shifts in the way that we pursue you individually and the way that we pursue you collectively in order to more fully align our heart with yours?
SPEAKER_00: And this is uh a unique state of the heart because uh we are next month celebrating Cuyahoga Valley Church's 40th anniversary, which is pretty exceptional, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna we're gonna kind of do the celebration in in two parts.
SPEAKER_00: So September was when Pastor Rick Duncan, our founding pastor, was first an employee of Cuyahoga Valley Church, and then in the spring is actually when the first services started back in 1986.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll do a little bit this fall, but then in the spring we'll do a little bit more of a of a larger celebration.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, as we've been thinking about that, about the 40-year anniversary, I've been thinking a lot about and asking Rick for some of his journal uh entries, for some of his prayer uh uh journal uh pieces and snippets from those early years so that I can see a little bit about how or why this church was started in the first place.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you were here a few weeks ago, you'll remember this statement.
SPEAKER_00: But just for the sake of reminding all of us, Rick sent me a text uh maybe a month and a half ago because I asked him, why did you plant CVC in the first place?
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he said.
SPEAKER_00: We wanted to plant an evangelistic, disciple-making church to go to heaven and take as many people with us as we could.
SPEAKER_00: There are a couple components there.
SPEAKER_00: Evangelistic, so meaning that we want to share the love and message of Jesus with other people.
SPEAKER_00: Disciple-making, we want people to grow in their faith as a believer.
SPEAKER_00: And then kind of this little mantra that he tied to it go to heaven, take as many people as we can with us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's been kind of a saying that has been common over these last 40 years.
SPEAKER_00: And so I've been thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00: Asking that question, Lord, is that the kind of church that we still are?
SPEAKER_00: Are we still the kind of church that wants to go to heaven and take as many people with us as we can?
SPEAKER_00: I want you to put in your mind somebody that you love who doesn't live in Cleveland, who you are confident is not a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a grandson or daughter, maybe it's a son or daughter, a niece or a nephew, or a college or high school acquaintance, a friend from your younger years.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a a neighbor who moved or a work acquaintance who got reassigned.
SPEAKER_00: There's somebody that you love.
SPEAKER_00: They don't live here, and you're confident that if they died tomorrow, they would not spend eternity with Jesus in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It's a sobering thing to think about.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to think about it.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to put that person or those couple of people in your mind, and I wonder what your prayer life is like related to that person.
SPEAKER_00: In particular, what kind of people and what kind of church would you pray that would be in their neighborhood?
SPEAKER_00: In their city, wherever they live.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're just in a different part of Ohio, maybe they're in a different part of the country, maybe they're across an ocean.
SPEAKER_00: What sort of prayers would you pray?
SPEAKER_00: For the type of people that they're gonna run into.
SPEAKER_00: If you really care about their eternity, about their soul, what would you ask?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of church would you want to be on their street?
SPEAKER_00: I've been thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00: I think we'd pray for a church that is filled with people who are passionate about going to heaven and taking as many people with them as possible.
SPEAKER_00: I think we would pray for a church that's welcoming and warm.
SPEAKER_00: Where when the eyes of somebody in that foyer catch a person who's new, they pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: And they shake their hand and they point them to the coffee, and maybe they invite them to sit with them so they don't feel alone.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of church I would pray for.
SPEAKER_00: You'd pray for people that live on their street that would be serious about loving Jesus and sharing his message with them.
SPEAKER_00: You'd pray for people that care enough to build relationships with people in their office or in their high school or on their cheerleading team.
SPEAKER_00: You pray for a church where the message of the gospel never gets watered down.
SPEAKER_00: You'd pray for a church that is gonna share the truth about sin and meet it with the supernatural grace of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So there's hope for that person.
SPEAKER_00: You'd pray for a church, I think, where the staff and volunteers would make sure that that person gets followed up with and doesn't fall through the cracks.
SPEAKER_00: You'd pray for a church that actually has a plan to disciple your grandson or granddaughter, to walk with them.
SPEAKER_00: You'd pray for a church that is patient with them, wouldn't you?
SPEAKER_00: You'd pray, you'd you'd pray for a church and for people that recognize that Jesus invites and takes broken people, and sometimes it takes a little while for him to work them through the process of transformation.
SPEAKER_00: I think these are the types of people that we would pray for.
SPEAKER_00: I think some of you know.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't, I'll invite you into the story.
SPEAKER_00: My college roommate, 25 years ago, I was a freshman in college, and my college roommate was a venomous atheist.
SPEAKER_00: And I've prayed for him for years.
SPEAKER_00: And the type of church that I just talked about, he found in Port St.
SPEAKER_00: Lucie, Florida, and about a year ago, he called me out of the blue and said, I have trusted Jesus to be the leader and forgiver of my life.
SPEAKER_00: He was just here visiting with us.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: He was just here visiting with us.
SPEAKER_00: I sat right here in this row and worshiped the Lord side by side with him and his wife and his family.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's a church there that cares enough to share the good news and to build relationship and to not compromise on the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And so we've got to ask ourselves: are we that type of church?
SPEAKER_00: This is the type of church that Rick and Marianne set out to build in 1986.
SPEAKER_00: And here are just some prayers that he prayed from his prayer journal.
SPEAKER_00: A church where people would come who have given up on church.
SPEAKER_00: A church for people who feel like churches aren't relevant to my everyday life.
SPEAKER_00: A church that was known for what we're for instead of what we're against.
SPEAKER_00: A church where the Bible was explained clearly and in practical ways.
SPEAKER_00: A church that would be used to start many other kinds of churches in the area, and a church that would have global impact.
SPEAKER_00: These are just a few of the many.
SPEAKER_00: And I think God has answered these prayers a thousand ways in the 40 years that CVC has been here.
SPEAKER_00: But it has not been without bumps in the road.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think if we're honest, this last six years has been hard for us as a church.
SPEAKER_00: If you start with COVID, that was hard for all churches as we tried to navigate what do we do.
SPEAKER_00: Shortly after COVID, our lead pastor at the time, Pastor Chad, made an announcement that he and his wife were gonna move back west because of aging parents.
SPEAKER_00: So that was a major shift in our church.
SPEAKER_00: We had several of our staff members who had been with Rick from the very beginning, some of them well over two decades, who decided that it was time to retire and move closer to grandbabies.
SPEAKER_00: We had a couple, I was just talking to Bev before the service.
SPEAKER_00: Nate Green, who used to be our worship pastor, moved with his family to work with his brother and their family out in South Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: She just mentioned, like, they're doing wonderful, and the kids are growing.
SPEAKER_00: Nate's ministry is thriving.
SPEAKER_00: But Nate was a beloved part of our church, and he left.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Josh went to lead another church in Idaho.
SPEAKER_00: And so our church just went through so much upheaval and change in these last six years.
SPEAKER_00: And if I'm completely honest, and I think if you're honest, while the Lord has sustained us, we've lost a little bit of momentum.
SPEAKER_00: And I think, to some degree, we've taken our eye off the ball in a few key areas.
SPEAKER_00: And so over the last year, our staff and our elders, with the help of some others from the outside, have been assessing our church and praying for our church and attempting to ask God, God, is our heart aligned with yours?
SPEAKER_00: Are we being the kind of church that you want us to be?
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation over the next several weeks, we'll run into several churches.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus will say to these churches, here's some things that I think you're doing really well, and here are some things that need some correction.
SPEAKER_00: And we've been prayerfully attempting to hear from the Lord, God, where do you want us to grow?
SPEAKER_00: Where's some correction needed?
SPEAKER_00: And so the first thing we looked at was our mission statement.
SPEAKER_00: For a long, long time, our mission statement has been inviting people to new life in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a great mission statement.
SPEAKER_00: But we felt like it's it's maybe lacking a few components that are key to who we want to be and what we want to do.
SPEAKER_00: And so I looked back at that initial statement from Pastor Rick.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be, we want to plant an evangelistic disciple-making church to go to heaven and take as many people with us as we could.
SPEAKER_00: And I also wanted to link in some of that invite language from Pastor Chad as well.
SPEAKER_00: And so recently our elders voted on our final version of the new mission statement of Cuyahoga Valley Church.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm hopeful that you'll be excited about it and will rally behind it because it is going to dictate every decision that we make.
SPEAKER_00: And so here it is.
SPEAKER_00: Inviting people to be transformed by Jesus and multiply his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this has three components that are key.
SPEAKER_00: Inviting, transforming, and multiplying.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really important that we understand each of those.
SPEAKER_00: One, we want to be the type of church that goes to heaven and takes as many people as we can with us.
SPEAKER_00: We must be people who are courageous enough and who take heaven and hell serious enough to develop not just a corporate invite culture, but an individual invite culture.
SPEAKER_00: That we care enough about people to build relationships with them and invite them in to know and love Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, is the process of transformation.
SPEAKER_00: And this is, as we know, a lifelong process.
SPEAKER_00: To be transformed is an ongoing active verb.
SPEAKER_00: And it and it it challenges those of us particularly who have been in the faith for quite some time from thinking, I'm good.
SPEAKER_00: I have arrived.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: We are always until the day we die in the process of being transformed.
SPEAKER_00: And then the aim of that transformation is not just to sit cozy in church, but to multiply disciples, to pour our lives back into others such that we would create a movement, the type of movement Jesus intended to start with the disciples and did start, that multiplies, not just addition, but we make disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to look today at the first two components of this new mission statement.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at invitation and transformation.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's where it starts.
SPEAKER_00: It really starts with us.
SPEAKER_00: I was reading a book on prayer recently, and it said, you can't multiply what you don't have.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to look at ourselves first.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of cultural type of people are we?
SPEAKER_00: How are we doing with invitation and transformation?
SPEAKER_00: And then on September 27th, that'll be kind of part two.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to have a vision night here where we're going to look at the plans for multiplying the kingdom through CVC.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be a really exciting afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like a night, it's afternoon, so that families with little ones don't have to, you know, keep them up to all hours of the night.
SPEAKER_00: But you're going to want to put that on your calendar as well.
SPEAKER_00: So today, invitation and transformation.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to look at those two things through the book of 1 Corinthians.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have a Bible, turn with me there.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: This is another letter from Paul, the same author who wrote the letter to Titus.
SPEAKER_00: This time he's writing to the church in Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking about his efforts to reach people for Jesus and plant churches.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about his efforts to invite people to be transformed by Jesus and multiply his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was one of the most prolific evangelists and church planters that the world has ever seen, and so we're going to look to his example.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 9, beginning in verse 19, and we'll see Paul's strategic invitation.
SPEAKER_00: Strategic invitation.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I just want to stop there because I think Paul communicates to us the heart, the attitude, the posture that every believer ought to have.
SPEAKER_00: That we look out into the world, into the eyes and lives of the people that we love, and maybe even people that we don't know, and we say, My aim is to win more of them, because heaven and hell are real to me.
SPEAKER_00: And so my aim is not just to kind of rest on the evangelism that I did last week or last month or last year, but now I'm aiming that I might win more people to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: This gets a little bit verbose.
SPEAKER_00: I'll explain it in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: To the Jews, I became a Jew in order to win Jews.
SPEAKER_00: To those under the law, I became as one under the law, though not being myself under the law, that I might win those under the law.
SPEAKER_00: So there he's talking about Jewish people, those who are under the Old Testament law, and he basically is saying, I engaged in their conversations, in their homes, in their neighborhoods, in ways that they understood so that I might win them.
SPEAKER_00: I was willing to adjust my approach to the Jews so I could win the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says in verse 21, to those outside the law, so the Gentiles, which includes everybody in the whole world that's not a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: To those outside the law, I became as one outside the law.
SPEAKER_00: So I went to their towns, to their homes, talked about things that were important to them, engaged in their culture.
SPEAKER_00: Then he has the parentheses, not being outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ, that I might win those outside the law.
SPEAKER_00: So he says that I stepped into the Gentile world, went to their marketplaces, went to their schools, went to their places of worship.
SPEAKER_00: And then he has that parentheses because he basically is saying there, though not being myself outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ, to say, I did that without sinning.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, Hey, I'm outside the law to engage in Gentile places, but I'm still under the law of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, I'm not going to the bar and getting drunk with them so that I could share Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the strategy, right?
SPEAKER_00: But then he goes on, to the weak I became weak that I might win the weak.
SPEAKER_00: I have become all things to all people that by all means I might save some.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is just digging his teeth into this.
SPEAKER_00: I will do just about anything short of sinning and dishonoring God to reach people with the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Is that the kind of church we are?
SPEAKER_00: That's the question we have to ask.
SPEAKER_00: Is this our heart?
SPEAKER_00: Is this your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Or do we really like things the way we like it?
SPEAKER_00: Comfortable?
SPEAKER_00: I want to do things my way and my timing, things that make me comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying, I'm willing to go to the mat because I believe that heaven and hell are real.
SPEAKER_00: So whatever I've got to do, short of sinning, to reach them, I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: He has a recipe, I think, for his invitation lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: First, it's wide.
SPEAKER_00: He leaves nobody out.
SPEAKER_00: Jews, Gentiles, strong, weak, everybody in between.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not afraid to share Jesus with anybody.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care what they look like, I don't care what history they have, I don't care whether they seem to belong in my neighborhood or in my church.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody, nobody is outside the reach of the grace of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, he's wise.
SPEAKER_00: So he changes his method without compromising the message.
SPEAKER_00: That's vitally important.
SPEAKER_00: What far too many churches have done and Christians have done is begin to compromise God's word as a way to try and win people, but then you end up winning people with something that's not the gospel at all.
SPEAKER_00: And there is they're in far more danger than they were at the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Because they've trusted in something that does not save.
SPEAKER_00: So we never compromise the message.
SPEAKER_00: But we are willing to change our methods.
SPEAKER_00: He's willing.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 for though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all that I might win more of them.
SPEAKER_00: This is something I think the American church has lost, namely, that evangelism costs something.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to Make you uncomfortable a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And I think what we would like is that God would save the people that we love without us having to ever get our hands dirty or ever feel a little bit of discomfort or exercise a little bit of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, it is winsome.
SPEAKER_00: He's not doing this out of grim duty.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I do it all for the sake of the gospel that I might share with them and its blessings.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not just trying to check off a list or get to a certain amount.
SPEAKER_00: I truly want all of these people that I'm trying to win to Christ to share in the blessings with me.
SPEAKER_00: You ever get invited into something that you're not interested in, and then like the person who's interested in is so into it that you end up loving it?
SPEAKER_00: Not because you really care about the thing, but like they're so excited that you just kind of jump in.
SPEAKER_00: Their winsomeness about that band, or about that golf course, or about their car, or about how manicured their lawn is.
SPEAKER_00: Like they are really excited about that.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't help but go, man, this is okay, I'm excited with you.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what Paul's aim at is here.
SPEAKER_00: So we want to be this kind of church.
SPEAKER_00: I hope, I hope you want to be this type of individual.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're you want your family to be like this, you want our church to be like this.
SPEAKER_00: And so we've been assessing how we are doing with this as a church, and I think to some degree, we have started to pawn off our individual responsibility for evangelism on big CVC events.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_00: There's some people in your neighborhood or in your office or that you would love for them to know Jesus, and it's too scary for you to actually talk with them or share Jesus with them or invite them to church, and so you wait.
SPEAKER_00: You wait until there's something not as churchy that CVC does, that's fun, and that has free food and a dunk tank or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: And then we go, come to that thing.
SPEAKER_00: And then we just come, but we're we can be prone to just leave it there.
SPEAKER_00: Thinking that like pancakes and sausage links are gonna save your friend.
SPEAKER_00: Again, there's nothing wrong with those things.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not trying to diss those things at all.
SPEAKER_00: But at some point you and I you and I have to step in.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have been assessing our event culture over against our evangelism culture, and we think something needs to shift.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna put a little bit more, well, not a little bit more, I'll just be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna put more emphasis on you, more emphasis on ourselves to be people who have the gospel on our lips.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean we're gonna cancel all of our events.
SPEAKER_00: What it does mean is everything we spend time and money and effort on is going to be as strategic as we can possibly make it.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: When you start, when you start looking at the data and the stit and and the stats across the whole United States, a big event, no matter how cool you make it, if it is not followed up with a personal connection and a personal invitation to know Jesus, 90% of the people that come to that event will walk out, they had a really good time, got some free tacos, and they will never come back to your church.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to be really careful because there have been just awesome things that have happened in many of our big events.
SPEAKER_00: Children and students and adults who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, and I'm not downplaying any of that gospel effectiveness.
SPEAKER_00: All I'm saying is I think we've gotten a little bit off-kilter, and we need to correct, to rightly align our hearts with God.
SPEAKER_00: And that means that each of us needs to seriously do some self-assessment and ask if we are following Paul's recipe for strategic invitation.
SPEAKER_00: Because we can't put all of the onus on the event.
SPEAKER_00: It actually doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: What works is you caring about that person in partnership with the church to share the love and message of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna be pushing on that invite culture, and our staff is gonna focus on three main things this year.
SPEAKER_00: This is not what we're gonna do all the time, but this year we've pinpointed three areas that we want to give more attention to so that the invite to church will be maybe a little bit easier for you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these aren't things that are necessarily wrong or that are going badly.
SPEAKER_00: They're just areas where, as we have assessed and if we've prayed, goodness have we prayed.
SPEAKER_00: And as we've talked to experts around the country and other churches, these are the three things, the three gaps that we're seeing that we want to just bolster a little bit this year.
SPEAKER_00: The first is our digital presence.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Paul's day, for the Jews, he would go to the synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: For the for the Greeks, he would go to the Areopagus.
SPEAKER_00: He met people where they were.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna trust you to meet people where you are, in your neighborhood, at the basketball game, at the football game on Friday night, in your office, and a hundred other places.
SPEAKER_00: But when you invite them to church, when you talk about CVC, you know what they're gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna go to our website and they're gonna go listen to one of our sermons, they're gonna check out our socials.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's those areas are not as good as they could be.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an area where we see very clearly where we need to grow so that you're not going, man, you gotta come to my church.
SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited.
SPEAKER_00: We're doing this thing, we're starting this new series.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you should come with me to this.
SPEAKER_00: And they jump on our website and go, okay.
SPEAKER_00: Bob's church is a little weird.
SPEAKER_00: I've been I've been doing this right now.
SPEAKER_00: My son is at college out in central Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_00: I've been looking all over the, and I'm going to all of these websites to see what they're about.
SPEAKER_00: So we want to focus on a dynamic digital presence so that you can be proud to invite people and point them to see what CDC is all about.
SPEAKER_00: Number two is an invitable Sunday service.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is one of the main things that causes people not to want to invite a friend to church is.
SPEAKER_00: I hope Pastor Joseph says something weird.
SPEAKER_00: I hope the person in the foyer smiles at them and greets them.
SPEAKER_00: Please.
SPEAKER_00: For the love of everything, please move out of the way so that we can get down the row.
SPEAKER_00: I've invited this person to church for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: Please smile at them.
SPEAKER_00: Please don't.
SPEAKER_00: I hope our church isn't smelly today.
SPEAKER_00: I hope people are kind.
SPEAKER_00: I hope the message is relevant.
SPEAKER_00: I hope the music speaks to them, right?
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to compromise at all.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to start watering down the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: But our hope is that we would create a space here where you are confident to invite your friend.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what will, here's, here's what will tell the story.
SPEAKER_00: Each of us, when we invite somebody, there's that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Like church is over, and you're walking out, and you go, uh, so what did you think?
SPEAKER_00: And they're going to say something.
SPEAKER_00: And our hope is that we're warm and biblical, loving, relevant, in ways that they go, that was great.
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to come back next week.
SPEAKER_00: And you go, Oh, thank goodness.
SPEAKER_00: But like, you're playing it cool.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I would love for you to come back next week.
SPEAKER_00: And inside you're going, yes, yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00: CBC nailed it today.
SPEAKER_00: Digital presence, invitable Sunday service, the third thing, incredible next gen ministries.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you, I love Denise and Raquel, Daliantate, the work that they do, and all the volunteers.
SPEAKER_00: Man, we do some incredible things in our next gen ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be just internally adjusting some of our efforts and some of our funds to make sure that we're really pressing on our next gen ministries to be incredible.
SPEAKER_00: And here's why many of you parents know this, and you're here because of our next gen ministry.
SPEAKER_00: If you are going to a church that your kids hate going to, you're not gonna be there for long.
SPEAKER_00: And so those are the three areas this year that we're gonna put extra focus on digital, invitable, and next gen so that you can be a little bit more confident in being the invite strategy at CVC.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, continual transformation.
SPEAKER_00: So strategic invitation, the second thing, continual transformation.
SPEAKER_00: And then this connects with the second part of our vision, inviting people to be transformed by Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: 24.
SPEAKER_00: Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?
SPEAKER_00: So run that you may obtain it.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I love Paul's imagery here.
SPEAKER_00: Run this Christian life like it matters, like it means something to you, like heaven and hell are real.
SPEAKER_00: Every athlete exercises self-control in all things, they do it to receive a perishable wreath.
SPEAKER_00: Who cares about your gold medal?
SPEAKER_00: But we and imperishable.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about eternal things.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 26, I want you to underline this.
SPEAKER_00: I do not run aimlessly.
SPEAKER_00: I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus' final commands or final words were in the form of command.
SPEAKER_00: Go into all the world and make disciples, and then teach them everything that I have taught you.
SPEAKER_00: And since that moment, I'm confident that the church has been arguing about what discipleship is.
SPEAKER_00: If I asked you, I would get 600 different definitions of discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: Some people are like, ah, it's the classroom.
SPEAKER_00: You got to understand sound doctrine really, really well and hold it correctly.
SPEAKER_00: Some people say, no, discipleship is community.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be with people and live it and do it.
SPEAKER_00: Some people say, oh no, it's mentorship.
SPEAKER_00: That's way too big of a group.
SPEAKER_00: It's got to be one-on-one.
SPEAKER_00: That's the only way to do discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: Some people say, well, as long as you're figuring out spiritual disciplines, you read the Bible, you pray, you do scripture memory, that's how discipleship happens.
SPEAKER_00: And some people go, hey, it's about mission.
SPEAKER_00: Stop talking about Jesus and go do something like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the fact of the matter is, is that all of these things are true of discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what has happened in the church.
SPEAKER_00: And this is true throughout America when you look.
SPEAKER_00: On one side, you go, all right, if we're gonna do discipleship, we have to hyperprogram it.
SPEAKER_00: And here's your book, and you have to come every single week, and you have to do the homework, and you have to do it this way.
SPEAKER_00: And unless you finish these 12 12-week courses, you are not a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: And when you do finish, then you are a disciple.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that that's discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: The other flip side of it is you go, well, if we can't control it, then what we'll do over here is we'll just kind of let it ride.
SPEAKER_00: We'll just keep doing church, and we'll hope people show up and go to the stuff, and we'll call it discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a middle ground that we're trying to figure out, and so we've developed what we're calling the discipleship pathway.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to I wanna I want to set your expectations low.
SPEAKER_00: Because nothing in this discipleship pathway is groundbreaking.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that comes up, you're gonna go, oh man, that is good stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It's all very, very simple.
SPEAKER_00: It's all very simple, but it's in this in-between space between hyper-programmed and no plan at all.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, we don't run aimlessly.
SPEAKER_00: So this over here doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: I tried when I was the youth pastor to organize and track like 30 different spiritual markers in 200 students, and you can't you just can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't measure the heart.
SPEAKER_00: So this is kind of an in-between attempt that has a very clear purpose.
SPEAKER_00: The aim of the discipleship pathway is for you to know where you are, to know what your next step is, and to know where to point someone else.
SPEAKER_00: Super simple.
SPEAKER_00: Where am I at in my discipleship journey?
SPEAKER_00: What's my next step?
SPEAKER_00: And then when somebody else asks, we have a clear tool to point them to their next step as well.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the first step.
SPEAKER_00: Attend.
SPEAKER_00: See, I told you it wasn't groundbreaking.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first step.
SPEAKER_00: We want people to experience CVC.
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully it's a warm place, it's a godly place, it's a prayerful place.
SPEAKER_00: We want them to experience what it's like to walk in the doors to worship Jesus, to hear the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing far too many people, and some of you are stuck in attend.
SPEAKER_00: You walked in the front door and you've been attending, and you've just stayed there for two, three, five, ten years.
SPEAKER_00: The next step, connect.
SPEAKER_00: Moving from attending to building relationships.
SPEAKER_00: And this is this is new for us.
SPEAKER_00: And I think some of you we've you've you've heard about the pizza with the pastor.
SPEAKER_00: That's one connect type event that we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: This jump from just attending CVC to being in a life group is a pretty serious jump.
SPEAKER_00: So this step, connect, we're gonna be building across various age groups strategic opportunities for you to invite people to.
SPEAKER_00: So that's where some of those events come back in.
SPEAKER_00: They're just probably gonna be a little bit smaller, a little bit nuanced, and really, really focused on you inviting your people.
SPEAKER_00: The third is belong.
SPEAKER_00: We want people to jump into church membership and life group community.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian life is not meant to be lived alone.
SPEAKER_00: And so, again, there are some in this room who you've been attending for a long time and you've not yet jumped into those next steps of community.
SPEAKER_00: This is not only for you, but so you can bring other people into that process where your relationships can deepen, your faith can be strengthened, and discipleship becomes more intentional.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth is serve.
SPEAKER_00: When we say serve, we're not talking about externally, serve is particularly focused inside of our church.
SPEAKER_00: And the target is at least one time a month.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes people in our church go, well, I volunteered at sports camp, so there's my service for the year.
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: All of the people who are doing that just kind of got uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But the aim, God describes us as a body, and every part matters.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has skills and talents and passions and God-given gifts to contribute to the body.
SPEAKER_00: So we'd love to see everybody that calls CVC home serving in a ministry at least one time a month.
SPEAKER_00: Next is give.
SPEAKER_00: To faithfully invest your resources to grow God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Generosity is a defining mark of a transformed heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because, particularly as Americans, we tie our safety and our well-being to our money.
SPEAKER_00: And so giving is such an important step in our discipleship process because what it begins to say is, God, I trust you more than my bank account.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm more interested in your kingdom moving forward than my comfort level increasing.
SPEAKER_00: Sixth is go to participate in the global mission of God.
SPEAKER_00: This could mean in what with one of our big ten partners around the city.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of really good things, but we've sort of vetted a lot of the organizations and we're really intentional with who we partner with.
SPEAKER_00: It could mean going to a trip in Appalachia or in Panama or in Guatemala or to the other side of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you I know can't physically, you can't get on that plane anymore, do that mission's work.
SPEAKER_00: But you can still step into this step prayerfully and financially.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be a church that continues to go and finally multiply.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe as I've ticked through these, you're going, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been here for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: I've been following Jesus for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Did it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is this is actually the flywheel right here.
SPEAKER_00: The multiply piece is the piece of the strategy where like this is really where this is the moneymaker.
SPEAKER_00: This is the good stuff, this is the sweet spot.
SPEAKER_00: This is where the body of Christ actually begins to become the body of Christ and the church truly grows.
SPEAKER_00: Once we commit ourselves to bringing others along in the discipleship process, to go back and to multiply.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know no one of these things is an indicator of or a true measure of the heart.
SPEAKER_00: You can come to church every single Sunday and your heart not be transformed.
SPEAKER_00: However, growth in these areas is predictive of what is happening in the heart.
SPEAKER_00: So our desire is that we would take this discipleship pathway together, assess where we're each at, what my next step is, and then how I can invite someone else to go on that journey with me.
SPEAKER_00: I want to take you back to that question I asked you in the very beginning.
SPEAKER_00: To put someone in your brain that you love, that you want to go to heaven, they don't live here right now.
SPEAKER_00: What kind of church and what kind of people would you pray for?
SPEAKER_00: Who do you wish would be their neighbor?
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: There are people all over the world, and the person that they're praying for is right here in Cleveland, Ohio.
SPEAKER_00: They live on your street.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a grandma in California who's saying, God, please send somebody in Brexville, Broadview High School to love my grandson.
SPEAKER_00: Please, Lord, put somebody on their street in their way that loves you and that will see my grandson or my granddaughter as a mission that will befriend them and love them and care for them and be courageous enough to share Jesus with them.
SPEAKER_00: There are parents all over this world.
SPEAKER_00: And their children, whether young or old, live right here in Cleveland, Ohio.
SPEAKER_00: Or they're going to school in Cleveland, Ohio.
SPEAKER_00: And they're praying and asking God, God, would you help them to find a church that is serious about going to heaven and taking as many people as they can with them?
SPEAKER_00: God, please put people in their pathway that would invite them to be transformed by Jesus and multiply his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: There are people who have college friends and high school friends and old acquaintances from the old days who live in your neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: And these are the types of prayers that they're praying.
SPEAKER_00: And the question really for us at State of the Heart 2026 and beyond is will you be that type, will you be the answer to that prayer?
SPEAKER_00: And will we be the type of church that answers that prayer and answers that call?
SPEAKER_00: Will we be the type of church like Calvary, Port St.
SPEAKER_00: Lucie that did not compromise and continued to reach my college roommate?
SPEAKER_00: 25 years later, he's pursuing Jesus with all of his heart.
SPEAKER_00: Will we be the answer to those prayers?
SPEAKER_00: Will you be the answer to those prayers?
SPEAKER_00: My hope is that we would be.
SPEAKER_00: That no matter how you say it, to be an evangelistic, disciple-making church that goes to heaven and takes as many people as we can with us, or to invite people to be transformed by Jesus and multiply his kingdom, that we wouldn't just stick it on a slide, but that we would go, yes, this is the type of people that we will be because we're serious about heaven and hell.
SPEAKER_00: And we're serious about making disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is our King and He is our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And what He says, we will do.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I come to you this morning, and my deepest hope and prayer is that by the power of your Holy Spirit, the conviction of your word, and the challenge from one another, that we would increasingly align our hearts with yours, both individually and collectively.
SPEAKER_00: That we would be the answer to prayers.
SPEAKER_00: That we would be the answer to prayers in Broadview Heights and in Brexville and in North Royalton and in Brooklyn and in Parma and in Cuyahoga Heights and in Independence and Valley View in Garfield and Warrensville and Sagamore and Macedonia and to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: That CBC would be a place that takes your mission seriously.
SPEAKER_00: And that we would not rest until we see the Great Commission accomplished, until your word and your message and a healthy church are within reach of everyone everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: So start here.
SPEAKER_00: Start with us, start with me for your glory and your glory alone.
SPEAKER_00: We ask in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna sing a final song.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna come up and give you just two minutes of action steps.
SPEAKER_00: But as we sing, I want to encourage you to begin to ask the Lord, Lord, what is my next step?