Legacy Sunday

- Appreciate it, man. - All right, well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Legacy Sunday. Really glad that you are here. We're gonna welcome all of our campuses. We do these things called One Church Sundays where we all link up across Northwest Arkansas. And in many ways, this is like the ultimate One Church Sunday because today's really all about what God can do when a group of people in a church all come together for a significant day. So if you're here today and you're new, welcome, you're actually here on a good day, it's gonna be entirely different than the other 51 Sundays of the year. So I invite you to come back next week. But today, we're going to really recount what God has done over the last year. We're gonna look forward to some things in the future. So today's not a traditional sermon. So again, if you're new, come back next Sunday. We're beginning a brand new series on the book of Job that we'll carry us through the holidays. And so look forward to that. But we have asked everyone who calls cross church home, our members and regular attenders, to come prepared today to give something beyond what they normally give. And this will tell you a lot about our church

that typically on Legacy Sunday, if you announce that this is a generosity day and a lot of churches and a lot of churches, the attendance would go way down. And our church, historically, actually it goes up, which just says a lot about you, a lot about the church that you are, and you're a great group of people. And even better, we serve a great God. Amen, we really do. And I want to take this morning to remind us of why we are here as a church. If I were to ask you that question, no doubt there are probably a lot of answers. If well, we're here for this, we're here for that. And so I just want to be like laser focused and be very clear with you that as your pastor, give you a reminder of what we're actually here to do, what are we really here for? We're here to take the gospel to the world. Really nothing more, nothing less. You could boil it down to that simple of a thing. We're here to take the gospel to the world. Our mission is reaching Northwest Arkansas, America and the world for Jesus Christ. And if you think about all the last things that Jesus said, we see that in the look of Acts, but we see that almost one of the last things that He said was what we know as the great commission in Matthew chapter 28, this is our verses for today.

Jesus said to His disciples, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. You say, well, what are we here for? That right there, like this is our call and we exist for those who are not yet here. So think about the open seats besides some of you today. Why are we here? We're here for those people who are not yet here. And we're here to invite those people into the life that only Christ can give them. And I want to invite you into that today. This is worth giving your life to this mission. And I would say this mission is worth sacrificing financially for, and again, we are inviting you into that today. And so I wanted to take a quick look back, better said. What God has done over the last year and celebrate some things together, then we'll move forward and talk about some great opportunities that are ahead of us. Let me give you a quick update on the church. Number one, simple, the church has grown. I think you've felt that, you've since that. If you wonder how much we've grown, last year we grew in attendance by 1,291 people, which is a big praise God. Yeah, no doubt, let's give God praise.

I say let's give God praise because honestly we're not that good. Like this is not us, this is a work of God, work of the Holy Spirit, so praise the Lord for that. As you know, we started a campus in Farmington, we call the Highway 62 campus. Let me give you a quick update on that. Highway 62 is thriving. We launched this campus back in February. We met for several months in Farmington High School, and then we moved into our new building in June. Let me tell you about what God is doing there. This campus is averaging 1,261 people every Sunday. So it's incredible. You'll see some shots behind me right here. Even better than that, we have seen 131 people make a profession of faith in Jesus since February, so praise God for that. Amen. What do you think about this? Because of your generosity over the last several years, to the ministry budget, to this decade of love offering today, we've done the last few years, because of that, we were able to purchase and renovate this building. And before anyone new ever came to our church, before any lost person ever met Jesus, you had already given so that we could put a church in their community, free of charge to them.

See three is the name of our college students over the last several summers. We have sent college students on missions experiences really in Northwest Arkansas America and the world. We have said very clearly, we have a, we have an agenda, and it's not a hidden agenda. Okay, it's a very open agenda you'll see even the picture, let's throw that picture of all these 33 we had 33 college students this past summer. And our, our not so hidden agenda with them was this, we want to send you short term. So that God may call some of you long term to be missionaries. And we've told them that and we told every college student that we've done over the last several years, this experience with. Let me, let me say how God used these students all over the world this last summer. These 33 students recorded over 900 gospel conversations with 204 people being saved across the world. It's incredible. Our team heard powerful stories listen to this of college students engaging with agnostics in Columbia, atheist in California, and sharing the name of Jesus with Muslims and Hindus in central and in Southeast Asia. We talked to them when they get home and we like do a report of okay what God doing your heart. Every one of these 33 recorded to us getting clarity in their calling. Many are considering attending our own seminary summer in the process with a journeyman experience with the international mission board which is kind of like a one to two year mission thing. And others are considering church planning residencies. This is interesting for these students of the 33 are now praying about moving back to the city in which they served getting a job and working at that church. It's just incredible what God is so can we stop and just praise God for how he's working in the lives of our students. You're giving today will help send out the next group of cohort of students. This coming summer we are already interviewing students for that. Can I be honest with you like just give you a frank word. We have more students that are willing to go than funding to send them. So think about what a remarkable thing God is doing. We have more that would say I'll go. But we're having to pick and choose just because we don't have enough funding so you're giving in your generosity is very much appreciated today. If you're newer to our church in September of 2020 everybody remember 2020. We there was like a third of you in this room at that time. And, and I laid out what we just called the decade of love it was a vision for how we're going to go about reaching Northwest Arkansas America and the world over the next 10 years together. And let me let me briefly walk through we didn't across the L.O. V.E. and we call these the four lanes of love you're giving in the past and today affects all four of these things. The L stands for legacy we want to leave a legacy of reaching the next generation and preparing the church for the future. By God's grace we're six years end of the decade pretty hard to believe and God is accomplishing this very desire. We have thriving next in ministries at every campus reaching babies all the way to reaching young adults. God has blessed us to be in a healthy financial situation because of your generosity that has allowed us to pay off debt renovate campuses build buildings and add a new campus. And we have been able to prepare for the future with other potential campuses in our view. I'll talk about that here in just a moment. The O is this it stands for obedience to Christ's Commission. This is pretty wild since September of 2020. More than 2,500 if you have gone somewhere around the world on a mission trip. I props to you that's honestly that's an amazing thing over the last six years we have eight we've had 18 people who have raised their hand and said I think God is calling me to the mission field and they have left Northwest Arkansas to move somewhere in America or the world to be a missionary. We have five more right now that are in the pipeline with the International Mission Board.

One of the goals we set was we said we want to plant 10 churches across this decade and strategic cities. Can I give you some good news where we're at today. Six years into the mission here. We have now planted 28 churches in the cities of London, England, Longmont, Colorado, Orlando, Florida, New York City, Edinburgh, Scotland and Valencia, Spain. Come all. Let's give God some praise on that. The V stands for those who are vulnerable and one of the vulnerable groups that we have tried to minister to in an intentional way are those who are incarcerated. We have an ongoing presence locally through our who's right here on the front row today. In fact, we have seen about 246 people be baptized through our partnership with the jails. We are also a part of something, this is all a part of your giving the last two years to this offering. We joined with a ministry that is known as the PANDO app. And in prison, there are tablets, kind of like an iPad, and there's a specific app that they can click on called the PANDO app and it puts churches from all over the world. It puts their services on the tablet so they can watch while being in jail or in prison. And so two years ago, roughly maybe 18 months ago now, we said, well, let's jump onto that. These are in thousands of tablets across 46 states in the prison system. And they can subscribe, like everybody gets an account. And these people who are incarcerated can click on it and they can subscribe, just like you would subscribe to a podcast, okay? Listen to this. This is kind of groundbreaking right here.

We do this in English and in Spanish with Pastor Pablo. We now have 11,507 subscribers and have now passed over 530,000 views with 434 professions of faith. Let's go. (audience applauding) Isn't that awesome? Again, all of that may possible because of your generosity to this offering. Now, let me look in the camera because some of you today are incarcerated. You're watching this service on the Pando app. I want you to know that there's a church in Arkansas that loves you, doesn't see you as a project, but sees you as a part of what we're doing here. We love you. We hope God uses this app to further your Christian walk. And all collectively, why don't we give it up for all those who are watching to be a Pando? (audience applauding) Come on now. One of the other vulnerable categories we set out to minister to in a greatly intentional way was just the poor in our community and the hungry. And this has primarily taken place through compassion and feed 479. It is thriving more than ever. Due to the generous donations of many of you to feed 479, we're grateful for that. This is just wild what God has done,

how God has used Jeff Pearson, who's on our team to lead that team and many volunteers. In 2019, we fed 23,519 people and saw 85 professions of faith. I mean, that's awesome. Great, praise God for that. (audience applauding) Just wait. Last year, we fed 285,359 people and saw 837 professions of faith. (audience applauding) If you do the math, I did not, it was given to me, okay? If you do the math, that's about 2.9 million meals, okay? That we have been able to be a part of giving to this community. E stands for equipment, encourage pastors and missionaries. God has opened doors beyond what we can imagine here. We now, through the leadership of Jeff Crawford, have a fully accredited seminary with 67 students training for ministry in the mission field. Every student that comes through our seminary receives a fully funded tuition scholarship because of your generosity. And I'll talk more about that here in just a second. Last, well, not even last month, September, it's November now. In September, we hosted our called to leave conference. 800 church leaders from over 100 different churches. This is completely free to these churches because of your generosity. So don't think of churches like ours

with budget money for conferences. Think about the small church in Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas that we're able to welcome those pastors, maybe some laymen and lay volunteers and their staff to our church. And for a day, we get to say, hey, here's how you go reach your community. And God did an incredible work there again. So I just want to stop before we move on any further and just say, thank you like a million times. Thank you for giving to our ministry budget, which is the lifeblood of our church. Thank you for giving to this offering the decade of love offering. God has used it abundantly. And these four lanes that I've just talked about have been our focus for this decade. That will remain these last four years. And we're thankful for how your generosity both in the years past and today will make an impact on these things. We're all part of something bigger than yourselves. Do you sense that today? This is bigger than me. This is bigger than you. Today's about us and how God is using us collectively together. I want to highlight four things that we're giving to today. And they all really fall all in between those four lanes of love, but I want to give you four things that are of emphasis for us over the coming year.

Okay, here's what we're giving to today. Number one is this, we're giving to reaching our public schools, reaching our public schools. We're announcing a new initiative today. I want to call us back to evangelism. We are here to reach people. And I just want to call us back to a focus on reaching our community. You ask, well, where are there like tons of people in a concentrated area every day? You know where that is? It's our schools. And so our local public schools are going to become a greater focus for our church. Let me give you some context here, okay? We have over 100 public schools near our four campuses. This represents roughly 80,000 plus students with about 7,000 plus staff. And when you think about all the family members that are connected to these staff or students, that's about 150,000 people in our community that are in some way connected to these schools. Many of you have your kids in these schools. Many of you work in these schools. What we are saying today is that we want to love these students, these teachers, these staff, in a more intentional way than we ever have and to be able to share the gospel with them. This is beyond our staff. So I don't want you to think, oh, that's a cool thing the staff's doing. Like I'm calling the church to run hard after our public schools and love these students, okay? We are asking for your generosity today. It is our plan to work with each school district to help identify the biggest needs and gospel opportunities. We foresee it looking different in every district, okay? Our campus pastors have been in the process of either meeting with or reaching out to every superintendent in every district where our church community is to express our desire

to partner with them. And it is our hope to hear what needs do they have. We don't want to come to them like, hey, we want to do this for you. What do they need and let us help minister to them in that way? It may be that we're helping physically minister to the needs of children. It may look like we're bringing sonic drinks to the teaching, you know, to the teachers and faculty, okay? Just things like that. It may look like we're helping a part of their campus like a campus beautification project. Like we have no idea that we expect it to look different everywhere. Here's a question I want us all to answer. What would it look like if the schools of Northwest Arkansas saw that this church was the church in the community that was for them? Like when they drive by, they're like, oh, yeah, a woman came by and she dropped this off a gift card last week. Oh, man, yeah, I remember that group, they came and they cleaned up all the bushes where our church, you know, out the front yard, like stuff, stuff like that. What if they thought that about us now to be clear? We're asking you to give towards this effort today. There's going to be a second wave coming in the next few months. You say, well, what is that? We're not asking you to give again, what we're asking you at that point is to get involved, to help us here and you be a part of this mission to reach those who are in our public schools. For every student across all four campuses who is in a public school, we believe you're a missionary there and that God can use you. For every parent of a student in one of these schools, we believe that God wants to use your family to reach other people. For every teacher, coach, administrator, staff person that serves in our public schools, we believe in you, we need you, you're on the front lines of ministry.

And can we just start right now in all of our schools across Los Angeles, all of you who serve, can we thank them for all that God is using them to do? If you want to take the gospel to public schools, I'm asking you to give today. Okay? Here's the second thing we're giving to today. I'm just calling it training church leaders. As I mentioned earlier, we launched Cross Theological Seminary three years ago. In fact, I announced it three years ago on Legacy Sunday. We have 67 students enrolled, as I said. We just graduated in May, our first class of 39 students. You'll see their picture up behind me. Incredible thing is that every one of these students has a story and some of them like have remarkable stories. I realize that every time we talk about the seminary, I'm not stupid. I realize some of you are like, Nick, I don't really know why we're doing this. I don't really get it. I don't know why we're spending money on that. I don't know why we've embarked on that endeavor. And for some of you, the idea of a minister getting a master's degree doesn't fire you up at all. Can I be honest with you, it doesn't really fire me up at all either. It doesn't. Jeff Crawford's here in the second row, doesn't really fire him up either. We've said this thing has never been about degrees or diplomas. It's always been about training the next generation of church leaders to take the gospel to the world. And so instead of like me just saying, well, we graduated at 39 and you don't know who me and those people are. Or we got 67 enrolled, you don't know who to do a 67 are. Can I put like a real story before you today?

Let's watch the screens. - My name is Ethan Taylor. I go to Cross Theological Seminary and I work at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry on the U of A campus and this is my story. Three days after I was born, I was taken home by my adoptive family and that actually played a big part into my story. I just kept searching the world because I had big questions and I never got the answers to those questions. While I was in college, I thought that the parties and all these things would fill that part of me and it never did. I actually got interviewed to work at a Christian camp that summer. The day I got the camp, Jesus radically changed my life. Someone wrote in my journal, "God does not call the equipped, he equips the called." I had realized that God was calling me in the ministry. One of my friends told me about Cross Theological Seminary and how I should apply and they asked me why did I want to be at Cross Seminary and I said, "I've been called but I haven't been equipped yet." And so that started off this big journey of being here and pursuing a theological training so that I can be properly equipped to share the gospel with the people around me. I began to work at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry as a campus missionary. And what I didn't know is that while on a mission trip

to Vancouver, Canada with Cross Seminary, I actually had the opportunity to meet my biological mother in person. It changed my entire life. One of the things that she told me was that the reason that I was conceived was because my father had abused her. She told me that her aunt had told her about a man who gives hope to the hopeless, healing to the broken and salvation to the lost. And she knew that she had to keep me no matter what because of that. And from that moment, it impacted my ministry and my future because it helped me to have the eyes to see the least. And because of that, now I know that I need to chase the lost sheep and to go after that one because I was that one and so was my mother. Thank you so much, Cross Church, for your generous giving. And without your giving, I don't get to have this theological education. And even more than that, I don't know if I would have ever gotten to meet my biobomb. And so from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much. (audience applauds) - It's not about a diploma. It's about sending people just like Ethan. And your generosity today will help train people like Ethan and send out people like Ethan. Third thing we're getting to today within these four lanes of love is what I just call margin for future opportunities.

Many years ago, we set out to live with margin in our finances. This year, for instance, like if you wonder like, how are y'all handling the money? This year, we have only budgeted 88% of what we believe will come in to the church based on giving trends. So we're already like 12% below what we even expect will come in. On top of that, we have intentionally set margin within our budget for opportunities that we don't even know about right now. And so this margin has allowed us to be intentional about future options. We have shared some of this in the past of the past year or two. So some of this is just an update like what we've been working on behind the scenes. Our pastors council is a group of laymen and staff who come alongside of me. They're involved in any major decision of the church, especially financially. And so they have been all in this. We've been very open to what we see in the future happening is that at this point, we believe we will add more campuses in North as Arkansas. That's not a hundred percent, but we have been doing what we can to prepare for that if the Lord leads us in that manner. Our pastors council has been unanimous on one thing.

I think you're probably unanimous on it as well. Land is not getting cheaper in North as Arkansas, right? And so we've tried to go ahead. We have purchased a few properties over the last 18 months that could serve as potential campuses. Keyword is could. Everybody say could, good. All right. How have we done that? You have given generously. We have done our best to steward with margin so that we can jump on opportunities that come our way. Keyword of the day, well, Nick, where are these locations at? I'm not going to say, I'm sorry. We're not ready to let the cow out of the bag. Because honestly, we're not a hundred percent that these will become campuses. If I announce these, it becomes a story, it becomes an expectation. The honest with you, we are not there yet. Our mode of thinking, like the church's leadership, our mode of thinking has been this. Let's prepare. Let's go ahead and buy property. Let's see what the Lord wants us to do. If He changes our plans, we fully believe we'll be able to sell these properties and come out completely fine. Okay, so this may be for two years from now.

Maybe for 20 years from now. Maybe never. Maybe tomorrow. Yeah, never enough. Little praise God moment in the middle of all that, we have purchased all these properties completely debt-free. So praise God for that. Yeah, hallelujah. (audience applauding) Let me, I saved the best for last, okay. This is the last thing we're giving to today. I'm just calling it missions expansion, okay? Missions expansion. For many years, we have given at least a million dollars in our budget towards the cause of missions, sometimes much more than that. But we give significant amounts of money every year to our partnership with two mission boards. These are the two mission boards of our convention of churches. It's the International Mission Board and the North American Mission Board. Through the International Mission Board, there's about 3,500 international missionaries right now that you're giving and my giving supports. On top of that, the North American Mission Board has about 6,000 of those who are national missionaries and those who are also serving as chaplains in the military. So, all in all, there's about 9,000 people that we are funding for Great Commission Work

through our giving to, honestly, just to the ministry budget alone right there. I'm happy to report to you that in the budget, we just passed in September that began August 1st. We have upped our giving, increased that to both of these mission boards for the cause of reaching people, okay? As I shared a moment ago, we had a goal of saying, "Hey, over the next 10 years, let's plant 10 churches." We're now at 28. I got a question for you. We'll go for a vote, okay? If you're in favor of continuing to plant churches, raise your hand and say, "Aye." - Aye. - Okay. Based on that vote, it has a role, okay? Here's what we're gonna do. Our next church plan that we're gonna announce today is gonna be a little bit of a different situation. In 2013, a man by the name of Ashley Austin and his wife, April, moved from Mississippi to a major city to begin a church called Canvas Church. They moved to one of the most unreached cities in all of North America and all these years later, we're gonna kind of come behind them and help them as they continue to grow. I'm really excited to tell you that our next church plant is going to be in the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada. Come on now, it's exciting.

(audience applauds) We'll show you this area on a map as well in case you're like, "Where in the world's Vancouver?" I know it's Canada, it's just up there, all right? Far northwest that you'll see on the screen up there, okay? You may ask, "Well, Nick, why are we supporting "a church plant that is 13 years old? "Isn't that just called a church now?" And yes, that is very true. It is, but it's actually a thriving church that's reaching people there. On Vancouver Island, which is where they're located, listen to this, there are 750,000 people. You know, it's larger than the entire population in northwest Arkansas, right there, on this one Island. And a very small percentage of these people are actually even in church. In their earliest days as they began, the church pastor actually believed that God had called in to Vancouver, not just to plant one church, but to plant multiple churches on Vancouver Island. And so much like we've done in New York City and Valencia, Spain, we are joining a church planning movement that needs churches like ours to help churches like theirs, okay? And I would encourage you to begin praying. It's 20, 27, the year that God wants you to go on a mission trip and He wants you to go to Vancouver.

I've heard it is beautiful. You may have been to Vancouver before? Okay, looks like you're the first trip. Okay, thanks for volunteering right there, all right? Hey, can I say something crazy? What would y'all think about not just doing one this year? You may want to do two this year? That's not okay, all right? What if I told you we had another opportunity on the other side of the world to plant multiple churches in an area where there are only about 1% born again believers. Again, we are jumping in on another church planning movement. I've used that statement. You may say, what is a church planning movement? It's when multiple churches join together and pull our funding together, usually through a missions organization or third party. And we together say, we don't just want to plant one church. We're coming in with the goal of planting multiple churches across this region. That's what we're doing in this city. The anchor city we're targeting is about 100,000 people with a metro population of over 2 million people. And I'm really excited to tell you that our next church plan is going to be all the way across the world in Sri Lanka, okay? I like that music, y'all like that music? It's pretty good, I like it right there. Let me tell you more about what God is doing

in Sri Lanka already. We have the opportunity to join in a movement that is targeting and reaching what are called Tamil Hindus, okay? Already through this movement, there are 11 churches that have already been planted and that we're coming alongside of them to add gasoline to the fire. Okay? And so I want to encourage you again to begin praying about who needs to go to Sri Lanka in 2027 on a mystery. Anybody in this room, been to Sri Lanka? Okay, two, first two people right here for 2027 headed to Sri Lanka, he's like, yes, okay, that's good. It's awesome. We're looking forward to what God's gonna do there, okay? Hey, can I say something crazy? What would y'all think about not doing one? Not doing two? Maybe okay, if we go for three church point locations this year? Is that okay? I feel like Oprah today, by the way, like you get a church and you get everybody gets a church. Someone's already sent me a picture of my head on Oprah's body after the eight o'clock service at Fayetteville, I almost shared it, but I think it's two inappropriate. But it was funny, okay? What if I told you at the opportunity to jump in on another church planning movement

in an area with 2.5 million people where 97% are Catholic and less than 2% are born again believers. Incredible opportunity here. So I'm excited to tell you, our next church point location is going to be in Leon, Mexico. Leon, Mexico. (audience applauding) For some of you, you're like, that says Leon, we're going Leon, Mexico. You pronounce it Leon, okay, Leon, okay. This is interesting just in like evangelical circles here and people who are trying to reach different parts of the world. This area is known as the silent circle, this area of Mexico. It is one of the most unreached areas in all the Americas. Listen to this. This is the largest poorly evangelized Spanish-speaking region in Mexico. So I hope some of you will also begin praying this year about is 2027 the year that I take a trip just south to Leon, Mexico on a mission trip. We are joining other churches and focusing on this part of the world to plant again, multiple churches in the Leon, Mexico area. So really, think about it. We're not just announcing three church plants today. We are announcing that we are involving ourselves

and we are funding three different church planning movements all the way from Canada to Mexico to Sri Lanka. What an incredible opportunity that God has put before us this year in the area of missions. So that is what we are giving today. Now, this is a generosity day. Let me speak to you about giving for just a moment, okay, as we wrap up. In fact, I want to lay out to you what I just call the giving strategy at Crosschurch. Some of you are new at our church. You're like, well, how do y'all do it here? What are you really asking of us? Some of you are like, Nick, just be clear. What are you asking us to do? Here's what we ask you to do, okay? I'm asking you to join our family in this. Number one is this. I'm asking you to tithe to the ministry budget, okay? You say, well, what is a tithe? The tithe is when you give 10% of what you earn back to God through your local church. I'm not asking you to do anything that Meredith and I are not doing. Like we left 10% a long time ago of what we actually give in our tithe to our church. And here's the way that we look at it. We're not giving to crosschurch, even though we are giving to crosschurch. We are giving to God through our church.

Like I feel accountable to God, not to you. Like I feel accountable to you in every other area of my life. But in my generosity, I feel accountable to God before I feel accountable to you. I think you should feel the same way. Like you need to feel accountable to the Lord. So that's how we do it. The tithe to the ministry budget, this is the lifeblood of our church. This is where we get to the International Mission Board, North American Mission Board. This is how your kids have snacks and preschool today. This is how they have Bible study materials in your small groups today and much, much more, okay? What we are giving to today with a decade of love offering benefits people that most of you will never meet. Like you can make a case, ministry budget, like in some way, you benefit. Like there's lights today, there's heat and air today. So like at least that little benefit beyond that. What we're giving to today benefits people that you will never meet in your life. So we ask you to be a tither to the ministry budget. And then what we're asking you to do today is to give over and above to what we call the decade of love. You say, well, why do we do this one time a year? Well, part of our strategy in doing this is so that we don't nickel and dime you to death all year long.

Hey, it's camp scholarship time. Everybody give to camp scholarships. Hey, disaster just happened across the world. There was a massive typhoon or tornado. Let's all give to that. And then we have to come to you the next Sunday the year. And guess what gets funded today? Camp scholarships get funded today. Guess what else happens today? Like when there's a disaster, we don't have to come to church the next Sunday and ask you to give. We just give. That makes sense? So you're providing funds for the entire year. So we're very, very excited about that. Excited about something we're going to unload next week to you. Operation Christmas Child, if you've never done that with your family, a great easy, generous missions experience for you and for your kid. Okay? So we're asking you to give today above and beyond so that we can go above and beyond where we normally go. So how can we give? There's two ways to give. You can give a one-time gift today or you can give throughout the year. You have a one-time gift today or you can give throughout the year. All right? Meredith, I have done this both ways. We've done a big gift only on Legacy Sunday before. Other times we've set it up in our account where we just give monthly to the Decade of Love. We're actually doing both today. I have the very, very beginning of our giving of what we've committed for the year of what we want to give. And then yesterday as we were driving back to Morelton in back for a cheer competition, Meredith gone on her phone and she adjusted what we want to give, get debited out of our account to the Decade of Love. So we do recurring giving for both. That helps you. Great. Our tithe is recurring. Our Decade of Love giving is recurring. So you can give however you want to give in that manner. Okay? You'll see we're going to put up even up on the screen the different ways that you can give today. Every chair I believe had an envelope when you came in today. You can give obviously in that. Here's what I would tell you when you exit there's going to be giving boxes at every campus as you leave. Anything that is put in here will be given to the Decade of Love offering. Some of you come prepared for both. Like I got my tithe and I'm going over and above. Anything that is not in this envelope will go to the ministry budget. I just want to make sure your giving goes where you want it to go. Okay? Now beyond that you'll see we've got various options here. You can give through our app,

QR code. There'll be kiosk things throughout the campus. You can go to the next steps booth. If you have questions or want to do like a square type of giving or announcing today, you can actually get through Venmo now. It's a new thing. You've never been able to do that. So hopefully it makes your life easier. Okay? That is that. Let me let me wrap up like this. Okay? From my heart to your heart. You've heard me say this before. You hear us say it often. We move at the speed of your generosity. We move at the speed of your generosity. I heard someone say this recently. I said pastors set the vision but the people determine the pace of the vision. Interesting way to say it. We set the vision but you determine the pace of the vision. We have an amazing future ahead of us. I just want you to know that. Like with what God is doing on all four of our campuses, with where we believe that God is moving us in missions across the world that I just shared, with potential campuses in the future, where if we end up at these locations where we have bought land, it's going to be awesome. So we've got an incredible opportunity but we will never reach that potential if every person in our church is not doing their part. And so we've encouraged like, we don't have a monetary goal. I honest before God, there's not a number that I that I know in my mind of, okay, we got to hit this today. We don't set a monetary goal. We set a participation goal. We went everybody who calls Crusher's to do something all the way down to our kids. In fact, like in our kids areas today, they get like a little legacy box that they get to bring and you'd love the things that we get turned in. We get toys turned in. We get candy turned in, which I love, don't you? We get all these things. And then I saw somebody at the eight o'clock at Fayetteville on the outside of his box. It was written $36. Let's go. We were having this conversation on the dinner table this week because like, just like, you know, I've encouraged your family. I've encouraged my family. Like, okay, kids, hey, we've said, we want everybody to do something. So what do y'all want to do? And my sixth grader looked at me and says, I'm broke. It's not okay. It's a lot. I've got $10. I'll give you. Okay. It's not about $10. It's not about $36. It's about teaching our children. It is more blessed to give than it is to receive that the things of this world pale in comparison to what Christ has been in our lives and what God can do when we are just generous people. So I heard this statement from a from a pastor in Washington, D.C. Several months ago now, his name was Aaron Graham. And I just saved it because I was like, Here's what he said. He says the lies that we can change the world with our spare change and with our spare time

The lies that we can change the world we can take the gospel of the world with our spare change and with our spare time We have a mission that is too great To just tip God every now and then We have a mission that is worth Sacrificing financially for I'm inviting you to do that like my family's doing that This mission is worth giving your life to you. I'm involved. I'm asking you to involve your life in the life of this church I'm asking you to go all in with the Lord to go all in with this offering today and Let's just see what God can do When a group of people From all different back like I wish you could see what I see today all different ages ethnicities backgrounds stories The God put us all in in one church in Northwest Arkansas For a moment like this and so I'm just asking you to ask the Lord what do you want you to do and Let's be a generous church together. Okay. Can we bow ahead and close our eyes? I'm gonna ask our staff to make their way to the front of each aisle. They're gonna remain down here We're not gonna do a invitation like normal today as soon as I pray we're gonna be dismissed and Again, if you have questions about the Lord if you have questions about the giving if you have questions about anything You can always go to any of our next steps booths located out in the lobby But today if you're here and you would say Nick I need somebody to pray with me about something going on in my life You come right after the service. We'd love to pray for you if if you're here today and you know that you need to meet Christ You know what just happened to the eight o'clock at Fayetteville. I just got this this text right before I came up There was a woman who came to an impact club on Friday out in the community She came to the eight o'clock service today and right after the service. She came forward and talked to somebody and said I'm tired of being broken and I need Jesus. She got saved this morning

Today that can happen in your life like you can be saved this morning You come as soon as everybody else walks out the door You walk down our staff remain here for a few minutes ready to receive you. Okay, let's pray together as we wrap up Lord Jesus we thank you for the amazing God that you are for how you've changed our lives and Lord, I pray that you would burden us to To do what we need to do today. I don't know what each person needs to do The Lord I pray that you would stir us to be generous with one another and Lord that you may use our giving to make an impact across northwest Arkansas, America and the world for Jesus It's in his name that we pray. Amen