Super Bowl Sunday Featuring Shawn

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION: 

So anyway, this is my first time here in the Poconos, but for years I thought that song I’d been singing at the bar and I’d been singing the song. And maybe you put it goes Bermuda Bahama. Let me take you to the Poconos, and then you take It slow. That’s where we are. Does nobody know this song? Coconuts. And I thought for years, until two years ago. I learned that they were singing Kokomo and that the whole time that it was about the Pokeno. And so I thought that I was going to show up here and this was going to be a beach town like I.There’s nothing here. I mean, there’s a Perkins, but, you know, I mean, last night, with the world’s most advanced G.P.S. The escalade it’s a 32-inch screen. This whole thing, it’s immersive. There’s 32 speakers. It was incredible. The sound system was incredible. And I was driving here and at some point. The G.P.S. gave up. Right. I mean, you might be there. I don’t know. The road. The road. Stop. I don’t know what is going on. So I thought I should bring shorts. And thought that we were going to be a lot. Like, I just mean anyway.Welcome to the Poconos.

 I think the sign actually says, Welcome to the Poconos. Sorry. You know, it’s not what you saw. And there’s a picture of the Beach Boys. And anyway, so I do feel like I’ve known of this place my whole life. And so I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that you guys are Eagles fans like Giants fans. Now that’s a dedicated group. Said their lawyer. I mean, we have to admit. I mean, we lost the ball. We lost to the Eagles and the Giants. Jets. That’s when you didn’t go to, say, a. Season right back like you used to? The jets We knew we weren’t going to win the Super Bowl at that point. So I would say you’re welcome to us. Kickstarting the Giant’s little mini-winning streak that happened there that started when we lost to you in London made your quarterback Daniel Jones, look like an M.V.P. candidate. You want to talk about a long flight home when you lose to a team that everyone had already written off as a team that you were going to be so honored to be here kicking off your relationship series today with the message that we are calling committed to community. Let’s pray, God, we love you. We all know this is the day that you have made. So we’re going to rejoice and we’re going to be glad to thank you for a church where we can come and have fun and where it looks like heaven God and people are excited to be here and are happy to be here at the church. Theres food in the lobby. In the lobby right now, there is nachos, pigs in a blanket, and popcorn.

You know, but none of the thank you that none of the calories count here yet on Super Bowl Sunday if you come to a church thing. I’m pretty sure that you told me one time you lose weight. And so, God, we’re grateful for what’s going to happen here tonight. We’re really excited about what’s going to happen here this morning. And so I pray your blessing upon my friends in this place, in our hearts and our minds, to be changed in Jesus’ name. So a few years ago, my daughter Aubrey, who is 18 now, she was like 14 at the time. She came to me and she said, Daddy, if you weren’t a pastor, I don’t think that I would do the whole Jesus. And in my head. And I said the devil is a liar. I like. Then I was. Looking to fly, and I wanted to take my daughter to Israel. I said she’s going to doubt and deny the Jesus thing. She’s going to do it with the dirt that is under the feet underneath her fingernails. All right. We just sat in a round car at the Tel Aviv airport and just started driving. And so much of what we saw changed our lives. The market in Jerusalem was praying at the weeping wall, floating in the Dead Sea, which, by the way, if you are cut, and you go inside the Dead Sea, man, that just hurts me. It’s like fire has just, and the sand is so hot, and there’s no plans for you when you get there. It’s just awesome. Everything there is this. It’s a surprise. And everything that happens there feels like it hurts. Like I remember when we sailed up the Sea of Galilee and I couldn’t believe how small the Sea of Galilee was like when I read about it in the book. I always pictured it like Lake Michigan, or I pictured it like it was the ocean. It’s actually the same length as the lake wall pack. It’s like it’s 13 miles. It’s it’s almost underwhelming. Probably the most impactful thing was when we went to Magnum. And first of all, when we got there, there was like 100 cats there, which I don’t know about you, but for me, the cats were demonic. If that’s where bigger they eat you, that’s called a lion, or it’s called a tiger. It’s why they’re they’re constantly staring at you, licking their paws, because, in their mind, your cat has already eaten you. So we thought this is like a was like a hundred cats. But when we got to Mengele, we visited this place where they had uncovered a synagogue that they believed Jesus would have spent time in. And that synagogue was beneath. This beautiful, ornate temple. And the fact that they were both located in the same really interesting place moved me because the synagogue was the place where people would have come to corporately pray, to study, to read the scriptures, while the temple was the place where they came to present their offerings and worship in the presence of God. And temples were set up in roads to accommodate a message like we are getting here today. While synagogues were set up in circles to accommodate discussion like we do in community groups. The temple was set up as a church, while the synagogue was set up for community. I’ve seen both of those in the same place. Made me realize the necessity for both church and for community see. I didn’t grow up as fast as you said. I got. I got saved late. I got saved in my twenties. And I met a guy named Scott Snyder from Salem, Oregon. And the first time I met Scott, I walked up to him and asked him if I could buy some weed off of him. And Scott looked at me, and he said, You don’t need me. You need Jesus. I said. I mean, I know Jesus is. I’m pretty sure that I need some wings right now. I went downtown. I thought a mixed bag of weed out of a high school student. I went to my dorm room at Trinity Bible College of the Assemblies of God and got smoked out. And the next morning Scott Smith saw me with my baggy red eyes, and he said, Bro. He said, And every day, every time Scott’s here, some for six weeks, he would tell me, You need to get saved as I walk in the laundromat. He’d walk behind me, and you go. You need to get saved. But you could say too far in the morning he came and knocked on the door of my dorm. I opened the door, croutons in my eyes, Fleischer said. He said you needed to get saved. I was walking downtown to Hot stuff Pizzeria Scott’s, and you drove by, rolled down his window home. Honked his horn, he said, You need to be saved. That’s a Christian drive-by, is all I’m saying. And every day, man, it was ridiculous. And then before our first football game, when the locker room and the coach comes in to give this pep talk, and you know, I’m used to coaches doing the pep talk, and sometimes they’ll talk about your momma.

They’ll talk about how you did all this ugly, whatever it is they have to say to make you angry at somebody. And this guy came in to give this pep talk, and he pulled out a little green Gideon bible, you know, the little switchblades. And he pulled out this little beauty. And his pep talk was John 316. It’s like God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes it should have everlasting life. I don’t know why he was reading John 316. I don’t know if the purpose of it was to say, you know, it gave all out there. Like Jesus gave his life, let’s give our. Life still is. I don’t know what the point was, but it was the first time I heard 316. I start to cry. Sitting next to me. Grinning like a Cheshire cat. Salem, Oregon. Scott said as he walked into the shower room. I got down on my knees because, you know, when you don’t know how the whole game works. You see the, I mean, I saw precious moments. The precious moments always like it sounds like I was on my knees to pray the prayer after the coach. And then they baptize me right there in the shower, in the name of the father. In the name of the son, in the name of the Holy Ghost. And then after goes to an hour long, and it was hot, it was like, oh, and then I cussed a couple of times right out of the gate. And then I guess God forgave me because I’m here today.

 So I was like, I didn’t grow up in the whole thing church. I mean, I don’t have. A whole context to it, But here’s what I knew when I walked away from my ways of old. I walked away from people of old. And when I walked away from the people of old, I needed to find some new people who I could connect with, who kind of felt the same way that I felt and thought the same way that I thought and believed the same way that I believed. And so it really early on, right from the drop, I understood that you need the church and you need communion. Plus, the second chapter of the book of acts talks about what it says.

ACTS 2:42-47 

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved

Now, what’s interesting is that this little portion of scripture happens right after the day of Pentecost, where 120 people were baptized. All the spirits, they spoke another tongue, and Peter stood up, and he delivered a message where he explains, and he defends what had just happened. And in that process, about 3000 people gave their lives to Jesus. So right after, 3000 people got saved. They were immediately formed in the community. And in these verses, I see three things that I want you to see today. Here’s the first thing that I see is that they were devoted. Devoted. So.

They were devoted to community. 

. The Greek word that’s translated to our English word devoted here is proskartereo. It means to be ready to give attention, to be faithful. To be faithful. Devoted. They were devoted. To community. Even when it was difficult. Like community is not always easy. And the reason the community is not always easy is that it’s full of people, people, people. And it feels like that. People know they are. How many people are in your life? Like, Oh, yeah. It’s like, Oh, hi. People can be challenging, can’t they? Don’t elbow, you know, it’s nothing but, you know, like it’s so they overcame the challenges of community that come with being in groups of people by being devoted to four things. Number one is they were.

Devoted to the apostles’ teaching. 

 and that can kind of be summarized in the Great Commission. Essentially, the last thing that Jesus tells his disciples, He says.

Matthew 28:19-20 

Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

And so they committed themselves to the Apostle’s teaching. Secondly, they devoted themselves to fellowship.

Fellowship. 

Koinônia =Association, communion close relationship 

And the Greek word for fellowship is koinonia. It means association. It means community. It means close relationships. They devoted themselves to close relationships and to going beyond weekly meetings. One of the things that’s interesting about church is sometimes we treat this like it’s just like an ad on like it’s like this is a drive-thru at Starbucks or at McDonald’s. But they didn’t view it like they were just an ad or they were people that went beyond just getting in these kinds of big groups where we get motivated, and they gather with family and friends, knowing more than surface information about each other. And see, most of us don’t know stuff about other people. We don’t know stuff about our coworkers. So we don’t know stuff about our neighbors. I got one neighbor who he’s so annoying. He wants to be branded so bad it’s like so extra about it. So it’s like, I mean, we live in a culture that’s I call it the garage culture, where you open the garage, you leave, you come back, you open the garage, you go when you go home. And there’s etiquette to that. But my neighbor, he’s a lurker and have lurker neighbors. And it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t know what he does that enables him to always be there when I get home, waiting with like a hose or a lawnmower or a clipper, I don’t know. There’s always something that he doesn’t seem to be using other than for an opportunity, is what I’m saying. And he’s. Hey, how are you doing, bro? This weather, huh? Hey. Hey. The lawns looking good. Hey, anybody who just points at me, I think it is weird. You bite the bottom lip, and it’s just like it’s we. It’s and then. And then God convicted me one day. He’s like, Bro, what if he had cancer. And Mike, He needed somebody to pray for him. And what if I were putting him at your lawn with clippers or a hose? Because you need to not be a jerk. And act like not even just a pastor or a Christian. But a person. And at least laid back. Roll the window down and go. Because if you do that, he’s going to say, Hey, by the way, I just want to let you know. And then whatever it is. And that might be an opportunity for you to pray with them and to share me with him. But you’re so busy. Being surface. And to many of us. We treat God like he’s our sugar daddy. And so we don’t want to share our sugar daddy with someone else because we’re afraid. That God’s going to give our blessing to somebody else. But what happens is when you connect in community, God doesn’t divide your blessing. He multiplies it. And when you start blessing other people. He’s so happy because God’s not looking for cesspools.

He’s looking for conduits. He’s looking for people that he can pass his blessing through. So who do you have in your life that you know more than service information about? Who do you have in your life? Who has a refrigerator? Right. You know, tumbler. Refrigerator. Right. Refrigerator. Right. So the people in your life who can just walk into your house and act like you’re not there and open the fridge, start pulling out the miracle whip and the baloney and the cheese. You got any lettuce. Mike Brooks, hello. Thank you for coming in. If I lived in this town, past today would have. Refrigerator rights at my house. But. But he’s gluten-free. All the food in my fridge would have to taste like crap. It’d be dusty and not good. And every once in a while, I would put regular bread in the gluten-free bag because it’s my friend. What will happen now? This Who in your life you love that has a. Refrigerator rights, so now it is looking at the same best friend from kindergarten through the 12th grade, Charles Smith. And we went to school together every day, and I had to walk past his house to get to school. And so I’m getting up early, and I go to Charles’s house, and I go in because Charles had sugar cereal, and we didn’t have sugar cereal, and we had whole milk, and we had 2%. And so I would go to Charles’s house, and I would have his cereal in his milk in my bowl. His whole family just called me the breakfast man. I don’t even know his mom knew my name to this day. Charles’s breakfast man is here. Like, who do you have in your life? Who could be the breakfast man in your house? The person who you’re just doing life with? Dad. And that’s what was happening here. These people were doing life together. And your pastors, their Sonny, and my friends, we’re doing life together. My son caught Covid, and it completely threw him off. It completely changed his entire personality. Like he went from being Buddy the Elf the Will Ferrell character. They’re having massive, draining, suicidal ideations where we had to put him in in-patient. And he had all of these, not just thoughts about suicide. He had the whole thing mapped out to where my daughter found him in our backyard with a ladder and a rope. And my whole life was just thrown off. And Sunny and I were at a loss. But your pastors, they walk through that. It’s like you need that in your life. You need some koinonia, some fellowship, something to create community. Okay, so dedicate yourself to the third they. . Devoted themselves to the breaking of bread.

The breaking of bread 

Which is both communion and community. It was in the church. And that the crib. Who do you have in your life? Who? You go to dinner? Or who do you have in your life? Who you have over for dinner? Because those are two totally different things. You go to dinner with somebody, and it gets weird. You can get a fake text and have to go pick up your kid. I’m just saying, but if it’s weird, you can bail. But if you have somebody at your house and it’s weird, you hope they get a fake text, and they got to go pick up their kids like it’s. Who do you have in your life? Who you have over for dinner? Like, I remember when we started doing groups at our church, and my wife, Sunny, she signed us up for a group, and I was like, oh babe, why? This is going to be people there. And they’re weird, and I don’t want to hang out with weird people. And she was like. Bro, you are the pastor. You have to be in a group. I go. Why? Everybody’s going to think. I’m in a group. So she signed me up for Dave’s group, and they had sweaty hands for somebody to shake their hands. And it’s like, well, like, it’s like, it’s like slippery wet where it’s weird. And he’s my chiropractor, which is super weird. Your back, it’s a little bit soggy, but he doesn’t sound sweaty, and Dave’s group does. Bro, this is whack. So I went outside, and she’s in the driver’s seat because that’s what happens when I don’t want to go somewhere. I don’t drive like you think I can play in the hallway. None of you guys do this. Like you’re not going to do this where it’s like somebody that you’re going to just moan the whole thing. And I am going to tell you that weird food like he’s a not he’s homeopathic. Everything’s going to be organic and things, and there’s not going to be cheeseburgers or pizzas, probably cauliflower crust. That said, I don’t want to go there. And then we went to the group and when we left.

 I got back in the car pulling out. It was so great. It was so fun that we could do this all the time. My wife rolled her eyes and shook her head because I struggle to be in community. And the reason that I struggle to be in community is because I’m an introvert. And the enemy likes to tell me that people exhaust me. So every once in a while, I need my wife, Sunny, to remind me that people don’t actually exhaust me. They energize me. I’m the one who exhausts myself. So who do you have in your life? Who is energizing you? They devoted themselves to breaking bread forth. They dedicate themselves to prayer. The average Christian spends less than 5 minutes per day in prayer.

Prayer. 

But you can’t have community without communication. Pastor Allen, who’s going to be here next week? Him and I, we talk pretty much every day. I mean, this morning he called me. He’s getting ready to preach. I’m getting ready to preach. Now I stayed at pastor Dave and Becca’s house. And they redid their basement so that they can have guests in there. And so the phone rings at 8:00 this morning. Allen Griffin, eye to the ball. This is what he says, bro. How great is that shower? I go, bro. It’s sick. It’s incredible. It’s amazing. I’ve never been in a better shower in my shower right now. He’s like. Oh, my God, it’s so weird. Well, I answered your phone, and I said, Bro, the bed and flips out of the wall. It’s like a laptop. I never had a better. Night’s sleep in my whole life. We’re supposed to be getting ready to preach, but we’re both talking about how great our other best friend’s basement apartment is. It’s the greatest thing every one of us does. We need somebody who we trust or at least respect, with who we can’t communicate because isolation has a way of intensifying insecurities. And life without prayer is self-inflicted isolation from God. When my son went through the COVID thing, he isolated himself. And because he was isolating himself, it became a habit. And. And one day. During a road game, I was praying that God would send me someone who my son would respect or would want to have some sort of conversation with. With that said, God, I need you to send somebody who my son will open up to. And I’m sitting in the lobby. The hotel and a guy come to sit down, and we start having a conversation. And the guy was Aaron Rodgers. And Arron sits down, which, by the way, excuse me, let me pick up that name. I just dropped into that, and he said, Hey, bro, I just saw a house. I said it. I said, actually, I’m not great. He said. Do you think that he’d sit down and talk to me? I think I. I think. Four-time world M.V.P. greatest quarterback in history who isn’t coming to the Jets. By the way, in Jesus’ name, we want to keep him. If you don’t want the news on T.V., I’m going to keep you. I’ll just say, like when that, when somebody like that says something like that, I was like, Oh my God. He is like, Yes, thank you, God. And this he said something that just really clicked on me. He said, Oh, they just haven’t reached out to me. And so I told Isaiah, and he reached out to him, and then he had Isaiah over to his house. They talked for three and a half hours, and they continued texting ever since. And they talk about everything. He calls Isaiah little brother. But the point is, Isaiah had to reach out. And I wonder how many of you have somebody of that caliber, whether it’s, um, I’m a musician or actor or actress or a great athlete that you love. If they called you, would you answer? But here’s the thing. God is calling you, and he wants to communicate with you. But you have got to reach out. And that’s all that prayer is. It’s reaching out and communicating with God. So would you dedicate yourself to prayer? Those early believers did. And when they dedicated themselves to prayer, they dedicated themselves to community. And as a result of that, number two, they experience signs and wonders in community.

It says a deep sense of all came over the wall and the apostles. They performed many signs and miraculous wonders. And sometimes we can over-spiritualize stuff in church, like when it says signs and wonders. We can read that, and we can get like all weird about it. Like it’s going to be all sorts of funny languages, and people are going to fall down, and you going to have to put a blanket on top of people’s legs. But here’s the deal. All a sign is evidence. And a wonder is just something that makes you go hmm, I wonder how that happened. I’m telling you, when you dedicate yourself to community, when you start sharing your burdens, and people start helping you carry them, you’re going to start seeing signs and wonders as everything in your life becomes more manageable. Your marriages, your kids, your finances, your career challenges, and your mental health. Because there’s going to be someone in that community who has faced the same challenges and won. And the thing about wisdom is all it is is wars that we’ve waged and won. And when you start sharing those things with the people in your community, when you start distributing the weight, you’ll start winning. And everyone around you who’s not part of your community, they’ll start seeing signs of that victory. And then when they start seeing those signs, they’ll start saying, Hmm, I wonder how they fix their marriage. I wonder how they fix their finances. I wonder how they’re suddenly so successful in their career. Or I wonder how they overcame those mental health issues as a result of dedicating themselves to community. The early believers experienced signs and wonders inside community. And so, can you finally experience Favor in community? Watch this.

ACTS 2:44-47

All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people

Christianity is not an individual sport. It’s a team sport. Favor happened when they went from being just attenders of the temple to also being participants in the synagogue when they went from just sitting in rows hearing a message like we’re doing here today and started sitting in circles, engaging in conversations like we do in community groups where we become friends, where we become family, brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles when we take the next step down the path On the card that pastor handed out last week, when when we stop being weekenders, you know, really the time makes a bag. It’s called the weekend. And one of the players gave a bunch of them out for Christmas a couple of years ago. And I have a picture of that. This is what the Weekender bag looks like. They look so good. They look so cool. But they’re not very useful. They have almost no pockets, and there’s no strap for you to attach them to a roller bag. You just have to carry it and all of its weight. They’re basically built for Instagram. Yeah, they’re designed to be seen but not used. You, on the other hand, are the opposite. You are designed to be used but not seen, which is why we need these 3500 weekenders who are part of this church to take the next. Step in their faith. They join a group, or some of you who are part of a group. To become one of the 350 group leaders that we would need to be able to lead those 3500 people. We need to join a group that now, after saying all that, let me leave you with something practical, because I know if you’re like me, let’s be honest, sometimes when we listen to a message like this where some guy kind of stands at the front and tries to motivate us or give us some kind of call to action, if you’re anything like me, you might think, Why is this matter to me? Or what’s in it for me? Well, let me tell you. Last week, the pastor said that recent studies show that.

80% of Americans admit to feeling lonely. Isolated and disconnected. 

And I wonder if that’s true for you. I know that there’s far too many times that it is for me. I know that the many times I can be surrounded by people, I can be in the midst of a huge crowd and yet still feel alone. It’s still feeling lonely. It’s still feeling isolated. And in this and in this culture that we have found ourselves deposited in post-COVID, where we were put in isolation and made to stay away from people where we were made to cover our faces. And when we were made to cover our smiles, the very thing that breaks down barriers in people’s life is very easy for us to live our lives in such a lonely, depressed, and isolated sort of situation. Because I know that that happens so often for me. And so, if it is you, I promise you that that can be changed. If you would just devote yourself and be committed to community, in this room today, there are people all over this room who love you and who are also lonely. And when you take two lonely people and you connect them together, suddenly you realize that you both have the very thing that you were looking for, and you didn’t even know it. And then, I met some ladies in the lobby after the first service, and they are older ladies, and they wanted to let me know that it’s right. You know, we’re old. And one lady said, I said, nah, your not? You know, we probably have a couple of years older than me. And she said, maybe I’m 74. She said, I’m old, and this is my little brother. Like we’re in the same group. And we turned, and I was like, What? You see, it doesn’t have to be 74 or 40. There is somebody who is in this place right now who might be sitting in front of you. They might be sitting beside you, and you might be sitting behind you. You are surrounded by people who want the very same thing that you want in a culture where 80% of people feel lonely and despair. You have got the answer to what is that is ailing you right here in this place. All you’ve got to do is be committed to community. I ask you, will you do that today when you close your eyes all across this place? Before you can be committed to communities, you’ve got to be committed to Jesus. Jesus creates community. He breaks down bondage. He breaks down barriers. And so this morning, I want to give you the opportunity to take step one before you take step two. I want to give you the opportunity to begin a relationship with Jesus. You know, in the church world, we call it salvation, but really, it’s just being connected to Jesus. You know, I happen for me. You know, 25 years ago. And then everything about it changed. Everything about me didn’t make it perfect. I smoked weed for a year after I got saved until the pastor told me, you know, you should stop doing that. Why don’t you stop? And I was like, Oh, okay. I Stopped. I still made mistakes after I committed my life to Jesus. And it was like, slowly but surely, I began to become more like him. And so, like, I’m going to give you an opportunity to do two things here today. Number one is to confess that you have sin in your life. And number two is to profess that you believe that Jesus can change. And so, in just a moment, I’m going to give you an opportunity to do both of those things. And here’s how it is. In a minute, I’m going to ask with every head bowed and every eye closed for people who don’t have a relationship with Jesus but would like one for to leave here today to do two things. First would be to raise your hand and make contact, and you want to do that? Put your hand down. That’s your act of confession. Secondly, I’m going to say a few lines in prayer. Then I’m going to pass. And when I pause, if you repeat what I said and you mean it in your heart, the Bible says you will be safe. Now, I’m going to ask everybody to repeat because we don’t want you to feel centered or isolated. And so so, if you’re here today with every Bible, every I plus each session, I don’t have a relationship with Jesus. But I’d like to before I leave this place with nobody looking around, would you raise your hand to make eye contact me or. No, thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Nobody else. Thanks. Thanks. Going once Goijg twice. Thank you. Thanks. I’m not. I’m. I’m going to ask you to pray this at me. See, Jesus, I’ve got sin in my life. But I don’t want to. Taking. Forget it. He was. Make me different. Make me new. Be my Lord. And be my savior in Jesus’ name. amen, listen, with everybody, maybe I close. Maybe you’re hearing me say I’m a Jesus guy. I’m a Jesus girl. I’m saying I think if I died today, I would go to heaven. But you’re here, and you’re like those 80% of the people. You’d say short term, as long I don’t have. I don’t really have any meaningful relationships. If that’s you with nobody, look around, you raise your hands. Then I can pray. Feeling lonely people in here? Yes. Yes. So many. So, God, today, we love you. We all need to thank you for my friends here in this place. I thank you that they’re in a place that has prepared for their arrival. A place still with loving, kind, gracious, generous people. A church that’s got a booth out in the lobby. But signing people up for something so simple as to be able to connect with a group of people who may become their next best friend. And so today, I pray for you. Move on our hearts and our minds that you would overcome our insecurities and our trepidation that as we walk out of this place, you give us the opportunity. Not just sign up for a group and not just meet somebody, but to connect with somebody. When that happens, I’m prayed that you will let those seeds. In Jesus’ name, amen.