Amen. We want to start by just talking real quick about culture. There's a question that Holy Spirit has been asking us, and we want to give you that same question to prompt this curiosity with the Holy Spirit and your own heart as well. But he's been asking us, what does it feel like when you come into the Father's house?
What does it feel like when you come into the Father's house? And I just believe that that's something we're going to start looking at as a community and start to pursue as a community. And I think that there's some really little ways that we're going to be moving toward that as a family together in this new season. And so with culture, we get to be intentional and not have culture be accidental in this space.
We don't want to come in and just let culture be the byproduct of however we might be feeling that day. But we want to be intentional that our culture emulates the kingdom. When people come through the doors here, it should feel like a whole new world. It should feel like heaven on earth.
What does that even mean? What does it even look like to walk into a space that looks like the Father's house? Where there's joy, where there's celebration, where there's always a seat at the table, there's always room, it's hospitable, it's warm. There's like that culture of hunger.
There's like honor between people. What does that look like? Culture is what it feels like when you walk into a room and it's almost hard to name. Man, it's like I'm trying to find words for it.
That's what culture is. And so because it can be hard to name what it is or what's creating it, it's easy to think that you don't have to be intentional to create it. But we just want to say as a whole community, as we go into this next season together, as we are every day, that we want to be intentional about the culture that we set in this space. When you walk into the room on a Sunday, on a Monday, on a Wednesday, it should look like the Father's house.
It should feel like the Father's house and we're going to explore that together. But I think I also just want to be clear that when we're talking about creating a culture here, I shouldn't even say creating, stewarding. We already have a culture and there's an invitation to steward the culture that God's given us. But the reason for that is this moment that we gather should be the fiery, hot center of culture that looks like the kingdom.
Until you're home carrying the culture of the kingdom. Your workplace, when you're going into your next meeting or you're sitting around the boardroom table, how can it look like the culture of the kingdom? How can it feel like the Father's house when you walk into class on a Tuesday morning? How can it feel like the Father's house when you welcome your children home from school at the end of the day?
It's holistic. But when we gather together, we're getting a picture, we're getting a glimpse of the epicenter of the culture of the kingdom. But in order to go after that together, we have to all step into that together. So oftentimes we'll talk about culture with leadership and with our team, behind the scenes, and we talk about infusing this community with culture, the culture of honor, the culture of hunger, the culture of celebration.
But we felt like in this transition, we just wanted to charge our whole community and say, when we come together, let's make sure it feels like the Father's house. And so there's little things that you'll even notice, there's some differences even tonight as we are making this transition as a community. At the beginning of service, maybe you'll notice that when we started the service, usually what happens is we come out, the intro video starts, and then we go right into worship. But today, if you were here early, which a lot of you were not, it's okay, we're going to start to be more on time because you're late because we've been late starting service, so I get it.
But if you were here, you probably felt like, man, this is kind of weird because we all came out in this room was just a free-for-all of connection and being with each other before jumping into a service. Okay, so we don't want to come in and just sit down and pew and wait for the screen to start. It's like we want to come in and it should feel like the Father's house when you walk in the door to an awakening service on Sundays. And so that is only possible if you all engage in that way.
And so that's a shift and a change. Maybe you also are noticing there's some chairs that are up here and it's like you probably walked in today and those chairs look weird and why are they sideways? And they're kind of blocking these rows and that seems inconvenient. Who are these people?
These are the very anointed people, only specific anointed people can sit in them. You know that we're so kidding about that. Here's the value. There's a few values.
I want you to talk about this too. If we had our dream, we would have a sanctuary that was circular. We started in a living room and this is a lot bigger than a living room, but we wanted to still feel like a living room. We wanted to feel like the Father's house.
And part of that is for there to be a more communal experience. You hear us say it all the time that we want to get rid of the separation between the platform and the pew, right? And so we're trying to make this as circular as possible. And I will say that that's uncomfortable at first.
It's like you even see it today. If you're one of the people over here, it's like our body language. Okay, so we have been trained in the American church to face a stage. And it is like insane to get ourselves to face people.
We're uncomfortable with it. And we are going to move in this direction together. And so I want to encourage you, you see us do it all the time, even before this. It's like, why are they turning inward?
Because this is communal. Like we are all in a room together, not to be isolated on our own, but to go together. And it shouldn't be uncomfortable that in a moment where I'm looking at the Lord and, oh, I made eye contact with someone. That shouldn't interrupt me.
This is communal. Like the chair of them are actually singing to each other. Holy, holy, holy. We all know that passage where they're saying, holy, holy, holy.
The word says that they sing to each other. Holy, holy, holy. They were talking to each other about him. And so we're going to, it's hard to get circular in here.
That's why this looks so dumb, to be honest. There's like six of you, but it's worth it to us. It's worth it for that value of going together and gathering around the throne. I want you to talk about that.
And I also think that this, like, I love Mike right now because he's the only one just an animal. I love Mike because he's sitting on the platform and everybody could be like, well, why is he up there? Because he's so holy. Radical.
Yeah, you are. And it's because we are putting chairs on the platform because we're saying there is no divide. There is no divide. We are not going to stand up here behind a podium and give the word of the Lord or get up higher and climb a ladder into a position above the unqualified ministers.
You are a minister of the Lord in worship and everyday life. We are ministers. You are everyday reverence. You are messengers.
You are ministers. So we all come together as ministers of the Lord. And if I'm standing here or standing there or sitting back there, it doesn't matter. You all have the same position.
We all have the same position before the Lord. And there's, when we're talking circular, I'm reminded of revelation and how John gets brought up into heaven. And do you know what he sees? He sees a circle of thrones and elders are sitting on the throne.
And do you know what's in the middle of the circle is the throne of the Father. It's the throne of the Father and the Son. Jesus is sitting at the Father's right hand. They've got a double throne going on.
And they're sitting together in the middle and they're surrounded by a circle of worship. And there's worship leaders called the cherubim that are shouting out to each other. Have you ever seen some of our worship leaders face each other and they're looking at each other and it's like they're interacting? And then they turn towards us because this is a circle and they're interacting with us.
It's literally what is happening in heaven as they're worshiping the Lord. And so as we gather in a circle, if it helps you, you can just picture him in the middle. Man, if he was right here on this X and we're all gathering around him. So don't be weird if you're standing on the X.
Okay. There's like a tape that's an X right here. Yeah, it's black. It's black tape.
But anyways, we're gathering around him and ministering to him. This is not ministering to a band, ministering to a worship team or having a worship experience because it's not about us. It's about actually giving him gifts of adoration and worship. And if it helps you, we can all just gather around him and he's taking a seat in the middle of our praise.
That's what it says in the Bible that he's enthroned upon the praises of his people. He comes in, here's our praise and he goes, I think I'm going to sit down. And he just sits in it. He sits in our praise.
And we get to have that in our mind as we gather together. The other thing I want to say and then I want to have a conversation about culture is you just heard a story tonight. That was so powerful, a healing testimony. And I just want to say we could have never heard a story like that if it hadn't been shared with us.
And so Spencer hadn't come and told us that story. We never could have had him share that with the rest of you. And aren't you so glad you got to celebrate that story. And so I just want to say we want to be better about celebrating stories together.
And I just want to say we have put out this ask in the past. We've actually tried. This has been a value since we started. We have tried to find a way to gather stories so that we can celebrate together when we gather on Sundays.
And it just never works. People don't bring their stories forward. So I'm letting you in on that secret so that you can go, well that's not right. I'm going to start sharing my story because we want to celebrate your everyday.
And what God is doing in your life and how he's moving through you in your everyday. And so we want to amplify your voices and give a spotlight to what he is doing in your everyday. Every time we gather. That is our goal.
That we would be able to celebrate a story or two or three. There's so much happening. That's the thing. You're all sitting on so many stories.
And we want to multiply our stories by actually sharing them. Okay. And so we are overcomers through our testimony and actually sharing that. And so I want to invite you if you have a story.
You can multiply your story by sharing it. And so if you do at any time, just grab a staff member be like, Hey, I've got a story. I know I'm supposed to share those with you. And staff will let us know and we'll get you in a service to share.
But we just want to make sure that we're putting the everyday in front of us every time that we gather. Is that awesome? Oh, you guys excited about that? Because I think it's a game changer for us.
Okay. What I want us to do since we've been talking a little bit about culture and specifically, what does it feel like when you come into the Father's house? I want us to all think about our experiences in church, in services. Whether that's in a service on a Sunday or a community or small group, maybe even outside of here.
Maybe there's other communities that you've been a part of in the past. I just would love for you to turn to the people around you and dialogue around. Did that culture feel like the kingdom? Why or why not?
And did it emulate the Father's house? When I walked into that room, did it feel like the Father's house? Yes or no? And how would you name the culture that you experienced?
Whether positive or negative? I think one of the greatest ways for us to grow as leaders that carry culture. Is to be able to be students of culture and notice what's happening in culture, name what's happening in culture, and be intentional about how we carry culture. And so if we can turn the people around, if you have experienced a negative culture that didn't really look like the kingdom, I just would put out the ask that you not name the church or the community that you're talking about, so we can keep a culture of honor as we talk.
And so just want to put that out as a guide rail for this moment. But let's just share, like, did it look like the kingdom? Why or why not? How would you name that culture?
What did it feel like? And maybe even if we have time, you can start to dialogue around, how do you think that that culture happened? Positive or negative? How do you think that that culture even started?
How did that culture come to be? Does that make sense? Okay, turn the people around to. We'll give you a couple minutes, and then we're going to talk more about every day.
Introduce yourself if you don't know their name as you connect. All right, all right, all right. We're going to gather back together so you can close out your conversations. Here we go.
Okay, right before we start. This is Hannah. Everyone say hi, Hannah. Hi, Hannah.
She just came up and shared a story, and I was like, oh my gosh, it's too good. You have to share it now. So we're just going to start because this is such a fun story. So we'll do this, and then we'll jump back in.
Okay, you know how to ruin any joke? It's you say, this is the best joke that you've ever heard. Now anything I said, it's not going to be funny. So this story is okay, all right?
It's just okay. My friend and I, we drove out to a meditation retreat in Washington, and on our way, we ran out of gas, we stopped at, we were on the far west side of North Dakota, and we stopped at a truck stop. So I'm getting gas, coming to the restroom. My friend is embracing a woman, and the woman is bawling.
And I'm like, oh, I have figures. It really does with her. And actually she was supposed to be here today. So if this, Annalora, I'm going to say hi to you because you're going to hear this later then.
But anyway, so she was embracing, they're crying, and then I found out what happened. So apparently she walked into the bathroom. The Holy Spirit said, say hi to the woman, and she asked this woman her name. She was putting makeup on in the bathroom.
And Annalora asked for her name, she told her, and then she said, can I pray for you? And the woman said, yes. And so, and then she started breakdown right there. And so she felt led to, she did what she felt led to do, which she just cupped her face in her hands, perfect stranger.
And she said, and she said, you are a daughter of the king, and you do not have to do this. And she didn't even know what she was talking about, but the woman was, and she just started bawling. And she was out of money, out of gas, and she was getting ready to, she was a truck stop. And she was going to sell herself.
And so my friend took her back out to the car, she gave her $300 for gas money, which I'm like, that's being generous, forget, that's a lot of gas. And she said the Holy Spirit was like, why don't you give it all to her? So she gave her all of her money that she had for our trip, and I'm like, okay, apparently that's on me then. I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding, actually the gods' provision came through so crazy after that too.
But anyway, so then we talked to this woman in the parking lot for a while, you know, hugged her several more times. She had felt totally abandoned, she was ready to either kill herself or prostitute herself. It was like an emergency situation. So my friend said, where are you from?
And she said Minneapolis. And she was like, where in Minneapolis? And she was from Brooklyn Center, which was 10 minutes from my friend's house. Wow, what?
And we were almost in Montana at that point. Wow. So trucks out in the middle of nowhere. And then God provided to you with other crazy things where I thought I'd go into a pub that was already closed.
And he was like, we're closed, and I thought I'd lock that. And he's like, oh, but you're hungry, aren't you? And he just started cooking this food and put it on the house. And I was like $300 tab.
And he just decided, no, don't give me money. You guys will be VIPs anytime you come in here. And people just started handing her $100 bills when we were at the retreat. She's in a conversation with somebody else, and a woman comes up in hands or $100 bill.
So it was like, God just kept providing for her after she just let it all go. So yeah. Wow. Come on.
Whoa, thank you. Let's go. Come on. That's why we got to share stories, you guys.
This stuff is happening all the time. And just, that story is so wild. Wow. Like traveling so far just to connect with someone who lives in your own backyard.
It's just, Lord, thank you for your leadership. You're the best author. We love you. Yes, Lord.
Thank you, Lord. We're going to continue. You can open your Bibles to Hebrews 10 really quickly. We're just going to read a couple verses in Hebrews 10.
And you might have noticed as we've started the service, you've noticed there's a shift that we're calling these services on Sundays. We're calling them awakening services. I don't know who's noticed that we're calling them awakening services, right? And what we believe is that as we gather that this is not the church, that doing a service on a Sunday is not the church, but that we as a people, the church is a people, right?
The church is a people that's on the move that lives in everyday life. And so this isn't the full expression of what church is, right? The Echlessee is when you get together with your friends in Pursuit Jesus. And so many people around here don't know each other, right?
And so what we're going after as a community is we're going to wake us up. Wake us up out of the slumber. Wake us up out of what the current of culture is. It's trying to, excuse me, is trying to lowless asleep.
And God is saying, wake up, wake up to who I am, wake up to who you are, wake up to the zakiases of our city that are in the trees longing to know me, get a glimpse of who I am, wake up. And so we're not calling it, we're not saying welcome to everyday, right? So when we're starting a service, we're saying welcome to the awakening service. We're not saying welcome to everyday because everyday is not a service.
Everyday is something that we're gathering on Sundays. We're gathering at prayer room on Mondays. We're gathering on Wednesdays for class and soul care and everyday youth and everyday kids and there's communities happening and then there's your house. And then there's your workplace which is everyday.
And then there's you spending time with Jesus which is everyday. And then there's a mentality that's an everyday mentality. And everyday is a choice. Everyday is a culture.
Everyday is a movement. Everyday is an idea. Everyday is what Jesus is worthy of. Everyday is more than just gathering for an hour or two and worshiping, right?
And so we believe that God is actually waking us up on Sundays. And what I want to read is here in Hebrews 10. Look at verse 23. It says this.
It says, let us hold fast. The confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful. Jesus, the one who promised is faithful. And let us consider this.
Let us think about this. How to stir up one another to love and good works. Not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day of the Lord's return, dry near.
That word spur. Spur one another on. You know that word in the Greek it's agitate. It's provoke.
It's prod. It's irritate. It's like when you're riding a horse and you use spurs to actually get the horse to move, right? There's an activation that they're saying that the author of Hebrews is calling us into.
And he's saying, hey, spur one another. Agitate one another. Activate. What's the other?
Irritate. Irritate. You out of your slumber and out of the sleepiness and the numbness that everyday can bring on you and our circumstances can put on you and the current of culture. And he's saying, we all need to keep on gathering because we actually need to get irritated and agitated and activated and spurred on into what love and good works that the father has prepared for us ahead of time.
But how many of you know that love grows cold when you get isolated and you start getting self focused, you start having self pity, self preservation, you start carrying fear as just kind of the way of life when you get isolated, you start getting into defensive mode and the Lord's like, no, no, no, no, no, you need to gather together. You need to get together with brothers and sisters because brothers and sisters are always in the business of waking you up. How many of you know when that's sibling, that younger sibling? You're a teenager and they come into your room at 7 a.m.
and they're like, I'm awake. You need to be awake, right? And they wake you up, right? Sometimes it's aggravating when you wake up out of a comfortable sleep.
And we actually have to get back into the rhythm of gathering because that's what Jesus is calling us to. And I believe it's really, it's like a word of the Lord right now for us to do that. So tell me if you resonate with this, there is a really common culture in American Christianity that seems to feel very sleepy, apathetic, lethargic, a little bit jaded, a little bit been there, done that, a little bit like it's old news. I used to get excited about those things and life has happened, a little dull.
Jesus is coming back for an awake bride, a vibrant bride, a fiery, hot bride. He says that he spits out the lukewarm out of his mouth. Are you sleepy? Yeah.
It's because you weren't created to be lukewarm. You were created to be hot or cold. Yeah. And the common culture of American Christianity is right down the middle lukewarm.
No wonder she's sleepy. Yeah. No wonder she feels dull. Yeah.
Because she's not living into her destiny. Yeah. It's pretty boring to be lukewarm. Yeah.
And when you're bored, you fall asleep. And when you're bored, you don't care anymore. I think that even in this last season, we have seen an increase in apathy because of the war and culture that is happening. Josh talked about this two weeks ago.
If you did not listen to that message, go back and listen to it two Sundays ago about the bride that's been sleeping and she gets up and looks out her window, sees everything that's happening in culture and goes, oh, I'm going back to bed. But there's an invitation to engage. Yeah. And I think in this last season, I think for a lot of us, maybe we've started to even look at our rhythms and our patterns of, is it even a fruitful or maybe you can relate and go, well, I want to be able to relate and go.
Well, I was going to services on every Sunday, but I just realized I was just going through the motions. I just realized it was just religion for me. I realized it was just me wanting to check something off the box, but I wasn't going because I wanted to go. And so a lot of people have just started to go.
It's not important for me to go then. And I just want to say that I just don't think that that that's true. I just don't think that's true. When I look at gathering and even what scripture says, it's clear that we need the gathering of the saints.
I look at my own life. And if I don't come and gather with brothers and sisters, I will lose my way. So maybe if you can relate and go, man, I just have been rewiring my brain around how I relate with church and other believers and rhythms of gathering, I just want to encourage you that if you have felt like it was an unhealthy, if you're why felt unhealthy, if you're why it felt like just a religious duty, that doesn't mean that you should stop coming. It means you should change your why on why you come.
And I just believe there's an invitation as we even name our gathering, the awakening service, is it puts at the forefront our purpose for gathering that I came here to wake up my soul because the enemy is doing everything that he can to lull me to sleep and make me dull and keep me lukewarm. He knows that if we gather, we're going to get red hot. And he doesn't want that. And so I want to just call you to that if you've been like, I don't know, I would just say a once a week gathering is like bare minimum for me to be tethered to my why, to my purpose in life, why am I alive?
Why am I waking up in the morning? What is it unto? Who is it for? Do not neglect meeting together, especially as the day of the Lord draws near.
We should be gathering more and more as society continues to break down. I believe that we are seeing a significant shift in society and a breakdown of culture, but in the midst of that, the bride will shine like she's never shined before. We will see things in the church that we haven't seen in decades. Our best days are ahead of us, but we have to actually be in a room together sometimes, consistently.
And so I just want to invite you to orient your life around him. Not just in gathering in large groups, in small groups too, and by yourself with him too, it's all of it. But our lives should orbit around him. And if they don't, if he's a side thing, I would propose to you that you're not living into your destiny and you're very likely lukewarm.
I know that that's sharp and I intend it to be like a dividing line. We signed up to lose our life, to follow him, to orient ourselves around him, our everyday, not our Sundays only, every day of the week, our moments revolving around him. He's so worthy of it. So we gather to agitate you, to irritate, to prod and go, I don't want to wake up and there's that alarm clock again, oh, you're right, I need to wake up, okay, I'm up, okay.
And by the end of this gathering, our goal is that you would be burning, remembering why you're alive. That's why we're the awakening service on Sundays. Yeah. I'm wondering if you could talk even about the accusation around, well, you are pastors.
So I think you've got fire on it. I think I'd love for you to share on that, yeah. Okay. We are hearing, if you're following other communities, it's really common right now for pastors to be talking about, get back to church.
Everyone's saying it because the reality is a lot of people aren't coming back. COVID happened, people aren't in the habit of gathering together and people got comfortable, people got complacent. And so that is like common to hear right now, but I just want to be really clear on our motives behind what I'm saying about gathering. We do not need you.
We did not start this community because we have a need of anything from you. We feel sent on assignment for our city to come and train, equip and send out. We're not here to keep anyone. We're here to send people out.
And so as I'm saying gather consistently and don't neglect gathering, I am saying that because I believe that it is for your best because I know it's for my best. I know that I need to be tethered to him. I need to be kept close to him. And this is one of many, one of the ways that we stay connected to him, remembering him.
And so I just want to be clear that it's not to go, hey, we just need you to come back to church. We have no need. There's no need here except my need to stay connected to him. And I just believe that that's part of the gathering, scripturally.
Yes, we don't need more butts and seats. So you're not doing us a favor by showing up. I would rather have a fiery hot group of 10 in my living room and never have to move into Elmer's building or be on a building search. I don't want to be on a building search.
Okay, it's like that's going to get me to stay under the building search. I don't want to be on a building search. I would rather have 10 fiery hot brothers and sisters that gather and actually want to be in the room. I'm not interested.
Like we did not. I did not grow up going. Oh, I hope to be a pastor someday because I want a crowd of people in a room and that's my destiny. Absolutely not.
God said call the hungry to come, gather the hungry ones and send them out. So if you're here, that's why we're here. So if you want to be a butt in a seat, excuse my language, you're in the wrong place. We will provoke you and prod you out those doors into your destiny.
Okay? Okay. Yes. Come on.
We believe that there's a new day for American Christianity that consumer Christianity is dying, that there in the next 10 years we are going to see a shift from from Luke warm is not an option because following Jesus will be too costly. You either have to turn and there will be a great falling away or you will turn to him and you will again sign up for counting the cost again. And the counting the cost will be everything or nothing. It's all for Jesus or none of it's for Jesus.
I believe it or I don't. It's him or it's nothing. There's a dividing line happening in this decade. Everything is shifting.
We feel that there's things shifting in culture. It is an amazing time to be alive. Oh my goodness. We will shine like the stars in the heavens against the backdrop.
It's what Daniel said. He saw a bunch of stars shining in the heavens and he said, this is what they will be like. They'll shine against the backdrop of black. They'll be shining stars that will burn bright, shining forth a message of Jesus and burning with love in their hearts.
There is a combustible nature to sacrifices and we are to be living sacrifices. Holy set apart. This is a day where we are going to see the church step into holiness, step into prayer, step into following the ways of Jesus in holiness and then we are going to see power like we've never seen before. As we step into our identity as sons and daughters more and more, it's going to just start being easy to believe for the miracles.
Miracles just happening. Chronic illness is like what? Chronic illness in the kingdom. It's the early days of the church in order to get into a meeting of the Nazarenes, those that were following the way, the followers of Jesus.
In order to get into the meeting, you had to prove that you were a follower of Jesus by laying hands on a sick person and seeing them get well. Literally, it was a mark of a believer, a Mark 16 believer that you would just power, signs and wonders would just follow you. It's a reminder to me, there's more than I've touched. How many of you know there's more than I've touched?
There's more, there's more of him. The Bible is way more deep than it is wide, amen? It's not boring. I've just been bored and I've been boring.
God's getting us out of boredom mindset, out of consumer mindset, out of entertainment. We didn't sign up to entertain you, to give you a good experience, to give you a light show, to do things that would make you laugh. No, we didn't sign up for that. We signed up to actually follow him and say, Lord, we're raising the white flag over our everyday.
We are leaning, we are leaning on our beloved and we believe it's an end to the spectator thing. We believe it's an end to this ancient way of just the religious person up front. He's releasing everyday reverence. It's a new day.
It's a new day. It's a new volume. I feel that excitement. I don't know if you've ever been in athletics, but when you're sitting on the bench and the coach calls your name, there's something that it's like an adrenaline rush.
You're on the end of the bench and there's 30 seconds left and it's a blowout and the coach is like, hey, no, I'm just kidding. But listen, at the end of the story, everybody gets in the game. Everybody's in love and everybody's saying, I must have him. I'm leaning on my beloved.
Out of every valley, I'm found leaning on him. Let's all stand. I want to just respond together. Worship, team, you can come up.
What we want to do is just take a couple minutes to actually just dedicate everyday to the Lord. And we want to do that together. We don't want to do that behind closed doors. We want to do that as a community.
So we did that together at the three o'clock service. We want to do it again with you guys. And we just want to take a few minutes and just give it to him. Give it back to him as a gift, the way that he's given this community to each of us is such a gift.
And what I'd like for us to do is actually have all of us just ask him, what do you have for everyday? Like when you look at this people, everyday is a people. When you look at everyday, what do you see? What do you see over this house, over these people?
Where do you see them going? What do you see them doing? What happens to our city when everyday is in the city? What happens to our workspaces, our homes?
What does it look like? And I just believe there's an invitation. We're obviously for the next few weeks, we're sharing what we feel like the Lord is saying over our community. But we think it's really significant that you connect with him on it as well so that you carry that conviction of having his eyes and his perspective of what it is that we're building together.
Does that make sense? Okay, let's just close our eyes and we can just start to ask him that question. Lord, what is the role of everyday, this community? What does it look like when everyday is in a city?
What does our city look like after a couple years of everyday being in it? Lord, what does my workplace look like? What does my home look like? What is your call over us as a people?
Give us a picture. Give us a scripture. We want to see what you see, Lord. Would you just say that?
Say, I want to see what you see, Lord. Say that again. I want to see what you see, Lord. Just give us a glimpse, God.
Lord, I thank you for calling forth in our city. You're raising up everyday Mary's on mission. Those that are like Mary of Bethany that have laid down everything that have counted the cost and looked at the Son of Man, the Messiah, and said, I must give him all of my future. Everything that I have to offer, just a worship movement from our city of everyday Mary's with radical love in their hearts.
You're raising up everyday Mary's that look out and see future everyday Mary's and they say I must share, I must say something about my Lord. Mary's on mission are rising up and Lord as a people, we just declare do it in our day. Multiply Mary's in our day, which you gather them and send them out, multiply the extravagance of worship in our city. We just dedicate our whole community into multiplying Mary's in Jesus' name.
Do it, Lord. Do it, Lord. Lord, we thank you that you have called us a freedom house, that when people come through the doors of this place that chains would truly fall to the ground. When people enter our homes, that they be set free, God, when people come into our office and maybe they start to even work for us and they're on our team, God, I thank you, that you are calling them into freedom.
That one interaction with everyday, the people, sets the captions free, I thank you, God, that you're marking us as a house of freedom. Jesus, you minister in the everyday, not just the sacred days and the sacred spaces. Wherever you walk to a sacred, you are waking us up to the big idea that it is Christ in us, the hope of glory. We believe that we have been given everything we need for this life of righteousness.
Every day is not a church. It is a cultural statement. It is a declaration of intent. It is a hard posture and it is a lifestyle.
Lord, may we be a people that wake up and pray like you did, saying, Heavenly Father, give us this day. This day, tomorrow is not guaranteed. Lord, that we might be like you, servant of all, Holy Spirit, ignite a fire in us to be a good Samaritan. Every day, to love others as we love ourselves.
The stressed out mother at the checkout does not need money for groceries. She needs to hope a gyre of the provider. The broken heart, in either comfort, or the healer, the redeemer Jesus. For those who feel trapped in the circumstances, thank you Lord for the privilege of setting the captives free.
Jesus, I just thank you that every day is filled with people who are faith-filled people, God, that we would be once, which is know your word and your truth. And we wouldn't determine our circumstances on what we see or what culture says is our circumstances, God, but that we would be people of faith for things to come, to speak things into existence. Thank you, God, for this community coming around and seeing signs and wonders and miracles, not just here in our own house, God, but in our workplace, God, in our homes, with our families, with our friends, God, in our schools, Lord, and God, I thank you that you're not just doing it in our age group, God, but that you're doing it in our kids, in our infants, in our preschoolers, in our elementary school students, God, in our high school students, God, Lord, that they are going to be the ones that agitate and stir and provoke us to love you, Jesus. And we look forward to stirring up the hunger in our young ones to provoke us to wake up.
So we just say thank you for this community, Jesus. Yes, I just want to encourage us, let's just spread out. I want to encourage us to spread out throughout the room and just let's just engage our hearts again. This is a moment that we get to have dedicating the future of what we're called to as a community to the Lord.
And so I just want to encourage you to engage your heart in agreement as we continue in intercession, just kind of giving this as a gift to the Lord. Father, we thank you that we're not alone in this. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit. God, we thank you for the one that's always with us reminding us of what Jesus would do.
God, I thank you that in every situation, whether we're in this building or whether we're in the parking lot, whether in our workplace or our home, Holy Spirit, the counselor is on the inside guiding us. God, I thank you that there's not just good counsel, but there's actually the power with it. So from day one, God, we say that we want you as you are. We want you as our counselor and our comforter.
We want you as the one that empowers us. We want you as the one that leads us and shepherds us, the one that corrects us, the one that guides us. We want you as you are. And so from day one, God, we stand looking up, not looking around, not looking at ourselves.
We look up and we say, you're what we're after. We mean it when we say all for one. God, we mean it when we say it's all for one. We mean it when we say it's not about building something, it's not about getting recognition.
It's not even about the healing. It's not even about seeing the manifestation. It's about you getting what you deserve. So we say it's all for one.
Everything we do is for you. From day one, we put a stake in the ground saying that everything else is secondary and a far distant second. It's all for you, Jesus. Steve the Lord while he may be found.
Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts.
Neither are my ways, your ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, soar my ways higher than your ways in my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it but it's lurish so that healed, seed for the sower and bread for the eater. So is my word that goes out from my mouth.
It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve. The purpose for which I sent it, you will go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains, the hills will burst worth and song before you and all the trees of the field will clap their hands instead of the thorn bush. The earth will grow the pine tree instead of the briars.
The murtral will grow. This will be for the Lord's renown, for the everlasting sign which will not be destroyed. God we praise you. We praise you.
You are the everlasting God. We praise you that as we go forth and open up our mouths, you are going to fill them with your truth, with your hope, with your salvation and it will not return void. That it will overflow from you to us, to those around us and many of us in St. Paul will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
It will not be a place of desolation. It will be a fruitful, fruitful, beautiful, smelling place of your glory and your honor and your gratefulness, love is so thankful for you Jesus and what you have given us. Praise your name. Thank you, God, that you are multiplying healthy homes and healthy hearts through us and every day.
God, through everyday conversations, reaching it across, taking someone's hand across the desk or talking to someone in the checkout aisle. God, that in everyday life you are multiplying healthy homes, God, that in every situation that we would need hope dealers in a dark world, that wherever we go we have the reputation of being hope dealers, just giving it out, just giving it out for free. God, thank you that you have called us to be the ones that are light in the darkness, a shining lamp, a city on a hill, a candle that will not be hidden. Do it Lord, do it every day.
Lord, I just thank you for the awakening services where you're standing right here on this X in the center of the room that we get to gather as a community around you. We just get to be awake to your boldness, your grace, your love, just standing in our presence, Lord. We just get to come together in a small living room and get to gaze upon you and just say holy, holy, holy, Lord, we get to be woken up by the goodness and grace that you carry, the love that you embody. And then we get to be filled with the excitement and joy that we get to leave this place with you.
You don't get to just stay here. You get to come with us into our everyday. You get to come with us into our drive and we're getting to come with us when we go and have dinner with our families. You are with us each and every day, Lord.
Feel that fire that we lock eyes with you in our everyday. Then when we wake up in the morning we're like thank you Lord that you're with me by every day. That awakening doesn't just happen on Sunday and happens on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and every day Lord that we lock eyes with you and we just say we love you Lord. Holy is your name.
We are so thankful that you get to carry you with us each and every day and that you are such a great leader and father to the Lord. Lord I got a picture of many of us walking with someone under our arm and I was at a football game last week and there was a boy that hollered at me and called out the shoes that I was wearing. He was like what size of those? And I thought right then I had a mutual connection with them.
I'm like I'm gonna buy him these shoes but I want to give him what he actually needs. And I just picture, I had a picture of myself walking with my arm around him. Him wearing the shoes but I was actually helping him understand who Jesus is and I was giving him what he really needs. And I just got a picture sitting and standing in this room with all of us walking with someone in our arm walking on the way to work walking on the way to school walking to church walking to the prayer room but it's that we actually and I believe that it's gonna be we need someone's need because they looked at us because they had a need but then we put our arms around them and walked with them to make sure that they got what they actually needed what they needed in their souls.
And so Jesus I thank you for every day. I thank you for an everyday people that are going to be walking Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday every day of the week. Jesus I just feel culture is expecting Christians to stay in the building and to continue to invite people to what they're putting on but that God is doing something we are walking out of the building and any event or service that we are putting on and going I'm gonna meet you right where you're at. Grab you under my arm and give you exactly what you need the King of Kings.
So Jesus thank you for who you are and what you are doing today. We love you. Lord brought to me that real quick for context last night over Colorado there was an asteroid that after the atmosphere exploded and it had 430 in the morning it lit up at over 200 mile radius brighter than the new day saw and I felt the Lord brought that back to me and I felt him saying that that asteroid was a crumb of something that came from my mouth and it entered the atmosphere and it lit up the darkness brighter than the new day sun. And this community has the same power that created that asteroid that lit up the new day sun inside of us and I felt the Lord saying how much brighter will this community become when you enter my atmosphere and you catch fire and you start burning up how much darkness will you light up with that power when you catch fire.
That asteroid before it entered the atmosphere had no light, had no power, had no source but when I created you to enter my atmosphere and burn brighter and stronger than anything out there. So Lord thank you for every day being the asteroid that is entering your atmosphere to light up the darkness that has surrounded our city, our country, our communities, individuals, families. Thank you Lord for the fire and light that is going to burn bright through this city, through this community. I got this picture of downtown Minneapolis and downtown St.
Paul and it started out pitch black and slowly but surely every single light and every single building turned on and the lights in the apartment buildings, the lights in the business offices and it drew the attention of the city to say what is going on and just felt like the Lord was just saying the darkness is fleeing and the light is coming and the light will overtake the darkness and so Father I thank you that that is what every day brings to the city and that you are actually on the move in this city. You are on the move in St. Paul and Minneapolis and you are turning on the lights and drawing the attention to what you are doing. Yeah God I just thank you that you are drawing and have drawn the creative individuals.
Lord I thank you that creativity permeates culture. God I thank you that it's not a coincidence that when we turn and look at the people next to us there is this rumbling inside this desire for the kingdom culture what that looks like God I just pray with in creativity whether that is music, graphic design, creative problem solving that Holy Spirit here on the move that even in business places and people ask this creative problem solving where is this coming from God I thank you that creativity permeates culture and that you are calling every day to carry that. Yes we are going to do two more so let's just engage our hearts two more. Yeah I just see a table set for Thanksgiving dinner and I see it stretching through houses so it's like in the living room of this house and it stretches through the backyard into the living room of that house and keeps going house after house after house and I just see the bridegroom king inviting anyone and everyone to the feast of Thanksgiving at the table so Lord I just thank you that you are inviting our city through us into our house but it's one table it's the father's table that's set with everything that they need everything that we need Lord I just thank you that we are gathering around into Thanksgiving.
Thank you Lord Jesus you are the God of the everyday. You are Emmanuel God with us every day every day is a garden thing from the beginning and it's a garden city thing at the end. Every day is the beginning every day was your intention when you sent Jesus it's always been what you wanted sons and daughters with you every day set free this is what you wanted this is what you came for we love you Jesus we love you Jesus what we are what we're going to do to close our service is we're actually going to do a commissioning declaration as a people and we're going to do that together and we're going to read it just like we read scriptures to start out services we're going to read this declaration out together and so we believe that God is actually commissioning us out into every day we used to do this thing called identity verses and we'd read identity verses over ourselves before we went out and that was what commissioned us out but we're going to actually read this out loud together as we commissioned out so if you want to stand with us we're going to read this out loud together you guys ready all right come on I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God Jesus purchased me spirit soul and body there is only one man on the throne of my life now I'm free from sin no longer a slave shame guilt and condemnation have been buried in his grave I come to the throne of grace with boldness I'm forgiven I've taken a seat with Christ in heavenly places I am confident no matter the circumstance Holy Spirit helps me suffering produces endurance endurance produces character and character produces hope as he works all things together for my good my father has given me a spirit of power love and a sound mind fear has been evicted from my life I am an overcomer more than a conqueror strong in the Lord and I can do all things through Jesus which means I'm the devil's worst nightmare hey I forgive like Jesus I protect my heart from offense and bitterness I believe that I will get to the rocking chair with a soft heart unoffended and fully in love with Jesus my life is a living sacrifice a fragrance of love to God grace is not my license to sin but my empowerment to live holy my work is worship my rest is faith my home is an offering of legacy I can see that all creation is thrown in if I don't share the gospel how will they go into the field I will go he left the grave I'm getting into the game I am no spectator I have good news on my lips and seeds in my hands I'm an everyday reverend revival on speed God has made his home with me I have everything I need we believe Jesus gave us all the men all power and all the 40 we will lay hands on the stick and they will recover we are burning ones shining ones a city on a hill hiding under a bushel no we will not go alone we go together we are citizens of heaven a kingdom that is ever increasing a different rule a different rate a new green is rising it's a new day Jesus you are worthy of our everyday it's all for one we will and we will see you tomorrow night at prayer family service and prayer room ministry if you want prayer for anything pray for you don't be shy come get pray