Record

Kingdom. Opening · Advance God's Kingdom, Not Our Own

Well, last Sunday, we talked about what it means to be stronger together as a church. And if you remember, we started off with an illustration of an Olympic rowing team, and we talked about the importance of everyone rowing in the same direction. And we ended off last Sunday's, sermon with Jesus's prayer in John 17, where Jesus prayed that his followers would would... But Jesus never intended for our unity to end with us. He has actually brought us together as a church for something much bigger than ourselves. And that something requires us to think very differently about what the church is here to accomplish. Okay. I want to say thank you to those of you who were with us during that season, and you've stuck with us all these years. And for those of you that left and you never came back, just missed a whole lot. I just want to tell you that. But West Ridge was meeting across the street at East Paulding High School. At that point, I think we were probably maybe six years old, five or six years old, and God began to put a vision on my heart to train up church planters and then to send people out with those church planters to start new churches, not only all over our community, but all over our country, and then that vision would extend to different places in the world. And then after I shared that vision on one Sunday for really the very first time, I remember a lady approaching me, and she was visibly upset. And I'm not gonna tell you this.