They called us a senior's ministry. That's kind of offensive. And listen, if you keep calling me a senior and my hair turns gray, I'm coming after you. Season, it's a season group of people, all right?
So it's a season group of people. And we had, I asked some people to come today on this trip to Branson. It's the cost is unbelievable. It's going to be a great time.
We're going to be on a nice bus. And someone said, I don't travel well. Listen to me. 55 and older, we're going to have all the drugs on that bus.
You couldn't match it, all right? All right, on the side of it's going to say CVS, all right? Don't have it. You're not feeling well, take this, all right?
You can't sleep, take this, all right? We'll take area, all right? So you come on on to the Branson, the Branson trip and please sign up. We got one more to sign up this morning, but I assured her that we'll have drugs.
Anyhow, it's going to be a lot of fun. But South Africa, it's an area of the country or the world that I've been attached to. The ministry there, we help in delivering 9, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old girls out of human trafficking. This church has had a big impact on that.
And we just talked to him this morning. Jock Van Bommel is the guy that's overseeing the campus there. And he said the foundation's been dug, and the walls are going up tomorrow, so they're waiting for us. So we're going to go there the 16th to the 27th of March.
And I told people that this week, this is the last week you can sign up, we had four people sign up this morning to be a part of that trip. So we're excited, but you have to sign up this week after that. You can come and say, can we go? No, we're going to get our tickets this week.
If you want to help, I'm taking a group of younger adults, and I'm trying to keep the costs down for them. I was trying to get tickets under 2000 that didn't work, and we don't know why the tickets are so high. But we've committed to the program or committed to the work. And so if you'd say, you know, I can help somebody, or I can help on the food side, I'll go towards our missions giving.
And you'd see Rachel and say, Rachel, I'd like to help somebody on the trip, or I'd like to the food side or the ministry side. We do need help in that area, and we'll try to take care of that as a week's go on. But boy, if you could show up this week, it would be great. So the title of the message this morning is Go.
You know, the words I read in the Bible, you get these big, long words, propitiation, what does that all about? You know, and you come to sanctification, you know, righteousness, all these words. But there's three words that I just motivate me. Go.
Be and do verbs that say, hey, Christianity is about action. And I have been, I've been, I've been, the privilege of speaking around the world since I've retired and around the country. And I'm talking to people that are saying, would you come and help us? Our church is struggling.
Would you come and help us? Our state is struggling. Would you come and help us? We have all kinds of excuses for why things aren't happening.
And I try to come and encourage people, but I don't like excuses. And what happens is they say there's three reasons churches die, three reasons churches die. Number one, they forget to take risk. Number two is they forget their mission.
All right, we're coming to reach the loss. And number three, they stop praying. Those are the top, there's like 20 reasons, but those keep showing up three reasons, three main reasons church has stopped growing. And so it's been a privilege to go and say, listen guys, God's here, God's not just encolts me, but He's around the world.
And I, you know, a few years back, and people call me to speak somewhere and I'd say, no, I'm not going to go. And I turn people down and someone say, why do you do that? I just didn't think I had a lot to offer. So I just would turn down speaking engagements and then find the Lord spoke to me one morning when I was praying and said, every engagement you've been invited to, I want you to take it.
So I did, I started doing that and didn't do too well. But you know, as you learn, as you go, it was just really strong. I don't know if you're going to do this, but I struggle getting in front of people. That's not always my gift to you.
But it's something I do and I got to call last fall and said, hey, would you do a marriage retreat? I gulped. I said, marriage retreat? I said, yeah, and Cheryl was out of state and I forgot about it.
In fact, I forgot to tell her, which was not good. You know, as how she found out as someone from the staff of the church said, hey, we're excited about you and Denny speaking at our marriage retreat. And March, he said, what? He hasn't told me.
She got a kick out of that way back and told the church. They signed up. Here's what they signed up for the marriage retreat. The pastor calls me.
He said, we usually take four weeks to sign people up Denny. When our staff told our people, what Cheryl said, we've signed up in one day. We're full in one day. He said, okay, maybe we'll do one session on communication.
I don't know. That might be a good one. I mean, so I'll let her teach that one. I never got passing grades and anything, especially there.
But I want to help people. I love people. I love to see that what God has done in our life this year will be 50 years of marriage for us. Yeah.
But of course, who's counting, right? That just kind of creeps up on you. And we should have something to offer. We've got to have something we share with them.
But I want to go. I want to be and I'll do. Here's what Jesus said. He said this, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptize them into the Father's Son and the Holy Spirit.
I said, therefore, say this, go. Say, everyone, say this, go. And I'll read this with me. Therefore, go.
Say again, therefore go. Then I feel good. God wants action in his church. He doesn't want us to sit on our hands and just kind of watch or come to be entertained.
He wants us to understand there's a work going on your life. Go and make disciples. You know, I prayed a 15 word prayer. And after I prayed that prayer, I believe the Holy Spirit prophetically spoke over me.
When I said Lord, this was such an exciting experience. When I gave my heart to Lord, I always want to know if there was a God out there. I mean, I went to church, but when I experienced God in a personal way, it was incredible. And then I came down to my bedroom where I made my altar and I said, Lord, I will go anywhere to anyone you want me to go to tell them what you just did in my life.
And I was thinking of that when I was doing the general counsel in Portugal. I thought, wow, how did I get there? How did this young man, this young man who was ungodly, self-serving, immoral, party animal get from that place of my bed to here? What was a lot of work on God's part, a lot of work on the Holy Spirit's part, and a lot of work on your part because it's the body of Christ that shapes us and who we are.
We can't do that by ourselves. You can't go and be effective unless you have something to offer. The only way to get something to offer is if the body of Christ is working in your life. You see, when I came to the Lord, there were 18 people who came to Christ with me, 18 of my friends.
And a lot of things that are going on right now that people are complaining about, a few weeks ago, I was in Minneapolis with a group of ministers talking about prayer and a lot of them were in a panic mode. There was a ruckus that broke out just a few blocks away and there was riots taking place and they were scared. A couple of them got called and had to run out of the meeting. And I look at this and I said, that's exactly what happened when I got saved.
When I came to the Lord, there was corruption in politics. There was protest and riots around the country. And I looked at that and in the middle of all that fear and chaos, I was born again. And not only me, but hundreds.
That's where the Catholic and Lutheran renewal or charismatic movement began during that period of time. The Jesus movement began. A lot of people, hundreds, thousands of people were saved during that period of time. But I'm not sure all of them are still serving the Lord today.
Because 18 people came to Christ when I did. Some of my friends and friends who I knew. And only one stands here today. I'm going to meet with a group of them here at opening fishing as I've invited them up.
I haven't seen them in 50 years. And we met here a couple of weeks before Christmas and they want to know about what's taking place in my life. But I'm excited about what the world is experiencing today because I really think my pastors are scared and churches are living in fear. We have them right when we want them.
This is the time when things get dark. God shows up. You don't need a little bit of light when things are this dark. Just a little bit of light.
We'll penetrate the darkness. You don't have a big light. Just a little bit of light. We're sin about.
Grace wants more about. And that's all over Scripture. God says, listen, I want you to take opportunity to make the most of every opportunity for the days are evil. Paul said to ever say, she's going to send that to Minneapolis to Minnesota and parts of the world.
As I see not only what's going on in our country here, you need to watch, but in Portugal as well. In South America as well. And our state part of the North Alaska. All the things that we're experiencing are some extent.
Church Collins said, would you come be our intern pastor until we find a pastor we had to deport our pastor back to El Salvador. Found out that he not only was illegal, but he was a criminal and he was deported. They're very upset, very angry. We need to see the things that we're going through, not to the Isaac culture, but to the Isaac Christ.
And the only way to do that is through the body of Christ and to begin to see through God's Word how we're going to respond to the things around us. Here's what Hebrew says. It's a really great verse. It's what it says.
Let us consider how we may spur one another or stir one another up towards love and good deeds. Let's not give up meeting together. See, a lot of people have done that. I like live streaming.
I do like our live streaming and I hate our live streaming. Our live streaming is working right now for people who can't make it here because of physical conditions. But there are people who stay home and watch live streaming because it's just too hard to get out of bed or they didn't want to get up early enough to get the kids ready. And there's something to redeem about coming through these doors that you don't experience.
You walk through these doors. You know what happens? There's an atmosphere that you created that captures people and said, listen, this is home. There's something exciting, something real, something powerful about this place.
But it's not generated if you're not here. It works for others. We're your gifting works for others and others work for you as well. So he's saying some of you have stopped coming.
They're stopped meeting together. And some of the churches I've talked to said, Pastor, we were running 200. Now we're down to 50. So what happened?
I don't know. People are staying home. They're watching online. And that's okay.
One of the great online testimonies. There's 749 miles west of here in hometown Montana. A man dying of cancer watches our live stream. And that's what we have it.
So they can hear what we have to say. And his wife and him, they bowed down because he only had weeks, days or weeks left to live. And he prayed this in his prayer as we repeated it from this platform. A couple of days later, he died.
Talk about making it by the skin of your teeth. That's why I like the live stream. But there's something valuable about you being here. Let us not give up meeting together.
As some of you are going into the habit of becoming. But let us encourage one another. I can't encourage you if you're not here. You can't encourage me when you're not here.
And he throws a little end time here and says, and all the more as you see the day approaching. I prayed about what to say. I was going to talk about end times in relation to what we're seeing in the world today. I'm excited.
How many things I feel about prayer, I'm urgent. I feel an urgency. I feel like you've got to pray. You've got to, you've got to, you've got to pray.
It's important that you pray. And when you get up and say, okay, I'm done praying. No, no, no, no. You've got to keep praying.
There's an urgency. Why? Because there's an opportunity. That's a thing.
Second thing I feel. An opportunity we have the world right where we need them. Right where we want them. You say, no, we're surrounding.
No, no, no. We've got them right where we need them. And right where we want them. Because they're ready to listen.
As I was when I watched our country fall apart in the early 70s. But people thought it was the end of our country. Thousands were getting saved. So number one, and my point is this.
You're important. In fact, you're an important part of the body of Christ. You're an incredibly important person. You're a VIP.
Very important when you come to church. You say, I'm so insignificant. No, no, you're very important. Listen what the Bible says.
The body is a unit. Though it is made up of many parts, they'll all its parts are many. They form one body. So it is with Christ.
Corinthians says it this way. If the foot would say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body. If the body would not, for that reason, cease to be a part of the body. What is it now?
If I got out of the bed this morning and said, I'm going to church, my feet said, no, you're not, I'm staying here. So now you're being idiot. Your feet wouldn't do that. No, but that's what's happening in the body of Christ.
We've got so much to do and so many places to go as the body of Christ. A lot of times I look at what we've done as a church over the years. I was talking to one pastor who was looking up at our giving statement. And he was looking up at the giving statement.
He said, you realize there's one girl in your youth group. In fact, a seventh eighth grader gave more to missions than our whole church gave. That's incredible. A superintendent of one district said, your church has given more to missions than our whole district has given.
That's incredible. And he said, well, let's pat ourselves in the back. No, no, we look at what we've done through God's eye, God's eye, God says, no, no, don't stop going because you think you've done something. You need to continue to go.
You grow. If you're growing, you do more, you go more, you'll be more. And that's what growing does. So that only happens as we work together as a unit, as the body of Christ.
My eyes sees something over there and says, hey, I see that's a pizza. I want to go for that pizza. My feet say, no, you're not. Or if I get to my hand and say, I'm not touching that.
No, no, let's work together on this. And that's what the church, you're really important to the body of Christ. You have something in you. There's a value to the body of Christ.
Number two, you help build the body of Christ. Here's the verse. I always misread it, but see if you catch the wrong word. It was he who gave some to the apostles.
Jesus gave apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some of the pastors. These are gifts and teachers. Why did he give us these? Why did he give us Kirby and Desiree?
Why did he give us the Maxwell's? Why did he give us the asgills? We don't know that for we. I have no idea.
It's our punishment, I think. We did wrong. No, they're good people, but he gave us these. Why?
Why did he give us these gifts? So the body may be beat up. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say the body may be what?
Built up until we all reach the unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature. And in COVID we learned we weren't mature. I didn't mean I watched it. I go into ministry.
I got all kinds of crisis. Why? Two K big crisis. You know what I have?
Some of you remember that were the computers went to shut down because they didn't read anything past 2000. So 1999, everyone said, we need to figure out. People were buying property of North North and they were hiding ammunition and food and putting shacks up and the government is going to come after us. All this conspiracy stuff is I said, that's ridiculous.
I said it from the pulpit. That's imitur. That's ridiculous. But they listened to people who were immature.
They didn't mature things. Why? Two K came in. I was just hoping someone would give me one of the generators about it.
I don't know of it. So why do we do it then? We went through 9-11. 9-11.
I remember that Tuesday morning. I was praying and heard about it and God gave me a message out of Psalm 91. I'm not going to fear the arrow by deer or tear by night. And I preached on that.
And we preached about this as an opportunity for the church to stand up. Listen to me. I'm going to say something to you. I'm not going to take it wrong, but what's bad news for the world is good news for the church.
If we take opportunity, that's what Paul meant. When he said, make the most of every opportunity for the days are evil. So what do you mean, Paul, the days are evil? That's opportunity.
Yes. It's an opportunity to go and to be and to do. But we have to do it together. I can't do it on my own.
Kirby can't do it on his own. We have to do it as a body of Christ. And we do that. So I preached the message on Psalm 91.
The church was packed. The man in the back of the church was crying. I went back after church and said, you're new here. He said, yes.
He said, why were you crying? I hear what you had to say. I said, what happened? He said, the pastor got up and said, I don't know what we're gonna do now.
And bent over and started crying for 20 minutes before he excuses. There's no time to cry. Time to stand up, put your shoulder back and say, attack! We gotta do it together.
We gotta do it as a body of Christ. You help do that as a body of Christ. You see babies have a hard time understanding what's important. I couldn't, if I went to Argentina, or if I went to Portugal and preached in Portugal at the general council with my understanding that I had when I made my first prayer, it would have been a disaster.
But God said, come with me and began to chip away. I went with a group, world famous group, singing group. I mentioned it before, you know, say it together. It was a jubil-a-a-r's.
You probably have the record. But the good thing about it is they chip away. They say, Denny, that's not, we get in a boss, and we open our Bibles, and we have a life group. A life group on our boss, and they say, Denny, that's not a good place to go for entertainment.
That's gonna, you're gonna miss out on God's best of your life. Denny, that's not a good thing to do with girls. That's, you're gonna miss out on God, the best things of God's life. Denny, that's not a good attitude to have a door.
I mean, they kept chipping on me. I just, with a hammer and a sickle and I said, oh man, they were taking things from me. But what they were doing was the body of Christ was working in my life to make me what you see today. That's nothing I can't take credit for.
You can take credit for it. You're a gift to the church. In fact, right now, turn to somebody and say, I'm a gift. This turned to me, I'm a gift.
Now listen, man, I didn't say you're a gift. You're God's gift for mankind. You're just a gift, all right? All right?
So you help build the body of Christ up, and that's what the church did for me. A baby doesn't know when to eat, sleep, and play. In fact, that's all they do. And a lot of times we go to churches, and Paul's always encouraged us.
But you grow up. He doesn't say it that way when I read it. It says, yeah, growing the grace and the knowledge of Jesus. Stop being little babies, he says in Hebrews.
He says, you just keep drinking milk. It's time to grow up. And time to do things that will build the body of Christ. Number three is this, the body of Christ is more effective.
When you use your gifts and abilities, and everyone has a gift and ability. I've had people say, I don't have any gifts. That's what I used to say. I can't speak, I can't talk, I can't dance.
There's not little things I can do. I don't know math or science. And here I am, standing before you. How did that happen?
It's the body of Christ. Listen what the Bible says. For by the grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not thank of yourself more highly than you want. Why does he say that?
Because I can't brag about what I've done or where I'm at, or what I look like. Because I had very little to do with it other than yield to you and to him. See, that's how the body of Christ works. The cross has two directions.
Vertical, our direction in relation to God and horizontal, our relationship with each other. And now he says, get to work, go, be do. Start working, don't thank of yourself more highly. Let me just throw this in my first service.
You want to know how to stop or stagnate or stay and grow through miracles. You want to stop, you can write a book on stopping miracles. Start taking credit. Oh, I prayed for that person and they got healed.
God goes, no, you just delivered a message. It's God that does it. You touch God's work and the miracles stop. So don't think of yourself more highly than you want, but rather think of yourself in sober judgment, according to the measure of faith God has given you.
Just as each of us has one body with many members, fingers, hands, toes, legs, arms, heads, ears, eyes, and these members do not all have the same function. No. So in the church or in Christ, we who are many form one body, and each body in member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts.
But he says right for the grace given to every one of you. You have a gift. You have an ability. Every one of you has some function in the world of Christ.
We have different gifts according to the grace. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him do it in proportion of his faith, serving let him serve, teaching, let him teach. If it's encouraging, let him encourage. If it's contributing to the needs of others, let him do it with simplicity or generosity.
If it's leadership, let him govern diligently. If it's mercy, let him do it cheerfully. So those are the gifts, measure of faith. Now I know every one of you, you come to the church, maybe you've been saved only a week.
It's a good time. Maybe you saved 100 years, 20 years, 50 years. I don't know. But when someone comes, I like working on old cars.
They say, we're in a polling engine. They come out of my house. They say, I brought my toolbox. I said, wait a minute.
I thought you were a mechanic. And all you have is a pliers? Yeah, that's all I need. No, we're not going to get the job done.
How about going to the doctor? Some of you had surgery at some time in your life and you say, listen, I'm going to have surgery. And the surgeon shows up. And all he's got is a scaffold.
The sutures aren't there. The retractors aren't there. The needles aren't there. The stitches aren't stitching.
It's not there. Nothing's there. But scabbos. This is major surgery.
This is major surgery. So yeah, this is all I need. No, it isn't. But see, some churches try to move forward.
And simply saying, we'll go with one gift. Kirby's gift. It doesn't work. This is not a one-ring circus.
This is the body of Christ. And I'm passionate about reaching the lost. And the only way I can reach the high schools in this area that the students, if they're growing in Christ, if I want to reach the business in this community, when we came to this community, we didn't have one person in our church and one business in the three communities that surround this church. And we have in just about every business, someone that represents this church.
Wow, what a mission field. A couple of weeks ago, I was called to a phone call from the sheriff said, I need you such a such place and I need you right away. Can you hurry? 11 o'clock at night.
I get there and it's too late. You're the man who had taken his life. So I cried and prayed with the parents. And I thought I bet there's somebody from this church or a believer that had connection to this young man and didn't say anything.
That's not the body of Christ. That's the handstand. I'm not going, nah. You take the rest of the body over there if the hands are standing over here.
Or the handstand, I'm going over there but the feet are gonna stay. It doesn't work. My body won't work that way. Neither will the church.
I've got a little illustration here that I show you. I got Billy. Billy's got lobster's hands. He's a little seven year old and he's kind of reckless and he tips his milk over at his belly.
And right away, the first one probably to respond is one of the prophetic. And sometimes if it's done harshly, he'll say Billy, Billy, you're an idiot. And we're not gonna let what you did ruin our Easter celebration. Now, he'll probably give cleric to the situation and say, Billy, it's okay.
We'll learn how to do this better but this won't ruin our Easter celebration. But they'll use you the first ones to speak out. You see a situation and they speak out and sometimes brings clarity. How many say, yeah, I kind of have a prophetic gift in my life?
Raise your hand. Raise your hand. If you say, yeah, I usually speak out when I see something. Not many of you raise your hand for that one.
So that might be what we're missing here. The first service we had probably about a fifth of the crowd raised their hand. Well, the leader, here's what the leader will do. The leader will say, okay, or the administrator.
We have great people. Rachel, looking in as a great administrator, leadership. But Kirby's got strong leadership skills. And the leader will just simply say, okay, Betty, would you go get the mop and Bruce, would you go get another glass and, Barbara, would you go get some milk and we'll feel his glass and then he'll continue to eat?
He gets everybody motivated. Everybody go in a different direction and then just sits right there. How many of you say, I'm a leader? Raise your hand.
I probably should have made him more attractive than that. But you usually speak out and say, okay, here's what we need to do. And they bring clarity. The mercy.
Here's where I sit. One of my gifts. Now you're gonna find, you know, one of these I can see them on maybe two is the most reprobbing not more than that, but one strong one. And one minor, one of my two minor ones.
I'm a mercy. So I had to stop counting mercy. It says, when you show mercy, do it cheerfully. See that cheerfully.
Why? Because a mercy has a tendency to bring on the emotions of the other person upon themselves. I had to sit and count some people and they're going through a marriage issue or been diagnosed with something that's very difficult. And I go home and I'm crying for them.
Oh no, I'm gonna get through this. How do I process this? And they go home, they forget about it. I've come back next week, how do we go?
He said, good, good. I haven't slept all week. Oh yeah, we did good. That's what mercy do.
Because sometimes you take on the weight of the situation and it weighs you down. How many say you have a mercy? Raise your hand. Okay, a lot of mercy's out there.
What's this one? Giving. This is an expensive playset and Billy just broke an expensive glass. Now it's incomplete.
Oh, now what are we gonna do? Mom's down here just waiting. Oh no, my playsetting's been broken. It's now incomplete.
What's the give? No problem. Go out and buy another set. In fact, buy two sets.
I'll take care of it. And I've had these people in my life, all my ministry. I wanted to go from paper ledgers to computers when that time came. And a lot of people said, oh, the computers are demon possessed.
They aren't. Well, the PCs are at Apple. Anyhow, but that's why I said giving without simplicity or generously that can also be translated to simplicity because why? Some givers will say I'll give, but I want to decide to color the carpet.
I want shirts like that. And they had purple carpet. Why? Because the big giver said, I'm gonna just control things.
I'm gonna tell you what I want you to do with my money. The true gift of giving says, no, listen, pastor, I'm behind your vision. Here's the money. And they don't ever want credit.
They said, listen, don't tell anybody. That happened in Painsville a lot. Happened here even more. That's why we're sitting in a place like this.
Cause they came and said, I know what you're building and I like it, but you guys follow your vision. Here's a check. Here's this one. Encourager.
Encourager is looking over at Billy. He says, hey, Billy, don't worry about it. I've had the same thing happen. In fact, the mercy when they carry them.
They'll say, oh, Billy, they're crying. Billy, Billy, I've done the same thing 10 times. Don't feel bad. The encourager says, Billy, you're probably just going to do it once.
You're like, don't worry about it. Things are going to turn out good. And they encourage Billy and say, look, Uncle Billy's going to, Uncle Bob's there. Whatever his name is, he's going to buy a whole new set because of you.
And then encouraging? How many are encouragers? Raise your hand. You like to encourage people if people up.
Yeah, somebody raise their hand for everything. But that's okay. Teach it. That's good.
Teach it because someone are raising their hand. And you might have to feel it. All right, buddy. Teaching.
They just take hard things and make them clear. And they like the truth. They say, listen, I'm not sure that's the truth. They'll come up and say, pastor, is that verse really say that?
And we'll have to sit down and say, they want the truth. So it's clear to you. And they have an ability to make hard things to understand very easy. Great teachers are like that.
And you know what? That's what we have in this church. And I've got a job to do. I know this church is in good hands.
So I know the heart of my daughter. I know the heart of Kirby. They want to reach the world. They want to have an impact.
When I go to other churches, I'll sit there during the worship service and watch our worship service because I don't want to miss. Things are hopping here. I don't want to miss it. Or I'll go back to the hotel and I'll watch our service.
And I'll text the staff. That was really good. That was all what you said was good. Because that's my gift.
I want to encourage people. Just want to encourage. I want to reach this world because God put it in my heart over 50 years ago when I'd been telling my bad bet. And said, Lord, if you're real, prove yourself to me and I'll give you my life.
Stand with me if you will. I can't work on an engine. I can't pull spark plugs even with this. I can't work on my computer system with this, my carburetor.
I can't pull the tires off my car. My wheels with this, I need more tools. If I'm going to go. If I'm going to be, if I'm going to do.
I need people to step up and say, hey, you got young people going. It's never been on a mission trip. I got young ladies. I'm thrilled they're going with us.
But I want to make it a pleasant trip. I need help. I need the givers to step up. I need the mercies to step up and pray.
One of the nicest things said to me in a church was you're not needed. Here's the situation. December 7th. One of our young men felt.
The rafters on his head was rushed to head up in North Indianapolis on December 7th, a few years back. I rushed down there when I got there. When I got here, the chaplain, who should have been in with the parents, was outside the waiting room, came over and said, you're not needed here. I said, what?
He said, follow me. And he opened the door. And there in the waiting room, the parents were this church. They were still here in first service this morning.
We're surrounded by 12 people from a life group. We're pouring into them. Chaplain looked at me and said, pastor, I don't know what you're doing in that church. But I've never seen this.
In all my years as a chaplain in this hospital. That's the body of Christ working together. Young man collapses here. We don't know what the issue was.
Two words, help, help. Whoosh. Did you see how that worked? EMTs, nurses, doctors, run over there.
Assess the situation and get him the proper help. Young man, a couple of days ago, cried, help and took his life. And there was no one there to rush to his aid. We've got a world to win, not just cold spring, but a world.
And we can't do it with a one-ring circus. We've got to have a number of people working together, bow your heads with me, if you will. Come and say, pastor, I can do something. Might not be involved.
Involve the way you'd like. And you say, pastor, I want to be involved. I want to be a part of the body of Christ. Raise your hand right now.
Raise your hand. Wow, all over the place. Thank you. Give him a pie.
So I can see him through the lights. Yeah, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. Wow. Lots of people.
Now listen, what's going to happen? Look at me. What's going to happen? You're going to get in a car and you're going to head home and that feeling, God, I've got to do something.
I've got to do something to make this church. All that God wants it to be. I want God's the best for my life and for this church. This church works so well together.
We had Willie Robinson here a few weeks ago. People from the Dartmouth Church said, this staff is unbelievable. Every time we come here, they just move around. Staff and volunteers, they moved around and pulled off a big situation and did a big event and did it well.
The guy that plows the part of the plows the road here from the county, I met him yesterday. He said, you know what? I went by your church last week and the place was packed. So I called back to the office and said, what's going on?
And he said, Willie Robinson's there. And he was impressed from what he saw in the parking lot. He went by this morning as well. He was solved in there.
He said, hey, the parking lot's already full. What's going on? Denny's speaking. But we need you guys.
We really do. I want to do all I can for God. I pray you have the same heart. I want God's best for my family and for my life and for this church.
And for everyone I meet, we have to be willing to grow in our relationship with you. Let's pray Father, thank you for all the hands that were raised today. Thank you for all the gifts, the abilities, the talents, the businessmen and women, Lord, that we have in this church that just make this place a great place to be. We thank you for those who walk through our doors for the first time and are embraced with the atmosphere that they create as they serve you, Lord.
We pray that this intensifies. We would pat ourselves in the back or think that we've arrived in some certain place. No God, you say grow as we go. We've got to grow as we grow.
We've got to be as we do. We've got to grow. Father, all these things work together. We need one another.
So we pray your blessing would continue on this church in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. God bless you.
Go Vikings. Right? Go Vikings.