Understanding Church Growth

SERMON: 2010-01-13--ac1039--understanding-church-growth SOURCE DURATION: 00:49:34.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins with a review of scripture and continues through theological exposition on church growth (segments [0]-[31]). The material concludes with pastoral application and sustained acoustic music/chanting (segments [499]-[530]), which is considered part of the sermon's closing structure. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:44:25.340-00:49:27.820 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- We were looking last week at that closing verse in Acts chapter 2 verse 47. Let's read it together one more time. The Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. And we saw together that with reference to the early church, God says numbers matter. Numbers matter because every number added to the church is a sinner for whom Christ died. Numbers matter because the more numbers are added to the church universal, the more glory God gets as Satan's kingdom is plundered and his kingdom established. And we said numbers matter because as the church increases, so does its witness not only over against the world, but also against the principalities and the powers because God has purposed that his wisdom, that is to say how he operates the universe, is to be demonstrated through you and through me, not just to the world, but to the principalities and the powers all of whom have bought into Satan's lie. And so as this morning, one more time we come back to the whole subject of church growth, I want to pass on to you two observations that I think are of critical importance if all of this is to be more than talk for you and me. First observation is this, there is an inherent tension between qualitative church growth and quantitative church growth. You'll recall if you were here last week that according to scripture, there are two kinds of growth that we can reasonably expect God to accomplish in Christian community. One is qualitative or spiritual growth in Christ, a closer walk with God and a closer intimacy with one another. The other is numerical growth where new believers are being added to the body of Christ. And ideally both of those ought to be happening at the same time. Believers ought to be deepening in their faith because Jesus told us to make disciples, that is learners, those who do his will. And we also ought to grow wider and include a greater and greater number of people who are in varying stages of coming to faith. There are two kinds of growth. Now what's not always so readily apparent is that there is an inherent tension between these two kinds of growth. Let me try to explain it this way. Moral growth means you are adding numbers to an already existing number of people. To add numbers, you lower the barrier. You try to make it as easy as possible to become people of faith. And also the larger the number of connections that you have to maintain, the more shallow relationships become. And so diagrammatically you can show it this way, the few grow into the many. And many of us here will have experienced over the years the discomfort that we go through from being part of a church where we know everybody and we know everybody's history. Sometimes we know way too much. To a place where you rub shoulders with people and you have no idea who they all are. I mean I've had a number of people tell me that until Sharon shared her testimony at the Candlelight Service, many of you had no idea who she was. But that's what happens when you increase in numbers. The few become the many, the more relationships you have to maintain, the more superficial they become by definition. Now compare that to qualitative growth or going deeper with God and deeper with each other. The more intimate you become with God and the more intimate you become with each other, the higher the cost of discipleship. Because the greater is the price that you have to pay to surrender to Jesus. Not only that, but the smaller is the number of connections that you're able to maintain because you can only have an in-depth relationship with so many people. And so a congregation of this size or congregations that are even larger than this, you discover pretty quickly you can't know everybody, nor do you need to know everybody, but we all have certain groups that we're part of, and those are the groups where we do in-depth relationships. So diagrammatically, you can put it this way. The many become the fewer as the relationships deepen. And you can see this in the ministry of Jesus. When Jesus first begins, he's got all these tons of people that are gathering together and they're following him, and they're all excited by the miracles that he is doing, the bread with which he is feeding them, the fish and the healings that he is doing. But as time goes on and he lays on the line the cost of discipleship, what happens? Is the crowd becomes smaller and smaller and smaller until at one point he says to his disciples, "Won't you also leave me?" And their response is, "To whom shall we go? Because who else has the word of life but you alone?" And then of course in the garden, when he most needed his friends, they abandoned him and they forsook him. There is an inherent conflict between going deeper and going broader. It's like the tension in businesses between the sales department and the credit department. The sales department keeps wanting to make more sales and in order to make more sales, you have to lower the standards of credit. And so the salesman is always telling you, "Well, I'll try to make this happen so that you can be one of my customers." Then he goes to the credit department and the credit department says, "What? Whoa, this guy hasn't paid his last bill and over my dead body, you're going to sell him more product because he's getting further and further behind." And businesses, good businesses have this tension all the time. You see, going deeper and going broader are always at odds with each other. And you can demonstrate this from your own life. Let me ask for a show of hands here. How many of you are or have been at some point or another part of a small group in a church setting? Show me your hands. See, probably good half of you, if not more, then you'll understand what I say next. Because you will have had this experience, I'm sure you're part of a small group. And as time goes on, you let down your guard, you get to know each other deeper and deeper, and a sense of intimacy develops that is unusual in most people's experience. And after a while, you're really just grooving together, so to speak. And then somebody comes along and says, "Well, you know, I've got this person who knows about our group, and he or she has asked if he or she can join." Have you ever been in that kind of situation? What is your first reaction? "Oh, no." Why? Because that person is going to disturb the status quo. We're just learning how to trust each other, and now we're all going to be holding back because we don't know what this person is like. That's why years ago people said the church can grow by having cell groups that multiply, and it sounded so good on paper, and it never worked in the real world. You know why? Because once a group has gotten to be a group, unless they blow up and fall apart, they don't really want to split up and share and start something new. It's like trying to put sidewalks where the people don't walk. Ever notice that? You may as well wait until you see where the traffic goes and put the sidewalk where the traffic goes. And so what happens is that we have this internal resistance beyond a certain point where our comfort gets destroyed. And I'm ashamed to admit to you this morning that I even found it in my own heart this past week. I was not happy with myself. Chris Putnam, as you know, heads up our Maranatha midweek. And under the leadership of Valerie, they're getting ready to start the second semester at the end of this month, and so Chris was emailing around to see if I was going to continue my course on Heidelberg Catechism, and if I wanted to open it up for new people to join. And what do you think was my first reaction? My first reaction was no. We've been together for all these weeks. We're getting to know each other. People have shared some considerable vulnerabilities. What's going to happen? How can new people get on track? And I said to myself, "Yes, sir. What is the matter with you? What is the matter with you?" So here's the bottom line, and please hear me well. For the reasons that I have just stated, most churches, once they have been in business for a little while, they develop a thing that is called koinonitis, that deadly disease. You may or may not have heard of it. It's right up there with ethnotitis or something like that. But koinonitis comes from the Greek word koinonia, which means fellowship. And it's a perversion of a good thing. It means that God's people have become so adjusted to each other, so adjusted to their culture, language, and habits, that not only are they very comfortable together in a group, the comfort, the glue that binds them together becomes a wall that is almost impenetrable for people from the outside. And you know, interestingly enough, one of the first persons to draw my attention to that years ago was Charles Burgess. Some of you will remember him. He was with us for a number of years. He and his wife Jane are now both in ministry in England, just for the record. But Charles had come to us from an Anglican tradition. And Charles said to me one day, "You know what's the matter with you Christian Reformed people?" And that always makes you just a tad nervous. He says, "The problem with you people is you love community more than you love the Lord." And I go, duh. Because while it's good to love community, community cannot develop koinonitis whereby we become ingrown, so comfortable with ourselves, that there is no room for new people to enter into our communities, into our lives, and into our friendships. And so for the church to be a growing church, for a church to be serious about the mission of the Lord, it has to overcome the natural tendency to closing in on itself. I remember Bill Heibos telling us at one point in one of the talks that I heard him give that even a church like Willow Creek that is founded on the principle of reaching the lost for Christ, if somebody doesn't keep beating the drum and calling people to focus outwardly, they also develop koinonitis because it is the default stage of community. So how do we overcome this dreaded body disease? Well it begins with this, we need to understand, not just with our heads but with our hearts, that mission is an essential component of being church. That is to say, reaching out to the world is not an option for churches that are just evangelistically minded or that are too small so they need unbelievers to join them. No, it is an inherent component of what it is to be church. Some people would go so far as to say the church is mission, that is to say the church exists only for the world, I don't think you can defend that biblically. I think the church has a life of its own, it's like a husband and a wife being married. They have a life together whether or not they choose to have children. But certainly from a biblical point of view, the church ought to be having children. From one end of scripture to the other, from before the fall to after redemption is completed, the focus in scripture is that God blesses his people why? So that they can be a blessing to the nations of the world. And without belaboring this, but it's so important, let me walk you through a number of pertinent scripture passages that you will immediately recognize as being the explanation, the vision with regard to this in the heart of God. It already begins in Genesis chapter 2, long before the world falls into sin, what do we find happening? Well, the Bible says there is a river that flows out of the Garden of Eden and then it divides into four. What does it symbolize? It symbolizes life flowing from the presence of God in the Garden, being spread by the four rivers to the four quarters of the earth. God has always intended for his blessings to reach all the world. His will is to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Roll the clock forward, you're now in Genesis chapter 12, you have the call of Abraham. What does God say to Abraham? I will bless those who bless you, whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be what? Blessed through you. God calls Abraham, not just for Abraham's sake, but for the sake of the nations of the world. Roll the clock ahead to the book of Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 49. It's the context of the suffering servant whom we know from the New Testament is the Lord Jesus. Here is what scripture says, "It's too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." And of course you find Jesus picking up on that in the New Testament, don't you? He gives the great commission, "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age." And then you come to the book of Revelation, the book of Revelation chapter 22, it is now the new creation. Redemption has been accomplished. What do we find? Well, you'll recall the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God. And what does it do? It feeds the tree of life. You have a return here to the tree of life in the garden from which Adam and Eve were kept by the cherubim after the fall. And what does the Bible say? It bears its fruit every month. And what does it say about the leaves? The leaves are for the healing of the nations. Do I know who the nations are? No idea. But the principle is there. All through Scripture, from before the fall to after redemption is accomplished, mission is essential to the nature of the church. And so if God saves you, and if God blesses you, and if God pours out His grace upon us as a community, don't ever think that the purpose for that is so that we can be a holy huddle and develop koinonitis. No. God's purpose is that the river of the water of life flowing from us individually and collectively bring light and life and healing to the nations. We need a biblical understanding of the essential nature of mission. That's hard enough, but I hate to tell you this this morning, it gets harder. Because the second cure for koinonitis is a deep realization that the mature in Christ have to defer to the immature. Let me say it one more time. The older you are in Christ, the more mature you are in Christ, the less it's about you, and the more you have to be prepared to lay aside your preferences so that the needs of those who are young, immature, or not yet in Christ can actually be met. Here's how the Apostle Paul puts it. He says, "We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good to build him up. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me." And I think this past week as I was pondering that verse, that last line, I finally clued into what it means. Jesus in his life and in his death took upon himself our shame, our punishment. That's how much he loved you and me instead of loving himself. And Paul says, "That's what I want you to be if you're going to be a Christ follower." He repeats the same thing a little while later, 1 Corinthians chapter 9, 22, 23, talking about his own ministry. He says, "To the weak I became, weak to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. And I do this for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings." And if you read those verses in the broader context, he's talking about being a Jew to the Jews, a Gentile to the Gentiles, poor to the poor, rich to the rich, so to speak. Why? To lower the barrier so that nobody can have legitimate objections based on cultural differences or language differences to keep them out of the kingdom. I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some. See, it's like a family. You have a baby that gets born into the family. You have five other children. For a season, who gets most of the attention? Your older kids? No. The baby. Why? Because the baby's needs are greater at a fundamental level than that of the older children. Does that mean the older children don't matter? Does that mean that the older children's needs are not important? Of course they are. And the church needs to both minister to its own people, and it needs to minister to babies, but in the context of where the urgency lies and who pays the price, the price is not to be paid by the baby, but the price is to be paid by those who are older in the family. The older you are, the more prepared you have to be to lay down your life. We turn that upside down a lot of time, in my experience in the church, because you see, oftentimes there is more of the elder brother in the story of the prodigal son present in our hearts than that of the father. And so we don't mind if new people become part of church community. We don't mind if they join us, but we sort of expect them to be like us, and we'll be tied them if they sit in my seat. Or if they make other demands, make things dirty, and make life difficult for the rest of us. And all of that I understand, because I'm just like you. But here's the reality, understandable and human as is that tendency. It is a far cry from the spirit of Jesus. Because what does Paul say about the spirit of Jesus in Philippians chapter 2? We use these verses so much, but they are earth-shattering in their implications. He says, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. It means to be taken by force, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross." Let me say it again, the more mature you are, the more it's not about you, the more it's about those who are weak, immature, or even outside the faith. Now I have to tell you, and I hate to do this, but it gets miserably practical. Because it means that when you come to church, the first question you ask yourself is not, "What am I going to get out of the service? Who's going to talk to me? And who's going to make me feel good?" No, no, the first question you ask is, "What can I bring to God as an offering that will delight him?" The second question that you ask is, "Lord, who is there who is going to be in this place today, who needs my smile, or who needs my touch?" It means that when you come into the auditorium and you pick your seats, you don't just strive to sit with your friends or in the place where you can see the best or even hear the best. Now you say, "Lord, who is there in this place who is lonely or who needs a touch from you that I can connect with and maybe even sit beside?" See, a lot of us who are married or a lot of us who come with families, it's just automatic. We find a place to sit. We have little understanding or appreciation how painfully difficult it is for those who are alone or those who are burdened, those who are ashamed, and those who wonder, "Am I allowed to be in this place because I'm such a screw-up and my life is a real mess?" It means, too, that when a church undergoes change and when the old is moved aside for the new in order to lower the barrier for people to come to faith, the first question is not, "Do I like it?" Because fact of the matter is none of us ever really like change the first time around. It's just not a natural human condition. The question that we ask is, "Is God calling us to this and is God helping us to help those who are very much in need of His saving grace?" I was rather blessed, I must tell you, this past week in reading the current edition of the Banner. Reverend Jerry Dykstra is the executive director of the Christian Reformed Church in North America. I've met the man. He's a good man with a heart for God and a heart for his people. He relates how in his recent travels he encountered a delightful senior citizen. He says, "Though we didn't have the opportunity to talk at length, she had taken the time to write down her thoughts about the Christian Reformed Church and about her congregation." She had been a member of that church for more than 50 years. Reflecting on her experiences, she described the changes she had seen and shared her personal journey. That journey has taken her from traditional psalm singing to praise and worship songs, from a council of men in black suits to men and women in casual dress. We joke about this in council room. We always know who the serving elder is by observing who's wearing the tie. Other than me, they've all dressed down and I don't know how long I'm going to last. From the red salter to the blue to the gray, to projected words on screen, and as her story unfolded, her passion and commitment became evident. She shared her story not to bemoan those changes but to celebrate them. She was pleased with what she had seen and experienced. She had a sense of pride that her church not only was willing to change but has welcomed change. She proceeded to offer the broader church and its leaders some very practical advice which she summed up in just one word, the word "adjust." And then he goes on later on to say, "As I reflect, I wonder. Can we find new and creative ways to make disciples and transform the world? Is it possible to adjust their customs and habits in ways that bring hope and healing to a broken world? Are there methods that transcend the boundaries of our culture and redeem God's creation?" Those are not easy questions, nor are they quickly answered. But I believe that we as the Christian Reformed Church can adjust to the present-day reality. In so doing, we will be changed. We will become all things to all people for the sake of the gospel, always faithful to the truth of our Lord, and always ready to adjust. The more mature you are, the heavier the burden before God on your life to adjust to changes so the world can come to know Jesus. Are we clear? It's a heavy burden, I know, but it's what the gospel calls us to. So first of all then, this whole thing about two models of church growth that are at odds with each other and a biblical solution to that. Second observation that I want to make in the time that remains is that for the church to grow, it has to be prepared to follow a two-fold strategy. And that strategy can be summed up in these two words, "attractional" and "missional." Let me talk just briefly about each of these in turn. The word "attractional," as the word applies, means of course that people are attracted. It's what Jesus talks about in Matthew 5.16 when he says, "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." The first job of the church is in our individual and in our corporate life to reflect in some small way the reality of God. When God is in your heart and when God dwells in our midst and when through all our stumblings and weaknesses and places of our brokenness we start trying to reflect his love and his character, it flows out from us. I said last week, "Even when you're not aware of it, you leak when the Holy Spirit is in your life." And so throughout Scripture, one of the reasons God wants to dwell among us is so that his glory may leak out to the nations and people can be drawn to the brightness of our rising. And again, you see many examples of that in the Scriptures. Why did the Queen of Sheba come to see Solomon? Because she had heard of his glory. Why in the New Testament do the wise men travel to come see baby Jesus? Because they were attracted by his kingship. How did Jesus draw the big crowds when he did his ministry? By his person, by his preaching, by his miracles. Earlier on in the book of Acts, how are 3,000 people added to the church on the day of Pentecost? Because they're blown away by the powerful presence of God among his people. And even here in these closing verses of Acts chapter 2, why is the Lord adding to the church daily those who are being saved? Because the Bible says the early church had favor with all the people. As I said last week, don't ever underestimate the power of attraction. Don't ever underestimate the glory of God in your life or in your family's life if you're walking in repentance and just doing your best to follow Jesus. I remember I went to a public high school as a young lad and Monday morning at public high school was always gross out Monday when all the boys came back from the weekend and they would be sharing all their adventures and all their sexual conquests. But of course, as you can imagine in that kind of a setting, the language is pretty rough. Not only is the Lord's name always being taken in vain, but the F word gets used very liberally and you know, I tried to live in the midst of that and try to be friends with as many of them as I could. I wasn't bold enough to preach at them overtly, but I found out rather inadvertently that they knew exactly where I stood and what my values were for the very simple reason that I did not participate in their jokes and I did not participate in their language. You on the job site can do the same thing. You and your family can do the same thing. That doesn't mean we aren't going to blow it sometimes and it doesn't mean that our whole testimony has shot the kingdom come because we've blown it, but it means we need to own our failures, we need to walk in transparency and honesty and in integrity. And the same thing is also true positively whenever you and I can talk in a positive fashion about who God is and how God is a part of our lives. It has incredible power to impact. I've shared before when I was at college, a number of us ran the college radio station in a great time in my life, and a great time of learning how to pray for equipment that always malfunctioned. You know how in this day and age a lot of radio stations are automated, I don't even know if you know that, but if you listen to John Roper on his Sunday morning program when you're not at church, then you know that John can't be in two places all at the same time. But it's all done by computer in this day and age, but back then in my day, it had to be done mechanically, and I built this beautiful automated system that ran itself, but it would get screwed up occasionally, and we had this huge tape recorder with 14-inch reels that was a Magna cord, we called her Maggie, and Maggie could play that tape back and forth all night long, and I had other equipment that would cut in for commercials and for, you know, to give the live sound to this whole thing. Well, Maggie was as temperamental as her name implies, and every so often, Maggie would throw up, and I'd come into the studio in the morning, you don't know how much tape there is in a 14-inch reel of tape until you've got to pick it off the floor. And we used to joke back and forth about laying hands on that thing and praying for it, and never thought anything more about it until years later after I was in ministry, I heard that one of our DJs, who since then had become a teacher, was regaling his elementary school classes in Florida about our adventures in praying for Maggie. You never know where the word settles and the fruit that it bears. God uses an attractional model, and 1 Corinthians chapter 14 says that when God is present among His people and His people speak prophetically, unbelievers have their sin uncovered, they fall flat on their faces, and they declare that God is among you. When revival breaks out any place in the world and God visits His people, it sends signals far and wide that says God is doing something here, let's go find out what it is. But there's a second model of ministry that we need to keep in balance, and that is this. There is a missional component to ministry, and missional as the word implies means going to where the people are, and it's missional that Jesus talks about in that great commission that I quoted earlier, "Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you, and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." See important as attracting new people is, there are always limits to your attractive power, limits of geography, limits of culture, limits of language, and so for the church just to sit around and to say we're going to let our light shine and the nations will come beating a path to our door, that's half the picture, but it's only half the picture. Jesus says to you and to me, I want you to step into these situations and I want you to go to the nations and the subcultures of the world, and I want you to leave the comfort of your own life and to step into situations where people need to hear through you the message of Jesus. Now that is why historically, for many years of course, the church has had missionaries that travel to far and distant places. It's why as a church we support people like Mary Caldway, Kathy Vanderkloet, our denominational missions program. It's also why we had Michael Botting up here just the other day to cast the vision for the work that he's going to do with Emmanuel International. But today, other cultures don't just exist in far out places, we have in North America alone, I counted them, I think close to a hundred subcultures, anywhere from motorcycle gangs to people who gravitate around certain types of music to people who go to rodeos to people who are into drugs, Lord knows whatever else. And part of the mission of the church is to know how to step into those places to leave behind our comfort zone and to learn to minister to God in a way that brings redemption. And I wish I had time to tell you the story of George, who is mentioned by Alan Hirsch in his book, The Forgotten Ways. George, bless him, was a druggie and had racked up an untold number of unpaid traffic fines and he was in no mood to pay. And so he decided to do time instead. So he went to jail for ten days, took with him his mother or his grandmother's huge King James version of the Bible, because he was sort of a religious seeker and he had studied many different religions. Wouldn't you know it, he opens up his Bible and God meets him in jail, converts him soundly on the spot. After ten days he gets out, meets up with his brother John, who likewise gets converted, and now they make a list of all their drug connections. They make a list of all the friends they've ever bought and sold from and to, and between that big King James version of the Bible and a Hal Lindsay late great planet Earth video, they scare the living daylights out of all their friends and win them into the kingdom. Included in that conversion story is a woman by the name of Deborah, who together with her sister were just coming off an LSD high, saw the great late planet Earth, and scared, pardon my language, scared the hell right out of them, and came to faith. And out of that came the start of a missional church that continues to flourish down under today. And you and I don't all have that calling or that gifting, but we can pray and we can contribute as we do, and we can ask the Lord ourselves, "Whose life do you want me to step into? Where can I make a difference?" And as you know, one of the ways in which we do that as a church community is through our internet ministry. Gabe shared, both at the congregational meeting and in the last issue of Maranatha Life, 6,700 unique hits just over the first nine months of last year. People all over the world who dial in, and who know when you're picking your nose in your seats, just so you know, it's a joke, it's okay, you're fine. Give you an interesting update, I was talking this past week with Wiebe Bausma, and Wiebe is the guy in Coburg who is heading up the Chinese translation project of my book, Blessings and Curses. It's about half done, we've been talking about going to China next July for a missions trip, please continue to keep that in prayer, but he told me of a conversation that he'd had just that week with one of his translators in Shanghai, and this particular translator had taken it upon himself to Google my name on the internet, found his way to our webpage, and now has been avidly following along with our archived messages there. And Wiebe got all excited about that, he discovered that for himself, and now he's been contacting all his China contacts, advising them of this possibility. My point is this, the fields are waiting for harvest, and collectively we have incredible opportunities to step into other worlds to bring them to Jesus, so to wind this up, let me end with the same question that I've used for a number of services now, who is there in your world that can be attracted to Jesus, first of all, by who you are? Who is there whom the Lord calls you to love? Who is there who is intrigued by your lifestyle, and in whose heart an appetite is being generated for Jesus? Who is there in your world and in your sphere of influence, into whose world you have an invitation to step? Maybe a friend, maybe a neighbor, maybe a relative, not somebody you ask to join you, but somebody you join, whose language within proper parameters, of course, you learn to speak, whose interests become your interests, whose passion become your passion, what does it mean to be all things to all men in your world and all women, so that by all means you might gain some? I think the Holy Spirit has already been stirring that up in a lot of our hearts, and what some of us need to do is just step out in obedience, you take the first little step, you see what God will do, and there is no limit to how many people He might want to bring to faith, [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:44:25.340; remove through 00:49:34.000] because you and I [CUT] are abiding in Christ and letting our light shine. , and I'm just going to step out in obedience. , and I'm just going to step out in obedience. You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are the one, You are God. You are God. You are God. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:49:34.000; resume after this marked segment]