SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_00: I think I may have told this story before.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you've been doing this a little long as long as I've been doing it, you you repeat yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But this is a good story.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good story.
SPEAKER_00: So I heard of this woman, young, young mom, young lady, young wife, who, whenever she would make a pot roast, she would always cut the end off before putting it into the roasting pan.
SPEAKER_00: Her husband asked her, I said, why do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, why do you cut off the end of the pot roast before you put it into the oven?
SPEAKER_00: She said, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: That's what my mom taught me.
SPEAKER_00: That's how she was told by her mom, that's what we do.
SPEAKER_00: So one day, when they were visiting Grandma, the husband asked her, Grandma, when when you make a pot roast, why do you cut off the end before you put it into the oven?
SPEAKER_00: Grandma laughed.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, honey.
SPEAKER_00: I cut the end of the pot roast off because the pan I had was too small to fit in the whole roast.
SPEAKER_00: It's important to remember your history.
SPEAKER_00: It's important to remember your history because your history is how you make sense of your present.
SPEAKER_00: Like, why do you cut the end off a pot roast?
SPEAKER_00: Remembering your history also guides you into your choices for the future.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't remember, we get into trouble.
SPEAKER_00: One said, My memory of my past is a blank space.
SPEAKER_00: I feel lost and hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to explore a void.
SPEAKER_00: Both described how disconcerting it was to look at photos.
SPEAKER_00: And even though they recognized themselves in the photos, they had no recollection of that moment.
SPEAKER_00: One said it's like reading a biography of a stranger.
SPEAKER_00: Now, two things that came out of the study.
SPEAKER_00: One, without memory, it's hard to cling to an identity.
SPEAKER_00: Without memory, you forget who you are.
SPEAKER_00: The second, it's hard to have hope when you don't know your past.
SPEAKER_00: As the author of the study said, the inability to invoke the past greatly impedes the ability to imagine a future.
SPEAKER_00: The inability to invoke the past greatly impedes the ability to imagine a future.
SPEAKER_00: Alexander Soltsenitsyn, some of you may know of him, he was a survivor of a communist Russian gulag concentration camp.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he said.
SPEAKER_00: He said, He who forgets his own history is condemned to repeat it.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't know our own history, we will simply have to endure all the same mistakes, sacrifices, and absurdities all over again.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't remember your own history as a nation, you forget where you are come from and you fail to appreciate what you have.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I believe that we have a hard time remembering.
SPEAKER_00: We have a hard time remembering because we're so focused on the present and into the future.
SPEAKER_00: We have a hard time remembering because many times we assume this arrogant position that we are better than those who came uh before us.
SPEAKER_00: We're better than the past, and so we sit in judgment of the past and condemn the past.
SPEAKER_00: It's fashionable today to poo-poo our history as a nation.
SPEAKER_00: Is that a word?
SPEAKER_00: I should say poo-poo.
SPEAKER_00: You like that?
SPEAKER_00: It's a technical term.
SPEAKER_00: It's a Greek word, actually.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, I I have to say, I I think it's an enemy of this of the a strategy of the enemy, Satan, that he works against us to help us forget our history so that we can be easily led astray.
SPEAKER_00: Recent research from the MIT revealed that most that the most famous people today, think about the most famous people today.
SPEAKER_00: Who's the most famous people today?
SPEAKER_00: Taylor Swift, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe?
SPEAKER_00: Well, Swifties, here's some bad news.
SPEAKER_00: Taylor Swift will be forgotten five to thirty years after their die.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's one thing to forget a famous person, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's quite another thing to forget the history that defines you as a person.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why it's so important as we talk about holy habits, as we talk about fasting and feasting, as we talk about the purpose behind incorporating this practice into our life, one of the things that's important for us to do is it's important to remember.
SPEAKER_00: As people of this nation and as Jesus followers.
SPEAKER_00: It's important to have remembering part of your rhythms for living.
SPEAKER_00: So from the beginning of school to the end of college, beginning of elementary school to college, you know, there are only a few handful of courses I can remember that really changed my life.
SPEAKER_00: One of them was a college course I took early on, freshman year, that was called Humanities.
SPEAKER_00: It was the study of Western civilization.
SPEAKER_00: And the book we used, our textbook was this book called Arts and Ideas by William Fleming.
SPEAKER_00: Arts and Ideas by Billy Fleming, according to his friends, right?
SPEAKER_00: What this book was was really a chronological kind of story.
SPEAKER_00: It explored the Western culture's major trends, ideas found in the paintings of the time, the sculptures of the time, the architecture, literature, music, and philosophy from antiquity to present.
SPEAKER_00: And I found that so very helpful.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because it was a course that helped me really understand our history, a course that really made me help me understand who we are as a people from Western culture and the reason why we think in certain ways, and the reason why we have certain buildings built in certain ways and where it came from.
SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is, is if you know your history, you know you have grounding in who you are, and you can appreciate what you have, and you can also come to a point where you can recognize and evaluate with fairness the mistakes and the places where you might say that wasn't so good.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't remember the truth of your history, you'll lose your identity and be vulnerable to be led astray.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's why it's so good that we we remember our national holidays.
SPEAKER_00: You know, 4th of July is coming.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be our 250th anniversary.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's important that you start thinking as a family as to okay, how do we celebrate that?
SPEAKER_00: How do we celebrate and appreciate that?
SPEAKER_00: Holiday after the Civil War, the the conflict where we saw more Americans die than any other war.
SPEAKER_00: Communities throughout the country would take time to go to the graves of those who were killed in that terrible war, and they would decorate them to honor those who died.
SPEAKER_00: And so the holiday was originally called Decoration Day.
SPEAKER_00: Then, as time moved forward, the nation was involved in other major wars, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and it was it was then that the holiday became more of just of a civil war thing, but actually became a holiday that that was about honoring all those who died fighting for our nation.
SPEAKER_00: And so the name eventually changed from Decoration Day to Memorial Day and then became a formal national holiday in 1971.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's why it's important that we have museums and institutions that that really focused on helping us remember our past.
SPEAKER_00: And it's important to take your kids to museums.
SPEAKER_00: I know my dad took me to museums all over the world in England and in other places, and we're like, oh man, it's so boring.
SPEAKER_00: But by osmosis, it bled in.
SPEAKER_00: And I began to really appreciate these museums and seeing the things of the past and the stories of what happened in different eras of our history.
SPEAKER_00: Shannon and I yesterday uh we decided to go for a drive.
SPEAKER_00: We decided to go out to Claremont Airport.
SPEAKER_00: How many have been to Claremont Airport there in Batavia?
SPEAKER_00: It's a it's a place.
SPEAKER_00: We were watching planes, we're just getting out, and we noticed across the way, we were on one side of the airport, we noticed across the way the Warbirds Museum.
SPEAKER_00: We said, let's go and check that out.
SPEAKER_00: We've heard about it, we know it's here, but we've never had the opportunity to go in.
SPEAKER_00: So we went to the Warbirds Museum and discovered that the Warbirds Museum, right here in Claremont County, Batavia, right here at our own Claremont County Airport, the Warbirds Museum contains the second largest collection of flying World War II planes east of the Mississippi.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_00: It's an unbelievable display.
SPEAKER_00: And we were there and we were actually taking walk through.
SPEAKER_00: You can walk up to the planes and see these machines that were that were made at a time in our history when when you know it was a major conflict, the world's uh free, you know, people were, the whole world was at war, and and so we we looked through and we saw the stories, we watched the video, it was it was great.
SPEAKER_00: Right there, parked in the hangar, was was a Mustang.
SPEAKER_00: And this let's talk about connections of history.
SPEAKER_00: Was a Mustang, the same kind of Mustang that Shannon's great-uncle flew as a fighter pilot.
SPEAKER_00: Out on the parking lot was was a was a I think it was a B-25 bomber.
SPEAKER_00: The the same bombers that was used for the doolittle raid that was the uh uh first response to Pearl Harbor, where these guys basically took their lives in their hands and fell off aircraft carriers pretty much, and then flew in and and and did a bombering raid in response to Pearl Harbor.
SPEAKER_00: It was a B-25 bomber, and it reminded us of of Shannon's grandfather who enlisted at 16 and went to war and was assigned in the Pacific and was with the the US Army Air Corps, there was no Air Force then, and worked on a lot of these machines and and helped set up bases for a lot of these machines.
SPEAKER_00: It was powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Remember your history, remember where you come from.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So you can make sense of where you are today and you can have wisdom to guide you in your decisions for tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to tell you that if you're a Jesus follower, if you've made the decision to be a Christian, if you belong to the people of God, this practice of remembering is vitally important to your walk of faith.
SPEAKER_00: We have contained with that for us in the in the pages of scripture the story of God.
SPEAKER_00: We have contained in the pages of scripture God's revelation of who he is and what he has done and what he's about and his plans for the future.
SPEAKER_00: And part of our walk of faith is that we have to make sure that we incorporate practices where we remember.
SPEAKER_00: Because remembering builds your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You know what the most frequent command in scripture is?
SPEAKER_00: The most common repeated command in scripture is.
SPEAKER_00: Can anyone tell me?
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone?
SPEAKER_00: Yes?
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: Do not be afraid, yes.
SPEAKER_00: You get an A plus.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Natalie's so competitive.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, do not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Over and over, some version of do not be afraid, God speaks to the to the people that are following him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because if you stand up for Jesus, you stand out for trouble.
SPEAKER_00: If you stand up for Jesus, you're going to face difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: We follow a God who's unseen in a world of seen, of the physical, where we're faced opposition, where it's easy to be afraid in following God.
SPEAKER_00: Number one command is do not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: You know what a number two command is?
SPEAKER_00: Because the number one command, you ask, well, how do I not be afraid?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that goes to the number two command, the most repeated command.
SPEAKER_00: Second most.
SPEAKER_00: Does anyone know?
unknown: Trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Close.
SPEAKER_00: Version of that.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: How many remember in that that scene in Lion King?
SPEAKER_00: Remember.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Remember.
SPEAKER_00: That's the second most common command.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because when you remember, it helps you overcome your fear.
SPEAKER_00: Remember helps you not be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: Depending on how you do the translation, the word remember appears roughly anywhere between 150 to 240 times in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: One of those times is Psalm 105, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Follow along with me as I read.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, the Psalm says, what's this referring to?
SPEAKER_00: Who's the He?
SPEAKER_00: That's God.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the wonders God has done, his miracles and the judgments he pronounced.
SPEAKER_00: You, his servants, the descendants of Abraham, his chosen ones, the children of Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: Remember.
SPEAKER_00: Miracles, judgment.
SPEAKER_00: The wonders he has done.
SPEAKER_00: See, God instructed his people to remember because remembering God's commandments, remembering God's promises, remembering God's faithfulness, remembering God's miracles reminds of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: And we as God's children, what we can, what we have available to us.
SPEAKER_00: And it tells us where we where we're going.
SPEAKER_00: Remembering is the antidote of to being afraid.
SPEAKER_00: It's what strengthens your faith.
SPEAKER_00: If you do a study of scripture in the Old Testament, you will see that God instituted seven feasts, seven holidays for the Israelites to help them remember the story.
SPEAKER_00: You see this over and over.
SPEAKER_00: This is what you do to remember, and this is what you do to your teacher kids, and this is when you do this, and your kids ask, Why are we doing this?
SPEAKER_00: Why are we doing this, Dad?
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: In the springtime, the first uh holiday was the holiday, the celebration, the feast of Passover, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
SPEAKER_00: The two of them were connected.
SPEAKER_00: One was kind of like a weekend, and the other one was the rest of the week.
SPEAKER_00: Passover was the time in which the people remembered how God delivered the Israelites out of slavery.
SPEAKER_00: It was their story of how God delivered them into freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Tied to Passover was this feast of unleavened bread where they remembered where during that time they had to put out all the yeast of their houses, and yeast represents sin.
SPEAKER_00: So they they remember that God requires you to purge yourself of sin through repentance.
SPEAKER_00: The purging of yeast, the symbol of sin, was a form of fasting where people were reminded they were sinners in need of grace, and God was the grace giver.
SPEAKER_00: If they repented, God would forgive.
SPEAKER_00: Next was the feast of first fruits.
SPEAKER_00: Now, first fruits was a command of God to say that the first harvest, the first production of anything you work at belongs to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Belongs to God.
SPEAKER_00: And what was the purpose of this feast?
SPEAKER_00: It was a reminder that God owns everything.
SPEAKER_00: Don't we have a serious problem in thinking that we own everything?
SPEAKER_00: Don't we have a serious problem of forgetting God owns it?
SPEAKER_00: That's why we do first fruits, that's why we do Thanksgiving, because we recognize, hey, God owns it and God is gracious to give it to us to use for his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: We are the stewards, we're the managers of his resources for his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Seven weeks of a Passover was the feast of weeks.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may know it as the feast of Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: Feast to remember, again, God's goodness, that he is the owner, he blesses his people with gifts for them to enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: These were the spring feasts, and then they would go into summer in their year, and summer was focused on working in the fields, summer was focused on remembering God's provision, and then they would get to autumn.
SPEAKER_00: And in early autumn, the first feast they would celebrate was the feast of trumpets, also called Rosh Hashanah.
SPEAKER_00: I had to put it in there because I just like saying Rash Hashanah.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you like saying that?
SPEAKER_00: Rosh Hashanah.
SPEAKER_00: It was the feast of trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: And this feast began with, you can guess, the blowing of trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: It was a call to the people to come, a solemn assembly of the people to remember that they have to come because God is a righteous judge and will call us to account one day.
SPEAKER_00: And in this feast, it was preparation for the big feast, the Day of Atonement.
SPEAKER_00: Day of Atonement was in the fall.
SPEAKER_00: People gathered to repent of their sin.
SPEAKER_00: They would seek God's forgiveness through the sacrifices offered on the altar.
SPEAKER_00: This feast reminded the people that God is just, the lawgiver, and God is forgiving, the grace giver.
SPEAKER_00: That forgiveness comes from the shedding of blood of an innocent to atone for the sins of the guilty.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, at the end of fall, they would celebrate a har a final harvest feast called the feast of booths.
SPEAKER_00: The reminder that when the people were nomads, when they were wandering in the wilderness, they lived in tents or booths.
SPEAKER_00: And God also lived in a tent with them.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He provided for them and he continues to provide for them and giving them this land that they were living, which is rich with resources.
SPEAKER_00: This feast reminded that God never leaves you nor forsakes you, as if you belong to Him.
SPEAKER_00: So they had seven feasts that God had the people of Israel celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know within the feast there was feasting, yes, but there was also aspects of fasting.
SPEAKER_00: But all the feasting and the fasting, the focus was on remembering.
SPEAKER_00: Remembering.
SPEAKER_00: Remembering, because remembering the story of God, remembering who you are in the story of God and what God is doing through you and his promises to come was faith building and was sources of joy and sources of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we as Christians are not called to celebrate these feasts.
SPEAKER_00: We're not called to celebrate the feasts that the Israelites were called, but we are called to look back and see those patterns and see them as perhaps a template, maybe a rhythm that we could incorporate it on our own holy lives, our own holy habits.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at the church's history, what you see is that the church, although the New Testament church was never directed any feasts to remember except one every Sunday when you gather, you take communion, the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: But the church through history began to incorporate these habits, these holy habits, where they retold the story of Jesus through festivals and feasts and fasts, like Lent and Palm Sunday, and Good Friday and Easter and Pentecost and Advent and Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you who have come from perhaps a more traditional denominational background can remember these feasts and can remember, oh, yeah, that's what we did, and although it didn't really mean anything, now you can look back and say, now I kind of appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: These traditions can be looked to as perhaps maybe examples of holy habits that you can consider doing in your walk of faith.
SPEAKER_00: How do you remember the story of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: With your family, with your small group.
SPEAKER_00: And we as a church, when we celebrate together some of these holy, holy days, these these these things, Easter, Christmas, Advent, whatever, this is something you can involve in practicing to remember.
SPEAKER_00: As we work through this series of of adding these holy habits, as we talk about fasting and feasting, there's two purposes that I want to want to encourage you to consider.
SPEAKER_00: Remember God's grace when you fast.
SPEAKER_00: If you decide to take fasting, and some of you I appreciate the email that you send me, emails you send me saying, hey, I'm gonna do fasting, I'm gonna I'm gonna take this encouragement and add the spiritual discipline of fasting.
SPEAKER_00: Well, do as well, incorporate remembering, incorporate reading scripture, incorporate taking account of what God has done.
SPEAKER_00: Remember God's goodness and God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you and you fast, when you feast, fast to remember uh God's grace, feast to remember God's goodness, feast to remember God's blessings.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we know we all live by our habits, and if we do not make it intentionally, something that we intentionally do, if we don't make making ourselves remember God, the story of God in Scripture, the experience of God in our own lives, then we forget.
SPEAKER_00: And when we forget, we are easily led astray.
SPEAKER_00: One of the practices I do is in my in my journaling, I I journal through the week.
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you, I didn't like journaling at first.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, I got work to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have to sit down and be quiet and write and think.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the things I've done, I started to do every day I journal and I reflect and I spend time on remembering God's word.
SPEAKER_00: But on Sunday, I don't read God's word.
SPEAKER_00: What I do is I read back what's happened in the week.
SPEAKER_00: And my goal is to say, in my busyness, where have I missed what God has been trying to tell me?
SPEAKER_00: Where do I need to remember?
SPEAKER_00: This morning, as I was reading through, I'm like, man, I kept noting, because I'm working through the Psalms, I kept noting verses in the Psalms that talked about quieting your spirit before God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be haughty when you come before God, but quiet your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's a message I need.
SPEAKER_00: In the week of craziness and chaos, and so many demands and so many things common.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord was saying, Be still, Dee Dee.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to remember, I am God, you're not.
SPEAKER_00: Be still, quiet your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That wouldn't have happened if I had not taken the discipline to remember, to review, to look back.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: I have a challenge for you.
SPEAKER_00: I have a fast that I'm going to ask you to consider doing with specific dates for a specific meal.
SPEAKER_00: As a member of the Mount Carmel Christian Church family.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to tell you some history first.
SPEAKER_00: It's important to remember.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the land that we sit on today here, we got in 2008.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may remember that time.
SPEAKER_00: The Great Recession.
SPEAKER_00: We had been in a situation where we were busting in the seams at the location we were at on Mount Carmel Dovasco Road.
SPEAKER_00: Five acres we had built, I think how many one, two, we had like done four builds, and we were thinking, oh, we're gonna have to build again because we were busting the seams.
SPEAKER_00: We had done all sorts of crazy things.
SPEAKER_00: We moved the offices off-site one time so we could have room for kids.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, back we had our students off-site for one time.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was we were trying to figure out.
SPEAKER_00: So 2008, we had an opportunity to purchase this land.
SPEAKER_00: It was the Great Recession, and uh this land was originally slated to be a subdivision, but that fell apart, and so we had the opportunity to step in and buy this land at a great discounted price.
SPEAKER_00: We saw it as an act of God.
SPEAKER_00: So from that moment we began to prayerfully prepare relocation, to move to this property.
SPEAKER_00: To move to this property and to continue on the work.
SPEAKER_00: So seven years it took us.
SPEAKER_00: Seven years planning, preparing, mostly praying.
SPEAKER_00: Part of the thing is we we decided that the land that we we had on Mount Carmel Tabasco Road had been dedicated to the service of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so we really wanted to sell that property to a church who would continue on.
SPEAKER_00: A Bible-believing church.
SPEAKER_00: It was really important.
SPEAKER_00: We had other options that we could have sold that property to, but we really wanted to have it be a church, and God provided.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we knew timing would be important.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is where you know I gets tricky because timing is important.
SPEAKER_00: We wanted to be able to build this church building, but we also want to continue to worship at the old church building and be able to have a smooth transition where we moved into this building and the other congregation moved into the old building.
SPEAKER_00: I know, that's what we were asking for.
SPEAKER_00: And God provided.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the bank that we uh had a had our financing through for this building said, we're all good to go.
SPEAKER_00: So we said, awesome! And we were getting the building process going, and then I got that faithful phone call.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh, sorry, Dee Dee.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we took your numbers to our bean counters on the West Coast.
SPEAKER_00: Who didn't what did they know?
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh, they said we can't do the loan.
SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, uh elders, leaders, uh, we need to figure this out.
SPEAKER_00: But God came through.
SPEAKER_00: Heritage Bank came in, we had record record time, got the financing, bada beam, bada boom, we got here.
SPEAKER_00: So it took us seven years to get ready, and then we had the builder, uh, because we had everything in place, it took us seven months to get this building put up.
SPEAKER_00: Then on the first Sunday of 2015, we had our last service at our old place on Mount Carmel Debasco Road, and then the second Sunday, we had our first service here, and so we moved in seven days.
SPEAKER_00: Seven years, seven months, seven days.
SPEAKER_00: I think God likes the number seven, right?
SPEAKER_00: It was pretty cool because uh you when we moved from the old building to here, it was it was kind of like a modern-day Amish thing, you know how the Amish all come together and move.
SPEAKER_00: We had like a line of cars, people from the church were bringing all the stuff and we were putting it in our storeroom.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the history, and that's our experience, and and I can tell you from the time we began, uh, this church was planted by uh ordinary people of extraordinary faith, young couples with young kids who say we need a church in this part of our community, and they pulled it together.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't started by a dynamic church leader or a church organization, it was started by uh folks fromin the community that was dedicated to ministering to families, to kids.
SPEAKER_00: That was just part of our DNA, our heartbeat.
SPEAKER_00: I still get chills remembering the story of how God of miracles in the Bible was the God of miracles and wonders for us then, and he continues to be the God of wonders for us today.
SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
SPEAKER_00: 2026, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 2026.
SPEAKER_00: And what we're discovering is that uh things are getting tight again once in our church building in order to facilitate the ministry to reach the people that God has assigned to us to reach.
SPEAKER_00: Things are getting full.
SPEAKER_00: Particularly in our children's area.
SPEAKER_00: The months of January, February, March, April, and May have been the highest numbers of participants in our Sunday children's service ministry in our entire history.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And we have a we have a fantastic team of people dedicated.
SPEAKER_00: Now our ministry philosophy is look, we are here to equip and prepare parents to rear their children, and and parents are bringing in their kids to be part of this, and it's it's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: 2017, we we also did a like a little revamp, we re-evaluated our vision, and one of the things that we said is we want to be a church that's known to be disciple-making.
SPEAKER_00: What that means is that we want people to come to know Jesus in the pattern of the church from the beginning, which means that they focused on on connecting with one another in the small, in groups.
SPEAKER_00: They devoted themselves to learning to live scripture, that is, they they they were strong.
SPEAKER_00: They just didn't get together for fun, they get together to learn to live scripture together.
SPEAKER_00: So we said they go small and then they go strong, and then they will dedicate themselves for the long haul at the pace of relationship, they're gonna go slow.
SPEAKER_00: And so we had this philosophy of making disciples, and uh, you know, this is something we've committed to.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's something we said, look, we want our church to defined as a place where the small drives the big.
SPEAKER_00: That Sunday morning is a celebration of what God has been doing in the lives of Jesus followers during the week.
SPEAKER_00: That the big doesn't energize the small, but it's actually the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: This is a celebration of what God's doing in your life because you are connected in small, in groups where you're learning to live scripture with others.
SPEAKER_00: That Sunday morning is is more of a thermometer of the spiritual health of our people, not the thermostat.
SPEAKER_00: And so we put that endeavor, you know, as of last count, we had over 60 uh well, 60 adult groups meeting to live and learn scripture in various forms, various things.
SPEAKER_00: And many of those groups are looking for places to meet.
SPEAKER_00: Most of our groups love to meet on this place.
SPEAKER_00: The bottom line is we we have no room.
SPEAKER_00: We're doubling up on rooms and meeting at different places.
SPEAKER_00: Are you are you getting where I'm going?
SPEAKER_00: So our leaders began to pray, and we first said, look, the first responsibility is that we have to maximize what God has given us.
SPEAKER_00: We have to make the most of our current facility, our current, you know, where we are, our current blueprint.
SPEAKER_00: So we've made efforts.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you're aware of this, a couple maybe a couple years ago, we revamped our storage area and made it into a student, student meeting, a student place for our students.
SPEAKER_00: It's also used for other places, allowing us to be able to use uh upstairs room for fourth and fifth, alleviate some of the pressure that was happening with the with children's ministry.
SPEAKER_00: We uh are now currently working to add three offices to our office area because staff are our staff are in jammed in in different you know staff offices, and we're looking to do that currently.
SPEAKER_00: We're evaluating how we use children's ministry, trying to be creative and saying, okay, we need to develop strategies where if we see a class that's particularly large, let's make sure we put that class in a the largest room we have and really be mindful of how we do that.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be looking to go back to three services Sunday mornings in the fall.
SPEAKER_00: In 2019, we had three services during the little thing called COVID.
SPEAKER_00: We went back down to two.
SPEAKER_00: We need to go back to three services in doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Our elders approved a project to rework our foyer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh our foyer uh is really in need of strategic uh adjustments, rework, and so we're working right now to redo our foyer so it would be a place where people can meet and talk and connect, place where people can can learn to live scripture together.
SPEAKER_00: Our elders are engaged in conversation now with an architectural firm, and we're now getting uh in talks with them.
SPEAKER_00: They're evaluating what we're doing, and they're gonna present to us a plan of something to build soon, a new build that will help us alleviate the pressures we're facing, but I see it more as an opportunity to respond to the blessings of God that He's doing here with us.
SPEAKER_00: So that means that we'll be doing a capital campaign, looking to start in the fall as well, where we'll be asking to raise the above and beyond resources to fund these projects.
SPEAKER_00: These are exciting times.
SPEAKER_00: But my ask is here for you.
SPEAKER_00: Will you, with the whole church, dedicate a time to fast and pray about these things with us?
SPEAKER_00: Will you with your family, however you want to work it?
SPEAKER_00: We're asking, maybe skip dinner on Saturday, June 20th, and skip dinner on Saturday, June 27th, just twice, to fast and pray for our church, to ask God for his wisdom for us to make the best decision for our lead for the best decisions as leaders, to ask God to pour out his favor on us again, as he's done in the past, time and time again.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be recording a video, a podcast if you'd like, where we will send that to you during later this week, that you can then follow along.
SPEAKER_00: If you gather together, it's gonna be a guided prayer thing.
SPEAKER_00: So we can we'll walk with you through that video on how to pray, on what to pray for as you fast, as you skip the meal.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's where you remember what God has done, we'll remember what God is doing, and we'll look to be open to follow that God is is working for us towards a future.
SPEAKER_00: Towards a future.
SPEAKER_00: Fast on that Saturday, skip that Saturday meal.
SPEAKER_00: If you have to adjust it, adjust it, but we ask that you do that.
SPEAKER_00: Next day, we ask that you feast, that you remember God's goodness.
SPEAKER_00: You know, breakfast, it means break fast.
SPEAKER_00: It works, or lunch, or however it is, but we ask that you celebrate God's goodness.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what God has done, remember what God is doing, and remember that God is calling us to join him in his work into the future.
SPEAKER_00: So if you grab your communion, there's the challenge.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it, ask that you be participating in to pray with it.
SPEAKER_00: More information to come on how things are progressing.
SPEAKER_00: One of the commands of Scripture that we're told to remember comes from Jesus when he said, Hey, if you are one of my followers, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: And that that is the holy habit of taking communion together as a church.
SPEAKER_00: So if you would uh get your bread ready and open up the cup.
SPEAKER_00: He said, For I received from the Lord what I've also passed on to you.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you.
SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: Text goes on.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, This cup is a new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_00: Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_00: For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we just thank you so much that uh you give us the ability to remember.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the testimony uh contained in the word, the stories of miracle and wonder, the stories of grace and redemption, the stories uh and teachings and revelation that show us who you are and who we're called to be in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I thank you that we can experience your presence in our lives today, and we can experience the truth of what we read about in the scriptures of the past and experience of today.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you we can be grounded in that so that we can be guided by your spirit into the future.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would help us to remember.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that you would help us to remember to remember, to give ourselves to holy habits where we fast to remember your grace, where we feast to remember your goodness, to take the time to acknowledge you and to remember you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that we as a church that you would guide us as we are setting aside time to fast and pray.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna not take up a meal on Saturday, June 20th, and we're gonna lay before you uh our prayers for help, for what we feel you're calling us to do as a church, to expand this place to make room for ministry, to make space for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're so grateful that you call us to join you in this work.
SPEAKER_00: We're so grateful that you provide us the resources, everything we need, to be godly and to live life that's pleasing to you.
SPEAKER_00: Help us in this, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
SPEAKER_00: We've got a couple of guys available up front if you need prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh if you have a gift for us, uh, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Know that uh your generosity is what resources the ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you have a gift, you want to drop it off at the information center, there's a box there you can drop it in.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a check or cash, that'll be great.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.