 It's my pleasure to introduce to you Scott Crosstack. I first heard of Scott before he probably even knew who I was or of my existence because I heard about him from a mutual friend that we have, a man by the name of Bill Ritter who is the retired pastor of the first time at this church in Birmingham, Michigan. And for a number of years, Bill and I were in a group together of large membership church pastors across the country. And Bill was one of the most creative, one of the finest preachers and one of just the most thoughtful, imaginative guys I've ever met. Bill and I shared something and I've learned that Scott and I share the same thing. And that is a love and passion for the Detroit Tigers. Now many of you may think, well what does this have to do with anything? Well it has a lot to do with everything for Scott and for me. I have to admit that as a young boy, because I detested the New York Yankees, that the other finest, the best baseball team in the American League was the Detroit Tigers. And so they became my default go-to team. I can talk to you about Mickey Lollich, Al Kaline, and Norm Cash who actually chased Maris and Mantle in the 61 season and home runs, but he did and did not quite meet where they were, but he was the American League batting champ. Now why do I say stuff like this to you? Because I think if you really want to learn how to have fun and you really want to be attuned to what happens to the world and to go to a game in which you can still have conversations and you just sense that anybody, almost anybody, can play baseball. Because who doesn't like to run or throw a ball or catch? There's something else that I want you to know and that is that the Detroit Tigers are no longer my favorite team in the American League. Because my favorite team now has the best average of any team in the American League, the Texas Rangers. The Cubs have the best, if you can believe this. I mean it makes you know that it may be end times if the Cubs are leading the National League, but what I want to say to you is that I'm glad that Scott is here, I've been with him a number of times over the last three or four years. Scott, as many of you know, is the pastor of Resurrection Downtown, has two locations and he's going to talk to you about it, what he's done and some other things, but let's, so a majority or a large percentage, 66% of his people are are nominally Christian at best, which means that people who come to Downtown Kansas City, to Church of the Resurrection Downtown, to be with Scott and his wife are in ministry together there, they have discovered how you relate to persons who have become disaffiliated, disconnected or never connected to the church. And so Scott, welcome to the North Texas Conference. Thank you for being here with us. I don't know if Bishop McKee, you helped me or hurt me by disavowing or confessing my allegiance to the Detroit Tigers in Texas. I don't like the New York Yankees either. Okay, all right. I'm still a Tigers fan and I would say we wanted to thank you for Ian Kinsler, but I think you can thank us more for Prince Fielder. That's one of those things. I'm privileged to be here. I didn't expect a baseball introduction, so I'm a little off my game right now. Bishop, you have done that to me and so thank you for that. I'm thrilled though to be with you today. I wanted to introduce myself as a way of getting started. One of the things I wanted to introduce is my better half. The person that has helped me to become the person I am now, much better than it was before, my wife Wendy. And I have a picture of her just so you can get a sense of her. She is somebody that has led me into the ministry. Do we have a picture of my wife Wendy? Yes, maybe. I'm not sure. There is no picture of my wife Wendy. I'll leave it to your imagination and that's a dangerous thing. Oh, there she is. There we go. So as she has helped me into the ministry, we met at Duke Divinity School, camping out for basketball tickets. And ever since we met, we have been in ministry together. You can see why she is not here because on my back is my little son, Freddie. We have a different picture of Freddie and Wendy is with him right now. And the reason I want to hold on this picture of Freddie is not to get some grace back, but I want to hold this picture of Freddie because for the last eight years, my wife and I have been living with a question mark. And we had been struggling and wrestling and trying to figure out why it is that we wouldn't have and weren't allowed to have a child. That's how we framed it. And so we fought and we battled and we wandered through this world of infertility. And then we were just surprised. And so every day that we live now is a day worthy of praise, of thanksgiving, to be joyful. And I look at that child and I think God is good. And that's not always the story for everybody. But that is my story right now. And it propels me in ministry. And that's why Wendy is not here. She's with him. But I am here because I've served Resurrection Downtown. I was crazy enough to leave Detroit to go to Kansas City. When I moved to Kansas City, I was a member of the Detroit annual conference. I became a part of the staff at Church of the Resurrection, which is located in Leewood, Kansas. And I was charged to plant Resurrection Downtown, which was located in Kansas City, not Kansas, but Missouri. And I share that because I guess as some of you are counting, in order to make that move happen, I needed to report to three district superintendents. I needed to report to three bishops of three different geographical areas. And none of that is to mention the other person I had to report to, which is Pastor Adam, which meant in order for me to engage in a new church start in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, I had seven bosses, which is this awesome picture of heaven. I don't know if you've ever experienced that before. Not only did I have Adam, but I had three district superintendents and then three bishops. And it was just wonderful. When I failed at things, I had to hear about it seven times. I don't know if you've seen the movie Office Space, but it felt like that. This was what went into the makings of Resurrection Downtown. Actually, I think it's one of the best parts of the connection because it took people from across conferences working together to do something extraordinary, to accommodate this new thing that God was doing. So I share that story to say there is hope in conferences as we gather together to work things out to find a new way forward. The last time I was here in Plano was seven years ago, almost to the day. I was here close by to see if I was fit to start a new church. I went to this thing called Boot Camp. That's the first time I ever stumbled upon Jim Osier amongst other people who are excited about starting new churches in this denomination for the revitalization of the world. And so I was here, and at that time Resurrection Downtown was just a dream. And to think about what's happened in that six-year period of time since is nothing short of God-inspiring. So as I prepare just to kind of share some of that story, I want to invite you just for a moment to go to God with me in prayer. Would you pray with me? Gracious God made the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts. May you measure them and find them always to be acceptable in thy sight. For you, O Lord, are a rock and are a redeemer. I want to start today just by reading a passage of Scripture that's been informative for me, transformative as well. It comes from the 18th chapter of Luke, and this is what we read there. A certain ruler asked Jesus, a good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments, he said. Shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, shall not bear false witness. Honor your father and mother. The man replied, I have kept all these since my youth. And so when Jesus heard this, he said to them, there is still one thing lacking, sell all you own and distribute the money to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and then come and follow me. This passage of Scripture, it's about dying to oneself. It's about living in a certain kind of way sacrificially. It requires that we live with this thing that we've come to know as extravagant generosity. It requires that we have everything and give it all away in bold kind of fashion. And this passage of Scripture is at the heart of what it is that we're called to do as pastors, as leaders of churches. We're called to embody this extravagant generosity. I don't know about you, but when I read this passage of Scripture and I dive into it deeply, it's actually fairly unsettling. It's something that gives us reason to pause. I want you to hear what Jesus says. He says, sell all of that you own and distribute the money to the poor and you will then have treasure in heaven. He gives this story, this command, this word, sell everything, then come and follow me. Sell everything, give it all away and then come and follow me. Does that cause alarm for any of you? Are you ready to go and do it and leave this place and change the world and follow Christ? This is a difficult thing to swallow. And yet it's such an easy thing to say. Extravagant generosity. We know at the heart of this passage, extravagant generosity is God's love for us. And John, we read this, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that everyone would believe in him may not perish but have eternal life. And Paul writes something similar in his letter to the church at Corinth. He says, rich as he was, he gave it all away for us in one stroke. He became poor, we became rich. This is what Christ does. This is what he calls us to do. And it's unsettling. I think our witness, our ability to witness hinges upon our openness to this passage of scripture. It hinges upon our desire and our ability to be extravagantly generous. I didn't grow up in the church. Bill Ritter became my pastor when I was already working in the world. And I grew up being non or nominally religious. My family would go to church on Easter, on Christmas. And now I'd always look at the pastor. He was wearing this big robe and he had this white stole and he stood in a pulpit much higher than that one. And he would always talk with this cadence and kind of look down at us in speaking ways I couldn't understand. And I was totally disconnected. And so he was to read a passage of scripture like that. I wouldn't have bought what he was selling. In fact, I didn't. This wasn't my pathway toward life. This wasn't my guiding piece of scripture. My way was a little bit different. I always wanted to go to Wall Street. That was where I wanted to go. I was this little guy and so I needed to work extra hard. And I thought if I had a big pocketbook or if I had a big retirement, if I had a lot of savings and wealth, then I could become much bigger than I actually was physically. So I got a University of Michigan degree in economics. I became a partner in a small financial planning firm by the age of 21 working my entire way through Skull Dan Arbor. I had made it out East by the age of 23 working for an institutional money manager as an associate portfolio manager. And I found myself in this place where I had kind of arrived at where I wanted to go only to find myself empty. After a variety of different kinds of circumstances, I found myself twisted and turned, looking, searching, and I stumbled across this place called Duke Divinity School. Somebody recommended it to me. I know I'm in the minority here in Furkins Land. But God works in strange and crazy and surprising ways as well. And so God met me there and pushed me there. And to be honest, I wasn't excited about going into the ministry there. I thought maybe I could take my background in finance and investments and economics and maybe I could bring some financial wisdom to the church or some charitable organizations. Maybe I could refine stewardship campaigns. Maybe I could earn the church a lot of money so they could build these big buildings. That's what I wanted to do when I went to Duke Divinity School. That all changed when I came face to face with the appointment process. I served at church in the mountains, average age of 75, average worship attendance of 50. The Parsonage was a single wide trailer. There was no running anything. I had to figure out my way forward. I talk about this right now because I'm 10 years in the ministry. This is my 10th year of being ordained and it's a great celebration. It's kind of fun and I never forget that moment that I had my first pastoral visit literally 10 years ago to the week. And as I remember that pastoral visit, I thought I had the world in control. I had a Pontiac that was bright red. I'm from Detroit. That's a big deal. It had a sunroof. I had windows that I could control with power, which was much more than I can say for my Parsonage. And I found myself in this place where I was driving to this pastoral visit. I found my victim. She was going to be the first person that I offer pastoral wisdom to. And there she was in this dilapidated house, mattresses in the windows to keep it insulated, to keep it somewhat safe. The walls were falling in. The roof was shoddy at best and she was 99 years old and she was the person that I was called to go and visit and so I did. I rolled up. My windows were down. My sunroof was open. I was blaring M&M because, you know, that's also something you do when you're from Detroit. I was ready to go and as I was going to visit this 99-year-old woman there, she was. Dolly Case on the front porch, expecting me in a rocking chair, apron, rocking back and forth and as I pull up, I see her and then I see all of the chickens around the yard and confused by the chickens because we don't have those in Detroit. Get out of the car and roll up the windows, close the sunroof. I don't want those chickens getting in. I look at Dolly and I say, Dolly, hey, how's it going? I didn't know what else to say after that so I just said the first thing that came to mind. What are all these chickens doing here? She said to me, well, you gotta eat something and I said, well. So I walked in to Dolly's front porch. She got up on the steps. I sat in the chair right beside her and I just sat there and began this visit and for this visit for 45 minutes, she just talked. And I listened. She knew I was from the North. I was not in the North. So she talked to me about how it is in the South and I just listened as she talked about the war of Northern aggression and I listened as she talked about how I was to blame for all of these different things and I just kind of sat there and I rocked as she just told me story after story. I felt totally useless and so finally after 45 minutes I said, Dolly, can I pray, read some scripture? She said, sure, that would be great and so I read some scripture and then I prayed and after I prayed I moved to get up and then she moved to get up as well and that's when she edged toward the front of the porch in her apron and I was edging to the front of the porch with her because I was preparing to leave. She said, you know, Scott, I wanna give you something Dolly, you don't need to give me anything. It's just, you know, fine, I'll come back again and then she leaned over and as she leaned over, she dug her hands into her apron and I saw this happening and then she brought her hands back out and as she brought them back out I noticed that the chickens started swarming closer and closer and then with her closed fists she got lower and opened them and even closer still and they got to the point where they could almost just take things out of her hands and then I noticed there was nothing actually in her hands and as the chicken got close and I noticed that there was nothing in her hand I saw this 99 year old woman move faster than I've seen anybody move at that point in time because in one motion she wrapped her hand around that chicken's neck and rung it and then turned to me and handed me this chicken. I didn't know what to do but I know I need to tell that story every time I'm around a bunch of clergy and here's why I didn't wanna be there. I had no use there is what I felt. Maybe I was even better than everybody there. Here is this woman who had nothing. Literally nothing, mattresses in her windows. She had chickens in her front yard. She gave me one. She had nothing and yet found a way to give me something. I'd never experienced that before. I think that's the first time I understood the grace of Jesus Christ. That's the first time I ever understood at Luke 18. Dolly K. said the age of 99. Witnessed to me. God chooses us and equips us so that we can bear fruit, fruit that will last. 10 years ago that happened. I wouldn't be here without her. Without God leading her and using her, compelling her to do the things that he does. Maybe even greater things. I think our witness begins when we realize that we have a lot to give even when we feel like we don't have much to offer. I think we can change the world when we give away everything we have. That's something that drives me here and now. And I gotta tell you, my work in downtown Kansas City, most of the people I talk to, they don't feel that very same way. Most of the people I talk to, they actually have a lot to give. They actually have a lot going for them and they don't know how it is that they can give. They have this desire but they feel trapped. They feel stuck. I meet with people regularly on a daily basis, multiple times throughout the day, young professionals who are in this place where they are stuck, where they don't know how to get to where they need to go, to how to give what they know they have to offer and they're in this place of just kind of meaningless work. You talk to them about God's call and it doesn't make any sense because the work that they're doing doesn't gravitate to their heart, to their soul. It doesn't match who they feel that they are. I was having lunch with a rising executive for KCP and L the other day. And as I sat there with him, I had this unbelievable conversation. I never saw it coming. This was a conversation with somebody that I had met months prior. We live in the same neighborhood. We had all of those small talk conversations. We walk our little pretend dogs together and we get to know each other's story, the weather, our opinions of the weather, baseball. We talk about all of those different kinds of things and we never pushed past the surface until one day he finally did and he made his first move on me which is one of those really nerve-wracking things when a friend asks you out on your first friend date. And so we're going to the next level. This is more than just pretend dogs. We're now going to be like together having a real conversation and we were at lunch and I was expecting a variety of different things but not what came to me. What came to me was this deep question. Scott, I have this great job. My company loves me. I have a wife. I have three kids. I have a great house. I have everything. But there's something missing. One of our other neighbors told me you're a pastor and so is Wendy, your wife. And ever since they told me that, I watch you when you get in your car on Sunday morning and Saturday night. And sometimes when I see you go, I think I wish I had what you had which totally caught me off guard. And then he said the thing that sticks with me still. He says, I just feel like I have so much to offer but I just don't know how to give it. How will he ever know about the fruit and the joy of extravagant generosity if we don't meet him, demonstrate that for him, share that with him? He needs a chicken lady. He didn't need me. Jesus calls us as his leaders. He says this, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this than to lay down your life for another. John reiterates this simple command in the first John four. Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Our job is to become like God. Our job is to become like Christ. It's to do the things that God does, even greater things, to do the things that he first does for us. We're called to live these lives of extravagant generosity, not expecting people to come to us but we're supposed to go to where they are, meet them, demonstrate for them what it looks like to love others sacrificially, to give away everything we have so that they might experience the grace of Jesus Christ and then hopefully go and do likewise. That's what we're called to do. The church is the living body of Christ. We are mission, fundamentally active, dynamic. We aren't a place simply to go to, static. But we're called to go do the things that Jesus does to meet people where they are. Are you doing those things? As churches, are you living? Are you meeting people about where they are? Sometimes it's easy to ask that question about churches. Are you personally meeting people where they are? Living these lives of extravagant generosity. I was reading a reflection of a friend who has been engaged in some church work recently and he posed a question in light of his confinement to offices and meetings and he asked this. He goes, how does our work in the church affect Uber drivers in our neighborhood? Is the work that we're doing affecting the people that are driving around the world in which we live, are we working in such a way that meets people who are walking up and down the streets because this is the stuff that Jesus did everywhere he went. He was meeting people, he was healing people, he was talking to people, he was binding them up and he was inviting them to come and see and then he was sending them to go and do. Are we doing this? How are we doing this? This was the driving question that we had at Resurrection Downtown when we began. I always think about our church in its beginning and it didn't begin as I imagined. I never imagined being in Kansas City to begin with. My vision was to start a church right next to Comerica Park in downtown Detroit. That's where I would have had it if it was up to me but it wasn't and so I found myself in Kansas City, Missouri which is a equally despicable town and not for me, for you because of the Kansas City Royals and so when I think about moving to Kansas City that was not on my radar and so I thought well maybe got us something in store and after all I'm going to work for the largest church in the denomination, I'm gonna go work with Pastor Adam and it's gonna be this extraordinary thing and I get seven bosses, it's gonna be so great and maybe got us something great in store and so I moved there and when I moved there I was ready for big things. In fact, if I'm gonna be honest and a bunch of clergy, I actually felt puffed up because I was going there. I'm going to work with Adam Hamilton. I'm going to work at church at the Resurrection. Look at me. I got there, met the nine people that were interested in starting a downtown campus of Church of the Resurrection. They were the wrong people. I have a picture of them. Do we have a picture of the original nine? That was the beginning and that's not even, that's a bigger group. There's nine of them, nine of those individuals are the people that started Resurrection downtown. I call them misfits, they're the wrong people because they didn't fit together at all. Four of them were members of Church of the Resurrection previously. Two of them were soccer moms and dads that were empty nesters, sold their homes in the suburbs, moved into the city, were there just a couple of weeks before I got there. Two of them that were members of Church of the Resurrection were an openly gay couple who had been together for a long period of time. The other four were non-religious, actually non-baptized. They were convinced to go to the first informational gathering by family or friends, encouraged to go there to see this great new thing that is happening with this new pastor from Detroit. And then there was one other person who was a recovering Catholic who made sure that we knew she was a recovering Catholic who would never transfer her membership because she had her plot back in Iowa. And so that was the start. And so what are we going to do? That's nothing to boast out. That's nothing to get puffed up about. I mean, that's how it started. And I said, I moved here for this. Single-wide trailer was looking pretty good. But we had to do something. Because I knew that we're called to give even when we don't feel that we have all that much to offer. How are we going to give? How are we going to live? How are we going to meet people where they were? How is it going to lead this band of misfits in the same kind of way? That was the hardest question for me to answer because I'm not very good at much. I don't have very many gifts. And I'm not saying that. If you know me, you know that's true. I am good at one thing, really good at one thing, better than anybody in this room at one thing. I can consume more coffee in a day than any of you. And I will challenge you if you want to. That's all I could come up with. And that's what I decided to go with. I said, God has equipped me with this one thing that I can offer. And I went with it as far as I could. What I did for the next 31 days is I went to 33 coffee shops. And as I went to these 33 coffee shops, I sought to meet as many people as possible. I sought to interrupt as many people possible. I sought to go and to meet and to invite and to welcome and to initiate conversation with as many people possible. And I wanted to measure it so I could stay disciplined, so I could be a faithful leader. And so what I did was I fell back on my old cold calling days. I put 35 pennies in my right pocket. And as I did that, I would go out to coffee shops with a great strategy and I'd target those coffee shops one after the next. I wouldn't go home in the evening until all of those 35 pennies moved my right pocket to my left pocket. Because that would have meant I had 35 distinct conversations with strangers, where they were, as they were, inviting them into the grace of Jesus Christ. I did that every day for the first year I was in Kansas City. This was church for me. There were no walls. There was no meetings. There were no boards, no committees, no anything other than seeking to meet people where they were as they were in the hopes of interrupting them, surprising them, inviting them to experience the grace of Jesus Christ in a way that they've never experienced it before. And in Kansas City, there aren't pastors meeting people in coffee shops. There aren't pastors meeting people out in the community. You'd be surprised how many pastors are reluctant to talk to strangers, to engage people. Sometimes it's more comfortable to stay inside, to do church work. God calls us to get out. And when we get out, we surprise people. Those 35 conversations, I detail them in my most recent book called The Misfit Mission. I talk about how they go, but half of them would end horribly, as you might imagine. You engage a stranger and tell them you're a pastor. They're immediately going to say, I remember going to church when I was in third grade and then you'd get out of the conversation as quickly as they could if they don't disparage you. And those happened, those happened all the time. And each time I gave them my car and said, you know, you might know somebody that might need a pastor at some point in time. You can be on my team when you just share my card with somebody. You'd be amazed at how many people did. You'd also be amazed at how many of those people that didn't want to talk to me would then engage somebody else later in the day and they'd say, well, what did you do today? And they'd say, well, I had coffee and actually talked with a pastor in town over coffee. And then their friend upon hearing this, they'd say what, you did what with who? And that person would force to then get on the defensive. Well, I had coffee with a pastor in downtown Kansas City. And they'd say, well, you don't seem like the kind of person that would have coffee with a pastor in downtown Kansas City. And then they'd think to themselves, well, why don't I seem like somebody that would have coffee with a pastor in downtown Kansas City? And immediately they'd be on my team again because they wanted to be that kind of person to surprise their friends. And so even the negative conversations would turn into a positive some way, shape, reform. And then the good conversation would just become really, really good, right? Because you'd had that great interaction where you get to dive deeper and become friends and get to love one another the way that we were called to do by meeting people where they are, sharing the grace of Jesus Christ with them so that we might grow closer with each other, but also grow closer with God in ministry to the world around us. As I was going out into the world this way, I then tried to equip the other nine misfits to figure out where they're the most comfortable, where they're the most gifted, passionate, and I said, God is calling you to do the same thing, to give of yourselves, to give of your gifts in the places that you're the most comfortable to reach out to people with the grace of Jesus Christ to share with them of his good news and invite them to join you on this journey of building Christian community in the center of the city. And they did. We had artists that would go into the Crossroads Arts District and they would gather with other artist friends in their community and they would meet them, engage them, invite them to join us. And we had cyclists that would go with pallets of water to different bike races in five k's and 10 k's and those kinds of things. And they would celebrate at finish lines with conversation and rejoicing with the grace of Jesus Christ. And they would be at water stations along the way, encouraging and supporting and leading people forward on the journey ahead with bottles of water and words of encouragement from resurrection downtown, everywhere around the city where people were. These misfits were present in comfortable kinds of ways that fit their giftedness so they could give of themselves to meet people, strangers, so that they could become friends so that together we could go into the community to transform the world around us. That group of nine misfits within the first 53 days multiplied to 75 individuals. In the first four months we turned into 400 individuals. Now we're worshiping on a regular basis, over a thousand adults every weekend in worship and Sundays look more like this. We are all called and commissioned, all of us, but to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them for the transformation of the world. Are you going and doing this? Are you giving everything you've been given? Offering all that you have to meet people where they are. When I think about what guided our early days at Church of the Resurrection downtown, we had this principle and we called it focus. We needed to be focused in everything we did. And every one of our leaders was trained to understand and to hold and to carry this idea of focus and what focus meant was, it was an acronym and it was a teaching tool and I think we have a way to kind of communicate that, but the effort literally stood for focus. We needed to focus all of our effort, all of our life, all of our energy intentionally toward building Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people could become deeply committed Christians and so what this meant is everywhere we went we had the eyes fit for seeing possibilities all around us, eyes fit for seeing interruptions to invite people, to meet people, to engage people so that we can ask them to join us on this journey. Everything needed to be focused around that purpose of building Christian community. We also needed to own it, which meant we don't need to be somebody that we aren't. We need to be comfortable in our own skin and that meant every one of us had a different thing that we could be doing always and everywhere and it didn't need to be the same thing. Not everybody is comfortable engaging strangers in coffee shops, that just happens to be my unique gifting. Aren't you happy it's mine and not yours? And it's one of those things where we all have those comfort places. I work with a church planter in Michigan whose comfort place is a diner, this little greasy spoon diner, that's where he is a regular, that's where he knows people, he builds community. That is his bread and butter, a planter in Missouri. His natured place is Buffalo Wild Wings. He is comfortable eating hot wings, watching football and so what he's done is he's turned that into his church where he goes and he meets people and does the things that Christ does there. It looks like starting fantasy football leagues. It looks like doing tech mobile tournaments. I don't even know what that is because I've never played a video game but that's what he's doing because that's his own skin. We're called to own it. God has gifted each of us here with some unique gifting. Own it, use it to make friends out of strangers for the grace of Jesus Christ. Give it away. In addition to that, we need to create this culture of invitation, creating a culture of invitation is seeking always opportunities to invite people to join you but as important as it is to invite people to join you no matter what it is that you're doing, I also say it's our strategy to get invited to places. So often we invite people but what if we ask questions of other people's interests and those questions prompt invitations for us to go and join them? My first two years at Church of the Resurrection, I had to just say yes policy. Any invitation offered to me, I said yes. I went to some crazy places, you guys. I went to a Snoop Dogg concert. Have you ever been to a Snoop Dogg concert? I loved it. I loved it and I had a great time there and let me tell you, I didn't expect to see anybody that I would know there which made me feel so great and comfortable because everybody was new and when I got there, would you believe it standing in line? Right in front of me were two church members. They looked at me, I tried to avoid eye contact. I looked at them, we saw each other. Have you ever had that moment where you're both busted? That happened. I can tell you though being in that place because I said yes to go on that adventure. It put me in a position when I baptized their children a year later, they knew me completely. I knew them completely. This is what God calls us to do is to be one with each other no matter what and we were in community and it became this great and freeing blessing to be able to share the vulnerability but also the glory of God through that sacrament of baptism. I said yes because I sought to get invited everywhere I went. In addition to creating this culture of invitation, we sought to use every available medium which meant we needed to live into this second chapter of Acts, this picture of the Pentecost where everybody went out from that place speaking in ways that others could understand which meant we needed to understand the languages of the world around us which meant we needed to be engaging all different mediums seeking to meet strangers and to build community and so that meant we had to be on Facebook and on Instagram and on the web and we had to be everywhere in papers, in periodicals, we needed to be in supermarkets, in loft buildings, we needed to be wherever it is that people were speaking in ways that they could understand. And so where is your giftedness and how can you communicate it broadly using every available medium? And then the last part was staying open to interruptions. One of the things that we prided ourselves on as we were focused on building Christian community was always staying open to interruptions. Every one of our church meetings that we host at Resurrection Downtown with leaders, with staff, happens outside of the church buildings that we now have because if you're looking to meet new people to do the things that God does to be interrupted by people who don't know God, the church is the wrong place to be. So all of our work happens outside. A few years ago we had a worship planning gathering at a coffee shop. I was there with my worship leader, one of the only other staff members at the time. And we were there planning the weekend ahead and as we were there planning the weekend ahead, this guy, head to toe tattoos, sees us, asks some questions, walks over to us, and then engages us. What are you guys doing? Well, we're planning worship for a church service down the road this weekend and he goes, what? But we're planning worship for a church service at a church down the road this weekend. Well, what's involved in that? I looked up at this guy and I'm like, he's head to toe tattoos. I don't know how to talk to him. I've just repeated myself twice and then I started getting really, really insecure. He's way too cool for me. I'm not sure I wanna say anything more because then he might realize I have no gifts at all. He sat down with us and we started planning worship and he was engaged in our worship planning. As he sat down with us and joined the conversation, a church member, an attorney, a partner, a big law firm downtown Kansas City, he walked in. He sees me and the worship leader and this guy with tattoos, he comes over. Hey, what are you guys doing? Well, the guy with tattoos says, we're planning worship. Well, this attorney then sits down, do you mind if I join you? Yes, come join us. And all of a sudden we're sitting in this coffee shop planning worship, probably the most important act that we have during the week in the life of the church and it's happening with people that are total strangers. Well, not the church member, he's not a total stranger but certainly all of us together are total strangers. By the end of that time, which was about an hour and a half of planning this worship service, we pray for each other. He's now a worship leader, the guy with tattoos. That was no joke. You gotta stay open to interruptions. God calls us to give everything we have to offer all that we are, even when we don't know that we have much to offer. You never know how God is gonna breathe life into you. God promises us, he chooses us first, we don't choose him. And because he chooses us, he equips us to do these extraordinary things that we can't always explain and when he does, it's reason to give glory to God. This is resurrection downtown story. A month ago, we closed on a new piece of property. We just purchased a city square block in downtown Kansas City. We raised the capital at Resurrection downtown and we're ready to go ahead to do something that hasn't happened in downtown Kansas City in over 80 years. We're building a new church in the heart of the city so that we might transform the heart of the city by the grace of Jesus Christ. As a part of that, we've had to do so because we've been growing. We've been inviting and we've gotten to this place where this is a necessity for us to take the next step. And so it's something that we've done sacrificially and as we think about our congregation, everybody has come from a variety of different places. There's no kind of cookie cutter nature to our congregation. We're as diverse as it gets. So any way that you slice it, we're as diverse as it gets. You could be sitting next to a CEO, next to a homeless man, next to somebody in transition, a service industry employee, a partner in a law firm. Everybody is present there, but nobody cares. Because everybody looks the same. We all dress the same and we're all there for the very same reason, which is to experience the grace of Jesus Christ. Every service ends with a sacrament of holy communion, the one thing that binds us all together. That's how we are sent out into the world. And so you never know how people find us, who invited them or where they came from. I wanna close by sharing with you a video of a man named Matt Lierly. I met Matt at the Kansas City Rescue Mission on a day that we were serving there. And so I didn't know if he was actually a patron of the rescue mission or if he was one of us that was going to serve. We were just all working together. And as we were all working together, we started talking back and forth. And that's when he shared with me his story of how he came to Resurrection Downtown. Surprised me. But I wanna share this video with you of him because it describes his commitment and his process of coming to the church for the very first time, of growing in community, and then of what compelled him to live with extravagant generosity to the extent that he wanted to share it with our entire congregation as we were dreaming about what God would do for us. And so I want you to see Matt Lierly's story as a way of ending this presentation today. I had a couple of friends of mine tell me about Resurrection Downtown and they told me about this pastor that went to a kid rock concert. I said, I gotta see this. And I loved it and I've been going ever since. I was amazed at how welcoming everybody was. You know, I walked in, everybody said hi. They recognized that I was new. I went into the sanctuary and everybody was shaking my hand, asking me who I was. And then I got a bulletin and the bulletin had a lot of classes and other events going on. So I started going to those events and just started connecting with people right off the bat. Every time I go to a service, I know I run into people that I've met through classes and events. It's gotten to the point where if I don't come, then people won't call me and text me because they worry about me, they're like my family. And it's really neat because I've never been to a church where people wanted me involved. I knew God before, but since I've come to Resurrection, I have more of a relationship with Christ. Resurrection has gave me like a family to worship with. I feel like more of the body. God has just been teaching me to be obedient. And so I've been tithing and I try to stick to it and I try to reach that commitment. We're gonna get a new building downtown and center it downtown. But my first thought was switch my tithe from giving to the church to giving to the new building. It's the same thing, but it's not. I prayed on it and I asked God and the scripture that came to mind to me was if I believe that God's gonna take care of me and I'm more important than the birds, then why shouldn't I be able to get more? Since I've put my faith and total trust in God, he hasn't let me down yet. So I've just said I'm gonna double my tithe and so I started making a commitment, said why not? God is calling us to transform community and make space for a new community. I'm real excited about the future and I've watched downtown grow and grow and we need to grow with it. I think what you love and what you're passionate about is an investment. So if your family is gonna move, aren't you gonna invest in that movement? Aren't you gonna help pack their belongings and help them get to where they need to be and make sure that they're comfortable when they get there? Well, church is the same thing. I'm just helping my family move. Three years ago, Matt was living under a bridge in downtown Kansas City. When I met him at the rescue mission, he was actually one of their clients. He's been coming to our church regularly, weekly ever since then. He's now fully employed. He's now in this place where he's living a life that he never imagined. He's substance free and he's a part of this family. You hear him talking about this church that welcomed him, that met him, that invited him, that won't let him leave because they'll text him and call him. He never had given anything to the church and he finally said he got to that place of tithing once he joined, where he gave 10% of everything he received. That totaled $100 for him per month that he would give to the church and he was faithfully tithing. When the building campaign came and when this opportunity to purchase this land arose, what he said was he wanted to shift, did you hear him? His tithe over to the capital campaign. And then he said, well, that's not right. And so he doubled his tithe. So he started giving 20%. That's extravagant generosity. He's giving everything he has so he can make room so that others might experience the grace of Jesus Christ. He's giving $3,600 for the next three years. He was homeless under a bridge three years ago. He says, I never imagined that I'd be able to be a part of doing something that hasn't happened in downtown Kansas City in over 80 years. And all I can say is that Jesus calls us to do those things, to trust. By the grace given to us, we're able to accomplish abundantly far more than anything we could ever think to ask for. He says, I'm living proof and people need to know that. So take this video so that everybody can see. So we shared that just about a month ago. And that pushed people to live into this idea of giving sacrificially, of living the same way, of seeking with everything we have and all that we are to do the things that Christ does by going out, not as static entities, but as dynamic, living, breathing, missional beings who are called to go out into the world to meet people so that we might bring news of God who already loves them so that they might be made spiritually whole, so that they might glorify God and seek to be compelled to go and do the same thing. Until together, we all experience that kingdom come here on earth, just as it is in heaven. This is what drives us at Resurrection Downtown. This is also what drives and what continues to drive the Methodist Church. If there was somebody that understood extravagant generosity, it was John Wesley, even though he battled, but daily, he sought to remind himself that he isn't his own, that everything he has is a gift offered to him, that he is employed by God to set aside and to give everything he has always and everywhere so that this world might be transformed. So what I want us to do together as we close, and then I'll get off, is to pray together his words of covenant prayer. I have them on the screen, I hope they're big enough, I wasn't quite sure what I was coming into, but my hope is that a lot of us might know this already, but let's read this together as we close. I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be employed for thee, or laid aside for thee. Exalted for thee, or brought low for thee. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it. In the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.