Join Community | Grow Week 5

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- What was the most important tool in Jesus's ministry?

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In the history of the church?

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Was it giant cathedrals?

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Was it stained glass windows?

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Was it fog machines, sound systems?

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What about lasers?

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No, it's this: food and drink.

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Eating and drinking was a key to Jesus life and work.

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In fact, Jesus used food and drink

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and meals around tables to change the world.

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And you can, too.

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Today we're going to unpack the beautiful picture

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of community that's put to page in the Bible

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and how a simple thing that you're already doing

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every day could be repurposed to change

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the social and emotional landscape

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of your life and of our world.

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But before we get there, I want to tell you

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something that I actually learned

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while watching Ted Lasso a few months back.

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You know, scientists used to believe that

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trees competed with each other for sunlight

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and resources in, like, a Darwinian battle.

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But what we're learning now is

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that's actually not the case.

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Trees actually work together to grow

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and grow best when they're together.

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- Deep in Sequoia National Park,

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towering around 380 feet tall

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stand the giants of the forest,

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the tallest trees on Earth, the giant sequoias.

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Many of these trees are over 2000 years old,

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and these colossal sequoias withstand strong winds,

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earthquakes, fires, storms, flooding, and time.

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The giant sequoias are equipped with a root system

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that's relatively shallow,

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going down only 6 to 12 feet deep.

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Remarkable, given their size, weight and stature.

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How is it these mammoth trees rarely fall over?

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These trees have been designed with roots

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that reach out and around and intertwine

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with the roots of the neighboring sequoias.

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They are linked together by an underground network

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that proves to be unwaveringly strong.

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They are held up by their community.

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There in nature God gives us a picture

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of a rooted community,

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an ability to sustain in difficult times,

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to withstand, to grow and to thrive

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beautifully and uniquely linked together by community.

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- Well, you and I aren't that different.

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We grow better together when we're with other people.

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Right?

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And today I'm going to show you

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not just what Jesus had to say about community,

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but how you can grow your own.

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I'd propose to you that the most useful tool

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that Jesus had at his disposal was something that

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is sitting in the middle of your kitchen right now.

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No, it's not your Vitamix or even your coffee machine,

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but your table.

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Let me just stop here.

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We've been on this Journey now,

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on this journey looking to grow,

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looking at these different practices,

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trusting that something in them will grow us,

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will stretch us, will bring us to a new place.

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There's a reason why we're ending

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on this idea of communities,

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because all those other great things

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happen best when we don't do them alone.

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When we do them in the context of community.

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We can be like those redwoods, where we grow tall,

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where we grow strong, where we build something

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and grow something that lasts for generations.

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That's how you and I can follow Jesus's example

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for using our tables not just as

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a platform to consume calories from,

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but as a catalyst for community, for growth,

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for life change that can change the world.

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Matthew and Luke's Gospels both catch

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a really unique phrase on this topic

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that was lost on me until recently.

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The phrase goes like this: The Son of Man.

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The Son of Man came.

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It's used twice in short succession,

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that would have been like a highlighter.

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It would have jumped off the page

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to the people hearing it at the time.

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They would have intuitively recognized

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that these two uses of this phrase

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mean that they go together, like two sides of a coin.

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So, let me give them to you.

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Matthew 18:11 says:

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This is just beautiful.

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This is Jesus's mission. It's His purpose.

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It's His what, it's what He came to do, right?

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To seek and save the lost.

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But it's followed up with Matthew 11:19 that says this:

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It actually goes on to say,

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"The Son of Man came eating and drinking.

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And they say, 'Here's a glutton and a drunkard,

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a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'"

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This was like people knocking on Jesus

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for hanging with the people who didn't measure up.

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But this the Son of Man came eating and drinking

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is Jesus's how.

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It shows us that Jesus best tool for ministry

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was the table, and He understood

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that a meal isn't just a meal,

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it's setting the table to grow with God and other people.

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Around a table people are invited into a family.

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They're nourished not just to survive, but to thrive.

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For example, just in the Book of Luke,

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there are ten stories that happen at meals,

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where enemies are forgiven,

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where the outcast are invited in,

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where the hungry are fed.

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Man, you've got reconciliation,

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you've got social justice, you've got rest,

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service, humility, storytelling, great wine,

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comfort food and more all happening around a table.

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But the table isn't most people's picture of church,

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right?

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If I were to ask you to send me a picture of a church,

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you'd probably send me something with a stage

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or a steeple.

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And those are totally fine.

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Those are buildings, though, not the church.

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The church is people. It's you and me.

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Scripture is really clear about this.

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So, how did we get from a poor, homeless,

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itinerant rabbi and some fishermen

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to massive auditoriums and fog machines?

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Well, let me give you just a little bit of a history.

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And so I'll be honest,

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I'm going to nerd out on you for like 2 minutes.

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So when Christianity first started, it was illegal.

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Like, it was --it was seen as like the punk rock

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alt culture to mainline Judaism or Roman paganism.

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It was under the radar

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and those who practiced it were persecuted.

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It was made up mostly of like small clusters of families

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living in close knit communities where they,

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like, lived, worked, worshiped,

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and ate in really close proximity to each other.

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I actually had a chance to visit one of these homes

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in a place called Capernaum where, like,

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they're pretty sure they found Peter,

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like, Saint Peter's legit home.

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It's like 100 feet from the temple on one side,

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100 feet from the Sea of Galilee on the other.

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Like, Jesus probably stayed in it.

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It was so cool. Anyway.

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But this was a time in the life of the Church,

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of Christian community,

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where they couldn't gather publicly.

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And so their architectural choice at the time was,

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you guessed it, a home gathered around,

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you know it by now, a table, right?

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So, their architectural choice, the building was a home,

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gathered around a table, emphasizing community.

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Fast forward a few hundred years

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and you've got this guy, Emperor Constantine,

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who ruled the Roman Empire.

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He converted to Christianity.

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Some would say this was legit.

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Others would say it was like opportunistic,

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he saw the writing was on the wall.

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But overnight almost, an illegal sect

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suddenly became the official religion of an empire.

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And as a result of that,

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there was a bunch of empty temples

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to, like, Zeus and whatever

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that were all of a sudden vacant

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and got turned into churches, right?

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These temples and later cathedrals, man, they were big.

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They were -- they emphasized the majesty of God

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through art and architecture.

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The acoustics were terrible.

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That didn't matter because the sermons

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were all in Latin, which, like, nobody understood.

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But they had stained glass.

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They had ceilings that stretched to the heavens.

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They had stuff, like, covered in gold.

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Their architecture was a temple gathered around an altar

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and it emphasized ritual.

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Phase three in our history goes a little bit like this.

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So after 1000 or so years, including the Dark Ages,

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a little thing called the Reformation hit.

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Martin Luther was a guy who saw a bunch of abuses

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by the Catholic Church, and he nailed 98 theses

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or complaints against the church,

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like, to the wall of the church.

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It was like a -- it was a bold move.

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So, as a reaction, like, there was a split that happened

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where Luther basically said, "Hey, if people understood,

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really knew, like, we're taught what the Bible says

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they would understand and we wouldn't be subject

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to these different abuses

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and they wouldn't be taken advantage of."

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So, their architecture took on

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the characteristics of a lecture hall,

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like, tiered seating around a central stage or podium

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where the acoustics were good,

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people could hear and sightlines were good.

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And look in any church building

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in the last couple of hundred years,

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including Crossroads ones,

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and this is still kind of the prevailing idea.

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A lecture hall style building

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centered around a stage emphasizing teaching.

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Now, I love big auditoriums with lights

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and sound systems so everyone can hear every word.

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I was a musician for most of my life,

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but I just don't think that on their own they're enough.

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What if each of our iterations since that time of Jesus

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leaves something good on the table

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that needs to be recaptured?

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I've been in ministry working at churches

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since I was 17 years old.

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And maybe the purest example of church

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that I've ever experienced didn't happen on a stage.

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It happened in a home around a table.

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That's what I want for you.

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This Journey is all for naught if we can't figure out

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how to do these proven practices

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in the context of community.

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So this is my wife, Rachel. She's amazing.

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She leads a lot of the work

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that happens in our Crossroads Anywhere space.

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And she's, frankly, like the leader

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that I want to be when I grow up.

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But we also got to walk through this thing called,

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man, figuring out community

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and how it happens around our table together.

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And I wanted you to hear from her directly about that.

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- Yeah. So, we were newlyweds, I think,

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and we were doing this study at Crossroads

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where you're supposed to actually practice

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the thing you were reading. Crazy.

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- Crazy.

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- So, we got to the part about the early church

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and how they met around tables.

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And somebody specifically joked,

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"So, when are we going to start meeting together daily?"

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And we're all like, "Ha ha, yeah, right,

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nobody has time for that."

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And then we're like, "Okay, how about weekly?"

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So, we start this weekly dinner.

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We're super excited about it. You love to cook.

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We thought we would bring all our friend groups together

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and everybody would just click.

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- We would align, like, everybody's crazy schedules

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would align around our schedule at our house.

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It'd be really convenient and beautiful.

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- Yes. And so, we sent the emails, texted everybody,

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cooked a big dinner and waited and waited,

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like, they're just late.

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And like, literally no one showed up.

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Nobody came to our first one.

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- It was so sad.

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- It was, you know, you can give up at that moment,

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but we were just like,

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okay, maybe we've just got to do it differently.

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And so we started experimenting.

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And I think we started letting go of the idea that,

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okay, everything's going to align perfectly

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with our favorite people.

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And we're just like, maybe we just do the thing

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and see what it needs to be, like, who needs this

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versus, like, what do we need?

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And we just started. We just kept doing it.

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We just kept opening our home and to see who showed up.

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So, the first people to really commit

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were our friends Matt and Katie.

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And they just start coming every single week.

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Like, literally, I think they came every week

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- for like four years. - Yes.

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- They never missed.

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They had multiple children during this time.

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And it was amazing.

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And just having those two other people as the anchors

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of the group up front made it great.

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And then slowly more people just start to come.

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So, the next person was our friend, Anissa.

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She was our neighbor. She lived upstairs.

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She seriously saved the group because she taught us

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really early on that it wasn't an entertainment thing,

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it was a hospitality thing.

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And the biggest way she did that was just by helping

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Like, she's from Libya, so she's from a culture

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where like eating at big tables, big meals,

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lots of people is normal.

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And so she was just always the first one to,

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like, get up and help us clean the dishes

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so that actually when people left,

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our house was cleaner than before they came here.

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- Hear us on that.

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When we finished a dinner for a boatload of people,

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our house was cleaner than we started.

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I know it sounds miraculous, sounds too good to be true,

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but just find yourself a person like Anissa is amazing.

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- Yes.

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And she would just drop off 10 lb bags of rice

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at our door because we were always just trying

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to figure out cheap ways to feed a lot of people.

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And she would literally wash all the dishes

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and hand people brooms.

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And then people just started following her lead,

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like, they would just start doing that, too.

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- And there was, like, what started as a meal

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for our friends grew into a meal for not our friends

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and sort of, like, a surrogate family.

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Like, that was one of the trends.

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It was like people who either didn't have community

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nearby or didn't have community at all,

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they were drawn to this thing.

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And it became a really special thing where God

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was just a natural part of the conversation.

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It wasn't a program, like, but it --

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really amazing stuff happened.

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Talk about, like, some of the good stuff that came

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in that season and we didn't expect.

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- Yeah, like there was no content. It was just dinner.

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But over time, just, I think just the nature of people

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showing up for each other over time,

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and at least most of the group knowing God.

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When somebody needed something, we would just help.

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Like, something would come up around the table

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and we'd say, "Well, hey, well, we'll pray for that,

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or can we actually help you with that this week?

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Like, can we come around you?"

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And, you know, we baptized somebody in our bathtub.

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We had some friends that were struggling financially,

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like, really bad.

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It was amazing that they always knew

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they just had a place to eat, you know,

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they just had a place that they knew

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they were going to get good food at least once a week.

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We would send them home with leftovers.

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It was just easy and natural and it wasn't weird.

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If somebody had any need,

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they didn't have to fill out a form

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and wait for the church to get back to them

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because they were just already with the church.

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You know, if they had a God question,

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they didn't have to ask a stranger or wait for a pastor.

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They would just ask somebody there.

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People started growing in their faith, and having friends.

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And, you know, it's funny, this was years ago now,

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this exact group.

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But we've been struck lately as we've been adopting,

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like, the main people who are showing up for us,

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helping us adopt are all our friends from that time.

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Like, they're the first ones to start donating,

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to start talking to us about it, start helping

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because it really did just become a family.

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It was a random group of people who did not know each other,

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but just started eating together every week

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and became some of our best friends.

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- Yeah. - There were definitely

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some nights that we didn't want to do it.

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Like, community is not always fun.

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Like, to think of something every week,

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that feels exhausting just to think about sometimes.

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- It was daunting.

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- Even in the moment, it is sometimes,

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like, there are plenty of nights where we thought,

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"Oh, maybe we should just cancel."

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But I actually think the weekly-ness

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is what makes it good because

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that's where our relationships could grow.

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Like, even if we were super tired

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before people came over, after they left, we weren't.

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We felt better, like, we felt more connected.

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We felt more energized.

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We had -- because we had people.

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And like, we all just need people to grow.

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We need people to, you know, cheer us up.

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That's -- I feel like that's always what happened,

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Like, even on the nights that weren't the best.

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- Right.

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- There's still something that happens in community

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that fills you up.

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- And ours isn't the only example of this

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that we've seen.

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Like, people out of our open house dinner,

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they started their own.

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There were brunches.

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There were other really cool examples of

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open, accessible community.

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And actually I just heard of one this week

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that I want to highlight right now

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and want to introduce you to a friend of mine,

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Damanuel and his Friday night dinners.

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- All right. Hey, this is Damanuel.

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Damanuel's the man, and he's, like,

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well, let me just tell you a story

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to help you get to know this guy.

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So, you remember the pandemic when the rest of us

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were, like, face first into a bag of Cheetos?

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We were just, like, sad eating?

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Like, yes, you remember that? Okay.

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Well, Damanuel was not that guy.

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He instead was -- What were you doing?

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Calling who?

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- Calling all of my contacts on my phone.

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- Every single person. - Every single person's phone.

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How many how many contacts do you have in your phone?

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- It was like, it was over 1000. - Oh, my gosh.

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That's giving most of us social anxiety just hearing it.

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He called over 1000 people,

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some of whom you hadn't talked to in...?

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- In years.

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- Like, your buddy Phil from, like, second grade.

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- Yeah. - Yes. Okay.

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- Just to see how they're doing. - Right.

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- I heard that story.

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I was like, we have to hire this guy.

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Like, I don't even know him, but he's amazing.

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- So, Damanuel is just, he's just a connector.

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Like, that's just who he is. He loves people.

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He loves seeing them get connected.

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So, Damanuel, I wanted to have you here to talk to us

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about what it looks like for people to get connected

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here at Crossroads.

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- Yeah, we have 100 groups around here

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in the local space and in your own cities.

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And we want to help you get connected in those places.

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So, we have some people that are in Indiana,

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we have some people that's in Texas.

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We want you to get connected with people.

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And so, if you are looking forward to a group

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or people around you, shoot me an email

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and I can help you out with filling that out

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and getting people around you.

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And so, I love connecting people

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and I love getting people to know each other

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and to grow in the next place together.

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- We have like 28 regional leaders, right?

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They're everywhere. It's amazing.

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- D, man, tell us about Friday night dinners.

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Tell us about how that got started,

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what it looks like for you guys.

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- Yeah, so one of my closest friends, Megan,

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had this dream after she moved back here to Cincinnati

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to open her house and just have people over for a meal.

00:18:07

And so, because she knows that through COVID

00:18:09

I loved to cook.

00:18:10

And she's like, "Hey, can you come cook for us?"

00:18:12

And I'm like, "Yeah."

00:18:13

So every Friday night we have a different theme.

00:18:16

So, in the clip, there is a video of me

00:18:19

cooking for a tropical dinner.

00:18:21

So, I had to cook something up some kabobs and some stuff.

00:18:25

And so, it was really fun just to actually

00:18:28

get to be a part of that because as I'm cooking,

00:18:31

I get to have a conversation with people

00:18:32

just over as I'm cooking and people love to help.

00:18:35

And so through that, I get to have a conversation

00:18:37

of, like, how are you doing

00:18:39

and how can I be praying for you along the way?

00:18:42

And so, I get to do a check in just while

00:18:44

I'm the cook at Friday night dinner.

00:18:45

So, it's been really good to actually get connected

00:18:48

and to understand how can we make this somewhere,

00:18:52

not just in Ohio, but everywhere else?

00:18:54

- Yeah. So, I guess the question is, like,

00:18:56

so what are we supposed to do with this info?

00:18:58

Well, like, my answer is hopefully we make it

00:19:00

more than just information, right?

00:19:02

Like, hopefully we do it, that we --

00:19:05

that we use the thing that we already have, your table,

00:19:08

and the thing you already have to do

00:19:09

multiple times a day, eat,

00:19:11

to connect and create community. Right?

00:19:14

So, here are three ways you can try it for yourself.

00:19:17

First, just grab a beer or dinner with a friend

00:19:20

and intentionally take the conversation deeper,

00:19:22

like, bridge that gap between drinking buddies

00:19:25

and genuine community.

00:19:27

Second, consider starting an open house dinner

00:19:30

in your neighborhood, in your dorm, in your whatever,

00:19:32

maybe with your Journey group.

00:19:33

We're trying to get these going all over the country

00:19:35

and think that they're an amazing opportunity

00:19:37

for a disconnected generation.

00:19:39

Like, so many people are lonely.

00:19:41

This is a chance for us to connect.

00:19:43

Thirdly, hey, I would love for you guys to join us

00:19:47

in our upcoming community cohort.

00:19:49

Like, that's 21 days to jumpstart community in your life

00:19:53

so that you can grow in the area of community

00:19:56

with teaching, with resources, with daily challenges,

00:19:59

and with people to grow alongside you.

00:20:02

It's designed to dive deeper into, not just the what,

00:20:05

but the how of building

00:20:07

and experiencing community for yourself.

00:20:09

Now, just some call outs, like, I know some of you

00:20:11

are like me, you're introverted and you're like,

00:20:13

"This sounds rough."

00:20:15

Or you're like, "My schedule's insane

00:20:17

or I don't know how to cook or I hate brunch."

00:20:20

I don't know.

00:20:21

We're going to talk about all of that

00:20:23

in the community cohort.

00:20:24

So, just click the link below or follow the link

00:20:27

and we'd love to have you join us

00:20:29

for our upcoming community cohort.

00:20:31

It's going to be worth your time.

00:20:32

Now, God doesn't want you to be alone.

00:20:35

He wants you to connect and grow.

00:20:37

And He gave you great tools, like the table,

00:20:40

that can help you do that.

00:20:41

So, let's put that table to use in our life

00:20:44

and recapture some of the beauty of the early church.

00:20:48

Because after all, the church isn't a building,

00:20:50

it's people, it's you and me.

00:20:52

It's not something we attend on Sunday morning.

00:20:54

It's who we are.

00:21:08

- This is the last week of the Journey.

00:21:10

And hey, congratulations, you made it.

00:21:12

You just completed something. That's a big deal.

00:21:14

We don't often complete a lot of things,

00:21:16

so you should feel great.

00:21:17

This is week five of the Journey.

00:21:19

And you know what? This isn't the end.

00:21:21

Because just like Andy said, you can get in a cohort,

00:21:24

you can do it.

00:21:25

You can take that next step into community.

00:21:27

- They're so great.

00:21:28

They're easy to fit in your life of taking the next spot,

00:21:30

which that's what we want for you.

00:21:32

This journey wasn't like, "Hey, grow for six weeks

00:21:34

and then, you know, and then you're good."

00:21:36

It's like, get you moving, get you going.

00:21:38

So, keep going, keep growing.

00:21:40

When you grow, it can lead to you wanting to give.

00:21:42

How about that? - That's exactly right.

00:21:44

You set me up for that. Thank you very much.

00:21:45

You know what Kyle threw to me,

00:21:47

because that's what our script said.

00:21:48

But for real, this is serious.

00:21:50

Giving leads to growth because it's the one thing

00:21:54

that takes us outside of ourselves.

00:21:56

And we don't have time to get into why we should give

00:21:58

and all of the spiritual life change.

00:22:00

So, we've set up a page that you can learn

00:22:02

all about that and you can give right there

00:22:05

at Crossroads.net/give.

00:22:08

- We've got more for you right here next week.

00:22:12

- Did you know that Jesus wants you to be happy?

00:22:14

He really, really does.

00:22:16

And today I want to help you step into a practice,

00:22:19

the practice of celebration that can help you

00:22:22

experience more of the happiness

00:22:24

that Jesus has and wants for you.

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