Sermons by Sarah Prince

Good morning, Grace. While you guys are watching this video, I'll be on a plane to Ethiopia with some other people from Grace to support our team working in Addis Jamari over there. This morning, we have a special guest, Sarah Prince. She and her husband, Casey, have come over with Kieran and Keller, their children. They're based in Cape Town, South Africa. Years ago, Casey and Sarah were on staff here at Grace back in the old days, and then we had the privilege of sending them over there to be missionaries in South Africa, where they work with a football team called Ubuntu and are involved in their community in many other ways. So this morning, Sarah is going to come share with us a really important message from her heart, and I'm excited for all of us to get to hear from her. Good morning. Good morning, Grace Raleigh. It's so good to be here. It's so good to see your faces. Many of you I know, and it's such a privilege to be here again. We were a part of Grace when it was over there. There, there, there, there. Yep, that way. And for many years, we served at Grace. I was an associate pastor. My husband was a youth pastor. And then this church community sent us 14 years ago, almost 15, if you can believe it, out into South Africa to do ministry. I have a picture of our family, if you haven't seen them walking around. My daughter, Kieran, is in kids ministry now because she loves the kids. That's Keller. And that's my handsome husband, Casey. Behind us is the street where we live. And we will be going back there tomorrow. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. I'm so grateful to be here. And I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about all the other stuff that we do. But I did bring a few copies of my book. And I also have a few postcards. If you don't know us, I'm so excited to meet you. And we have some postcards and some... Can you help me put these out, Casey? He's already on his phone. Can you help me just set... Oh, he's taking notes. Okay. There's four points. That's all you have to know. But then can you just set those out? When you're done. Before, in the next 30 minutes. So we have some postcards and some info about our family if you don't know anything about us, but many of you do. And I just want to say, I was just chatting with someone outside and they were saying, I can't remember when you guys met and I can't believe this is happening. And you know, it's so crazy that you did this. And we always say the reason that we could risk what we do in South Africa is because we have this community to come back to. We've kind of like played, I don't know, poker, but like played all the cards or the chips or the things. And I'm a big gambler. So we gambled all the gambling stuff and we've just put it into South Africa. But we always know we have this community here that loves us, that supports us. And then we can always come home to. So we thank you for your love and support. But that's not what I want to talk about today. So I've been wrestling with something lately. This is the first time in a very long time that I have something that God is showing me, and then I'm like, okay, but God, where is that in Scripture? Usually I'm like really big into the Bible, and I'm like digging, and then that's the thing I want to focus on. But today with this topic, I've come to God curious. God, what is this thing that you've done in our world? Because in 14 years in South Africa, we have built a ministry called Ubuntu Football, where now we've sent 24 young men to America to study, one of who's here, hey-o. And we have a bunch of young men who are playing professionally, a bunch of young men who are studying in South Africa, a bunch of young men who are beginning their lives as incredible men. One of them is my son's soccer coach at his school. It's really beautiful. But as we've done all these other things, God has given us this very rich and vibrant community. This very unique group of people. Kind of different pockets of people that are very strange and very unique and very fun and very sacred. And so I've started to ask God, what is that? One story that highlights the weirdness of our community comes with a cake. So I have a cake here. Our son was diagnosed with autism how many years ago now? He is 12, so about 10 years ago. And we're in the community of South Africa as this happens, not even knowing what autism is about. That's what my book is about, Anguish to Awakening, our journey with Keller, my journey. And I have this group of friends. And I think we got a diagnosis. And maybe the next day, I was at the gym. And I ran into Kate. And she's like, oh, how are you? And I was like, I'm, you know, and I just cried at the gym and told her what happened, and we had this group of women friends, and so she sat with me, she prayed with me, and then maybe a week or two later, she said, we want to get together with you. Come over this night. I show up at her house, and this is the cake for me, and she said, we can do hard things together, and so we're celebrating that. We're at the beginning of a very hard thing, and we will do it together with you. And they had this like key chain thing with quotes and cards, and they just sat with me and cried with me. And I look back at that, think that is so unique to enter into a really difficult time and have people come and just say, we're here in the hard. We're not here for the highlights. We're not here for the good times. We're here now, today, in the hard. And it struck me as so unique. And we've had these kinds of times, these kinds of instances over and over again. And I need to admit that it's not because we're so great at friendship or that we're so great at bringing people around. I think it's a God-given gift. And I think there are some things that God has taught us along the way to help cultivate that community. That's the title today. I can't have a simple, I kept, community doesn't work, initiating community, it's not rich enough. So today's title is Cultivating Koinonia and Orating as Oracles. Because sometimes American or English words don't do it justice. And I want to talk about this. What does it mean to cultivate not just community, not just friends, koinonia, I'll explain that, and how do we operate as oracles? Because I think that's where something happens. You know, I grew up all over the country. I moved a lot. And so only when I became a young adult, I got married, like right after college, three weeks. Don't recommend it, young people. It's worked out, 22 years. But it was crazy. So I jumped into adulthood, went to seminary to become a pastor, and all of a sudden realized many things. Another sermon. But one of them was that I had no idea how to make friends. But I thought I didn't need them. I thought I was like, fine. I was just happy. I was just doing my thing. I was just bebopping around. And I started to realize I needed friends. And it was in this church that I learned the power of friendship and koinonia. We used to have a retreat. Anyone go to koinonia? Koinonia. Yeah. See? We had this retreat and I was dragged to it. Okay, fine. I'll go because I'm like a pastor or whatever. And it was this beautiful time of friendship and connection. And through this place, I learned the importance, the need of koinonia. But you know, a lot of people have never learned this. They've never been in environments where this is pushed, where this is elevated, where this is celebrated. There's lots of statistics on this, but three decades ago, there was a poll that said 3% of Americans had no close friends. 2021, 12% had no close friends. Into the pandemic, 13% of women, 8% of men had lost touch with most of their friends. This is something happening a lot more. Nowadays, some 8% will say they have no friends at all. This is something that's been talked about here. I didn't hear about this because we're in Africa, and in Africa things are done a bit differently. But there's actually a pandemic, an epidemic of loneliness. It's everywhere. And that's a word that just means you're disconnected. You don't have people. You're not anchored. You're not moored by others. And you're just kind of wandering. And it's actually celebrated here. It's just kind of how we do things here. And actually, this epidemic, the Surgeon General says that it affects one out of two adults. And it doesn't just help your mood. It's about your entire body, your entire health. It actually predicts the longevity of your life if you're lonely or if you have people around you. And so when the Surgeon General went around the states, some of the things that he heard were people would tell me all again and again. They felt isolated, invisible, and insignificant. And they said, if I disappear tomorrow, no one will even notice. Now, if this doesn't feel a bit familiar, I'm glad you're here because I have a job for you. Some of us just have people around and we don't know how we did it or why it was given to us. For us, we were just super needy and having a child with autism was one of the big things. We just kind of were like, we're broken, help us. And people came around us, which is what I talk about in the book. But I think most people don't display their need in the way that our family did. We were very vocal about it. But if you feel like you have close community, if you don't know what loneliness feels like, then great. I have a job for you. Because many people feel very, very lonely. Many people feel very, very isolated. All over the world, people are saying that they want community. They want friendship. They want that in their world, but they don't know how to find it. All community is is a sense of belonging, support, shared purpose. And it's a place where the church should be leading. We've got this whole book that is people that did it. I mean, they fought a lot, and they killed each other some, and it was messy, but like they did it. This is the book about it, and yet we are doing it poorly at times. We have a friend who grew up, he grew up doing, his family was doing missions, their South African family, and he is South African, but has moved to New Zealand. He just recently flew from New Zealand to Amsterdam for what? Does anyone know who was in Amsterdam recently? Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. He has a beautiful family. He's very connected. But people all over the globe have been traveling in the, I don't even know, the millions, the trillions, to see this woman sing songs. Now, I hear, I know every song because of my daughter. I know every word. I know every syllable. They're good. They're fine. They're good. They're good. They're good. They're good. Did I say they were good? That is not why people are going to this concert. They are going because people have over and over and over said something like this. Entering the Erez tour was like stepping into an alternate universe where everyone was bursting with joy. I've never encountered such a warm, friendly, and kind crowd. People have called it transcendental. And it embodies love to people all over the world. It's not about the songs. It's this feeling thousands of people have when they're together. They're connected. They're a community. They're being seen and known. Now, I'm not asking any of you to be Taylor Swift, the next one, although my daughter might be. But I don't think we need a concert to create the sacred art of connection. It can happen anywhere. And God shows us how to do it. And it is a word that's more than community. It is that word koinonia in the New Testament. It's roughly translated fellowship, but it means to share together, to take part. And the same idea is found in another Greek word. That's metakos. And it means to have with or to have together. Now, I'm using sacred New Testament words to describe what those people are saying about Taylor Swift. And what I know God is desperate for people to describe about us. And again, if you don't know the feeling of loneliness, then it is your time. If you do, then I'm here to give you hope. Because it is possible among every single one of us. Being here in South Africa has highlighted to me not how special we are as a family to do what we do, but how God is really great because this group of idiots is running this incredible organization in South Africa because it's God's mission, it's God's dream, it's God's plan, and even we can't stop it with all of our fumbles and our foils and our missteps. When God has a plan, he will use the best of us and the worst of us. His plan is to be together. So I have four, I don't have a pamphlet, I'm from Africa. I don't have a pamphlet, but I do have four very simple points. If you're saying, I don't have that. I have people around, but I don't have a deep connection. Or if you're saying, I have it. This is for you. Because it's time to step into something sacred, something real. And none of my examples, I'm going to tell some stories, not a single one is a Bible study. I have the best Bible study. I want to start there. I have the best Bible study. There are these women, and my sister was just in South Africa, and she was with them. There are these beautiful women that I've known for years and years, and we get together, and we cry, and we laugh, and we pray, and we scream out to God, and it is holy. None of these examples are going to be a church or a Bible study because I want to inspire you to dream of where the church could go beyond this. This is holy, but that world needs this sacred thing. So I want you to dream. Okay, so step one. Step one of creating, cultivating koinonia. We'll end with orating as oracles, but cultivating koinonia. And actually cultivating is step three. So you're not ready for the first letter of this sermon. You ready? Step one, introspection. This sounds so simple, but it is so profound. We went to South Africa to help everyone and to save everyone and to do all the great things for Jesus. And then a few years in, we had a son who was diagnosed with autism. And we were like, no, God, not the plan. We're doing some other stuff. We have a lot to do. We have a big plan. We have a big mission. We're going to serve for Jesus. This has happened time and time again to me. It even happened recently where we have a plan and then God says, no, this is a plan. But we were in desperate need. We didn't even know what autism meant. We had to Google it as we started our journey. But this is the first step of community. It isn't creating a Bible study. It isn't finding people to play pickleball with. The first step is introspection. The first step is what is my need? What is happening in here? Number one, introspection. This came through hardship for us. But as we've walked through that hardship, we've had to be really honest. What is it that we need in a community? Who do we need around us? What does it mean to raise kids and to do this life with people in our world? What does that look like? And we've had to be very introspective. This is something people are talking about, not just Taylor Swift people, but all over the world. I recently heard an interview with this woman, Priya Parker. She wrote this book called The Art of Gathering. So I would have thought, I would never picked up this book. I would have thought it's been about like dinner parties, which I love, or like how to host something cute or how to find the Pinterest board. But for her, The Art of Gathering starts with assessing your needs. Because you cannot create a gathering of people where you are authentically a part if you don't know what it is you need in that group. Creating community begins with your own needs. What is my need here? How am I actually feeling? What do I need from other people? That sounds selfish, sounds maybe anti-Christian, but it's true because if I'm going to authentically show up, that means my needs are going to show up. My desires are going to show up. My dreams are going to show up. My brokenness is going to show up. So I need to show up first with my true self, not who I think I should be, not who I want to be, not how I want to save the world. Again, read Sarah and Casey's whole story. Me, just me. And so that starts with being honest. And as I've wrestled with this idea and asked God, where is this in scripture? I've gone to the early church, but I want to start with what I believe maybe the early church was praying. So in Acts, you see the early church and they are wrestling. There are these, talk about misfits. They were running around with Jesus, getting it all wrong, being on the top, being on the bottom, just being a mess. I love them. And then Jesus got killed on the cross. They all went in hiding. They were scared. They were confused. They were doubting. They were a mess. And then he comes back. He rises and boom, everything changes. What's fun about studying the Bible, this part of the Bible, is there is no proof that he rose. You have an empty grave. You have someone who people said they saw, and then he was gone. But here's the proof. Is this group of people something happened in? I love what Kyle was sharing about what is going to happen now with the youth. We don't need to know what happened at Infuge, although I was ready for like a video of like, Infuge, it was so cool, and here's the water slide, and here's when they raised their hands. I was ready for a video. We don't need a video of what happened in Infuge. We need young people who are radically different and on fire for Jesus. That's all the proof we need. We don't need to see the pictures. We don't need to, the dirty clothes, I'm sure, were also proof when you parents washed them. The proof is in the people, and I believe we'll see that. The princes will be praying for the revival here for the young people. And I pray that you adults will come along with them. That's the proof that something happened. So this early church, something happened. Something happened. And they were radically different. And they're walking around just being wild for Jesus Christ. But I wondered, were they introspective? Because you don't really see it. You kind of just see them like, boom, out there, you know, changing the world. What they would have been doing is reading the Old Testament scriptures. I love that. They would have been wrestling and thinking and praying and talking and saying, God, what is my part in building this new world? And so that would have started with introspection. And so we have a simple scripture that you've heard a million times, but I'm going to highlight a couple light. It says here, search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there's any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. The first step for revival is introspection. And the two words to focus on here are search. And it was a word that was used if miners were searching for gold or if Israelites were searching for new territory. They were searching like their life depended on it. Like not a little devotion in the morning, not 101.5 Christian music as they came through on a Sunday morning, not that kind of searching. I mean, searching like your life depends on it. If you don't show up, I have nothing else. That kind of searching is what the first church was doing. And then they were saying, test me. Test me. What needs to be let go? What needs to come out? What needs to rise? What is my place? What is my message? What is my calling? They were saying, test me, show me, reveal in me anything that is going to keep me from you. And then reveal in me how you want to use me. Test me. Do heart surgery on me as you take me out into this mission. You better believe that that early church was on their knees looking at those Old Testament scriptures, begging God, because the Psalms are the Psalms of that. that's the prayers. That's the way they really prayed. Begging God, search me, test me, and lead me to where you have me. So the first step is very simple. Search me and test me. I have a really great quote about this and what we need to do. There can be no vulnerability without risk. There can be no community without vulnerability. There can be no peace and ultimately no life without community. If the revival stays in here, it will die with me. It might go my whole life. But if revival stays here, then it's not done its job. It's not for you. It's not for me. It's for everyone else. But it takes vulnerability. And it takes risk. And so we start there, which is hard, but important. Step two, take initiative. This is a step also. I'm not talking about church, but I love church. Keep going to small group. Keep going to Bible study. Keep going to youth. But start going out into this world. Because this world has an epidemic of loneliness. This world is on fire. This world is in pain. This world is in need. And there are tons of places for you to go into this world and bring the love of God and create a place of belonging. This year, as I wrote my book, I finished my book last year, I was just praying, God, how can I be your hands and feet? How can I go out? What do I have to give? What have I learned that I could share? And at the end of last year, I started at Keller School, this support group of just parents who had kids with special needs or extra needs. And I just said, come once a month, just come and show up. It wasn't Christian. It was just come. We've had it now for almost a year. Every single time people risk, they're vulnerable, they cry out in need every single time. And every single time people risk they're vulnerable they cry out in need every single time and every single time someone shares faith someone shares hope in a real spiritual way because they're sharing what where they are and we're together meeting that need all of us have something to offer someplace Some place we can step out. Some place where we can open up a hand, open up a place where someone can feel not alone. And it takes us going out. And again, the early church did this. Religion was there. The buildings were there. And the early church went out. And you've read this before, but I'm going to highlight one very simple thing. So Acts 2, 41 through 47. You've heard this before so many times. Those who accepted Jesus' message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to the number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. And it continues. I'm scared I have a different version. I'll keep going. 47 is all we have. I'll keep going. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. I love the early church. And I mean, in COVID, I found myself just, when we couldn't meet, just like, okay, well, what did that look like when they first started gathering? And what they did was they just went. They would gather and they would pray and then they would go and they would gather and they would eat and they would go and they would gather and they would sing and they would go. They were just going and going and going. And as they were going, there were numbers added daily, weekly, monthly, because they were going. I think God is calling us to go. We all have something in our hand. We all have something we've learned. We all have something we care about. Let's go into the world. It could be as simple as my husband this year, he started doing paddle. You don't do that here. It's like squash and tennis together. And we have this cool paddle place near our house. And he's decided I'm going to be a paddle person. This is a place where Casey is bringing the love of Christ, the light of Christ. He's creating community in this place. But it calls us to go and to create something new. A quote here is by a guy named Bell Hooks. One of the most vital ways we sustain ourselves is by building communities of resistance, places where we know we are not alone. I hope you come here and you know that you're not alone, but just know that there are a lot of people that might need to come somewhere else to know they're not alone before they can come here to know that they're not alone. And so God is asking us to go and to create that. Step three, cultivate. Here we go. So now we've been introspective. We know what's in our hand. We know we're going to go out. Now we begin to cultivate koinonia. So this is where we nurture connections. We have places of connection and we nurture, we care for each other, we ask how are you doing, how are you really doing, what do you really need? We really reach out to the people around us, to the people in our community. Through our story with Keller we saw this time and time and time again where people would go out of their way and come into our life in radical ways to love us, to serve us, to care for us. And again, it wasn't because we were deserving of that. It was just what people felt on their heart from God to do. Sometimes I didn't even remember that it happened. People would tell me later as I was writing my book that they came and they served us and they loved us. And this is what was happening in Acts also. As they're continuing to go out, God was beginning to cultivate something really special. Let's look at Acts 4 now. It's continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God's grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. From time to time, those who owned land or houses sold them, bought the money from the sales, and put it to the apostles' feet and was distributed to those who had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, would be son of encouragement, I'm going to talk about him later, sold a field he owned and bought the money and put it at the apostles' feet. I love this because it is action. It is the church going out. It is the church that starts in here going out in radical ways, in ways no one expected, in ways they weren't being asked to do, and just saying, what can we do? Who can we bring in? Who can we serve? How can we do this differently? That is what church is, and that is cultivating a koinonia that is different and deeper than I think people are used to seeing for the church. I have another verse that I think really highlights this, and this is in Ephesians 4. So this is when Paul is writing to the church in Ephesus, and he's trying to effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called. For one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. This is the God that we are seeking, and this is the places we are invited to cultivate. And over and over again in our world, we saw people come into our lives and just cultivate this oneness, cultivate this spirituality, just to say, we are with you. We are walking with you. We believe in you. We are coming alongside. They built church all over our world outside of church. Just one little way that this happened was on Keller's first day of school. So we'd walk a long journey with Keller and we get to his first day of school. I was terrified. I think he was okay, but I was terrified. And I reached out to our good friends who had kids at the school and said, Keller's starting school. Can you just meet us at the gate? And can we just all walk in together? And so his brother and sister, not from us, and his sister all met him there. And we walked into his school together. And it was a sacred moment of koinonia, of shared space, where we knew we were not alone, where Keller knew he was not alone. And he continued then building that throughout his life there. We need action to build koinonia. We need action to go into the world and build what God is asking us to build. I'm going to end this part and then finish with step four with this quote. Some people think they are in community, but they are only in proximity. True community requires commitment and openness. It is a willingness to extend yourself to encounter and to know the other. We have to enter in and create sacred places everywhere we are. From a very needy family, I can tell you it's life-changing to know that everywhere you step, when you feel alone, when you feel scared, when you feel uncertain, when people show up as the church around you in a terrifying world, it buoys you with a hope that God is with you. I want to finish with just a fourth question. And that is, who isn't here yet? Who isn't here yet? I used to have dreams before I became a pastor of what the church could look like, more than just the church I had experienced, more than just the people I knew. I wanted diversity, and I wanted different religions, and I wanted people who saw the world differently. I've always been just kind of drawn to that. I've always been drawn to just go as far as I could go and see if something sacred is there. And again, I find that in the New Testament. You know, we know now Paul wrote 14 of the books of the New Testament. When he first came on the scene, everyone knew who he was because he was the one who was persecuting Christians. He was the one speaking out against Christians. He was the one who was the dangerous guy. And even though we have this new religion, we're not too sure about this Paul guy. But there was one person who gave him a chance, and that was Barnabas. In the early church, Barnabas gave Paul a chance and created space for Paul to come in. I want to look at this scripture in Acts 9. It's saying Saul here, Acts 9, starting at the end of 17, at the end of 19, sorry. Saul spent several days with his disciples in Damascus. That's Paul. And once he began to preach in synagogues that Jesus is the son of God, all those who heard him were astonished and asked, isn't that that crazy guy who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call his name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests? Yet Saul grew more and more powerful in baffling the Jews, the religious in Damascus, by proving that Jesus is the Messiah. After many days he had gone by, there was a conspiracy against the Jews to kill him. But Saul learned of their plan. Day and night they kept close watching the city gates in order to kill him. So it wasn't just a weird guy. It was someone they thought was dangerous to their faith. But his followers took him by night and lowered him in a basket through an opening in the wall. Good friends. When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. This person who had to be given a place at the table because religion didn't accept him, didn't understand him, but he had a radical encounter with Jesus Christ. This person was given a space by Barnabas and went to the farthest places, the craziest spaces in all of the world to tell people about Jesus Christ. And I want us to ask, as we dream about Koinonia, who is not here yet? Who is not here yet? I love being here and seeing so many familiar faces, but God has churned in my heart this question over and over again, especially being in South Africa. Who is not at the table yet? Who is not in the doors yet? Who has not heard of Jesus yet? That is where we really begin to cultivate koinonia and the second part, where we begin to operate as oracles. And it's simply in this verse of Peter 4.11. This is my last verse. And it says in Peter 4 11, if anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides so that in all things, God may be praised through Jesus Christ to him be the glory and the power forever and ever. In other versions, it says that, as they, it says they should speak. It speaks of being an oracle. So if Jesus was the word, he then asked us to be the words of God. That's what an oracle means. That we would live as the words of God. And I want to encourage you that the way that we do this is go into places, exist in places where God isn't as clear yet, where God isn't always present in the way we're used to seeing him. As I said, I always prayed about this idea of being around people of other faiths, of other nations, of other backgrounds. And through Keller, who this book is about, he has brought us these friends who are the weirdest people you have ever met. And they are every religion. We say that we're a big joke because it's me, I'm a pastor, and they call me Pastor Prince, and then there's a Wiccan, and there's a Jew, and there is a Buddhist, and there's an agnostic, and there's just our friend Lisa. And so we are like this tribe. And we have a WhatsApp group, and it's called Pastor Prince's Free Range Women. And we are this weird tribe of people. And within this tribe, something holy happens. learned years ago this this idea called holy envy that you go to other people not to tell them what's right and they're wrong not to just change them but you just talk you just open up and you see where something holy is within them something sacred is within them and so now with this group of women, we have had many, many, many holy places. Even in just this past year, the agnostic couple, I married them in December and they were very happy for me to talk about Jesus as I was there officiant. My Jewish friend Emma, her mom died also in December. She asked me to spread the ashes and do a ceremony for her. And my Wiccan friend, her mom has Alzheimer's and she's slowly leaving this earth. And she has asked me to pastor her mom and to pastor her and to do the sermon and the service when her mom passes. And they asked me to tell their kids about Jesus because there's something about that Jesus and there's something about you guys and there's something here. And I ask about Buddhism. And I ask about the Wiccan faith. And I ask about the Jewish faith. But I know that within me is an oracle. And coming from me is an oracle. Not because I'm special. But because God is within me. And the scripture says we have the hope of glory within us. So we can go anywhere. We don't have to fear that our light will be diluted. We don't have to fear that our God will be tamed. We don't have to wonder if he will fully reign because he will forever and ever reign through Jesus Christ our Lord. But we are invited to go into the world as oracles and bring that light to all the places that are needed, and that's everywhere. God is saying go into the schools as oracles. Go into your workplace as oracles. Go into your home and your family as oracles. Be a light from within with what God has done within your heart. Nothing can diminish that. That's what I love again about the early church, and I'll finish here. The early church went into all these places, and they kept saying, you're wrong. We're going to kill you. That can't be. This Jesus can't be. And they said it again and again, all I can say is this Jesus who I've met is my king, and he's my Lord. And nothing could diminish that. One of my heroes in life is Desmond Tutu, and he says this, that we must be ready to learn from one another, not pretending that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God. Because here's what I'm learning. God is bigger and he's greater and he's more profound than what we think. And we have a broken world that's in desperate need of this God and this light and this community. But we need to dream differently and we need to see differently. We need to go differently. We need to cultivate koinonia and we need to operate as oracles. So I want to end here. What do you dream? Coming to America, people are always asking us like, what do you think? And what's your perspective? And what do you think's going on? I don't want to look at what I see. I want to look at what God still needs and what God still wants to do and what God wants to create. And again, that's what Kyle did this morning in just a few moments. We could have left after that. God is ready for us to dream about places of koinonia and us operating as oracles in a world that is in desperate need of his light and his love. So I want to invite us to dream what that could look like and see that revival that Kyle's talking about in all the places that need it most. Let's pray. God, I thank you that you are a great God, that you are not limited to our words or our songs or our prayers or how we've seen you before. God, you are greater. And I pray, God, that you would move within us to help us to dream of a new community, of new closeness, of a new connection, of new light, of new love. And help us to be your oracles. Help us to be as the early church who was pushing farther and farther to tell people of the love of you, Jesus Christ. May we not hold back in what we know you can do and how we know we can shine your light all over the world. We love you, God. It's in your name we pray. Amen.