[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm excited to talk with you today on a message that I think is going to be critical for us moving forward the next three weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be talking on a series called Here we grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: He fees his chapter four.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'll join me there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He fees in chapter four verse 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, and he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelist,
[SPEAKER_00]: Sheppards is a better translation, just in our modern culture, I do prefer the word pastors and teachers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith,
[SPEAKER_00]: and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed too in fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, verse 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rather speaking, the truth and love we are
[SPEAKER_00]: to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the next few weeks what we're going
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we grow, and you can say that different ways by the way, you can say, here we grow, here we grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you can say here, here we grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it feels that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're favorite, I've seen some of y'all get kicked out of your favorite seats lately.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you, when you favor see it's messed up and you favor parking place gets messed up and that's, you can feel some of those, those pains when the, you know, it's great to have a full auditorium and till the air conditioners aren't working right and then you go, you know, if 50 less people came, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, so you just feel that some of those growing pains but what I want to do over the next few weeks is I essentially want to have a church-wide staff meeting
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk to you the way that I would talk to the staff and our meetings.
[SPEAKER_00]: We meet once a month in person, once a month virtually, and basically what I do whenever we have a staff meeting, I do three things.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing I do is I teach.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second thing I do is I share where we're going, and then the third thing I do is I just tell them what I need from them.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just the look.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I need from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so those are the three things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm going to take those three things, break them up, over
[SPEAKER_00]: three weeks and so today on teaching, today I'm going to teach and today what I want to talk about is the church that works.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you need a title for the message, it would be the church that works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that phrase is polyvaliant.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll like that word, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Polyvaliant.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Polyvaliant means that the phrase can take on different meanings.
[SPEAKER_00]: depending on the context that you use it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in one way, the church that works could mean like there's a church that works and because everybody comes together and they do their part.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want you to know that we need that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need everybody to come together and do their part.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're growing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we're growing, we need more people doing more things.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we would invite you to join the team here at Sarah Land Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need you to the point that we're even praying
[SPEAKER_00]: for people to come into our church that have church experience, that know how to build churches because we are building a Jesus-centered spirit-filled church for all people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just happening, it's not just something we believe in, we're actively building that type of church right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we do need that, but that's not what I'm talking about today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking about the church that works in the sense that I want to talk to you about what goes into a church that creates a objective success where you can look at a church and you can go that church
[SPEAKER_00]: works.
[SPEAKER_00]: But whatever's happening there, it's working.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what they do seems to meet the objective that they have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever noticed that you go into some church environments?
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you came out of one, maybe you're watching online and you're in one.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, we're hearing this a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're starting to hear it through messages, we're getting to the church Facebook page,
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're hearing it from people who are getting told this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all's friends have said this to y'all, I'm about to out y'all, I'm sorry, that y'all shared this with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're hearing a lot that there are people who are going to other churches, but you're listening to these messages for spiritual development.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're listening to me for spiritual development, and you're in driving distance of this church, you're going to the wrong church.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we would like to invite you to back to church Sunday on August 23rd.
[SPEAKER_00]: At 10 30 a.m., I'm serious about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're starting to hear this from people that people are watching us, but maybe you're in this situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you've ever been in a church and you just thought this doesn't seem to like work, this isn't working, it's something's not
[SPEAKER_00]: Connecting it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It honestly seems like a lot of churches and and I mean this with love because I mean I'm over here leading one I feel all the same pains everybody else feels, but but it does seem like a lot of churches get stuck in the the muck feeling of building
[SPEAKER_00]: just we've got to keep the building filled in, and you might be thinking that that's directed at large churches, but let me go ahead and just rip the bandade off here for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's actually worse in small churches than it is in big churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there are, I had a friend, he's in Michigan.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was touring a church that had built a new building, the building sat thousands of home thousands of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was getting a tour, and two staff members were given a tour.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he asked one of the guys, he goes, he goes, what are you all running here?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the guy goes, probably 10,000, and the other guy goes, it's probably closer to seven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my friend goes, man, if I lost 3000 people, I think I'd know it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes in larger churches, you actually lose a few hundred people, and it not really moved the needle a whole lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in smaller churches, you actually tend to find people who get into the the the mug and the retainer, just trying to keep the building filled in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's nothing wrong with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want a full building right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to have some people sitting in the in-style in front of me on the floor right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sorry, Chris Carl's applesauce, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want some people sitting on the ground today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would love to have a full building, but the issues sometimes is how they get the field, the full building.
[SPEAKER_00]: how they keep the building filled.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear people talk a lot about how churches are like a country club.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to tell you this, I've been doing this a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've worked in churches all across America.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never been in a church that was like a country club.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are not churches out here that very rare, if they're out there, where there's a handful of rich people who come into the church and they kind of determine how everything goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you happen to be a rich person and you wanted to come here and try to control me, I would invite you to give it a good four or six months and see where you get.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's not usually what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's usually not a country club.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't worry so much about the country club.
[SPEAKER_00]: I worry about the guarding club.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the book club.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the baking club.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because church is a lot of times when they get worried about filling the building what they do is they turn into the hobby hub.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a good preacher, a little ration right there, I.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, let's just be in agreement since I'm not feeling good any time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I take a drink today, I'll just go, yes, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah, I might be looking for a.
[SPEAKER_00]: a space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Barry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need y'all follow Barry this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow the leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these churches will turn into the hobby hub.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things I've noticed in churches generally like everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a little more sensitive to it than the average bear, but I have a feeling everybody recognizes it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever noticed that you go into a lot of churches in the music as like awful?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not wrong, let me come preach on this side of the room.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we're being buried at the sensitivity right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, you get into some churches in the musical just be horrible, but it seems like everybody's okay with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's what it is, everybody's not okay with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens is these churches, they turn into these places where everybody gets to do their little hobby.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you lose excellence.
[SPEAKER_00]: You lose the edge.
[SPEAKER_00]: You lose a measure of, we're going to do this unto the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually do a lot in churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whew, now I'm off the notes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do a lot under ourselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't do it for the Lord, we do it for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me feel good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to do it's the thing I want to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you get into some of these churches and it'll be horrible because you'll have four or five people who kind of get together and they kind of mose along through the songs and nobody's any good at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody knows it's not good, but nobody's upset.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason nobody's upset is because that is a reflection of what's actually happening through the whole church.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got people on stage doing that, but then you've got people who've got a little, that's, you know, Maul Maul is not upset about it because she runs the book club.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and hector don't have a problem with it because he's over the barbecue ministry and so you've got people who are doing all their little things in the church and everybody's okay that it's not going well because we don't got a little thing that we do and we enjoy it but that type of church it don't work
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a cycle of, we're growing two people every 36 months and nobody's getting saved and the preacher couldn't preach his way out of a wet paper sack and it's just a lot of this over and it's, it's, it's, it doesn't, there's people in the building, but it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not working.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not, and that's not exclusive to small churches by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Large churches can do this as well, because I do want to let you know that in large churches you can do the right things, and ultimately grow a church and not do any of the things that a church ought to be doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the ideal is that you do both things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do the things that grow a church and you like are the church at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this can happen in any situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let me just come back to the music thing for a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell some of y'all think, y'all got some opinions y'all've already formed on a music thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just said, let me just tell you, I know what the pushback on that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we got bad musicians in the church and nobody can do anything, let me just tell you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's how they worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been doing this a long time, and I'm just going to tell you, I've done sing some stuff, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: That ain't how it goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in Michigan, and I had a drummer who'd been playing at the church for E on.
[SPEAKER_00]: He probably been playing there 20 years, I mean, he'd been playing a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wasn't any good.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we got up to the point where I just had to make a decision, because I had him, and then I had two kids that could play the paint off the wall.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what it was, but I had an annoying thing for drummers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Barry, I've gotten an annoying thing for good drummers showing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to be complimented by that today in Jesus' name, and so I had drummers showing up, and I just got to the point where I had to do something, and I removed him from the team.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did remove it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left the church and you think, well, you ran him off from the church because you wouldn't let him wash it.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you how you left the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: He left the church and he left the church because he decided to leave his wife and go be with the girlfriend who he'd had for 10 years that nobody knew about.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was playing church as long as he could so he could keep playing the drums.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for any of the musicians watching his high hats, I'm like, shhh.
[SPEAKER_00]: just so you know, okay, that wasn't for y'all, that was for the musicians that watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so no, he was pretending to worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a pretense.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't think this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes the church can just be a hobby of.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's dangerous to the mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's dangerous to what the Lord wants to do in.
[SPEAKER_00]: a community.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can happen in small churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can happen in large churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is a church that works?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of easy to identify church that doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can almost feel it so long as you aren't seduced by it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is prophetic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've just realized I'm in a different realm.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as long as you aren't seduced by it, you can easily recognize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what are
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some measure of theological, if not accurate, see at least conviction.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody going to be off a little bit, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's some theological ground in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: The church is known in the area.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are doing enough to be known.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are aware of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Church that works develops people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is much less important to me that we launch ministries than we do launch people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would much rather have multiple entrepreneurs raise up out of the preaching ministry of this church every year than to launch some ministry that does something.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think ministries are great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think programs are great.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are means, they are not ends because the ends are always that people are developed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: So they develop people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They reproduce into other churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: A church that works should be doing something that somehow is getting into other churches that they're adopting and doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that I am grateful for here because of all of the people that serve in our media ministry is we are already making an impact in other churches around the nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are getting calls, we're getting asked, how are you doing this?
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you getting these results?
[SPEAKER_00]: How are you making this happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is all because of our media ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ought to give them a hand clap of appreciation right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then also a church that works is big enough to sustain ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's either growing or it's thriving.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an axiom in church leadership that says healthy things grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not true because cancer grows too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't always grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, just let me be clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we haven't arrived, they man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a point where you get to somewhere, some level where you may not be growing, but you're at least thriving.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's thriving ministry happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you need to be big enough to sustain ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a church that works.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what takes you from a church that is not working to a church that works.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I want to talk to you about today, specifically, I want to talk to you about the fivefold ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll talk to you about the fivefold ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't get a lot of this conversation, particularly in the assemblies of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're pinnacostal, we are the most evangelical of the pinnacostal world in the assemblies of God, which means we put in the most safety protocols out of all the pinnacostals.
[SPEAKER_00]: We try to make sure that things don't get off the rails and we're very cautious.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the cautious that we've taken is we tend to not
[SPEAKER_00]: embrace the fivefold ministry and the embrace of the fivefold ministry we do is so careful that we almost don't actually honor it and release it into our churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: You ever been, you ever handled something so carefully that you dropped it before?
[SPEAKER_00]: You're trying to make sure you so mindful of it that ultimately you break the ball.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think sometimes that's how we are with the fivefold ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today, I'm not going to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just going to go with what the Bible says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody say the Bible says, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to look at what the Bible says.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today we're going to talk about the fivefold ministry a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fivefold ministry, you can pretty much identify it all on your hand here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the evangelist is the one who has, he's got the longest reach.
[SPEAKER_00]: The evangelist is able to reach people who are far from the Lord, far from the church, and generally far from a church lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they can go into Achilles and never preach the gospel and somehow the waitress gets saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll know how it happens, but that's an evangelist.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is an evangelist doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you have the pastor, the pastor's the ring finger.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's married to the community.
[SPEAKER_00]: He loves the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mary to the community loves the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just cannot get enough of the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just he is in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to be in all the birthday parties.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he is going to be at all of the receptions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody who graduates, he's given a money.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's doing all, he's married to the community.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I want you to know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to just rip the bandaid off here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have said this before.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not a pastor gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the pastor, I'm not a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: What means exactly what I just said?
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not, that is not me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to prepare you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said that I think two days before I got voted in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everybody's known this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's the pastor gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's then the teacher, the teacher's the pinky finger.
[SPEAKER_00]: Teachers, the only one that's small enough to get big concepts into your EU.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also is the one who has the least stature.
[SPEAKER_00]: We celebrate them the least.
[SPEAKER_00]: We acknowledge them the least, coincidentally, I'm afraid you're about them the least.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're just the least.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're the least among the gifts, but they have a powerful ministry because they can take big concepts and suddenly you leave understanding it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you have the apostle in the prophet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the prophet is the pointer finger.
[SPEAKER_00]: The profit points the direction of where the church ought to go and what ought to happen because of things that they foresee happening in the culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can foresee things and they understand direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not always specific, it is not always predictive, it's not always a word, a lot of times profits operate under senses, they can sense things happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the profit and then you have the apostle.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Apostle's the Thone, the Apostle is a pioneering gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does pioneer things.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the one that says we can do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also a governing gift.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Apostle is more separated from church ministry than most of the gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't get out as far as the other gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what it does is it's able to govern
[SPEAKER_00]: through out all of the gifts sets.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's able to touch the profit and the evangelist and the pastor in the teacher and make significant impact in those ministry gifts as to release them into the fullness of their annoying thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the apostolic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I do want to just say this because a lot of times when we talk about five-fold ministry, we think of them as a hierarchy that you have the apostle, the prophet, the evangelist, the pastor and the teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: That these are not hierarchical gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are gifts to the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is another hierarchy of how church is run, and there's a whole theology there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, I just don't have time for it today.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I really enjoyed this stuff, and I could go, we can do three hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't think you'll already for it today, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe next week, when the AC is fixed, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holly, Lou, so it's not a hierarchy.
[SPEAKER_00]: who is under the authority of a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have a prophet who is under the authority of a teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is an authority structure in their gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: These gifts are released into the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you will have people who are not in a technical ministry role or like a ministry leadership role and they'll still operate in these gifts.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, most often it's going to happen with people who are leading the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: So church leadership tends to be pastor-focused.
[SPEAKER_00]: This comes from the Reformation.
[SPEAKER_00]: This has been this way for several hundred years.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a lot of objection to how the Catholic church was running and abusing its power.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the reformers kind of got around this idea that everybody is a shepherd, everybody is a pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, that has limited the church to a great degree because everybody ain't the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody is not the same, and so you'll hear pastor used for everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we've got youth pastors and kids pastors, and then we've got the senior pastor and the lead pastor and the associate pastor and the executive and then they get up to the district council office and the assembly of God and we used to just call them brother, that's kind of how we identify them.
[SPEAKER_00]: We said, your brother, and then we started, everybody started calling them pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they aren't pastoring any church, but we're calling them pastors.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so everybody's just using this over, they're, we're pastoring everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you'll hear evangelists use because it's not a scary word.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll hear teacher use because it's not a scary word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all didn't name in when I drank that water.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I told y'all to listen to Barry this morning, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you'll have, evangelists in a scary word, teachers in a scary word, but when we get into the apostolic and the prophetic all of a sudden, that's scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's scary enough that it'll make a Baptist crawl under the pew, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a scary word.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a Bible word.
[SPEAKER_00]: The phrase apostle and prophet are used in Ephesians.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two more times outside of this gift set.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the evangelist, the pastor in the teacher are mentioned once, the apostle and the prophet are mentioned three times.
[SPEAKER_00]: This morning, what I want to do is I want to look at those three mentions of the apostle and the prophet.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're ready, say I'm ready.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, turn with me to Ephesians chapter two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians chapter two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of y'all are wondering why I'm the world of you preaching this, because I want to church the works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at your neighbor, say, this church is going to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Church is going to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: He feeds in Chapter 2.
[SPEAKER_00]: You say, you've been here a year in the church ain't working.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting there, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hallelujah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He feeds in Chapter 2 verse 19.
[SPEAKER_00]: Says, so then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets Christ, Jesus himself, being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Him, you also are being built together,
[SPEAKER_00]: into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might write this down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, the apostolic and prophetic provide foundation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know because I've preached out of first Corinthians chapter three quite a few times in recent days.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know some of your other things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought Jesus was the foundation and he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the foundation of the believers' life.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is the foundation of our faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to an organization called the church, the foundation is actually set forth by the leaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is set forth by the apostles and prophets.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is built on a foundation of apostolic and prophetic leadership.
[SPEAKER_00]: This foundation
[SPEAKER_00]: is able to take the gospel, that is a key thing you need to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: This foundation is able to take the gospel and build an organization from it and around it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing to build in organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an entirely different thing to build a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you have been in organizations that have called themselves churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of you have been in churches that aren't very organized.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been in both of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the apostles and prophets are able to bring that foundation to some great degree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure whether we know the difference oftentimes, whether we're looking at a church or an organization because you can build an organization with all the trimmings of a church and not fulfill the mission of a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: because you can build an organization that is built around seeing in the songs, preaching the messages, receiving the offering, giving the announcement, having the stuff for kids, doing the outreach ministry, and yet never fulfill the things that have to be fulfilled by a church that works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Namely, the one that I notice is that people are not developed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the one that I notice is always seeming to be where we lack.
[SPEAKER_00]: the markers of a church versus an organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we just read said that a church is being joined together.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, just in case you were wondering, that is all people.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's being joined together.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's growing into a holy gathering that spirit field.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's being built in him.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Jesus centered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Folks, we don't just rip stuff out of Google and throw it on the wall around here.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we say we're building a Jesus centered spirit field church for all people, we believe that that is the foundation upon which you can build a church that works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come on, somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: The mission of the local church can quickly drift into sustaining operations.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is very easy for churches that have big scary bills.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just looked at the $4,700 Alabama Power Bill and after I spent 45 minutes in the
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you have stuff like that, it's easy to just get into just sustaining operations and just thinking about what has to happen next.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we keep the train on the tracks?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we keep moving?
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can't confuse keeping the doors open with opening the doors.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't confuse running the air conditioner with keeping a fire burning in the house of our God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have to, an apostolic foundation.
[SPEAKER_00]: anchors the machine in the mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a measure of stuff that we do around here that is like keeping the machine running.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if the machine ever loses its anchor in the foundation of the mission, if we ever get off of what we're actually called to do, if we ever have good church, but we're not developing better people than we have missed the mark and an
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we need this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why the fivefold ministry is important is because it keeps the church working.
[SPEAKER_00]: God forbid, we be a church that is growing, but not a church that is working.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'm just preaching to myself today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians chapter three, join me there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians chapter three, verse four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians chapter 3 verse 4 says, when you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, you can write this down.
[SPEAKER_00]: The apostolic and the prophetic bring revelation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It brings revelation.
[SPEAKER_00]: In part, Revelation is Holy Ghost Inspired Vision.
[SPEAKER_00]: In part that is what Revelation is, it's Holy Ghost Inspired Vision without an apostolic and prophetic foundation churches end up with a mission statement that sounds like word salad and a vision that is immeasurable.
[SPEAKER_00]: part of why you might sense in churches at times that this church isn't working when you can sense something's not it's not clicking things aren't moving like they ought to be moving part of that reason is that you can sense that there's a gross in congruence between what's printed in the big letters on the wall and all of the activity in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been in those churches that were big, massive, 10,000 people, and you walk past this giant, lettered statement on the wall that you never see show up anywhere in the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an incongruence between what we say we're about and what we're actually about.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why you need an apostolic and prophetic foundation that has revelation that can make vision and mission congruent with the actual activity of the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: For instance, I'll just tell you this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just saw this and I don't think he watches what we're doing down here.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm sure he ain't the only one with this, but I just saw a preacher
[SPEAKER_00]: I just stumbled upon him and he was doing a thing on their mission and vision of their church and he got up He told us all church.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, this is what we're about and I assume this is printed on banners and everywhere He says we're here to save the lost Disciple the save and send the disciple and that sounds awesome That's like saying we're just here to do everything
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's the whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the big, whole thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Denominations do in that I get.
[SPEAKER_00]: A local church, 400 people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna make that happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, here's the problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes you can be so broad that your vision is actually impossible to accomplish.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can be so broad that you can do nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you're doing something because you've got this big broad thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so anything you do is moving in that direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually everything you do is moving nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to be careful of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Broadness can be synonymous with vagueness.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to be careful of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'm just preaching the preachers today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope y'all are listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except that one guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality check that we have to realize is that, and y'all need to hear this, I need this herd in this church, I need this herd for people coming to this church, I need this herd.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you do everything, you end up doing nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Churches cannot be the center for every thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a church that works, it does.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those that try to do everything end up doing nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, baptism is a really great example of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we baptize people here, hey, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in first Corinthians, chapter one, Paul, keep in mind, baptism is part of the great commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in first Corinthians, chapter one, Paul says, I don't baptize people.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, other people can baptize folks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't baptize them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I preach, I teach, I establish churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not baptize people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I baptize the handful of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only reason I'm telling you about that is because, well, I feel like I have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he said, I don't baptize people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Baptism is part of the great commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Baptism is a good thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even the apostle Paul said, I can't do
[SPEAKER_00]: everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is reasonable for a local church to say we can't do everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we play a part in the mission of the church universal?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the apostolic and the prophetic is able to identify the church's specific role in the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: To identify a church's specific role in the kingdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now Revelation is on one hand as vision, but Revelation is also fresh bread.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fresh bread they used to have them little pamphlets and you daily bread that you could you could read the daily bread Did you know that I just learned this that you're only You're not supposed to re-heat leftovers and then put them back in the fridge If you re-heat leftovers and put them back in the fridge So like you can have leftovers re-heat them and eat them, but you cannot re-heat leftovers
[SPEAKER_00]: and then put them back in the fridge and then re-heat them again and put them back in the fridge and read, because every time that you do that, it's not bacteria, the bacteria gets cooked off, but you're actually releasing toxins into the food.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a term for this called Fried Rice Syndrome.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is real, it's called Fried Rice Center because bacteria you can sense, you can smell it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when the toxins are being released in food, you won't be able to smell it, you won't be able to sense it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll think the food is fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is, as people do this a lot with fried rice, is they'll get take out and they'll reheat fried rice, they'll put it back in the fridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: reheated again, put it back in the fridge, reheated in the, and then, then on the third or fourth day when they do that, they think they're having leftovers and actually they're just prepping to go to the ER in the next 45 minutes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because if it gets you all kinds of sick, then because there's toxins that are released.
[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, I want you to hear me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand that preachers, everything ain't all original, everything that come out of the secret place.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like any other preachers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hear stuff, I pick it up, I like little phrases, a little quotes and,
[SPEAKER_00]: and I adapt stuff, and I'll take stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: But man, I'm just telling you at some point, there are moments where messages have been reheated and reheated and reheated and thrown back in the fridge and back in the fridge and back in the fridge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at some point, you can get up and preach and not have a fresh word from God and actually release toxins into your church because you've let it go on and on and on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, I
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, hear me, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are going to borrow stuff from people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to do it sometimes too.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny to me though.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just said this on the phone yesterday to a preacher friend of mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's funny to me though that you know what preachers get the most upset about is when we steal each other's stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we treat stealing points like it's no big deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who cares if I borrow somebody's story about going out to Las Vegas?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are we not concerned that we didn't get in here and get the points and get the commitment of the word for the sermon?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that not the thing that we're upset about?
[SPEAKER_00]: And it bothers me because there's so many preachers that I hear and I can listen to and not only do I know that they didn't come up with it, I know the source of machinery.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know where it came from.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, when we had Alley for those of you that don't know, our youngest was born about four months early.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was born at 24 weeks, very premature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ashley was staying in the hospital with her pretty much every Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would go in and do ministry and she would stay and Ashley started watching a preacher online before preachers were all online, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's only five of them and she watched preachers online.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we went to a church a few years later and we're sitting in the auditorium and this guy starts preaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: and actually hands me your phone, which I thought was strange, and then I looked down, this guy's preaching everything, actually is a prophet.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, she had heard that God preached us on lines every years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, I get you got days.
[SPEAKER_00]: I struggle with that, folks, because what I don't want to do is preach something that's not fresh and it ends up going out and being toxic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to borrow other people's sermons and call it manna that we know spoils the next morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: My God, sorry, that's I'm a little feeling that right there, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need fresh bread, we need fresh revelation.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why we need the apostolic and the prophetic released in the church because it is through them that revelation comes, that they can see, they can sense, they can hear, they can receive.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we need that released into the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying I'm an apostle, I'm not saying I'm a prophet, I am gonna say I got some stuff going on, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when I release something into this house, I'm telling you, it's fresh bread, it's a fresh word, it's something that came from the secret place.
[SPEAKER_00]: My messages don't come from a message book that I bought at lifeway Christian stores or from the internet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I don't give this stuff to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do put my messages in there and ask it if it made sense though, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes I'm worried, you know, but I get into the secret place, and I pull these messages out.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need fresh revelation, we need fresh bread, we need something fresh, we need a fresh wind in the church in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians 3 goes on and it tells us that people are actually strengthened in their inner being by revelation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Revelation isn't just fancy, it isn't just original, it isn't just fun, it is important to the believer, it is important to the people in the church, Revelation makes a church work in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11, let's go back to where we started this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna get done here in just a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ephesians chapter 4, verse 11.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Holy Ghost.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he gave the apostles the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds, the teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: To the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul's right there and hold this for a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is so important right now with the release of ministry through one minute videos.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just need you all to know, we're living in a world now where people are getting a lot of their theology through one minute clips or two minute clips on the internet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there is so much that comes out that in two minutes can sound so convincing, but it's false.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in error.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has
[SPEAKER_00]: It's wrong, it's misleading, it's misleading, it's guiding, it's sometimes it's even heresy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we need a powerful move in our local churches of the five-fold ministry, an apostolic and prophetic foundation.
[SPEAKER_00]: to make sure that people aren't being led astray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse 15, rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him, who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped.
[SPEAKER_00]: When each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number three, you can write this down,
[SPEAKER_00]: to fulfill its designed purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the apostolic and prophetic bring a foundation and bring revelation, all ministry gifts start working together to build up the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk a lot about the fivefold ministry and we focus in on the equipping of the saints.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of times, I find that this is pastors trying to
[SPEAKER_00]: Get out of certain types of ministry that's being required of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: I find that you know when a pastor doesn't go to the hospital To visit people he'll say well my job's actually to equip you for the work of the ministry and that's how I get She's folks if I don't come see you in the hospital.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's either because I didn't know or I had something else going on if I can come see you in the hospital I will come see you in the hospital Folks I was in the hospital five years ago and you know what happened the world kept moving on
[SPEAKER_00]: So, if I don't come see in the hospital, it's not because you preach or don't love you, it's not because the church is too big, it's because sometimes people just can't drop everything because I'm going on with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all about getting some reality this morning, man, y'all need to hear some stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: My wife doesn't know what kind of conversation she's going to be having after church with y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's just, that's just the way it is, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're not using this to say, no, I'm the preacher and I'm going to equip you and I don't come to the hospital because I send a bow.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will keep an eye on everybody, hey, man, you know, Harley Liuya.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, so I times people use it with that, but actually what we need to focus on is that the body gets built up into such a way that there's unity, maturity, and stability and doctrine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not so much about equipping people for the ministry, which is important, but the benefit of the body is that you like mature.
[SPEAKER_00]: The benefit for the body is like you're able to actually take the word, incorporate the word, use the word, stand on the word, execute the word, and get results in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: The purpose is we keep coming back to this a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Power, that you'd actually be able to operate in real sincere power in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when there's no apostolic and profited gift operating in the church, chaos ensues, and you've seen this,
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've been at any church ever, you have seen this.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the apostolic and the prophetate gift do not operate in a church, chaos ensues, and there's peripheral nonsense going around in every corner of the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: We would think that big churches would be the ones where the apostolic and the prophetic flow the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are the most guilty of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Large churches have a tendency to let everything under the sun go on so long as we put it under the banner of a small group and anything can happen anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got caught in a conversation one time at a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where this guy stops me, and by the way, I like big churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: If 15,000 of y'all would come next week, we'll figure the parking out over the next few weeks, but we're ready for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen, I like big churches, but listen, I was in a church one time, I got cornered by this guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He starts going on and on and starts telling me how bar codes are the mark of the beast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bar codes.
[SPEAKER_00]: bar codes, you're here every time you buy Oreos, you're participating in the world system of the Mark of the Beach Show.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he was telling me all this, and I'm like, what is this?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was talking to the pastoral staff about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was new at the church, and they all rolled their eyes behind the scenes, and it's all he's off on the Mark Code thing again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except.
[SPEAKER_00]: that we're letting this guy teach a small group, we're letting him lead a ministry, and we ended up hiring him to be one of the maintenance guys at the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because when there's no apostolic and profite foundation, we just let anything happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just let anything go on.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not the way that you lead a powerful movement and a church that works.
[SPEAKER_00]: you don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people who teach in this church and by the way, I only have two of them sitting in this room right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a hyper-aware of what they're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a hyper-aware of what's being taught.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're about to release some teaching ministry in the church and you want to know what they're going to teach?
[SPEAKER_00]: My stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to let people get off here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to have one small group off in the corner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, I'm just on it today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told y'all, I should have warned y'all, when I'm on medicine, I get fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm on a lot right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's true, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not going to have some small groove often the corner, teaching some nonsense that now I got seven people running around the church, talking about some garbage that isn't true.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now I got to put this thing back in the can.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're actually going to, we're going to like honor the word.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to honor the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to honor the scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're not going to get off into nonsense that somehow involves charts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without the apostolic what happens is a lot of times pastors, the pastor gifts, let people run wild.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because pastors can love people so much that they won't hold them accountable.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will do no structure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Without the prophetic evangelist will end up hosting what is no more than philanthropic outreach events where we give people food, but there's never a point at which the gospel might be encountered.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the prophetic holds that accountable.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need the fivefold ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need a release of the apostolic and the prophetic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all get $10 both of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Y'all understood this, I'm gonna.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why am I preaching a message like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, one reason is I don't like to just do stuff and not let you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do a lot that I just make the decision out of the word and I kind of just lead from here and I'd, but I've noticed a lot of people like to lead and just kind of see where everything's gonna fall as they lead and then kind of just see if they can massage their way into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: What I've been doing for the last year that just seems to be working for me,
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, it seems to be going well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I keep waiting for it to blow up in my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a little bit of a test.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm running.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've just been really honest with y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And y'all responded really well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time I'm honest, I tell y'all what I'm going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get the results we said we were going to get y'all seem to be cool with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've really enjoyed that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I've been told for 20 years that you can't lead a church like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what I want to do is I just want to tell you, man, we want to see a release of the apostolic and the prophetic in our church and so you say, well, when is that going to happen?
[SPEAKER_00]: A 364 days ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how we've been leading.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the decisions that we made that we were going to, when we came in, some of y'all felt this, we're just celebrating a year here.
[SPEAKER_00]: We came in, we took ministry and did this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of y'all felt that more than others, but we, I got up one, either a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night and said, I am taking control of everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think those words, 80% of that sentence came out of my mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I've used some strong language on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we took control of some stuff, so why so that we could build foundation?
[SPEAKER_00]: So that we could make sure that we controlled what was revelation and what was nonsense.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to control some of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now we're starting to see the fruit of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This apostolic and prophetic ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I want to talk to you about before we close.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're about to start going through some growth pains.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're already in them a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're in some growing pains, we're feeling some stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not picking on anybody, so I want to be clear when I say this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had a lot of meetings, one-on-one with people, and one of our growing pains is we're not doing any more coffee with the pastor.
[SPEAKER_00]: like we just, we can't do any more of these meetings.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's eaten up too much time, and so now we're having to kind of get more people together in groups and do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but we've been meeting with a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things we hear is people are coming here because churches, they were trying out in the area were just too big, and I just need to be clear with y'all like, this church is going to be big.
[SPEAKER_00]: This church is going to be big.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be a big church.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, we're already a big church, we're just a little church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're big little church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, do things like little churches do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We let little churches do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want little small churches do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They want to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're bigger than a small church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just don't have a lot of people coming here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just wait and on everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where you all at?
[SPEAKER_00]: August 23rd.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was what you were saying on the other side of the camera.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going to feel some of those growing pains.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to hear me as the church grows where not going to have some of the problems that some of y'all have experienced in bigger churches.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of you have been in bigger churches and you have felt yourself slip through the cracks and not be known or you've been going and going and you're five years down the road and you're going, I'm coming all the time and I'm serving that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't feel like I have grown at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is nothing working that I'm getting out of what we're, it's just not doing anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need you to hear me.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not gonna have those problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: because we're not going to just grow an organization.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not just going to have a church that does churchy things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're not just going to sing the songs and do this stuff and have the hobby hub and that's not what we're going to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're building on an apostolic and a prophetic foundation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because we have strong foundation and because we have revelation that's coming forward, the fivefold ministry, especially pastors and evangelists and teachers, are going to be equipped
[SPEAKER_00]: is going to be fruitful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether we have a hundred people coming to church or we have 10,000 people coming to church, we're gonna have a fruitful ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we enter these growing pains, this is what I want some of you to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to buckle up and hang on and get ready and enjoy the process.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't wanna hear anybody say and this church getting a little too big.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting just right.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have 3,400 people showing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not too big.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's starting to feel like we're starting to be able to do something.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, you need to run 3,400 people before you can really be viable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the stuff we're doing right now, we are reaching way out of our ability to get it done, and we're just going forward and trying to make it happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're running like we're a church of 350 right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: on Sundays, but on Monday I sit up here by myself in the office.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I won't 500 of you best friends to come to church, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we grow, I don't want you to start, don't get worried.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're building on an apostolic foundation, a prophetic foundation.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're letting revelation is releasing into this church.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're leading from the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's gonna do a great work in this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: God's gonna do a great work in this church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next week, I'm gonna be sharing some things that we're gonna be doing coming up towards January.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some things that are coming towards January, the following week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna share with you just some very direct things that we need to see happen here in our church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three weeks from now, very transparent message, you're gonna get from me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you do not wanna miss that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next week, back.
[SPEAKER_00]: to church, Sunday, y'all are going to invite 100,000 people, it's going to be great.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to have, everybody's going to have somebody sitting in their lap back to church Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've about preached y'all to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you excited about the word, give the Lord a hand clap of praise.