Well, we've been on such an exciting journey as a community and over the last couple weeks we've been talking about what we are building together and we talked about how we're building the base for God, we're building the base for the loss, we're building the base for the believer and then we talked last week about building the base for the city. And so this week is the week before Big Give Sunday. And so Big Give Sunday is coming next week, it's a big give week and we're really excited about what's coming this week. So we want you to be not only in the loop but understand what heart posture we are carrying as a community into this week.
We're going to talk about Big Give Sunday in just a minute. Tonight we're going to be walking through what is needed financially at this point as we lead into this week so that you guys know how to pray. We're going to talk about praying around the clock, it's going to be really good. But before we do all of those details we thought it would be fun if we could show you guys a little bit of inside the building as is.
So just a little bit of an update on that is we've been working with the architects and figuring out designing the plans and we wish that we could show you rendering pictures right now where it's like realistic images of what it may look like when we move in. But we don't have those yet and so we're still working with the architect to decide exactly where everything will be. So we're like man what can we show them and so we just have some video footage of the inside. So we're about to show you the inside of an LA fitness, it's going to be amazing.
But it is empty, it's empty, all of the equipment is out but you're definitely going to see the signage and all the runners and I don't know what else. You get the bones of it. You get the bones of it. So for those of you which is most of you that haven't been actually in this space we're going to walk you through what we think the layout is going to be.
So it's important that you understand that we think that this is going to be the layout. So don't get too attached, we are getting closer but as of right now where it stands we have a general idea where things are going to go. So are we ready? Are we ready?
Are we ready? Hey, this is 24-20 Cleveland. Look at all that parking. Oh my gosh.
Amazing. There's parking on three sides of the property which is great. And you know we're planning on painting the side of the property so all of the walls, exterior walls so it doesn't look like an LA fitness. One of the questions that gets asked at every living room tour is are we going to do with that white thing on the top and we call it the rusty halo because it's this rusted out halo that every LA fitness has.
We will be taking that down. The goal is that this doesn't exactly look like an LA fitness when we move it. We're going to probably let all of the parents of the community know that day that we're going to take that halo off. It's going to be a great stay at home parent activity to watch the halo.
Pack a picnic. Lift off the building. Sit in the back of the car. We'll watch it come down.
Okay, let's look at the next one. This is the foyer space. Maybe we'll put a Johnny Appleseed mural right there. What is that?
Just be perfect. We'll see. But all that natural light. I don't know if you missed it.
There's a skylight. My skylights are my favorite but we'll remove this desk. We won't have a desk like that in the foyer but this is a great spot. Okay, we can go to the next one.
Even though what a great shot. So we're walking from the foyer into the main area. And when you look at those pillars, look at how open it was. You can, can we pause it?
Is that possible? Yeah, we can. It's okay. It's okay.
Well, this room that you're looking at with those pillars, those pillars are inside the sanctuary. So all of what you're seeing right now is inside the sanctuary. That pillar on the right side of the screen right now, that pillar is our problem pillar. So that's right at the front of the room.
Right smack dab in the middle. Like here. Yeah. So we have some work to do on that.
And then you'll see the staircase that's inside the sanctuary. So that's part of what's inside the sanctuary. That circular staircase. And then you'll see that that balcony is what opens up and where we've talked about those retreat rooms, right?
So in that top left, you're seeing that balcony that has retreat rooms lining that whole space. Actually, let's go to the next clip because that's the balcony. So you go up those stairs to get to the balcony and then, and then this is the corner of that balcony probably future nursing mom's room. Hey, and then, and then all of that where we're walking right now, those are going to be rooms that will be utilized for prayer and reserving for spending time with the Lord.
So lots of space. Okay, let's look at the next one. Right here, you're looking at current racquetball courts, but they will be these first three that you just saw are going to be kids in youth auditorium. And then the rest of these here are going to be kids classrooms.
And so you'll see in this room that you're about to see right now, this one is going to open up into multiple classrooms. So each of those racquetball courts will have an exit to the outside. So it will allow more natural light to come in. And as you guys saw down this hallway, there's all this beautiful glass and we love that.
So we're going to be able to preserve as much of that glass as possible. Go to the next one. This is another kid's classroom. It won't look.
It actually was set up for kids. So, but that will not be how we have it set up. We won't have that play structure. We'll have a different one.
So anyway, if this allows much natural light, this is probably two classrooms, maybe three right off of the front floor. Let's go to the next one. All right. So this is my moment.
Okay, so now I'm just kidding. Look at that. All right. So this is the gym, of course.
Now see this wall right in front of us. We're wanting to open that up into that racquetball court that this clip started at to expand this into being far more of a communal space for the community, for people in the city that are going to be using the gym for pick up basketball and volleyball and things like that. So we are really excited about opening this whole area up to see the kingdom advance through basketball and volleyball. Okay.
Let's look at the next one. Okay, this room. This is our grand finale. This pool is not the future of baptismal, unfortunately.
Everybody's got a lot of mass of baptisms. I don't think so. Okay. So this room is so beautiful.
If you look at all the natural light, the ceilings, we're going to preserve that as much as possible. As of right now, we think this room is going to get divided into a couple of sections, but this is where the coffee shop will be, which will have an exterior entrance signage on the side of the building. It's its own coffee shop with its own hours. We're excited to announce what that partnership is soon.
And that will be, they'll have patio seating over there that is outside. And then the rest of it, we're still figuring out exactly how it's going to flow, but probably some flex space where we can kind of extend it to be more foyer. You could do a small class in there. People could reserve that space, things like that.
So we're trying to maximize that room because it's one of our favorites. Yes. And the image that we're not showing tonight is all of the air conditioning units on top of the building. Somebody say amen to that.
All right. And tonight, that is exactly what we should be showing you like, listen, anything. Get me out of here. Okay.
I'm going to read on the thermostats. Where do we sit now today? 77 in here right now on the main floor. Down here, which means you're at like 97.
So I'm sorry. All right. Well, hey, leading up, like we said, it's not just big gift Sunday. It's really big give week.
And we're really excited about what we get to join in on together as a community in prayer and fasting and worship. And so what we want to do, just like that 24, three moment, a couple months ago, when we were pursuing this property, we felt like the Lord just out of nowhere said, Hey, I want you to bring a whole community in and I want you guys to push in prayer and in fasting for three days. We went 24 hours a day for three days, taking like 30 minute prayer slots morning, noon night, just the whole all 24 hours for three days. And God brought forth a breakthrough that was like immediate was crazy.
Three days later, after we finished that, we got the response that they were going to sell us this property because it wasn't for sale. They didn't want to sell us the property. They didn't have any entrance. They're like, entrance, they're going, maybe in a couple months, check back some other time and we're going, no, we want it now.
And we just pressed it as a community and saw that miracle happen. And you're going to learn tonight that that was miracle number one. And there's more miracles to be seen had for us as a community. And we are going to take it from 24, three to 24, seven this week.
We're going seven days, 24 hours a day of prayer and intercession and fasting this week. Last time we did 24 hours, three days in a row, we had the whole calendar filled up three or four times over. It was so fun that there was multiple people praying all at the same time, whenever, you know, two a.m., there's people, multiple people praying at the same time. So we're excited for that this week that we get to roll that out.
One of the things that we know as a community that's just like set in our hearts is prayer changes things. Prayer shifts things. The Lord does everything in partnership with His people. So when we come close to Him, get His heart and actually declare and agree with His heart in the place of prayer, things shift and things happen.
And then when we fast, it's not an act of like, I'm going to try to twist your arm to get what I want. You know, sometimes there's this mentality of like, if I starve my body, then you'll finally give me what I'm seeking. And that's not the heart of fasting. Do you remember where Jesus says, hey, they're not fasting right now, but when I leave, when I leave, they're going to fast.
Do you know that gives this window into why do we fast? We fast because of longing and ache for Jesus. So when we fast, we're actually reminding ourselves of our priorities and what we desire. We desire God.
And it's a realignment around I want my spirit to be over my soul and my body. Because how many of you know when you just give your body everything that it wants, whenever it wants, oftentimes what happens is you live without self-control and your body is kind of leading everyday life. And sometimes we have to realize, we have to like starve the body so the body understands that it gets parented by the spirit rather than being controlled by the body or the soul. Okay.
And so as a people, I just want you to picture what happens in a community if there's hundreds of people that are not eating or fasting something and they're taking time in prayer. What happens is it levels up all of our sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. And so now there's a thousand people that are more sensitive to the Holy Spirit, more in tune with what he's saying, carrying his heart more. That's what we're trying to do as we're going 24-7.
It's not just like to do it. It's not just to get the breakthrough because we're starving ourselves. It's going, I want your heart. I want to be sensitive to what you're saying.
I want to be close. I want to feel near to you as we're taking this giant leap forward as a community. So we're going to go after this 24-7 prayer. It's already filling up the schedule.
So use the QR code, even if right now if you want to hold it up and you're going to take a 30-minute slot or you're going to take maybe a slot, maybe you go, hey, I want 2pm every single day, go for it. They're just letting us know that the first page is already full. So if you look at the bottom, you'll see a second tab and you can start to fill that one out with that, correct? Awesome.
Okay, last time that we did this, we got a couple questions about what are you inviting us to fast, exactly? And I just want to bring clarity to that that we are not asking everyone to fast the same thing. We're inviting you to ask the Lord if he'd have something for you to fast. So maybe that will be food related and maybe it's, man, I'm only doing liquids this week or maybe I'm doing a Daniel fast where I'm doing meats and vegetables or maybe I'm fasting sugar for the week or maybe it isn't food related and you're going to fast media and social media and movies and TV, whatever that looks like.
So it is up to you if you fast and if you do what you fast and so just want to agree with Josh, it's fasting reminds us and it aligns us. It reminds us to pray and it aligns us with the spirit of God and so I want to invite you to pair your fasting with this intentionality that we're going after in prayer. I want to look at the next slide. We have some opportunities for corporate prayer for the week.
So one, we're inviting you to sign up for a 30 minute slot throughout the week to pray around the clock, but we also want to gather corporately. It's one thing to pray alone. It's another to rally together with other people and pray in agreement. And so we want to invite you to a couple of different days of prayer.
The men are kicking us off tomorrow morning, 7 AM over at the offices. So if you are a man, you are welcome to come to that Tuesday. We have 9 AM corporate prayer. We do that every week from 9 to 10 over at the offices.
We would love for you to join us. We'll be praying for this week. Wednesday, the women's prayer gathering is at Noel Hills home at 6 AM. So ladies, you are welcome to join us there.
And then Wednesday night, the prayer room, our corporate set that we do from 8 to 10 right here will be focusing in on this together. Our invitation is come to at least one of these. Just if you come to one of these, you just feel so much more connected throughout the week and what God's doing. And so we want to invite you guys to do that.
Last, before we actually going to invite a couple of board members up to share some logistics that they will share so much better than we will. So before that, I just want to highlight big gifts on that. You guys can go ahead and put that side up. And what that looks like exactly.
So that's next Sunday week from today. We will have our normal two services. We have our three and five 30s. So come to your normal service time.
And it will be a little bit of a shorter service. It's essentially like a worship and testimony celebration service. It's going to be so fun. We want to make sure everyone that's part of this body is in this room.
Fight to be here. These are the types of nights where we make memories in the Lord together. It's just like 4 19. If you miss that, you're like, I wish I'd been in that room.
Next Sunday is one of those Sundays. And we can actually tell you about it at a time. Usually we don't know that it's going to happen. Can I just say something on that?
I think that is really important. You know, when we get Ben mentioned this in the announcement, when we get to the future space, these days are going to be the early days. We are actually going to transition as a whole community to the house not being the early days. These are going to be the early days at Elmwood.
And these are those moments as a community that we get to be a part of that's like, this is part of our story as a community. So we want to encourage you. I just want to build off what you're saying and agree with what Katie's saying. So what that Sunday is going to look like we'll do.
We'll come in. We'll worship together. We're going to spend a little bit of time praying over the base together. Then we're going to have our big give moment.
And so what that's going to look like is we're going to have different buckets throughout the room. We'll walk you through all the logistics of it next week. But people who want to bring cash or check or some type of physical copy of their gift, otherwise we're also going to have people giving online in that moment or anyone that has given before Sunday, because giving is open right now. Anyone that gives before Sunday will also be counting those gifts.
So we're going to have this big give moment where everyone is able to give and then we're going to worship a little bit more and there's going to be people in the back room counting all of the gifts in real time. And then we are going to watch those gifts go up on the screen and we're going to watch that number rise and land wherever that provision for the night lands. And so we're going to get to celebrate that number together so you will leave service knowing what we raised. And if you, I mean you guys are the lucky service because when you leave your service you will actually know what we raised because the three o'clock won't see what y'all contribute.
So they're going to have to hear the number a little bit later but don't tell them because I don't want everyone to come to this service. But it's just going to be so fun. And so I should also mention as we put those numbers on the screen it will be anonymous. So it's not going to be like Katie Crayball $25 and the code goes well.
It's not going to be like a so it's just going to be numbers. We're going to follow the sermon on the mount. Exactly. It's good.
Well, as we show up to give on Sunday we want all of us as a community to be in the loop of what we're trying to shoot for and what we're anticipating financially and what we're really going after together. And so I'm going to welcome Dan and John up as board members. Why don't you guys take it away. Alright, so I want to give an update on the financing front.
So if you have been to a living room tour or you've visited the Build A Base website you've seen the goal of $12 million for this project. And we don't have $12 million. And unless somebody has maybe like a $10 million gift we, yeah, yeah, do I see a hand? We will likely be working with the bank.
So we are working with several banks right now. One of them we're pretty far down the path with and then we've got a couple kind of in the wings and we're still shopping a little bit to make sure that if our primary lender falls through or there's any hiccups that we've got other options. Now with that lender they've already ordered an appraisal. So it's an important next step in this process.
So they want to know how much is this building actually worth so they can determine how much money we can lend. The appraisal has two parts to it. Say two parts. First part is the as is appraisal.
So that's them determining how much is the building worth right now in its current state. It's lovely glory with the pool full of water probably growing LG and yeah. Lily pads everything. And then the second and that first part of the appraisal we actually expect to receive this week.
There's been a couple, we thought we were going to get it last week. There's been a couple of hold ups not in our part, not in the banks part but on the appraiser. And but we expect that to come through this week. The second part is the final completed project appraisal and that is really important.
That's where they determine of all of the things that you're going to do with the building. What's it going to be worth when you're done with it? Not what's it going to be worth to every day? What's it going to be worth to the market in case they ever had to sell the building?
So that part is really, really important and we want to actually know that number for probably a couple of weeks because they need the final drawings for all of the things we're going to do to the building. So we're still working with architects and construction contractors to determine what those final plans will look like and then they'll sift through them and tell us how much they can give us for the building for lending. So I actually, so this is why we don't have a definite goal, right? Right now we can't say this is the number we're aiming for because there's a couple of huge variables that will swing this a lot depending on how it plays out.
And so this is a huge prayer point for all of you praying at home to pray for that appraisal and a favorable number. So now we're actually going to look at a spreadsheet. So you can actually see some of the numbers we're looking at. This is, whoa.
This is like that family meeting where your dad or your mom like pull out the spreadsheet, you're like trying to buy a car or go to college or buy a house. They're like, well, honey, let's look at the numbers. And so this isn't flashy. This is just a scrappy spreadsheet, boring spreadsheet with not so boring numbers.
So what I want to show here is just kind of how some of the scenarios could play out based on the appraisal. So the $12 million total project right there in the middle, that is what we anticipate for the acquisition and the build out, the total cost. And we're still sharpening the pencil on exactly what that will be, but that is our assumption we're working with right now based on the latest information. Some of these numbers, the down payment percentage, this interest rate, those are just conservative placeholders.
We actually have term sheets from a bank that actually has a better interest rate than that. But if you have been reading the newspaper, nobody reads the newspaper. You know what? A few paper.
Paper. Paper. If you are on Twitter, you know that interest rates are kind of all over the place right now. And this lending situation is, it's changing day by day, right?
So we have a placeholder in there to be conservative. Now this is the appraised value percentage. We're seeing right now on the screen, 85%. That's like best case scenario, right?
That's them saying, yeah, we at the end of this project, this building will be worth $10,200,000. It's 85% of the project cost. So if that's what the building's worth, this is what our down payment would be, which is $4,350,000. Right now we have $2.2 million in the bank that we've saved before we even started this funding initiative.
So through all of your generosity, yeah. Through all of your generosity and through the stewardship of our staff, that is what we've been able to save over the last few years while we've been searching for a building. Now needing $4.3 million for the payment, that means we would need best case scenario, a little over $2 million, $150,000 to be raised through this funding initiative over the next week. Now, this week.
Now, at 70%, you see the numbers change. This is kind of like middle of the row. This is what we're anticipating. This is what's likely.
65% is like worst case scenario. So what 65% represents is that they say the building as is worth $6 million and will give you 30% of every dollar that you put into it. So the blended average is 65% of the overall project cost and they'd say the building is worth $7.8 million at the end of it. In that case, we need to raise almost $4 million.
So that's what the numbers look like. So we always say around here that information fuels intercession. And so if there's a point to this little spreadsheet, it's information for you to take into your 24.7 burn. Yeah, we'll leave it here at 85.
We'll save it. And Dan, do you want to talk about what things look like over the next week leading up to big gifts on day? Yeah, until we do that. Wish I had a spreadsheet to play with.
That was really cool. Can we just give it up for John really quick? That was really cool. Yeah, so these are obviously big numbers.
Before I talk about this week, I do want to go back to what John said around the two, a little over $2 million that are in the moving fund. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.
From the, on behalf of the board, and anyone who's looking at these numbers, thank you for your faithfulness. I mean, some of these gifts were given years ago. Yeah. And I just want to acknowledge that those seeds that were planted, boy, do we need them now?
You can see it. And so thank you. So this week is a big week. This is where the rubber meets the road.
I was asking the Lord on the way here. Like what do I say about that? And he gave me a metaphor that seems like it's been played before because it's a sports metaphor. No one in here has probably heard a sports metaphor at a church before, right?
But the metaphor was really that this picture of these last few years really being like the regular season for a team. And knowing a team knowing that they have to have a certain record to be able to even qualify for the playoffs. Well, here we are, made it through the regular season. Sunday is the playoff game.
Like it's time. It's time. And I do want to also like call out the reality of all of us having numbers that we're praying over as families, as couples, as individuals, and those numbers are in your head. And the Lord is going to tell you what to do.
And then the pen has to hit the paper and there's just a reality to that. And when it comes to those playoff games, it's like there can be a temptation for the team, especially if it's a tough game. And especially on the red. That's a tough game, right?
If that's where we end up. But there can be a temptation for teams leading up to those big moments to kind of pull back. It's not what to look at what's ahead because it's concerning. There's a challenge there.
There's a giant in the land, right? So there's a temptation to pull back. And I feel like the Lord is just calling us as a team. And boy, what a team this is.
I just like that was the other part of this picture of like this team that God has put together, this house is special. I think everyone that's here knows that. Anyone that's been here for some time, you've been here at future first night. Maybe you've picked that up.
Like we're a team that steps up to the plate when it's time. And this week is the time. So yeah, that's just the call is that it's time to make those things a reality. I think we can move to the next slide on the different ways to give over this next week.
Obviously, we've talked about some of them already. There are just some practicalities around. If you do have a big gift, and before I even talk about the big gift, I also want to further that team metaphor. Not everyone plays the same role on the team, but real championship teams.
It doesn't matter if you're individual one through 60 or whatever. You are part of the team. Everybody understands you brought something. So we just want to like those, what you might think is a little gift is where all of them matter.
All of them are huge. But if there is a practical like large gift of a five or six or seven-figure gift, those take more time to move as an asset, right? Whether it's moving like kind, or if it's being liquidated and moved over, there's just a lot of mechanics financially that have to happen for those gifts that come in. We're not saying you have to get it in if it's a gift that's going to take more time before Sunday.
We want you to give the way God is calling you to give. Like what's going to be joyful and meaningful? That's what we want. So you can show up on Sunday and basically make a pledge if that's a gift that you're going to give that says these assets are coming over in the next week.
And that'll work. Or you can start the mechanics moving now. Another practical piece there is that email, treasure it every day in the app list. Any questions or like coordination, use that email.
That's a great place to go. One more piece on pledges. You'll notice that we're not, we haven't through this whole process, like stressed pledges at all. And that was intentional.
Our leadership felt like the Lord was asking to not go through a pledge process. You know, I've been a part of a couple of these when I was younger and pledges were like totally the way it always went. And the, I think it's so beautiful what Josh and Katie came back to us as a board with is that they just felt like the Lord was not asking us to kind of follow up with people two years from now. I'm like, hey, remember the pledge?
You remember the pledge? I think you remember the pledge. So that was like not the heart. And so that's why pledges have not been stressed and we're trying to focus on what can be raised now.
That being said, we do understand that there are situations that are unique for families and individuals where you might have a capital event happening in the next six, 12 months, two years where it's an inheritance or you're selling a business or whatever it might be. And you know, I've got these funds at earmarked. I'll just say it's a huge blessing to the board, to all of us to know if those things are earmarked in the future so that as we're putting together these financial models, we have that information. Yeah, just one more piece there.
I think that's it. Yeah, I want to add something on that. The banks know that big gift sunda is this next Sunday. So I do want to clarify that if there are large gifts, we have systems in place to expedite that process to get them received in quickly because it will be significant how much we have in our bank account after big gift sunda.
So if you're thinking of giving a large gift, the value of dollars in the bank account are much higher than a pledge. It'll only give us some little fraction, you know, pennies on the dollar of value for a pledge versus money that's actually been transferred. So definitely if you have a large gift, you initiate that right away early this week. So if there's any questions that you have about any of the details we shared, Dan and I will be up here after the service and we'd be happy to answer any questions.
Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
We are so thankful for our board who they have just been so fantastic over, I mean, since we started as a community and till today the Lord has brought leaders over this house that have been so faithful and such great stewards of not only the mission and the vision but also the finances for us as a community and John was so gracious saying, you know, your staff has been frugal to save $2.2 million. That's amazing. But it's also been the leadership of the board as well to provide us long term financial health moving forward. And one of the things that we want to draw your attention to even with those financials, those can be really, really overwhelming numbers, especially if you start considering the monthly numbers.
And as a board, we have plans and as just a ministry in general, we have plans that we want to actually have the building create a sustainable income stream so that financially that month to month we continue our financial health that we have right now that that would continue moving forward. And so we're all going to have to sign up and continue our generosity and even increase our generosity. But there's also going to be those that are added to our number that are going to be able to start giving alongside of us so that we can afford this future property. But my goodness, it feels intimidating.
Right? When you start looking at some of those numbers, it feels like, wow, this is a lot. And we're going to try to do this in a week. We're going to try to do this before July closing.
Are you sure? And we realize as leaders that this feels like a miracle story that needs to play out. And we want to name it that we understand that as many of you have walked through these doors and you have said, if you're over the age of 50, you say, oh, man, this community is so young. I've heard this many times before.
And we do have a younger demographic. I mean, the majority of our community is under the age of 40. And I want you to know that we understand that there's a great, there's a lot of capital in the generations that are the boomer generation and beyond. And we understand the reality that there is less capital oftentimes in younger demographics.
That's not always true. But what I'm trying to articulate is that there we know that this is miracle territory. And I love what John said. This is like information, fueling intercession moment.
And so getting the building, miracle number one. We're going to see miracle number two happen this next week with our giving. And what we want to have clear is that we don't want this to invoke fear or anxiety or worry. But we also don't want to just have rose colored glasses where there's only a few people that know the reality of the situation.
We actually want to go after this together and go, all right, if we're going to have faith and if we're going to fall flat on our face while there's a lot of S, then we're going to fail together. We're going to fail and fall together and we're going to do that together. At least we went out kicking in faith. And so as a community, that's what we're committing to.
I want to encourage us to have like 100% participation. This is not a community of spectators. We're ending spectator Christianity and that goes for in the wild, but it also goes for us as a community here as we build a house. And as a people, as we're building this together, we've been talking about who we are and what we're building and what we're going after.
Now it's what are we going to give to build it? And if you're like me and Katie, we were yesterday, we were staying in front of the building and we had this tension as we started thinking about our finances that we're going to give, like the number that we're going to give and we started praying and we still couldn't shake this feeling of like, is our gift even going to make it that? And we look at these large numbers like millions of dollars and then we're looking and then we're trying to get creative. You know how leaders start trying to get creative?
Like, how can we make it more bite-sized so that we can like really make this more attainable and we're like, okay, let's do it. Let's divide it by square footage and it's $218 a square foot and we started and we're trying to get creative and it's like, it's still not going to make it dent, you know? And maybe you feel that way because that's how we feel like, is this going to really make it dent, my gift? And maybe you feel that way and you've got the $10 that you're going to give or maybe you're going to give $10,000 and it feels like a dent.
Maybe you're going to give a million and it still feels like a dent. There's a couple months ago where I was in prayer and it was actually the end of a seven day fast which we're entering into a seven day fast so that's awesome. And I remember it just laying before the Lord and I was just like laying in the fetal position and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit just like rested on me and for multiple hours I was weeping under the presence of God and the thing that I kept on saying over and over again was, Lord I can't do it. I know I can't do it.
And even in the moment I didn't exactly know what was happening but in hindsight the Lord, the Holy Spirit gave me clarity that what I was saying and what was actually like coming to the surface of my heart is Lord I know that we don't have enough charisma to raise the funds. I know that we don't have enough dollars maybe in the room to raise enough. I know that it doesn't make sense. I know that it seems impossible and we can't do it.
We literally showed you a spreadsheet from Google spreadsheets. We don't have enough production value to really convince the people that I'm not a good enough salesman to do it and the Lord's going that's not how this thing is going to get built unless the Lord builds the house. You're going to labor and you're going to stress and you're going to worry and you're going to be anxious about many things. But as a people we are actually going to find ourselves sitting at the feet of Jesus.
And then as we sit at the feet of Jesus we're going to do what Mary did again and bring our extravagant gift to the Lord. And we're going to pour it out on it because listen we don't have renderings for you. We literally are showing you an elephant and just showing you pictures of elephantness. Like we don't have anything to actually make it go like I want to give to that.
Nothing. Okay. We realize that. It's not.
It feels foolish. That's right. And yet the extravagance of Mary felt foolish. And when the Israelites were backed up against the Red Sea and the Egyptians were coming and it felt foolish.
You know, we believe that it's actually going to be a kingdom money situation. It's going to be a kingdom numbers, not earthly numbers. It's like when the child brings the loaves and the fish. Do you remember that?
It's like that's kingdom math. That's not earthly worldly math, right? The all he brings is the two fish and the five loaves. And then, but he gave something to Jesus.
He didn't give to a vision. He didn't give to a nonprofit. That's going to happen. We're giving to building the base.
We're giving to nonprofit. But really what I'm trying to say is we're not showing up to give to those. We're showing up to give to the Lord. And the wondering I have is what can he do if we give him the little that we have?
He's going to bless it. And do you remember what happened when Jesus blessed the gift? It multiplied. Do you know?
It's kingdom math. It's like Abraham and Sarah. Baron, 90 years old, 100 years old. And all of a sudden God says, hey, you're going to have the descendants greater than the stars in the sky.
Kingdom math. Gideon, he has this huge army. And all of a sudden the Lord is like, yeah, more soldiers. No, it's got to be less.
It's got to be less soldiers. Less soldiers. Now it's Gideon's 300. And they conquer thousands.
It's kingdom math. We have to bring as a people, we have to decide in our hearts, Lord, I'm just going to give what I can. I want to encourage you, give what you can. Some of you need to hear, don't give.
Because your day to day can't afford to put food on the table. And you need to not try to figure out how can I just like give everything and then my kids are starving next week. Listen, don't give. You need to hear your pastors say, don't give.
And there's going to be an opportunity for you on Sunday to go, I don't have any finances to give but I'm all in. I can't give but I'm all in. And there's going to be an opportunity. That's going to get celebrated.
Because even if you can't give, you're still part of building this thing. We're all part of building this. Some of you are going, yeah, I can't give a lot but I want to participate. I'm going to give 10 bucks.
I'm going to give 100 bucks. Whatever the widow's might is, maybe it's 1000. Whatever it is, it has value because we're giving to the Lord. We're going to value this the way that the Lord values it.
Some of you, you know that what you can give is a certain amount and you need to hear your pastor say, hey, believe God and give that amount. Don't just kind of like, ah, and start reasoning and rationale and just start getting in the flesh about it. Invite the Holy Spirit into it. And ask the Lord, this is like an opportunity.
This is amazing. Do you know what's going to happen all week is there's wrestling that we're going to go through as individuals and as couples and as families and we're going to wrestle with the Holy Spirit. What should we give? And what happens is things come to the surface.
Like, ooh, I don't like that thing, that idea, that thought, that discomfort comes to the surface. And those feelings, emotions, lies, are circumvented surface. You know why they're coming to the surface? Because they're on their way out.
And Holy Spirit's going to replace those things with truth and you're going to walk in on Sunday and you're going to give with a cheerful heart. You're not going to give with reservation. You're going to give with gratitude and extravagance. And it's just going to be a joyful time and it's not going to be a weird time.
You don't have to come with weirdness on it. You can actually come with joy. I just feel so much faith that we're going to make a memory of joy. Joyful giving as a community.
I want to make sure that I've done everything that I've said I was going to say. Let's all stand. Yeah. Yeah, I want to again, just as your pastors and as your leaders, we as a collective group of leadership are not wanting to make this salesy.
We want to make it worship. All right. And you have our commitment that it's actually going to be worship and not manipulative. And we as a people are going, we want to build this for the Lord first.
We talked about building for the city, for the lost, for the believer. That's amazing. But then I'm reminded of like Solomon and David and really they brought the gifts and they brought them for the Lord. And we're going to bring and we're going to give to the Lord.
We're not giving to a number and giving to a bill and all those things. We're going to give to the Lord next week. And I want to encourage you sign up for prayer slots so that your heart can engage. So there's this beautiful thing.
What's happening is your treasure is going to get lined up. So your heart is going to get lined up with the Lord. Your attention and your prayer is going to get lined up. It's going to be amazing when we all get to level up together this week.
We all get to be unified together. Okay. Let's close our eyes. Thank you, Lord.
And you can just say to the Lord, Lord, I don't want to give more than I can. You can just say that to the Lord. I don't want to give more than I can. And you can say Lord, I don't want to give less than I can.
Lord, I want to give. But I can. And I want to get. I just feel this conviction.
I want us to leave next Sunday going. We gave what we could as a whole community. Where we have this clean conscience of no matter where we land in the number, no matter if it's one million that we raise or no matter if it's four million that we raise, we just we gave what we could. We gave what we could and we did it with generosity.
We did it with extravagance. We gave what we could. We gave something that he could bless. Kingdom math.
So Lord, we just say, we say Kingdom math over this project. We say Kingdom math. We say like Gideon's army, like Elijah's widow with the flower and the oil. Lord, like Jesus and Lazarus in the grave.
Lord, it's Kingdom math. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't line up with rationality and logic and the laws of physics. But Lord, we just say we're giving you and bringing you the five loaves and the two fish.
Something you can bless. Lord, we just say, I just want us to say I want to bring you something you can bless. Yeah. Thank you, Lord.
Yeah. Give us your heart, Lord. We want your heart. Would you deposit visions in hearts for the city?
Would you deposit your heart for Minneapolis and St. Paul? For the cities that we live in, Lord, would you brand us with your heart this week as a community in Jesus name? We love you, Lord.
Amen.