Sonrise Church Mid-Year Recap

This message pauses to celebrate what God has been doing through Sonrise Church while reaffirming our mission to help people know and follow Jesus. Drawing from Psalm 26, it emphasizes the joy of gathering in God’s house and reminds us that remembering God’s faithfulness strengthens future obedience and trust. The message clearly defines Sonrise's mission, vision, values, and discipleship pathway, encouraging everyone to unite around the gospel, God’s Word, prayer, generosity, and loving people as they grow into fully devoted followers of Jesus. 

This message also celebrates tangible evidence of God’s work—from growing ministries, baptisms, student outreach, and community partnerships while casting vision for the future. It challenges every member of our church, regardless of age or stage of life, to move from simply attending to actively participating in God’s mission by showing up, jumping in, and living out our faith. Ultimately, this message reminds us that the Church is most effective when it is united in purpose, faithful in stewardship, and committed to helping more people know and follow Jesus.

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Uh it's interesting, you know. You heard a few students saying, you know, to get outside of my comfort zone. Um, does anybody like to be comfortable? Do you guys, yeah. Like my favorite, I love my sweatpants, and I know I can picture the sweatpants I'm talking about in my head right now. Some of you can too. You're like, yeah, dude, I got that outfit. I want to be at home, eating chips and salsa. That's my comfort zone, right? Like you dig it. But um, have you ever been uncomfortable? Anybody ever been uncomfortable? You're like, just three minutes ago when you made us all do the wave, I was uncomfortable. Some of you like, I did not like that, you know? Uh, it's interesting. What I have learned and am continuing to learn in my short time on this earth is that God's best work in our lives is rarely done inside of our comfort zone. That is often God uh stretching us, uh prompting us to courage and faith and that sort of thing. And so I'm gonna be vulnerable with you out the gate in this conversation. This week's message is outside of my comfort zone. If you're new and and you're not sure what to expect, or maybe you heard, oh yeah, the pastor there, he's funny and he tells stories and all that kind of stuff, I apologize in advance. That is not going to happen today. This is not the normal message that we would uh typically do, but it is a message that our church needs, and it is inspired by a particular verse in Psalms that I was reading this summer myself, uh, and it reached out and grabbed me. And I'll say it like this I strongly believe that God, through his word and through prayer and wise counsel, was leading us to have a mid-year update conversation. And it lines up with a big announcement that I'm gonna make about halfway through the message as well, that I'm glad you're here to hear. And for those watching online, you'll be able to take part in all of this as well because some of it affects you directly. And this week, we're gonna have a mid-year update conversation as a church. It's gonna be grounded in one particular verse, and I want to share it with you. It's found in Psalm 26. It's the one right after 25. Psalm 26. Uh, the songwriter here, the psalmist, we'll put it on the screen. You can look and you can read it along with me. In Psalm 26, uh, the the author says this I love, O Lord, the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. When's the last time you used the word habitation in a sentence? Don't raise your hand because you didn't, and you can't lie in church. You get in trouble for that. This week, our kids were at camp, and uh people were asking us yesterday. They were like, hey, what was it like having the kids gone? And I was like, I hated it. I hated it. You know why? There was, it was so quiet. The only thing we could hear was our two dogs wrestling because we got a normal dog and then a little dog, and the little dog picks on the normal dog, and that's all you could hear was and then the big dog just being like, please stop. Because he's old. That was it, you know why it was, you know why it was it was sad. I was like, this is I don't like this. I like getting interrupted. You don't think you like getting interrupted all the time as a parent until your kids are out of the house? And then you're like, I miss, please interrupt me. I would love to be standing in the kitchen with food in my mouth trying to talk to my wife for two seconds, and I would love for y'all to interrupt everything we're doing right now. You miss that when it's gone. You know why you miss that? You know why you like that? If you're a parent, you're like, no, I'm cool with it. You know, you're like, that's fine. I'll tell you why I missed it. You know why? There was there's there's habitation in our house. You know what that word means? Life. It's life. The psalmist here in Psalm 26 says, Oh Lord, I love life in your house. We have a phrase, uh, it it's it's right there. Jesus changes everything. What's our mission, church? We help people that know and follow Jesus because we believe that Jesus changes everything. We believe that Jesus is the only eligible hope for mankind. It's why we do everything we do. In fact, I will say this to you as the person who sits in this seat of service as pastor of this church, every decision we make is filtered through that mission to help people know and follow Jesus is what we are doing. Helping people know and follow Jesus. And so here's what we're gonna do today. It's gonna be different. We are going to do a three-part mid-year update message. The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna get a refresh on who we are as a church and why we exist, because sometimes it is good to return to your white hot why so that we can provide some clarity. And my prayer is that that clarity would be compelling for us to unite as a church. The second thing we're gonna do is we're gonna celebrate some things that God has done in the first six months. Today is the last Sunday in June, which means we are halfway done with 2026. So next week, dust off your Christmas trees and get ready to decorate, right? Here we go. Right? Some of you are like, is he joking? No, I am not. I am not joking at all. Have you heard of Christmas in July that doesn't get torn down until February? It's great. You should try it. We're gonna celebrate some things that God is doing, and then we're gonna look ahead to where we believe God is leading us as a church, some exciting things that we have coming up, a big announcement that I want to share with everyone. I'm excited, and we're gonna look at some tangible things we are going to do as a church to be a beacon of gospel light and continue to reach people with the gospel. And so the first thing I want to do as we know what our mission is to help people know and follow Jesus is let's go through that as a church. What are our mission, vision, values? What are we all about? Because we know our mission. You may not know that we do have a vision, and when I say vision, it's there's things we want to see. It's an organizational word. It simply means we've got some stuff that we want to see as a church, and I wrote it down, I'll read it to you. It's it's very simple. It's to help families connect and grow in their faith together. We want to see people in our community engaging in God's word and worshiping Him, not only in church, but in their everyday lives. We want to see more people worshiping together, more people serving together, more people giving together, and more people helping others do the same. In short, we want to see people reaching people. We want to see that. And we've seen some of that in the last 18 months and specifically this last six months in the first half of 2026, things we're gonna celebrate together, but we also have a set of values that we unite ourselves on. Values are values for a reason because they impact behaviors. If a value is just words on a sheet of paper, it's not gonna do you any good. But we have values that are all action-oriented, they are all attached to behaviors, and it anchors us. And these values we creatively ripped off of the early church, the first church that was started. We looked at their values and what they valued, and we chose to, well, it worked for them. That's why we're sitting here 2,000 plus years later. Let's go ahead and rip those off so we have some values and we'll go through them one at a time so that you understand them on a basic level. Jesus changes everything. So our first value is the gospel. Our first value is the gospel. We believe Jesus saves and we follow his way of living. That is value number one. Value number two is the Bible. We learn God's word because it is the source of truth. In a world that wants to define truth on a whim and based on people's personal preferences and feelings, we go to the word of God as our anchor because it is the source of truth. Next value is people. We love people. Why? Because we're a church and we're supposed to. No. We love people because God loves people. Because last I checked, people were who God came to save. And you'll hear me use this phrase often. In the end, all that matters is God and people. The glory of God, the gospel-reaching people. Also, holding on to that value will make us treat people differently when we don't want to, when we understand that the reason we love people is because God loves people. That will prompt us to love people well and differently sometimes. We also value prayer. The reason for that is there is no powerful church without prayer. As a church, we have a vision to reach more people. You have heard that. But if our vision is something we think we can accomplish on our own, our vision is too small. So we rely on God. So as a church, we value prayer. That's why we have open prayer every Wednesday night so that we can gather together and seek God. And our final value is generosity. We are generous people because we are grateful people. Gratitude is one of the best postures a person can have. And gratitude will prompt you to do certain things. Grateful people always stand out. They're joyful people, they're generous people, they're bright to be around, they're people of impact. And we want to be people like that. We want to unite around those values because we have a mission to embrace. We want to help people know and follow Jesus. So, what does that mean? What's the end state of that? Where do we go? Okay, great, that sounds good. It's fun to put on a sign, it's great, it's easy to say, we repeat it back to you. Where do we want what do we want to see? Like, what do we actually want to accomplish? We have what we call a desired outcome for ministry here. Meaning we don't just do church because the weekend happens every weekend. We mean business here. If you're new to sunrise and you're like, okay, he's just laying it out. That's exactly what we're doing right now is just laying it out. We have a desired outcome for ministry. Every single thing we do on a Sunday and a Wednesday and all the days in between, the reasons we pray, everything we do, the reason we give, the reason we serve, the reason we share, all of that is in the direction of a desired outcome for ministry. And it's simply this, you can read it with me. Our desired outcome for ministry is to what? Produce fully devoted followers of Jesus. Scott, what is a fully devoted follower of Jesus? I'm glad you asked. Here's what a fully devoted follower of Jesus is a fully devoted follower of Jesus is someone who learns God's word, to know God's way, loves like Jesus teaches, lives like Jesus teaches, gives like Jesus teaches, and helps others do the same. If you're asking yourself, am I a fully devoted follower of Jesus? If you are doing those things, you are becoming a fully devoted follower of Jesus. And that's the desired outcome for ministry that we have. But in order for us to get there to that destination in the life of every person, we have people, we are a multi-generational church. We are blessed with that beauty where people in our worship services rage in age of age range from 13 years to 83 years or 13 months and 93 years. We have got everybody here, and it is beautiful. And so, in order for us to get to that destination as a church of producing fully devoted followers of Jesus, we need to give people directions to get there. So we have what we call a discipleship pathway. And it is very simple. We want to encourage everyone in your journey to becoming a fully devoted follower of Jesus to show up, jump in, and live out. Show up, jump in, and live out. Those have pretty easy definitions. Showing up is the most obvious one. Congratulations. You can all check the box. You did. Showing up is just that. Showing up, be here. We're better together. So let's get together. Those watching online, you tuned in. You showed up online. Great. Check that box. Jump in is a little different. This is where we're going to start to connect with people. We want to meet people. We want to grow in our faith together. Jumping in is I'm going to find a place to serve. I'm going to connect with people when I serve. Jumping in is I'm going to start giving to the mission of the church because it puts us places. It enhances opportunities for us to extend the reach and impact of ministry. And live out is loving people the Jesus way. Inviting people to church, caring for people in your life, praying for people in your life, taking what you believe about God and making sure the way you live points to your faith. That is the pathway that moves us, that we've adopted as a church to get to producing fully devoted followers of Jesus. That is who we are as a church here at Sunrise. That is why we exist. That is what we are all about. And as a result of us moving in that direction, we've seen God do some really neat things. A year and a half ago, we introduced a four-word prayer. Maybe you can say it with me if you know it. God bless your church. It postured our hearts to understand this is God's church, and if he wants to bless it, he will bless it. And God reminds us that he wants people to know him more than we may even want people to know him, which for some of us may sound surprising and hard to digest, but it is the truth. God gave his only son Jesus so that whoever would believe would have relationship with him. So it would be understandable that God would want to reach people. And so we posture ourselves to ask God to bless his church. And as a result, we've seen some things. We have seen what God does when we ask him to bless his church. We have seen what happens when we grow in our faith together. We've seen what happens when we embrace the mission, vision, and values, and we are united as a people. We share this as a refresher because we want to be unified as a church. A united group of people is a powerful force in any community. And this Christian community, this church that we call Sunrise, should serve as a beacon of gospel light in our community. But that light is not going to shine as bright as it can unless we all embrace that mission, unite on those values, jump in to becoming fully devoted followers of Jesus. So then we, in real time, in real life, can realize the vision of people reaching people and growing in our faith together that God has put before us. And we have seen what God has done. We have firsthand eyewitness accounts, front row seats to what God is doing. And I would like to share some of those things with you. Even this last week, right before camp, I was giving uh finding Bibles for some students because they said, Hey, a friend of mine wants a Bible. And uh, do we have any around here? And so we were looking, and Dylan, who uh you know, leads our youth ministry, who you you heard giving announcements earlier, he came to me and some if you've been in church for a while, you're gonna appreciate this. He came to me and he goes, Hey, do we have any like non-King James Version Bibles? And I'm like, Where are you going here, man? And he goes, I it's this is hard to read. I was like, I got you. And we got some different Bibles and different translations for these students. That sounds like a simple celebration, but you know what it is? It's the wave starting in the student section. It's students reaching students, it's people reaching people. But we have a few other things I want to celebrate, and they're numerical because numbers are easy to understand and picture in your mind and celebrate, but I want to encourage you to consider this with every number you hear. Every number that you hear uh concerning engagement in our church is attached to a name, and that name is attached to a person, and that person is a person Jesus came to save. That person is a person who matters to God. And so everything we celebrate, I want to make sure that we give as praise. Why? Because if we don't give it as praise, we take it as pride, and as a church, everything we have been blessed with is because God has done it. And we are going to celebrate what God has done. So I have a few things to celebrate with you. You know, we uh said uh a year and a half ago, we said, look, we're gonna reach families. We're gonna be all about reaching families. The reason for that is families are mankind factories, and families in 2026 are diverse. Families are blended, you've got single parent families, you've got maybe just husband, wife, you've got grandparents, uh, grandmas, aunts, and uncles. You've got families are are wide reaching. And it considers the future of the church because the mortality rate for every single person. I Googled it this morning, is a hundred percent. That means, congratulations, happy summer, you're gonna die someday. And you can't take anything with you except people. And Jesus changes everything. So we said, look, we're gonna reach families, and so we have put some effort into that. And I want you to hear what God's been doing. In the last six months, as we look halfway through 2026 and we compare that to this time last year, our engagement in our kids' ministry, you might use the word attendance, our engagement in kids' ministry has increased 37%. That's nuts. Like if you're if your finance person came to you and said, hey, your investments in six months have increased 37%, you're like, you're looking at your spouse being like, we're going to Chili's for lunch, baby. Here we go. You're excited. You want to hear something nuts? Some of you are like, now I'm going to Chili's for lunch. Thanks. I can't, now I can't not go. Okay, skillet queso. Got it. Bottomless chips and salsa. I said I wasn't hungry. Anyway. You know what's extra fun? In our littles, you know, the early childhood, you know, they're my favorite. Man, the little ones, they're so great. Year over year, we have seen an 880% increase in engagement in our kids. 80%. That I thought that was made up. I had to do the math myself. I made three other people do the math. I was like, y'all can't be telling the truth. Yes. We're reaching families. Our student ministry, good Lord, He is good. Do you know that we have been on six public school campuses this year with Christian lunch clubs? Now, I need you to understand how powerful that is because let's have some real talk as moms and dads and aunts and uncles and grandparents. We a little nervous sometimes sending our kids off to school. Why? The world has lost its mind. And it's scary sometimes. You send your kid off to school. Let me tell you what Sunrise Church is doing because of the work of our youth ministry. Every week this last year, on average, over 500 students gathered across six school, public school campuses here in East County, San Diego to engage in Christian lunch clubs and hear the gospel. Some students shared their faith and were teaching at these lunch clubs. That's people reaching people. That doesn't happen. When I moved to California, and they if they were to tell me, hey, you can go share the gospel on a public school campus, I would have looked at you and said, no, you definitely can't. In fact, I say that with all of us, and you're like, wait, hold on, time out. We can do that? Yeah, there's reasons for it. I'm not going to bore you with the intricacies of it. But just so you know, God made a way. And next year we're going to be on even more campuses because this spring we launched another Christian club on another campus because some students here at Sunrise got together and said, we would like to do this, and they've done it. God's doing that in our youth ministry. It is incredible. It's incredible. That's getting out of the aquarium and getting into the ocean and taking your faith with you. As a church, we have baptized 34 people so far this year. I think 14 of them are students. Like, that's what God is doing. You can pick up the phone and call 10 pastors this afternoon, and they would say, we would give our right arm to see 34 people get baptized in a year. In six months, that's what God has been doing. That's what God has been doing as people respond to their faith. You know what else we've done as a church? We partnered with a group called Restoration 225 that supports foster care families in our community. We did this in the first part of the year to support these families that are taking in foster kids. And in fact, we have families here in our church who are. Restoration 225 families, some of you've heard from a few months back when we did this. And they called me after we received our donations drive, and they said, Hey, not only are we able to take care of the families in East County that we were hoping to take care of, but Sunrise Church gave so much to the foster care families. We're actually going to be able to open up a brand new care closet, which is basically a room that they store a bunch of supplies for foster care families so they can come when they have needs. They said, because of your generosity as a church, we're going to launch an entire new care closet towards central San Diego that's going to bless even more foster care families that our church in Santee, California did because of your generosity. There will be foster care families in the greater San Diego area this year who will be blessed because of you. We did that. So that those moms and dads, those foster care parents, can take care of the relationships that they want to build with these kids. That's true religion. And that's what our church did. We just finished a Salvation Army supplies drive, and a lot of us contributed to that, and a lot of us are really happy that that stuff that was in the garage is no longer in the garage. It was like spring cleaning, courtesy of Sunrise Church. And we gave items to the adult rehabilitation center that's right here in San Diego. It helps people dealing with substance abuse who are down on their luck get real help and real training for real life. The director of it is actually a product of the program. It's a beautiful picture of God's grace and redemption. And there's redemption story after redemption story in this adult rehab center. And we got to partner with them and collect items for the supplies. He wrote me a letter. And I have it in my office. And he wrote a letter. He said, I needed to do this because I couldn't figure out how to get my words out other than thank you. You guys are not normal. And I thought, okay, this guy just called you all a bunch of weirdos. Here's why he called you all a bunch of weirdos. He said, Pastor Scott, in his letter, Sunrise Church donated 1,973 pounds of items to our adult rehabilitation center. Nobody's ever done that. Nobody's ever done that. I want to give you some math in case you want to dork out with me for a minute. A ton is about 2,000 pounds. Which means we gave a literal ton of stuff. You know how you hear the joke? Like, oh man, what'd you guys do for the Salvation Army drive? Man, we gave a ton of stuff. No, you did. You gave a ton of stuff to the Salvation Army. We can say that. Now, why do we celebrate these things? To thank God. God did that. See, when God moves in the hearts of people, He moves through the hands of people. And then God's people shine the light of the gospel to the world. And that's what's happening. That's why those new families are coming to church. That's why those students are taking their faith with them in everyday life. That's why this church is serving as a beacon of gospel light, helping foster care families and those in need, those oppressed, those beaten down, those overlooked or marked by society as just kind of forgotten sometimes. Not this church. This church has stepped up and said, we will help people know and follow Jesus, and we will do that every which way we can. We will rely on God every step, and that's what God has done. And we're only halfway through the year. Praise the Lord. Get ready to rock and roll. We got more we're gonna do. It's exciting. Now, I want to share one more celebration with you, and it is a prayer request, a year and a half in the making. For a year and a half, we have been asking God to bring us the right person to lead our kids' ministry into the future here at Sunrise Church. And I just, I don't know if you've ever prayed for something for a year and a half straight. That's frustrating. You get tired, and there's times where you're like, God, are you gonna do this or not, please? And you feel you just keep knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking. God, you up there? God, you up there? God, you up there? We have had that prayer for the last year and a half. We have had to exercise so much patience and faith. But God in his, you know, divine timing, as it were, has brought to us someone who on Wednesday, July 1st, will step into that role full time to lead our kids' ministry into the future. And I would like to introduce you to her and encourage you to welcome her and her husband, Aaron, on stage. This is, if you would welcome on stage, Mackenzie Plum and Aaron Plum. McKenzie is our new kids director. And uh I'm gonna make you guys stand like right there so we can all see your family. This is their family. That little one is Mr. Kaysen. Do you guys remember a few years ago I talked about the boy who had the marker by his dad's truck? It's that kid. That's Forerunner Marker Boy, Mr. Kasen. That's Daniel Tiger, the other boy, and that's E.G.P. They have regular names. You can ask them, they'll give you their regular names, but that's what I know them as. These are the plums, Aaron and McKenzie. McKenzie's stepping in on Wednesday to lead our kids' ministry. They have both been educators. Aaron is still an educator. Uh, they have their master's degree in education. Uh, for 10 years, you were at Hillsdale Middle School as the drama director. There is a wealth of experience that McKenzie brings to the table. And uh, I'm gonna say this about them because I I don't think I said this in the first service, but it's all right. We can go along. I don't care. And they love being up here. They love it. It's all right, man. She already signed up. She's here, so we got her. It's it's fine. About a year ago, uh, we sat down, and uh, I don't know why I'm telling you, you were there. Tell them. I sat down with them and they said, Listen, God's been stirring in our hearts. Um, we want to come and jump all in to Sunrise Church and help. We we believe God's moving at this church and we want to help build as we're rebirthing and rebuilding and becoming a beacon of gospel light. And they said, look, we want to do that. This was not a come work at the church conversation. This was a we don't know what God has ahead for us. Right now, we're gonna continue to do what God's put in front of us, but we just want to know how we can jump all in. And they have, for the last year, been serving and just doing so many things because they believe in the mission and they are united on the values of Sunrise Church. Some of you don't even know this. Aaron was the one playing drums this morning in the worship. You didn't know that because he's hiding behind that aquarium, the drum aquarium that we have back there. Aaron loves being on stage right now and loves this attention. Unfortunately, Aaron does not work here at the church where McKenzie does, so I'm probably in more trouble with Aaron for doing this than McKenzie, but that's okay. We're friends, and grace and forgiveness are a beautiful thing. Here's why I share that with you, and and all jokes aside. You don't say, here I am, send me, if God is not leading your life. And I want you to hear this, especially our families with younger ones, who Mackenzie is going to be leading and shepherding this ministry. For those who want to invite people to the church and understand, I want you to know this. The leader we have in our kids' ministry follows Jesus, walks by faith, and their family honors God. You need to know that. That's who God has brought to us to lead our kids' ministry because we have asked God to bless his church, and he brought someone who I would boldly say loves, knows, and follows Jesus. So that being said, if you would like to start serving in kids' ministry, here's your invitation. But I would like to encourage you to do this with me. I'm gonna spend some time just praying over them. And I want to encourage you to do two things. One, pray with me, not out loud, because that gets weird. But also, two, I want you to love on them. Mackenzie left a 10-year career as an educator, something she's very good at. To take a step of faith because she wants to help us reach families, and she believes that our mission in kids' ministry, which is to partner with families to help kids know and follow Jesus, is the most important thing. She's stepping into the unknown in faith to do that as we continue to step forward. So here's what I want you to do: I want you to be their best friends and love on them. Hug them after you see them after service and let them know you're in their corner. And then for real, if you're inclined, sign up to start serving in kids' ministry. She'd love that. She just said I would in case you didn't hear. Would you pray with me and then we'll wrap things up today? God, thank you again for what you're doing in and through your church. God, thank you for the plums. Thank you for McKenzie and for Aaron and the work you're doing in their lives. And God, for the work that you're gonna do through their continued service here. God bless Mackenzie and her efforts. Bless our kids' ministry and its efforts. And God, we're just gonna continue to thank you for your provision. Give them strength, guidance, wisdom, favor, encouragement. Lift them up. We thank you for them. We thank you for what you have done and what you will continue to do. And it is in your name we pray. Amen. All right, that's the plums. I'm gonna let them get off stage. It's a lot of fun things we have to celebrate. Now, here's what we got to look forward to. And I'm gonna put a target on the wall for people. I'm not gonna leave stuff out in the ether and be like, we want to do. And you're like, yes, I'm excited, but I don't know what to get excited about. We have some tactical, tangible things we want to do as a church. And some of them are not gonna sound a ton of fun to some of you, and that's okay. But you're gonna get some authenticity, and we're gonna have a conversation here that you may be not used to in church. Ministry runs on trust. And oftentimes people walk into the doors of a church, and it's hard to trust a church because we see stuff on the internet that kind of hurts that. And so I'm gonna share some things with you that probably aren't often shared in church, but I'm gonna be vulnerable and real with you. As I sit in this seat of service as your pastor, I want you to know some things because I'm about to put a target on a wall of real things that we are really wanting to do, and it's going to insert some accountability into the conversation. Accountability for me to stay dedicated and resolute in the direction of our mission and an accountability to all of us to jump in and be a part of it to move the mission forward. So we're gonna go there because I'm about to share some things we want to do, and you're gonna see them start to come alive. Because there's other things that you haven't seen that have started to come alive that God has been doing in our church. Like last year, we fixed the roof. This is an 80,000 square foot building. I'm not even gonna bother telling you how much it costs to fix the roof because it would just upset all of us. But I want you to know that God made a way for that to happen. And he has continued to make a way. And I want to share some things, and then I'm gonna tell you how he's making a way. Here's a few things that we want to do over time that we are looking to incrementally complete as a church because we believe it's gonna take care of this house of worship and it's going to help extend the reach and impact of ministry. It's going to help do those things, and it's real, and it's stuff we're gonna be able to see. First thing we want to do, and maybe not in this order, but the first thing that you would notice is we would like to paint the exterior of this building. It's old, and it's got some cracks in it, and it needs a facelift. We want to tell the community, hey, we're here. We're here and we're here for you. We want to do that so that people driving by say, man, something new. What's going on at Sunrise Church? I'll tell you what's going on at Sunrise Church. Jesus changes everything. Come on in, be a part of it. We want to do that. We want to paint the exterior. We want to paint the interior of our kids' ministry spaces. A few years ago, we started fresh to kind of create just an even palette, and so we painted it in neutral colors. But here's what uh you might know about kids. Kids don't want to walk into a space and think it looks like a dentist office. You don't even like going to the dentist. You don't want that. So you know what we want to do? We've created some designs that match our branding and sunrise, it's cool because there's like a sunrise theme. It's really fun, and we're gonna make it bright and fun and missional in there. We want to do that in every single kid's ministry space, early childhood, kids' worship center, the big room, all the classrooms. We want all of that to be updated and fun and fresh so that when families walk in the door and they walk into those rooms, they think this they expected us to be here, they are excited to be here, and our kids are excited to be here. That matters. You know what else we want to do? We want to replace the carpet in those kids' ministry spaces. If you've been back there, some of you gave some amens to that because you serve in kids' ministry and you've seen the five different types of carpet we have in our kids' ministry spaces. Not because we said it'd be cool to have five different types of carpet, it's because something ripped. All right, find something down the street and just put it in there. Some of it's pieced together with duct tape. I'm not even joking. It's ripped. There's some spaces where here's a piece of carpet, here's another different type of carpet, and there's a chasm in between that you feel like you gotta hop over. That's not for some kids' ministry game, that's because it's old and busted. And we need to fix it. It's just real talk. We need to fix that. We need to fix that. This is a place of worship, we need to treat it as such. We want to replace the carpet in this worship center. Do not look down at the carpet right now. What did I just say? I saw you look down. Don't do that. Don't look here. In the last year and a half, we've baptized close to a hundred people. We got some water stains down here. Don't get too close to it. It's gonna smell like you don't want it to smell. So just keep your distance. That's why you sit in those chairs. Don't lay on the ground. Now, look, I joke, this needs to be fixed. That's a problem. It needs to be fixed. This is a place of worship. And we should treat it as special. We want to replace the carpet in the multi-purpose room. That's where our youth ministry meets. Now, there's some rationale that says where the youth ministry meets, keep the old dankey carpet because they spill. But here's the reality family ministries, kids and students, that's not junior ministry to Sunrise Church. That's front lines. That's a real deal. We take that seriously. So you know what? We replace the carpet in the worship center and in the kids' ministry. We want to do the same thing where our students meet, and where we offer ministry opportunities and spaces to our community. We want to do that. We want to put a play set off the lobby for kiddos and families. So when you come in, you can grab your coffee and connect and your kids can play. And us be able to linger in the lobby and actually build relationships together in the context of our weekly gathering and all of the things that we have in front of us. That's a lot of stuff that we want to do. All of those things that we want to incrementally do are going to make this place a place that when people walk in the doors, they say, sunrise church means business, and they expect people to be in the doors. You know why? Until every seat is full, we got work to do. And when all the seats are full, we'll just add a service. Why? Because Jesus changes everything. So here's my encouragement to you as we look at all of these things. Because the things I just listed to you, we're already working towards. We've gotten quotes on, they're to the tune of about $250,000. Now, here's where we have some real talk, because I want you to hear this because ministry runs on trust. A year and a half ago, when I stepped into this season of service here in this seat as your pastor, I was not terribly sure what God was going to do. And we prayed and we looked at some things as to how we stewarded and managed our finances as a church. It makes some people uncomfortable, but it's honest, and you're going to get honesty from me. And we needed to do some things differently as a church. And so as a leadership team, we started doing things differently. You would put cash reserves in your personal bank account in case life fell apart so that you could still eat and have a roof over your head and stuff like that. Well, organizations should do that too. So we endeavored to do just that, to have X amount of months of cash reserves in the bank. So if the world shuts down, which is no longer a joke because we all live through COVID, we know what can happen. If the world shuts down, we know that we could continue on mission together exactly like we're doing, exactly like what God has put in front of us for an extended period of time and be just fine. We were not close to being there a year and a half ago. I want to celebrate this with you. Not only as of end of June in 2026 have we reached that X amount of months of cash reserves, God has provided us with even more, and that's including being able to pay cash to fix the roof. We are starting to put money aside to incrementally do these things. I share that with you so that you understand how our generosity is stewarded here at Sunrise Church. It is not arbitrary. When the early church gave, they saw the fruit of ministry. When we give and we serve and we pray and we share, we are seeing the fruit of ministry. And I want to humbly put before you that's where we are, and that's how we lead this church with integrity and authenticity. That's where we are. And God has blessed our church and we've got work to do. And we're gonna start putting some of those resources that God has blessed us with to start doing these things. But I want you to hear this. It's gonna take all of us. It's gonna take all of us. This is not one of those conversations where the pastor gets up and receives a special offering for these initiatives. That's not what this is. And I understand because I've been approached by a few people already. Well, Pastor Scott, what if God puts it on my heart to, you know, give a one-time gift because he's spurring in me this desire to do? That's fine. I would encourage you to pray about that first. And then I would encourage you to thank God for any provision he's given you. If he's given you the means to do something that generous, you should thank him for that. And then we'll celebrate what God does that if that's the decision that you choose to make. But that's not this conversation. This conversation is I want you to jump in. If you're already doing that, if you're already serving here, if you're already sharing, if you're already praying, and if you are already giving towards the mission of the church, I want to say, first of all, thank you. And second of all, keep it up. You're hearing what God is doing, you're seeing what God is doing when we unite around those set of values, and we believe the best is still to come. That we have more ministry opportunity. And if you're not there yet, I want to encourage you with this jump in. Jump into what God is doing. The reason we're in this room, the reason we can celebrate baptisms, the reason we can watch these testimonies from camp, the reason we can experience engagement increases in our kids' ministry, the reason we can bless adult rehabilitation centers and help people who are down and out with a literal ton of things. The reason that we can support foster care families is because we have embraced the exact same set of values the early church had. And if they hadn't have embraced those values, if they hadn't have jumped all in together, we wouldn't even be here. Because the gospel was given to move through people. And when we all jump in, we all get to see what God does. We have celebrated what he's done in the last six months here. I want to encourage you to jump in and pray with anticipation, to serve with anticipation, to give with anticipation, and to share with others in anticipation of what God will continue to do. Why? Because, like the psalmist says when we opened up our conversation today, we love, oh Lord, the habitation of your house. Jesus changes everything. If you're jumping in, thank you. Keep it up. If you haven't jumped in yet, can I invite you? Let's go. Let's continue to see what God will do when we jump in together, grow in our faith together, and help others to do the same. I'm gonna pray and we'll get out of here. God, I thank you again for all that you're doing in and through your church, for provisions that we've seen in real time. Because the last time it rained, we didn't get rained on inside the building. Because you provided fixing for the roof. The families we meet in the lobby who are starting to come to church because you're you're allowing us to reach new families, you get the praise. McKenzie and Aaron Plum being a part of our church, and McKenzie stepping into this season of leadership in our kids' ministry, you get all the praise. Students stepping out of their comfort zones, growing in their faith, sharing their faith with others. You get all the praise. Salvation Army donations, foster care families, baptisms, you get all the praise, God. Everything we have celebrated is because you have blessed your church with it. And so, God, we are going to praise you for it and we are going to petition you to continue to move in and through your church. That you would compel us to jump in together, to grow in our faith together, to serve together, to share together, to pray together, to give together, to move the mission forward together, God. We will petition you, we will praise you, and we will do all of this in anticipation with thanksgiving for what you are going to do that we haven't even seen yet. And so, God, we will conclude our time and I will wrap up my words with the same four words we started with a year and a half ago when we started this journey together as a church. God bless your church.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Amen. Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church. We hope this message encouraged you and blessed you. If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal. Everything that you donate helps not only go towards reaching people in the greater San Diego area, but also all around the world through our ministry partner. If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or some one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you need. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.