 Today, during our first service because we've reopened, I would like to just make a few little statements on the reopening of the church. For most of you who are here, you have heard it from your life group. We really took the shift in our church in the beginning of the year, not knowing that this pandemic will happen, to structure our church, not for conferences, big gatherings, non-profit status from the government, but for persecution, pandemics, and for hell to break out, and for our church to still survive. Churches were not built for good times. Jesus says, I build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. For thousands of years, churches went through hell and back and stood strong, empires fell, dictators died. So many things shifted the church stood. But the secret was, is the church was grounded in the Holy Spirit and the church's strategy was discipleship. It wasn't just to get everyone in the building, though those things are vital and important, is to get every believer to become a disciple maker. And so that's why what you are gonna hear even more today, we're part of the series called Hitting a Homerun. And for us, we've seen a huge increase in life group attendance. About 15 life groups have been opened during this pandemic, and we believe that circles, circles are better than rows, or zoom is better than live stream. And it's very, very important. Life group is not optional for us as life, Christian life is not, because community is where things happen. Accountability is where things happen. And if you would choose to go to a life group on Sunday morning, choose life group. Don't choose Sunday morning. Choose a life group. Why? Because that's where somebody knows you and you know them. This will become a heartbeat of our church. And pandemic put a huge exclamation mark on it. In other parts of the world, people who don't have non-profit status from the government like we enjoy, or the constitution to protect them, how they thrive, they gather against the law, but what then makes them succeed as a church is every individual doing the Great Commission, which is to win souls and make disciples. Amen? With that said, one of the reasons that we decided to reopen two weeks ago, I was a part of a church not very far from here in Washington state that has reopened its doors for actually a past four weeks. I was there, I had the opportunity to minister at the three services. I've seen the safety procedures they took and I've seen what really led them to that decision following week. I was part of a pastors meeting with around 900 to 1,000 pastors from all around the United States and the most known attorneys and the attorney firms that helped the churches who got sued or written off by the government for reopening. And they outlined safety measures that we can take, outlined illegal stands that as a church we have, the protection that we have from our constitution. We took some time to pray with our pastoral team and also with our board. We made a decision to reopen this Sunday. We communicated that first to our life group leaders, brought them on board and then life group leaders told everyone else and we haven't posted this online so this is the first time that we're actually publicly saying that. And then when we made the decision last week, Donald Trump throws this curve ball in our direction in a good way. I know you probably watched it but let's watch it again. Today I'm identifying houses of worship, churches, synagogue, and mosques as essential places that provide essential services. Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential but have left out churches and other houses of worship. It's not right. So I'm correcting this injustice in calling houses of worship essential. I call upon governors to allow our churches and places of worship to open right now. If there's any question, they're gonna have to call me but they're not gonna be successful in that call. These are places that hold our society together and keep our people united. The people are demanding to go to church and synagogue, go to their mosque. Many millions of Americans embrace worship as an essential part of life. The ministers, pastors, rabbis, imams, and other faith leaders will make sure that their congregations are safe as they gather and pray. I know them well. They love their congregations. They love their people. They don't want anything bad to happen to them or to anybody else. The governors need to do the right thing and allow these very important essential places of faith to open right now. For this weekend, if they don't do it, I will override the governors. In America, we need more prayer, not less. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's your neighbor, say you're essential. Okay, we can take your seats. Turn to your neighbor, say you're essential. When two months ago, when the pandemic broke out, we came into agreement with our government, local and state and federal government, to close everything down for 14 days because nobody knew what this pandemic was. After about 14 days, news started to, and articles started to surface of who this pandemic mainly targets. 14 days were extended. And then after 30 days, another extension happened. Now that most people are aware and the data has shown that this particular virus targets particularly mainly people with underlining health issues and elderly, we felt that with the fact that everything else got reopened and liquor stores were deemed essential, pot shops were essential. Getting a two by four was essential, even though you can't eat it. But it's essential. Everything else became essential except church. Why we felt that before even Trump announced that we were essential is that this crisis has caused many people to fall into heavy depression. Suicide rates have went up. Domestic abuse have went up. The calls for the domestic abuse at police department have skyrocketed. Pornography consumption has tripled. If not doubled and tripled. It's been crazy what's happening that this is causing a lot of hurt and I feel like the church is a place where people go to. When something like that happens, they don't call the governor. They first call their pastor. They first call their cell group leader. They first go to church. And so to deem church not essential is actually not helping the very people we claim to help. We found it very ironic. The abortion clinics continue to kill babies while we cripple the economy to preserve or save people. If we were really saving people, why are we still encouraging to kill them? And so we saw a double standard with that. And so we're talking with our attorneys. We consulted the attorneys. We wrote to our chief of police and chief of police responded back and he said, I'm glad to hear and I appreciate your email. As you prepare to reopen, make sure everyone's safety is your top priority. And sounds like you and your team are doing that. Nice work. These are challenging times for us. Your commitment to this community and its well-being will certainly ensure that we will get through this together. We wrote to our also our commissioners. We wrote to as well our state representatives. And from a particular state representative, he wrote back, he says, dear pastor Vlad, I am very proud of you. My only wish and prayer and hope is that yours and other God fearing Bible believing churches would have opened much sooner. We serve God and not men. Now this is a government official, not a preacher. And he says that, and God author and a finisher over faith is able to keep us and protect us from all harm and disease. And even if he did not, like Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego, he will not, we will not bow down or serve any other God or men. This guy's preaching. I would love to be in your church because I didn't tell them we're opening today. I told them we're opening next week. On the Sunday morning of 31st, and I hope I can make that happen. Once again, I want to say thank you and proud of you guys, keep up the good work for the Lord and keep fighting the good fight, your brother in Christ. A state representative. We also got another email from another representative, similar words. And so we felt that because the local government that we serve under, they see our work, they see the importance of church gathering and they understand that church is not less protective of their people than loaves of their customers. Unlike other big store stores, whose main concern is profits, even though they say it's the safety of people, but they exist for profits. We exist for people. For those of you who are like, well, but people, you know, also tied and everything, I'm gonna tell you straightforward, our tithing didn't go down during the pandemic. You guys are all very generous. We are generous church. We've been giving more than we've gave before, but as a church, we've been giving. We didn't feel led this year to do a sacrifice Sunday. Now I know why. And so I know that our people, they're loyal, they're giving. Our attendance on live stream is also very good, but we also know a lot of you are sick and tired of Zoom. And after all of this is over, you're gonna petition that that thing gets wiped from the planet Earth for the next 30 years, because we are, God bless the technology, but it's a little bit exhausting already in all of the live streams. So we felt, please understand, I don't have an itch to reopen the church, because that means to me now, preaching twice instead of once, okay? So everything in me says don't reopen it. Why obey the government fool, just do what everybody else is doing. And don't, why, because your life is easier. So if you think that my life is easier because of this, you're wrong, it's not. And so, and then I've never been called with names by other people who are Christians in positions, except this week. You know, it didn't come from the community. Everybody said, if you reopen it, the community will trash you. They didn't. Churches did. Other people did who were believers. And so community is not going to trash us because community understands if we take safety precautions, they see the double standard everywhere. And so on the opposite, they applaud and they celebrate that. So I just wanted to remind each one of you that we're doing this with caution, but also courageously. We're doing this carefully, but also with the strength of the Lord. Walking with God everywhere in the Bible, I always see this one phrase, fear not. First month we told you not to be afraid. But in the last 20 days, many of you have been telling us not to be afraid. Yeah. I cannot tell you how many people from our church messaged me with the same words. I messaged them two months ago. They're like, pastor, you're everywhere. People are everywhere. What are you afraid of? And a lot of it, of course, is what people will think. And that's exactly what I really was thinking. What people will think. What people will think in our church. What people will think in our community. But when we went to God, we asked God, what do you think? And that's what I think. I wanna challenge pastors and leaders and Christians. Get off of CNN. Get on your knees and ask God, what do you think? Okay? Get off of Facebook. Get on your knees, open God's word and say, God, what do you think? And when we did that, we looked at our history as a church. When we do deliverances, we don't ask what everyone thinks. That's not popular. When we get up here and pray for the sick, I don't ask what anybody thinks. I ask this, who do I follow? Am I a politician or am I a preacher? Do I follow Christ? Or am I trying to win a popular contest in the community? The best example we can set for our community is the example of following Jesus. Any other example, any other praise you get that doesn't come from that, my friend, is not worth fighting for and pursuing. So with that said, we've decided to reopen this service. Next week, we're gonna reopen two services. So it's gonna be one at nine and the other one at 1130. And we will let other people know, we ask you that you tell other people who are comfortable coming. Please understand, this is not a political stand even though it becomes a stand. For us, we are obeying God, we're serving our community, and also we are honoring the deaths of people who went to different parts of the world to fight for our freedom here. Well, sometimes I saw that little Facebook graphic when one veteran held a poster and he says, while I fought for freedom overseas, now I lost it here at home. To honor the deaths of people who did not die so that the government runs the country, but so that people have freedom. When I came to this country, I come from a family of where people were persecuted for Christ. My dad wasn't allowed to go to college because he was a believer. Certain members of my family had to be baptized at night. And please understand, for those of you who are drinking the Western Kool-Aid, communists did not have a problem with us believing in God. They only had problem with two things, us not assembling and not sharing our faith. They had no problem. If you believe in God and you shut your mouth, that's good. The only problem they had, read Book of Acts, and my friends, you will see, Pharisees had no problem against apostles that they believed in Jesus. It's that they talked too much. Why did they put them in prison? Because they talked about Jesus. Not because they believed in Jesus. So for those of you who walk around and simply say, well, Vlad, this is too radical because the government doesn't stop us from worshiping God. They're just not allowing us to meet. Now if all the abortion clinics, loaves, home depot, everything is closed, I would keep my mouth shut. Yet, our constitution still allows us to meet. This is the land of the free and home of the brave. Many of us are immigrants here, and that's one of the things that we value about this nation is freedom. Freedom is risky. The government gave you freedom to drive. They also gave you an opportunity to kill somebody. They trusted you not to get drunk behind the wheel, fall asleep behind the wheel, recklessly drive and destroy another human being. Every time you have freedom, you always have risk. And that's where you have to exercise your love toward other people, toward yourself, by exercising your freedom in such a way that it doesn't hurt other people. We do that every single day, my friends, every single day. And now knowing that our elderly people are at greater risk, I think that we didn't become dumb because of this pandemic. We're still caring citizens. We're still caring family members. We care for others, and we will continue to do so. These are our people. Unlike hiking trails of Badger Mountain, and unlike the parks where you meet people whom you don't know, whom with whom you don't share life, people here, you know them. They're your family, they're your friends. And I don't know if anybody will get sick and come and intentionally infect somebody. I know that that's not gonna happen because we care for other people. And in most of those wonderful places that we all go to, you go there the way you woke up. Many times, no shower, you're not clean, your breath stinks, but who cares? Cause you're there to get your two by two, two by four, and come back home and continue to do your project. But when you come to church, most of you shower. All right, all of us, prophetically, shower. All of you, you dress up clean, you take care of yourself, and when you're not feeling well, you will stay home. So I believe, and I appreciate our president, I don't agree with a lot of stuff maybe that our government will do, but I appreciate that our president had the gods to announce and to trust the pastors and the churches to assemble peacefully and with carefulness. Amen, let's give God the glory. Even if you did not vote for him, or you don't support him, I still think it's good to celebrate the fact that the churches are called essential by him. Amen. Safety precautions that we took. We send them to our police, to the chief of police, to our local representatives. We took them from our attorneys. One of the things that we did, as you saw, we have four air purifiers. They're not cheap. They're class two, the medical devices that purify the air and remove all of demons. They don't do the demons, just bacteria, just bacteria and any other viruses that might be in the air. They purify the air. That's why you felt the anointing stronger today. It was the smoke and the purifying of the air. We replaced also our vacuumer to be able to take everything from the carpets that's not just dust and dirt, but also any other bacteria and any other substances there that could be in our carpets. We sanitize our facility before, we're gonna sanitize our facility afterwards. We also advise social distancing, but we can't enforce it. We advise wearing masks. We can't enforce it. So we advise also for each one of us to come to church and check your temperature first. If you have fever or symptoms of any kind of disease that puts you at risk for you to stay home. We also encourage you that we abstain from shaking hands. We advise that. Some of you haven't seen each other for so long I saw you already broke that advisement. You're like, give me love for COVID-19, but I'm getting love. I'm getting a hug. And so we advise you not to do that. Also our offering is going to be instead of being passed on, passed around, our ushers will hold the offering baskets on the way out. We place sanitizing sanitizers everywhere and when you were coming in instead of getting bulletins, you were getting a little dose of purification. When we will exit the building today at the end of the service, we will exit slightly differently. Paul, if you can wave your hand and then Sam as well. So those are gonna be two exit signs. We will exit through the common area. And for those of you who wanna exit and get a fresh air, you will exit through the outside. We will not exit the same way we entered. We will exit differently because we're preparing for the next week service when we will have one service coming in and the other service exiting. Also, we will have a VIP room where Terry is, Terry, wave your hand. So if you are first time guest at our church today afterwards, you can go there, just the VIPs and receive a free gift from there as well. So that's gonna be some of the safety measures that we placed. We've closed the auto call. We are gonna pray over people and move the pews to create a little bit more distance and space. I'm not sure how much six feet that is, but it gives you a notion that it is six feet. And so we separated them to give you a little bit more space and breathing room in your pew. And so we have a fuller statement on our website that you can check it out. I would encourage you to invite your friends next week, but we don't punish, be little, make fun of anybody who is not sick and who's afraid to come. I think we live in a free country and you can do whatever you want. And so we celebrate those believers who are with us today who are saying, you know what, I'm gonna hold on. I'm gonna see, you know, if Vlad gets arrested first and then I'm gonna reshare it and say, I told you so. And so we celebrate you, keep tithing. Don't give up. God is with you, we love you. And so we love the churches in tri-cities, those who are not reopening, those who are watching for their elderly and because they have more older people or are waiting for it, we are in this together. We don't criticize other churches who are not reopening. Hopefully they will do the same, not criticize us because we're one community, we're one faith, we love our God and each church needs to ask God what God wants them to do. Amen, amen.