Community Counts | Chad Bruegman

We're going to go ahead and stand and get the service started. I just want to give a big welcome to all of our first time. Yes, especially my name is Liz. This is Kylie. We like to get our service started by singing songs together. Y'all ready? All right, let's go! I still know what I've watched in the blood. It's good. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah! Come on, y'all! Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm free, sing what they don't mean. Shame was wrong with you. The love was switched on gallery. Oh, hallelujah. God, how pain is you, man? And when I'm dead reading, I'm standing in your misery. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you.

Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. I've been watched in the blood because of you. Oh, hallelujah. Hey, hey. Let's keep singing along. About how grateful you are for me. I have so much to be grateful for. There is a love so good. It never ever is. There is a cure with every morning new. A solid rock that stands when all the roundness is Jesus I find. I find it only you need. # The thing y'all # # So much to be thankful # # Hey, hey, hey # # So much to be thankful for # # So much to be thankful for # # A thousand plus # # He's a million more #

# And so is # # To praise your Lord # # I've got so much # # So much to be thankful for # # There is a heart # # So strong # # It holds me through the storm # # There is a pain # # That makes the mountains cool # # Our name's so great # # I may not even dare # # Can't stand to catch me # # The things I find # # I find it all in you, yeah # # I've got # # So much to be thankful for # # So much to be thankful for # # I've got # # So much to be thankful for # # So much to be thankful for # # A thousand plus # # He's a million more # # He's so easy # # To praise your Lord # # I've got so much # # So much to be thankful for # # So much, so much, yeah # # To be thankful for # # I've got so much, so much, yeah # # And I just can't forget #

# Done for you # # So good # # And I just can't forget # # How you wash me with you # # So good # # And I just can't forget # # How you set me free # # You've been so good # # And I just can't forget # # That we're praising to you # # So good # # And I just can't forget # # What you've done for me, yeah # # So good # # And I just can't forget # # How you wash me with you # # You've been so good # # So good # # And I just can't forget # # How you set me free # # You've been so good # # Oh, hey # # I just can't forget # # I just can't forget # # And I just can't forget # # You've been so good # # Oh, hey # # So much to be thankful for # # So much to be thankful for # # Oh, my God #

# So much to be thankful for # # So much to be thankful for # # A thousand those things are million more # # It's so easy # # To raise you with your blood # # Oh, my God # # So much to be thankful for # # What you've done for me, yeah # # Oh, hey # # And I just can't forget # # What you've done for me, yeah # # Oh, hey # # And I just can't forget # # How you wash me with you # # Oh, hey # # Yeah # # And I just can't forget # # How you set me free # # You've been so good # # And I just can't forget # # And I just can't forget you with you # # So much to be thankful for # # Oh, hey, yeah # # Oh, hey, yeah # # Got it on me, got it on me # # So much to be thankful for, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah # # Oh, my God # # So much to be thankful for # # So much to be thankful for # # I've got it #

# So much to be thankful for # # So much to be thankful for # # I found your blessings # # And they'll get involved # # It's easy to praise you, Lord # # I've got so much # # So much to be thankful for # # Oh, my God # # So much to be # # So much to be thankful for # # Thankful for # # I've got so much # # So much to be thankful # # Oh # # Hallelujah # # Hallelujah # # Yeah # # Worthy of every song we could ever sing # # Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring # # Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring # Jesus the only one who could ever say Worthy of every breath, we could ever, we live for you, oh we live for you Holy, there is no one like you, there is none beside you Open up my eyes and wonder, show me who you are And fill me with your heart and lead me in your love through those around me Worthy of every song we could ever sing Worthy of all the praise, we could ever pray Worthy of every breath, we could ever, we live for you, oh we live for you Jesus the name above every other name Jesus the only one we could ever sing Worthy of every breath, we could ever, we live for you, oh we live for you

Holy, there is no one like you, there is none beside you Open up my eyes and wonder, show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love through those around me Holy, there is no one like you, there is none beside you Open up my eyes and wonder, show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love through those around me Lead me in your love, just lead me in your love, 'cause I'm standing right here And I will ill my life upon your love, it is a friend's foundation I will put my truth in you and I will not be shaken I will ill my life upon your love, it is a friend's foundation I will put my truth in you and I will not be shaken Holy, there is no one like you, there is none beside you Open up my eyes and wonder, show me who you are and fill me with your heart and lead me in your love through those around me Holy, there is no one like you, there is none beside you ♪ Show me who you are and tell me ♪ ♪ With your heart and me ♪ ♪ In your love to those around me ♪ ♪ Out in the hour ♪ ♪ In my life ♪ ♪ Upon your love ♪ ♪ In his love and foundation ♪ ♪ I will put my trust in you ♪ ♪ And I will not be safe ♪ ♪ And I will build my life ♪ ♪ Upon your love ♪ ♪ It is a foundation ♪ ♪ I will put my trust in you ♪ ♪ And I will not be safe ♪ (audience applauding) - How are we doing church? You guys good today? (audience applauding)

I love it. Hey, let's check in with our other campus and see how they're doing. Most city makes some noise over there. Come on, you know you want to. West and downtown make some noise. If you're watching online, that's weird at your house or whatever you're at, but make some noise if you want at the gym. And then let's do this. I want them to hear our love for them, all of the men that are behind bars campus, at the Ramsey unit. We love you gentlemen. (audience cheering) Love you so much. So a while back, I decided with the team once a month as a part of our worship experience because this is an incredibly fundamental part of what it looks like to be a worshipper, we are going to stop before we get into the message and we're just going to pray over our finances. All of these groups, if you guys read these now or later, if my preaching gets boring, it might about 15 in, just start reading this. All of these groups are able to happen and be resourced and staffed. And many of them meet at the church facilitated for one reason and one reason only because of your guys' faithful giving.

And our team, I'll speak on behalf of our team, I cannot tell you how grateful we are for the faithful givers who give sacrificially and generously and consistently at all of our campuses to make this thing move forward. Every time you take some of your hard earned money and you give to this cause, the local church, which happens for us to be River Point and West End, listen to me, there's someone in the cancer care group that's able to meet because we facilitate it and we have teams ready to take care of people who are going through cancer. Every time the grief share meets and there's people who are on the back end of the worst human experiences when we lose people we love, we have a huge team of people that meet together to share and to bear one another's burdens in grief. Every time our youth and our kids and our young adults get to meet in any of the facilities and we have leaders there and they're staffing it, every time you give to this cause, I wanna challenge you to not just see it is a nice charitable thing to do, we can give to all kinds of nice charitable things and that's great, I want you to first see when you give as simply an act of worship to God. You may disagree, but I don't know of anything more practically sacrificial than when you take the hard earned money that all of you have worked for and said God for your kingdom and for your glory,

we are dedicating a portion of our income for something so much bigger and more important than ourselves. You can't tell me God doesn't wanna bless that. You can't tell me God doesn't wanna affirm that. So here's what we're gonna do and then we'll jump into the message. We're gonna stand at every campus and we're gonna pray over the finances of our households. We're gonna pray for everyone that's struggling right now with some maybe debts, college or credit card debt. We've all been there, most of us, we know the pressure, we're gonna pray for people that are unemployed in our church right now. Times are tough, supply and demand type issues, right? We know how hard it can be to find a job right now, but we believe in the miracle working power of God and the favor of God. So will you guys stand and let's honor the Lord as we pray over our sacrificial act of worship and giving? Come on, let's fight for our families, let's fight for our homes right now. Let's pray big prayers to God. Jesus, it's in your awesome name that we even have the confidence to come before you right now, God. And we ask Lord that you would bless our homes, bless our households, God, with provision that we need to do what you've called us to do, Father God. that are sitting under sometimes the intimidating and what seems insurmountable, weight of debt, God, whether it's credit cards, whether it's college loans,

whatever it may be, God, I ask for solutions that you give us, God. We ask for the spirit of self-discipline, Father God. We ask that you would send encouragement our way. God, for sometimes you choose to supernaturally help people get out of those situations. God, that's up to you, but whatever it is, we pray strength over those people, we pray faith over those people, encouragement over those people. God, I pray for everyone in our church family that is currently unemployed and desperately needing work. God, I pray that you would give them favor with employers and managers as they're interviewing God, that they would see something different about our people, that they would see a light in them, that they would want them to be a part of their company or organization, Father God. We are believing you for this, Lord, in these times. God, I pray a sweet blessing over every person that is gonna give, yet again faithfully, this week and this month, Lord, I pray that it would just be this beautiful act of worship that you would see from all of us, God. We are here first and foremost to seek you first, to give our first and to give our best, trusting God that you will add everything else unto us. Lord, we thank you for the privilege of getting to be generous people in your name and for your cause.

And so, Jesus, everything we've just asked and petitioned you for, we ask it in the mighty name of Jesus. And everyone said, "Amen, you can have a seat." So, in case you didn't know about football season again, it's coming up on us. And I could not tell you how excited I am about that. You may not be. Pray for me and my family. I'm on two fantasy football leagues this year. Pray for the next three months as I go off to war that my wife and kids will be all right. So, my youngest son, he loves football. He's passionate about football. He's 11 years old and for the first time he signed up, we finally let him sign up for a tackle football league. He's a part of the Pecan Grove Gators, okay? Yes. And when we signed up, we knew we're in Texas now. We've quickly learned all the football cliches about Texas are true. But it wasn't until we got charged for this football league that we really understood what's going on in Texas. Some of you know what I'm talking about, right? I don't know what's going on with kids sports these days, but you gotta, I mean, you gotta have a second job if you want your kids to be athletic at all. It's stupid. Anyways, we love for him to get to do that. We paid the exorbitant fees to be a part of this league

and we thought that was it. We pay, we drop 'em off at practice, the coaches do what they do. We show up to games on the weekend and everything's great, right? Not the case at all, 'cause it's Texas football. My wife accidentally signed up on accident to be the team mom. We're new to the league. If you've ever done that in a sport, you know that's a part-time unpaid job. In fact, it's been costing us extra money since we started. She's having to fundraise. Last weekend, before our first game this weekend, there was this massive league party with all the different grades. There was probably five, 600 of us, parents and kids out there. They're through a huge party. Everybody brought tons of food. There were food trucks there. There were game trucks there. They had the inflatable games. There was a coach versus the player's game out there. There was loud music. Everybody was having a blast. It was just beautiful. But I did not know how deep we would get into this. Again, I'm a busy dude. I just wanted to go watch my son play

for an hour or two on Saturdays. I had to help my wife throw a party for 600 people. Outdoors. The first couple of weeks before the league started, they had practices before school started five days a week, two hours a day. And we're in Houston, y'all, right? The devil's armpit. It's so hot here. I still don't understand it, right? I kid you not, over half of the parents, me not being one of them, over half the parents for two hours, get out their lawn chairs. And they go out there and they watch their kids be not that great at football. (audience laughing) I've maybe sat out there once. And I would sometimes with AC in my car watch from a long distance. But watching with so much, I've just confounded. I mean, a little bit of judgment even, like why in the world, like go home, pick 'em up. Like I go home and I'll come pick you up in two hours. And my wife and I were talking about this 'cause we were a bit overwhelmed. And then the conversation ended up landing here, which was this, which was, do you know what these people, these crazy parents, including us now, do you know what we're all doing? We're having church.

(audience chattering) We're all participating with energy and with service and with resource and with sacrifice in the hot heat around a light cause. And I'm like, why do these people sit out here? And my wife and I concluded, you know what it is? Community, all threaded throughout the scriptures, Old Testament and New, from the beginning of time, listen to me, you were hardwired in your human DNA for community. Life was never supposed to be a do it alone endeavor. You understand that, right? Like we were never created by God to isolate or to live on an island. We were created to integrate, to pool our resources and our talents and our gifts and our abilities together and to live together amongst each other, to be accountable to each other, to bear one another's burdens, to celebrate each other's victories together in community through the thick and through the thin, through the good, through the bad, you, whether you're actively doing that in life right now or not, just know this, you were designed for it. And you can't go too long with this human heart before not being a part of intimate, intentional communities is gonna cost your soul something. It's gonna cost your life something. And so we have this pillar in our church and it's been a pillar that's been around

from the beginning long before I ever got here. And one of the five pillars is this, community counts around here. It matters on a profound level that we take this growing in this large room and these large rooms in these campuses and we find ways to make them intimate and we find ways to make them more like the original church was living together. And listen to me, I wish this was easy, but this is perhaps one of the greatest challenges that I have and that we have as a team is finding ways to take these big weekend moments and shrink them down to something that is intimate and something that is more helpful, something that is more accountable than just the Sundays. And so I wanna start with the scripture on this community count weekend that we're gonna build from. It's the writer of Hebrews and we don't necessarily know who the writer of Hebrews was other than it was a church authority. So this person spoke with great authority. And man, this couple verses here, just two verses, it packs a punch, y'all. He wrote this, let us consider, that's what today's about. We're gonna all sit here and personally and privately consider some things. Let us consider how we may spur one another on and I love this towards what?

Towards love and towards good deeds, towards service of each other, service of our communities, service of the greater world. Not doing this, giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day of the Lord approaching. He said, let us not give up on meeting together and then listen to this as some are in the habit of doing. Can I just say this real quick about habits and the power of habits, life in so many ways, legacy in so many ways, purpose in so many ways, things we were made for really come down to habits. I wish it was a little more spiritual sounding than that, I wish it was a little less practical than that, but at the end of the day, so much of who we are is simply the sum total of our habits, things that we've devoted ourselves to, they can be good, they can be bad, they can even be ugly. But every habit over time, things you do habitually, over and over and over are going to result in consequence, good, bad or ugly. And the writer of Hebrews, one of the apostles, whoever it was, is saying, listen, not meeting together is a natural habit that over time starts to set in on all of us. This was written in the first century, y'all. They didn't have PTA meetings. They didn't have kids in sports. They didn't have kids in choir.

They have people to take to gymnastics or to dance class. They didn't have parent-teacher meetings. And you know what was happening in first century? More and more people were getting out of the habit of meeting together. They still had the same amount of time in their week, though, which meant they were moving their habits in other directions. And look, God sovereignly knew all of us here would be living in this era. He knew it would be so different than what it was like to live in the first century in the Middle East. He knew they would have way more free calendars. He knew their margin in their lives would be totally different. He knew that when it comes to healthy community, they would have a way easier shot at it and it was still hard for them than we have. He knew how quickly in 2026, and hear me when I say this, good things, but oftentimes at the expense of what? Ultimate things. And so the writer's saying, no, we gotta stay, and he's saying, meeting together, forming communities, not just this big one that is once a week for an hour on a Sunday, but forming communities is one of the holiest habits that will have a profound effect on your life that you could possibly take serious.

This is why community counts so much here at River Point. So I wanna talk to you about why we do small groups, why we have these medium-sized groups, why we have all these groups that meet outside of the Sunday morning experience. It's not just to offer you more, you don't need anymore to be offered to you. It's to offer you what we believe is essential to the human experience that God created us for. We believe it's so important to the church being who the church is supposed to be to the rest of the world. We believe that discipleship and growing and maturing in our faith never happens on accident. And is there some discipleship that takes place on Sunday morning? Yes, let's be clear. What we're doing right now is a biblical mandate. It's important to God, but can you hear me when I say this? It is incredibly limited, right? Like there is so much more integration that we are supposed to have as the church. And so when the church got started, Jesus, some of his last words as he was ascending to heaven was, "Hey, I want you, this small group of people "that would start the church as we know it now." About 100 some people. He said, "I want you to go to that upper room in Jerusalem." He told the disciples, "Member where we had that last supper? "I want you to go there, and I want you to sit up there,

"and I want you guys to do nothing else, "but then two things, pray and wait. "I want you to pray and wait until the promised Holy Spirit "that I promised you would come. "And then when it did, powerful things started to happen." And so it says, because of that, all of the people in the marketplace in Jerusalem started to hear this prayer meeting and crazy things. They started to hear people praying in their foreign language. They said, "What's going on?" Their prayers had created an audience of seekers, people intrigued with this God they're praying to Jesus. And so Pete, with the 120 as their leader, he goes out and he preaches in Acts chapter two, this powerful message. And you know what it says? Let's start reading Acts chapter two, verse 41. When he was preaching, those who accepted his message were baptized. About 3,000 people were added to that number that day. That is a leadership nightmare, y'all. That's a logistical nightmare. But what a good problem to have, right? It went from 120 faithful people birthing something to 3,000 in a day overnight. And so the next question you have to ask is, as a leader, what are we gonna do with these big crowds? How are we gonna minister to them? We can do 120, clearly. But 3,000 in a day.

What if this keeps up? We can't do that. So what did they devote themselves to? What were some of the new fundamentals and the new habits? It goes on to say that next. So they devoted themselves. Devotion is what habits. We're devoting to these practices. To number one, the apostles teaching. Number two, to fellowship. Number three, to the breaking of bread. And number four, prayer. Those four things were fundamental to the church. And I believe it's purest, infantile and healthiest stages. Those four things. Very simple to do, very hard to commit to. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together, I love this, unity. They were together and had everything in common. This is crazy, listen to this. They sold property and possessions to give to everyone and anyone who had any need. That's crazy, y'all. Listen to this kind of devotion. You're gonna get anxious with these next two words. Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and they ate together, I love this, with glad and sincere hearts.

Praising God and enjoying the favor of all of the people, and here was the natural result of this kind of community. The Lord added to their number daily, those who were being saved. - Yes. - A passion for making disciples of these new believers resulted in the evangelism of more and more people being added. "the secret-friendly church? "Are you the discipleship church?" And you know what the answer should be to that every single time? Yes. And what I see and what I choose to trust is that as we commit to getting deeper and deeper as a community, more and more integrated, not just to a Sunday morning one hour experience, but into each other's lives, there's something so attractive about that, that other people in your lives that may be far from God or searching out God or close to wanting to follow God, they see something about your life, your rhythms, your priorities, your habits and go, "You know what? "Tell me more." All of a sudden people have the opportunity to start being added more and more to the numbers. And so I wanna just quickly go over, I'm gonna do this real fast because we need extra time at the end for you guys to have some time before you leave

to go out and see if maybe God's up to something and you wanna be apart, maybe for the first time of one of our small groups that we offer or medium-sized groups, whatever it is, the first one they said was the apostles teaching. Now, I'm not an apostle, right? I'm a pastor, I'm a teacher, right? I'm not an apostle. So when I get up here and teach, my goal is to teach what mattered most to the apostles because what the apostles were teaching is what fundamentally mattered most to Christ in his message. So really when it says they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, that's not 'cause they were all around the apostles all the time, it was because the apostles were committed to teaching about the gospel of Jesus Christ. The closest thing in the integration of church that we have to the apostles teaching is devoting yourself to the weekend experience, which clearly the room's full. I think we have people over in the overflow. Hi, over there, sorry, you got here late, I apologize. But you guys know what I'm saying? Like, what we're doing right now is so incredibly beautiful, but please hear me when I say this. This Sunday morning experience is too limited for you to be the disciple, Jesus designed you to be. This Sunday morning experience,

if it's the only thing that you're integrated to when it comes to the church, it is going to eventually leave you frustrated. No matter how good a preacher might be, no matter how good some music might be, no matter how beautiful the facilities of any church might be, no matter how many amenities and opportunities the church might give you to make your life a little easier. None of that will be enough to go, oh, this is a vibrant church experience. Eventually you get used to all that stuff and you realize, man, this weekend experience is just a piece of the pie. It's just, if anything, one fourth, the apostle's teaching. But eventually it's also this, it's, what was the second thing it said, fellowship. I love this one, man, this is speaking my language because this is the one of the four things they were committed to in terms of habit that will seem the least spiritual. Do you know what fellowship means in modern language? Having fun together, enjoying each other's friendship and companionship, doesn't that sound amazing? Like permission to have a good time? That doesn't sound as holy as the apostle's teaching. Breaking bread, communion in the homes, prayer meetings, those clearly sound spiritual, but equally important was man, life is hard, get around some people, get in a community where you can still laugh, where you can still dine together,

where you can still share victories with each other, like have fun together, they fellowship together and this is beautiful. You guys have heard this quote before. I guarantee you, and it's usually in terms of talking about marriage, it says this, those who pray together, stay together, right? And man, I cannot tell you how true that is. But I would add equally important is this, those who play together, stay together. I mean that, I'll double down on that. Prayer sounds much more spiritual than playing together, but you show me a marriage where the fun is left the building and I'll show you a marriage that isn't everything it's supposed to be. You show me a church body, a church community locally where fun is left the building, we're enjoying each other's presence is left the building where that's no longer a part of the point or we don't get up here and call it holy and I'll show you a church that eventually becomes very limiting and uninspiring. Life is incredibly hard, we know that until Jesus comes again, trials, tribulations, suffering, difficulties, gonna be an integral part, why would we take having fun in each other's presence, some good old fashioned holy ways of enjoying life, why would we take that off the table? They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, they devoted themselves to fellowship,

do I have any foodies at our church? I love this one, they devoted themselves to what? The breaking of bread. Do you know what word is synonymous with communion, community. Some of Jesus's biggest unplanned, unintentional yet powerful moments showing us what the kingdom of God is like happened at a table around food, Matthew's house. We get told the reason he came to this earth. He's closest group of people he hung out with in the body of Christ. You know who it was? Mary, Martha and Lazarus. He just had this affinity for them. He loved going to their house. I don't know what it was, but that was like his safe people. That's where he could just go and rest and be himself. We see throughout the gospels there's a very close relationship with Mary and Martha and their brother who he loves so much. Do you know what he did? He raised them from the dead. It was all around meals. There's something so disarming and powerful about when the church gets out. Do you think we could have a lunch here every week? Look around. We couldn't do it. We couldn't serve you guys. We couldn't all get together and have a great meal together. It's too big, but man, there's powerful about having people in your life that are followers of Jesus that want to grow in Jesus, that want to walk in the full purpose of their lives for the glory of Jesus just like you. And there's something that starts to happen in a smaller group of people when you get to the point where you're inviting each other into each other's homes, right?

That's an intimate thing to do. And it's never been more awkward and hard post 2020, right? Stupid COVID, man. I hate even saying the word. But everyone got a little more reclusive after that. Everyone including in extroverts got a just a tad bit more introverted after that. This idea of communal living took a big hit in the last decade. You guys realize that? And yet we read in the scriptures, it's central to what we do as believers. We have to take it incredibly serious. I wrote my notes and after the 915, I deeply regret it. I wrote this. Those who dined together, shined together. So bad, cringy right there, so bad. Those who pray together, stay together. Those who play together, stay together, those who dine together, shine together, right? Like it's so cheesy and I really do apologize, quit talking, Chad. But it's so incredibly true. And then the last thing is this. And I know I'm going faster than I normally would, but again, one of the most important things about today is getting you guys out a little early so that we can have time to actually make a decision. To go and talk to these amazing leaders at all your campuses that are going to be out there in the tents that we have outside to tell you what kind of group they're doing, what they have to offer. And I want to be real clear, you're going to speed data out there. And I want to be real clear. You siding up for a group and trying it out does not mean you're set for life. It means go try it out. All of our group leaders that have just people like you, volunteers like you, have given up

their times in their homes and their resource and energy because they want to create this experience that goes far outside the Sunday morning thing. They've been trained and taught very well, hey, you're not going to be for everyone. If someone comes for a week or two to your small group and then never comes again, it's okay. Follow up. Make sure they're doing all right, but it's okay because we want to be in a place you kind of know when you find your people, right? And we want to give you opportunity after opportunity to just keep having chances to find your people because I'm telling you it's never going to be convenient to go out there and consider it, but it is a holy habit. If I had an hour with you guys, I would just tell very inspiring goose bumpy type story after story about what's happened just when people took another step towards community, towards intimacy, towards building trust with other believers like minded, heading in the same direction. Beautiful things. Surprise you when you start to readjust the calendar and relook at margin and maybe take a few things that you've gotten into the habit of doing and they're really great, they're not necessarily bad or evil or wrong, but they just aren't contributing to what this could contribute to. And you said, hey, it's maybe our time to give that a chance. The last thing they devoted themselves to is something if you've been coming here since since I got here a couple years ago. Prayer is the hardest thing Christians will do together and do well. Do you think that's on accident? Do you think that's random? It's not. Prayer is the good work of God. Prayer is the hard work of God. Prayer doesn't get rewarded immediately the way so many other external practices we do can.

Prayer doesn't promise to immediately give you external circumstantial results like a lot of those other things do. But what prayer does is opens up the floodgates of heaven to move. Because prayer is a really big act of faith. You are talking to an unseen God and putting your hope, your life, your trust, your burdens, your cares, your joys, your sorrows. You're putting him before him and saying, "God, would you be the king over all of these things?" "God, I'm desperate. God, I cannot do this without you." Are any of you here last weekend at our church service at all campuses? We had a prayer service. And we had never done that on the Sunday morning. We usually do it every now and then on Thursday nights and those have been great. And finally our team was like, "Man, we got to throw this out on Sunday mornings because there are so many people that don't come Thursday night that don't know what they're missing." And I promise you, the amount of feedback I got was so much more than I get from a good sermon. Thanks a lot guys, appreciate that. No, I kid, nothing made my heart more full of joy than the amount of feedback we got from what happened here last week. And it was so simple. Well, isn't it? The template was so simple. We're just going to intermix singing praises and worship to our king, which is such a beautiful thing to do together. And we're going to do that. And then in between that we're going to stop and we're going to recognize different people and people groups that God puts on our hearts and we're going to pray for each other. And we're going to have people stand up and acknowledge, "Hey, I'm in this category right now and we're going to pray for people." And people are going to be seen and people are going to be ministered to and it's not just the pastor up here trying to do all the work, it's us ministering to each other. Do you know my job as one of the pastors and really any pastors on our staff? Do you know what our job is? It's not to do everything you think a pastor is supposed to do for you. I'm one person. Let's do some quick math. I'm one person, so I can do a few people's weddings. I can do a few people in our church's funerals, but I can't do most of them. I can show up to some hospitals when some people are in some precarious situations, but I can't show up to most of them. I can pray for some people and sit in my office every week with some people which I do every week and get to know you more and bear the burdens with you and answer questions and whatever it is you need. I can do that, but I can only do that for a few people. And here's the thing, it was never meant to be the pastors doing it for all the people. Ephesians 4 makes it real clear that the pastors and teachers were given to us to equip you for works of service, to teach you that you're the minister now, to teach you that you have everything to offer. So when the hospital visit becomes a part of your story or the wedding or the funeral or the really dark or difficult time or even the amazing times that you want to share with people, who's on speed dial? Who's in your community that says we got you?

Pastor Chad will never get to the hospital for you, but guess what? Your small group will. Pastor Chad can't bring you meals after you have your first baby and you haven't slept in a week, but guess what? We'll have a small group full of people that do meal trains every time someone has a new kid. Amazing. We'll bring you the first three months of diapers, just because we love you. You're a part of our small group. We know you do the same for us if we ever have another little bambino. That's what we want and that's what we're called to. And trust me, this makes life so much closer to everything it's supposed to be. It's when there's a group of people and you said, let's become followers together. Let's learn this Jesus thing, this Jesus Kingdom stuff. Let's do it together. Let's integrate. This won't be for everyone I wish it was. I wish we were all in a small group tomorrow. But this is for people at every campus. I want you to hear me right now. At every campus, there's people right now and it's not my words. They've been very simple today. It's the voice of the Holy Spirit going, this is your time. This is a holy habit that I want you to integrate right now. Put your heart out there. For some of you, that's a scary thing, socially, whatever I get it. He's saying, "I want you to take a chance "and put your heart out there because there's some people "you don't know exist yet that are meant to be your people, "they're meant to be in your life. "And you're not gonna fully realize it or know it "until you put yourself out there and you join." And something beautiful happens, man. This experience gets richer, not 'cause the sermons get any better or the music gets any better, it gets richer because your integration is healthier and everything's starting to work functionally the way it was meant to work. And maybe, just maybe, the body of Christ can look better and more attractive for those God wants to add to our number, which is his job up to him more and more daily, simply because we have an integrated community of people that really do spur one another on towards love and good deeds.

And we don't get out of the habit of meeting together, but we continue it. Amen. So let's do this at every campus. I'm gonna pray right now a prayer, a blessing as I always do. We are getting out earlier than normal on purpose. At every campus you've already been told during the announcements that there's tents outside or wherever at your particular campus. I just wanna challenge you, don't walk out of here too fast if you don't think this is for you. I want you to go out and I want you to brave the heat. I did it all day at football yesterday. You can do it. And I want you to talk to these amazing men and women and people that are just there because they are ready to pour into your life and allow you to pour in to their lives. So before we leave, I pray this. This is God's heart for you, by the way. I'm just quoting scripture. I pray that the Lord would bless you this week, that he would keep you and your family in the grip of his grace, that he would cause his face this week to shine upon you beautifully, that he would turn his countenance towards you, and that every single one of you would leave today with a peace that passes understanding, that guard your hearts and guard your minds

in the name of Christ Jesus we pray. And everyone said, we love you guys.