Fall Kickoff 2017 - #squadgoals

Let me get into my talk for kick off. This Courtney Elizabeth that I referenced to you, she is now in her early 20s. And Courtney's by my estimation cooler and heper than me, it doesn't take a lot to be cooler and heper than me. But in my estimation she's cooler and heper than me.

And she introduced me to a term six, nine months ago I had been unfamiliar with, called squad goals. If you have heard of squad goals, raise your hand. What a bunch of nerds out here too. You're just like me, right?

I've never heard of squad goals either. And although this was better than the first service. So here's, let me, by the way, just to take it to the next level. If you want to really be cool and happy, you want to take your slang game and make it on fleek, is that right?

So my kids are rubbing their heads. You put hashtags. See how I can do that? You do, don't shake your head at me, young, much more boy.

I see what you're doing out there. It's not just squad goals, it's hashtag squad goals. All right, so I have just elevated all of your games, right? You are ready to go out and talk to your teens now.

Now you still don't know what it is though. So let me explain it before you do something like me. Make a fool of yourself up here. Here's what a squad goal is.

According to the merrennian webster of our day, urban dictionary, or you wear a urban dictionary, urban dictionary says that a squad goal is this. It's an inspirational term for what you'd like your group of friends to be or accomplish. Squad goals is used best when placed at the end of a directional statement or the tagline, you usually see this in social media, you'll see a picture of something and underneath it will say squad goal. This is what I want to be like.

It's also often used like this is awesome. Me and my squad want to be like this someday. So you know, for example, like today is NFL kickoff. I'm a fan of America's team, as many of you know.

And so today you giant fans, you might put a picture like this up and underneath it, your giant fans might write squad goal. See that? No, buddy. Anyway, no, he's not suspended.

Not yet. No. I may be suspended by this time. Now, all right.

So this term that I'm sharing with you, this squad goal concept, anybody know who made this? Like, took squad goals and made it like the hot new topic? Anybody? T-swift.

Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. I'm taking cool to the next level here. See, this is Taylor Swift's squad.

And as I understand it, Taylor Swift got into a rift with Katy Perry, right? And so Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, you know, they had their squads and squad goals and all the rest. And I guess this is just kind of taking off a little bit, right? Everybody's got a squad.

Here's the rock. The rock has a squad, right? There's the rock squad. And I'm not sure what the rock squad's goal is other than like killing you or something.

But they have a squad and they have a goal. And you know, there's other less testosterone injected squads which are out there that you know that you could be part of if you want something like that. You know, everybody's got a squad and everybody's got a goal. And so it's kick off, son.

I hear my question for you as we get ready to launch it to a miniser year together. What's your squad and what's your goal? What's your squad and what's your goal? Now, if you know my story, I'm going to share a little bit again.

So some of you are familiar with it. But a little over 10 years ago or so, I was on a squad and I had a goal. I want to share it with you. I was in like, I was in the business world.

I was part owner of a private equity investment group. I got a lucky break due to the continued sale of Bank. The bank I worked in. I had the option along with my partners to purchase a portfolio of investments, venture capital type investments that we had made over a series of five years.

Those investments had a book value of about $100 million. And we were able to purchase that. And because they were illiquid venture capital investments, we were able to buy them for like cents on the dollar. But the cents on the dollar, when it comes to $100 million, was still more than a lot of the, me and my partners, or my partners that I had.

So we actually had to go out and find investors to give us the cents on the dollar to purchase it. And we did. We did. We found a group of investors in Philadelphia to invest the money for us.

We raised it. We closed the deal. We formed our own corporation, L-V-I-R investor group. You know what the I stood for?

Eismann. And man, I had my squad. And I had my goal. It was pretty straightforward.

The goal was to get that money back to the investors and hopefully get a little bit more where we could keep whatever was left. There was going to be a lot left with that for another day. Since the fund that they had given us, the money they had given us, it was not for fresh or new investments. It was just to manage the existing investments.

I had some time on my hands. And so I was part of the Church of the Year at Men and Hills. And I said, well, I can go and help out at Men and a little bit. And so I started, came on staff 10, 12 years ago, part time, two days a week, only in the afternoons, like two half days a week.

And not long after coming on staff, I had the opportunity with a few folks here at Men and to go to Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago. There, I was really blessed for the first time to be able to hear Bill Heibels speak. I don't know if you've heard of Willow Creek or Bill Heibels. Most of you probably have.

But as I see it now, what he was talking about that day is I look back and he was talking about his squad and he was talking about their goals. I have to tell you, there are moments in your life where your life is the trajectory of a change. But you don't really notice that when it's happening, you don't realize it's happening. The trajectory happens.

You look back later and you go, oh, there's where it changed. Guatemala is one of those places for me. And that church in Chicago is another one. Here's why.

Now, many of you know, I grew up in a church, a family that went to church very religiously. On Christmas and Easter, we were very religious about being in church. The other 50 services a year or so, not so much. Pretty much never.

Now, I was thinking about it as I wrote the talk. I'm not sure how old I was before I figured out the church services actually occurred on other Sundays than Christmas and Easter growing up, because that's when I saw it. But the truth is, for my family, there was nothing too enticing going on in that church, the other 50 Sundays a year, at least enticing enough to get my dad and mom who were working and raising a family to get them to get up and take us to church. Now, I could sit here and go back and say, well, you know, my parents should have taken me to church.

But here's the truth of the church through their eyes, at least now as I look back on it. There was nothing really very enticing going on in that church that they should get up and go to it. I mean, those church services in those days, they weren't that good. My dad is kind of a man's man.

My dad still is kind of a man's man. My dad is 75 years old. He's just keeps him quickly being crippled by arthritis. It's very hard for him to move, but he will still tell me that if I step out of line, he'll beat me up.

And I'm 50-50 that I think he could at this point still. And I remember as a little boy looking at my dad, parents, let me tell you, your kids are watching you. And I remember on Christmas and Easter, I'd sit in that pew. And I'd look over at my dad as we were singing.

I'd be like, you know, I wanted to see. Was he singing or not singing? Was he interested? Was he interacting with the service?

Or I mean, frankly, sometimes I wonder if he was awake. The reality is I look back at it. Those church services, if I were to be honest, were pretty boring. They were very stiff wood pews.

They were old hymns. You know, you'd come in to be the three hymns that were listed and you'd pull the old hymn book out. I didn't read music, so it was mostly Chinese to me. And then it seemed like it was like a contest for who could sing the quietest.

Like, you know, you'd constantly be people next to you, you'd be lowering your octave to try to be quieter than them. Because you don't want anybody to hear you. It just kind of felt like almost like a funeral. And then the pastor would give a sermon from the church, a lecture that had been sent that day.

And it had almost nothing to do with anybody's everyday life. There wasn't any relevance to this. There was no air conditioning in this church. And so as I looked over at it this week, I also realized thinking back to the ministry in those days, there was almost no mention of Jesus.

Now, he was always there. He was in the background of what was going on. There was stained glass everywhere. And Jesus was on the stained glass.

He was usually with children or a lamb in almost all the pictures. But there was no discussion on a regular basis that he was real or alive. What he had done for each and every person in the room, why it mattered. There was no regular discussion of the gospel of grace and forgiveness and reconciliation and restoration and relationship that was available with God through Christ.

It wasn't a regular topic of discussion. And so for me, that was kind of Jesus. That was who he was. I mean, he was there, but he was in the background.

It was, you know, a distant hope and a faint promise of what could happen when I die. It was like an old story that you would return to. He was stained glass, Jesus. And he didn't seem to have a lot of relevance to my every day.

Now, I've always had an affinity towards the things of God. I wanted to know him. But in my church, he sure didn't seem to be too active or too attractive. Then some of you know, I met my beautiful wife and she came from a very strong Christian family and they introduced me to Jesus and he leapt off the stained glass window and he came real to me for the first time.

I understood who he was. What he had done that I could know him, that he loved me and I was forgiven. I could walk with him and experience him now. And I started following him.

And I began to go to church with her. But here's what happened. I realized I left the church of lethargy and I joined the church of legality. No drinking, no smoking, no dancing, no music, no playing cards, no movies, no televisions, no proms, no make-ups, no earrings.

There was a lot of Jesus, but there was even more rules. And here's, as a kid that was, you know, now 18, 19 years old, at the end of the day, that was a community that I wasn't any more comfortable being part of or inviting my dad into or inviting my friends into, then the lifeless one I left. And so when I got to Chicago and I heard Bill Heibels describe the church of his upbringing, it just rang true to me. It seemed like my story.

Here's what he said. He said that even though now he's very famous for calling the church the hope of the world, he says, I grew up in a church that was hopeless. I grew up in a legalistic, lifeless, powerless, clueless, judgmental, soul-crushing church. He said it had about 100 people in it.

It never grew. I was part of it for the first 18 years of my life, but I never saw a single adult baptism. I never saw the sweeping power of God in any service. I never saw a marriage get put back together.

And he said, you used to sit there. Week after week and just wonder, why do we do this? Why does anybody put up with this? It made no sense to me.

One part of the story that resonated with me and stuck with me all these years was when he said he was driving home with his dad as a junior high school kid, his dad was a successful business person. And one Sunday, Heibels said after another horribly depressing church service, his dad was driving home, Bill was in the backseat, and his dad shared there was a business colleague of his whose wife had just been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. He said that it had really shaken his friend, who was far from God, but now that he was so shaken, he was searching for answers. So Bill's dad said he was planning on inviting him to church next Sunday.

And Bill, just the junior high kid, said he began pleading with his dad from the backseat. Dad, please, whatever you do, don't invite him to church. Anything that God is doing him right now, anything that's been ignited, our church service will extinguish in 60 minutes. We will play out whatever work of God is going on in his life, and we will put it out for good.

And he realized, even as a junior high kid, that he was saying, Dad, if you love your friend and you want him to find God, whatever you do, keep him away from our church. And he told another story about when he was 16. He was on the baseball team. He had a friend on the team, the kid was the wildest kid in school.

He got himself in trouble that week. He was sitting in the dugout, and the kid looked over at high goals and said, listen, I know that you're the religious kid on the team, and you know that I'm not. But I got myself in some trouble. And so I was thinking maybe I would go to church with you this weekend.

Bill said I was so caught off guard. I didn't even know what to do. So I said, sure, I'll pick you up. He said, when I sat through a 60 minute church service with someone, one of my best friends, who was heading towards a Christless eternity, and I saw the ridiculousness and the lifelessness and the powerlessness, the vacuousness through the eyes of someone who was giving the church one shot.

I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I was so embarrassed and so uncomfortable the whole way through him. And so he said the next day he went into school and he was looking for his friend and you know what his friend was going to say to him, and he finally found him. And Bill said to him, so he ducking me?

Or he goes, no, I'm not ducking him. But I have to say, I always knew Bill that you were on the religious side of things. But you dress normal. You talk normal.

And you pitch normal. What you took me to yesterday was not normal. I can't figure out why someone like you would be part of something as abnormal as that. And Bill said despite many invitations over the years, his friend would never come back.

And fast forward, he was invited to his 35th high school reunion. And he had this burden for his friend, this same friend on his heart. He had wondered what had happened over the years and he started to wonder when he was hearted his softened. So he decided he would drive the 180 miles one way to the class reunion and hope to talk with Dom.

The Lord had just put this burden on his heart for Dom. And when he got there, everybody started to look for Dom and he said everyone was confused because he responded that he was coming. And people had talked with him just in the last day or two and they said, yeah, he was going to get here. And Bill said this burden for Dom was just growing in his heart.

He said that he found his phone number and they were calling him and they were trying to find out where he was. But there was no answer on his cell phone. Two days later, they all found out that their friend Dom had killed himself that night. And I remember Bill saying it took me about 30 days to recuperate from the sadness and the thinking that my church helped him make a final decision to never go to church again.

And so Bill, when he was 18, he did what most 18-year-olds do. He left his lifeless church and he sat out for a new squad and a new goal. His dad was a success. His dad had groomed him to take the business over and that's what he was going to do.

He was going to work hard and reap the benefits. Until he was sitting in a college class one day, he said, under a charismatic teacher it was a required class otherwise he wouldn't have been. Called Dr. Belziki in.

And he said every once in a while when Belziki would get done with his lectures he would come out along the side of the podium and he would look out at the kids in the class and he'd item up and change the tone of the class until it became very serious. And he would say, students, there was once, there was once, a community of people radically devoted to God. Whatever God told them to do, they would do whatever God told them not to do. They'd stop doing.

When God encouraged them to do something bold to climb out on a limb of faith, they would climb out as far as they could. They were radically devoted to God and they were incredibly, hard to believe, but they were incredibly devoted to one another. They literally became in that community like family. They started to call each other brother and sister.

And there, because of that kind of love that they were experiencing, gender walls came down, socioeconomic walls came down, racial and ethnic walls came down and they were bonded in this deep love. There was a once in community like this. They prayed crazy bold prayers and suddenly God type things started happening in their midst. Miracles happened in the rich, in the community, the rich, they cared for the poor.

In this community, everybody started saying, you know what, what's mine is yours and what yours is mine, they started selling their property and their possessions and they made sure nobody in the community had any need. When they gathered together, their worship, it was electrifying and free and joyful. And it was so wild and unique that people in the city respected them so much because of the authenticity and the life of what was going on in this biblically functioning community. And he said this one on a Wall semester, everyone said, well, we just got out and he goes, you know, there was once a community.

Everyone said, well, I would stop and talk about the potential and the beauty and the power of what a local church could look like. And then he would stop and he would go, I wonder what would happen if there was a biblically functioning community like that today. One day, Hoddle said he got particularly fired up and after vision casting about the potential of the church that functioned like that, what it would mean for the world. One day he stopped and he looked out at everybody in the class and he said to them, students, I'm challenging some of you in this class to cancel your very well-planned career paths and to give yourself unreservedly to the building and the development of an axe to biblically functioning community.

I'm begging you. I'm pleading with you. There is nothing of greater importance that you could do with your one and only life. Hoddle said it was the first time in his life that he was seized by a vision.

And as I sat there in that church in Chicago, it was the first time in my life where I was actually seized by a vision. Up until that point, I have to be honest with you, I felt that God had been calling me into some kind of ministry, but I couldn't get myself to give myself to the church as I had experienced it. It was up until that point for me either boring or irrelevant or silly or judgmental that even as a 20-something year old, I had filled out the application to Dallas Theological Center. I had it all done.

It was on my dining room table. I just couldn't send it in. I couldn't send myself to throw it out because I felt like that's what God wanted me to do, but I could never send it in. It sat on my dining room table in the village room apartment complex for months.

But that one day in Chicago, it changed radically my understanding of church. I was introduced for the first time to the power of what it could be and how important and necessary it is that there was nothing else that could change the world. There was nothing else that could be more worthy of giving my life to. I was hooked.

I remember I got on the plane and we were flying home from Chicago and I got one of those bull work seats. What do you call that thing in the front? Bull-kin seats. I had room to stretch out and so I pulled a notebook out and I just began drafting in the notebook and I had a lot of ideas about what it would look like to have a biblically functioning community in Menden, New Jersey with some of the smartest, most powerful people on earth and started dreaming.

I dreamed of baptisms and mission trips and moving out beyond the walls of the church into the community. As I thought about it, as I wrote it, much of what God has done here at Menden over the last decade, it was all born that day on that flight home in that seat. See, this is who were to be. This is the squad goal.

This was the plan of what the church was to look like and how it was the function. Understand, I was not captured by Bill Heibel's vision or Dr. Bell's Zekian's vision. I was captured by Jesus Christ's vision.

Some of you know right after the four gospels in the New Testament, there's Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There's another book called Acts. It's short for the Acts of the Apostles. It's written by that same Luke.

And Luke tells of the beginning of a biblically functioning community what church was supposed to be like. Luke says the Holy Spirit had come, the Holy Spirit, the same one that we can tap into that power. Had come and Peter gives this incredible sermon to the town that's around in these twelve disciples, 11 now. He gives this incredible sermon and here's what Luke wrote.

Those who accepted his message, Peter's message, were baptized, about 3,000 were added to their number of that day. What do you do with 3,000 people? What do you do with them? They're not going to go through the church.

Nobody had dreamt them up yet. So here's what they did. Luke says this is what they did. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship to the breaking of bread in a prayer.

He says they radically gave themselves, not just to go through the motions. They didn't just show up at church. I like to go to church one and a half times a month. So I guess it's my way.

Now he says they devoted themselves fully to this, to growing in Christ, to community in one another, to spending meaningful time together and to prayer. That's why we build bigger for years. This is why we serve coffee and food. This is why we have small groups.

We need to get into a small group. This is why we're trying to put it in your palm and your phone. They devoted themselves to growing into Christ and to growing into each other's lives. This is why there's prayer on Friday mornings.

This is why there's prayer before every service here at Men and Hills that I want you to join and be part of. This is why we're going to walk around this campus and pray. This is what biblically functioning communities do. This is an R idea.

Luke said these 3,000 people. He goes everybody, all of them, they were filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. Look, when these things happen, when you live this way, crazy, God things start happening. All of the believers were together.

They had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anybody who had need. And every day, not twice a month, every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts and they broke bread in their homes and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts. This is the key.

This is the key. Please hear me now. This is what happens. Remember the question, what would happen if a biblically functioning community existed today?

Listen to me now. When a community actually lives like this, when they love like this, when they sacrifice the best of their time and the first of their stuff, watch what Luke says happens. They, the disciples were praising God and enjoying the favor of all of the people. What happens is the people outside of the community take note of what's going on inside the community because it stands so completely outside of their experience in the Darwinian survival of the fittest world that they live in.

What happens when a community becomes a biblically functioning community? The 92962 people that live within one town of their gathering, they take notice and watch this now. And the Lord added to their numbered daily those who were being saved. That's what happens when the church is the church.

Now, you might say, John, heck, come on, John. It's 2,000 years ago. Things have changed. People think that way.

And we're, heck, high-ball stories, 40 years old. People don't think that way. There's 92,000. They think differently than we do.

They vote differently than I do. They don't believe in our value system anymore. They don't share our worldview. You know, John, some of our positions aren't really popular in the world right now.

Can a biblically functioning community of love and grace and sacrifice? Where everybody's giving and loving and serving and meeting and worshiping? We're not just one or two Sundays a month. We're about living lives together.

Everybody investing their best into the community, not just giving their best of the marketplace and getting God what's left over. Could that kind of community, even in a world that seems to look at the church with a raised eyebrow? Do you ever come the field the world has about church? I mean, after all, I understand some things about this God we serve.

They can seem kind of scary or tough to those who don't understand it. Couldn't still work. So I'll give you this answer real quick. And then I'm done.

Luke just three chapters later in this Acts of the Apostle book he wrote, this letter he wrote. He tells one of the most disturbing stories in the Bible. I hate this story. It's about a husband and a wife called Ananias and Sephira.

I don't know how familiar you are with this story. It doesn't get preached on a lot. It's not a fun story. I don't have time to get into it or explain all of it.

But here's the gist. They were part of this early church movement where everybody was giving their best their best their first into the community, their first roots. And here's what Ananias and Sephira were. They were the first hypocrites to come along in the church.

There's been lots of us that have come ever since. But they were the first ones that came in telling the community, yeah, we sold all our stuff too. And we gave all our money into this too. But they were lying.

And if you know the story, God strikes them both dead. On the spot. Boom. And there's a lesson there about what God thinks about hypocrisy in his church and about how seriously takes the community.

This is a scary story. You people should tithe. This is a scary story. That's not what it's about.

I don't like the story. And the early church didn't like it. Either check this out, the next line after they dropped dead. Great fear, Steve.

The whole church. And everybody who heard about these events. Well, of course it did. It wasn't just people in the street who got nervous about this community being part of it.

Imagine the word around town. Imagine inviting your neighbors. Hey, a couple of my friends at church just dropped dead last week. You should come.

Like nobody who's going to want a part of that. You think it's hard, right? Because maybe some of our positions on social issues might be outside of what the cultural norms are today. These people were dying.

But Luke continued the next verse. The apostles, they perform many signs and waters among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colony. They just kept doing what they were doing.

They just kept loving one another, forgiving one another, serving one another, giving to one another. Nobody else dared join them. Of course not. Even though they were highly regarded by the people.

Same exact language that we heard in Acts 2. The people outside of the church, even though people were dropping dead in there, they didn't want to really be part of it. But they looked at them and said, there's something about those people. The apostles performed many signs.

Excuse me. Let me jump down. What happens next? When you drop this kind of biblically functioning community to it into a town.

Even when something that the community that might be part of the community is scary to people outside of the walls. Here's what Luke says, next verse. Nevertheless, this is the most disjointed sentence, maybe in the Bible. Nevertheless, nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.

No one else dared join them. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to the number. Nevertheless, because this is the power of the local church when the local church is working right. When people devote themselves to it, when they give their best and their first efforts and time and thought and money and devotion into it.

See, that's why I got hooked on in Chicago. I've given my life to it, or at least the last 12 years. I remain convinced now more than ever, more than 10 years ago there is nothing that I could be giving my life to that is more significant than this. So much of what I doodled out on that notebook in that bulkhead seat, because of so many of you, because of you giving into this community, it's come true.

Guys, I've got to tell you there is nothing more worth giving your life to. Then deeply participating in a biblically functioning local community. This is my slide, and acts two is my goal. I'll conclude with this.

I was reminded the importance of this story this week when I went to meet with my friend John's dad. I've shared with you this story about my friend John. We started out in the finance world together. John had a master's degree.

John was better looking than I was. He was smarter than I was. John had a Rolex watch when he was 22. I didn't own a watch.

Every shirt John had was white. He was no other shirt other than white. It had his initials on it and cufflinks. I was competitive and I was trying to win all the time.

I couldn't beat John and anything. John was team leader and all the rest of the squad. One day I told you to serve before you called me over. He said, hey John, come here.

I got a question for you. I come over and he goes, what's this I hear about you being a born-again Christian? I'm like, because I know what his experience was with church in them. Because I had had tasted it.

I said, well John, it's not what you think. Let me explain. I did explain the gospel to him. I helped him understand who Christ was and what he had done.

John had a certain experience with church that was not allowing him to get past it. He looked at me and said, that's great. I don't buy any of that. He seemed too smart to buy it too.

But whatever. John and I became great friends despite this. Over the last 25 years we laugh together all the time. He busted my chops about being a Christian all the time.

He calls everybody a church. What do you churches think about this? It's been that kind of ongoing relationship. About a year ago, John's dad who was a man's man himself.

He got mezzo-phileoma, which is an aggressive form of lung cancer. I've been walking you through this journey. The journey continues. John called me and said, John, my dad's got this disease.

He's kind of scared. He doesn't know what's going to happen. I know you believe some of this stuff. You got anything I should say to him.

I said, let me send you a book. I have a book on Christ. You can give to your dad about the gospel, who Jesus is, and what it means for your dad. I sent it to him.

I didn't hear in the back. The month or two went by. John called and left me a voicemail. Do you remember when I played with that voicemail?

I may have even heard it. It was a voicemail. It was kind of haunting for my friend John. My dad got much worse.

He's really scared. He wants to know if he would talk to him. I don't even know if John's dad wants to know. He bought him out here to Menon.

We met in the conference room next door. I shared with John's dad the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm not a big on the fire insurance. You're going to die.

You better pray this prayer and hope you don't. If you don't, you won't. I said, listen, let me help you understand. You're brokenness and how we've been separated from God and who Jesus is.

If you would repent, change your mind about being in charge of your own life. If you would give that one and only life that you have, even though there's not much of your life that you would give it and turn towards Christ, you could be changed. Your attorney could be changed, but your life right now, even in your sickness, could be changed. He believed it right in front of John.

He said, I want to do that. I said, okay, well, I'm not going to lead you in prayer right now because I want you to be serious about this. I want you to go home tonight. If you're serious about this, I want you to repent, to turn from your sins and turn towards Christ.

He said, okay, I gave him a Bible and he hugged me and he left. I had this thing. You're supposed to call him. You feel like I should check on his dad.

I should call him. I should check on his dad. I should call him. I should call him.

I knew the cancer was very aggressive. One day the phone rings and it's John. I pick it up. Here's the humor of my friend John.

I pick it up. I said, hey, John, he goes, listen, don't worry, my dad didn't die. He goes, that's the good news. He said, the bad news is my dad had a bad stroke.

He can't move. He asked me some questions about different faith components of it. I said, John, can I come see your dad? I'd love to come see him.

He said, yeah, you can come see him. I went to see him this week. His dad's in a physical therapy thing. He can't walk.

He can't move his left side. He can't move his arms much or his legs. I didn't know what to think. He's going to be mad.

I shared with him all this stuff. He's going to go, how could that be true? I didn't really buy it. I never did anything with it.

I went in and I looked at him and I said, Mr. Allen, it's John. I was me. Remember me from Mennum?

We came out and we talked about Jesus. He had this vacant look on his face and staring straight ahead. He's sitting in a room by himself. There's nothing going on in the room.

His TV wasn't on. He said, John, I remember. I said, how are you doing? He said, I can't walk.

I'm really tired. He would just see. It's not easy from the talks we wouldn't talk about tonight. I said, Mr.

Allen, I said, what do you do all day? He said, I don't do anything. I just sit here. I said, well, what do you think about all day?

He said, all I think about is what you told me. It's the only thing that gives me hope in my life. I said, I think about it all day long. I think about grace and forgiveness in Jesus.

He said, I read my Bible. I read that Bible. I read it every day. I'm just so inspired by this.

He said, when I heard you were coming today in physical therapy, I told all the workers my pastors come and say me. He said something to me, which just personally was very moving for me. John's brothers were both millionaires. By the time they were 40, they had seats on the commodity exchange and sold them.

They've been retired ever since. John's the failure of the family. He's been a CEO of a couple of big firms. He's on his fifth Mercedes or whatever.

He had a big family picture up there with all those kids. I said, Mr. Allen, you must be very proud of your family. Look at all that your sons have achieved.

I said, they're really very successful. He started going, no, no, no, no. You're successful. You're successful.

As I went to leave, he said, could you tell me what it means to repent again? Where can I find that in the scripture? Guys, God is calling you to give to his church more than an hour every couple of weeks. Can I challenge some of you, many of you, to understand at new and fresh levels the call of God on your life to make his church what it was meant to be, the hope of the world?

Will you give it your first fruits, your best efforts, your renewed commitment? Will you give it an increasing measure, your time and your money? Will you forgive people here? Love people here?

Serve people here? Will you walk out of here and get in a group? Learn about his name. Lead a team, host a Grace House guest, sign up to teach a kid.

Would you be so proud of what Christ is doing in this place, in this community, that you might invite your friend into its embrace? What would happen if God dropped a biblically functioning community right in the heart of the 92962 people far from God? This is the squad. This is our goal.