Play & Purpose Journey | Week 3: Purpose

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Hey, guys. Hey, guys.

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Hello. Hello. Hello.

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Hey, guys, I'm Zach.

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Thanks. I'm so excited to be here, guys.

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A little bit about me. I know my pants are this tight,.

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But I promise I'm actually not a worship pastor.

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Yeah. I actually tried out for the band,

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but they told me my V-neck wasn't deep enough.

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So yeah, I was like, I don't even know why I'm holding this.

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Honestly, I just heard there were gonna be girls here.

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Hey, how you doing?

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No, this is fun. I was like, I don't really play guitar or --

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I can do Ocean's real quick.

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I guess that's like the Christian equivalent of, you know, Wonder Wall.

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But guys, I actually I will say I actually don't do guitar.

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I actually do standup comedy.

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So it's so fun that there's so many people here.

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This is amazing. I love this.

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This is actually not the biggest crowd I've ever performed for.

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One time, I've performed for Madison Square Garden.

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Yeah. And I will say that actually was with my college marching band or whatever,

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but it still counts.

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I think. I love being here in this church.

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I actually was raised a super churchy kid.

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This is true. My parents were in a small southern gospel group known as the Heaven Bound Singers,

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which I thought was kind of a cocky name, you know,

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like you guys don't get to make that call.

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You know? It was just a bunch of like old white people singing like country songs about Jesus.

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It's like if Cracker Barrel had a house band.

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You know what I mean? Yeah, until I was 12, I'd never heard what you might call secular music.

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And how do you guys know what secular means?

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It just means like, good.

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Oh, that's fun.

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We've been talking about Play and Purpose a lot in this series.

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In comedy, it's important to remember purpose

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because sometimes you drive for four hours

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to play for three people and a dog

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and you're like, why do I do this?

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You know? This was particularly true one time,

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I recently did a show for 75 year old librarians.

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And guess what? They did not like me.

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I think I just thought I would go in there and just crush it,

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you know, because every old lady I had ever met

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would be like, "Oh, Zach, you're just so adorable.

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You're just so cute.". And I'd be like, "Oh, right back at you, Francis.

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Your teeth look amazing. Are they new?"

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I was smooth. I was smooth as Francis' gums, guys.

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So I tried to like make material specific to the event.

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I was like, "Hey, who wrote that Animal Farm?

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Was it George Borewell?"

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And that was the reaction. Yeah.

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They didn't --

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They did laugh, though. I think they were giving me like librarians' laughs.

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Let me give an impression of librarians' laugh real quick.

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You ready? Ha.

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That's all it was for 20 minutes.

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It was -- it was rough.

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I didn't realize later,

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I think the reason they hated it so much

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was because I was talking in a library.

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Yeah. So I got to the end of that show

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and it was just -- it was horrible.

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I started doing like crowd work

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because that's what you do when you're bombing,

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right, sir?

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And there's this lady who had a name tag on that said Edith.

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She'd been there for twenty years.

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I said, "OK, Edith, you've been here for 20 years.

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What do you do?" She said it just like this, I'm not making this up.

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She goes, "Well, I do the obituaries and I love it.".

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Oh, OK. Because I guess when you're old,

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doing the obituaries, is just like Facebook, I guess.

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Yeah, that's what happens when you get unfriended,

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you go hang out with Edith.

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Oh, man. So I got to the end of that show, it was horrible.

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At the end of it they paid me $200 --

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which like no pressure, Crossroads --

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Paid me $200.

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I'm not making this up, later that day I got an email from that library

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asking for a donation in the amount of $200.

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They're like, "We have made a mistake.".

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That's actually not the weirdest show ever did.

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One time I did a show for Jerry Springer.

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Do you guys know Jerry Springer?

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OK. A couple of people stayed home during the day.

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Cool.

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I did it over Jerry Springer.

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Some people don't know this, Jerry Springer use to be mayor of Cincinnati,

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but then he had to step down

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when he wrote a check to a prostitute.

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What's crazy is I did that show

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and he didn't pay me anything.

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But it's cool, I have a rich new girlfriend.

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Her name is Frances.

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Guys, thank you so much. I'm Zach Wyckoff.

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You guys are amazing. Thank you.

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[applause] -That is good, good stuff.

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Well, this week of our Play & Purpose Journey is all about purpose.

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So one of the things we do with great joy and purposes around here is we use music to connect to God.

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So that's what we're gonna do right now.

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So if you're in the room, stand with us.

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If you're at home or online or in a home somewhere, turn it up.

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Let's sing together. All right.

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AWAITED: a beloved holiday tradition

00:13:19

experienced by over half a million people.

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Feel the wonder, the joy and the hope of the holidays.

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Experience the traditional Christmas story brought to life in a completely new way.

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Coming to the Aronoff Center, visit CincinnatiArts.org

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-Well Awaited has become one of my family's very favorite Christmas traditions.

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My brother, sister and I could sing you all of the songs.

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It really feels like Christmas when the Awaited soundtrack starts playing

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and when we get to experience the Christmas story

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through the creative, beautiful telling of it in the midst of Awaited.

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And so I'm excited to announce that Awaited will be

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at the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio, this Christmas.

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It's the place where all the Broadway shows come in Cincinnati to perform.

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And so Awaited is a Broadway quality telling of the Christmas story.

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And so if you're gonna be in the Cincinnati area

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or you're looking for a new Christmas tradition,

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something to do that's meaningful this Christmas

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and also wildly entertaining,

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you should head to the website and grab tickets now for Awaited.

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One of the things that's coming up here in October is the Ocean Conference.

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And this is a conference for business men and women entrepreneurs

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who want really practical ways to grow your business.

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You want inspiration and you want to talk about how your faith mixes in with your work.

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You might want to learn what it means for you

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to live your faith out in the workplace

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as you're growing a business, starting a business,

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being faithful in the midst of your business.

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And so you can buy tickets for the Ocean Conference today.

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It's happening in October.

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So head to the Web site on the screen.

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Get tickets for that today.

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We're in the all church Journey, Play & Purpose Journey

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because we're going somewhere new in the midst of this series,

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we're going somewhere new in our relationship with God

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and our everyday lives, in our relationships with other people.

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And I got to go someplace new a couple of weeks ago

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to kick off this Play & Purpose Journey.

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I spent the Sunday of that weekend down in Louisville, Kentucky,

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with a community of people who have been gathering in homes

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and watching online and some brand new faces

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who are new to the church

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and hadn't ever experienced Crossroads before.

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Let's check out what that experience actually looked like.

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-I'm learning how to say Louisville, does it sound right?

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Yes. OK. Louisville, I'll keep practicing.

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But hey, we're glad that you're here. -I want more of our friends and family

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to get to experience life change,

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to get to experience more Play & Purpose

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because of a relationship with God, because of a relationship with you

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and because of experience with the church.

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And so that's actually why I give to the church,

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so that more people can experience Him in ways like online church, Crossroads Anywhere,

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pop up experiences, and so much more.

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Ans so if you want to be a giver, you want to join the team,.

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you can head to Crossroads.net/give

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and sign up for a one time gift or a recurring gift.

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So today we're talking all about purpose.

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And we'll have a little bit of play too.

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-I'm a millennial. Do we have any millennials in the house, any millennials?

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Come on, shout it out. I love our chant.

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We're in debt and we're always right.

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We're in debt and we're --

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Guys, we're in debt. I'm trying to find myself, like most millennials do.

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And that's a very American concept.

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So I'm not from here. I'm from Zimbabwe.

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And I was telling my mom that I'm trying to find myself.

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And she was just like, "You're right there.

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I found you.

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Now, stop wasting my time

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and go find yourself a wife, I need grandkids."

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I did actually fly to Australia because I was in love with a white woman,

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which kind of felt a little bit like reverse colonialism.

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Yeah. Love and greatness.

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I feel like everybody my age is always looking for those things.

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One time a guy gave me the secret to greatness.

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He was like, "David, I'm going to give you the secret to greatness.

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The secret to greatness is you have to be aware that you can die at any moment."

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And I was like, "I'm a black dude who watches the news.

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I'm already aware that I can die at any moment,

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despite the fact that I sound like Wayne Brady doing an impression of Tom Brady."

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That's -- Another part of like the idea of greatness and trying to find greatness,

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I always think about what the movie about my life would be like.

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And so imagine a movie where a guy goes through a whole lot of struggle

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just to be really average at the end.

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It's like at the end credits all my friends were like,

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"You know what? David's gonna be all right.".

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And then it just -- the title slide just goes,

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"And then David goes on to work retail for four years.

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His credit score is exactly what you think it is.".

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And the post credit scene is just me getting denied for a credit card.

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I did actually work retail for a very long time.

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And when you work any retail -- any retail people?

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Anybody work retail? -Whoo.

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-I'm so sorry. When you work retail people say very weird things.

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Like I was helping like the cutest old white lady.

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She was the nicest lady.

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And we were having a great time.

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And she was like, "David, you're just so cute and so helpful.

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I just wish I could take you home and have you live with me.

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And you just did everything that I needed you to do."

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It's like, "Ma'am.,

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clearly, you're no history buff, but...

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that's already happened and...".

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As I said earlier, I'm from Zimbabwe.

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And when I was younger, there were always a bunch of mission trips

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because they wanted to, like, save us

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and they did, that's why I'm here. And I've always wondered, like, if there's a middle aged white lady out there

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with like a younger me as her Facebook profile picture.

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And like, how awesome would it be if we ran into each other?

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It's like, "Yeah, your Go Trip came back home with you.

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Ha, ha, ha! It's like I ran, it's like, "Oh, my God, Susan?

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It's me, David Thanks for the five cents a day, it helped out a lot.

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How many likes did we get? Fifteen?

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What was the point? Why'd you even come?

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Do you want to get Chipotle?

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My friend Zach is going to bring his girlfriend, Francis.

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So, yeah...

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Thanks, everybody. I've been David.

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You guys have been wonderful.

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Give it up. We're going to have Ali come on up.

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You guys are awesome. [applause] -Hey, you guys, great.

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Why don't you give them another round of applause

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while I tell you that those two guys, David and Zach,

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they actually won Funniest People in Cincinnati awards

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in different categories of a real huge comedy competition.

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And they're actually part of our community helping us to play a little bit today.

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So thanks for being here, guys.

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[applause] I'm Ali and it's great to be with you here during Purpose Week of the Journey.

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That's right, today we are talking about purpose.

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Who's had a group meeting?

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Anybody in here had their group meeting?

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Yeah, we did, too. And we pretty quickly figured out that there were

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a few of us that were sort of naturally wired for play

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and there were a few of us that seemed to be more naturally wired for purpose.

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And I'm sort of a purpose girl.

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Like everything that I'm wired with just naturally

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is better at sort of supporting the concept of purpose,

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which we're going to talk a lot about today.

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But a few years ago, I started to get ahold of this concept

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of play and recreation and the need for fun.

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And in the middle of, you know, wife, mom, four kids, work, school, I need some fun.

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And so we were canoeing the summer before last as a family.

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And my kids were asking if they could climb this tree where they saw a rope swing.

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So they climbed this tree and they said,

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"Can we jump off the rope swing?".

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"Yeah, sure. That sounds great."

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And I was watching them, taking pictures like this one.

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And I suddenly thought, "Now, hang on a second, I am fun.

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I get to have fun, too.

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I'm not just the mom who sits in the canoe.".

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So I put my phone away and I literally climb this huge tree.

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And right as I'm standing there with the rope in my hands,

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getting ready to jump, I think,

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"Something could go wrong here.".

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But I jumped anyway and I forgot to let go.

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And so back swings the rope

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and suddenly I had a decision in front of me:

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face plant into the giant tree I just jumped out of

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or drop and I chose to drop

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about a story in bare feet, wham, on to rock bed

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in about eight inches of water.

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And play? Over for me.

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I spent the summer in this walking boot.

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I think this like characterizes my play personality

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Like since I'm naturally wired for purpose,

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I tend to like go after it a little too aggressively.

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Like I just don't quite know my way around it as much.

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But the struggle for play is real.

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We're doing it. I feel you, purpose people out there.

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When Brian introduce this concept of the "&" the first week of our journey,

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he said something which really struck me.

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And I strongly agree with that when it comes to purpose.

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We're not trying to find a life where we blend these two together all the time.

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That can occasionally happen and that's awesome when it does.

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But also we need both

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and it's okay if they exist separately in our life.

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And so we're gonna unapologetically talk about purpose today.

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And my goal -- my goal is to get us to stop thinking about purpose as something out there.

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And start seeing purpose right in front of us in the here and now.

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So let me pray for us.

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Father, thank you that You invite us into a life of purpose.

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And I pray that Your Words would be spoken here today,

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that You would help me to be clear and helpful and true.

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Amen So I want to lift a weight off your shoulders as we start to talk about purpose.

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Just give me a quick hand if you have ever done whatever you do every day,

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you take care of kids, you go to work, you go to school,

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whatever your daily tasks include, and you've gotten to the end of a day

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and you've gone, "What am I doing?"

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Who's ever done that?

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Ok, the rest of you are lying.

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The final 10 percent.

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I know we've all done that.

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I'm a pastor. I work at a church.

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I've gone home and said, "What in the world am I doing here today?"

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And I want to lift a weight off of you.

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I want today to give you a simple definition of purpose

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and a conversation about purpose that feels like I don't have to go find it.

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I actually have access to it in my life.

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And it's way easier than you think.

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Having a life of purpose means putting God right in the center

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of whatever you are doing today.

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That's it. That is really it.

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I think most of us are kind of numb to the idea of purpose.

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We don't really -- We don't really think about it too much.

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Maybe we made some purposeful decisions

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to kind of get where we are in our life right now

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or get with the people that we're with.

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But truth be told, we kind of wake up every day

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and we just do the thing, we do what we do,

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and then we wake up tomorrow and we do it again.

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And we all get caught in this mindset.

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But this mindset actually leads us to some wrong thinking about purpose.

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And that thinking, when somebody says something like, "What's your life purpose?"

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We immediately think, "It can't be this.

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It can't be keeping the ball rolling.

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It can't be just doing the thing I do every day.

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It must be out there."

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So maybe we have this mindset that we need to start that nonprofit

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or we need to come work at a church

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or we need to spend all our vacation time going around the globe on mission trips.

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And there's nothing wrong with any of those things.

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But it's just indicative of our mindset about purpose

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that always is telling us we need to go find it.

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We need to go search for it and we'll know it when we see it.

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It's kind of like a soulmate version of purpose,

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"Like it's going to be a perfect match.

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And when I find it, I'm going to know

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because I'm going to feel fulfilled and satisfied.

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And above all, I will be happy when I find this.".

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And we search for it in all kinds of different ways.

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I absolutely know people who search for purpose only in their job.

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And so anytime they have a job that doesn't fully satisfy them,

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they're on to the next one in search of a job that will fulfill this longing for purpose.

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And some of us, we've searched in different ways.

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We've done -- who's ever done an online personality inventory of any sort.

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I've done the Myers Briggs. I've done the DISC.

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I've done the one where they tell you whether you're wind or fire or Earth or something.

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And I've done lately the Enneagram.

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Anybody else taken that one?

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OK. So I'm a five.

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Any other fives in the room?

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Yeah. You're surprised, aren't you.

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I'm a five. And anyway, I think what we're yearning for,

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not that there's no insight to be gained there,

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but what we kind of want to know is:

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is this going to finally tell me the direction

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I should move to go out there and finally find my purpose?

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We go on this search like purpose is some sort of soulmate that we have to go and find.

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But the constant through line in our search for purpose

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is that it will satisfy and optimize and maximize me.

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It's really about me.

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And we don't say this, of course, because that sounds kind of self-centered,

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but we truly do believe that our purpose will ultimately satisfy primarily us?

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And when this is kind of the mindset we're in, you end up where I ended up on a Tuesday morning.

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I'm going to guess maybe like a decade ago, maybe nine years ago.

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And I was in my house on a Tuesday morning, literally.

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And I was doing dishes.

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I was like unloading the dishwasher for the 114 time that week.

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And in this era of my life,

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I didn't have an occupation outside of my house.

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I was actually home.

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I'd had a corporate career.

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I'd actually worked at Crossroads for a few years.

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And I was home. And when I started this era of my life, I had two babies.

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And when I ended it seven years later, I had four.

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So you can imagine what my days consisted of.

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There was a lot of diapers.

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There were a lot of nap schedules.

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There was a lot of maintenance.

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And I was mad that particular day

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Not every day, but that day.

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And I was doing the dishes and I said things to God,

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started off kind of civil, like, "What are you doing here, God?

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What's going on? This doesn't feel good.

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Sure don't like this some of the time.".

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And then I got madder and madder.

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And I pulled a bowl out of the dishwasher and I threw it in the sink

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and it shattered right as I yelled something like,

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"What are you doing with me?

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I am not fulfilled.

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There are parts of me that are just laying there completely dormant.

00:29:37

This can't be Your purpose for me."

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See, I had gone home because I felt like that's where God was leading me,

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but I was confused because I just kept thinking,

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"Shouldn't this feel better for me?"

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And this is usually exactly the kind of mindset that we have about purpose,

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but purpose is not about what we are doing.

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Purpose is about what God is doing.

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And this is an enormous, enormous shift for most of us in the room.

00:30:13

And it was one that took me a very, very, very long time to make

00:30:19

because I couldn't get over it, that it really was ultimately about me.

00:30:23

And the difference between those of us who have jobs

00:30:28

and those of us who can touch on a life of purpose

00:30:32

is really one question and it's: God, what are You doing today?

00:30:36

And how can I be a part of it?

00:30:40

God, what are You doing today?

00:30:44

And how can I just be a part of it?

00:30:49

All through the Bible, we hear the language of purpose and plans around God.

00:30:54

God, apparently, according to the Bible, is the guy with the capital P.

00:30:59

plan. And we get -- I'm just going to throw out different language examples

00:31:03

where I can see this and I see it all the way through the Bible.

00:31:06

Old Testament Prophet Amos said in chapter three:.

00:31:16

God has a plan. He's working purposes.

00:31:18

Psalm 102 uses language like:.

00:31:23

His purposes have appointed times, things He's doing and the timing of them, they matter greatly.

00:31:31

Even Jesus in his earthly life, He would say things that are recorded through the Gospels.

00:31:36

He would say things like in the Book of John:

00:31:41

What does that mean? It means that God has purpose and plans and their own timing and He's doing something.

00:31:49

Or He would say things like:.

00:31:50

Like that in the book of Matthew.

00:31:53

He would just talk like this as though there was some kind of.

00:31:55

purpose, plan, timing behind His life and what He was doing.

00:32:01

In the book of John Jesus says what I find one of the most encouraging things when I think about my access to purpose.

00:32:09

It's in John 5 and Jesus said:

00:32:16

Why do I say this is encouraging?

00:32:18

For me this is everything.

00:32:21

If God is at work and God has a plan,

00:32:24

then God is never doing nothing.

00:32:27

No matter what your Tuesday morning looks like,

00:32:29

God is at work in the world around you and we are invited in.

00:32:34

We're invited into His purpose in the world.

00:32:37

But we are oftentimes like I was for so very long thinking

00:32:42

that actually it's about us when it's about God.

00:32:46

Last week, Brian said something about play and I was like, yeah, I agree with that.

00:32:50

He said, "If we play, it forces us to trust God.".

00:32:56

If that's true about play, then here's what I think is true about purpose.

00:33:01

Our desire for purpose, it forces us to connect with God.

00:33:07

We can't have a life of purpose any other way.

00:33:10

We have to push ourselves into connection with God

00:33:14

in order to find out what our purpose really is

00:33:17

or how we can connect to His purposes in the world.

00:33:21

And we enter this cycle.

00:33:22

I thought about this this week as I was thinking about what Brian said.

00:33:25

I thought, "OK, so God invites us in and somehow we can connect to His purpose.

00:33:30

And then he goes, 'don't forget, take a day off.

00:33:32

It's really about me,.'". Which I love, that's awesome.

00:33:36

And so we begin this cycle of purpose and play all with God at the center.

00:33:45

I wanted a picture so badly.

00:33:48

I was just thinking like, how can I illustrate for you

00:33:53

how the purpose of God takes place all through the Bible?

00:33:56

I told you I read that everywhere I read in the Bible I can see.

00:34:00

And it's no good for us to pretend that it's one dimensional.

00:34:03

We all know better than that because we've lived through moments in our life or we're like,.

00:34:07

"Oh, right there.

00:34:11

Something bigger is happening.

00:34:13

Something is moving and I -- and I just kind of walked into it.

00:34:18

There's something else going on here.".

00:34:19

And we'd live those. And so it's not a simplistic picture of purpose in the Bible.

00:34:25

So here's what I came up with.

00:34:26

This is how I believe we interact with God's purposes in the Bible.

00:34:32

So here, the picture that I came up with was the jet stream.

00:34:36

OK? I know, go with me.

00:34:37

I'm not a scientist nor meteorologist, but I kept thinking about this.

00:34:41

The jet stream is actually these huge columns of winds

00:34:45

that happened like 12 miles above the surface of the earth.

00:34:48

And they create patterns based on the rotation of the sun,

00:34:51

the distance from the equator, the speed of the earth's rotation,

00:34:55

whether it's over land or over sea.

00:34:57

And we get all of these weather patterns all over the globe.

00:35:01

And then you turn on your news and your meteorologist says,

00:35:06

"Hey, because the jet stream is doing something, here's the weather in your area today."

00:35:11

And you see a map of the squiggly line and you do what I do, which goes,

00:35:15

"Okay, that's the jet stream.". But it's creating a set of local circumstances for you.

00:35:21

Right? We can see how the jet stream is interacting in our world or our country or our city.

00:35:27

And the truth is, the only thing we really care about is things like: what are the clouds and the rain doing over me?

00:35:35

Like, is it going to rain?

00:35:37

Can I ride my motorcycle to work?

00:35:38

Do I need an umbrella? Is it going to be 90 in September?"

00:35:41

I don't know. It's just you know,

00:35:44

all we care about is what is it doing in my world right now?

00:35:50

God's purposes through the Bible are exactly like this.

00:35:53

God working this sovereign plan miles and miles above us,

00:35:59

that creates circumstances all over the Earth.

00:36:02

He moves nations and kings and the Bible uses all kinds of language like that.

00:36:07

And it creates a set of circumstances for us in this time,

00:36:10

in this way, in this place that we are.

00:36:12

But the truth is, our entry point to the jet stream is the weather, the wind right in our face.

00:36:20

It is the wind in our face every single day.

00:36:24

That's the only thing that you and I can do.

00:36:27

We can't control the jet stream winds.

00:36:30

We don't even know what the pattern is going to be like over where we are.

00:36:34

But we can and do and must interact with God's purpose

00:36:39

by dealing with the wind that is right in our face.

00:36:43

And this is what we find our hands, our mind, our feet,

00:36:47

our daily tasks, the work in front of us, the people we pass.

00:36:50

It happens in what I call the three P's.

00:36:56

Purpose takes place in the people, in the places, and in the patterns of our daily life.

00:37:04

These are our entry points.

00:37:06

These are entry points to what God is doing.

00:37:09

It is the jet stream.

00:37:10

It's all the same thing.

00:37:12

But we look by these because we yearn for those moments where we feel a sense of higher purpose.

00:37:18

So we overlook what's right in front of us.

00:37:20

and we go out there and we search for something bigger, something grander,

00:37:25

something above just the daily old stuff that we're doing.

00:37:29

But don't forget, God is always at work.

00:37:33

He is never doing nothing.

00:37:37

So how do you know? Like, how do you know if what you're doing every day really matters?

00:37:42

How do you know if it's touching purpose?

00:37:44

And for me, there's one simple idea that clarifies this for me:

00:37:47

is what I'm doing every day, does it last before God?

00:37:52

Does it endure in His Kingdom?

00:37:54

Does it matter beyond myself?

00:37:56

Does it last beyond my lifetime even?

00:38:02

When we start to touch a life of purpose, the results --

00:38:05

We said that -- What did we say?

00:38:08

That purpose is something productive that yields results?

00:38:11

Well, the results we're looking for are enduring results before God,

00:38:18

that matter to God, that are in the Kingdom of God.

00:38:24

And that happens through the here and now.

00:38:26

Purpose is our here and now.

00:38:30

This is our entry point to the jet stream.

00:38:32

We don't have another one.

00:38:34

We can't go three miles up or a nation over.

00:38:37

We can't access the winds at 1500 feet.

00:38:40

We can't do it. I want you to meet a guy in the Bible that I think illustrates this perfectly.

00:38:49

His name is Daniel.

00:38:50

And we have to fight the urge with Daniel's life

00:38:53

to think that he knew all the things that were gonna take place with his life.

00:38:57

We have the luxury of reading his story as recorded in the Bible.

00:39:01

But I want you to fight the urge to think that he had any of that information because he didn't.

00:39:07

Daniel lived at a time where it looked like he had great purpose.

00:39:11

He lived in the nation of Israel

00:39:13

and he was in the royal family of the kingdom of Judah.

00:39:16

So this is the time in Israel's history where they had split into two different nations.

00:39:22

And Daniel was a part of Judah,

00:39:24

which had the throne in Jerusalem, the city with the holy temple.

00:39:27

He was it.

00:39:29

He was where it was happening.

00:39:30

But this is the final chapter in the life of the nation of Israel.

00:39:34

The other nation, Israel proper, named proper, is already gone.

00:39:40

And in comes King Nebuchadnezzar

00:39:42

from the very powerful nation at the time in the region called Babylon.

00:39:48

And King Nebuchadnezzar comes around Jerusalem

00:39:50

and he puts it under siege,

00:39:52

which means he basically put a stranglehold on the city.

00:39:55

And the first thing that he did to signal, "I am here and you are all mine,"

00:40:00

is he rounded up the royal family and everyone connected to them

00:40:05

and he shipped them off to Babylon.

00:40:08

And it was absolutely a signal to the people that,

00:40:11

"I am here and this whatever this is, is not only over.

00:40:17

It's mine." So, Daniel, who we are also told is the cream of the crop,

00:40:23

the best of the best, he's like Charles and William and Harry

00:40:26

and Diana and Kate and whatever her name is, all rolled into one.

00:40:31

He's smart, he's handsome, he's quick, he's royal, he's everything.

00:40:37

And so are most of the people that went with him.

00:40:40

So they shipped these guys off to Babylon.

00:40:43

And they give them work,

00:40:45

which they not only wouldn't have wanted,

00:40:48

it would have been an insult to them.

00:40:51

For three years, Daniel was tasked with training to enter the service of the King,

00:40:57

which meant he had to learn the Chaldean language, law, math,

00:41:03

architecture, astrology, astronomy, everything agriculture,

00:41:08

anything in the nation that was the culture of Babylon.

00:41:10

And the whole point was to wipe out the name of Daniel's God and the memory of his former life and purpose.

00:41:19

This guy had every reason to think that purpose was over for him, right?

00:41:25

He used to live in Jerusalem,

00:41:28

serving in the holy, holy city in the Royal Family.

00:41:31

And suddenly he's forced labor for the Babylonian king who even changed his name.

00:41:41

He changed his name from Daniel, which means "God is the judge"

00:41:45

to Belteshazzar, which means "lady, protect the king.".

00:41:48

He called him a girl. Come on.

00:41:50

That's funny. He calls him a girl.

00:41:55

He gives them work he's going to hate.

00:41:56

He deeply insults him.

00:41:58

He's forced labor to a godless king.

00:42:00

And Daniel had every right to throw some dishes.

00:42:05

I wonder if he yelled at God.

00:42:07

I wonder if he questioned whether his purpose, maybe his very life was completely over.

00:42:13

I don't know how he felt about it, but what I do know is what he did about it.

00:42:18

What he did about it was he got up every single day

00:42:22

and to the best of ability,

00:42:23

he did the work that was right in front of him.

00:42:25

And after three years, the reason that I know this

00:42:28

is because in Daniel 1:20, it says this.

00:42:32

The king calls him in with a few of the guys that he's been training with,

00:42:36

all from the royal family that had come from Israel.

00:42:39

And it says:

00:42:53

Daniel did amazing work.

00:42:56

He actually got promoted after that little exam.

00:42:58

And then a few years later he got promoted again.

00:43:00

And he worked his way up to the king's right hand man.

00:43:04

My guess is there were people who probably prayed for that purpose to come true in their life.

00:43:08

"Oh, gods, please make me the king's right hand man."

00:43:12

I promise you, Daniel never prayed that prayer,

00:43:14

yet there he was. And purpose was going to begin to emerge out of his life,

00:43:21

but did he know how?

00:43:23

Why? No, he just got up every day and he dealt with the wind in his face.

00:43:29

And he did it to the best of his ability.

00:43:31

And the critical thing that he chose?

00:43:35

We find out in the very first interaction that he had in Babylon.

00:43:40

This seems so small.

00:43:42

It would be able -- it would be so easy to just read right over it.

00:43:45

But it was this decision that created the possibility

00:43:50

that he would actually have purpose in this place.

00:43:54

Let's read this Daniel 1:5, starting at 5:

00:44:08

The king, he wants these guys in good shape.

00:44:11

They're going to serve him. And he assigns them his own food and wine.

00:44:15

It would have been the best of the best.

00:44:17

But Daniels says, "I don't want that because it would defile me."

00:44:22

What does that mean? There were Old Testament laws about what the Jewish diet could contain.

00:44:28

And that was part of a system which is how they worshiped and loved and served their God, our God.

00:44:37

And Daniel said, "I'm going to connect right now,

00:44:40

right here with this tiny little decision about food.

00:44:42

I'm going to put God at the center.

00:44:45

I don't want the king's food.

00:44:47

I want to honor my God.".

00:44:49

And we see him decide this.

00:44:51

If you read the first six chapters of Daniel,

00:44:53

you will see him decide this over and over and over again,

00:44:57

that he will keep God at the center of the work that he was even forced to do in Babylon.

00:45:05

And the difference between Daniel and all the other guys around him

00:45:10

was that he got up and asked the question,

00:45:12

"God, what are You doing here?

00:45:16

How can I honor You?

00:45:17

How can I be a part of You first, You at the center.

00:45:21

You are my immovable thing.

00:45:24

And how can I just become a part of whatever You are doing here?"

00:45:29

He knew that purpose happens only and ever when we keep God at the center

00:45:35

and when we connect to His plans and when it's not about us.

00:45:39

Daniel went on to serve three different kings

00:45:42

in two different kingdoms for 70 years.

00:45:44

He never went home.

00:45:47

The Bible actually tells us he died in the first year of King Cyrus.

00:45:52

That's the guy that made the decree that let all the Jewish people return to Jerusalem.

00:45:57

He never saw home again.

00:46:00

He spent all of his years working in a godless nation for a godless king.

00:46:05

And he got up every single day to the best of his ability.

00:46:10

And purpose began to reemerge because he kept God in the center.

00:46:18

And God did work incredible purpose through his life.

00:46:22

Listen to some of the ways that his work has lasted

00:46:24

and is still lasting before God today.

00:46:27

He became what was known as the wisest man in Babylon.

00:46:30

And we have records of him interpreting visions and dreams,

00:46:34

one of which saved the lives of hundreds of people in the kingdom.

00:46:37

He lived to hear that King Belteshazzar, the one that wanted to wipe out his God.

00:46:42

He heard him with his own ears, say,

00:46:45

"Daniel's God is the God of gods and the Lord of Kings."

00:46:49

He spoke prophetic words over multiple people

00:46:52

and multiple nations that have actually come to pass in the history of our world.

00:46:58

He witnessed a miracle in the lion's den.

00:47:00

Yeah. He's that Daniel.

00:47:02

And he wasn't a strapping young lad.

00:47:03

He was like 80 when they tossed him in there.

00:47:08

And many scholars believe that the wise men who come looking for Jesus one day

00:47:13

would have been trained by people

00:47:15

who were trained by people

00:47:16

who were trained in the scriptures and in astronomy by Daniel himself.

00:47:24

And not only that, but his purpose still lasting in front of God.

00:47:30

He has spoken words about what God will do at the end of human history

00:47:35

that have yet to be fulfilled.

00:47:37

Daniel's daily work is still lasting in front of God to this very day.

00:47:43

But did he know it?

00:47:46

My guess is no,

00:47:48

that the vast majority of these things he never knew

00:47:51

exactly what God was going to do

00:47:52

or exactly how God was going to craft purpose in his life,

00:47:55

because it wasn't about him,

00:47:57

it was about God and what God was doing.

00:48:02

So let me ask you: Is your parenting producing fruit in your kids

00:48:09

that will last their entire lives?

00:48:11

That will outlive you?

00:48:12

That will set them up for the next generation?

00:48:16

Is your generosity in your workplace changing the environment?

00:48:22

Is your daily decision to forgive your mom or your brother or your friend,

00:48:26

is it changing hearts in not just your generation,

00:48:30

but in the generation following?

00:48:31

These are hard questions.

00:48:33

It's hard to know whether what we put our hands and minds and feet to every day will really last before God.

00:48:39

So I want to give you a few examples of ways that I see

00:48:43

things and people taking place right around me

00:48:46

where this stuff is happening,

00:48:48

who they're looking for people and places and patterns to put God in the middle of

00:48:53

and they join up with a life of purpose.

00:48:57

One of them is my husband.

00:48:58

His name is Bill.

00:49:00

And in many ways, his struggle with purpose

00:49:04

actually reminds me a little bit about the conditions of Daniel,

00:49:07

not that he's been carried off to a foreign land,

00:49:09

but rather he has a job too,

00:49:11

that many of you might describe as soul sucking.

00:49:16

He's a lawyer. And he's been practicing for about 20 years.

00:49:23

And I've listened to him as his wife,

00:49:24

I've have listened to him come home and talk about how much of a grind his job is.

00:49:31

Do you know the pressure of having to bill every single hour that you work to a project?

00:49:37

Many of you do know that.

00:49:39

And you know that it appears that that will never end.

00:49:42

And he's come home and gone, "I don't know if I can do this for the next 25 years.".

00:49:46

He's had to ask God a lot of questions about

00:49:49

how do I In the middle of this grind?

00:49:51

How do I touch on purpose, Your purpose?

00:49:54

How do I invite You into the center of what I'm doing?

00:49:57

What does that actually look like?"

00:49:59

So I want to tell you what he has come to understand.

00:50:02

And one of those things that he views, he sees constant doorways,

00:50:07

constant offers from God to step into purpose through his work is provision.

00:50:13

Provision he can close his eyes any day of the week

00:50:17

and he can imagine a friend and a family in other parts of the world

00:50:21

that are doing what God has called them to do

00:50:25

because of his ability to help provide for that to happen.

00:50:29

He can open his eyes and he can see families that eat,

00:50:32

people that are employed because of the project that he just brought in,

00:50:36

which is going to employ his team and all their support staff

00:50:39

for the next six weeks while they get it done.

00:50:41

He's learned to see that as an invitation into purpose in the lives of people around him.

00:50:47

He can come home and he can see his wife,

00:50:51

who a few years ago said, "I think I want to go back to school.

00:50:57

I'm pretty sure that God wants me to go to seminary.".

00:51:03

And he will tell you that I've done it in the least financially efficient way possible,

00:51:08

but that he has been able to provide gives him satisfaction

00:51:12

in watching what God has done in the lives of other people around him and how it's taken shape.

00:51:19

He never even wanted to be a lawyer.

00:51:21

And the reason that I mention that

00:51:23

is because it directly connects to why provision.

00:51:27

When he -- I was his girlfriend at the time

00:51:29

and I listened to the conversation

00:51:31

and the heart wrenching decision.

00:51:33

He wanted to be a teacher.

00:51:35

He was a certified teacher.

00:51:38

And coming out of undergrad, that's what he wanted to do.

00:51:40

He wanted to be a high school history teacher and a basketball coach.

00:51:44

And instead, he went back to law school

00:51:46

because he couldn't get rid of this gnawing feeling

00:51:49

that he would be leaving something on the table,

00:51:52

that he would be leaving a capacity that God had given him

00:51:56

and that God wanted to put to work somehow in the world.

00:51:58

But it wasn't deeply satisfying to him, not like how he thought of teaching.

00:52:04

And yet he went back. He followed that.

00:52:06

And today he would tell you he believes

00:52:08

that was part of God's plan for provision for other people.

00:52:16

And that urge to coach and mentor and teach that obviously would drive one into that profession,

00:52:21

he actually has seen that take shape in his office life right in front of him,

00:52:27

because I don't know if you know this or not,

00:52:29

but when you bill hours,

00:52:31

people aren't super generous with their time.

00:52:35

And he would say he never had an attorney that was patient with him,

00:52:38

that helped him grow, that gave him the new expertise

00:52:42

and the knowledge and the opportunities to actually mature and grow professionally.

00:52:46

And so he views that as a doorway into purpose

00:52:49

and he tries to be generous and available and consistent

00:52:53

with his coaching and his time with younger attorneys around him.

00:53:01

There are so many other things I could say,

00:53:03

but I want to paint you an everyday picture because

00:53:07

I think in that God's intention was always for him to feel satisfied,

00:53:12

was always for him to feel that he was using all of who he was,

00:53:18

but ultimately not done with him at the center of it.

00:53:22

Not with bills maximization as the goal,

00:53:27

but rather what God was doing.

00:53:30

One of our communities, Crossroads Uptown, I love this,

00:53:35

speaking of people, places and patterns.

00:53:38

This one hits all three of those for me.

00:53:40

We have a community in close to the campus of University of Cincinnati,

00:53:45

it's called Crossroads Uptown.

00:53:47

And this this community started because of some normal people that had a running group.

00:53:53

They would run through the campus and surrounding areas

00:53:56

and they would pray for people that they passed,

00:54:01

for places that they saw.

00:54:02

And they would do this just as a part of their daily stuff.

00:54:05

I'm a runner. I appreciate sometimes I just check the box.

00:54:08

I did it this morning. It was a million degrees.

00:54:11

It was an unpleasant run.

00:54:13

And I just went check,

00:54:15

but they ran with God at the center.

00:54:18

And they would pray as they ran

00:54:19

and they began to pass this church that was abandoned.

00:54:24

And as a matter of fact, there'd been a fire.

00:54:25

And so there was an incredible amount of damage and it was an old building.

00:54:29

And so no one had ever inhabited it again just because of the cost of fixing it up.

00:54:33

It was no longer a church.

00:54:34

But it was clearly a church building.

00:54:36

So they started to pray that God would make it a church again,

00:54:39

and they would pray that for quite some time.

00:54:41

And then sooner or later, that prayer actually changed a little bit into,

00:54:45

"God. will you give that church to Crossroads to make a church again?"

00:54:51

And they would run and they would pray that prayer.

00:54:53

And soon somebody else began to get that idea and it caught on.

00:54:57

And next thing after the next thing,

00:54:59

and wouldn't you know it, as Brian would say, "God bless America,"

00:55:03

The United States government gave Crossroads $3 dollars

00:55:07

to help with the renovation of that historic building,

00:55:09

which is now Crossroads Uptown.

00:55:10

[applause] Wow, you guys.

00:55:13

It's incredible. All that happened here --.

00:55:16

All that happened here was some normal people put God in the middle

00:55:20

of the pattern of their life.

00:55:22

And they are now interacting with the jet stream purposes of God.

00:55:27

Lives are being changed.

00:55:28

That place will outlast them.

00:55:30

And I guarantee you they could never have crafted that story if they had tried.

00:55:36

Never. This is the mindset of people who end up touching on lives of purpose.

00:55:43

I'm just going to take what I'm doing

00:55:44

and I'm going to put God in the middle.

00:55:50

I want to tell you about my grandma as the last thing today.

00:55:55

The reason that she came up for me here is actually pretty funny.

00:55:59

I know that when I say grandma, you picture your grandma

00:56:02

and she was super nice and she baked you cookies and she gave you hugs.

00:56:05

That was not my grandma.

00:56:07

She was more of the high ball drinking, Steelers watching NFL fan.

00:56:14

"Did you gain five pounds?"

00:56:15

kind of grandma. That was my grandma.

00:56:19

So I just want you to wipe out this picture of the sweet old lady, that was not her.

00:56:23

But she came to know Jesus in her 60s.

00:56:27

And when she came to know Jesus, her entire life began to change.

00:56:31

And she found purpose everywhere she looked.

00:56:33

If you are in your 60s, older than your 60s,

00:56:39

God is not done with you.

00:56:42

I watched her life change right before my very eyes.

00:56:46

I saw a woman who was determined to live out purpose

00:56:51

because she believed what Ephesians 2 says.

00:56:53

She said she believed:.

00:57:04

And she got up every day and she said, "I'm his creation.

00:57:08

I've been made new because of my relationship with Jesus

00:57:11

and I want all the things that God has planned for me.

00:57:14

God, what are you doing today?

00:57:17

And how can I be a part of it?"

00:57:19

And one day she asked that question about her very own funeral.

00:57:24

I went to see her multiple times

00:57:27

because we knew that she was going to pass away of her lung cancer.

00:57:30

And the last time I saw her, she said to me, "Alison,".

00:57:33

You know, if somebody calls me Alison, they've known me a really long time.

00:57:39

I only went by Allison until I was about ten or eleven years old.

00:57:43

She said, "Allison, I'm going to talk to you about my funeral.

00:57:48

God's going to do something at my funeral.

00:57:50

You have cousins that don't know Jesus.

00:57:53

And I've decided at my funeral they're going to hear the gospel."

00:57:59

She was like, "That's what God is going to do at my funeral.

00:58:02

And I'm telling you, because I know you love Him

00:58:04

and I want you to make sure it happens.

00:58:06

And I've told my pastor and this is important to me.

00:58:08

That's what God is going to do at my funeral.".

00:58:10

Guys, on the one day that we can all agree

00:58:13

it should have been about her and her life and who she was,

00:58:19

she made it about Him.

00:58:21

She went looking for His purpose.

00:58:22

And on the one day that we can all agree

00:58:25

she should have been at rest to think of her purpose somewhere else.

00:58:28

She wasn't finished.

00:58:30

She thought of her purpose still.

00:58:32

She was like, "They're going to come to the church because I'm dead and I'm going to get them."

00:58:36

[laughter] She was a woman of purpose and it was unbelievable to watch it unfold.

00:58:45

We can walk straight into purpose today, not tomorrow.

00:58:50

God is always at work, always at work around us.

00:58:55

And if we won't overlook the things that are right in front of us,

00:58:59

we can step right into it by asking the question:

00:59:09

And then looking at the three P's.

00:59:11

Looking at people, looking at places, looking at patterns,

00:59:16

that maybe, just maybe we have previously overlooked.

00:59:23

-Thanks for joining us today.

00:59:25

Next week we continue with the Play & Purpose Journey,

00:59:28

but it's going to be a little bit different of an experience here on the weekend.

00:59:32

We're actually going to be in a much more immersive and different environment.

00:59:37

And so I'm excited to get to experience that alongside of you next week.

00:59:41

You're not going to want to miss it.

00:59:43

Join us on Crossroads Anywhere or head to a location near you.

00:59:47

And we'll see you next week.

	Worship	4:37
	Community Life	13:45
	Message	21:00

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