Touching Tomorrow: A Vision for Discipleship and Growth
Devotional
Sermon Summary
Sermon Clips
"I want to use this series of touching tomorrow to really begin to share my heart in terms of what we are trusting the Lord for in this next season in the life of our church in these next five years. I want to begin this way. The year was 1998, and my wife and I, I think they have a picture. We had just graduated from college. We had graduated in May, had gotten married in June, and then we had then relocated to the Dallas area. And upon relocating to the Dallas area, we began looking. Y 'all got that picture for us? We began looking for a church." [00:00:08] (48 seconds)
"You cannot miss it in the text. The text says they are praising God, they are gathering together. They didn't have a facility quite like ours, but what they did have was the presence of God in their lives. And every time they gathered, they worshiped God, they honored God. You see worship is your response to God. Every time you respond to God in your lifestyle, in your decisions, in how you handle tragedy and trials, in how you show up, your worship is your response to God. So when you know who God is, it changes how you live. It changes how you show up. It changes your decisions. Worship is not just us singing songs and praising God. That's one part of it. But worship is also how you show up on Monday morning with your co -workers. Worship is a lifestyle and worship is an act to God. That's what you see in this first text. God creates the church because he wants it to be a gathering of his people, an assembly of his people that are worshiping and honoring God every..." [00:05:39] (72 seconds)
"That he would then, while his disciples were sitting around the table some days later, debating over who's the greatest, that when Jesus gets there, he takes a towel and he takes a basin. Here he is, the master. Here he is, the teacher. And he gets on his knees and he washes the disciples' feet. And when he finishes, he says, go and do likewise. Jim Cimbala tells the story that on one occasion, he had just finished ministering and someone had come up to him, and currently it was a homeless man that had come up and he smelled just a foul odor, as though not having a bath in several days. And he said, he smelled this foul odor, and yet the man had come desiring to know more. And he just felt like, oh, I can't do this. This is, this was, this was, it was even nauseating. And he said, Jesus, he heard God whisper to him, if you don't learn to love that smell, I can. And, so when he's done that, you know." [00:10:21] (66 seconds)
"service is not what we do service is who we are service is who we are and the service that we talk about in the life of our church is not yes we are grateful for people that serve in our music ministry and people that serve in our in our children and in our nursery space and in our parking lot this church does not happen ministry does not take place without volunteers that show up early and serve from 7 30 to 2 in the afternoon because they are committed to serving God it doesn't happen without people on the security ministry and people in production and people change in diapers so you can enjoy worship people that are on the parking lot people in production people teaching our children and teaching our youth people going to the prison ministries and people going to serve the homeless and people helping people through the food pantry and through counseling services nothing works except for the servants like yourself that love to serve others that's the engine behind the church so you see in this extra they are serving and when needs pop up they respond to the needs I guess what friends service is not just what we do in the life of the church service is also what we do in the city and the community that God calls us into this room that we're this is like the huddle that you know in football they they have a sequence of things that happen throughout the game that that team of 11 defensive or 11 offensive they will they will huddle up in the circle where they will get instructions and get directions and get a plan and then they say break and they each go to their roles and they execute the play when we gather on Sundays this is the huddle but around 10 a .m. when this service is over we say break and then you got to go run the play" [00:11:27] (136 seconds)
"it's not just us making disciples we want every person to be a disciple maker and so so so we are we are grateful for what the Lord has been doing in the life of our church in the life of our church we have been we've been in a season because our Our church will turn 50 in June. And so for the last, come on, let's celebrate 50 years, y 'all. And because of that, a year ago, we went through a process. We started a process of trying to ask the Lord, Lord, where do you want us to go from here? And so we spent a year. We did focus groups with different segments of the church family to try to get different voices. We talked to people in the community. We looked at kind of statistics in terms of where Dallas is headed. We went through a time of prayer. We spent about a year. We had a strategic planning team made up of some of the leaders in the life of our church and our community. We went through a whole process because we were trying to seek the Lord to say, okay, Lord, as we turn 50, where do you want us to go from here? Like we don't want to waste. We want to make sure that we steward and honor God's call on the life of our church well. And so we spent that time and did that work. And so now what I want to use this time is I want to talk to you a little bit about how we're praying for, what we're trusting God for in this next season. So we went through this process." [00:16:57] (95 seconds)
"We began to identify like six key areas that we said, okay, this is what we're really believing God for. When we talk about touching tomorrow, it really is a movement of discipleship. It's a movement. It's a movement of discipleship whereby we are trusting the Lord to raise up disciple makers in this next five years. Part of that will be connected to us raising up 300 grow groups across the city, even across our online campus. Here's what we know so far. We know so far that God has sent nearly, let me look at this. I want to look at this stat, make sure I get it right. Here's what we know so far. Y 'all put that one up, the last two years. Let's put that one up right quick. Here's what we know the last two years. The last two years, the biggest number there is that we've seen nearly 4 ,500 new members in the last two years alone, and we've baptized nearly 700 people. So we thank God for what God has done in the last two years of our church, our historic. We've made the last two years of our church, and we've made the last two years of our church." [00:18:31] (73 seconds)
"If we're going to grow people, we think it's essential and important that we started something last January that we think is going to be key to helping us grow more effectively with disciples. We gave out a survey that is going to give us a spiritual marker of kind of where we are spiritually, based on several key areas that we identified, worship, grow, serve, give. We're going to then use that data to help shape how we are able to grow you in terms of our classes, sermons, and then we'll reassess it in two years. We want to use data to help us grow in our lives and help us make more effective disciples. The other piece we want to do there is that one of our goals is to raise up, as I mentioned, 300 disciple makers. Each year we want to add 50. That means there's someone in this room. Let's go! that you've been sitting and soaking up for quite a while. And our hope and prayer is that God wants to release you to be able to start a grow group, be able to mentor somebody, be able to walk with somebody. We just believe this. For so long, can you sit and just watch? God wants to use you to help grow and impact somebody else. And we believe this could be the season that he doesn't. Worship. We want to continue to create engaging, powerful, spirit -filled worship experiences. We believe it's important that we create an experience. And our team has been working steadily here. We also want to create a collective where we're going to be training up the next generation of worship leaders and the next generation of musicians. We want to be pouring and developing them to help them to grow in their walk with the Lord and in their relationship with him. We also are going to be making some upgrades in this space as well as we address worship because we've been in this building right at 13 years now. And so some of the items, soundboard, and some of the speakers and other things, we're going to have to update so that we can continue to have powerful and engaging worship services. The next one is our youth development. Our youth are facing challenges that they have not faced in prior generations." [00:21:10] (133 seconds)
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"You cannot miss it in the text. The text says they are praising God, they are gathering together. They didn't have a facility quite like ours, but what they did have was the presence of God in their lives. And every time they gathered, they worshiped God, they honored God. You see worship is your response to God. Every time you respond to God in your lifestyle, in your decisions, in how you handle tragedy and trials, in how you show up, your worship is your response to God. So when you know who God is, it changes how you live. It changes how you show up. It changes your decisions. Worship is not just us singing songs and praising God. That's one part of it. But worship is also how you show up on Monday morning with your co -workers. Worship is a lifestyle and worship is an act to God. That's what you see in this first text. God creates the church because he wants it to be a gathering of his people, an assembly of his people that are worshiping and honoring God every..." [00:05:39] (72 seconds)
"That he would then, while his disciples were sitting around the table some days later, debating over who's the greatest, that when Jesus gets there, he takes a towel and he takes a basin. Here he is, the master. Here he is, the teacher. And he gets on his knees and he washes the disciples' feet. And when he finishes, he says, go and do likewise. Jim Cimbala tells the story that on one occasion, he had just finished ministering and someone had come up to him, and currently it was a homeless man that had come up and he smelled just a foul odor, as though not having a bath in several days. And he said, he smelled this foul odor, and yet the man had come desiring to know more. And he just felt like, oh, I can't do this. This is, this was, this was, it was even nauseating. And he said, Jesus, he heard God whisper to him, if you don't learn to love that smell, I can. And, so when he's done that, you know." [00:10:21] (66 seconds)
"service is not what we do service is who we are service is who we are and the service that we talk about in the life of our church is not yes we are grateful for people that serve in our music ministry and people that serve in our in our children and in our nursery space and in our parking lot this church does not happen ministry does not take place without volunteers that show up early and serve from 7 30 to 2 in the afternoon because they are committed to serving God it doesn't happen without people on the security ministry and people in production and people change in diapers so you can enjoy worship people that are on the parking lot people in production people teaching our children and teaching our youth people going to the prison ministries and people going to serve the homeless and people helping people through the food pantry and through counseling services nothing works except for the servants like yourself that love to serve others that's the engine behind the church so you see in this extra they are serving and when needs pop up they respond to the needs I guess what friends service is not just what we do in the life of the church service is also what we do in the city and the community that God calls us into this room that we're this is like the huddle that you know in football they they have a sequence of things that happen throughout the game that that team of 11 defensive or 11 offensive they will they will huddle up in the circle where they will get instructions and get directions and get a plan and then they say break and they each go to their roles and they execute the play when we gather on Sundays this is the huddle but around 10 a .m. when this service is over we say break and then you got to go run the play" [00:11:27] (136 seconds)
"it's not just us making disciples we want every person to be a disciple maker and so so so we are we are grateful for what the Lord has been doing in the life of our church in the life of our church we have been we've been in a season because our Our church will turn 50 in June. And so for the last, come on, let's celebrate 50 years, y 'all. And because of that, a year ago, we went through a process. We started a process of trying to ask the Lord, Lord, where do you want us to go from here? And so we spent a year. We did focus groups with different segments of the church family to try to get different voices. We talked to people in the community. We looked at kind of statistics in terms of where Dallas is headed. We went through a time of prayer. We spent about a year. We had a strategic planning team made up of some of the leaders in the life of our church and our community. We went through a whole process because we were trying to seek the Lord to say, okay, Lord, as we turn 50, where do you want us to go from here? Like we don't want to waste. We want to make sure that we steward and honor God's call on the life of our church well. And so we spent that time and did that work. And so now what I want to use this time is I want to talk to you a little bit about how we're praying for, what we're trusting God for in this next season. So we went through this process." [00:16:57] (95 seconds)
"We began to identify like six key areas that we said, okay, this is what we're really believing God for. When we talk about touching tomorrow, it really is a movement of discipleship. It's a movement. It's a movement of discipleship whereby we are trusting the Lord to raise up disciple makers in this next five years. Part of that will be connected to us raising up 300 grow groups across the city, even across our online campus. Here's what we know so far. We know so far that God has sent nearly, let me look at this. I want to look at this stat, make sure I get it right. Here's what we know so far. Y 'all put that one up, the last two years. Let's put that one up right quick. Here's what we know the last two years. The last two years, the biggest number there is that we've seen nearly 4 ,500 new members in the last two years alone, and we've baptized nearly 700 people. So we thank God for what God has done in the last two years of our church, our historic. We've made the last two years of our church, and we've made the last two years of our church." [00:18:31] (73 seconds)
"If we're going to grow people, we think it's essential and important that we started something last January that we think is going to be key to helping us grow more effectively with disciples. We gave out a survey that is going to give us a spiritual marker of kind of where we are spiritually, based on several key areas that we identified, worship, grow, serve, give. We're going to then use that data to help shape how we are able to grow you in terms of our classes, sermons, and then we'll reassess it in two years. We want to use data to help us grow in our lives and help us make more effective disciples. The other piece we want to do there is that one of our goals is to raise up, as I mentioned, 300 disciple makers. Each year we want to add 50. That means there's someone in this room. Let's go! that you've been sitting and soaking up for quite a while. And our hope and prayer is that God wants to release you to be able to start a grow group, be able to mentor somebody, be able to walk with somebody. We just believe this. For so long, can you sit and just watch? God wants to use you to help grow and impact somebody else. And we believe this could be the season that he doesn't. Worship. We want to continue to create engaging, powerful, spirit -filled worship experiences. We believe it's important that we create an experience. And our team has been working steadily here. We also want to create a collective where we're going to be training up the next generation of worship leaders and the next generation of musicians. We want to be pouring and developing them to help them to grow in their walk with the Lord and in their relationship with him. We also are going to be making some upgrades in this space as well as we address worship because we've been in this building right at 13 years now. And so some of the items, soundboard, and some of the speakers and other things, we're going to have to update so that we can continue to have powerful and engaging worship services. The next one is our youth development. Our youth are facing challenges that they have not faced in prior generations." [00:21:10] (133 seconds)
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