Together for the Gospel I Pastor Kendrick Vinar

In this message from Grace Church’s “Make a Difference” series, Pastor Kendrick reminds us that we were made by God and for God to make a difference. Through Scripture and practical encouragement, this sermon challenges us to live as the salt of the earth and the light of the world, putting our faith into action and impacting the people around us.

Be encouraged to take your next step in serving others, inviting people to experience the hope of Jesus, and living the life God created you to live.

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Transcript

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Put your hands together for Jesus and for yourself. That was amazing update, wasn't it? I want to greet everybody out at Alamance. I heard y'all have an amazing day yesterday, and I'm so really proud of you for all the seeds that you sowed and the impact you made. Can we put our hands together for everybody? Alamance campus, we love you all and we really did have an amazing day yesterday. I'm so proud of you as a church and the heart that this church has to be. The hands and the feet of Jesus to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, to make a difference. Uh, it really was a powerful, powerful time on our serve day, as you caught there. We were all over all those videos, by the way. Give it up for the creative team. They shot all that yesterday and got to put together. It's that amazing. It's fine. They do a great job. So, um, anyway, I just think, let me say this. I think God looks down from heaven and smiles when his kids Care and do and don't just talk. You know what I'm saying? Like, we we're not just to be hearers of the word, but doers of the word. And there's a bunch of doers out there getting it done. So anyway, it was awesome. Um, hey, we're in a four week series called Make a Difference leading up to Easter. And Easter is just three weeks away. And I want to tell you, by God's grace, Easter is gonna be awesome. Okay, the team is really working hard to put together something that's going to honor Jesus Christ, but also really bless you, your family, your friends, coworkers, neighbors. And it takes a partnership, uh, to get the most out of Easter in terms of I really believe God wants people to know him, experience him, and people are more open at Easter than any time of the year. Here's the power with a personal invitation. And when you don't just, you know, get a flier in the mail or, you know, see something on social media. But when someone you know says, hey, would you be interested in going to Easter service at Grace church with me this year? Uh, that's powerful y'all. And so anyway, uh, I want to encourage you to ask God, who can I invite this year? Ask God for opportunities to invite people. And, um, the Lord will often do that. You you just don't know what's going on inside of someone's head or heart. And, uh, Jesus Christ brings hope and life, forgiveness and grace. And he uses us to be that conduit. And so, anyway, we're going to have an awesome Easter. Really looking forward to that. Um, so last weekend, we kicked off with this big idea of this that we were made to make a difference. I just want to speak that over you, everyone. And I want to speak this over to you. You were made by God. For God. You were made by God to to make a difference. That that you are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You don't. You don't have to try to become it. You are it. You know you. The salt can lose the saltiness or you can cover the light. But that's who you are. And honestly, as I was driving in this morning, I was thinking about this. I was like, Lord, I'm so looking forward to today. It just dawned on me that this is inside of your heart to make a difference. And it's inside of all of us as followers of Christ. It's like who you are. When you make a decision to follow Jesus, you can't help but want to make a difference. You let me just warn y'all, you can't help but not end up caring about the poor and the needy and widows and orphans and clean, safe drinking water and Jesus going to the ends of the earth like that. That's you were made to make a difference. Now, what we tend to do, we tend to talk a little bit about how this is where we kick it off, how you're made to make a difference in your sphere. Right. Um, in your life, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your workplace, wherever you go, you bring light. Now, today, we're going to talk about this together for the gospel because we think about making a difference. I think it's often good to think of it in two realms, the me and the we, the the the my world and our world. The it's personal, but it's also community. It's together. And what we can do together is far greater than what we could ever do alone. It's not either or. It's both. And you're meant to make a difference in your world, but also in the world. And we really are called to do both. Here's another important, you know, both. And It's local and it's global. It's around the corner and around the world. You don't have to choose between loving your community and loving the world. You can do both. Jesus did both. Uh, we're not going to die. But trust me, Jesus did. And he's called us to do both. And today, what we're going to do is this. We're going to zoom back and we're going to talk about together for the gospel. We're going to get a big vision. And let me just tell you my prayer. Let me tell you where I'm headed. I am praying that something from God's heart will get infected through His Word into your heart, and that you will get a vision for being a great commission follower of Jesus. That as a follower of Jesus with the Spirit of God inside of you, that part of the portfolio of your life, it's not your whole life, but part of your life is is meant to be beyond yourself. To go for a big cause. To make a big difference. And part of it's me in my world and my sphere. Yes yes yes yes 100%. But part of it is this. Again, you cannot read the scriptures or be following Christ without getting infected with this desire to care for the poor, the needy, the orphan, the widow, the hurting, the wounds that are on the fringe and to be part of making a big difference. And so, um, Jesus made our mission very clear to us, um, for for every follower of Jesus, in every nation, in every generation. And here's our first big idea. Is this our mission? Our mission is the Great Commission, our mission as the big C church, our mission at Grace church. And your personal mission should be the Great Commission. Jesus is last words. Should be our first priority. It's not up for grabs. We don't get to decide as a church what the mission of the church should be. If we're going to care about what God cares about, like he may declare. Now there's different expressions in different churches. There's different churches at different like it looks differently. That's true. Okay. But the heart is the same. The priority is the same. Jesus made a crystal clear mark 1615 said this. Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. This is what you are called to do. Army and us go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Now let's just break this down first of all. Notice it says go. I love that. Take initiative. Raise your hand and say, Lord, I'm on the team. I want to be part of this. Like you need to take initiative. Don't wait for them to come to you. You go to them. You're going to have to get out of your comfort zone and take a step. You go, you step. You care. You serve. You make a difference. There's this go that's there. And then it says, into all the world. Let me just tell you, that's a pretty big target. How many of you have gone to the whole world? I've, you know, gone to several parts of the world. I haven't gone to all the world, a lot of nations, 170 or whatever. The number is 84. I don't remember the number. Now, let me say this. Obviously you can't do that. What Jesus was saying is this all y'all go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to all creation. It's this is the Community. This is the big secret. This is all of us together. What we can do together is far more and what we can do. A little and as we say, you be a part of going to all the world and proclaim the good news, the God. That's what gospel means. Good news about Jesus to the whole creation. God cares about every single person on planet Earth. He loves them and cares for me. He goes, you go to them, proclaim to them good news until all have heard. I love that phrase. Until all I've heard. God's heart is that everyone would know the love of Jesus. Everyone would have an opportunity to hear the message and know his love and respond to his care for them and his love for him. And the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. Go into all the world. Proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Now Matthew said same thing, little different language. He said, go therefore, and make disciples of all nations. Very similar. Number one, what you say go. You take initiative. Make disciples of all nations. Okay. We're going to talk about make disciples. How do we do that here in just a second? Again, of all nations and that word nations and Greek is where we get our word, um, uh, ethnic or all people groups. So go make disciples. Now, how do we do that? How do we make disciples of all nations? Two ways. Number one, baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and Holy Spirit. What he means by that is this people get baptized when they proclaim their faith that they know God, love God, and want to serve God. And when they're no longer living for self, but are going to live for God. So he says, hey, I want you to go and make disciples by doing two things one, help people know God and put God first in their life, and then to teach them to observe all that I commanded you. Help them know God and then help him grow in God. Know God, growing God. Reaching people, building lives. That's what we say at Grace church. See a Grace church by God's grace. I'm very passionate about this is churches can get off. You know, if you get off a little bit and then you start going down the wrong direction for a long time, you can get off pretty far. And sometimes churches can get off pretty far. And I'm just telling you, by the grace of God, with his help, we want the bullseye, the center of the center, to be the great commission making disciples of all nations, reaching people, building lines. We'll do some other stuff and this and that. But at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. Reaching people, building lives. That's why you hear it over and over here at Grace church. That's what we're about. That's what we do. That's what our passion is. I didn't make up the mission. Jesus gave it to us. And if we're going to be centered, we're going to be centered on what he told us to do. Now, spoiler alert you ever heard someone ruin a movie for you? I'm going to. I'm going to ruin it for you. Okay. Because Jesus told us to do this. And then check this out. Here comes a spoiler alert. Matthew 2414 Jesus red letter said this, this gospel of the Kingdom. Now notice all the similar language to the last two that we just did. This gospel of the Kingdom, the good news about Jesus and the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. And that's amazing. He's saying, this is going to happen, y'all. And the gospel will be proclaimed. And it said both of them to the whole world. To all nations. All ethnic. All or all peoples. And then the end will come. This is not wrapping up. Until all have heard. He goes. It's going to happen. John, in the book of Revelation had a clear vision of heaven. Can I give you a little snapshot of what heaven's going to be like? John said this after I looked. There was before me a great multitude that no one could count. From every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the lamb, worshiping the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, from every tongue, every tribe, every nation. Y'all. Spoiler alert. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's let me just say this. It's not a matter if if the Great Commission is going to be fulfilled. Spoiler it is going to happen. Here's the question, y'all. Who gets the privilege of participating? That's what's up in the air. Like, am I going to say, Lord, hear my sin? Me I want to be a part of that. Is Grace church going to be a part of that? See, here's my heart. I go, I want to be part of that. I want to be part of that. I want. I want you to be part of that. I want Grace church to be a part of that. I'm very determined, and I really believe that you and I are called, and we are called to make a difference by being great commission followers of Jesus, and to be part of fulfilling the Great Commission. I'm zooming back and giving you a big vision, y'all. This is true. This is part of your calling. This is who you are. This is inside of you. God made you to make a difference and part of it. Part of the portfolio of your life is to have this big vision. You're a part of the big C part of the church. I've had the privilege, by God's grace, traveling all over the world. And let me just tell you this. This has no matter where you go in the world, you'll find followers of Jesus and you know what's inside of them. This right here, we want to bring the good news of Jesus to the ends of the earth. We want to be part of the Great Commission. It's inside of people because as a follower of Jesus, now what I'm going to do is this I'm going to I want to ask this question, how are we doing? Like, you're on a big team, big C church, you know, and how are we doing as followers of Jesus? And and this part, if y'all can just kind of hang with me and humor me a little bit, but I'm going to put on my teacher hat a little bit. Some of y'all know I used to be a teacher. And what I want to do is, is that if you're going to be a great commission follower of Jesus, I think getting some a snapshot of some understanding of how missiology have looked at this and Christian leaders have looked at this, gives you a lens to understand where we are and how we're doing, and some of the strategies that are taking place in the body of Christ. And then we're going to talk about how Grace church fits into that. Okay. So here's the second part. Uh, big second, big idea. Um, I got some good news for y'all. The gospel is advancing. It's working. We're winning. Y'all. Jesus is winning. Winning hearts and transforming people's lives in every tongue, every tribe, every nation. More. You know, Jesus spoiler alert told us it's going to end up that way. And I'm telling you, we're in the process of that. We've come a long way. Let me give you an update of how far we've come. We've come a long ways. Y'all know we started off with 120 people in an upper room in Jerusalem. A hundred years later, Paul had worked hard planting churches, and there were little outposts of smaller churches around. And there's about and by the way, about 7500 believers at that time. And by the way, just to let you all know, because I know, um, as your pastor in our community, uh, we got a lot of smart people. And this is just my bent a little bit. I worked really hard. We got some great, brilliant people in our church. And when I throw out statistics in this church, just to let you know, it's not Christian folklore or something I saw on TikTok or a YouTube reel, like, I really worked hard at, you know, like getting data, confirming data, getting it from great sources. All right. So just FYI, I'm not just throwing stuff around. Um, about 200 A.D., they estimate it had grown from 7500 to 200,000. But look at this. In the next hundred years. It spread across the Roman Empire and went to 6 million. It was it was it was amazing. And someday. By the way, I've been thinking about this for a long time. I want to talk about that jump and how that happened, because it's really clear and it's pretty inspiring. On how it happened. Y'all want to. Spoiler alert. Serving the poor in hospitality. That's how it happened. No one else was doing it. It was charity acts and deeds of caring for the poor and the needy and then hospitality. Those two things. It's pretty stunning. We'll come back to that. It's really good. Pretty inspiring. Challenging. Then if you know, uh, 1900, there was about 600. I mean, you know, that's 125 years ago. 600 million. But we've what, almost quadrupled in the last 126 years, 120 years to 2 billion. 300 million. Um, followers of Jesus Christ on planet Earth. Um, the gospel is advancing. Now, I know at times you ever feel like I don't know if we're winning here, y'all. Let me give you some good news. Remember, we're zooming back, seeing the big picture. We're killing it globally. We're going to talk about it because somebody in the United States, you feel like I don't know how well we're doing. And there's a lot of, you know, there's negative things about church attendance and whatever. And and of course, there are there are things that aren't always great. But but let me just say this. Sometimes the statistics aren't as discouraged as some people make them out to be because, well, there's a lot of reasons. Lord have mercy. Self-control cannot. But anyway, um, a lot of people that are all leaving the faith are also all coming at 18 and 19. All come back at 25, 26, 27, 28. And the other thing, too, is there's a big movement of people leaving dead churches, coming into alive churches, and part of the movements of people not attending certain sections. Um, some of those changes are not all bad, um, just FYI. Okay, so we're doing better here in the United States than some of the, you know, people love, you know, what preaches. Great. Dude. That's I'll tell I'm terrible, you know, whatever. You know. But okay, that aside, okay, that we're not doing the United States, we're doing big picture today. Let me just tell you this globally, um, God is moving on planet Earth, and there's massive movements of people coming to Christ around the world that are stunning, stunning. In 1900, 95% of Christians lived in the West. 126 years later, today, the majority of believers that are Christian followers of Jesus Christ live in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Let me give you a chart to show this. The Global North is like north of the equator. The global South is like south of the equator. Look at this chart here on the change that has happened. Um, we're just sputtering along in the global north and the global South there has been explosive growth. Um, let me give you an example. In Latin America. This is fairly recent. In 2002, 10% of Latin Americans were evangelical believers. In 2026, 25% are. It's incredible what's going on. Here's a quick question for you, for your brain. Uh, to try to answer, then I'll. What? What part of the world continent has the most Christians. Look at this next slide. Africa has the largest number of Christians of all continents. 26% of all Christians are in Africa. It's expected to rise to 40%, or 1.1 billion, in 1910, 115 16 years ago, there was 2 million Christians in Africa. Today, 650 million. Come on, y'all, give God a hand. It's that amazing. And, uh, and there's another whole thing. I mean, there's so much I love to this. This is a sermon with a lot of data, but I love to go off and talk to you about how the Africans are going around the world, winning the world. But anyway, we won't do that right now. Um, so praise God, a lot of good news. We can I can give you more good news. Um, but we still have a lot of work to do. There's 8.3 billion people on planet Earth. I'm just rounding up to the nearest 10th in billions. There's actually a world population count. I checked it this week. You know, a lot of babies. Anyway, um, now, now, this is where we're going to talk about Missy Elliott and how Christian leaders kind of look at this. Uh, a very helpful concept. This is not in the Bible, but it's a helpful concept is the concept of people groups. So as we look at how the good news of Jesus spreads, it spreads relationally in a people group is the largest group of people possible, where the good news of Jesus can spread without barriers of language or culture. And, um, there are approximately 17,500 people groups in the Earth. It's a lot 17,500. Now, the Joshua Project, the International Missions Board have defined there's of those 17,500 or 500. Some of them are reached and some of them are unreached. Now, what do they mean by that? A people group is unreached is if it has less than 2% of the population, is evangelical Christian, and there is no indigenous church capable of evangelizing the rest of the group without all signs of citizens. Through looking at lots of cultures, lots of situations, they basically say that there's a tipping point that once you get over 2%, 3%, 4%, like the church gets strong enough that they can keep like just reaching their own people. Okay. But below that they need some assistance. So there's three key components to an unreached people group. First of all, people group is ethnolinguistic identity. A people group is defined by shared language, ethnicity, cultural identity, not political borders. Okay, so I mean, in big cities around the world, Mexico City, wherever you go, like whatever, you could have a big city. And across the city there can be language, border barriers. Um, but in nations, what it's saying is this you may have a group of people here and in their language and their culture, and there might be a line between two countries, but into this country, it's the same people, same language, same culture, and they can. So this doesn't have to do with where country lines are drawn. It has to do with language and culture and ethnicity and ability to have relationships. And that's a very different mindset than just looking at borders that we've created with lines between nations. Uh, so that's a people group. So the other two parts are the 2% threshold below this. The group lacks, generally speaking, sufficient evangelical presence to sustain a self propagating growth. And then the other concept is there's no indigenous evangelizing church. Even if some Christians exist, if they can't realistically reach their own people without some external help, the group remains unreached. So of the 17,500, there's approximately 7400 of them that are unreached people groups. So about 10,000 are reached and they're often running doing great, but there's about 7400 where they need some assistance, they need some help. They need some support. Um, now, within the unreached people group category, the 7400, there's another subset. And that's the unengaged unreached people groups, unengaged unreached people groups. Is this there's no known churches? No missionaries actively working among them, no active strategy to reach them. No one is intentionally trying to reach them yet. There's approximately 3000 unengaged unreached people groups. Now, the question you may have is where are these groups? Well, let me show you a graphic here of where these are. And just to give you another mission term, the 1040 window has to do with latitude. Longitude. And you can see the red dots are where there are unreached people groups. And many of them are in that 1040 window. So that's a term used. Now of course, they're all over the world, but there's a high concentration between that latitude longitude in the 1040 window. One of the key things to help reach unreached people groups is the goal of having the scripture for every single person on planet Earth. In their heart language. In their heart language. There are approximately 7300 languages in the world. And I want to give you an update that that through Wycliffe and many other organizations. Y'all, they are getting after it. Okay. Let me go ahead and bring up that next slide. Um, that there are you can see massive gains that we've been making. Um, and, and a lot of encouragement. Good things are happening now. The status is this there of 7300 languages may surprise you. There are only 750 of the 7300 that have the full Bible in their language. Another 1750 languages have the New Testament portions of the New Testament. There's one another 1300, but they don't have the full New Testament. And there's translation in progress with another 3000 languages. People without scripture in their language is still around 1.5 billion people. Now the good news is through technology and AI, it's greatly aiding in our translation speed. But obviously the accuracy and and you need you know. But but that's a huge step to help people hear about Jesus and experience his love and his grace. Um, and there's massive they're saying in the next 10 to 15 years, they may have Scripture in every single language on planet Earth, in every single person's heart language, which is pretty amazing. So that's a brief overview of how we're doing as the big C church. Now I want to talk about Grace church for just a minute. I want to talk about our participation. Grace church is committed to advance the kingdom. The bulls, reaching people, building lives, being part of this. At great church, we want to participate in the Great Commission. I want to say this by God's grace. Since Grace church got started at its inception, we have. This has been a part of our heart and our passion, um, since we got started. By the way, um, we are two months and two weeks from our 40th anniversary, so yeah, it's kind of fun. So we had our very first service on Memorial Day weekend at the Holiday Inn, um, in 1986, and uh, on Memorial Day weekend this year, we are going to throw a party. And, uh, our founding pastors, Jerry Nan Daley, are going to be here and tell stories. Um, we're going to we're going to have a really fun time not just celebrating the past, but also then looking to the future. And if you all can be here Memorial Day weekend and we're going to have a great time. And I'm already talking to team, you know, you know, you know me man, I'm getting a little swag for us or something. You know, so it's going to be great now. I believe this that part of the reason God has blessed us is because of our commitment to the Grace church, to the Great Commission. Jesus said this. If you do this, make disciples of all nations. He had a promise, and I will be with you always. I'll be with you. I'll bless you. I'll have your back. I'll open doors for you. I'll bless you to be a blessing. And I want to see this just real briefly. I believe that's true for a church, but I also believe it's true for a family, for an individual, that. That if you're a person that's about making disciples of all nations and part of the portfolio of your life is saying, hey, I want to care for the poor and the needy. I want to help dig a well, I want to make a difference. I want to bring the gospel to the ends of the earth. I am a great commission follower of Jesus. I've got a global view and believe that God's got a global plan. And I want to say, Lord, here am I. Send me. I'm a part of that. I say, with this God will be with you always, and he will bless you. And in year 2000, we came up with the strategy. We'd always been doing it, but we came up with a specific strategy of saying, hey, what we're doing at Grace church is great. We tithe and we give out as a church, um, to, to make a difference, to bring the gospel. But we said, hey, what if we did above and beyond giving to see how far we could move the ball down the field and what an impact we could make. And what we did is this we came up with this phrase partner to reach the nation. This is the phrase that I've used over and over and over our strategy of doing the Great Commission. Now, there are unreached, unengaged groups, you know, about 250 to 350 million people. Um, you know, it's actually a lot of people, but at the same time, compared to 8.3 billion. Um, we're making good progress. So in most of the world, not all the world. Most of the world. Let me tell you this. This is very important. There's already someone there who's great and doing a great job. So our strategy has been partnered to reach the nations. Let's develop relationships with great people that are already there. Let's get behind them, support them, and let's let them define for us how we can serve them. So what we've been able to do is we ask our partners here locally, in our community and around the world. We ask them this question, what were you not able to do last year that you'd love to do this year? And they define for us how we can serve them. So for example, URI seminar, we asked them years ago, he said, well, you know, we've got this orphanage and it'll be a blessing to put on a camp for the kids and build a playground for them at the orphanage. Like, okay, we'll do that. We'll send a team, we'll run the camp. We'll we'll we'll. And then one time he said, you know, this year what would be really a blessing is to invest in our marriages. We'd love to do a marriage retreat and invest in. Could you all come? And we did that. And so then he got a vision for the Christmas spirit. So we're gonna help him with his Christmas. Here's the point. That's been our philosophy. Now, let me just say this. If I may brag about y'all for just a moment, only 0.1% of Christian giving goes to national Christians to empower them to reach their their their sphere of influence, their world. That means if you give $100.10. And I just want to say again, it's not about comparison. I'm just so proud of you, Grace church. And I think part of why God's blessed us is because partner to reach the nations. Is is the the bullseye the heart of exactly how we've done all of our global outreach? As we said, we're going to find great people, we're going to resource them, and we're going to help them in Cuba make a difference for Jesus Christ. So, um, praise God, every year we come up with, uh, this to do list. What we do is this we vet partners, we track projects, and then we report back to you, we that we track, and then we report back to you. And that's what I want to do right now. Let me just show you for 2025 this previous year, this was the to do list that we came up with a big, huge, long to do list to partner to reach the nations. We set an 80 K goal of$820,000 from our church. That's a lot of money above and beyond giving. And I want to report back to you that because of your generosity. Our 2025 ATK giving came in at$965,726.47. I love the $0.47. So, um, 118% of our goal. And look at this. Um, there's our done list. Everything. This is my favorite slide. It's all done late, but we knocked it out. Isn't that awesome? And I call this our kingdom mutual fund. For every one of you who gave $1. It's a it's like a mutual fund. You impacted all those. You made a difference in all of those. And do you know how much administration fees there were? Zero. How much overhead? There was zero. Every single dollar goes into the hands of our partners to make a difference and to make an impact. Yeah. Now, you may have noticed we were at 118%. This is my favorite baby. This is my favorite part. Okay, so this is what we call our bonus 8-K. We have shovel ready vision which means the shovel is ready. We're ready to stick the shovel in the ground and go. And so look at that. Our next slide shows our bonus 8-K. Because of your incredible generosity, we were able to do all of these projects that weren't even in the booklet or on the list. Come on. Isn't that awesome? I love it, I love it, I love it. Thank you. God bless you. There's an eternal return on your investment. We call it ROI that that that lives were changed. Churches planted, people impacted because of what you did. So 2026 advanced. The kingdom back is we're back for more. Maybe the best is yet to come. We want to keep reaching. People want to keep building lives. We want to keep being a part of making a difference in the world. We want to keep digging wells. We want to keep helping the poor and the needy. And we've put our vision together to tackle this, and we come up with our 2026 ATK to do list. So here it is y'all. It's all back to the left side. And we've got a bunch of projects now. Um I want to take a minute and just kind of walk you through this briefly. Um, um, uh, we have a booklet for everyone and elements in here. There's a booklet for you in the seat in front of you, and we we tell you exactly what projects we're going to do and exactly how much we're investing in each of those projects. And we break them up into three categories local, global, and next generation. We want to make a difference in our community. We want to make a difference around the world. And we really believe passionately that if we're going to be here and if we look down the horizon, we need to invest in the next generation. Um, and that's very significant. And healthy churches, um, don't just grow old and phase out. They reached the next generation. And, uh. Anyway. So, um. In your booklet, you can see, you know, for, um, local, we're going to do Serve Day. We just did that. We got serve projects that we're doing. By the way, if you all enjoyed Serve Day, we have serve projects every month, multiple projects in Chapel Hill and in Alamance. It's awesome. So y'all can keep hopping in. Um, to those, we're going to partner with new Hope Elementary Pregnancy Support Services, Single Moms Care, and Campus Expansion. We are really believing God to start a third campus. Um, we're looking at locations, um, we're believing God eventually that we're going to have we as we start our third campus, we're going to end up wanting, needing to have two permanent homes for Alamance and for, uh, this third campus. So we have a lot of big vision. Um, but that's a very significant thing. And as we've grown and as Alamance, y'all are just killing it out there. But our ability to do this has really grown, y'all. Let me just say this real briefly, just again, to honor the Lord, to bless God through expanding, reaching people and building lives. We used to raise about $100,000 a year, 105, 110. And then we added on to our facility and like, what do y'all really need to spend that money on a building? And I'm like, you don't have to choose between the two. We're going to grow our ability to reach people and build lives and serve the poor and the needy and dig wells. And now, this year, um, by God's grace, we're going to do a whole lot more than we did at, you know, we could have stayed at $100,000 and not spent money on a building or campus expansion, or gone out to Alamance and reach a new community. Or, you know, we're looking at another community. And so, y'all, I just want to give you a vision. We can do both. Okay. Global missions. There's a great list, a really great things here. Um, um, last weekend, you got to hear from Craig MacLeod if you were here at Grace church. Craig is a long time friend of mine and ours at Grace. Um, he's working with the ministry in India. And, um, if I may just say something that's personal and for all of us. But this is really, really in my heart, personally. Um, is I, uh, I hear, uh, I'm making my run at Grace church for a good while, so don't don't get nervous. Um, but when I'm done leading Grace church one day and one day, I'm going to stand before the Lord. And this is just deep inside of me. I want to stand. And I want to invite you into this. I want to stand before God and say, we've reached one unreached people group, Grace Church reach one group that was completely unengaged, unreached that. I want to do that now. Maybe we'll be able to do more, but I'm determined to get one. And so we're working with Craig and with in India. India has more unreached people groups than any other nation in the world. And I said, help us find a place. I said, we're committed. We're going all in. This is not one year. We'll stay. We'll do, we'll serve, we'll pray, we'll give. You know, we vetted, we sent two people there last year like we're, uh. And wouldn't that be cool that again? Kingdom mutual fund. Let me just say this stuff, y'all. I am not doing Christian talk to try to get you to give I believe in this so deeply and passionately. And I believe it's so inside of you that you are made to make a difference. It's going to happen, y'all. The only question is who gets the privilege of participating? That's what Paul said. He was writing the Philippians and said, hey, y'all know there's this need over here. And he's like, at the end of the day, he knows God's going to take care of the need. He goes, I don't seek for the gift itself. I seek for the profit which increases to your account. He goes like he goes. That's my motive. That's my heart. I. I want to profit, to increase to your account. And I don't care even how you do it or what you do. But at the end of the day, that's the deal. I'll confess. You know, maybe I'm a little like this. May have been a little selfish. We had an opportunity to come by and I thought, well, we could do it as a church. And I'll be honest, I still believe in this. And maybe this is sanctified selfishness. I'm like, I don't want to share the reward in heaven. I'm doing that. Nana and I are giving to that and owning the whole thing. I believe in this, y'all. It's real. We can make a difference. We can move the ball down the field. We can dig wells. We can change lives. We can plant churches. We can store up treasures in heaven, not on earth. Listen, God blesses you to be a blessing. God gives you all things to enjoy, right? There's a religious thing about, like, you know, like, be miserable and just give it all your you know, that that's not the message. Be blessed, but be blessed to be a blessing. How much blessing can you handle until it goes to your head? Or how much blessing could God give you? Would you just hoard it for yourself? Or are you going to be a conduit? Or are you going to be a pipeline that every time God blesses you, he he ends up blessing the poor and the needy and the nations? He's sitting up with blessings and heaven going, who should I give it to? I'm like ooh ooh ooh. Pick me. Lord, I would love for Grace church. I'd love for Kendrick and Nana to be blessed, to be a blessing. Because I'm not just I. It's. This isn't the Dead Sea where it all comes to die. I want to be a river. I want to be a river of blessing. I want it to flow through me. So anyway, I'm excited, y'all, I love you. Okay, um, where am I anyway? Okay. I don't even know where I am. Okay. I'm on. Uh oh. Next generations. I think I'm on. Yeah. All right, we got a bunch of next gen cool stuff that we're going to do. Can't be sp some, uh, Vacation Bible school next gen stuff. Okay. Our goal for 2026 is to raise $910,000. Yeah. Come on, y'all. Now, let me say this. You know, like like we like to under promise over produce because we're working with our partners and we want to make sure we always come through. And by God's grace, he's always helped us. Every single year. Okay, so, um, but let me tell you this. We have bonus ATK in our back pocket. Shovel ready, vision ready to go. We had one cool project that already came along that after we printed this, you know, I'm like, okay, like we're going to get that one done to my God's grace. Okay. Um, you know, we'll knock all these out first. Now together for the gospel. What I want to do is this I am not. What we do is this we give to our ATK for the next 12 months, above and beyond. Giving every single dollar goes to make a difference. And I want you to know this. I'm not going to ask you to give. I'm going to ask you to ask God if you should participate. And then what? Faith. You have to believe to help dig a well. Feed the hungry. Help the homeless, plant a church, reach and unreached people group. It's incredible. It's incredible what we're doing. It's amazing. And I believe this. Um. My heart, my prayer, my passion is participation. It's not amounts. God takes care of amounts. But if I could have my way, I would just ask all of you to pray and to ask God. Am I supposed to participate? Are we supposed to participate? And Lord, how much could I believe you for to to to flow through me? It helps us with our planning. We got partners and we like to communicate. And we got to figure out, you know, we got spreadsheets and plans, you know? Um, but, um, I think that's so powerful because God gives you faith to believe that you could invest in this kingdom mutual fund and make a difference all over the world. If you're a guest here today, God bless you. Welcome. Like, oh, the you know, I came on the money Sunday. Um, and, uh, but but be free. Um, if you're a regular attender, a member here, you're not free. I'm just kidding. Um, your pastor is asking you to ask God, because I just think if we all participate, the power and the unity of that is so powerful. That's really my heart. Like I say, the numbers always take care of themselves by God's grace. And and I think it's way more like it's more it's it's way more risky if for you to ask God. That's what Nan and I do every year, I go, oh, here we go again. Because we've never gone down. He's always stretched us to invest more and give more. And I want to tell you, by God's grace, like I'm not asking you to do something that I'm not doing. Like we're leading. Nana and I are leading. And when you reproduce who you are, not what you teach at the end of the day. And I so believe in this. I so believe in this. And I want to give you the privilege of participating in our advance the Kingdom offering over this next year, because we are going to make a big, huge. So what I ask you to consider, consider stepping in. Maybe you've never participated before. Step in, ask God, and and then step up to whatever God puts in your heart, and then step out and trust God that he's going to provide. This is we call our faith commitment card. It's in the booklet that's in front of you. You can take the booklet with you, by the way, and maybe you know in your heart what you would like to do. Maybe you want to take it with you. Um, there's a QR code. You can fill this out online. We keep it super simple. Name, email, and then just like, hey, um, this isn't like a bail in the mail. It's just like a between me and you. Lord, what do I want to believe God for? Let me tell you this. It helps us with our planning. But I think it helps you even more. It helps me even more because I go, this is what I feel like God wants me to do. I'm believing God to do through me this year, and it helps me have faith and pray and to plan and to see what I'm saying. Um, and so, um, filling this out now we're going to have, uh, a spot at the back of each of the doors for you to drop this off on your way out and or just fill it out with a QR code will really help us. So I want to pray with you and for you. I hope that you've really caught my heart. I hope you've really caught God's heart. And again, this is why I love being part of our spiritual family at Grace church is because I know this is who we are. This is what we've been doing. But I want to continue. My word for the year is step up, and I want us to continue to step in, step up and step out to all that God has for us. Lord, we thank you for what you're doing in the earth. Lord God, we say, Jesus, you are the King of Kings and the Lord of lords. You rule and reign. You're you ask us to pray. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and your your good news. The gospel of Jesus Christ is going to every tongue, every tribe, every nation. What a privilege it is for us to participate in Scripture translation this year and digging wells, starting churches, reaching an unreached people group in India. Lord, in making an impact in our community through serve projects and partners. And Lord, I pray you give us ears to hear. Lord, faith to believe you and trust you. That part of the portfolio of our life. We would be blessed to be a blessing, and that blessing would flow out and we could be part of being great commission followers of Jesus. We could help the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, those that are in prison like we. We care. And when we do it to them, we do it to the least, to when we do it to the least of them. Lord, we we're serving you, Jesus. You take it personally and I pray you give us faith to believe. Number two, trust you for that you would give it to us, Lord, and that we're going to see you by God's grace. Help us to accomplish all that you've put in our hearts. In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. Can we put our.