Celebrating Life: Honoring Family and Community Together

1) "If you really love someone, when there's something significant happening in their lives, and they want to do a certain thing, you do it with them. You don't change it to what you like to do. Did someone get that? We don't say, here's what you need to do for your 70th. No, she tells us what she wants to do for her 70th, and then we cooperate with her, because that's what she, that's what gives her fulfillment." [01:30] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "People will do more for the funeral of someone than for the celebration of someone. It's really weird. People will go, I've seen this. People have had deaths in the family, and people will travel. They know about the death in North America the next day they're in England. Or the incident happens in North America, the English people are already there the next day. But they can't seem to find the space to do it for a celebration." [03:13] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "We need to feel valued. No matter, we need to feel valued. We need to have. Hope. We don't do well if we are hopeless. Um, but how do people gain value? How do they gain hope? It's by how you and I encourage them actually. Oh, it's how you and I connect with them and make them feel that they have worth. Even if nobody out there thinks that they have worth, we are telling them that they have worth. Right. And what we're doing when we're doing that, we're giving them a reason to live. And we all need a reason to live. Because if we don't have a reason to live, we die." [05:58] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "We live in a culture. And when I say culture, I mean, Western culture where it's, it's, it's use and dump. Actually, the way it works is if I don't need anything from you, I don't even say hello to you. That that's how the culture functions. I only say hello to you when I need something from you and I'm saying just a hello to someone can lift their spirit. can give them purpose, can give them a reason to put the next foot forward, live another day, try again. Because someone recognized them, saw them, and communicated, no, I reckon, I see you. I see that you have value." [07:14] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Think about it. Aren't these qualities that all of us should have whether you're a bishop or not? You know, if you're not careful, you read this as, oh, this is for bishop. It doesn't mean it's for me. Shouldn't every Christian not be a drunkard? Not be violent? Not be quarrelsome? Not be a lover of money? Alright, okay. I just thought we should chip that in." [12:28] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "The Bible is not written for you. It's written to you, but it's not for you. You are not the center of the Bible. Right? Because in Western culture, we live like we're the center. When we're reading it, it's about what's in it for me. Right? Right? It has its problems. Because what it does is that when you start reading things like that, you're always reading in the context of what it can do for you. It's not for you, about you. The Bible is not about you. It's about God and what He's doing, and your part in it. You are not the center of the Scriptures. God is the center of the Scriptures through His Son, Jesus Christ." [18:45] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "If you identify yourself based on, your individual achievements, and you have not achieved very much, the devil will gaslight you. He will tell you how useless you are, how much you have not achieved, and look at you, you have not done. But if you define yourself by the family that God has made you a part of, it changes. So in the culture that I come from, they would say, what family are you from? What house? And I would say, I am from this house. And they would say, ah, this is who you are. Can you see? I don't know how much of the scriptures in the book, I don't know if you can see the parallel there. God is, when we come to Christ, he's asking us to define ourselves by who we are in Christ. That's what he's asking us to do. I love it." [21:10] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "What really makes us really are these people that God has gifted us. They're part of our family, physical and spiritual. And, you know, I said in my notes, and I'm not even following my notes. I'm just going, going as I'm inspired. What's really funny about family is that, listen to this. We don't get to choose them. God says, this is yours. God says, I'm giving you this. And that one, that annoying one, that stupid one, that nonsense one. I'm trying to find adjectives to, in fact, We're not emotions. I'm just hands. We're opposites. I'll use any other figure of speech or part of speech to define it. We have all sorts. There's nobody that doesn't have crazy people in their family. Even God himself has mad people in his own family. Because church people are mad. But think about it. There is no perfect one. But God still insists that we have one. That we're born into one. That we participate in one. And that we live with each other." [30:05] (77 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "My mission in life is to get along with my natural family. And to get along with my spiritual family. Because I know God uses all of those people to elevate me. You know, I come from a culture where they say, they say, human beings are your clothes. That's how it literally, but what it means is that people are your covering or your protection. Because they, and if you have family, they rally around you." [33:41] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10) "I'm trying to make a case for why our families are perhaps more important than we might think. And I'm talking about two families at the same time. I'm talking about two families at the same time. I'm talking about the physical family, the one that the earthly family that God gave you. And I'm talking about the spiritual family that God gives you. Both are part of God's plan. This is why when God started out his plan to create a place like heaven, he starts out by creating a family first. This is why in the last days, that's what the enemy is going for. To destroy that." [37:23] (42 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)