You're prepared to bring food today. I invite you to prepare your heart for worship now and prepare your body for worship. The team is gonna do a quick intro song, so, and then after that, we'll, don't invite you to stand and participate in worship, but yeah, prepare your heart for worship. I'm gonna hand it over to the team.
To see, to see. All right, I'm gonna invite everybody to stand as you are able. Even true, I'm pressing on, pulling my back to the passing pole. Let the un-see-bit in the future, and I sing, oh, let the old dream dream begin.
In my way, I know you're moving. A chain reaction, a fully passion. Hauntington's try to view. Bursting like heaven in motion.
Jeez, that shit made me new. I'm pressing on, and with my back to the passing pole. Let the un-see-bit in the future, and I sing, oh, let the old dream dream. I know you're moving.
A chain reaction, a fully passion. A chain reaction, a fully passion. In my way. Gonna do a new thing.
I know you're moving. In my way. A chain reaction, a fully passion. Thank you, Lord.
Thank you for your movement, Lord. Lord, we are here to be in your presence, and to, we're talking about relationship with one another today as we are preparing for this set, and how Jesus did the work in order for us to have complete and full relationship with him. And part of that relationship is the spirit residing in us, and so these next two songs are talking about the Holy Spirit and his movement and his pouring out of his spirit. And so our prayer today, Lord, is that we need this fresh wind throughout our week, throughout our lives, to spread through our culture.
God, we long for this fresh wind, because we deep down inside recognize that things cannot stay the same. Things cannot stay the same as they are right now. And so we come, Lord, with this as a prayer, that we need a fresh wind, the fragrance of heaven. Please, God, pour your spirit out.
Pour your spirit out. This is our prayer today, Lord. Spirit sound rushing wind, fire on God, for within Holy Ghost, breathe on us, we pray. As we repent and turn from sin, revival and burst, moldering, breath of God, fern us into flame.
We need a fresh wind. The fragrance of heaven, pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out. The hearts have burned with holy fear, pure refined faith and need, refined to this fire, strength and one remade.
We the church bear your life, land above flame, city bright, king and king, don't come, is what we pray. We need, we need a fresh wind. The fragrance of heaven, pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out.
Oh, in seeing the power of your presence. Pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out.
Pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out.
Pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out. Pour your spirit out. Sing, do see, hear the wind let all of his high and sing Lo be, move and I'll praise, I don't wanna sing The fragrance of heaven, pour your spirit out, pour your spirit out The power of your presence, pour your spirit out, pour your spirit out You want a place and fill the goddess, what art art long for To be overcome by your presence, love There's nothing worth more, art becomes free, my shame is to be yours Holy Spirit, that is our prayer this morning that you would come and fill this room, fill our hearts Lord, Holy Spirit, we welcome your presence today And yeah, gotta pay that you would fill us Thank you for choosing us to inhabit your spirit and Yeah, gotta just, we just thank you for that today, thank you for Pentecost and we pray that We would remember the power and the fire that we have within us because of your spirit And choose name, amen Alright, thank you, worship team, thank you everyone Alright, invite you guys to be seated, kids, have fun in class, have a great time Yeah, good morning again, my name is Janice, I'm the operations director here We're so glad that you come together with us today on this Pentecost Sunday I have the privilege of introducing our guest preacher for today So Dr.
Greg Mitchell writes and teaches theology, discipleship and leadership He has pastored for over 35 years in Vancouver, Canada And has received a Bachelor of Education, diploma of canceling, master of theology and doctor of ministry He's an author, a professor of aviation seminary and a pastor to pastors His discipleship materials are used worldwide, if you've heard of the four E's He's not same Greg and Debbie have been married for 40 years They had four children before six more out of their family, 16 years ago In his free time, he loves dates with his wife riding his mountain bike Or building in his workshop, and his deepest passion is to see the good news of the gospel Transform people's relationships So I invite you to give a warm, everyone should see how to welcome Do your pastor Greg Thank you, good morning everyone, great to be here Can someone make this higher? Because I'm old and blind I think it's that thing Yeah, thank you There, whoops Well, that's when, oh, but you're wet, okay, there's a slum Perfect There we go, that's much better, thank you Okay, it's great to be here, I drove down from Vancouver, Canada Anybody been to Vancouver? Yay, it's beautiful, just as beautiful as Seattle It's always great to be back here The, if you don't know the founding pastor here was Pastor Bruce Fiddler And we're great friends And he invited us to come and help establish this church a number of years ago So it's always great to be able to come back here and see what God is doing My son was here last week So you got the better one first But he's the executive director of our church And it's so fun to be able to do life and ministry with your kids There's just no greater treat, especially when it's someone like Jonathan, he's such a great Not even young man anymore, he's getting to be up into the middle age, which I don't like But it is really great to be here with you today To celebrate Memorial Day and perhaps even more importantly to celebrate Pentecost Sunday We're going to be looking today at the idea of the work of the spirit Which is central to Christianity But I want to begin by describing this idea of Pentecost What is it in terms of how it fit into Israel's calendar That the Pentecost isn't just something that happened in the New Testament That last part of the Bible But it's really part of the fabric of the whole Bible And if you want to understand what Pentecost is about You need to know that this festival was part of the calendar of Israel's annual calendar And it was all about harvest You can imagine living that many years ago That the harvest really really matters It's called living If you don't have a good harvest, you don't live And so everything in that culture revolved around Having a fruitful harvest Just to be able to provide for yourself and your family And so this is what there's three festivals that are Kind of central in the Old Testament They recorded in Exodus 23, verses 14 to 16 This is what it says Three times a year, you are to celebrate a festival to me Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread Which we will know more commonly as Passover And then celebrate the festival of harvest Which is Pentecost Pentecost just means 50 days later With the first fruits of the crops you sow in your field And then celebrate the festival of end gathering Which is the other ones are called the Festival Boos Or tabernacles or the same festival At the end of the year So there's one at the beginning Then a little bit later And then at the end of the harvest season When you gather in your crops from the field So these feasts as I said Follow kind of an agricultural annual cycle So why is it significant? Well first of all, Passover Passover marked the beginning Kind of the first seed That everything else depended on So if that seed didn't plant and take root You didn't have a harvest, you didn't have a crop When we if you've been in church for a little bit You might be familiar that the Passover Is actually what Jesus fulfilled when he came to earth That he is the Passover lamb Which meant that when God went to bring judgment On Egypt Those who had blood on their doorposts The angel of death passed over those homes And were spared from judgment So it's pretty intense And Jesus fulfilled that He's our salvation When God comes to visit our life And he sees his blood around our life We've been spared from judgment And get to enjoy a relationship with him forever And so the way to think about this Is I hopefully you all received This little piece of wood And we're going to pretend that it's a domino It's the cheapest one I could find on Amazon Not that I didn't love you or anything But if you all received this domino What Jesus did in Passover Is the first set of dominoes in a chain reaction If you've seen those dominoes, one hits And then there's a chain reaction That leads to a bunch of others Jesus is the first domino He's the one that started to put everything into motion And it's going to be helpful to think of him this way As we kind of impact what this is about But Christianity begins With understanding what Jesus did for us And then we're going to jump forward To the last festival Which is the festival of booths Or in gathering It's the final harvest So you think about this domino There's a first domino And then here's I don't know if you're going to care about this But the longest domino chain Are you ready for this?
Is really important The longest domino chain Was 4.5 million dominoes That's intense It means somebody had a lot of free time That's all I know But it was 4.5 dominoes That's the world record So if you want to have something to do Try to beat that And it starts with Passover That's one domino And then at the end of all time When this world comes to completion We have, I'm sure It's going to be more than that But at least 4.5 million dominoes That are the result of that first one In Revelation 21 It describes the end of this age And then I saw in the beginning of the next one Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth I saw the holy city The new Jerusalem So this is the people of God Coming down out of heaven from God Prepared as a bride Beautifully dressed for her husband And there's no more death Or mourning or crying or pain So there's going to be, Jesus started something That's going to end In this brand new heaven and earth Now as I already referred to Dr. Bruce Fiddler He's now a doctor PhD His dissertation The people who kind of mark these things Is this the best dissertation they've ever read That's a compliment Well he wrote, I'm not going to, I don't even remember the full title But he wrote on how What's going to happen after we die We're going to receive new heavenly bodies That's what he wrote about Well so he's writing about this You can imagine how much you have to study If you're doing a dissertation But God gave him a gift It was just a few months ago From what I understand And he's driving his car He lives in Nashville now He's driving his car and he has a vision While he's driving I don't know how that works He didn't know either But he had a vision Of the new heavens and the new earth And so he's driving and he sees There's a beautiful land And he says As I looked at that land I thought of two things And I think this is just so fascinating To picture what, how it's all going to end What we would say heaven is like He says the first thing that I felt Was it was going to be an adventure I could just hardly wait I wanted to jump into that vision And experience what that land is like He says just beautiful And there was something in my soul That knew that this wasn't just You know fat babies singing hallelujah forever There's something remarkable That you just could hardly wait To experience that And to And there's this brand new world That just needs to be explored So he says I felt a great sense of adventure But at the same time I felt safe Isn't that a great picture of what heaven would be like? You're never bored But you're also safe I'm a mountain biker And I love the adventure of mountain biking I have, as I said to somebody The broken bones to prove it But I love that adventure But you know, you come across bears And things like that When you're out in the forest And so just imagine All the adventure You never are going to fall again I'll never break another bone I don't have to worry about bears anymore It's just going to be perfectly safe And a perfect adventure All at once That's what the end is going to be like And it's going to be a full room It's going to be 4.5 million I'm sure much more than that But it's going to be 4.5 million people All together In perfect harmony Enjoying one another in God's creation This is what we're looking forward to God fulfills our hope I have a background in counseling And one of the things that I Have thought a lot about over the years Is that humanity has two main needs We all want to be secure And we want to be significant We want to be loving and accepting Just the way we are And we want to have meaning and purpose And Jesus fulfills that Not just for us but for an entire community And that's what heaven is going to be like Eternal security And eternal significance Well, in between these two festivals Is this middle one That we're celebrating today called Pentecost And when we look at the New Testament The Spirit fulfills our mission So we have what Jesus started Is going to be completed Some time in the future We don't nobody knows exactly when If they do They're lying And they want your money or Allegia I don't know what they want But don't listen to that Because nobody knows Except the Father So in between these two moments You have this other festival Called the festival of harvest Or of Pentecost And this is where the Spirit Fulfills the mission That Jesus started That will ultimately be completed in the future Is this in between Festival In Saint Corinthians 3 6 It says he The Spirit has made us Ministers of a new relationship A new covenant Not of the letter but of the Spirit So what the Spirit of God has begun Is forming a new people That do not find their unity and purpose Through keeping rules But through being filled with the Spirit That gives them a brand new relationship with God And with others That what the Spirit does Is more loving than what rules could ever accomplish I remember one of my New Testament professors Said that when we think of what The New Testament is about This new relationship with God Most people think that it's about the forgiveness of sins And that's true of course Our sins are forgiven We're loved and accepted Just the way that we are Fantastic But I don't know about you It's a little boring It's like great okay good Love to be forgiven I know that I can't earn my way into heaven So that's fantastic Now what? Well he says the thing that most marks Christianity is actually not The forgiveness of sins That was already preached in the Old Testament It was actually the coming of the Spirit To give us new hearts And a new life purpose This is absolutely remarkable And so the Spirit of God begins an adventure In that adventure is to spread the love of God Through the world So how does the Spirit Spread this gospel, this Christian message Of God's love and leadership Sweeping the whole world How does he spread this message through us?
How does Christianity Move from one to 4.5 million? Like how does that happen? Well this is what the Spirit does We'll look at three things quickly In Acts chapter 2 We see this outpouring of the Holy Spirit On the day of Pentecost And so as described as three things As described as wind, fire and conviction We'll look at each one of these in turn In Acts 2, verse 2 It says suddenly It sounds like the blowing of a violent wind Came from heaven and filled the whole house I heard a few years ago It was up north I can't remember exactly where But they were having a prayer meeting And all the doors and windows were closed And they have recorded I listened to the recording They had the recording of a violent wind Blowing through that room Even though there's no open windows It isn't remarkable There's a violent wind That's what the Spirit is described as Wind is about breath About giving life And life isn't just about survival It's more than that If you can think of wind as something that fills our sails And it takes us somewhere Wind doesn't just keep you in one place It sends you on a mission It carries you along A number of years ago I grew up, my family wasn't Christian We all became Christians at the same time My brother was Came to Christ Told us all about Jesus And my whole family came to Christ at once And but we grew up in a church That didn't really believe in the power In presence of the Holy Spirit It was very much focused on the Bible Which I'm very grateful for But it was kind of That's about it You just try to get forgiven And obey all the rules That's what it seemed to be like God bless them And so I remember Coming to the big city to Vancouver BC And being exposed to more than that And to begin to see I'll explain in our next point How that happened Be part of groups of people Who experienced the power and presence of God And this is what my thought was like I thought that the Spirit of God Was like sticking your finger Into an electrical socket You get a buzz And that was cool And you go, come out If you stick your finger In the socket You get a buzz You go, no way Go, yeah try And they got a buzz And everybody would just You know Have these Experiences of God And we thought that was a whole lot of fun And you know We were If you've heard of something Even a Christian for a while You might have heard something called The Toronto Blessing Where there was People came from all around the world To Toronto To experience the power and presence of God And there was lots of electrical sockets there And everybody You know It was Metaphorically Sticking their finger in these sockets And there was a It was called the Laughing Revival And I remember being a part of that I remember You know Falling down on the Spirit And You know All kinds of crazy things But we thought That the Spirit of God Was kind of for our entertainment And I remember It dawning That the wind of the Spirit Is actually supposed to take The love and truth of God Out from here Into the world We didn't know That the breath of God Would put wind in our sails And call us to be missionaries We didn't get that part We just were all sticking our fingers in sockets So what the Spirit does Is call you and I Into a life purpose That's greater than survival You can tell I'm a little bit older And I talk to my We'll call them middle-aged friends And I go You know what are you doing? And they've taken out pickleball Or they've You know They're gonna Now start traveling And it feels like They're living most of their life Trying to figure out how not to be bored There's no purpose Greater than their own amusement And those of you who Have been on the West Coast for a while Is my You know I think about the difference between the East Coast and the West Coast North America And if you're in Vancouver You know right on the ocean like you are You're Toronto We call it East Coast It's more a middle but we call it East Coast And Toronto If you're from Vancouver You're not allowed to like Toronto It's just a rule In their corporate You know in their corporate And we're on the West Coast And so we're enlightened And we don't just work to work We work to have fun You know But what's remarkable Is there's nothing profound going on It's just amusement And I watched people Trying to invent a purpose for their life This mostly self-centered And almost entirely irrelevant And what the Spirit of God does When he comes into our heart and life Is he breeze into us He animates us Not just to suck in air But to go somewhere To do something that's more substantial Than just existing Dibby and I we have 11 kids Which is a chunk right It's a good amount And I remember when we just had one We just had one for about eight years And then we adopted one Had two more kids miraculously And then got added to our family As you heard of the intro about 17 years ago Seven more children I promise you we are not bored I promise you Sometimes I wish we were bored We'd like to be more bored than we are But life is an adventure It's rich and meaningful The love of God sends us Into people's lives You know we're not We're not hanging on Until the feast of booths We have something to do We're a domino That is meant to impact other people's lives And do something of significance So that's the wind Then we see fire In verse 11 of Acts 2 It says it this way We hear them declaring the wonders of God In our own tongues So I've already said I was part of a church Beautiful church They didn't believe in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit And for sure didn't believe in this thing called speaking in tongues That was kind of a the devil It meant that you were sort of possessed And out of control and that couldn't be from God And so I grew up Not believing any of that And I was living in a dormitory at UBC And there was a guy there Who was in seminary And he would take note for coffee And try to convince me That the spirit of God was for today That it wasn't just during Bible times God's still active and alive today And so we would have this thing called arguments And we would debate whether God was really alive today Or whether we just needed the word of God My position was Is that if you need the spirit It probably meant that you were lazy and not committed Just suck it up and try harder Stop complaining and just do what the Bible says That was my little gummy But anyways I was in my 20s What can I say?
And so we would He would take me out We would have these arguments And I'm just you know Just being honest I would win the argument I'm just just what happened And I would win the MACH time And then I would remember this one time We'd go for coffee again And I win the argument yet again And then he went into my car for centuries I don't remember why And he says to me, Greg would you Mind if I just prayed for you? And remember thinking sure why not Nothing's ever happened when people pray in the past Why should this be any difference? And so he lays his hand on my shoulder And I feel spiritual power goes through my body And the first thing I think of Is not silos the argument That's the first thing I think of I mean I just so full of pride You know I can't argue with that And I didn't let him know any of that I just said thank you very much And he left the car And then I go off to a Bible study And I think you know what I should speak in tongues So five minutes before that I didn't believe in any of that Now I think it's an outstanding idea So I speak in tongues I go off to my little Bible study And I'm driving home And speaking in tongues And I become thoroughly And intoxicated in the spirit I've never been physically drunk But I get the appeal So I am you know I can I had a stick shift back then I barely pull up into the place where I was living And I'm just lying in the car And I remember my landlord at that time Nox on the window He goes, you okay in there? I go I am okay And as soon as these legs work I'm gonna get out of this car Now that doesn't need to happen I think God did that just again Because I was so proud and defended He needed to give me an experience like that And that was very kind of him But here's what's remarkable And that's what tongues is about Is that before that time I was probably a Christian for about At least 12 years Maybe 14 years And I was very active In telling other people about Jesus Very active I would pick up pitch hikers I was at UBC, University of Columbia Going on campus all the time Doing bold evangelism Even when there wasn't something organized I bring a friend along I go out and share her faith I was very very active In doing that During that whole time Not one person came to Christ That's a little discouraging So I have this experience And after that moment I'm not sure how many people I prayed for To become Christians Same words Same method And now spiritual power was in that place And dramatically changed everything What speaking in tongues is Described in Acts 2 As well as 1 Corinthians 14 Is described as worship And worshiping your mouth But it's worshiping with your spirit More than with your mind But it's worship There was a very good friend of mine He tells the story The old church that we were part of The first time He ever went to church He wrote a harley You know one of those guys He had full leather on And he goes to the church Just in the back row of course And kind of slouch is back there Goes through the church service People somebody comes up to me afterwards And says, you know, what did you think of church?
He goes, ah, it's okay But he says, there was this woman When you guys were all singing There was this woman Who was singing And she was singing Words about God This guy is not a Christian He was singing She was singing words about God And described God in a way That was the most beautiful description of God I've ever heard And if that's who God is I want to know him Well, she was singing in tongues And it says just as we read in Acts 2 He heard her Speaking in his own language And he became a Christian that Sunday I have another example Where my wife was having a prayer meeting And there was a woman Who gifted with prophecy Being able to hear messages from God And she would prophesy over the women there Somebody brought her sister Her sister wasn't a Christian She was prayed for in that moment The woman prayed over her in tongues And then prophesied over her As they were driving home This is just what you think about that She says, it's pretty cool What was most remarkable Is when that woman Before she kind of gave me a message She was just talking about what God was like And he's magnificent And again, if that's who God is I want to know him But they were speaking in tongues And they heard them Singing the praises of God Or the words of God in English So I think that there was two gifts going on There one is the gift of speaking in tongues The other was the gift of interpretation Because it says they heard them Speaking in their own language I think that's a miracle Here's what's cool God sends us out By his spirit, the wind of the spirit sends us out And then what's fire on us That is a purifying fire That takes our regular words And regular actions And invests them Injects them With spiritual power That now changes other people's lives Isn't that crazy? You're doing the same thing You've always done But now there's spiritual power Behind those things And the same words Become beautiful Describing God And we'll find out in a moment Convicting people's spirits And doing what we can't do I took a course on addictions In January Fantastic course And here's what the professor was saying I just think this is so interesting He says, just bear with me for a minute He says that That addicts are prophets Just bear with me Not full-on prophets But they're prophetic Let's say it that way Here's what he says The reason why Church is sometimes struggle To impact an addict's life Is because the Christianity That they're communicating And expressing Is too boring I remember I had a He became a good friend But I remember the first time I met him He came to our church In the middle of the week We had a church building He came to our church with his girlfriend And I remember he was I sat down I never met him before I sat down And he I says, what do we What are you here for today? How can I help? And he says, well My girlfriend who's sitting right Because my girlfriend just slept with somebody last night And I'm thinking I'm just super young I don't know I go that bad But she says, but you slept with somebody two weeks ago Because that's true He says, but I was drunk So it doesn't count I thought you know a good point I don't know what I'm doing And so And then she says, well at least I got paid So it turns out that she was a prostitute And he was a professional car thief And we ended up in fully in the middle of our church And I got to know him really well And I remember him describing So what's it like?
I never stolen a car Now what's that like? He calls Greg It's outstanding He says, it is The rush is like nothing you've ever experienced And then he would go His eyes would light up And he would say, what would we do is we steal cars Drive them backwards into liquor stores Load up the trunk You know, get away Dump the car off somewhere And then have all the liquor And have all the liquor I never thought of that And he tells us time When the police were chasing him And he got away And he heard his leg But he was still able to get away It was just so cool And he was just so excited Right? And he was addicted To being a car thief And I remember thinking How is Christianity ever going to compete with that? I think the only way that it's going to compete Is we decide to take up a mission Greater than survival And be filled with the spirit That can actually see reality change Because of his presence in our life And in our words Can you say amen to that?
It's better It's better And finally, conviction In John 16, it says The spirit will convict the world of its sin And here's what's interesting There seems to be in Acts 2 Now, it seems like there's two reactions To this wind and fire It says in verse 37 A little bit later It says when the people heard this They were cut to the heart But then it says Somehow, however, earlier on Made fun of them So when the spirit of God comes There seems to be two reactions From people One is mockery In the other's conviction But something's going on This powerful That can't be ignored And when the spirit of God is present It changes reality in such a way That people have to respond to it Either by mocking it and trying to dismiss it Or by being convicted And surrendering to Jesus Christ And I think it's fair To expect both We have some missionaries Not part of our church Who are in Vancouver They're from Texas They came through Seattle Spent a couple of years here Kind of as preparation To go to Vancouver And I was talking to them A few weeks ago And they were talking about the difference Between doing ministry in Seattle In Vancouver So that was interesting I thought I'd share it with you Since you're kind of here, right? And this is what they said They said that When we're in Vancouver We get rejected all the time But it's super polite Like they go You know, thank you very much Can I have your number? You can have my number? I'll never phone you Or respond to any of your texts But I'm sure I'll give you Like it's just polite But nothing ever changes They said when we were in Seattle We would just get mocked And ridiculed And cossed out And And here's what they said I think it's better At least we know where we stand You know, at least we know you hate us We were guessing in Vancouver Now we know for sure how you feel about it But so in Seattle, congratulations You get to be cussed out And rejected But here's what you need to know about that You don't cuss out somebody Who is irrelevant And where there's no power You only get a reaction When power is present And so you can have us assign Our just hidden in Vancouver You get to see it clearly You know That when people are rejecting you That is just as much a sign of the Spirit As when they come to Christ And I can almost guarantee That the Spirit of God Who's beginning to do work We can trust that He'll be faithful In what He's Begin And so Here's what we need to know then That God has a three-part plan It has to do with those three festivals God started something in Christ And He's going to finish it With 4.5 million I'm sure it's going to be billions But anyways, He's going to finish it And you and I Have a part to play in that Now this is just a piece of wood Until the Spirit of God Blows on this And injects it with life You and I are dust Genesis 2-7 Until the Spirit of God comes and blows on us And breathes on us and makes us alive Hear me Not just breathing But moving Acting And having significance by the power of the Spirit The Spirit anoints us With fire And commissions us With wind So can we today Receive His wind and fire And anticipate His work As we follow Him Let's pray Father, I thank You For giving us a life That competes with addiction That has only good effects I thank You for making us alive I thank You for the wind of Your Spirit That breathes in us A life that carries us places I thank You for Your fire That purifies our hearts And not just that But purifies our words And our actions So that they become That's a surprise And I thank You That through Your wind and fire We now can portray a message to the world That has power behind it And that affects change Father, I ask this morning That You would give us all The grace and humility Unlike me all those years ago But that You would give us all the grace and humility To receive a fresh Your Spirit Can you just have a posture in your heart Of receiving posture Saying I need that I need that I want Your breath Your wind I want Your fire in my life I don't want to merely survive I want to live And be on mission With the living God Believing that we're a domino That will affect others Who affect others And see a great harvest Of people coming to a living knowledge Of the Lord Jesus Christ Let this be the testimony of this church And let it be our personal testimony We pray In Jesus' name Amen God bless you Thank you very much Thank you so much Master Greg So I'm not going to stand behind there I'm too short It's like that's all it's me So instead of our normal discussion time We're actually just going to have time to Do pray here today Because of the meal stuff at the beginning But I invite you at your tables To introduce yourself if you haven't already But to share in one sentence How you want the Holy Spirit To empower you this week And how you feel like God is Moving you And if you'd rather not share That's totally fine We'd still love for someone to just Pray if you're at the table Even if you don't share anything But yeah We're going to take the next seven minutes To pray and then I'll come up to transition us out But have a great time Praying at your tables and being empowered All right I'm just going to pray to transition us out at this time Holy Spirit As you filled your people with Pentecost I pray that you would fill Each of us now And empower us throughout the week God, we thank you for your fresh wind And fresh fire And God, we pray for that empowerment today Excuse me Amen All right So I just now want to invite you To respond in a couple of different ways If you're new and you want to get connected with us There are connection cards in the middle of your table And invite you to fill one out And that's a great way to let us know who you are And we'd love to connect with you Grab coffee with you, get to know your story And yeah If you have a prayer request As well, that's a separate card Just for anyone If you have a prayer request Please let us know We would love to be able to partner with you And pray and support you In any way If you have a celebration Write that down too Those are also great to get Our staff and elders do pray over these every week So it would be our joy to join you in that You can drop either of those cards off The black box over there by the staircase And your way out We also have worship through giving So if you give regularly You just want to say thank you so much For your tithes and offerings They enable us to be able to make disciples in the city And yeah Thank you If you'd like to join in the joy of giving It's our hope that everyone who calls the search home Would be a regular giver The easiest way to give We have new top cards I know I've been promoting them for a few weeks now But we have top cards at our table now So you can just tap your phone there Or you can text give to the number on the screen But the easiest way to give is through our app And that's a great way to set up Recurring giving or do a one-time gift And we're super grateful if you did that Our app is also the best way to find out What's coming up at ENCS But as we always want to send us with a scripture passage from axe two When the day of Pentecost came They were all together in one place Suddenly a sound Blowing up a violent wind came from heaven And filled the whole house where they were sitting They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire That separated and came to rest in each of them All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit And began to speak in other tongues As the Spirit enabled them So as God poured out His Spirit and Pentecost I pray that that same Spirit fills you This week that the Spirit would empower you And send you out in love this week So go in the power of the Holy Spirit Our gathering is officially done But we invite you to stay Connecting to you, connecting, can you bring At your tables And we will see you in a secret This week have a great rest of your Sunday