When Did You Stop Dreaming Big? | Crossroads Church

It was all a dream. I used to read Word Up magazine, album pepper and heavy D up in... Nah, I'm joking, man. I got your attention on dinner. But for real seriously, man, we're talking about dreams this week. And I wanna know, what are you dreaming about these days? I'm not talking about like, what's on your calendar for next week? Or what's you just trying to survive this month? What are you praying for? What are you hoping for? What are you believing God can actually do in your life? Life as a way of shrinking our imagination. And somewhere along the way, we can stop dreaming big and simply start focusing only on what's directly in front of us, or what seems possible. But when God made a promise to Abraham, wasn't just about Abraham's life, or what God could do for him that year. God told him that his children, his grandchildren, and generation, he would never even meet without number the stars in the sky. The vision was so big that it stretched beyond Abraham's lifetime. This weekend, Kyle Rancin, is going to help us revive our imagination for what God can do. Not only in our future,

but in the future of our families, our communities, and generations to come. Maybe God's blessing is bigger. I mean bigger than what you've been imagining. Maybe it's time to dream again. Just get into it. Well today we're talking about revived dreams. And 4,000 years ago, there was a sheep herder who had a dream. It was a simple dream, it wasn't elaborate, it wasn't crazy, it wasn't wild, it was a very normal dream. He wanted to be a dad. His dream was one generation after him. So he got married, he built the business, he expanded his footprint, and as the months turned into years, and the years, and the decades, he had a lot of wins, but no kid. And so at some point in his life, he stopped dreaming even his one generation dream because it became impossible. And then when the sheep herder was 75 years old, he met the God of dreams who not only revived his dreams, but expanded it past the point of possible. There was a voice quieter than a whisper and more powerful than an ocean that woke him up out of his sleep one night. The voice said, go outside, look up and count the stars. If you can even count them,

so shall your offspring be. 4,000 years since, many nations have risen, kings have come and gone and all have been forgotten, but not this sheep herder. He never had a kingdom, he never conquered a nation, he never discovered anything on his own, and yet his name has been remembered, passed down like a treasure, his story retold over and over again, generation after generation after generation for one reason. One thing that he did, he chose to believe the God of dreams. And 4,000 years later, what might God say is most lacking in our modern world? Morality, a work ethic, healthy families? Well, I think the thing that God might say is most lacking in our world today are people like that sheep herder, people who are willing to believe in the God of dreams and to dream, to dream with him. You know, one of the amazing things that happened when people are revived consistently throughout history is that they start to dream again. Psalm 126 describes one of these moments with God's people. It says, when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, God's people, we were like those who dreamed. You could change out that word restored for the word revive, when the Lord revived his people. We were like those who dreamed. To step into revival is to step into a prayer,

a very simple one. God, I had something once and it died. Would you bring it back to life? And what I believe and what I believe is gonna happen today is that God will not only answer the answer, yes to that question, but he'll say, not only want to revive your dream, but I'm gonna expand it like I did for that sheep herder all those years ago. My hope and my prayer is that same voice that spoke to him in his heart, that got past his objections, past his hiccups, past his hiccups and do his heart, speaks to each and every one of us today. That's a happen. We just start that conversation together, let's pray. God, I'm inviting you into this space. We sung about making room for you. We just want to make room. We want to make room in our minds. We want to make room in our hearts. for you to give us a dream that might seem impossible and is without you, God. Would you speak to us loud and powerfully in the name of Jesus? Amen. Well, let's be honest about this from the top, okay? You do not want someone to call you a dreamer. That is not a compliment. It's like if someone says you're young at heart,

they mean you're super old. You get that, right? (congregation laughing) If someone's like, oh, you have a great personality. It means you're very not attractive. That's what that means. Or someone says you're very brave for wearing that outfit. You look terrible. And if someone says you're a dreamer, they mean you don't have a handle on reality. No one wants to be called a dreamer. A number of years ago, Sarah and I were taking a trip across the Atlantic and someone said, it'd be a good idea to make a will before you go. We were like, well, we don't have a lot of stuff. They're like, yeah, but you have a lot of kids. And so you should make a will that says who gets your kids should something happen to you. And so we thought about what we would want and somebody who would take care of our kids and thought of a list of adjectives, godly, dependable, stable, grounded, secure. That's what we wanted and someone we would entrust our children to at no point did either one of us ever turn to the other and say, who do we know who's just a real dreamer? Just the heads and the clouds kind of person. That's who we want to trust our kids to. Of course not. If you don't trust your children to a dreamer,

you trust your children as somebody who's got their feet firmly planted in reality on the ground. Which makes what God did with his children, all of us, by the way, really, really odd. To God says he put all of his children, you and me included into the down line of that ancient dreamer, the sheep herder from 4,000 years ago, the man called Abraham. God actually says every person who comes after Abraham who would seek God, who'd want to hear that voice is one of Abraham's children. Romans 4, 11 says Abraham is the father of all who believe. Romans 4, 16, Abraham, who is the father of us all, Galatians 3, 7, those who have faith are children of Abraham. If you want to follow Jesus, if you want to get to know God, you are in the down line, the heritage, the family of that guy, the dreamer. Hebrews 11 is one of the places that talks about Abraham and it says this, Hebrews 11, 6, without faith, it is impossible to please God. And the defining image of faith is the dreamer. And so you might say without dreams, it is impossible to please God. This is why I believe so deeply that God wants to revive your dreams. Now you got this card of the way in. We're gonna fill it out. If you don't fill this out,

you will be disappointed at the end of the service. And we are not collecting this. This is just, this stays in your hand. So anything you write down, it's just yours. Okay, it's just for you and God. We're not collecting it. So write freely, answer honestly. If you want to, you can answer all the questions all at once. There's no bonus points for finishing early. Just warning you. No gold stars in heaven for completing it fast. It's not gonna happen. I'll walk you through box by box as we go. Now the first one, and by the way, if you're part of Crossroads in Español and we have a Spanish version of this, just tap the sticker in front of you with your phone. And if you're watching online, text the word more to 301301 more to 301301. We've got a digital copy of this that you can fill out as we go as well. Now the first box is your name. So guess what you put in there? Your name. Good. This is gonna go great. Put in your name. We'll follow along to you. Write my name in here.

The second box is right one of the moments in your life when you felt the most alive. Maybe it's a memory from childhood. I remember as a kid, my parents took us to Pipestem State Park in West Virginia, and I went mountain climbing. I'm sure it was like a little hill, right? But I felt like I was a mountain climber. I felt alive. Maybe it's a childhood memory like that. Or maybe it's something you like to do now, running, or painting, or motorcycles, whatever it is. Write that thing in there. The moment you feel alive, one of those fleeting moments, rare moments in life. And the Bible says that you and I were actually meant to live fully alive. Says this in John 10. Jesus says, "I came to get them alive." And life abundantly. You're made to feel that way. Maybe not do the thing all the time. Ride your motorcycle at all times. But to feel that fully alive sensation, that's how we're made to feel. But you and I tend to not live that way. Instead, most of us follow this pattern, especially as we get older and older. You know, it's a good day if, if my boss doesn't get too mad at me.

It's a good day if my kids don't fight with each other after school. It's a good day if my spouse and I don't have another blowup. It's a good day if I can just get passing grades. We just try to survive. And if you find yourself in that place in life where you would say, yeah, that's how my life feels. I'm just trying to survive. What chances are your dreams are at best on life support and more than likely they have died. And I do mean died. You know, for something to die, it had to have once been alive. And all of us, no matter who we are, rich, poor, come from a good family, not a good family, young, old, doesn't matter, all of us at one point we had dreams. And that's because every person God has ever made is by design a natural born dreamer. I don't know if you've had kids or been around little kids lately. You don't have to teach them to dream wild and possible things. You don't. You ask a six year old what they want to be when they grow up and they'll say a dinosaur. You're like, that's not, I don't know if that's possible. I find astronaut. Like, you don't have to teach in these things. I've never met a seven year old who thinks

they were created to be average or an eight year old who's dreaming of just getting by one day. No, all of us are natural born dreamers. And when you were a kid, you had a dream. You probably had lots of them. We're gonna fill in this third box now. When it says, as a child, what was the biggest dream you had for your life? Now, don't judge the dream, just go back. Doesn't matter where there's possible. It doesn't matter if it was small or big or moral or not even. Don't morally robust dreams are not required. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a superhero so that I could fly and have X-ray vision to look at girls in their underwear, okay? We're not, don't judge your dream. I just put the dream down, whatever it was. I'm gonna write superhero. Now, you have this dream. Astronaut, firefighter, mom, dad, being a hero, princess, dinosaur, anything like that. What happened to that dream? That's my question. What happened to that dream? You might say, well, Kyle, I discovered I couldn't be a dinosaur. Good! That's good. You can't be a dinosaur.

That's correct. I can't fly. I figured that out. Don't have X-ray vision. Figure that out. But the dream was never about that. It's about what that thing represented. See, when I imagined being a superhero and flying, it wasn't flying. It was the fact that I was strong. I was capable. I was somebody who, when I showed up on the scene, that something happened. I was a difference maker. I was put here to change the world. I want you to, in that same box, just next to where you wrote, whatever it is, just put a dash line and put what the dream represented. Strength, courage, beauty, being enough, being somebody who God has plans for, whatever it is, right down with that dream, represents next to it. 'Cause that was always your dream. Now the thing about dreams is that they don't die on their own. Disappointment kills dreams. You lost. She broke it off. You didn't get into the school. You gave the job to somebody else.

You didn't get accepted. Sometimes there are these big moments that happen. These big, concussive hits in our life, traumatic things that happen. Maybe experience abuse in your life, giant blow. Maybe experience the loss of somebody close to you, somebody who represented the only possible way for that dream to become a reality, and now they're gone. Sometimes our dreams take those big blows. Other times it's just a repetitive series of disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. A number of years ago, scientists started to study the brain and the impact of hits, specifically in football, on the brain, and they discovered this thing called CTE. It's brain damage that happens from hits. And the thing that gets all the attention are concussive hits. When somebody gets hit so hard, they get knocked out, they go in the blue tent, they get a concussion, they go in a concussion protocol. People are retired 'cause they've gotten too many concussions. That's what makes the headlines, but it's not the thing that actually causes the most damage. The thing they discover that causes the most damage is what is called repetitive, sub-concussive hits. It's offensive linemen smashing in a defensive lineman a hundred times in a practice over and over again,

150 times in the game, over and over and over again. Just another day where it didn't happen. Just another day that felt like I was a cog in the wheel. Just another day where I'm not really sure what I'm doing or why I'm in here. Another day where I feel like I'm not good enough. Another day where I see everybody else has a thing that I want and I can't have it. I can't seem to get there. I can't seem to break through it over and over and over again. And what happens is our dreams die this slow and prolonged death. Nobody just walks away from a dream. You downgrade your dream. Your dream goes from a dream to a goal because you get reasonable. Your goal goes from a goal to a deliverable. Deliverables to a to-do list. And if you end up just doing a to-do list, what you end up is empty and unsatisfied in your life because none of us were made to wake up every day and check boxes on a to-do list. You're not, I don't care how organized you are. You're a planner person. You got the things and the boxes, that's great. But you weren't made to check boxes. This is one of the biggest misnomers about God. People don't want to come to him because they think he's going to make them a box checker. You know, check the box of the right beliefs

and the right actions and the right, no. No, that's not what God's made you for. He's made you to dream. All of us have had things that have made our dreams shrink down. What you look at that fourth box down and answer this question. What happened to shrink down that dream for your life? What was it in you that made you walk away from that dream? Just downgrade it from a dream to a goal to a delivery to do list just made you step away. Maybe you have trauma in your past. Maybe it is the lost of a loved one. Who, write their name down when you lost them? Or maybe it's just the series of small disappointments day after day after day. Never quite breaking through. Never quite seeing the traction that you want in your life. Write that down. Now, very few of us have a moment where we consciously go, I'm going to let my dream die. Never met that person before. Yeah, I just decided I don't want to dream anymore at all. Just kind of wanted to settle for fine. Never, never met that person. That's how it happens. There were all of us in these moments though, and we accept them as reality checks. Good, something that we think is good, a reality check, very good. Let's get our feet grounded in reality, great, fine.

My question for you is whose reality have you been checked into? Yours are gods. Is it what you think is possible? What you can imagine, what you can see, what you can plan for, what's in your power, or is it in God's power? Because the reality you've accepted doesn't include impossible dreams, it's not God's reality. The reality that God consistently represents for us in his word is a reality that goes far beyond the possible. Philippians 4.13 says, "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Luke 1.37, for nothing, nothing will be impossible with God. Job 42.2, I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Jeremiah 32.27, "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh." Is anything too hard for me? And the answer is, well, no. No, again, and again, and the Bible God says, this is reality, and I've made you to live in that reality. If you look at the words of Jesus and kind of what he does, you'll see Jesus over and over again, saying the same exact thing, calling people to impossible things. Matthew 19.26, Jesus looked at them and said,

with man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. If you study Jesus with his disciples, you'll see he's consistently calling them to impossible things, not possible ones. There's no scene where he's like, "Hey, I need a volunteer. I need somebody to add two plus two." They're like, "Four, great, awesome. That's all I needed. That's what I wanted. I made you for that, it's possible." No, instead he calls them to things that they cannot do in their own strength, things that you and I would say, you need a reality check, that is impossible for you. Some of those examples. You give them something to eat. This is Matthew 14. There's 5,000 men, the feeding of the 5,000, which represents 20,000 people. There's 12 loaves of bread. Somebody did not plan well. And they go to Jesus and they're like, "Jesus, all these people, they need food." And he's like, "Yeah, you give them something to eat." What? Impossible. Another one, he sends them out,

his disciples the first time. He's like, "I want you to go do what you've seen me doing." cleanse lepers, cast out demons. And you might think, well, yeah, surely Jesus trained them for that stuff. No, no, there is not a chapter in the Bible called the 10 steps of how to cleanse a leper. You know, you think training sucks at your work. Jesus did not hold the five things you need to know about a cast out of demon, not in there. He just goes, go out there, do it, go ahead. And when they had out their only choices, do I believe in the God of the impossible or not? Well, I go or not. It's the same thing for us in another moment. Jesus is out, he's walking on water, pretty cool, walking on water, and his disciples are in a boat. And one of them looks at Jesus, Peter, and he goes, do you want me to walk on the water too? And Jesus says, come, walk on the water, impossible. And then maybe the most impossible thing that Jesus ever tells anybody is disciples that the very last thing he says before he sends into heaven, he says, go make disciples of all nations. They don't have cars, there's no highways, they've never been more than a few miles from their home, they don't know anybody who has, go make disciples of all nations. He always trains them and calls them to these impossible things.

But for you and I, this thing happens as we get older where naturally we stop dreaming. Our dreams start to shrink down. I have this happen in my life, there's a time, it's convicted about this a couple of years ago where I used to pray, as my kids are first born, I pray God, I want millions of people to come to know you through my children. And I realized at some point that I'd stop praying that prayer. And instead my pressure of things like, God, just help him not like, flunk the math test. God, if you just make him like a normal human being who functions, tie their shoes, and like just kind of downgraded everything. I've seen this happen in my home and in my life I was convicted about like, no God, I want my dreams to shrink as my kid's age. Especially their dreams too, by the way. See this with my daughter Gracie. If you'd asked her a year ago what she wants to be when she grows up, she would have said a dolphin trainer. That was her career of choice. And if you ask her today what she wants to be, she would say a nurse anesthetist. Very different than a dolphin trainer. And please hear me clearly, wonderful career. Amazing, excited for her. She wants to do that because one of the moms of her friends, one of our good friends is a nurse anesthetist

and she was like, you make a lot of money, you work three days a week. I want that job, great. I get it, no problem. But what I have to do to be a good father to her is check underneath of that change and go, is this a dream that's expanding? Or is this a dream that's shrinking? Is it, are you going away from something? By the way, I was not excited to pay for dolphin college. So great, great, but are your dreams getting bigger or not? We have a father in heaven who wants your dreams to get bigger, but age fights against this. There's a great book called "The Circle Maker" about prayer and at the author it says this. It says neural imaging has shown that as we age, the center of cognitive gravity tends to shift from the imaginative right brain to the logical left brain. And this neurological tendency presents a grave spiritual danger. At some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory. Instead of creating the future, we start repeating the past. Instead of living by faith, we live by logic. So you can only live out of memory or imagination. Those are your only choices. Living for memory is exercising faith in the patterns of the past. It hasn't happened yet, therefore it will never happen. I was disappointed, therefore I will always be disappointed.

I was rejected, therefore I will always be rejected. I did fail, therefore I am destined to be a failure. That's living from memory. But living from imagination is believing God about the impossible being possible. And my question is, which God do you bow to? Do you worship the God of the past that says it's possible? The patterns that lock you in? Do you worship the God of memory? Or do you worship the God of imagination? The God of dreams where He says, "Go outside and count the stars." That's what I have for you. Who do you have faith in? The foundation of powerful faith has always been impossible to greet dreams. Always, the foundation of powerful faith is impossible dreams. And that's only true. The more powerful your faith becomes, the bigger your dreams become. It almost flips what we think about maturity. Earthly maturity we tend to think is like, when logic becomes greater than imagination, my logic overtakes imagination. But spiritual maturity is my imagination, my God-driven imagination. I lean on that. The test of your spiritual maturity is are your dreams getting bigger

or your dreams getting smaller? The test of whether you're getting closer to God or not is are your dreams getting bigger or are your dreams getting smaller? See, the amazing thing is God wants to expand our dreams. That's why he ties us to Abraham. July 7th, she says Abraham is the father of our faith that God wants to use his story to inspire us and show us that he wants to expand our dreams. The most remarkable thing about Abraham is that his dream, as he aged, it didn't actually diminish. It grew over time. There's a 25-year gap. He's 75 when God gives him a dream. It's not realized for their 25 years. And in the in-between 25-year period, God grows that dream. Remember, it started with a one-generation dream. Abraham wanted to be a dad. He wanted one son, one generation, to carry on his name and to take things in to one more step. That's all he was dreaming of. But in Genesis chapter 12, God says to him, comes to him and he says, "I will make you into a great nation, "not just one kid, not just one generation, "but a great nation." Now, nations come in all shapes and sizes. And so one chapter later, which represents about a decade later in his life, God speaks to Abraham again. And he says, "I will make your offspring "like the dust of the earth, not just a nation,

"but a nation that's more numerous than you can imagine." By the way, Abraham's in the Middle East. There's a lot of dust over there. He literally goes, "Look at the ground. "Look at the dust blowing through the air. "That is what your offspring will be." And then two chapters later, Genesis chapter 15, the voice wakes him up from his sleep. The voice that's quiet as a whisper and more powerful than an ocean that speaks straight to his heart says, "Go outside. "Look up at the sky and count the stars. "If indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be "like the stars." If you go outside your house and you live in a typical suburban area, you'll see what looks like this. About 450 stars visible to the naked eye. Now, if you were to conclude that as reality, you would be deluded because that's not reality. That's just what you can see with your own eyes from where you're currently standing. But if you shift to a different place, let's say a dark sky area in our country, my family and I got to do this a couple of years ago up by the Grand Canyon and you looked up with no light pollution, you would see 10 times the number of stars, not 450, but to your naked visible eye, 4,500 stars.

It's incredible if you've never seen it. You can look with your eyes if you stare long enough at the dark sky. You can even start to see in some places the core of the Milky Way. It looks like this dust cloud that stretches across the sky only it's not dust. What appears as dust of the earth is actually stars in the sky. But you know there are hundreds of billions of stars just in one galaxy. Do you know there are hundreds of billions of galaxies? In just about every year science re-ups the estimate of how many stars, how many galaxies, exactly how big the universe is. And oh by the way, if you picked up a modern science textbook what you would discover is modern science says the universe is expanding. You'll see it described as like a fabric that's being stretched out growing at all times in all directions. Something the Bible said by the way, a long, long time ago. Isaiah 40 verse 22 says he stretches out the heavens like a canopy and spreads them out like a tent to live in. So this thing, the defining symbol that God gives, the dreamer, the defining man of faith is a thing that he's actively at all times expanding in all directions. Bigger and bigger and bigger.

Why do we think that if we come to maturity God wants us to shrink our dreams? Why would we think that? He's doing the opposite. Abraham thought he was waiting for one son. God had a much bigger dream. Deuteronomy seven, God said it's a thousand generation dream. It says no therefore that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments. A thousand generations. In Abraham the dreamer he walks outside he counts the stars, he looks up, he realizes he can't. It's so big, it's so enormous and so much more than he could see in that moment. And the next sentence says Abraham believed the Lord and he credited to him as, I think a lot of us would fill in, I don't know, I'd credit him as optimism, you know? Or if he were cynical we might say naive. But God fills this blank in, Abraham believed the Lord and he credits it to him as righteousness. Righteousness means, by the way, right standing with God. It's where God looks at you and he goes, you and me? Hey, we're good. You and me, we're on the same page. You and me, I got nothing between you, you and me. We are right with each other, that's righteousness. And the thing that made Abraham righteous was believing the thousand generation dream.

The guy who had a dream for one son and had not seen it yet, believes God for a thousand generations and God says that is righteousness, believing the dream. Even if it's a thousand times bigger than what you already think is impossible. By the way, you know how many generations have passed since Abraham? He lived 4,000 years ago. Each generation's about 25 years. You do the math and we've had about 160 generations. So quite literally, we're at the very beginning of the dream and of the promise that God gave to his family. The thousand generation dream. And you and I, the crazy part is that we are heirs to that dream. Galatians 3.29 says, if you are Christ, then you, you are Abraham's offspring. And it's heirs according to promise. They've been asking God a lot as if step into this role of leading crossroads and saying, God, what is it I'm leading? What is this? Is crossroads a non-profit? Is that what we are? Is crossroads the place that makes great experiences? Is crossroads about worship and teaching? Is that what we do? God continues to say, no, no, no. And again, and again, and again, he takes me back

to the same simple, clear thought. Who we are as we are a family. Part of the heritage that he began 4000 years ago with one man and one impossible promise. We're part of a family he wants to change the world through. And I do mean a family, not like a family, but a family family. There's actually a scene in Matthew 12. I won't read the verse to you. Where Jesus is with his disciples, he's inside and he's talking to people and his mom and his brothers show up outside. And so somebody comes in and they're like, hey, your mom and your brothers are outside, they want to talk to you. And Jesus goes, my mom and my brothers, who are my mom and my brothers? These people, my disciples, the people with me right now, these are my mom and my brothers. And he wasn't trying to insult his family of origin. He was just making a point to say, this is the family that we're part of. And see, I believe that God is the same yesterday today and forever, I don't believe that he suddenly became the one generation God, do you? Are you treating the dream in your life like he changed? Like he's not the thousand generation dreamer, he's the one generation dreamer, the zero generation dreamer. No, no, God doesn't make one generation churches.

God doesn't make one generation people. God makes thousand generation families and you are a part of it. And the dream is your dream. And if you want to step into that stream of faith and the people who have found God, the people who have changed the world, you got to step into the dream. You have to. As I step into this role, I as generation two, I'm not thinking about generation two. I'm going, God, how might generation two become a small footnote at the start of the story that you want to write through this family? How might we go for 300 generations, 1000 generations in blessed people? Would you give us that privilege? By the way, as families go, the name changes. I don't know how to assert about that. It's not about the name of crossroads. It's about the dream of being part of something bigger, part of something that literally changes the world. As a church a couple years ago, we stepped more boldly into that dream. We did something called the 10x push where we said we're going to go after seeing 10x impact, pushing towards an awakening in our time over these next 10 years. One of the things that we funded through that was the expansion to go to 10 cities in 10 years.

Something I'll tell you is very, very impossible. And yet we're seeing God break through and do incredible things. If you've been part of crossroads in the last few months, you've heard us announce pop ups that we've done. We've taken crossroads experience in different cities and use that as a tool to gather people and start to form core teams in places, see where God's moving and I'm so excited to tell you, we know one of the cities where God is moving and we're going next, it's Indianapolis. So excited about that. (audience cheering) And even more exciting is that we're actually at the spot where we're ready to send somebody to go start to build that. Please welcome her up here right now. (audience applauding) - So proud of you. - This is Alex and her husband Cameron. - Hi, I'm Alex. - I'm Cameron. And this is your family, tell us what your family. - This is our almost three-year-old son, Judah, and our one-year-old daughter, Rosemary. Awesome, amazing. - Yeah, they're cute. Now, Alex, I know they are so cute. I know this is a dream that God's been speaking you about for a long, long time.

Tell us about that. - Yeah, I mean, I think I've had a dream of being a missionary of some sort, or being sent by God and doing something like this for like ever since I was a little girl, really. And this specific dream, I think God put on our heart. Cameron reminded me just this morning, like five years ago, we were on a vacation, and we both said, wouldn't it be cool if we like started a crossroads site somewhere if crossroads ever wanted to expand into new cities? And two years ago, when we stepped into the 10X push for 10 cities in 10 years, we felt like the thing that God was asking us to put on the table financially was our house and the down payment that we were about to start saving and had saved for a house. And we felt like God was pushing in on us then. It's because I don't want you to move somewhere in Cincinnati. And so we started praying about what does that mean? And what does that look like? And fast forward to almost exactly a year ago, at Revival last year, I was on our base camp land and I was really just trying to surrender dreams and asking God, would I really go all in and do anything that you asked me to do? Would I stay in the same place for the rest of my life? Would I go anywhere? And in saying, yes, I actually wrote down in my journal one year ago from this weekend, crossroads indie?

Question mark. - That's crazy. - And I didn't want that dream really at the time. I didn't want to leave all of our family, I didn't want to leave all of our friends, our comfortability, we both grew up here in Cincinnati, but God has grown that dream in us over the past year and now we are so excited and expectant and have a huge dream for the whole city of Indianapolis to experience Revival. - That's right, that's amazing. (audience cheering) Now, we are literally sending Alex and her family as missionaries. And if you go to scripture all the way to Acts 13, the very first time any missionaries are ever sent out from the church of Antioch, it's solemn, Barnabas, they do something, a sacred moment where they just set aside a moment to say we agree and they pray a blessing on them before they go, we're going to do that right now. If you're part of crossroads or if you're somebody who believes, you showed up, you're a guest, super excited, you're with us today, I want to invite you right now to extend a handout and as you do that, our indie core team's going to come on stage, be part of this moment with us. (audience cheering) Driven all the way from Indianapolis to be with us for this moment, so glad that you guys are here,

you can kind of spread around if you want to, that would be amazing, we're going to pray for this couple and pray that the dream that God's given them becomes reality, stretch your handout. Lord, we ask for your favor on this couple, I'm asking that as they step in and as they go out, Lord, exactly what Abraham did, you called him somewhere and he went that they would receive a blessing, that saying yes, this calling would be a blessing for their family, to their two kids, God, that you would expand their family, that the generations that come after them would know you, follow you, God, that you do powerful things in them and through them, beyond their wildest imagination. Lord, and we're praying over Indianapolis, we're praying over this whole core team that your will would be done, that lost people would be saved, we're not going because the world needs more crossroads, we're going because lost people need you. And would you send us with your words, with your gospels, would you prepare conversations, would you be working in hearts, God, and call people to you, we want Indianapolis to be changed, not just now, but generation after generation, we pray that everyone would come to know you. Bless you, God, 'cause you're a good God. Amen, amen, thanks guys. (audience cheering and applauding) Thanks, guys, amazing, amazing.

It's so cool to see God moving, you know, and when someone steps into a dream, you can't imagine what God might want to do and in through you. Alex is stepping into a dream that God gave her, and I know it would be easy for her, easy for her to say, "Nah, this is for somebody else, "nah, it's impossible." But God's calling them all of us to dream You might go like man I don't know what a thousand generation dream is Kyle. I have a dream, but it it seems so much smaller than that Well, do not discount small dreams don't label something small that God would label Generational don't discount your dreams. I was talking to my my 14 year old son Eli about this message the other day He was something working. He's like dad, you know, what are you doing? I said, I'm working on this this message What's it about dreams? We talked about it a little bit and he goes well I have a dream as you do because yeah crossroads softball league Okay, you know I'm serious dad doesn't that be awesome crossroads softball me because I would be kind of awesome And oh by the way as I pray for millions of people to know Jesus through my son I better not discount that dream would that bring people to Jesus? Probably I Probably don't discount the small dream that God gives you. Maybe you have a dream just like Abraham did to just be a parent Don't discount that dream Tell you a story about a man named Robert Ignatius ball. He had a dream to be a dad He didn't know his dad. He was born to a 14 year old mother team pregnancy never knew his dad His mom died in her early 30s mental health problems No faith Raised on the floor of a bar by his grandparents who owned the bar That man went on to have nine kids Dozens of grandkids dozens of dozens of great grandkids and found faith a deep and a personal faith with Jesus through the Catholic church And I know this because that man's my grandfather and the reason that I have faith If you trace my stories and my roots back through

You'll end up at Robert Ignatius ball a man who dreamed of just being the thing he didn't have he had never seen a dad Don't discount your dream Step in with the god of generations who wants to do more through you than you can possibly ask think or imagine Ephesians 3 20 now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine according to his power That's worked within us to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations Forever and ever listen it is time to dream again Your kids need you to dream Your friends at your school, they need you to dream your neighbors They need you to dream the city you live in it needs you to dream this church needs you to dream It's time to dream again. Don't let fear stop you It's last box Ask this question the last thing we're gonna fill in here right now in your life What are you afraid to ask God for? I'm not asking you to ask in this right now. Just what's what's the dream? What's the thing you go man if God would just call me into if God would just unlock God would just do if God would just Produce breakthrough. What's that thing? You're afraid to ask him. Are you afraid of disappointment? Are you living out of a memory? Are you living out of a pattern of the past? That's not your God Just remind you your God is the God of the future Should go ahead and write that in right now You You might wonder Why have you been writing in tiny boxes and random spots on this card? Why I've been doing this? You've been doing this because inside is a note from God It's words that we pulled straight from the Bible There's no idea in here. You can't trace back the Scripture and I'll invite you right now to open this note and to have a moment Hearing the voice of the one who talks and gives thousand generation dreams To turn the lights up right now Read your note

You When was the last time we had saw this? Was it the last time I heard your voice It'd be so sweet to talk Will you meet me? Will you speak again? I'm calling out for more what my soul longs for ♪ Will you meet me here ♪ ♪ Will you speak again? ♪ ♪ I'm crying out for more ♪ ♪ What my soul knows for ♪ ♪ Will you meet me here? ♪ Would you close your eyes right now? I invite you to pray a very simple prayer. God, would you revive my dreams? Or would you expand them? Would you give me the courage and the faith of Abraham? To walk past my fears and step into your plans? I want to dream again, God. Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you for your call. I thank you for your dreams. May we be a people of dreams. And may you do more than we could ever ask, think, or imagine for all generations, God. Would you be a church who pursues you in your dreams? Amen. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us today. My encouragement is simple, as always. I want to just hear God's word today.

Take one step because of it. Maybe that's open in your Bible. Maybe it's spending a few quiet minutes in prayer. Maybe it's forgiving someone or asking for forgiveness. Simply saying yes to whatever God is putting in front of you today. Whatever that next step is, take it. And if this message encourages you, we love to hear from you. Send us a video message or write to us at [email protected]. Our team reads every letter we love to walk alongside you. Till next time, keep pursuing Jesus. Keep opening his word. Keep saying yes to him one day at a time. See you soon. (upbeat music)