Moving Where God is Leading

And I'm so glad you came out for this combined service, the last service of the year. And I really felt from the Lord that we were to make today Vision Sunday, where I would just take a few moments, and I promise you it won't go longer than four hours, maybe five, just to share some vision with you concerning 2026 and things that we're really excited about. This is a different kind of a service, so I won't be preaching a message per se as we normally would. There's no notes on the app related to the things that I'm gonna share this morning, but I do wanna just take a few moments and share some things that I feel like God has been putting on our hearts related to the future of the refuge. And I just have to say up front, I apologize for how my voice sounds. If I could do anything about it, I would have. I'm just grateful I can talk this morning because yesterday and the day before, I wasn't even sure if I was gonna be able to talk. This stuff that's going around with so many people has hit our household, Pastor Melanie and several members of our family as well, so I'm just thankful I've got any voice at all. I know that normally my voice isn't great to listen to anyway. I always wonder why God called me to preach

and didn't give me some really majestic, wonderful-sounding voice, preacher voice, but hey, it's what we have. It's what you have to suffer through week in and week out. I'm just glad you keep showing up. So here's the thing that I wanna share just kinda leading into casting some vision for the new year. It's interesting to me when you think about just over the last century, the number of things that have been invented that have really impacted our lives. When I think back over my lifetime, I have a birthday coming up this week, and yeah, I am, I'm approaching some real milestones in my age and the older you get, the more I've realized you start really reflecting over your life and your lifespan and the things that have happened, and I think back over my life of things that when I was a boy, things that, how different things were back then. I shared with somebody last week or week before last that I remember as a boy when we got a color television. I remember the first time we ever got a color television, and some of you cannot relate. You have no idea what I'm talking about. We had three channels when I was growing up, ABC, NBC, CBS, and that was it. You had antennas on top of the television,

and you would have to move the antennas around, and sometimes if you put aluminum foil on the antenna, you got better reception. Those of you that are laughing or know what I'm talking about, and maybe you were one of the ones that were assigned the job of standing at the antenna because you're moving around, and then when you hit the magic spot, you had to stay there, so you watched television like this. There's so many things that have been invented. I mean, when I think about the capabilities of the smartphone nowadays, and think back to the times when we had no cell phones, and I remember one of the first cell phones that I ever had was a bag phone. Anybody remember a bag phone? Like, literally, you carried around a bag. Like, it was this case, and the phone was down inside of there, had a little antenna that popped up, so things have changed a lot. I did a little Google search, and I asked AI what were the greatest inventions of 2025, and I really expected there to be a list that popped up that would name some of the inventions or some of the greater inventions of this past year. Well, it led me to a Time Magazine article, and the article didn't just have a list.

It had multiple categories, and inside of each category were multiple items that have all been invented in the year 2025. categories like education or agriculture or entertainment or technology. It had all these different categories, and under each category would be multiple things. It was so many categories and so many things that had all been invented in this past year. It kind of was mind-boggling to me that with all of the things that have been invented over the last century that there's still so many things that are being invented. And it just reminded me of the great need for creativity and adaptability. I think creativity and adaptability are key for organizations to thrive. And, you know, in Scripture we see a lot of examples of times that God would give to His people an unorthodox strategy. He would require His people to be creative. He would require them to be adaptive in a situation. Let me give you an example. If you go back to Judges chapter 7, you recall the story of when there was a young guy there by the name of Gideon, and he had disqualified himself from ever doing anything great for God because he said, you know, my family is the least in our tribe, and I'm the least in my family. In other words, I could never do anything great for God. And the angel of the Lord appears to Gideon, and he says, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. He calls him a mighty warrior. And I'm sure in the moment Gideon's like, you've got the wrong guy. You've mistaken me for somebody else because I'm the least qualified to do anything great for the kingdom. But the Lord taps him for an assignment to go up against the Midianites, who were a very fierce army. They had a reputation of just being real savages when they would take on another army, and they far outnumbered the Israelites. And Gideon gathers together the warriors that he could amass for the task, and 32,000 people come together. You know the story. And he's like, man, I mean, 32,000, we're still outnumbered, but hey, it's what we've got to work with, so guys, let's go get them. And the Lord stops him and says, hold on, Gideon, before you rush into battle, there's something that you need to do. You need to just tell all of these men, 32,000, if any of them are afraid, they need to just pack it up and go home. And Gideon's thinking, I mean, these are warriors. Like, I might lose a handful of folks, but sure, we'll do it. He gets their attention, and hey, if any of you are feeling a little bit wimpy, a little bit afraid, a little scared to go into battle, I think now's the time for you to just pack it up and go home. And Gideon's thinking,

man, there might be a few that slip out the back, but nobody's going to admit that in front of all these warriors. Twenty-two thousand men said, thank you, I'm out. Twenty-two thousand leave. He's left with ten thousand, and Gideon's like, what in the world? And God's pulling on him to be creative. God's pulling on him to trust Him, and Gideon's like, what are we going to do with ten thousand against the Midianites? And he's trying to, you know, muster up as much courage and rally the troops, and God stops him again and says, hey, hey, hang on, Gideon. Before you rush into battle, there's something else that I need for you to do. I need you to tell these men to get a drink of water. And he said, I want you to count. And those that bend down and they lap like a dog, he needs to send them home. But those who bring the water up to their mouths, that's the ones you need to keep. Gideon's like, what in the world? Like, seriously, what does it matter how somebody drinks water? God's like, just do it. Just do what I'm telling you to do. And so Gideon calls ten thousand people together. He says, all right, hey, this is the, my sons and my grandsons will tell you this is the speech they hear from me all the time when they're going into some kind of athletic competition. Got to hydrate. Hydrate. Did you drink water today? You got to drink water. I need you to start drinking two days before. Drink. You got to hydrate. So Gideon's like, guys, you got to hydrate. We're going into battle. I need everybody to, here, here's this nice spring is right here. I need everybody to drink some water. So they'll start drinking. And Gideon starts counting. The ones who were bent down lapping like a dog, 9,700. 9,700. And God says, send them home. Gideon's like, God, please, come on. They're just drinking water. God says, send them home. Send them home. Because they don't care what's going on around them. All they care is, they're just caring about themselves. But the ones who bring the water up to their mouths, they're watching the whole time.

They're watching for the enemy. That's the ones you're gonna go into battle with. That's the ones you wanna keep. 300 men. He's left with 300 men. And then God gives him this unorthodox strategy and says, I want you to give every man a jar with a candle on the inside, with a torch on the inside of the jar. And I want you to give them trumpets. Jars and trumpets. That's how you're gonna attack the Midianites. Jars and trumpets. Get away. I'll hit you with my trumpet. I'm skilled with this thing. You don't know, buddy. You have no idea what I can do with a trumpet. And God says, I want you to surround the Midianites. And when I give the signal, he said, I want you to have every man break that jar and expose the torch on the inside. And at the same time, simultaneously, blow the trumpet. And so at nighttime, they surround the Midianite army. God gives the signal. They break the jars. They blow the trumpets. All of a sudden, confusion spreads through the Midianites. They start killing each other.

They flee. They run away. And 300 men defeated this massive army because they were willing to adopt an unorthodox strategy of God. There's other examples in scripture of when God requires his people to be adaptive and to be creative. One example is out of 2 Chronicles chapter 20 again, when the people of Judah are going into battle, and they're outnumbered as well. And God tells the leader of the people of Judah, a guy by the name of Jehoshaphat, he's like, hey, we're gonna do something different. Normally, I know you would have the guys with bows and arrows and the guys with the swords, and you'd put them out front. We're not gonna do that this time. He said, I want you to take the Levites. I want you to take the worshipers. I want you to put them out at the very front of the army, and I want them to start worshiping. And we're gonna march into battle that way. We're gonna lead with worship. And the Bible says as they were willing to adopt an unorthodox strategy, that as the people began to sing, you read it yourself, 2 Chronicles chapter 20, as they began to sing and worship, the Bible says that those armies, three different armies,

the men of Moab, Mount Seir, and Amnon, they began attacking each other. And by the time the people of Judah got to the battlefield, it was strong with dead bodies, and they did not have to fire one arrow because God defeated their enemy on their behalf. Another example that comes to mind is when this commander, this military commander who's suffering from leprosy hears about the prophet Elisha, and he calls for him to come so he can pray for his healing. This guy's name was Naaman. You know the story. And Elisha comes, but he doesn't meet with Naaman, and Naaman is highly offended that Elisha wouldn't meet with him. But Elisha sends word to Naaman through his servant and says, tell him to go down to the nasty, muddy Jordan River, and tell him to dip seven times, and he'll be healed. Very unorthodox. Here's this military commander. First of all, he's so offended that Elisha wouldn't even come and pray over him, but now Elisha has told him to do something that logically makes no sense whatsoever. It was a crisis of faith. It was a crisis decision moment for him because he had to decide, you know, will I swallow my pride, and will I do what the prophet has said to do,

or will I just stay in the same state that I'm in? And Naaman decides, what if I got to lose except a little bit of pride? Maybe I'll gain my healing. So he goes down, and you know the story, he dips. Can you imagine after four times, five times, six time he comes up, looks at his skin, nothing has changed. Imagine the battle that was going on in his mind. This is so stupid, why in the world did I come down here? I knew this would do no good. Should I even, is it worth going down the seventh time? I don't know, I mean, how many times have we been in a position like that, where God's told us to do something, and we start doing it, maybe it's like fasting or prayer or whatever, and nothing seems to change, and then if we stay faithful, because it was the seventh time when he came up that his skin was like that of a baby. God had supernaturally healed him. See, I believe there's times that God calls for us to be creative and adaptive, and God puts in front of us some unorthodox strategies. And I believe that that would be the case for us as a church, and now here's the danger for a business, here's the danger for an individual, here's the danger for a church. If we're not willing to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, if we marry ourselves to what is familiar, or if we marry ourselves

to previous methods, the mission will die. We have to marry ourselves to the mission of God. What is God's mission for your life? What is God's mission for our church? Because the moment that we marry ourselves to some method, because it worked before, and we're just secure in the fact that we've done it for a number of years, or whatever it might be, then we jeopardize the mission. There are times that God says, I need you to follow the cloud, because the cloud is moving. And if we refuse to do that, we run the risk of remaining in a state of sickness. Or remaining in a place that we miss what God desires to do. See, Isaiah 43, God says, through the prophet Isaiah, behold, I do a new thing. It springs up in your midst. He says, I make rivers in the desert, and streams in the wasteland. And I feel like for the refuge that we're in, it's an Isaiah 43 moment. I really believe there's a new thing that God is stirring amongst us, and we have to decide as a people, will we marry ourselves to what has been familiar and what we've done before, or are we willing to move with the cloud? Are we willing to embrace the new thing that God is doing? The next time you shop for blueberries,

I want you to notice on the container where the blueberries are from. Because the largest exporter of blueberries now is the country of Peru. That wasn't always the case. Let me tell you the story. It was back in the 70s and 80s that America was facing an enormous drug crisis. Cocaine was coming across the borders into our nation at a rate never seen before. And so the United States government decided we have to do something about this. And some of you remember a commercial, a television commercial that showed an egg in a frying pan. And it said, this is your brain. And then it showed the egg sizzling in the frying pan. And it said, this is your brain on drugs. Anybody remember that television commercial? Yeah, so the government tried things like that and then they came up with a campaign because the commercials weren't enough. So they came up with a campaign of just say no. Just say no. And they tried to educate all of the children in school, just say no. And some of them did, but many of them didn't. So the government faced a dilemma and said, how are we gonna protect the future of our nation as it relates to the drug crisis?

They said, we have to go after the source. Now, most of. The cocaine was coming from Colombia, but Colombia was not the source. Peru was the source. The coca plant was grown in the mountainous regions of Peru and so the government sent troops into Peru, into those mountainous regions, to try to wipe out the coca plants. Thousands of acres of coca plants. Well, they didn't succeed because the cartel was so powerful and there was so much coca plant being grown all in the mountains of Peru. So then the government decided, well, we'll get the farmers that are growing the coca plants to grow coffee instead of growing coca. Well, that didn't work because those farmers could make 10 times the amount growing coca than they could grow in coffee. So they had to get creative. The government had to get adaptive in order to cut off the source of the coca plant from Peru to Colombia. They began studying the soil all over Peru and they found these sandy beaches along the coastline of Peru. Nothing would grow there. Until they discovered that the soil, the makeup of the soil was exactly what was needed to grow asparagus.

And so Peru began growing asparagus along the coastlines of their country and they became one of the biggest producers in the world of asparagus until Mexico took notice and Mexico began growing asparagus and they put Peru out of business. So there was a farmer there in Peru who came to America. He began looking for a crop, something that they could grow in Peru instead of asparagus that would grow in the sandy soil along the beaches. And this farmer who was here in America ran across the Biloxi blueberry and he began studying that and he realized that the soil content in Peru was exactly what was needed as well to grow blueberries. And so now because of creativity and adaptability, Peru has become the largest exporter in the world of blueberries. And it greatly curbed the coca content, or supply, going to Colombia from Peru. So why do I share that? Well, I really feel like the refuge finds itself in a place where we really have to hear from God. We know we've experienced a lot of changes over the past year, especially over the last six months. Two of our top level leaders that transitioned out,

different things that have taken place here in the refuge, and we've just been asking the Lord, God, none of this caught you by surprise, right? God, you saw this coming, you saw these transitions, you saw the other changes that would be taking place here in the refuge and in culture and in our community. So what's it mean for us? God, do we just keep going about the same things that we've been doing, or are you trying to do something new, and I kept hearing over and over, Isaiah 43, behold, I do a new thing. I kept hearing the Spirit of the Lord saying, the cloud is moving, and you have to follow it to see where it's gonna take you. So let me share a few things that some of them you already heard, you heard on the announcements. Let me just lay out a couple of things, and then we're gonna end in worship. First of all, every year that the refuge has been in existence, which is 21 years, we observe in the month of January this thing called Selah. Many of you are familiar with that, you've been around for that, but it's a 21-day corporate season of fasting and prayer. We are a church who believes in the disciplines of prayer and fasting. When you go back to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, when you pray, not if you pray, when you give, not if you give, when you fast, not if you fast.

So for 21 years, we've taught the discipline of fasting and prayer. That begins on January the 5th, as you heard in the announcement, runs through the 25th. We're gonna offer some prayer opportunities. every day, Monday through Thursday, beginning on the fifth, at noon, right here in the auditorium. We're gonna have a time of prayer together, and then on the Friday nights, three Friday nights during Selah, from seven to eight p.m., we're gonna gather here in the auditorium, and we're gonna pray together. Now, next week, this will be available, this printout that I have for Selah. There'll be a limited supply of these, but they'll also be available on the Refuge app. And every single day, and these are listed, beginning January the fifth, there will be a different prayer focus. And as a church, we'll all be praying together over that topic, over that prayer target. It also lists the different prayer opportunities for you. Now, on Wednesday nights, and I'll talk more about this in a few moments, during the month of January, we'll be doing a series, myself and some of our pastors, on prayer and fasting, right here in the auditorium, on Wednesday nights.

So that's gonna be something that we've done for years. I wanna encourage people, everybody, to participate. We'll talk more about it next Sunday, about Selah, about the different types of fast, maybe, that you can observe during that time. Now, something that's really different for our church, and many of you, I've been asked from different people, and our staff has been asked about launch for next year, because for the last nine years, in the month of January, the last week of January, we've had revival services that have gone Sunday night, Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, and we called it launch for nine years. And it's a powerful time to start our year. People have been asking, because we've not advertised, are we having a launch next year? And the answer to that is yes, we are. It's just gonna look different. As I really felt from the Lord last spring, as I was praying about launch, and who should we have come in? And I kept feeling an uneasiness about launch. And as I prayed, I felt like the Lord was saying, launch as we know it is changing. Launch as we know it is gonna look different. And I shared with our staff in the month of May, I shared with our leadership in the month of June, I really feel like God is doing something different. I feel like launch is gonna look different in 2026. So here's what we are doing.

I really felt from the Lord that we were to take those four nights of great impact, and we were to spread them out throughout the year. So every quarter, on a Friday night, there's gonna be a launch night. We're gonna go from seven to 10 p.m. On some of those, we're gonna have speakers. Some will just be our worship team and myself. And they're gonna be focused on revival. And we're just gonna get in the presence of God on those Friday nights. The first one being January the 30th, right when Selah ends, we're gonna gather for our first launch night on January the 30th, and we're gonna go after the Lord. And we're gonna do that every single quarter throughout the year, and I really believe, and I feel from God, the Lord's gonna meet us in a very special way as we spread out the impact of those nights throughout the year. Here's another big change. And this one really challenges my paradigm as I really began to feel earlier in this year from the Lord that I was, as the pastor, I was to do something that was really different as it relates to the messages that I preach on Sundays. So let me just tell you what it's gonna look like. I'm a serious guy, you all know that. I preach a lot of series, and they're directed by the Lord. But I felt like the Lord said,

I want you to do something different. Now, we've really been burdened over the last few years concerning biblical illiteracy in the body of Christ. And we've done some certain things that we've been trying to go after that in terms of discipleship. We have a partnership now with Faith International University, and we have different people in the church that are enrolled with FIU and theology classes. I think that's awesome. Our students at RDS, second and third year students have the opportunity to get college credit and to enroll through FIU, through our partnership, which I think is awesome. But in order for us to really go after biblical illiteracy, I felt like the Lord told me for the next two years, I want you to preach through the entire Bible. So, yeah. So beginning next Sunday, for 2026, it's going to be Old Testament only for the entire year. 2027 is going to be New Testament only the entire year. Now, yeah, that's great. The other thing that goes along with that is that I realize there are a lot of people who have never read the Bible cover to cover. I try to do that every year, but I know there are people that have never done that. So we have put together,

and there are some copies available today, because this starts this week, beginning January the 1st, a two-year Bible reading plan that corresponds with what we'll be preaching on those Sundays. So this starts this week, January the 1st, Thursday, and it will lead you every quarter. This is one quarter for 2026. It'll lead you through the Old Testament, and then we'll go into the New Testament, and every quarter, we'll publish a new one of these. Now, there are limited copies of these at the information desk, but it's available right now on the Refuge app. And those of you who have yet to download the Refuge app, I wanna encourage you to do it now. Go to the App Store, because right there is your Bible reading plan for the first quarter of 2026. You can have it right there on your phone. You can access that. The Selah Guide that comes out this week, that will also be on the app. That'll show you the prayer target every single day for those 21 days. That will be on the app, so I wanna encourage you, all of you Apple users, go to the App Store. Those of you that are still archaic and you're using Android devices, it's available for you as well. We felt sympathy for you Android users, and so we created a version for you as well.

I'm just joking. But I wanna encourage you that you download that Bible reading plan for 2025. And the goal is that as many people as possible, and I'm hoping it will be the majority of the people that call the Refuge home in a two-year period, will have read the Bible cover to cover, and will all be reading the same thing together. I'm excited about that. I think that's gonna be awesome. I know there's all the questions that I've been asked by our staff. Well, does that mean we're not gonna have any guest speakers? If we do have guest speakers, are they gonna have to preach whatever we're in? No, that's not the case. We do have some guest speakers already scheduled for 2026. I'm not gonna make them preach the portion of Scripture that we're in at that point. We'll just skip over that one for that time. But for the most part, we're gonna stick to the plan. We're gonna preach through these things. And different ones have asked, well, what about different topics? Like we just had the series on mental health. It was one of the most impactful series I think I've ever done here at the Refuge, based on the feedback that we got. And I'm trusting the Lord that as we go through different passages of Scripture,

God's gonna allow me and our teaching team to address those things that need to be addressed. Because I believe the Holy Spirit is good enough and big enough that he knows the needs of this body more than I do. And he's gonna lead us in a way that are gonna address all of the things that people have need of. Let me share a couple other things and then we're gonna worship and pray. And we'll be done. Wednesday nights. We have a Wednesday night service here. We have kids here on Wednesday nights. We have youth here on Wednesday nights. We gather here in the auditorium. one of our pastors and one of our elders teaches. Wednesday nights are gonna look just a little bit different because we're gonna be doing a lot of series on Wednesday nights and we're gonna advertise what those are. The month of January, I've already told you, it's gonna be a series on prayer and fasting for the four Wednesdays in January. Then we're gonna advertise each month what the series will be. You heard the announcement, Pastor Andrew is gonna be teaching men for five weeks over at Eagle Hall over on the Life Campus. So there'll be different series,

but also I wanna let you know, we do not have the volunteers or the staff for people to drop their kids off on Wednesday nights and leave the premises. And we have a lot of families that do that on Wednesdays. We will no longer be allowing you to do that if you're dropping your kids off for childcare on Wednesday nights or to be a part of what's happening with refuge kids, you have to stay in the building. You have to be here in the auditorium or volunteering or serving in one of the other areas. So beginning next Wednesday, January the 7th, we start our series and you're gonna be told you have to stay here, you have to be in the auditorium, you can't drop your kids and leave and come back and pick them up again. Couple of more things. You guys good to hang? I know we're going a little longer than we normally do for service, but I've got two more important things that I wanna share with you. One is that the changes regarding our women's ministry, you heard from Pastor Steph on the announcements a few moments ago that we are adding two opportunities for you ladies on the second and fourth Tuesday nights of every month. So Monday morning prayer for ladies will continue. That's not changing. But for those of you who are not able to come on Mondays,

now you can come on Tuesday night and the second Tuesday night of the month will be prayer and discipleship. That's gonna be the focus. The fourth Tuesday night of the month is gonna be prayer and worship for you ladies. And so we're excited about that and also we're excited about the fact that Pastor Steph, who has served now for the last several years as our prayer pastor, will not just be our prayer pastor, she'll be our prayer and women's pastor and we're excited about that. Yeah. It's been a little while since I've given you an update on our Life Campus. Some of you don't know what the Life Campus is, but to your left, to my right, are 36 acres that for years, for 83 years I believe, served as the Boy Scout camp. And we had the amazing opportunity seven years ago to buy that camp, 36 acres. And we named it the Life Campus of the Refuge. We fixed up the house over there that we now call the Restoration House and every year since we fixed that house up, we have pastors and missionaries who are in crisis who come and stay in that house for free. They can stay one week, two weeks, three weeks or four weeks. We've had some key leaders from around the world

that have come and stayed in that house and had a time of rest and a time of reprieve. We also, year before last, did a complete rebuild of Eagle Hall. And those of you that have seen Eagle Hall know it is an incredible space that's used all the time by our ministries and by different groups here in the Refuge. A beautiful, beautiful place over on the Life Campus. Now, there are other things that we have all along planned to build there on the Life Campus that we've been excited about, but it takes time and money. And it takes a lot of working through the red tape and the bureaucracy of the city and of the county. And we've been doing that now for quite some time. Also, this past year, we were able to partner with an organization to refinance everything here at the Refuge. And we've been hoping to do that for quite some time. We refinanced everything, and here's what that did. Number one, that is saving us $17,000. a month on our mortgage payments, which is a great thing, and number two, that gave us the ability when we refinanced to borrow an additional $3.1 million so that we can begin to build out the Life Campus. So we have, we have right now, today, access to $3.1 million to begin building. We are waiting on pricing right now, and we should have the pricing by January the 5th on the site work. Now you might be shocked to know that moving dirt and removing trees cost a lot of money, and we're waiting to see what the pricing is going to be for us to move dirt, remove

trees, prepare the pads for building the different things that we want to build there on the Life Campus, which are four things. Number one, we want to build an artificial turf athletic field and some pickleball courts on the Life Campus. Number two, you guys have heard us talk about the storehouse. The storehouse will be a place that will give away to the community clothes, furniture items, baby items, and food for free. The cost estimations for the storehouse are right around a million dollars for us to build that. The second thing, or the third thing that we want to build is housing for RDS. We have designed already two dorms for our students, one for the guys and one for the girls, and those dorms are going to cost a million dollars a piece, so that's $2 million to build housing. We spend currently about $100,000 a year to house our students in apartments. We would love to house them right here on the Life Campus so they can be a part of the ministries, they can be right here, they do all of their classes, all of their ministry right here. So that's the third thing. The fourth thing that we want to build is a student center. Now, the youth building that we desire to build is probably the thing that we need the most, but it's the thing that costs the most. The youth building is probably going to be in the ballpark of between $5 and $6 million. It's going to have a gymnasium. It'll be a state-of-the-art place for students to hang out, for our youth services to take place. It's going to be an incredible facility. Now, if we could, if we had the money today, we would build that first, because that is the greatest need. When we built this building, and we've been in here now 11 years, coming up on 12 years, we maximized the square footage.

We built as much building as we could build for the money that we had at the time. But the youth have to share space. If you've been here on a Wednesday night, they have half of the concourse. They're out in the parking lot. They have the event room. They're in meeting and small groups all over the building, and it's just not ideal. I'm believing somehow that God's going to supernaturally provide, in addition to the $3.1 million that we already have, and probably, my guess, is it's going to take a million dollars just in site work. That's going to leave us $2 million. I'm praying and believing somehow God is going to supernaturally provide the funds for us to build the youth center, the youth building, as quickly as possible. And I'm asking you, it would take a miracle, but I'm asking you to pray and to believe with us that somehow, as we begin now, here's what will happen. We'll get the pricing for the site work. Then we'll get all the permits, and then we'll start clearing trees, and then we'll start moving dirt, and we'll start preparing the building pads so we can... Start building the buildings. And I'm asking you to pray and believe with me that somehow over this next year, in 2026, and I'm just going to be very honest with you, I have, I have, we've run capital campaigns here at the church three different times in the past, and we've done them very successfully. I've always been very committed to this. We would never bring an outside organization in to run a capital campaign for our church. And we never did. And we were told, you cannot do this on your own. It will not be successful. We're the experts. You need somebody to come in like us. And I've said all along, I have built trust equity with our people for 21 years.

I'm not going to have some stranger come in here and ask them for money to support something that I have worked hard to build trust with them. If there's a need, I'm going to share the need with them, and I'm going to believe God that He's going to move on our hearts, and He's going to supply the need. Now, we've done that through capital campaigns, two-year campaigns, three-year campaigns, and I have really, really prayed, and I thought we've got to launch another campaign. We've got to get this youth building built. And the Lord would not let me do it. God would not let me launch a capital campaign. I'm not saying that I won't at some point. If God directs, if the cloud moves in that direction, then we will. But I'm just telling you right now, God has not released me to launch another capital campaign. What the Lord told me to do was to tell you what's on our heart, to tell you what the need is, to tell you what the greatest need is that youth building. Not just for our students, students all over this region. We're 100 yards from a middle school and 100 yards from a high school. And if we put that youth building over on this property, I believe that it would be used throughout the week. Students would be in that place. We would have a chance to minister to them in ways that we're not doing, you know, we're not able to do right now. So, listen, church, I'm just asking you, would you just pray and believe with us for a miracle? That somehow God would supply the additional $4 or $5 million that we need so we can go ahead and build that youth building? I believe God can do it. I believe God can do it. So, that's a lot of stuff I've laid out for you in 2026. But I hope you're excited. I hope you recognize we're not married to methods. We're married to a mission. Our mission is to be the church and not just do church. Our vision is to see people changed, connected, and challenged.

And this year in 2026, I want you to hear from your pastor. With my grovelly, sick voice, there is no backing down. There is no taking our foot off the gas in 2026. We are going after the things of God more than we ever have before. And as best as we know how, we are following the cloud. And we're saying, God, we're going to see where you want to take us. We're not married to methods because of things that are familiar or things we've done for years. We're just following where you're leading us. And I believe with all of my heart, God's going to lead us to some great places. 2026 is going to be, listen to me, the greatest year this church has ever seen. Would you stand? Come on, we're going to go out of here and worship. Here's what I want you to do. We're going to pray. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to think back over 2025. Sure, there have been some battles. I know for me personally, there have been many. And I'm sure for you and your family, there have been some battles. But I want you to think about the goodness of God. Would you just close your eyes for just a moment and listen? If you could just hang for five more minutes without leaving. I promise we're not going to prolong this. Just close your eyes for a moment. I want you to reflect on God's goodness. And then I want you to respond on this last Sunday of the year. I want you to respond in worship to how good the Lord has been. Father, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for the leading of the Holy Spirit.

God, we want to follow you. you. We want to trust you, God, that everything that's needed in order for us to be the church, in order for us to reach a community, God, more than we are, that you're going to provide everything that we need. So, God, I pray for a miracle. I pray we somehow would be able to get the funds to build that student center for our youth. I pray, oh, God, you would supply everything we need to see that campus completely built out, housing for our RDS students, the storehouse, athletic field, God, and the student center. Lord, I pray that as we journey through scripture over the next two years, you would meet us in a special way. As we fast and pray, beginning on the fifth, God, meet us in a special way. Lord, I declare 2026 will be the greatest year we've ever seen. Revival and miracles, a harvest of souls, oh, God, prodigals coming home, family members being saved, new ideas and creativity being birthed amongst the people of God, new business ideas and new strategies, oh, God. Lord, new things and new opportunities for us to reach our neighbors. Oh, God, on this last Sunday of the year, we invite you to come, God, as we prepare to start a new year. Lead us, Holy Spirit. Lead us, we pray. And I ask, God, that every single person would be fully committed to you with all of their hearts. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray.