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Okay well good morning and welcome to the house. My name is Greg Hampton if I haven't mentioned

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that or if we've never met and today I actually want to start off right away with the passage

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of scripture that that I'm going to read. It's in first Kings chapter 17 and if you don't have a

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Bible we have physical Bibles out in the lobby otherwise you can look this up in a digital

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Bible. It goes first Samuel, second Samuel, first Kings, second Kings, first and second Chronicles.

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If you pull me down just a little bit I call that one of the sequel sections of the Older Testament.

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Wow that wasn't funny. I thought that was funny.

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Man did you get it? Do it again. I'll do it again. So it goes it goes first Samuel, second Samuel,

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first Kings, second Kings, first and second Chronicles. It's what I call the sequel section

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of the Older Testament. See Bradley you get me. You get me. Anyhow we have a tradition of giving

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the scriptures our full attention when we read them. One of the ways we can do that is by standing

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together as we are able or as you would prefer if you would like to stand with me. I'm going to read

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first Kings 17, 7 through 16. Sometime later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in

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the land. Verse 8, then the word of the Lord came to him. Go at once to Zarephath in the region of

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Sedon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food. So he went to Zarephath.

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When he came to the town gate a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked,

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would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink? As she was going to get it he

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called and bring me please a piece of bread. As truly as the Lord your God lives she replied,

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I don't have any bread. Only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil and a jug. I'm

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gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat and then

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die. Elijah said to her, don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small

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loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me and then make something for yourself and

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your son. For this is what the Lord the God of Israel says, the jar of flour will not be used up

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and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land. She went away

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and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her

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family for the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry in keeping with the

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word the Lord spoke by Elijah. Let us pray. God of every tribe, every tongue, every color,

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and every nation we thank you that we have the scriptures. This scripture that this story goes

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back nearly 3,000 years. We thank you that your scriptures have persisted throughout the millennia

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that we still have them to read and to learn from. Pray that whatever you have for us to learn today

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that it would stick, that it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would

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become more, would become stronger as we become more like your son Jesus. Amen. Amen. All right,

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so today I want to talk about August and everything after. Some of you are going, oh we talk about

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counting crows? No, I'm just calling the sermon August and everything after and I just love

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the album cover and so I was like I'm just gonna rip that off, you know, the biggie. But,

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so today may not seem any different to most of you. Most of you probably think, oh this is a Sunday

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just like any other Sunday. It's just a Sunday in August but to me Sundays in August and especially

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the fourth Sunday in August have a lot attached to them. Ten years ago at the end of July in

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2013 my family moved back to Rock Island from Colorado Springs to plant this church. Before we

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had moved I was the small groups director at a church of 10,000 people for three years. In addition

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to helping people at a very large church connect with each other I was tasked with helping launch

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the new campus downtown Colorado Springs and to lead the worship band and worship ministry for

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that for the first few months as it got onto its feet. And when I would drive downtown I would take

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the exit off the highway that was to Bijou Street and Bijou had this hard s-curve that would curve

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hard to the right and then hard to the left and you would be dropped right at the edge of the

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edge of the downtown area. Now I grew up in Moline but the first job that I ever drove myself to

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was at the Fort Armstrong in downtown Rock Island. I posted on Facebook today. I'm gonna cry during

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the sermon today 100% guaranteed. And when I would drive myself to the job at the Fort Armstrong

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I would go through this curve as fast as I possibly could because I was 16 years old and that's what

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you do when you're a 16 year old and a 1982 Toyota that's rusted out and has no shocks. You just go

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as fast as you can because it's fun. And so when I lived in Colorado anytime I would take that exit

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onto Bijou it reminded me of this s-curve and I would find myself praying for Rock Island.

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After that campus was up and running the next January in 2013 Cindy and I were praying together

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about what God might have for us and she said well maybe we should move home and maybe we should move

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to Rock Island and I said well if we move home we we'd have to plant the church in Rock Island.

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And then I just started to weep.

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I was weeping for a town that I'd only lived in for one year before we ever moved.

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Every other year of my life had been spent in Moline.

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From that point on pretty much anytime I would talk about Rock Island this would happen.

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I remember telling my direct report my executive pastor that I would was responsible to about

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wanting to plant this church and and he said well if this isn't call I don't know what is because I

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don't see anyone else crying for Rock Island. So by the end of August 2013 10 years ago we had only

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been back in the Quad Cities and specifically in Rock Island for less than a month. We were

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putting together our first information meetings. We had maybe three or four people that had said

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for sure yes we want to be a part of that. It felt like a miracle when months later in January that

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we we launched and we had 50 adults and kids that were all on board. They were all like yeah we are

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going to be a part of launching this church and we all agreed that the house a local church exists

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to invite people in to call prodigals home to adopt the spiritually homeless. We said that we

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believe that no one should be left out. We said that we would partner with other congregations

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and seek to plant more churches so that everyone has the opportunity to rest live and work in a

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great house. We said that we wanted to see a massive shift from spiritual homelessness to a

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strong and undeniable sense in our lifetimes of spiritual family in Rock Island and in the Quad

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Cities. We sent out 70,000 mailers not to 70,000 people to 70,000 mailboxes. That first Sunday we

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were expecting in addition to the 54 people that were already signed on anywhere from three to

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400 people to show up. They say that you have one half of one percent of a return on a mailer. Well

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one half of one percent on 70,000 is 350. Now as the story goes that first Sunday the water main

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broke at the high school. So we were told we were not able to or allowed to have a service inside

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the building and so what we did was we posted on Facebook hey it's pushed to the next week

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but anyone that's coming will be out in the parking lot. So we handed out gift cards and flyers and

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coupons and we just encouraged people to come back the next week and some of you that are here right

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now were there. One of those first two Sundays whether because you were on the team or because

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you got a flyer because someone told you to come and see what this was about. Right around then

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I had a dream. You ever had one of those dreams? First of all it just feels real as you're having

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it but it's also one of these dreams where depending on what you do for a living like so

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maybe you're a teacher and you have a dream that you're about to you have to go to class but you

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didn't do any of the prep for the class or you have to go to court but you didn't do any of the

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work for court or you're about to open a new show but nothing's been sewn and finished.

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For pastors that turns into the feeling of existential dread of I didn't write a sermon.

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I had this dream we were in the the auditorium of Rock Island High School and I was so nervous

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because I hadn't finished a sermon and the service was about to start and so I went around to the

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close to the back of the sanctuary and the place was just full of every kind of person.

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Every kind of person of Jewish people, black families, Hispanic families, gay couples,

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kids, the young, the old, just everybody was there and I looked up at the screen on the on the stage

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and there was a video playing of people telling their testimonies about how they had come back

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to or met Jesus for the first time because of this church and then suddenly I wasn't worried

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about not having a message to share and I woke up.

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I didn't know how we would ever get there considering that

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it seemed like all that would happen on Sundays in the winter of 2014 was snow.

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We had 10 out of the first 11 Sundays it snowed, not including the one where the water main broke.

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Okay so back to August but now it's August 2014. This is my second August back in Rock Island but

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it's the first August after we launched the church if that makes sense right. August is always a time

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of ramping up for churches. I don't know if you've ever noticed that but for instance like right now

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we've been talking about how Treehouse is going to be a church and we're going to be a church

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and we're talking about how Treehouse is going to relaunch in September, how we're going to serve in

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the Labor Day Parade, we have our annual homecoming Sunday. Why? Well because culturally speaking

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September is one of the few seasons every year that people are most open to trying out this church

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thing. Any Sunday is a good Sunday to invite someone to talk to Jesus but culturally speaking

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Christmas, Easter, September these are the seasons where people are looking and so summer 2014 I was

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hyper focused on getting us ready for growth leading the team we were sending out another mailer.

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I'd said on this Sunday we're going to have 120 people. I knew it. I knew it. I was building

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expectations for what was coming next and then what happened next was completely unexpected.

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In August of 2014 my six-year-old son got sick with a rare and unknown virus. Actually

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nine years ago this weekend this fourth Sunday in August was the first Sunday that we spent in the

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hospital in Peoria and that Sunday morning was easily the scariest day of my entire life because

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it is the closest that we have ever come to losing one of our kids. Eventually they told us that they

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had no cure and I remember not knowing if I could keep going. If I could keep passing on the

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faith. If I could keep pastoring this church that we had just started.

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I had no idea how to lead people to a God that I suddenly felt was very far away

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but I put on a good face

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and there was at the bottom of my heart

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just enough faith for bread that day.

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For the next seven months from August 2014 to March 2015 we lived in hospitals. OSF

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Chicago Children's Hospital in Peoria, the Lurie's Chicago Hospital for a little bit and the rehab

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institute in Chicago we spent Christmas morning at the Ronald McDonald house. So to say the least

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August is never just August to me like our bodies know it. There are times where we will just feel

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crankies all get out and we won't know why and then we look at the calendar and it's like our

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body knows what's going on before our brains do. The fourth Sunday of August is never just another

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Sunday in August to me. The eventfulness of August doesn't end there for me. Jumping forward a bit

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five years ago I took my first sabbatical in the summer of 2018. It was just a six-week sabbatical

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and in August of 2018 when I returned from six weeks when I was coming back from a time of rest

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for whatever reason over those six weeks right around a third of our congregation had dropped

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off and never returned. Maybe it was me but I know there was more to it. Leading up to that summer in

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2017 and 2018 was the season when we and particularly I had become very vocal about racism.

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I'd read a book called divided by faith that said statistically speaking the more a pastor feels they

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have to lose the more they feel like they'd lose part of their congregation specifically the less

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likely they are to speak out about racism but our leadership team agreed that we were willing to

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take that risk if it meant that we were telling the truth. I was a little bit worried about the

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risk if it meant that we were telling the truth. In the first testament in the book of amos chapter

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5 23 and 24 god says to his people take away from me the noise of your songs i will not listen to

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the music of your harps but let justice roll like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream

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because church actually being good matters more than only looking good.

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That august I was sad that people had left but I was proud that while the size of our congregation

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changed that the character of our call remained the same and I still had faith in the jar

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and I still had faith in the jar and so despite the challenges that we'd been through in 2018

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august I was optimistic about our future because I also knew that within a few months we would be

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moving into this building the building that just happened to be on the corner of the s curve that I

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had always prayed about. What are the odds of that right? In january of 2019 we officially moved in

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and opened this location. Sorry not only is this emotional for me but I've had a lot of allergies

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this week and so it was this building it was and still is more space than we need for look around

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a congregation of our size but remember we wanted to see a massive shift from spiritual homelessness

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to a strong undeniable sense of spiritual family we wanted enough room to grow

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and so that next august four years ago august 2019 I stood right here and I shared the vision that

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within five years we wanted to grow from an annual or from a weekly attendance of 75 to between 120

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to 180 so that we could send 50 people and a pastor to plant another church in one of the other

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cities now if you're keeping track of when that was some of you already know what happened next

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because within months we started hearing rumors of a virus on the other side of the world

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and within months of that the pandemic had shut down America shut down the world

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at first we thought it would be a couple months remember that

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remember that optimism we're like ah it'll be a couple months everyone will do the right thing

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man we'll we'll knock this thing down

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those couple months turned into 15 15 months before we started having people back in the

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building at a limited number and we were like oh my god we're going to be in a pandemic

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in the building at a limited number we had rsvps we had section small groups of chairs some of you

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were here from that it was 21 months another six months after that before there were really kind

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of no restrictions at all except for whatever people felt comfortable with themselves that put

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us in december of 2021 but let's be honest it was a full three years before things felt normal again

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so that vision that hope of intentional growth that was put on hold because we had no idea

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how long this was going to take

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we had no idea how long a global pandemic was going to last

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we also had no idea how it was going to affect local churches what we know now

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is that churches across america including ours on average are 20 smaller than they were pre-pandemic

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we were hoping to spend five years doubling our attendance so that we could plant another church

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instead in four years we shrunk by 20 percent there's an anecdote about a new pastor at a church

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and he his old friend says hey how's it going at your new church and he says it's great i've

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successfully grown this church of 100 people into a congregation of 60

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so then we move forward a little bit to the summer of 2022 it was time for my second sabbatical

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the first one was after five full years four and a half years of sunday mornings the next one was

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four years our pattern is going to be every four years and so it's time for my second sabbatical

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and i had no idea what to expect the pandemic had to do with the pandemic and the pandemic

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is going to be every four years and so it's time for my second sabbatical and i had no idea what to expect the pandemic had

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carved away a chunk of every congregation in america and the last time i left for

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a sabbatical a third of the congregation pieced out but the truth is i wasn't worried

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because i had learned that church size does not always indicate church health

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i'm reminded that 10 years ago the same month that my family moved back to rock island i actually left

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for one week to go lead worship for a youth group that was taking a missions trip to the rural towns

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of oklahoma that had been destroyed by tornadoes in one of the days on that trip what they did was

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they took us to the site of the oklahoma city bombing in 1995 and as the guide showed us around

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they pointed out that they had planted a row of trees in memory of each of the first responders

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that had lost their lives and then they pointed out that they intentionally had chosen a species of tree

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that would never grow taller than the building that had been destroyed

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so that as you looked at this outline of trees it was though it replaced the outline of the building

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those trees will never grow any taller than they are meant to grow and yet those trees will still be healthy

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i think that by the time i was leaving for my second sabbatical the summer of 2022 we had not grown

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numerically but we had grown in depth in community and in the community of the community of the

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we had grown in depth and community and culture i didn't think and i still don't think that our

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tree has reached its full height but i knew that it was healthy

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and i think that we had found ourselves grounded in the rich soil of what the 17th century theologian

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rupertus mildenius meant when he said in essentials unity and non-essentials liberty

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and all things charity so when i returned from sabbatical last year it was august 2022

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and i found exactly what i had left a healthy church because i believe that jesus is here

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i believe that the spirit is moving and i think that the father is pleased

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let me say this clearly being healthy isn't an accident i used to tell people that

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most the time when someone says they want something to be organic what they mean is

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they want it to happen accidentally some of you have been in a meeting where you were starting

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to plan something and someone in the room chained up and they said i just feel like we should

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let this happen organically and in some cases that works without any help but in other cases

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if you go to the grocery store and you go to the organic section everything in that section required

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more work more hoops more intentionality and more money for it to be considered organic

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it is no different in a church or community or friend group if you want it to be healthy

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it requires some intentionality we cannot sit back like a basketball team in the dark going hey

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we're all in the same team and just hope we'll put the ball into the right hoop

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requires intentionality it has to be on purpose in some way it has to be on purpose

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and so today with just the few minutes that i have left i just want to lay out what this next year

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looks like for us and why because it's important because it's not just for us for this congregation

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but it's for our city it's for the mission and the vision that god gave us more than 10 years ago

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it starts with next sunday is a rest sunday i don't want to see you here

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it has been a core value of who we are since day one that rest comes first

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rest is the first thing that god offers us and it is okay for us to stop to intentionally stop

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for us to stop to intentionally stop even when we're on the verge of september to say you know

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what we are not going to buy into the rat race that we have to do something every single opportunity

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that we can we will reject that and say yeah labor day weekend we're gonna rest we are not going to

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try and convince people to show up here labor day monday anyone that wants to we have the opportunity

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to serve our city though for the 10th time the first year that we committed to serving in the

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labor day parade i was in a hospital but we served anyway because we wanted to see our city

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thrive part of the reason that we have never had a float not to say that we won't but we've never

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walked in the in the parade as a church or as a community we've only ever served it because we're

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not not to say that we never will but we didn't want to start by advertising ourselves we wanted

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to start by serving everyone else there will be thousands of people at this parade there will be

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hundreds of businesses and bands and people walking in this parade and we get to serve them

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and give them a positive experience on a stressful morning because it is because half the time no one

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has any idea where they're supposed to be we will be there serving them making it as easy as possible

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and then we want to relaunch our pantry that's going to be happening at earl hansen

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i'm currently emailing river bends food bank to find out the information on how we continue to do

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that if you're interested in being a part of that let me know and then september 10th homecoming

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sunday it's just a fun event we do because sometimes prodigals the spiritually homeless

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the first thing that they need isn't a message isn't a sermon it's just to be able to see a

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community have fun together so that's a great day for us to invite people to come home maybe for the

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first time and see what a community can look like september 17th tree house and the shed relaunch

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everybody give a whoo whoo and it's not just because oh we need something for the kids

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it's because creating a safe place for kids to learn about jesus in a way that isn't judgmental

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that isn't legalistic will set them up for the rest of their lives of how they will think about

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god they may not remember everything that they are taught but they will remember the people that

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taught them they will remember the attitudes of the people that taught them they will remember

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them they will remember the demeanor and the culture and the feeling and the environment that

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they were in that's why we have these things not because of everything that they will remember on

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monday but because of everything that god will plant in their hearts for some day

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and then from september 17th through advent we are very specifically going to do a series

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that is about being a healthy church because again it's not on accident

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i said siri we're going to do a series

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it's going to be called a church called tov scott mcnight a scholar and theologian wrote a book

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his this book called a church called tov and tov is a hebrew word that means good

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it's all about how a church can resist narcissism how a church can resist creating false narratives

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a church can resist celebrity cultures for their leaders how a church instead can embrace empathy

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can nurture justice can care about truth and so from september 17th until advent we're going to

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talk about what it means to be good in that same time frame at the end of september you're going

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to see some opportunities to connect with each other outside of sunday mornings

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tashiana mcconnell if you don't mind raising your hand tashiana is going to be hosting

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a women's group that's going to happen once a month it starts on september 30th the next month

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october november we will have a weekly community table we've had community tables for years

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i'm just highlighting these things because we want you to connect with people outside of sundays

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if you can and then in december as we have for the last i think nine years we will have our foster

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gift ministry we will collect gifts for kids that are affected by foster care again speaks to the

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vision that we not only want to call prodigal's home and adopt the spiritually homeless but we

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want to care about people that are physically in that place and then in january we will is everyone

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ready for this are you ready drum roll please we will celebrate being 10 years old as a church

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that doesn't happen for everybody so i don't know what we're going to do but i might put a little

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team together to come up with some ideas of what we'll do for 10 years because that feels like

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feels like a big deal but after that we need to continue thinking about what it means to be healthy

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and so from february to easter we're going to do a series where every week we're going to talk

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about and dive deeper into worshiping god because it's not just singing songs singing songs is part

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of it part of is using our bodies part of is our minds some of it is our creativity

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i think a lot of times we expect people to know how to worship just by watching us up front

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but i want to make sure that we as a congregation have every opportunity to learn and step into

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what it looks like and what it means to worship the god that has given us everything amen

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amen and then we'll do some stuff in the summer i don't know what but that'll bring us back around

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to august august august 2023 will mark five years since i stood right here and said that we wanted

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to plant another church in five years i do not think it's likely that will happen

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and that's okay that is completely okay because we are healthy

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but i will say this i'm not letting go of that part of our vision just because it's okay to wait

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does not mean that we have to let go of that hope because don't don't we still want to see a shift

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don't we still want to see people invited in to see the spiritual spiritually homeless find a home

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do we not still want to see prodigals coming home seeing the father's foot touch stone and run to

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them don't we still want to see god do something for us to be able to see the world and to be able

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to see the world we still want to see god do something in rock island

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the city that 10 years ago seems to be treated so second and other by everyone i would talk to about

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has not changed that much even in 10 years so we have so much further to go i think that god has so much more

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for us to do and be and i think that there's still flower in the jar

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that there is still faith in my jar

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and if you are running out i will give you some

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because i have faith that i can go and and bake a loaf of bread that feels like will only be enough

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for me but somehow it will also be enough for you

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so that is august but jesus is in

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everything after amen let's pray

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Jesus i thank you for august there have been times when i have hated it

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but i thank you that every year we come around august

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that my body reminds me my brain reminds me and then your spirit reminds me of who you are

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and why you call this here in the first place

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it was not to bake one last loaf of bread and then die

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it was to invite people in

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to call prodigal's home to adopt the spiritually homeless to say and believe that no one should be left out

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and so i'll keep saying it

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and i thank you for a church that is healthy that will say it with me