Hybrid Church: Mission Flowing Out Of Intimacy

And to me, all these things are connected together with the way he speaks to me. And I'd suggest that if you struggle to hear his voice, getting to know yourself is actually a really great place to start. Because knowing yourself better, seriously, his words are life. And we live off every word that proceeds from his mouth. So so don't be satisfied with yesterday's manna, last year's. Don't be satisfied with yesterday's light. His mercies are new every morning and he has something fresh speak to you for this year. [01:16:06] (33 seconds)  #HearHisVoiceDaily

And this has become a bit of a litmus test for us. Right? Presence is our priority and we've been talking about entering into the secret place for ourselves personally and communally for a few years now. Right? And as I sat with that, I I felt these words, everything that harmony carries outwardly is unlocked by what we guard inwardly. And this is what God has been spoken to us over a long period of time inwardly, that we are to guard and protect and nurture and grow. [01:28:18] (36 seconds)  #GuardTheInnerLife

So as I close this morning, I wanna I wanna invite you to do one thing this morning with me and that would be to ask of the Lord, God, what are you saying to me personally? What are you saying for my household? What are you saying for me and my family? I know that you're speaking all the time. You're speaking to us communally as a congregation, as a church, and you're also speaking to me. And I wanna say, don't rush to answers, but just lean into curiosity. Be patient and wait on him. Because when he speaks, he doesn't just give direction, but he invites us into partnership. [01:36:22] (44 seconds)  #AskWaitListen

And so, when I look at it, I go, man, Jerusalem and Antioch really stand out. These are the two clearest apostolic expressions in the New Testament. Both were spirit filled, both were Jesus centered, but each expressed the kingdom in different distinct rhythms. And that contrast is incredibly helpful for any church discerning whether God is calling them to function primarily as a gathering center or as a sending center. [01:20:19] (28 seconds)  #GatherOrSend

and it looks beyond itself, beyond its walls to the city and to the regions and to the nations. And it prioritizes things like training and equipping and commissioning people and taking risks and building faith and it's really responsive to the spirit in the moment. And it's often catalytic, like, rather than being a settled place, it's like, where are we going to next, Lord? It it's looking for multiplication and it's rather than maintaining something, it's it's on to the next thing. And so there's these really different directions but they're not opposing. [01:23:17] (40 seconds)  #SentToMultiply

in my perspective, I've been patient but that's like in the scale of moments like a couple of months, whereas his perspective is so far beyond my scale. His time frame that I think sometimes we come to the year and we put time frames on him and it actually it actually generates like another idol for us to cling to. And so for me, this year, I've been coming to God and just been like, I wanna be led by your voice. I wanna diligently seek you, and that just looks like me waiting and waiting. [01:12:08] (34 seconds)  #WaitOnHisTiming

And honestly, it's like the best game of hide and seek. I got little kids and when I when I seek when I when I'm hiding, I'm hiding like with like my torso half hidden but everything else sort of out, visible, you know what I mean? And it's like God does that with us that he's like, seek me and you'll find me. Like, gonna go hide over here, seek me and you'll find me. It's a guarantee. And he's hiding behind the curtain with his torso half sticking out and the moment that you step forward towards him, he's like, oh, you're so clever. You found me. [01:16:39] (34 seconds)  #SeekAndFind

And he doesn't do it it's not a manipulation game, it's he's not teasing us. It's because he initiates and he invites us into partnership. The problem is that many of us have left him hanging and he's waiting behind the curtain and we're in the other room and we got distracted. And we're supposed to be looking for him everywhere and everything all the time and celebrating that trail that he's left for us to discover. The breadcrumbs. The breadcrumbs, you know, to the bread of life. [01:17:15] (31 seconds)  #FollowHisBreadcrumbs

this this producing of amazing teams, Paul and Barnabas and John Mark, and they're really comfortable with things being new and innovative. They're super flexible. They they're adaptable because everything was changing all the time. Like, all our key volunteers know about that. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Had const they had consistently, they had to seek discernment, like, regarding decisions. They had this real missional boldness, which I think is amazing because they were being persecuted and they kept crying out for more boldness. But Antioch grew by sending people out. [01:32:45] (43 seconds)  #SendBoldly

In, you know, starting off the new year but it's like, hey, Lord, we're dedicating this back to you. We're dedicating this back to you. I even I love Gideon's practice. He's mentioned it before where on a Saturday, he would just lay on the stage and just be like, this is yours. This this church is yours. This platform is yours. My life is yours. Do with it what you will. And so there's this sense of like coming to the Lord at the beginning of the year and saying, I give I give everything and everyone in my life back to you. Yeah. [01:09:34] (32 seconds)  #YearOfSurrender

And as I sat with that, I I felt these words, everything that harmony carries outwardly is unlocked by what we guard inwardly. And this is what God has been spoken to us over a long period of time inwardly, that we are to guard and protect and nurture and grow. So as I began sitting with this this Jerusalem thing and this Antioch thing, I read into Jerusalem and it's really the forming of a family. [01:28:36] (31 seconds)  #FamilyFormsTheKingdom

But here's the prophetic partnership sort of thing, is that when God speaks, I go and do my homework. And so I went to scripture and I zoomed in across acts and the epistles and what I noticed is that you don't find a rigid apostolic church model. You find a family resemblance of different expressions, different rhythms. There's big, there's small, there's gathered, there's scattered, there's rooted, there's mobile. And the early church, as it matures, even the early fathers of the faith showed those same patterns developing. They didn't disappear. [01:18:41] (39 seconds)  #DiverseChurchRhythms

Over a month ago, I woke up early and felt the holy spirit speak to me one word really clearly and it was hybrid. I woke up with this word hybrid in my spirit and it came on the back of an unusual dream but somehow, I just knew that God was speaking about Harmony Church and that he was calling us to be a spirit led blend of both Jerusalem and Antioch, a hybrid. [01:17:52] (28 seconds)  #HybridCalling

Now, this this story isn't directly related to this morning at all, this word, but I'm wanting you I'm wanting to show you my process because my my role isn't to tell you what God is saying for you. My role is to provoke your curiosity so that you go and you ask him for yourself. Right? That's the coaching moment for this morning. Go and inquire of the Lord for yourself. He speaks. He speaks. Man, he speaks to all of us. He speaks to him every time. It's true. He speaks probably all the time to all of us. [01:14:44] (39 seconds)  #GoAskGod

So I've been really curious, and I've been trying to be quiet. How many all got kids? Yeah. That's hard. Just being quiet over school breaks when it's raining. But just dialing down the external noise, dialing down the internal noise, and letting go of those expectations of what I think God should be saying. [01:11:40] (24 seconds)  #DialDownNoise

How does he speak to you? Well, uniquely, this guy's having a dream session right now, and God's speaking to him in his dreams. Some of you got that. That's okay. I mean, he knows who you are. Right? He know he he knows how you're created. So how you're wired. I mean, I'm highly visual and so he talks to me visually. I'm a kinesthetic learner, so he talks to me kinesthetically. I'm an intuit, so he he intuits. He shows me things intuitively. [01:15:23] (34 seconds)  #GodSpeaksYourWay

And there's Jerusalem that walks with people in discipleship through formation, through healing, and through and like long term faithfulness. And it requires consistency and like this relational depth. And so the rhythms that people sustain there are weekly and they value stuff like just care and that slow work of spiritual maturity. Right? [01:22:43] (23 seconds)  #RhythmsOfDiscipleship

but the thing is, without family, there's there's no kingdom because family is the precursor and the forerunner to the outpouring of the kingdom. Where God's family is healthy, revival flows naturally. There is like this supernatural grace on family. [01:31:45] (18 seconds)  #FamilyPreparesRevival

And so there's a sense of like the grace of God, the forgiveness of God, the love of God without unconditional, though, this beautiful gift that you just get to pick up and run with. The fullness of everything that God has given us at the cross. And yet, his protection, his provision, that sense of his purpose in your life, that that that are are a little conditional, some people are gonna irk at me saying that, to you aligning your life with God. To you aligning yourself with his ways. [01:10:27] (31 seconds)  #GraceAndAlignment