SPEAKER_00: Vision Sunday, what does vision do for us?
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it helps clarify our purpose, clarifies our purpose.
SPEAKER_00: There's a story of a traveler visiting a new town and he sees three people cutting stones.
SPEAKER_00: He asks the first person, So what are you doing here?
SPEAKER_00: And the guy said, Well, clearly, I'm cutting a stone.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he said, Okay, he goes to the next guy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, clearly I'm making money.
SPEAKER_00: He goes to the next guy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Well, clearly I'm building a cathedral, you know, because he's the one who saw the purpose, right?
SPEAKER_00: There was vision what he was doing.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't just making money.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't just, you know, feeding his family.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't just cutting a stone.
SPEAKER_00: No, he was building to something bigger, which I think vision helps us clarify our purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, it helps clarify our direction.
SPEAKER_00: There's a quote in Alice in Wonderland, where Alice asked the cat, Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that cat says that well, that depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the cat.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't care where, said Alice.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the cat said, then it doesn't matter which way you go.
SPEAKER_00: So long as I get somewhere, Alice added as an explanation.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you'll you're sure to do that, said the cat.
SPEAKER_00: If only you walk long enough.
SPEAKER_00: And much of the times I found in church, if we don't have a clarity in where we're going, we'll do the same.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.
SPEAKER_00: So for us today, we just want to clarify our vision of what does it mean that we as a church, our new song here in Gunnison, Colorado, to clarify our purpose and to give us clarity and direction.
SPEAKER_00: And with that, I will pray and we'll get started.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord Jesus, we do just thank you, God, for Lord, your clarity that you've given guidance and order for what the church is and what we are about and why we gather.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord Jesus, I just pray that you would speak to us this morning and clarify, Lord, what is our vision?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've been in church my whole life.
SPEAKER_00: And for all those different seasons of life, I would go to church for all kinds of different reasons.
SPEAKER_00: And I found it's true for everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe people are going to church to make friends.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they come to find a spouse, become a better person to find purpose.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they go to church just during a difficult season to find help.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just raising children with good values, or even finding someone else to watch your kids for free for an hour and a half.
SPEAKER_00: We found that a lot in Denver.
SPEAKER_00: Or it's just potentially continuing a family tradition.
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's important to clarify as a church, regardless of why we're coming, we exist for a reason.
SPEAKER_00: And we do a vision Sunday to clarify why we exist.
SPEAKER_00: So over time, the why we're coming can align with why we are existing.
SPEAKER_00: And today I hope to go through two things.
SPEAKER_00: One, the vision and the mission.
SPEAKER_00: Vision, first of all, where we are going.
SPEAKER_00: I've been here for five months now, five months.
SPEAKER_00: And just through the five months, you've with others and the elders, we've been processing.
SPEAKER_00: Where are we going as a church?
SPEAKER_00: Why do we exist?
SPEAKER_00: Where are we going?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Stanley says, vision is a clear picture of what could be fueled by the conviction that it should be.
SPEAKER_00: Vision of what could be, fueled by conviction, well, and that actually should be.
SPEAKER_00: So where are we going?
SPEAKER_00: What is our vision?
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, how do we get there?
SPEAKER_00: More of the mission of what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, why we are going there.
SPEAKER_00: Why are we going there?
SPEAKER_00: Someone recently introduced me to the book called The Little Prince.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a French author, and the one of his lines, he's also poet, he says, building a boat isn't about weaving canvas, forging nails, reading the sky.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's about giving a shared taste for the seas.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: What he's getting at, we don't build a boat just so we can look at it on land and see how well it's designed and appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00: No, we build it because we love sailing the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: Vision is similar.
SPEAKER_00: Vision matters.
SPEAKER_00: In 1962, when John Kennedy gave a vision to the country to do what?
SPEAKER_00: Go to the moon, right?
SPEAKER_00: It was this grand vision.
SPEAKER_00: That's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: We can't possibly land a man on the moon.
SPEAKER_00: Famously said, we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a story that circulated, especially through leadership books, that maybe is not true.
SPEAKER_00: But he was down in um Houston, at space at Johnson's Kennedy Center, Johnson Space Center.
SPEAKER_00: And he was supposedly going through at like it meeting all the people.
SPEAKER_00: He meets a janitor, asks Janor, okay, and what do you do here, sir?
SPEAKER_00: Janitor responds, Well, sir, I'm helping man get to the moon because he saw the vision that everyone plays a part.
SPEAKER_00: Why we are going there matters.
SPEAKER_00: So Vision Sunday, I thought it'd be helpful to just start with where we've come in five months.
SPEAKER_00: Um we started as New Song Christian Fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: New Song Christian Fellowship started um in the 70s in Gunnison and it started out of college ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And if you talk to Rick, um originally they were a college fellowship, and then they started meeting Sundays.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to meet Sunday mornings.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to be a church, they wanted to be a fellowship of Christians.
SPEAKER_00: They were particularly all in their early 20s or through in college age, and they just happened to be meeting on Sundays, didn't necessarily want to identify even as a church, but that legacy continued, obviously it grew beyond college kids, but the name remained of New Song Christian Fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: New Song Christian Fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: When I first came, one of the first things we did a couple months into it was we changed the name to New Song Church.
SPEAKER_00: New Song Church.
SPEAKER_00: For us, it wasn't a matter of just, okay, we need a new brand or we need a new logo, new website, new name, anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: It was more a matter of identity, of who we are.
SPEAKER_00: We're more than just a Christian fellowship that's meeting for the fellowship of friends, the connection.
SPEAKER_00: No, we are actually a church.
SPEAKER_00: And if you remember when we first did it, we talked through there were five descriptions in the Bible of church as a foundation for our vision.
SPEAKER_00: I thought it'd be helpful to recount them.
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, the the first thing, the way the way the church is described is as the body of Christ, the body of Christ, that we are all members of one another, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not independent.
SPEAKER_00: I might be a hand, but a hand is useless just laying on the floor on its own, right?
SPEAKER_00: The hand is only useful connected into the greater body.
SPEAKER_00: And we all are one member in this greater body.
SPEAKER_00: And the the point of that is that we need each other.
SPEAKER_00: And especially in American tradition, we all are taught we are self-sufficient, we're independent, we pave our own way, we create our own legacy.
SPEAKER_00: The church is one of interdependency.
SPEAKER_00: We are dependent on each other, in need of each other.
SPEAKER_00: We function together only as one part, one point, one point in this greater machine, right?
SPEAKER_00: That on its own doesn't necessarily accomplish much.
SPEAKER_00: So the body of Christ, we need each other, and there are two ways that we need each other, described through scripture.
SPEAKER_00: First in Romans, it says, just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function describing the human body, so in Christ, though many, many of us even here, we form one body.
SPEAKER_00: Each member belongs to all the others.
SPEAKER_00: We have different gifts according to the grace each of us is given.
SPEAKER_00: We are one body in his mission.
SPEAKER_00: We're one body in our spiritual growth as well.
SPEAKER_00: We read in Ephesians, speaking the truth in love, we grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is the Christ, that is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every support ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part, every part, each member, all of us, does its work.
SPEAKER_00: Does its work.
SPEAKER_00: So the body of Christ, we need each other both in our the mission of God.
SPEAKER_00: We're not soul rangers where we can go out and reach Gunnison.
SPEAKER_00: No, as the collective body of Christ, we go out to reach Gunnison.
SPEAKER_00: And we also need each other in our spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_00: We grow together, is what Paul is saying in Ephesians, which for me is I have to come back to.
SPEAKER_00: Because in seminary, you're taught, grow yourself, read your books, study, learn, grow, grow and be become a man of God, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and Paul's saying, no, we are building our each other up.
SPEAKER_00: Together we are being built up as each part does its work.
SPEAKER_00: We need each other in our growth.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we talked about that the church is the temple of God, the temple of God, which is profound when you think about it.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean that we host his presence?
SPEAKER_00: For we are the sanctuary of the living God, Paul writes in Corinthians, and to the church at Ephesus, Ephesus, he says, You are also being built together for God's dwelling in the Spirit, hosting his presence.
SPEAKER_00: So together, when we gather, we know and encounter the living God.
SPEAKER_00: The face of God or the presence of God is revealed as the church or the temple of God.
SPEAKER_00: Third, the church is described as the bride of Christ, the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're betrothed to our lover, preparing ourselves for the great wedding feast.
SPEAKER_00: And when is this wedding feast?
SPEAKER_00: We read from Revelation for the marriage of the Lamb has come.
SPEAKER_00: His bride, his church, us, has made herself ready.
SPEAKER_00: As the bride of Christ, we know and love God collectively, together, as one body.
SPEAKER_00: This has been super hard for me to wrap my mind around of just I'm so independently driven, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I I individually know God, I individually love God, right?
SPEAKER_00: Paul and throughout the New Testament, it's described as the community that know and love God.
SPEAKER_00: We collectively together as one are the bride of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Fourth, it's described as the family of God.
SPEAKER_00: The family of God in 1 Timothy, Paul says, the household of God is the church of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: The household of God is the church of the living God.
SPEAKER_00: Families, at least historically, they do things jointly in life and mission.
SPEAKER_00: So as one family, we join in life and mission.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, it's described as the city of God.
SPEAKER_00: The city of God.
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 5, Jesus says, You, you all, not you individually, you all, you are the light of the world.
SPEAKER_00: You, the church, are the light of the world.
SPEAKER_00: A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it describes that the world will see our good works, praise our Father in heaven, describing us as a city that the world sees, and something about this city draws them to the knowledge of God, to praise the Father in heaven, right?
SPEAKER_00: And what is a city?
SPEAKER_00: A town has a culture, a government, an economy, a sharing of resources.
SPEAKER_00: So we are, as the church, the city of God to demonstrate light to the world.
SPEAKER_00: That the world looks on and says, Well, that community, something is unique.
SPEAKER_00: Love is happening there.
SPEAKER_00: The city of God demonstrating goodness to the world.
SPEAKER_00: So when we are we are moving from New Song Christian Fellowship to New Song Church, we just wanted to be very clear what we are.
SPEAKER_00: We are a church.
SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: We're the body of Christ, we're the temple, we're the bride, we're the family, we're the city of God.
SPEAKER_00: I find it interesting that oftentimes through my experience of church, because I'm most of my life, I sat in the pews, right?
SPEAKER_00: I sat in the pews.
SPEAKER_00: My experience of church, yeah, I knew that this was what the Bible said I was as a part of the church, but it didn't necessarily mean that I had to choose to be that.
SPEAKER_00: I had to choice in it, right?
SPEAKER_00: And let me explain it.
SPEAKER_00: So, like, let's say, you know, like God is saying this is what you are, but I might sit in the church and say, Well, I don't feel as the the the body of this this community.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel in family with this this community.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel necessarily this is a city.
SPEAKER_00: So it's my choice maybe to decide, well, well, maybe that doesn't apply to me, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like standing up on a on a roof and deciding that, well, I don't believe in gravity.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in gravity.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on the roof.
SPEAKER_00: But the laws are still established.
SPEAKER_00: God decides what the church is, and he's established, he's ordained it.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You are the body of Christ, you are the temple of God, you are the bride of Christ, you are the family of God and the city of God.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what you believe, that's who you are, that's what He has established and ordained, that's what what we are as the church.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to decide.
SPEAKER_00: He has called us to that, which was life-changing for me, because for me it was like, well, I'm gonna decide if this is my family, and I'm gonna decide if if if I'm I'm in this body where I'm functioning together, and and I and God corrected me at one point and said, No, you don't get to decide.
SPEAKER_00: If this is your church family, you are a member of the body, whether you want to or not.
SPEAKER_00: You are a member of this family and you contribute as a member of this family.
SPEAKER_00: And for churches do membership for a lot of different reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Most compelling to me is that it clarifies what we are, it just clarifies what we are.
SPEAKER_00: It's not asking you, hey, will you become a member of this body?
SPEAKER_00: It's saying, no, if this is your day regular group that you attend, Jesus says you're a member of this body.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get to decide.
SPEAKER_00: If you are uh are considering this your your your your local community, you are in this family.
SPEAKER_00: And that family functions in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: There's certain responsibilities in that, there's certain expectations, there's certain status in that.
SPEAKER_00: So so, as the church of God, if this is our community that we're regularly joining, then we are members as as the body, as a temple, as the bride, as the family, as a city.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to decide, it's it's decided for us.
SPEAKER_00: First, so so just kind of wanted to start with that of where we're coming as as a new song, as a vision.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is we are a church.
SPEAKER_00: But even within the church, the greater church, different congregations have different focuses to reach and save different groups of people.
SPEAKER_00: So if you've been around for the last couple weeks and we've been kind of reciting where we're going as a church, we want to be passionate worshipers, becoming like Jesus, living on mission, passionate worshipers, becoming like Jesus, living on mission.
SPEAKER_00: And and this is becoming, at least that we're at now, just our mission, our vision as a church.
SPEAKER_00: Passionate worshipers, and I'll go through these.
SPEAKER_00: I listed this uh in the bulletin, but you can read through it, and I'll just I'll start with just reading passionate worshipers.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: We believe Jesus is the perfection of all beauty, he is the creator of all beauty, he is the fullness of all beauty, and thus he is worthy of all worship.
SPEAKER_00: Every glimpse of beauty in creation, whether love, goodness, truth, joy, mercy, music, nature, or sacrifice finds its origin and fulfillment in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And what is beauty?
SPEAKER_00: Beauty is that which awakens love, joy, wonder, and desire, so that the more clearly we see the beauty, the beauty of Jesus through Scripture by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the more our hearts are stored toward affection, admiration, delight, worship.
SPEAKER_00: And becoming passionate worshipers, we set our lives to know the beauty of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because worship is not merely singing songs, it is responding with our entire lives to the surpassing worth and beauty of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I'll break this down.
SPEAKER_00: Worship.
SPEAKER_00: Worship, I like the definition of worship, is our response to seeing beauty, our response to seeing beauty.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard the people define worship thousands of different ways.
SPEAKER_00: I like this one.
SPEAKER_00: Our response to seeing beauty.
SPEAKER_00: And what is glory?
SPEAKER_00: Glory is the revealing of beauty, and we know that God is holy in his beauty, and when that beauty is revealed, there is glory.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, as we've talked about through the last series of John, God is the creator and perfection of all beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Another way to say it is he's the source of all beauty, he's the summation of all beauty, he's the founder of all beauty, he's the fullness of all beauty, he is holy, he is supremely beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: So when we see his beauty, rightly knowing the creator and the fullness of all beauty, our hearts universally respond in worship.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: We know he is good, he's amazing, he's awesome, he is desirable, he's admirable, he's inspiring, he's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Our hearts, when we see him, respond in worship.
SPEAKER_00: But it says in Romans, humanity exchange the truth about God that he is beautiful, he is wholly good.
SPEAKER_00: When we for a lie, and we worshiped and served created things rather than the creator.
SPEAKER_00: We lost sight of the beauty of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, as we talked about through the last series, is the embodiment of all beauty.
SPEAKER_00: As we read in Hebrews, he is the radiance of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell from Colossians.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, he is worthy of all worship.
SPEAKER_00: All that I'm just trying to get to this point that God reveals the beauty of Jesus, and our response is worship.
SPEAKER_00: Our response is worship.
SPEAKER_00: Took me a while to learn this as well, because for the longest time I thought worship, we sing songs.
SPEAKER_00: And if it's really good, I feel something.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, and I and so, and I thought the feeling of something almost was the the sense of worship really through scripture, it became clear to me.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, worship is a response to just the revelation of his beauty.
SPEAKER_00: And the more I see him, I'm like, whoa, he's worthy, he's awesome, he's beautiful, he's love, he is kind, he's generous, he's good, he is perfection, he is beauty.
SPEAKER_00: My heart responds in worship, and in that emotion, in that affection, and that desire, it's moved in music.
SPEAKER_00: God gave us music so we can put motion to our emotion.
SPEAKER_00: So God reveals the beauty of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Our response is worship.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes we sing that response because it gives again motion to our emotion.
SPEAKER_00: But God said it Paul says in Corinthians, for God who said, Let light shine out of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: He made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us the light to know his glory displayed in the face of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: What is his glory?
SPEAKER_00: Again, it is the revealing of his beauty, the revealing of his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: We seek to know his beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because in our seeking to know his beauty, in our gazing at his beauty, in our longing for his beauty, we can increasingly know, or as it says in the Corinthians, that the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ, increasingly know Christ, and our response is worship.
SPEAKER_00: Passionate worship is a response to revelation, not a feeling in a song.
SPEAKER_00: But there is feeling.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I love Jonathan Edwards.
SPEAKER_00: Revelation reproduces feeling.
SPEAKER_00: If I feel if I see love, I'm amazed by it.
SPEAKER_00: If I see true beauty, the beauty of God, my heart is wow, he's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: So there is feeling, but the feeling isn't the worship.
SPEAKER_00: The rep the worship is the response to the revelation of his beauty.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: We seek him as a community.
SPEAKER_00: What do we want to be as a vision?
SPEAKER_00: What is our vision as a community?
SPEAKER_00: We seek him with all our hearts, as David says, You, God, are my God.
SPEAKER_00: Earnestly, in earnest, my heart is longing.
SPEAKER_00: I seek you, I thirst for you, my whole being, everything about me, I long for you.
SPEAKER_00: In a dry and parched land where there is no water.
SPEAKER_00: I have seen you in the sanctuary and behold your power and your glory, because your love is better than life itself.
SPEAKER_00: My lips will glorify you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll speak of it.
SPEAKER_00: I'll praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands, I will be fully satisfied as if with the riches of food.
SPEAKER_00: Heart satisfied, singing lips, my mouth will praise you.
SPEAKER_00: We seek to know his beauty with in earnest.
SPEAKER_00: We see him in the sanctuary, we know his glory, we respond in praise.
SPEAKER_00: So one of the kind of summary verses of what does this mean that we want to be passionate worshipers, which is Psalm 27.
SPEAKER_00: One thing I asked from the Lord, the one thing if I had a list, we have lots of things that we want from God for us as a community.
SPEAKER_00: What's the top of the list?
SPEAKER_00: The one thing we want, this only do I seek.
SPEAKER_00: This is it, this is what I want, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.
SPEAKER_00: To do what?
SPEAKER_00: Just to hang out, float in clouds?
SPEAKER_00: No, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and seek him in his temple.
SPEAKER_00: To gaze on the beauty of the Lord, to seek him in his temple.
SPEAKER_00: That is our yearning as a community.
SPEAKER_00: So step one or point one of um what is us as a mission and vision of New Song Church.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be passionate worshipers, but we're not just seeking the feeling.
SPEAKER_00: No, we are gazing on the beauty of the Lord, seeking him in his temple.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one thing we seek, the one thing we're asking, and in response, there is glory, the revelation of his beauty.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be passionate worshipers.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we want to become like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I say it every week.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus isn't merely our Lord and leader, right?
SPEAKER_00: He is what?
SPEAKER_00: Our example to follow, which is profound.
SPEAKER_00: I also say it for mostly every week that our standard of maturity in Christ is the humility of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The humility of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Reflecting on the humility of Christ, if that is our standard of maturity in Christ, that is even more profound.
SPEAKER_00: If this is our expectation of how to live, the humility of Christ, the humility that Jesus demonstrated, if that is what he is calling us into, is what you want to be a mature follower of Jesus to become like him.
SPEAKER_00: Look at his humility.
SPEAKER_00: And there's two ways that we do that here at Newsong.
SPEAKER_00: One, we call them, I call them formation groups, and secondly, we emphasize beholding Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I read it a little bit earlier, but um Ephesians 4, speaking the truth in love.
SPEAKER_00: Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head that is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Two things important.
SPEAKER_00: One, we grow together collectively, and to the mature body of him.
SPEAKER_00: We know maturity in Christ is demonstrated in his humility.
SPEAKER_00: From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work, speaking the truth in love.
SPEAKER_00: Churches do small groups in all kinds of different ways.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them, at least in my experience, the emphasis on like fellowship, right?
SPEAKER_00: Which is great.
SPEAKER_00: Some the emphasis is on information.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in Sunday schools.
SPEAKER_00: We would sit and listen, it was like lecture, it was a seminary.
SPEAKER_00: Fellowship, some was in information.
SPEAKER_00: Third group is on formation.
SPEAKER_00: For me, that is my passion in doing small groups.
SPEAKER_00: Why do we do regeneration?
SPEAKER_00: Why do we do men's groups?
SPEAKER_00: You get a little bit of every of all three in any group, but my emphasis, my goal, my hope is formation.
SPEAKER_00: And how do we do that formation?
SPEAKER_00: We're speaking the truth in love.
SPEAKER_00: To me, regeneration, why I'm such a big fan of it.
SPEAKER_00: Regeneration does this remarkably.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's not necessarily us speaking the truth in love.
SPEAKER_00: We are sitting with God, and God is speaking the truth to us about ourselves, and we learn about ourselves, and then we get out and we share with others.
SPEAKER_00: Here is what God has shown me about myself, and we can love each other.
SPEAKER_00: And the point of it is growing to become mature, the mature body of Him.
SPEAKER_00: Reason we do Monday Night Men's Groups or any other group, really.
SPEAKER_00: We we want to focus on formation, not just fellowship or information.
SPEAKER_00: So this new song church, again, church churches do small groups in a thousand different ways.
SPEAKER_00: For us, we want to focus on becoming like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we gather together in small groups, we're gonna speak the truth in love, focusing on formation.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we want to focus beholding Jesus, and part of that will come through sermons as we do songs or or just other programs.
SPEAKER_00: But as it says in Corinthians, we all who with unveiled faces contemplate, we're we're in the word is staring at a mirror, reflecting on it, gazing at it, contemplating, reflecting deeply the Lord's glory.
SPEAKER_00: As we are doing that, we are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we've talked about we're wanting to become like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There can be there can be an element of formation, especially in the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, I need to do all these different things.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to, you gave me all these commandments, I need to do them better.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying that actually the way you're becoming more like Christ is you're contemplating his glory.
SPEAKER_00: As you're contemplating his glory with unveiled faces, you're being transformed to his image with ever-increasing glory.
SPEAKER_00: People call it beholding to become.
SPEAKER_00: Beholding to become.
SPEAKER_00: We're beholding Christ, we're beholding Jesus, we're beholding, we're contemplating the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: And in the process, it says we are transformed with an ever-increasing glory into his image.
SPEAKER_00: And John also writes it similarly, dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made, but we know that when Christ appears, we shall be exactly like him, for or be like him, for we shall see as see him as he is.
SPEAKER_00: It's this, you know, yeah, it's this concept that in the revelation of Jesus, we become like him in his image.
SPEAKER_00: So becoming like Jesus, there's two sides to that.
SPEAKER_00: We're focusing on formation in our small groups, we're emphasizing beholding Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Just kind of be a theme through sermons and whatnot.
SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, we're living on mission and word and deed.
SPEAKER_00: First Peter, he writes, You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession.
SPEAKER_00: All those things could be described as the church.
SPEAKER_00: The chosen people, royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, so that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous or wonderful light, so that we can declare the praises of him.
SPEAKER_00: We are vassals of his glory, and that as we know his holy beauty, we can respond in declaring what we know.
SPEAKER_00: We're declaring the praises of him who called us out of darkness into light.
SPEAKER_00: So in living on mission, we're living in word, declaring the praises of what we know is beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, in first John, by this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
SPEAKER_00: He laid down his life, we should lay down ours.
SPEAKER_00: But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
SPEAKER_00: Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: So, secondly, in living on a mission, we want to live indeed in how we're acting.
SPEAKER_00: One of the goals that you know, for the longest time I've wanted to do as a church.
SPEAKER_00: And I've never been in the place where I could do it.
SPEAKER_00: But I've I've always thought American churches should give half of their whatever income is.
SPEAKER_00: We we it if you've lived internationally, churches function on much less.
SPEAKER_00: You know, America, we can do it, you know, and uh outside the four walls.
SPEAKER_00: Give give 50%, you know, and and you might have to work up to it.
SPEAKER_00: But when I first started, I said, you know what, that's a goal.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we do 20% this year, and next year we're gonna try to do 30%, next year we'll try to do 40%.
SPEAKER_00: But we want to be practically giving, stretching, sacrificing, in, in, in, in, and meeting needs in the community or reaching the community, or doing outreach in the community, or trying to reach the community, you know, and that is the goal 50% that we'll just make a target and see if we can get there.
SPEAKER_00: And and why do why do I feel that?
SPEAKER_00: In my experience, granted, I grew up in the church, doesn't matter how big the church, how much money the church gets, we're gonna spend 95% of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just the way that way that it we all budget.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you're in a church, manage it personally, it's like mostly our budget, right?
SPEAKER_00: The way that we budget.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll hire bigger staffs, we'll bid big bigger buildings, we'll we'll like redo, we we redo the kids' facility like every other year, you know, just because we had the money to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And and no one ever said, well, just because we had the money doesn't mean we should spend it all internally.
SPEAKER_00: But in a church, sometimes it can be challenging because it you're you're serving the the the community to and you're you're taking the the community's money or like your church's money and and giving it out into the community to feel sacrificing, but that's one of the things we want to want to live for or go for.
SPEAKER_00: Um, just as New Song Church, we want to be generous in in how we are living out in word and deed in the community.
SPEAKER_00: And that might require different sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we won't.
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll still have to rent a building.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're we're we're go we're giving out money in other in different ways to different people, trying to reach more people.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I give that as living on mission is is an important part of who we are as a church.
SPEAKER_00: Becoming like Jesus, the second part, we are committed to becoming like Jesus in every area of life.
SPEAKER_00: He is not merely savior, but he is also our Lord, leader, and example.
SPEAKER_00: We follow.
SPEAKER_00: Through the transforming work of the Spirit, the truth of God's word, and life together in Christian community, we seek to be formed into the character of Christ as we increasingly know him, as we behold him, we become.
SPEAKER_00: We desire to grow in holiness, humility, compassion, love, so that the life of Jesus becomes visible in our homes, friendships, workplaces, and town.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual formation is not behavior modification, but the ongoing work of becoming a people who increasingly reflect the heart and life of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The humility of Christ is our standard of maturity.
SPEAKER_00: Then living on mission, we believe God ordained his church to fulfill his mission of saving and of forming a people for himself.
SPEAKER_00: In the gospel of Jesus, the good news that God, in his love and mercy, sent Jesus to live the life we could not live, die in our place for our sins, rise again in victory over death, that is central to his mission.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is not merely the entry point into the Christian life, it is the foundation, fuel, and hope for everything that we do.
SPEAKER_00: We also believe Jesus calls every believer to live as a faithful witness to this gospel among friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: So, empowered by the Spirit, we seek to proclaim the good news of Jesus through both word and deed, loving the poor, practicing hospitality, pursuing reconciliation, serving the community, inviting people into the life and kingdom of Jesus through the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Our desire is to be a church that not only gathers and worship, but we scatter in mission, carrying the presence, truth, and love of Jesus into everyday life.
SPEAKER_00: That is where we're at as a vision for what we want to be.
SPEAKER_00: New Song Church 2026.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be passionate worshipers.
SPEAKER_00: How do we become passionate worshipers?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We are increasingly knowing the beauty of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The universal response of the beauty of Jesus is worship.
SPEAKER_00: We want to become like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just gather for fellowship or information, we gather for formation as well.
SPEAKER_00: Um we want to live on mission.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just for us and about us.
SPEAKER_00: We want to advance the mission of God.
SPEAKER_00: And we've learned through the church that that mission is collective, it's not isolated individual.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I just was received the church survey that y'all did when y'all were looking for a pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I again I found it really encouraging.
SPEAKER_00: I was really hopeful.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, man, I said a couple weeks ago, these people want like the power of God revival, you know.
SPEAKER_00: They want like the town to be reached, they want people to be saved, they want baptisms, they want, you know, like this room is too small.
SPEAKER_00: We were joking, we had 22 people when we started.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, we have plenty of room for 22 people, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But it was like there is just grand vision, grand dream, grand hope of what new song could be, and how we can um reach Gunnison, have have a bunch of kids, a bunch of families.
SPEAKER_00: I've kind of started to believe in a small church that grows to achieve those dreams that you wrote.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's a whole lot of spectators, just in my experience, my observation.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a massive mega church and has a staff that can do all these things, you might have a lot of spectators.
SPEAKER_00: Small church is going to achieve those dreams that y'all wrote, there's not going to be a lot of spectators or active participants.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we are fellow laborers, not just focused on weaving the sails and building the mass, as the French author wrote, so to speak, but we're focused on the dream of sailing the ocean.
SPEAKER_00: So my question to end with is just if God answered every dream and prayer that you prayed for New Song Church before I even showed up here, what role do you play in that story?
SPEAKER_00: Do you love the destination enough to pick up an oar, raise a sail, and join in building the ship?
SPEAKER_00: As Paul encourages us, let each one of us, all of us, not just the pastor, no, but each of us, we take care in how we build upon the foundation of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the church and building the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one of us have done.
SPEAKER_00: If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he receives a reward.
SPEAKER_00: And if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
SPEAKER_00: So my hope is that we build together the last with the lasting fruit of the salvation and formation of a people unto Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That we we we unite in vision to become passionate worshipers, becoming like Jesus, living on mission.
SPEAKER_00: Ask again, what role do you play in that story?
SPEAKER_00: With that, I'll pray.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord Jesus, we do just thank you, God, for just planting this church here, Lord, to be salt and light in this this county in this town.
SPEAKER_00: Um, thank you that we are a church, and you described us, Lord, as a as a body, um, that we're members of one another, Lord, whether we whether we we think we are or not, Lord, we are, and that we're interconnected and interdependent.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, that you you you make us a body, Lord, that we each have unique skills and gifts to to participate in just the building upon the foundation of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I just thank you that, Lord, you give us vision.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you that for this year, Lord, we'll we can press into becoming passionate worshipers, becoming like you and living on missions.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, just keep us unified and hopeful and thankful, Lord, as we just move forward with your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.