How To Disagree

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Do you know one of the biggest reasons

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why people reject church?

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It's because churches, and the people inside them,

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disagree with each other all the time

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on all kinds of stuff.

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And if churches and the people inside them

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can't get along, why would anyone else want to join one?

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Hi, I'm Kyle, by the way.

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I'm a pastor here at Crossroads.

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It's my job to help you explore who God is

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and discover the life of adventure

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that I believe God has for you.

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Did you know there are over 45,000 denominations

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of churches in the world. That's crazy.

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See, the thing is, it wasn't always this way.

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Turns out there used to just be one.

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So what happened?

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Well, the same thing that can happen to relationships

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and friendships and families and break them apart.

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That thing is called disagreement.

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Let's run an experiment.

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If I were to say to you, Simone Biles

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is the opposite of a quitter, and in fact, is a winner

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and the very definition

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of what it means to be an American.

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And you would disagree with that,

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I would simply say, "Well, I think you're wrong."

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Simple as that. That's called a disagreement.

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And here's the thing: disagreement is okay.

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Me and our Senior Pastor, Brian Tome,

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sat down to have a conversation about just that,

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about what it means when churches

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and the people in them disagree.

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Now, for those of you who joined us before,

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this episode will feel

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a little bit different than normal.

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We do have a weekly message.

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It's coming just a little bit later than usual.

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Brian's going to give a special message

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for our entire church to hear all about God's love.

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You'll be able to find that right here

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on Sunday evening.

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For now, I want you to hear this interview

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I did with Brian about how at Crossroads

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we aim to transcend the norm of disagreement.

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Okay, so when I first came to Crossroads,

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so many things about Crossroads were different

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than any other church I'd ever seen.

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Like Crossroads seemed to think that

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the world's problems were their problems to solve.

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If people are hungry, that's the church's job.

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If people are sad, that's the church's job.

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One of the most mind blowing, though, is I remember

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you saying in a message, "We major in the majors,

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we minor in the minors.

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You don't have to agree with everything to belong here."

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And I had never heard that before.

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So I'm curious, I genuinely don't know this answer,

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where did that idea come from?

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– Oh, gosh.

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Well, a lot of what Crossroads is came from

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reaction to my previous church experience,

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reacting against it, wanting to improve upon it.

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And I just saw a church that I went to

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everything was this is what you have to believe, everything.

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This is how baptism works.

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This is whether or not

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you can lose your salvation or not.

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This is how you have to vote.

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This what you have to believe about this.

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I mean, everything --

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– [indiscernible] and all the stuff.

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– Yeah, right. And, you know, we don't see --

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we don't see Jesus going up to people and saying,

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"Come unto Me all who believe this and this

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and this and this and this and this."

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We don't see that.

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"Come to me all who are burdened and weary

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and I will give you rest." Right? Romans 10:9.

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Belief is is important.

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You should believe that Christ was raised from the dead

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and confess Him with your mouth that He is Lord.

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Okay, so belief is important.

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But belief in a very small number of things

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is necessary to come into relationship with Christ.

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And the more that we layer on top of that,

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the more we actually repel people from Christ

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and the more that we believe my walk with Christ

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is all about just having the right beliefs.

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It's not.

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– It seems -- I think this is accurate.

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If the church has been that, like "You've got to do

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this and this and this and this and this

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to belong to this church."

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And if this one thing changes, well, then we split off,

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make a whole another church over here.

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It feels like culture has mirrored

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that bad part of church's history more and more

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where people are -- they can't understand

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you really, you don't have to believe all the stuff

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to be part of us.

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What do you think the fix is for that?

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– Well, this is very clearly, very clearly our culture.

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It used to maybe be a uniquely Christian thing,

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that you are right.

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That is the dividing of denominations.

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We can't live with differences with one another,

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so let's just keep dividing and all that stuff.

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But culture has taken it, modern American culture

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has taken it to much more harmful extreme.

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I mean, you can't think something

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that your preferred outlet gives without being a hater.

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You can't have any different opinion

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without being uneducated or a bigot or whatever.

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It's really the worst of the old school church religion

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with all grace stripped out of it,

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all Jesus stripped out of it.

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And that's why we're not able to -- part of why

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we're not able to live in harmony with one another.

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– So you, I know, I know you take a lot of grief.

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– No, really?

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– Yeah. I mean, have you ever read your email?

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– Come on.

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– I don't know if you have. – Come on. Really?

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– Sometimes they get forwarded to me to answer,

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so I read some of them. – Bless you, son.

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– You take a lot of grief and it'd be easier

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if you just went like, "You know what? Fine.

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We're just going to --

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here's the boxes you got to check.

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Here's the 25 things you have to believe

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to be part of Crossroads."

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You'd save yourself a lot of grief.

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Why not just do that?

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– There's an old phrase, you know,

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you've got to be on the right or on the left,

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if you're in the middle, you're going to get run over.

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And I feel that in a lot of ways right now.

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I know with our current controversies

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that are happening, if I were to clearly say,

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"Hey, any sexual orientation or desire you have,

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anything you want to do with your body is good with God.

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Just, you know, if you feel good about it,

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no one else is getting hurt, then go ahead."

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Or I could also go, "Hey, 1 Corinthians 6:9

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appears to say if you have any of these compulsions,

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you're automatically going to hell.

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We need to expel everybody from our midst

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who isn't this way.

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We need to --"

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those two things are very simple.

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There's a very clear support choir

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for either one of those things.

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And both of those things are defensible with sound bytes.

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But when you're somewhere in the middle, you understand

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that often times truth isn't as simplistic

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as as either side makes it.

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And I'm not committed to being in the middle.

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I'm not in the middle or we're not in the middle

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on a lot, a lot of things. Not at all.

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Very extreme on things,

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but never consistently extreme left

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and never consistently extreme right.

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I think what you have to do is you have to

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be committed to being on the side of truth and love.

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– Was does that mean.

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– Well, being on the side of truth means

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truth is an objective standard

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that can't be argued with.

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You know, this stuff that we talk about,

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well, that's my truth.

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I prefer we said that's my opinion

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or that's my conviction.

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That's not my truth.

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There's only one truth, that which is.

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If I take your cup here, my truth is

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this is going to stand up here.

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– Go for it. – No, truth is --

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That's true. Good thing --

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Oh, good thing I made this oak with my own hands.

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Good thing I did that. You know?

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That's -- so truth is -- truth is unbending.

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Truth is not really up for debate.

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Now, we don't always understand

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exactly what the truth is on things.

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But when you come to see that,

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you're going to believe something

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that might not be understood by the mass on the right

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or understood by mass in the left,

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but you believe that's what God says.

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You just go there, period.

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And then the love aspect is you have to be

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really cautious of how you talk about that.

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And that's the mistake we made a couple of weeks ago.

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It wasn't a mistake

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talking about children taking puberty blockers.

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That wasn't a mistake.

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It wasn't a mistake raising a white flag and saying,

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"Hey, can we talk about what's happening here

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in many of our clinics?"

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That wasn't a mistake.

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What was a mistake is holistically over

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the service there wasn't an attitude and demeanor

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of love that I exhibited.

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That was -- that was the problem, so and that was --

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that was the apology as well as well [indiscernible]

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But when you're going to try to operate by

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there is an objective standard of truth

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and love is kind of a big deal in the Bible.

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– It seems like it.

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– It's kind of a big deal. I mean, the Bible does say --

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it's the only Ancient religious book that says

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and the first one that says God is love.

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The Koran doesn't say that,

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other ancient religious texts doesn't say that.

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The Bible says God is love.

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And whenever we hear God is love,

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whether it's Oprah or somebody else saying that

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or a modern day religion,

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they've all hijacked it from the Bible.

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The Bible says that. "What? What? He's love?

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I thought He was just this harsh entity

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who said what it was."

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Well, He does say what it is

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and He can appear harsh sometimes.

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And He does have standards, but He is love.

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And that message comes again and again

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and again in the Bible.

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So being in that place where you believe

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in objective truth that you don't invent on your own

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and that there's a God who loves you and loves me,

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even if you happen to be wrong,

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that that should be a Christian characteristic.

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– That's right. OK, so last question.

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What is it for me, for us to be part of this church?

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What is the attitude you want us to bring

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to the collective family dinner table?

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You are not asking us to agree on everything.

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What is it you're asking us to do?

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– I'm asking you to put on a mindset

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you're not going to get anywhere else in culture.

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Nowhere else in culture do you have to sit in a room

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with people who look different than you

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and act different than you and think different than you.

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You're in college, everyone in there pretty much

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looks the same or at least the same age. Right?

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You're in a boardroom, everyone pretty much has

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the same economic thing or whatever.

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If you're in a neighborhood, you're probably

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in a neighborhood of whatever town you're in because

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and people probably their vote the same way,

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wherever it is.

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We can do that in the rest of the culture.

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When you come into Crossroads, and including

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coming into where we are online, not just in a building

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but into an online presence,

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you're going to be filled with people

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who are very, very different than you

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and you're going to have to learn to --

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and think different than you,

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you're going to have to learn to gird your mind

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or the Bible also says gird your loins

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and just find something different inside of you

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that the rest of the culture isn't going to demand.

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We demand that you actually open up your mind.

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We demand that you actually listen to

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beliefs that are different than yours.

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We actually demand that you learn to be in harmony

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in a community where there's things that

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if you were the senior pastor,

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you were on the board of spiritual directors,

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it wouldn't happen that way because you would change it.

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Hey, guess what?

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All of us have things about Crossroads we would change,

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including me.

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– Including you? You would change stuff?

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– Absolutely, including me. No question I would.

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I've got a big voice. I've got a loud voice.

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I've got more probably singular authority than anybody.

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Yeah, there's stuff that happens to Crossroads

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all the time that I --

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– You wouldn't change anything that I'm doing though, right?

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– I would change you.

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You would just be deleted.

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You would be cancelled, deleted and cancelled.

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But we have to -- the Bible says

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we have to bear with one another.

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– Yeah.

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– When you're in a church you have to actually

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bear with one another, that means bear with ideas

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that you think are stupid.

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And they may be stupid. They actually may be.

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But the biblical mandate is to bear with one another

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in that weakness. And guess what?

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You have to have the the right level of humility

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to recognize that you believe some really stupid things,

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too, that you're going to be ashamed of

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when you get to heaven.

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And we're all too fallen and too into ourselves

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right now to understand all those things to the fullest.

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– That's right.

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We don't get there because we believe

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the right set of checklist or --

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it's we get there because of grace.

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– If it was belief then demons would get there.

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– Yeah. – The Book of James says that

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even demons know the truth and shudder.

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So it's not our knowledge.

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It's not our beliefs or else demons would be in heaven.

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It's it's our knowledge that couples with love,

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which is a sacrificing of ourselves

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that then leads us to bless and serve others.

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That's what the monochrome doesn't do.

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– Good stuff. That's -- it's perfect.

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I know you're talking this weekend about God's love.

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We're excited for that.

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We're going to give everybody a link to it,

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so watch out for that.

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Thanks for hanging out with us. I appreciate it. Right there.

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– Thank you. My pleasure.

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– Did you hear that?

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We don't all believe the same things and that's okay.

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You know, the critical thing in exploring who God is

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is to ask questions and to follow where He's calling you.

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Like Brian said, part of Crossroads core DNA

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is a belief that we're a critical part

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of changing the world and making it better.

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For the past 25 years people from this church

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have stepped into places that no one else would step into

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to tackle problems that no one else is willing to tackle.

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And the impact has been amazing.

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We've served our neighbors, loved our cities.

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We fought sex slavery on the other side of the world,

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come against epidemics and pandemics

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and all kinds of things.

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And the impact we've seen is incredible.

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Here's why I talk about that.

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You are invited to join in.

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In fact, I want to invite you right now

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to submit any project or idea that you have

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that you think would change the world

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and make it look more like the Kingdom of God.

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What we're going to do is pick 10 of them

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to financially support before the end of this year.

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We will be highlighting some of those

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right here on the weekend message.

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If you have an idea or project, you can submit it

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at Crossroads.net/letsgo.

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Now we're about to hear from the first member

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in our community who had a project selected

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as part of this initiative.

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Her name is Kiai and she lives in San Francisco.

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She's actually been called to start a nonprofit

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to help people in San Francisco

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build affordable housing in one of

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the most expensive cities in the entire US.

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Let's hear her story.

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– I think I just -- I just saw people who are homeless

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and I had compassion.

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My name is Kiai Kim

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and I'm the founder of Care Association.

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Care Association is a San Francisco based nonprofit

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and we're working on building affordable housing

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by putting land into community land trusts

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and teaching people how to build their own houses.

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I was working in tech and finding that

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it was not fulfilling for me.

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And I decided to quit and start a nonprofit.

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And then I decided that I would talk to people

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and see what they thought, kind of get a survey

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of what people thought about building their own houses.

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And this one guy, he jumped up and he is like,

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"I want to build a house. Yes, sign me up.

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I will -- I will go to today."

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And I was like, OK, that's enough.

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If we can find just like two people like that

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out on the street, we can make this project happen.

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And I heard not audibly,

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but the words came, "Do nothing."

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Do nothing? How do you build a house?

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How do you build houses and do nothing?

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And I tried.

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I was like, I'm going to listen to do nothing

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and I'm going to literally do nothing.

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And then that week was when I got an email

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from this -- from a developer, a small scale developer

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who signed up as a volunteer and said,

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"I'm going to help you build houses."

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I'm like, "OK, God, I guess I'm in it now."

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It's one of those things that it was like

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God like put it on a platter for me to take.

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And I think one of the worries with starting

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a project like this or any project really

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is knowing how it's going to be done.

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And, you know, I just, I trust God.

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Every time I have had an obstacle,

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I would just pray and ask and something would happen

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and it would become possible.

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With God anything is possible.

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The world is hurting right now

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and there are not enough people solving problems.

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And I think that's where God is calling us

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to step up and do something about it.

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The harvest is plenty and the workers are few.

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– Stories of impact like Kiai's are a big part

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of why we exist.

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And if you got ideas to make the world better,

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we want to know. Go to Crossroads.net/letsgo.

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Now, before we end, I want to share a way for you,

00:17:43

at least the guys watching, to meet other guys

00:17:45

that are part of Crossroads have

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a powerful life changing experience in person.

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It's called Man Camp.

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And I'm not kidding when I say it'll change your life,

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it really will.

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It's been a movement that's been growing for years.

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There have already been guys from 30 states

00:18:01

sign up for this who are making the trip.

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I want to encourage you to do the exact same.

00:18:06

Here's what you can expect.

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– As you can probably tell,

00:18:57

there's nothing else quite like Man Camp out there.

00:18:59

And for more information and to sign up,

00:19:01

just had to mancamp.us.

00:19:04

That's it for now.

00:19:05

You can check back right here on Sunday

00:19:07

for the special message

00:19:08

from our Senior Pastor Brian Tome.

	When We Don't Agree	1:54
	Truth & Love	6:57
	Be Apart Of Change	14:03
	Ready For Camp⛺️	18:08

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