Transcription
Well, we are doing something really fun today at church. We are having the opportunity to launch a new book that I wrote. That is actually a service from the Bible and different principles that I've learned. I'm kind of excited because we have this message today and to launch this book. It's my fourth book, and it's called "Fix It." It says, "Fix It—Whose Problem Is It?" And it is loaded with stories from our church. It's loaded with stories from my life. Several people have had a chance to read it early—some of the elders and deacons—and they said, "This is your best book so far." And I said, "I hope so. I hope they get better." How many know that you don't want to hear, "like it's not that good?" How many? No, but they said it's your best one so far. It's loaded. If you want to know about River Valley Church and some of the history, you'd want to get this.
And I want to let you know that River Valley Church, we just started our own publishing. And so, as part of being glocal, we are now going to be able to publish our own books, do our own music and publish that, be able to do curriculum that we do—whether it's sisterhood or youth or different things—and be able to have that curriculum go out and then publish it ourselves. And so this is the first in that, in the River Valley Publishing. I also want to let you know that any book that's sold at the church, I'm not making money on this. This is River Valley Publishing. So if you buy this for $10 this weekend or any time, River Valley Church is going to make the money on that. And I think that's a wonderful thing—a great partnership. And so I'm excited. I'm praying that we're launching it today, and then it's going to launch—I'm speaking at a conference, and they ordered 1,500 books. And then I'm speaking at another one, and and they're ordering some books. And I'm just praying that God will use this; it'll go around the world. It's really our story together; it's us in this together—our journey.
And I would tell you this: it is a Christian book. I don't shy away from talking about the things of God. But as you listen to the message and you hear it, you might think, "This might work in your marketplace situation." I would give this the disclaimer like this: you know, sometimes people give me a book, and they would want to disclaim it, and they would just say, like, "Hey, this is a great book; there's great principles in there," and they might say, like, "You know, the language is a little off-color. If you can get past that, you'll enjoy the the good that's in there." Okay? So for this, you might say, "Hey, this is a great book. Of course, it's unashamed—it's unashamedly Christian. But hey, you know, if you can, you know, if that bothers you, just zoom by that, but there's some great principles in here." So I think it could be used in the marketplace and in the church world. And I'm just asking that you be praying for this book, for me, for the church as we launch this. And it's kind of exciting to be able to have this opportunity to be able to have our first book go out with River Valley Publishing.
Now the book, "Fix It," "Fix It"—I've learned this—that we're going to have problems. We're going to have problems in the church. How many know there is no church that is perfect, including River Valley? Right? There's going to be problems, and we're going to have to figure out how to fix these problems. And we've got to grow the Lord's Church. And we're commissioned to grow His church. He wants us to continue to grow it and to move it forward and to continue to expand it. And as we do that, there's going to be problem after problem after problem that will come our way, and we have to figure out, "How are we going to solve this problem?" When I read the book of Acts, I just see problem after problem after problem, and then figuring out, "We'll fix that one; we'll do this one; we'll take care of that one." You know, "We need another disciple; how are we going to solve that problem?" All right, "We just grew by 3,000 people; how are we going to solve that problem?" Hey, and they just keep solving problems. And so we're going to keep building His church and fixing the problems along the way.
And Jesus said this—He said this in Matthew 16:18—said, "I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." And when I saw that when I was a kid, I thought, "You know, the gates of Hell prevail against the church. We're trying to—we're trying to build His church, and the gates of hell were coming against us." I don't know, maybe you'd identify with this; you could raise your hand. But I thought I had pictures of like gates chasing me like Pac-Man. How many know what I'm talking about? You know, like the gates, and then I realized, "Gates are not—they're not running around; they're immobile." And those gates that are there, they're gates that we're going to go through. There's going to be problems; we're going to bust through, and we're going to have the victory in that. And so I realized this: that we're supposed to build His church, and there's going to be problems, but we're not alone. And I love this—a couple of things: He's empowered us and given us what we need to build His church. In Acts 1:8, He says, "You'll receive power when Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." And so He's empowered us with what we need. He's put us in the body, like we said last week, that we've got our gifts that we bring here, and we can advance His church.
I love this, too, that what He said in Matthew 16: He said, "It's His church. I will build my church." Hey, we just get to steward it for now, but it's His church. And I'm so glad that it's His church that we're building and that He's doing, and we're not doing it alone. And that same verse, He says, "I will build my church." So it's where He's using us, and He—and He uses the gifts of the talents that we have, but He's saying, "I will build my church." And I believe this: that Jesus starts to knock down all the problems that are in His way. And almost every problem that we're facing, somebody else has faced. We can learn from the examples that are there in the Bible. There's obstacles, and there's things that are there, and I've just learned that we've got to solve these problems. And in the early church, I remember when we had problems once in our church—we had a really big problem—and I remember talking to a very wise pastor who's since gone on to be with the Lord. And I said, "I feel like a failure. I feel like I have all these problems. I have this problem; it's this huge problem." And he's like, "You're not a failure." He's like, "You're always going to have attacks; you're always going to have problems; you're always going to have things in your way. You might even get knocked down, but you gotta get back up at it, and you gotta keep fighting. And because you're having problems, because you're having things that are coming at you, doesn't mean you're a problem. But if you let them to defeat you, then that—that problem makes you just fail." He said, "Don't let it defeat you; get back up. You're not a failure because you have problems." That I left—they're so big; I still had problems. But how many know my attitude had changed? I left there thinking, "All right, I got a problem. I almost—I didn't want to do it. I almost felt like Matrix-like, 'Bring it on!'" You know what I mean? That I didn't, you know, I was like, "All right, I'm not a failure; I'm not a failure."
And early church was facing problems, and they were trying to figure out like, "Who's supposed to solve what problem?" And as I was reading Acts, that's where this lesson came, and the lesson turned into a sermon, and the sermon turned into the book, and now I'm bringing to you again as a sermon. I just see this: there is all sorts of trying to figure it out, like, "Whose problem is this to solve? Do we solve this, or do they solve it?" It's God who solves it. And in Acts chapter 6, like they're trying to figure out what to do with the widows, and they're trying to figure out who solves this problem. Everything can't be arsed to solve; there must be something we're missing here. And in Acts chapter 6, verse 2, it says, "So the twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, 'It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables.'" All right, like we know what we're supposed to do; we're supposed to solve the problem of being with God and having the Word of God and teaching the Word of God. But there's widows that need to be taken care of, and we know that this is our problem to deal with. We need to stay over here, and it's somebody else's problem over here. And the Bible says that's where they put in deacons. And I want to praise God for the deacons at our church—people that are leaders, and they'd say, "Hey, you could count on me; I'm going to solve the problem." Yeah, thank God for those people that are there. It's just one of the many obstacles—they're trying to figure out, "Who solves the problem? Who solves the problem? Do we solve it? Do they solve it? Or does God solve it?" Really, that's where that—look, the book goes—it says, you know, like some of it I have to solve, some of it they get to solve, and there's other things that God has to solve—for these three categories. So you want to make sure that you don't mix them up because you can get into all sorts of problems if you solve it the wrong way.
So the first thing that I would see is this, and I would speak to all of you that are in leadership or all of you that maybe here in the marketplace and the church—maybe in your home—you're in leadership; you're a leader. There are some problems that you need to fix; you need to fix. Nobody else is going to solve them. I mean, I can tell you this: that I—I sometimes complain to Debecker about different things, and you know, after she's heard enough, she'll say, like, "Well, you're the boss; why don't you fix it?" And I'm like, "I just need you to listen to my inner feelings." No, like, "You're right; you're right." And you may be thinking, "Hey, you own the business; hey, you're the boss; hey, you're the leader; you're the manager; it's up to you." Maybe you want to vent a little bit, but it's something that you need to fix. I see this with Paul talking to Timothy—the Apostle Paul is talking to Timothy, his young protégé. He's like, "All right, listen, I've trained you; I've trained you up." And in 1st Timothy 4:12, I get this picture of him—of Paul talking to Timothy—he said, "Hey, don't let anyone look down on you because you're young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Come on, be the example; lead the way." All right, you got people looking down; come on, step up and lead. It's up to you to do this. I see it all throughout 1st and 2nd Timothy. And 2nd Timothy 1:6 and 7, he says, "For this reason I'm reminding you, Timothy, fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the spirit God gave us does not make us timid but gives us power, love, and self-discipline." And you can imagine young Timothy; he's like, "I'm leading; I've got these people; I'm trying to figure out…" And he's like, "Come on, Timothy, you—you need to do this; you need to go on; that leads the way; that solves the problem." He tells him later on, you know, charges people that are rich in this world not to trust in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to lay up treasure in heaven. "Come on, Timothy, you need to solve these problems; step up and lead and do this." And one thing I've noticed is leading this church: there's been times where I wish the problems would go away; I wish they would go away. And I've been like, "I wish somebody'd solve them." And how many—they just don't go away on their own; somebody's got to step in and solve the problem. And I—I realized this: that once I finally got the courage—I felt like Timothy—it's interesting—I used to feel like Timothy for all sorts of years in ministry, and now I kind of feel like the old guy. So that means I might be feeling more like Paul. And I just—I used to think like, "I need to do this; I need to step up; I need to do this." And I was so slow in making decisions and fixing problems, but they were my problems to fix. And I remember once I finally had the—to go ahead and fix the problem, and I had finally stood up and said, "This is my problem; I have to solve this; this is on me; I need to do it," and I made the call—sometimes it was a really hard call—and I'd make the call, people would come out to me and say, "Hey, well done; way to go; way to make the call; finally solved the problem." And I was like, "You saw it? You saw it?" They said, "Yeah, I saw the problem in the church, too, and I was wondering if you're going to fix it. Matter of fact, I was wondering, 'Were you a smart leader and you saw it, but you're too afraid to fix it? Or were you a bad leader that you didn't even see the problem?'" I didn't know, and now that you solved the problem, I know that you had the courage to—My goodness, I'm glad I didn't wait much longer. I'm glad because they could see the problem. And I'm telling you this: if you're a leader at work and you're thinking that problem will solve itself someday—someday—your team is wondering, "Are you the leader that sees the problem? Do you see the problem? We put you up; can you solve that? Because if you don't see it, we're wondering if you're really a good leader. And if you can see it and you're not fixing it, do you have the courage to really be the leader that you're called to be?" There are things that you have to fix.
I'll never forget when we went to get our first building; we were in Rosemount. We went to looked at two different schools, and and we picked one, and I said, "This is the one." It was brand new—Shanan Park Elementary—and I walk in there, and they said—the principal said, "Well, you can only have the gymnasium; that's it. It breaks into three pieces; that's all you can have; you have no other classrooms." It's a brand new church. I said, "What? We have kids' church." He goes, "One third of the gym can be kids' church; two thirds for adults." And I was like, "We have babies; we have babies. You know, where are we to put the babies?" I said, "Think of the children," you know? And he's like, "All right, babies can go in the teachers' lounge." All right? And then I said, "We have toddlers." He's like, "No, no, the…" And at that time I didn't realize this, you know, like I was like, "We need a classroom for the toddlers," I mean, and all we had was the hallway. We had the kids going down the hallway, and we kind of put like portable canisters around them, and and they were like little velociraptors, like, and they figured out how to escape, you know? I was like, "Oh, oh," you know? And I thought, "What parent would put their toddler in a hallway?" And then I had a toddler, and I was like, "You put a toddler anywhere," you know what I'm saying? My God, we're watching the toddlers in the mechanical room; that's fine; give them tools. All right, all right, get them out of here. All right, I just solved the problem; I was on the fly, like, solving the problem right now. I—our first building—Apple Valley campus—our very first building—Apple Valley campus—we got to the opening day—opening day—we've sent a mailer to everyone—opening—brand new building—we've spent all of our money; I mean, we—we have leveraged everything to move into the building that is now our Apple Valley campus. We were just renting, and on the day—on the like the day—last day of the week—we're supposed to open Sunday—and the building inspector comes by and says, "Failed." I was like, "No, no, you don't understand; we—we—we can't fail; we sent out a mailer; you know, like we can't fail; we're open at Sunday." And he's like, "Nope, your bathrooms failed; they don't work; they don't work at all." And he said, "The venting doesn't go all the way up to the roof; it just goes above the drop ceiling; it doesn't—you failed. The guy cut corners, and you can't open." I'm like, "No, you—again, we did a mailer." And in that moment, I'm panicking, like, "If we don't open, what's going to happen? What are we going to do?" And I said, "What about porta-potties?" And he goes, "All right, porta-potties. Well, let's talk about it because if you put ten porta-potties out, including two handicap porta-potties, you can open. But because I'm chaining your bathroom door shut…" So the grand opening at Apple Valley campus, which by the way—crossroads campus just opened—state-of-the-art—no porta-potties there. I'm just saying, you know—Apple Valley opened with porta-potties. Hey, welcome to River Valley Church—ignore the smell, you know what I mean? It is—come on in; you come on in. And I tell you, you just got to think—you gotta solve problems; it's just the way it is. There are certain things in life that you have to solve; some of them are fun, some of them are serious, but God is calling us to step up. What is He showing you that you need to fix? Dad, mom, leader, boss—come on, there's things that you need to fix, and you've been hoping somebody else will do it. Fan into flame; stir it up; step it up; step into the call that you have right now because there are certain things that you have to fix. But there's other things that they need to fix. And I—I love this part about the book and about the message and about living this: there are certain things that—that they need to fix, and there are certain things that God brings people into your life to solve the problems. And then there's other people that God brings into your life, too, to help do things, and you aren't supposed to solve their problems; they're supposed to solve them and keep moving you forward. Okay? It's just kind of this—this tension that is there.
And I'll never forget this—I'll never forget this—that our church was in a financial crisis in 2008. I'll never forget this; we were facing a financial crisis. And I'm praying, like, "I can't solve this problem," and it wasn't the global financial crisis; we had our own internal financial crisis. Actually, I remember thinking like, "I—I can't solve this; I don't know what to do; this is outside my gifting; I don't know how to solve it." And I remember calling Jim Garvey, and and saying, you know, "Hey, Jim," at the time he was like the best business administrator in Minnesota for churches, and I said, "I've got this problem; I have no money; and and and I got a huge problem here; and and I'm trying to figure out—who would you recommend to—to come along and to help solve this problem? Just tell me who you would recommend, and I'll call them." And he said, "What about me?" And I was like, "Remember the part I said about not having any money, right?" Yeah. And he's like, "I do," but he goes, "I think I'm the guy; I think this is what God has wired me for; God would be sending me to help you to do this." And I was like, "You're—you're hired; you're hired!" Praise God. And he came in at that point, and we were like way negative—way negative—and and and years later, we retired—we were way positive. And I thank God for them—that God sends to this church. How many say, "Thank you, God, for sending Jim to the church?" Yes. I just—we just solved those problems. And God brings people into your life to solve problems; it's a beautiful thing. Connor came to me once; he said, "Dad, none of the people are going through Next Class." He's one of our connections pastors. He said, "What if we did this? What if we did a Next One Day, and we taught all the classes on one day? Let's solve the problem." I'm like, "Great; that's a great way to think; and I'm glad that God has wired you to think that way." And in one day, we did more people in Next than had gone through the entire year. I'm like, "What a great help; what a great solution." There's other people in this church—you've said, "What if we do it this way? What if it goes this way? What if we add this? What if we take away that?" And God has brought you with your gifts here to use them to solve the problems. I thank God for every faithful nursery worker, for the city officials that give us great approval. I thank God for every tech crew member that is faithful day-in day-out—people are behind the cameras or in the rooms or behind the booth—people that are there that are saying, "Hey, God has brought me here to solve a problem." I thank God when somebody says, "I can make that." How many know it's music to your ears when somebody says, "I got that; I got that; that's—that's in my gift set; I got that; I'll make a call." And you're like, "Who—you call it? Leave it to me." And you're like, "I won't ask any questions; all right, just call away." Oh, man, I love that when people are obedient; I love that when they use their gifts; I just love it.
Now I believe this: that we can't have a great church; you can't have a great business; you can't have a great anything unless you're willing to let people do what God has created them to do. I had an opportunity once to golf with John Maxwell, and we were in our foursome—when it was me and another pastor—two pastors—and John—John's a great leadership guy—and we're talking about church and problems, and this guy's like, "I can't get our church to grow, and all this." And John looks at me, goes, "You know why? 'Cuz you hog all the ministry; you're not—you're not letting them do their work." And he said, "You know what I've noticed about Rob? He lets them do the work." And I was like, "You notice that?" He's like, "He said, 'He's always empowering people and letting people do what they were created to do. He's not afraid to let them do that and empower them.'" And saying that God has brought a lot of them to His church to allow them to use their gifts. And I would say this to you: that God has brought you so that you could use your gifts to help us solve problems because there's a lot of problems that—that you need to solve so we can keep moving His church forward. It's a beautiful thing. And I do want to say this: not all solutions are good solutions from the congregation. How many know that sometimes they go crazy? One guy came up to me; he said, "I know how we could solve our bunny problem." I was like, "Okay, how?" And he said, "What we could do is we could take out a life insurance policy on every person in the congregation, and then when they die, they'll leave that money to us." And I was like, "Is that legal?" And he's like, "Walmart's doing it." Which, by the way, Walmart did get in trouble for doing this; they were actually doing it, and they were actually putting a life insurance policy on every employee, and then when they died, that Walmart would get the money. So they got in trouble for—all right. But at the time it was legal. And I was like, "I just think there's a conflict of interest there." And he's like, "What do you mean?" I was like, "Could you imagine? We're like, 'Okay, so it's those in the hospital—like, check their giving records—like, we just want to let you know you're worth more to us dead than alive.' Take them, Lord; take them; take them now," you know?
We didn't do it. Didn't do it. Ok. Just wanna let you know, we did not do it. No assurance. Positive. All right. So, not every idea is a good idea. You gotta have discernment. Say, I hesitate to share this, but I did have a guy say to me once, he goes, "Hey, I know how we could double kingdom builders." I was like, "How?" He goes, "Give all the money to me." I'm like, "Yeah?" And he goes, "I'm gonna take it to the casino and I'll double it." And I was like, "Did you just say that in church?" I step back and get lightning, you know. I was like, "No, we're not gonna give kingdom builders money to you to take to the casino to try to double it." I got a little bit of wisdom here. He goes, "Ok, I got a system." And I was like, "What is it?" He goes, "Slot machines." I said, "No, no. Don't for prayer, go to freedom." Nah, yeah. Not every idea is a good idea. Alright, alright.
But I thank God for you, and I just want to speak this over you. Thank God for every one of you that has used your gifts to solve a problem. Thank God for every one of you that said, "I could write a soft program for that, where we could do something better with sign-in, or we could do that, or we could start this ministry, or I see a need, or I should be a mentor. I've got this gift. How can I do it?" Even this weekend, a person came up to me and said, "How much do you want to know about analytical data? I work for this large company, and we could help you with the data." I said, "I'm super interested." Thank God for every person that does, whether it's the smallest thing, the biggest thing. I believe that God has brought a lot of you, a lot of them, to help us solve the problems and move this church forward. And thank God for the ability to delegate and empower. And I say, "God, bring us more of they, them, you, all of us, to solve those problems." Sometimes it's mine, sometimes it's yours, and you bring the solutions, and you bring them up. And I thank God for every single one of us that solves problems.
But some of them only God can fix. How many know that? Really, God is fixing them all. Like some, he's letting you do it, but he's still giving you the power to do it. How many know he's letting them do it, but he's still solving it? Right? And he's still moving on people's hearts and making them do the impossible, or the unexpected, or the, you know. And he's doing that. But when I read the Bible, I just see that there are times where your face, you can tell, but read it from Genesis to Revelation, you'll see that there are places where the people that are serving God and doing the very best that they can—I mean, here's Moses, he's leading people out of Israel, and then he gets to a spot where he's like, his father-in-law says, "Hey, you've got to let them solve some problems too. You're trying to solve all the problems." Okay. And so he empowers them out and lets them solve problems. But how many know he gets to a spot where neither him nor they can solve the problem? All of us are gonna face the Red Sea someday that we can't cross without God's help. All of us are gonna get to a spot where we can't solve the problem. I look at the church, the early church; there were problems that God solved in Acts that he said, "That's mine and mine alone." Peter's thrown in prison; the church is praying like crazy. They're saying, "And I can't get him out. He can't get out." Whose problem is it? They realized it was God's problem, and they called a prayer meeting and they started praying. And you know what God does? God sends an earthquake, and the prison doors open. That's the type of God we serve, that he says, "There are problems that are bigger than you, bigger than them; they're mine, and they're my problems, and I'll solve mine. I want you to use your gifts that I've given you to solve them. I want those people to use their gifts, but there are times where God reserves the right, and he says, 'It's way beyond anything you can do. I'm going to solve this problem.'"
In Exodus 28, the Apostle Paul is bit by a poisonous snake, and everybody's like, "Dad, your dad, you can't stop it. We can't stop it. We don't have the serum." What does God do? God breaks in and says, "I've got the serum. I can do this. I've got the anti-venom. You're not gonna die, Paul. I have more for you to do." That's my problem. I've now healed you. God breaks in and does those things. And our church has been filled with those moments, whether it's that multi-site organ donor thought where God got us to break through into multi-site, or where God broke in and miraculously healed our son Connor of autism. And I know people say, "Are you kidding me?" You'd have to hear the whole story of it, but he was born with autism and miraculously healed by the power of God. There was nothing I could do; there was nothing they could do. That was one that was put in God's category and in God's hands alone. And I believe this: yeah, God deserved the glory for that. I just believe we need to plan and prep and pray. And I need to say, is that my problem? Is it a theorem? Is it your problem? Make sure to put them in the right category, and then believe God for divine interruptions, for miraculous moments, for things that just break in that are unexpected that you couldn't plan or program or think about, and all of a sudden God's like, "Watch this. I've got that one. I'll take care of this as well." And I believe that's the God we serve. And, and I think sometimes we just all want to put them all into his categories, like, "Nope, that's yours; you solve that one." And I think there's sometimes we want to hog it all, and God's like, "Come on, let them solve that. Let's all work in this together." But I believe that we can expect the miraculous.
As I close, I would just say this: there are some obstacles; some of you were probably already a step ahead of me. You're like, "Wait a minute, there's things that just doesn't seem like they get solved by me or them or God. Who solves them?" And I just would say this: God says, "Just keep pressing on. Keep pressing on." There are things that will not resolve on this side of eternity. There are things that are just going to resolve on that side of eternity, and we're gonna stay faithful. And I draw encouragement from Second Corinthians 4:8 and 9. It says, "We are hard pressed on every side, but we're not crushed; we're perplexed, but we're not in despair; we're persecuted, but we're not abandoned; we're struck down, but we're not destroyed." Like, it may not look like it's being solved, and we may go all the way through life and it doesn't get wrapped up with a nice bow on this side of eternity, but on that side of eternity, God will let us know what he was doing, what was going on in our life. And he says, "Be faithful, be strong, keep moving forward, keep knocking obstacles down, keep fighting, keep pushing, don't grow weary, don't lose hope, and let's continue to build his church."
And so, as I close, I would just ask you this: if you just felt like, as I was sharing this and preaching this, you say the thing that God hit me on right now was, "It's me," you might even got an elbow for your spouse, like, "Come on, fix it. It's your problem. Come on." Or maybe just the Holy Spirit, it's like, "You know, there's something you need to do." If that's you, in just a moment when we go to pray, I'm gonna ask you just put your hand on your heart, like, "God, I know it's me. It's me." You ever seen somebody like they make a mistake in the, like, "My bad, my bad, my bad," you know? Like, all right. If you're saying, "It's me," I know that I've got to step up. I own this one. So you're gonna place your hand on your heart like, "It's me." If you need to delegate, or you need to empower, or you need to trust again—maybe you've been burned, and you just, "I can't trust, I can't trust, I can't trust"—and God's like, "I want to solve some of your problems if you'll trust and let them solve the problems." I want to, I want you to put your hands out as we close in prayer. You say, "Lord, I give it away. I let those people, I will trust again. I'll add to the team. I'll delegate. I'll let them do what they were created for." And you're gonna put your hands out. And then, if you need a miracle, I'll let you put your hands up, and you just say, "God, it's yours, it's yours, it's yours, it's yours. I give it to you." And if you're like, "I got all three," you just do head, shoulders, knees, and toes. You just do that, girl, like that. Alright, alright, alright. Come on, wherever you're at, let's close your eyes, put your hands out wherever they need to be on you, if it's you out in front of you, if you need to give it away up high, if you need a miracle. And Lord, you see our hands, our hands are right now signaling to you that some of the things we need to fix, you've spoken to us, you've spoken to us, and we need to step up. We need to fan the flame. We need to stir up the gift. We need to do something more, to step into the leadership or the responsibility you've called us to do. God, help us to have the courage to do that and the power to move forward as leaders. Lord, some of us have our hands out; we need to trust again. We need to delegate. We need to share. We need to empower. We need to realize that people are a blessing and they're a gift around us. And so, God, we thank you for the body and its many parts. And so our hands are out; we're giving it to you. And others, God, our hands are up, our hands are up, and we're saying, "God, it's yours. We need a miracle. We need a miracle." And God, I pray we'd never stop praying for miracles. We'd never stop believing for the miracles that you've worked, you've did them, you did them before, you'll do them today, and I believe that God, you're not done doing miracles. So our hands are up, believing. And so, God, some of them get it's ours, theirs is yours, and we're in all that mess, but God, we trust you. We trust you, and we are not going to be stopped by our problems. We're going to overcome them in Jesus' name. We're gonna move forward, and we will build your church in Jesus' name. We pray, amen, and amen.