Valley Lights Church Podcast
Where are We Headed- Strengthen Relationships and Unity
- Good morning and welcome to Valley Lights. Glad to see you here. My name is Bruce, I'm lead pastor of Valley Lights. And if I haven't got the chance to meet yet, I'd love to say hello after our service. I want to share this morning about the direction that we're headed as a church. Basically now through the end of the year, usually call this the fall season in September. And we have some things planned in the life of the church that I want to let you know about. This is a, it's kind of a unique message today. What we'll be talking about is not a part of a message series. This is, we're not gonna be reading through a book of the Bible today. Like we have been over the past few weeks. But today what I want to talk about is where are we currently and where we headed. And so if you're on the newer side to Valley Lights, you're exploring the possibility of connecting here, then your timing is excellent. This is a great day to be here because you'll find out what's really important to us as a church and what are maybe some of the benefits that you might receive if you start of investing here. And I want to start by reading a short passage of scripture together. And the word of God is truly one of the supreme high values that we hold. The Bible is so precious. And the passage that we're gonna read talks about glorifying to get God together with one voice. Actually, you can throw it up on the screen. And there's a, it's at the top of your handout as well. So I kind of wanted to try something that I rarely do. Something a little more interactive. And if you're willing and you're interested and if you'd like to stand and read it with me together, I'd love to do that. So if you want to, you can go ahead and stand. Whenever we stand, especially if, you know, when we sing songs or when it's reading the Bible, it's one of the ways that we can demonstrate our respect for God's word. And so if you want to read this with me, the verses again are on your handout on the screen. And so let's go ahead and start off by reading Romans 15 five through seven together. Now, may the God who gives endurance and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice. Therefore, welcome one another just as Christ, also welcome to you to the glory of God. Amen, you can have a seat. Thanks for doing that with me. There's something uniting and doing that together. And you just noticed the words that you read, do you have a real strong theme of cohesion and unity and harmony among fellow believers? And that's not to say that everybody here this morning has made a decision to follow Christ. Maybe some are in the process of exploring that. But even this passage talks about believers having one mind and one voice. We just got to kind of practice that in a way. Seeing God's word together in a unified way. Really this passage and really the greater context of chapter 15 and Romans really does give the impression of total togetherness in the pursuit of God, which to me is very appealing. And I love whenever you read verses like this that have this idea of unity in them, it's amazing to see how much of a connection you find between unity of believers and God getting glorified. Like when you and me and us, our relationships are unified, that there's a connection to God being glorified. And so to me it seems that God doesn't want to be glorified by billions and billions of minds and independent voices. But he says one mind and one voice. And so this passage, it sets up the focus that I want to be sharing with you. This is really the focus for the coming season for us is to strengthen relationships and unity. We really want to talk about some different ways. We can strengthen our relationships and strengthen our unity as a congregation. And by the way, this is not in response to a big problem of division in the church. So the goal of strengthening unity and relationships, it's not to correct a problem. In fact, I really think that we've established many good relationships and really in general, we're moving in a fairly unified direction. And over the summer, I've seen many people taking advantage of opportunities to connect with each other. Not just through the church organized meetups, we've offered things like bowling and hiking and pool hangouts and all this stuff, but there's been connecting happening even with some of your own plans and activities and shopping trips and celebrations and parties and even moving, you know, moving into new homes. And that's been really great. So already, what I love to see is that there's already a value of doing life together in our body. And as I've been praying about where God, where I think God wants us to go over the next few months and we could focus on a lot of things as a church. As I've been praying and also listening to some of our leaders, I think our relationships could become even more life-giving and our unity, even more seamless. For example, do you think that you might benefit from having deeper friendships here? I mean, I'm not sure how you would describe your current level of depth or closeness that exists in friendships, but, you know, perhaps you might, maybe you would benefit from some deeper friendships. Or do you think you might enjoy having people to really do life with? Not just acquaintances on Sunday that are friendly and say hello, but people that are a part of your real life. Or do you think that you would like to have people where whenever you hang out, you walk away feeling motivated and refreshed, connected and encouraged? Or how about this? I don't know, have you ever experienced a hurt or an offense in a relationship? Something gets off track or something gets wonky. And then the offense doesn't get fully addressed. It may get addressed partially or not full, maybe just it doesn't fully get dealt with. And so there's like a chunk of it still lingering in your heart. And then distance and maybe some mistrust begins to grow. I don't know if you've experienced that, but that happens in churches all the time. That's very, very common. Which by the way, I think is part of the reason that God tells us so much about unity. But this common, so if that's happened to you, well certainly this happened in your life, like in general. But even at church, maybe in your relationships at church, that kind of thing happens. I really believe that God has given us the tools to truly repair things and to really rebuild trust with one another. Those are not easy or quick things to do, but I think he's given us the tools. So the question is, do you think some of those tools would be a benefit to you? So I think by God's grace, we have really good relationships here, and I wonder perhaps we could make them even stronger. And there's unity in our church family, and I wonder could it become even more seamless? And a picture of this kind of strength in unity is described in Colossians 3. This is a chapter I've spent many, many hours meditating on over the past year. It's, God has really encouraged my soul and my character a lot through this chapter, but Colossians 3 describes a lot of really godly qualities like compassion and humility and forgiveness, and then it says this, above all these other qualities put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. So again, here's harmony. We read about harmony in Romans together a second ago. Here it is in Colossians, but this is not just harmony. This is perfect harmony. That Greek word perfect is teleotase, and it means perfection on a super level, like total completeness. Unity that is just perfect in wholeness and oneness, and to think that kind of perfect harmony is achievable. I think there's a kind of perfect harmony that we can experience right here on earth, even before we get to heaven, it's gonna for sure be that way and have it. But Colossians 3, I believe God gives his recipe for this kind of life-giving, ultra-refreshing, God-glorifying peace and unity with each other, and that's a beautiful thing. So I wanna get a little bit more specific. Here's a little bit of where I'd like to go as a congregation over the next few months, but let's get a little bit more specific on what this could look like practically. And I really am excited about some opportunities for us to strengthen our church. And I see four areas where I think we could really work this out. So to strengthen relationships and to strengthen our unity first, I think we need men of the narrow gate. Men of the narrow gate. All right, the narrow gate is a reference to one of the metaphors that Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount. Let me show you that where he said in Matthew 7. It says, "Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide in the road broad that leads to destruction. And there are many who go through it. How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life?" And few find it. When Jesus spoke these words, this of course applied to all people. But I've been really thinking about how it applies specifically to men. And I think it's clear that Jesus calls us to walk a narrow, difficult path toward life. This is not, you know, if you wanna like grow a really big church really fast, don't start with this passage. This almost, you know, almost feel like discouraged if you read this. And like this is, he's like, it's gonna be following me, it's gonna be hard and difficult, okay? You need to know that. So here we go, that initial decision, if you have decided to follow Jesus at some point in your life, that it's generally a hard first decision because it requires that we subject ourselves totally to the lordship of Christ. There's no more doing life my way. And this narrow road, I kind of found an image that comes to my mind when I think of this. This is, you know, you can see like kind of back there, like this dark pathway and this rocky, uncomfortable, just place, this is, you know, if you were walking on a hike, you would just walk right by this. You would not even notice this, you would not wanna go in there. The initial appeal to walking through this gate is pretty low. So Jesus says, a lot of people miss it. The path to life, nobody, there's not a lot of people that wanna go down that road. Here's an example of what a broad road could look like with lots of people. I mean, this has got beautiful coastline in it, cool, breezy evening, maybe a drink in your hand, walking next to your special somebody. And Jesus said that most people are gonna walk on the easier paths to life, where things are comfortable and pleasant and just kind of guided by your desires. And people that walk on the broad road reject the hard path, or maybe they never even noticed it. But the way of true life, truly finding life, is really different and it's pretty uncomfortable. And Jesus says, oh, how difficult the road that leads to life. So we get to pick, we can be narrow gate people or we can be broad way people or broad gate people. If you walk through the narrow gate, you'll find life, eventually, or walk through the easy road and find destruction, ultimately. And when it comes to being a man, being a man involves a lot of things, but really at the center of true manhood is an unyielding commitment to follow the Lord Jesus Christ through a lot of self-denial and a lot of discomfort. Jesus puts it this way, later in Matthew 16, he says, if anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. So men, if you call yourself a Christian, that means you're gonna have to say no to a lot of things that everyone else gets to say yes to. And in the journey of walking with Christ, it really helps if you have a few other strong men who have made the same commitment. We can gain strength from each other. And men, we rally around a mission. I get excited when other guys are dedicating their life to good things. I mean, men really develop relationships less face to face in coffee shops and just chatting. Men, usually when we're shoulder to shoulder, doing something, moving in a direction, building something, accomplishing something, that's when relationships really grow. And so I really pray that over the next few months, the men of our church are defined by a self-denying, cross-carrying devotion to Christ. If you're a man, wouldn't you prefer to battle the enemy alongside other strong men who are defined by their self-denying, cross-carrying devotion to our King Jesus? I definitely would. So we've scheduled four men's gatherings, this fall, once each month, to look at four areas that we tend to take an easier but more destructive road in life. These are common areas where we get off track, whether by temptation from the enemy or from our own sinful desires, just nakin' us there. But this church, Valley Lights, needs more narrow, gait men. If we can encourage each other in character and integrity and in leading our families well, it'll bring tremendous strength to our church. So that's one area, moving, looking forward. A second area that will help is developing women who are open to life-shaping relationships. Women that are open to life-shaping relationships. God often uses the loving support of biblical community to grow us. And in just a minute, I'm gonna ask my wife, Aaron, to help me describe this a little bit, 'cause she's gonna do a far better job than me. Which I did forget to ask for a microphone. What's that? (audience member speaking indistinctly) Oh, splendid, I'll see if this works. But let me, I'll just point out some scripture here in a second. There really is something powerful that happens when biblical truth is shared in an atmosphere of love and acceptance. Look at Ephesians 4.15. This is speaking the truth in love. It's whenever you talk. Whether you're encouraging someone or revealing about yourself or being open, speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head Christ. There's this connection between speaking the truth in love and growing. From him, the whole body fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament promotes the growth of the body for building itself up. In love by the proper working part, working of each individual part. So I think this passage, even this little few verses, describe how beautiful inner growth occurs when we're really deeply connected to each other. Like it says, knit together. Just imagine your hearts and your lives being knit together. Like there's this beautiful quilt or mosaic. And it describes there's growth for us individually but also as a whole body. And whenever we speak the truth, it must be dominated by a genuine love and care for each other. This is also described, the openness is also described in 1 John 1 John 1 John says, it talks about walking in the lights. Walking in the light means you're open to people. If we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. So here walking in the light, which is becoming open and known by others and even exposing the less admirable parts of ourselves leads to a richer fellowship and leads us towards cleansing. Again, these verses that we looked at, of course they apply to all people but kind of focusing particularly on women. So let me invite my wife Erin up here. And I want to ask you a few questions that share about this topic. Let's see if this works. - Good morning. - Thanks. So question one is, how have you personally experienced growth and change in your own life in the context of community? - I get really excited about this topic 'cause I've really personally benefited. I think one of the beautiful things about church community is it connects me with so many people that are so different from me that I would never connect with in any other context. And as a result, I've grown so much. I think just on a practical level, just things like how to make sourdough or how to organize better. I'm not always naturally organized or how to heal a plan or how to parent my kids. They're just been so much perspective and I've been able to connect with people that are just strong in areas that I'm not. And so that has been a real gift. And then I think beyond that, there's been an opportunity to sharpen each other and do life together. And I've found that I just benefit so much from doing life alongside other people as opposed to trying to get it out on my own. Which honestly is probably my native default. It's just kind of like pull myself up on the root strap and just go it alone. But I've seen so much help flow through relationship with people. - And then what are some, what do you think are some of the common barriers that women face when it be, this idea of becoming open and known by others? What are some barriers? - I think there's a lot of barriers that flow out of all kinds of experiences we've all had with women and different life experiences we've had. I, it's hard for me to speak for others, but I know over the years of being in church life, I've bumped into a lot of barriers personally. So a few that came to mind, one was insecurity and comparison. Just the tendency to feel like I don't measure up or feel like I don't sit here or to just get in my head about what other people are thinking about me. Or another one that I thought of was mistrust, which for me tends to look like fear of judgment or rejection. Like I just don't know if it's a safe place and I share this and will I be rejected or will I be accepted or will I look like a fool. So that's come up for me at this point. I think another one is busyness. I think in our culture, we can all feel like we're running at max capacity. And I've had seasons where I just thought, I'd love to connect, but I don't have the bandwidth or another friendship or another relationship or another thing on my calendar. And so I think there's been seasons where finding time to connect has really required being a bit sacrificing. Unresolved offenses, sometimes like things just hit wrong or I can just get bothered by something that someone said or thinks that maybe, you know, they had some kind of ill intent. And if I let that sit and it doesn't get resolved or talked about, that can definitely drive distance and cause me to want to like step back and isolate. And I think the biggest things for me is just between my own two years. I tend to get into a lot of over-evaluating. I walk away from a conversation and I'm like, ah, when I said that, that probably came across so downward. I think I was talking too much. I think we all tend to get in our heads about just relieving. And I think that for me, the more that I know, it's like there's so much help, but then people know stuff about you. Like your rough edges, the fact that I talk too much sometimes, like you just can't get around people knowing things about you. And that can feel really uncomfortable. And so I think I've had to trust that people are for me and care about me and we're just committed to bearing with each other's rough edges. Like we're going to be committed to bearing with each other's quirkiness. And sometimes that's hard for me to really trust that people are going to be for me. - So what do you think would be the impact if more hearts of women here were being knit together? - So I get really excited about this. Most of you probably know that I'm a plant person and I also love an allergy. So the first thing that came to mind when I think about this question is a greenhouse. And I think for me, I've experienced church life when done well is like a greenhouse where we can thrive and grow at a rate that is faster than we would if we were on our own. But also I think in ways that we can't on our own. And so I've experienced so much of that myself and I get really excited about other women getting to experience that. And beyond that, I think community is really contagious. And so as we connect and experience the quality of relationships that's really hard to find anywhere else, I think people on the fringes that we're connected to, as they rub up against that, there's an appeal to get connected and to know what's going on here. And for some people, that might be their first step toward Jesus. Like they might not be interested in church from like a personal standpoint, but as they get around people that have the love and the light of Jesus and there's something different here, it might cause them to want to investigate more. And so I think as we strengthen our connections and our community, there's a real opportunity to invite other people in and to see other people's lives really change as we build something here. - All right, last question is, we do have also four women's gatherings coming up once each month. And part of that will be to discuss different aspects of becoming open to life shaping relationships. So what are you excited about for those women's gatherings? - So the thing I get really excited about is I think most women I know are doers in some way. And so on a given Sunday morning, almost everyone is running around serving in some way. We're just busy taking care of people. A lot of us have young kids. They're other people that we're worried about. And even on group nights, sometimes that can be the case. So what I get really excited about for these women's gatherings is just to have a time where we can slow down and step out of the tasks that we're often busy with and hopefully just get face to face and have a little more space than time to intentionally connect. And for some of us, that might be like me slowing down, listening a little more, talking a little less. For some of us, it might be pushing ourselves to talk and share and be a little more open. But I think it creates space and time for all of us to just take whatever that next step is and stepping into community, being known and sharing life. And that's probably gonna look different depending on where you're starting. But I just get excited about getting all of our women together across life stages and seeing all of the benefit that can flow through taking a time out for that. - Thank you very much, that's great. Hopefully that inspires and motivates you for connecting, yeah, you can clap. (audience applauds) So there's something for men and something for women, ways that I think that'll really strengthen the church. A third area is developing a culture of hospitality. I think we have this already, but even more, develop a culture of hospitality. And this is very near to the heart of God, I believe. I don't know if you remember that verse that we read earlier together. Verse seven, we said, it says this, "Therefore, welcome one another, "just as Christ also welcomed you to the glory of God." The Greek word welcome is proslambano. It means to welcome, to receive someone, to accept a person to take somebody along or to bring them in. And this really is what Jesus has done for us. He has graciously received us, brought us into his family, and he wants us to turn and do the same thing for other people as well. Another time this comes up, first Peter 4.9, and it says, it's in command form. Be hospitable to one another without complaining. It's kind of funny that it has that extra detail without complaining because being hospitable can sort of be a hassle. It's usually there's some level of inconvenience. You have to maybe spend more on groceries or plan ahead. Maybe you have to stay up later and get a clean more. Or maybe if you're not even hosting at your house, but you're hosting a person in some activity, you've got to open up room in your schedule. But imagine, imagine if you hosted somebody and they walked away feeling motivated and refreshed and encouraged and connected. What a joy to be a part of that. And we have a fun way that we want to try to put this into practice this season. Family style dinners. And so these are going to be a fun way to get together and connect. There's three Friday nights over the course of the fall where you can sign up your household, whether you're a household that you are family with kids or just a married couple or by yourself or you've got roommates, whatever it is, however you define your household, you can sign up and you'll be placed in groups of four households for a themed potluck. So everybody brings something. Everyone can be conscious of dietary restrictions and all that. That'll all be worked out. But the fun thing is you get to connect and you'll get placed in maybe some people that you've never had to hang out with before or maybe you saw them but you've never met them here. And then if you go to the next one, the groups are going to be reshuffled so that you can enjoy time with a different set of people. And so hopefully if you're able to attend these, you have a chance to meet a lot more people on a personal level and just in homes where there's connection time. And so if you look at all three of these gatherings, the men's gatherings, women's and these family dinners, my hope is that all of these different gatherings stir up your desire to get time with people in between the church events where maybe you meet somebody or you have a good conversation that gets started and then you're inspired to practice this godly habit of hospitality. And maybe you connect with somebody, you get a phone number and connect with somebody later that week or in a couple of weeks and you just get to get more time later on. Imagine our community deepening naturally just through spontaneous relationships growing. And I'd encourage you to prioritize these gatherings. We've listed all the dates on your handout, on the events document and some of those dates that are there, they, it's possible, they may require that you shift some things around on your schedule in order to attend or maybe you have to inconvenience to yourself in some way or maybe figure out the kids or whatever it is. I know this might sound really crazy to the typical American, but I'm asking you to consider prioritizing church above the other commitments in your life. Church community. I think it's something that not only will you benefit from but maybe that's this kingdom oriented living I think is more along the lines of the direction that God's leading us in. And so if you are able to make it and if you can't make it to all of them that's fine or you can only make it to one that's totally fine. But whenever you do come, whenever you do arrive, come with a mindset to invest yourself. Open up plan on deepening relationships, especially if you only make a couple just plan on investing yourself deeply in each of those gatherings. And then there's one finally fourth way. I think that we can accomplish this or at least move in the direction of achieving a school of strengthening relationships and unity and that is our church needs members committed to this body of Christ. Not every church has a formal membership process. We do and we take it very seriously. And because of that it is becoming a very meaningful part of how we relate and how we operate as a church. And becoming a member at Valley of Lights involves kind of like three steps. One step would be to attend the membership class to learn about our mission and our core values. The second step is after the class you would have, you'd set up, call it a commit conversation. It's like an informal meeting with a staff member where we can learn about your spiritual background. We can discuss any questions you may have about our statement of faith or our beliefs. And then third would be your decision to wholeheartedly join us. To help move our mission forward and to live by our core scriptural values. And becoming a member basically is saying, you're gonna join us. We're not joining you and the objectives. You'll decide to join the direction that we're moving as a church. And so let me give a word to people that are members in order to people that are not yet members. If you haven't completed the whole membership process yet, please take your time to explore who we are to, or maybe even just to explore Christianity and what the Bible says. And we'll give you space to investigate. But after you give it some time, I'd really encourage you. If people don't make commitments to engage or to really root themselves or to drive a stake in the ground, people tend to drift. People tend to drift out of churches or life things, happen, and then people, if that happens, if the drifting happens, then you really miss out on the chance to grow spiritually in ways that I think God would want you to. And also if you've been attending for a long time, but you're holding off on becoming members, if there's oftentimes there's a reason that a person would hold off, not always, but usually there's something holding you back. I'd encourage you, talk about that thing. Whatever it is, what is the reason that you don't want to become a member? Especially if you've been here for a while and you kind of know who we are, you've got to experience our people and things like that, you might as well bring it out into the open so we can find out whether or not that thing can be resolved. And so if you haven't started the process yet, today there is a membership class, as Jackie mentioned in our announcement time, and actually just let me know if you want to be there today, if you haven't signed up already. Look again at the kind of oneness described in Romans, that verse that we read earlier together, says live in harmony with one another, according to Christ Jesus, so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one mind and one voice. When you look at this standard for harmony and oneness, like it's describing total oneness in unity. I think our church is probably only going to ever be as strong as our membership. People who have made a firm commitment to this body of Christ. I don't mean a commitment to just like the church in general, like the capital C, church of the world. You know, certainly there's a greater church that God is doing, but I totally believe, if you read the New Testament, God wants us very personally connected to a particular congregation, where his New Testament commands and the one in others can be practiced and lived out in everyday life, where we know each other, and we can exhort and encourage and build up each other in really personal ways. That really only happens if you've made a commitment to a specific group of people, rather than floating around. So that's some encouragement on that. If you are already a member here, it would be hard for me to express just how much I appreciate your commitment to our body. Your commitment is not to me, at least it shouldn't be. Your commitment, when you become a member, your commitment's to Jesus, and it's to his body, and he's the head of it. But interesting, as you commit to Jesus, your commitment gets expressed in the way that you relate to everybody here, and that's what makes it so precious. That's what creates those bonds of unity. And there is a membership renewal coming up. Again, Jackie had mentioned that. This really is an important and meaningful gathering, because that commitment that we've made as members, it really creates a heart connection. And sometimes people move on for a lot of different reasons, and that's okay, or sometimes a person's commitment, wanes, or things in life change, that's okay. But that's why we need an annual renewal. We need to find out who's still with us, and if you will aggressively defend and protect the unity of our body from the many attempts of Satan to divide and distract us, they're coming. Actually, they've already come. There's been many attempts at division in our church, and over the four years that we've been going. And so as members, we hold each other accountable. We have to. We are ruggedly determined to clear up relationships whenever they get messed up, because we understand how much God prizes the unity of his people. So membership, like I said, it's something we take seriously. It's also very precious to me. And the commitment that you've made, if you remember here, is so valuable. Side note, a few times in this message so far, there's been a reference to offenses or hurts in relationships. I wanna say again, that's very, very common. And if you currently have a relationship with somebody in this church, where there's been damage done or trust broken in some way, or there's some distance growing, or maybe some mistrust happening, if you need help, please let me know. Or Aaron or maybe another leader. But because it's common, and God's given us the tools, we can work through it, or by God, it's great. So actually, sometimes when the relationships are really messed up, sometimes I pray God, if this gets worked out, totally, it's gonna be an act of mercy, because it feels so separate right now. But I've seen many times God provides the mercy that's needed and the grace that's needed to bring and restore trust when it was really damaged. So if you need help with that, and you probably do, because I haven't needed tons of counseling and help, from other older, wiser people to get things cleared up, and I've messed up relationships really bad, with friends and other people in church, even other pastors and things like that. So I've needed a lot of help. So, side note on that. So in summary, where are we headed? Where is Valley Lights going? Lord willing, over the next few months, we're able to strengthen our relationships and our unity. Imagine what this could look like if we had a church led by strong men who are living respectable lives with integrity and devotion to Jesus. Imagine if we had a church where the women were known and accepted with hearts in it together. Imagine if we were a hospitable church that just keeps welcoming newcomers and where people just get to serve selflessly. I mean, imagine our church in a way that we're protected by our members who are determined to preserve unity. I pray that we truly glorify God in that as a body we are pleasing to Him. These four areas that we looked at, this is not a perfect solution. This is, there's lots and lots of other things that you can do to build unity and bring people together and create connection. There's many more things, and maybe, if you're with us, you might get to the next few months and you might not even feel all that connected. That might happen too. But I think, at least, these objectives can get us started in the right direction. All four of these areas, for the men, the women, the hospitality, and the membership, they represent ways for you to get up close and personal with other people, and you might think, I'm not sure if I want to get that close and personal with other people, like letting people know the real me and letting people into my house and making all these commitments, maybe this feels too close for comfort. Well, maybe getting a little uncomfortable is okay, because maybe it's worth the outcome that you get. I mean, don't you think, there's at least some discomfort if you experience God on a deeper level, doesn't those generally kind of go together? What would it look like for you to push past some discomfort and take a step toward the body of Christ? If you're new, again, this is the perfect time to join up for you to experience community life here, to get in on the action. And if you've been around for a while, I'm counting on you. Tell us build up these relationships, and I'm excited for you to experience even stronger friendships and the blessing of growth in your own life. So these are your people, this is your church. Take another step towards God's kingdom family. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the direction that I believe that you're providing and some specific and tangible ways for us to get into each other's lives and to allow scripture to sink deeply into our lives as well. Pray that you would bless these gatherings. I pray that you would create heart connections and motivation for the devotion to Christ that's needed for our church to grow. I pray also that you would create that culture of hospitality that is so like what Jesus did for us, and would you also protect the unity of our church and our relationships, help us to fully and effectively work through damage to trust and relationships whenever that occurs. Would you use us, Lord, to bring many more people into the kingdom of God, into your family? In Jesus' name I pray, amen.