Sunday Service 3.29.26

Good morning. Can you get on your feet for me this morning? Welcome to Palm Sunday. So glad that you came to hang out with us this morning. If you didn't hear, if you weren't listening, the kids are in with us this morning. That was a fantastic job. Can you do me a favor? Before you leave today, can you train some of these adults to do that next week? Maybe, maybe not. I've got a couple of quick announcements for you and then we're going to get into worship. All right. What is happening Wednesday night?

The egg hunt. If you have a station, please be here at 530, no later than 545. If you don't have a station and you want to be here, we're going to start setting up probably before 5 o'clock. But I know a lot of you have to work, so 5 o'clock if you're going to be here, Wednesday night, we're going to have a fantastic time, right? We're going to hunt some eggs, maybe. She's not sure. Somebody's going to hunt some eggs, right?

We might need to do some jumping jacks this morning. I think the kids may be the only ones that showed up awake and alive this morning. Amen? All right, candy. Anybody like candy? All right, if you haven't donated, today's the last day. If you didn't bring any, Pastor Sarah, where's Pastor Sarah? Wave your hand right there in the back. She will take your donation and go purchase the candy for you. Okay, we still need some more candy. You can never have too much candy as long as you pay attention to when the little ones get it, right?

And then Easter Lily, if you want to purchase an Easter Lily in memory of someone or in honor of someone for next Sunday, please see a staff member, please see Pastor Andrea, somebody today, let's make sure we got that information down so we can take care of it, amen? All right, kids, it's family service. So I know, I know my daughter loves this first song, and so I want to invite all the kids right down here to the front.

If y'all want to come down to the front. And if you're a kid at heart and you want to kind of work your way down, that's allowed too. But we're going to get into that. Amen, Brother Darrell. Come on, Brother Darrell. Come on. I see you. We're not going to ask you to do anything. You can stand right there and you're just going to face this way. Face Pastor Nathan and the team. There we go. All right. So we're going to be ready to worship. Hey, are you ready to worship? Yeah.

All right, let's pray real quick, all right? Father God, we thank you. We thank you for the day it is. We thank you for coming and dying on the cross for us. Father God, we thank you for what this week celebrates and represents. We pray, Father God, that you would be pleased with our praise and our worship. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Come on, let's worship today. Come on, y'all know this. You better put your hands together. Please, when I'm doubting. Come on, sing it if you know it. Please, into faith. I praise when I feel it. When I don't.

♪ My praise is as long as I breathe ♪ ♪ As long as I breathe ♪ ♪ Be quiet ♪ ♪ My God is a ♪ ♪ I won't be quiet ♪ ♪ On this next one ♪ ♪ No, but this just declares the name that God is ♪ ♪ So we're gonna declare today ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're sovereign ♪ ♪ Praise 'cause you reign ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're true ♪ ♪ 'Cause you're sovereign ♪ ♪ Praise 'cause you reign ♪ ♪ I praise 'cause you're faithful ♪ ♪ Praise 'cause you're true ♪ ♪ Oh, I praise ♪ ♪ I praise 'cause you're sovereign ♪ ♪ 'Cause you rose ♪

Good morning again. I'm going to let you be seated. Y'all stay right here. Sit where you are. A little back. So it's family service today. And I'm going to pull a Mr. Rogers. I'm going to put my mic down.

All right, so the next song we're going to sing is called Gratitude. Has anybody heard it? Y'all out there, you heard it? I love the song. I love the meaning behind the song. I'm going to read a book for all of us, not just for the kids. So listen carefully to the words, okay? This is one of my child's favorites. We read it every night. Someone fantastic gave it to us. Okay, are y'all ready? Can you see? Okay.

Once in the kingdom, on a plain so wide, lived a lion cub, Levi, with a bright golden hide. A king ruled the land, both good and wild. He took care of all, each and every child. Their way bringing gifts for the king to save. The strongest lions made a crown of gold. Levi thought, I'll make something when I'm old.

Levi's family made a coat woven with color. He looked at his tiny paws and thought, "I'll leave that to my brother." So he roamed the savanna chasing bees and butterflies, looking for treasures, feathers, or some sort of prize. The sun rose high as Levi heard trumpets ring, signaling it was time to bring gifts to the king. "Oh no!" cried Levi. "The time has come. I can't see the king. My gift is not done."

So Levi ran and hid in the bush where no one could see. Then he heard a far-off voice sing a sweet melody. So Levi followed the sound. His curiosity sparked through tall grass and quick streams. His little paws marched. In a quiet clearing, a lone lion sang a song, the source of the melody he'd heard all along. The lion said with a smile, I hoped you would come. Please sit for a

Levi's eyes widened. Maybe this wise lion. The lion replied, his voice soft and clear. The greatest gift lies within you, my dear. More than gold or treasures or the fanciest things, you were made to bring a hallelujah to the king. Praise the king is what hallelujah means. A simple thank you is worth more than it seems. You can say thank you as you sing out a song, roar out a song.

Shouting loud, singing strong. Your heart is what your king desires the most, not something in which you can show off or boast. So get up and praise him. Don't wait to start. There's no greater gift than the gift in your heart. Levi sprung to his feet and let out a mighty roar, telling himself, don't you get shy on me. He arrived at the plain with a pounce and a leap. Levi readied his lungs, breathing in, breathing deep.

He threw up his hands in praise to the king, singing hallelujah, his greatest gift to bring. All the creatures joined in in a chorus so grand, praising the king across the land. This is a loved book, sorry guys. As Levi looked up, he saw a familiar face, the lion who had brought him from his hiding place. The king looked down with a smile for the cub, and Levi knew he was completely

Dear children, remember what Levi's story is about. Give thanks to the Lord. Don't be shy. Let it out. Never forget you have a song to be sung for you to have a lion inside of your lungs. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Let your heart sing like a lion's roar. Let your praises ring. In every moment, let gratitude be for King Jesus who loves you eternally. Before you close the book, there's one thing to do. Let out your roar that's within you.

You ready? It's time to let your voice soar on the count of three. Ready? One, two. Guys, that's all God wants. He wants us to bring ourselves to him. It's that simple. Can we do that this morning? Can we worship the king? Thanks, guys. Come on, if you would stand to your feet today. Come on, and before we enter into the words of this song, if you feel comfortable across this room, this is a significant sign of thanksgiving and praise. If you would lift your hands today.

to bring attention to who he is. Come on, let's show these young people how to worship, how to call upon the name of the Lord. God, we just give it to you today, Father. Lord, you're worthy of our praise. Father, there is so much, God, that we have to be thankful for in this house today, Lord. God, and we just want to take a moment, God, to give it back to you, Lord. Lord, so we worship you, Father. You're worthy. Worship. God knows. I could sing it, Lord.

I praise you again and again. All that I have is not much. I'm a thing for a heart. Sing it out. I've got one response. I've got one. Just one. I've got just. I praise you again. I have is a heart. I'm a thing for a heart. I'm nothing else for a heart. Come on, declare this today. We sing, come on my soul. Come on my soul.

Oh, don't you get shy on me, lift up your song.

♪ Praise you again and again ♪ ♪ There's a heart, I know it's not much ♪ ♪ I'm nothing else for a heart to my soul ♪ ♪ Don't you get shy on ♪ ♪ I am in love ♪ ♪ Don't you get shy ♪ ♪ Strong in love ♪ ♪ When I throw up my head ♪ ♪ Praise you again and ♪ ♪ All that I have is love ♪

No, it's not much. Nothing else before. Except for a heart. We sing high. We thank you for your presence. Kids, I want you to think about something. And adults as well. This next song we're about to sing talks about the Lord providing everything that we have need of.

And if y'all ever been out in the field and you've seen flowers that grow, maybe in your yard after I don't cut the grass, the weeds start to grow and there's flowers out there. And we wonder how they got there. Like what happened? Nobody planted them. They grew, they look beautiful. There they are. They're just growing and doing their thing. Or maybe you've wondered how the birds fly around and they don't have restaurants for birds, do they? Not that I know of. But the Lord provides for them, right? They have food. They get what they need.

They're about flying around and they always get what they need. And the Bible tells us that just like the flowers that grow and they look beautiful, the birds that they don't have anywhere to go eat but they're provided for, God provides for us in that same way. That the Lord has everything that we have need of. That there's nothing that each one of you has or even your parents have that the Lord has not already made available. And for us in this room today, the Lord has everything we need.

Man, I think about the things that happen in the world and in our life that we're unaware of. We don't know how things just happen, but God is in control of it. God's behind the scenes. He's in the scenes. He's going before us. He's going behind us. He's in the middle of it. And so this morning, whatever you have need of, whatever it is that you're facing,

For y'all down here, it's seemingly smaller, but for you it's a big thing still. For us as adults, the complications and the issues follow us from elementary school until our adulthood. We're always being faced with challenges, but it's how we approach that in light of who God is that matters. And so this morning, just right now, if you just want to close your eyes and begin to reflect on the goodness of God, just take a moment to think about all He's given you.

We do a thing in our house, thankfulness, that each day we try to remember something that we're thankful for in that day. So right now, begin to say, God, Lord, I know I'm here because I need to just experience your presence. Lord, I need to call on your name. Lord, I'm facing these circumstances in my life. Lord, maybe it's a test, maybe it's a trial, maybe it's something, Lord, life-threatening today. But Lord, whatever it is, the Bible's clear. Lord, we can find our need in you. We can find that answer in you, God.

So we just give it to you. We surrender it as a sign this morning by lifting our hands, by, Lord, drawing attention to your name, Lord, that you are in control. How do we lift you up today above everything, above every circumstance in our life, Lord? Your word. And we'll sing this out today. You know what your Lord Father had. We declare this truth today. Spare her all back worries, Lord. If I have love, we'll say.

The Lord will provide. Everything I need. My Father has it. Every single time. The Lord will provide. Come on, this is why. We seek you first, Lord. We seek first the King. And He also will. And I, my God, is able. God's not empty. I'm still believing. Yes, we are, Lord. So come, all you weary.

I need everything I've ever had. My Father has been every single time. Oh my, nothing I need.

Come on, as our pastor comes, just begin to lift up the land of the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

You'll provide. Oh, hallelujah, right? Hallelujah. Has he provided? I think we're all in this room today, and most of us can say, I can shout the hallelujah because I know who God is. And I know I can sing that song, not just the words and not just because it sounds good, because I know he has provided it.

He's been faithful to me. He's been faithful to my family. He's been faithful to my needs. He's provided every step of the way. So what makes me think he's going to fail now? He has provided. He is still on the throne. And I know it's a week early, but here's what I can tell you. He went and took away the keys of death, hell, and the grave, and he hasn't let go of them in 2026. So we can shout. We can shout in praise and give him glory this morning.

because he is worthy of all praise today. Amen. One more time. Can we lift our hands together this morning? In our own way, just give him praise. Father, we thank you this morning.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing us to be here today. Thank you, Lord, for my brothers and sisters. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you, Lord, for providing. Thank you for mercy and grace. Thank you for this new day that you've given to us. This is the day the Lord has made. And I am here to shout and to give praise and glory and honor to your name this morning.

So, Lord, we just pray throughout the remainder of this service, Lord, that you truly would be glorified in everything that transpires on these grounds this morning. You have been faithful. You are faithful. And you will be faithful. So, Lord, thank you, Lord. I praise you this morning, Lord, for all your many blessings to my life.

And Lord, to this church body today, you are a good, good father. And we give you all praise for it. Give me my hand clap of praise this morning. Hallelujah. How many of you love that story this morning about Rory? It's a good truth. And sometimes we think, man, why are they doing a children's story at the beginning of adult service? Well, listen, we're all one big church. And sometimes we need to be reminded...

And sometimes it's not something high and mighty. It's just something simple as a reminder to say, you know what? I have a lot to roar about today and to shout a hallelujah for. Amen. It's a good looking bunch here this morning. Good to have y'all in service with us today. Amen. They're going to help me in a little while, but y'all make me seated right now. Okay. Praise the Lord. Always a good looking group.

Very special day, today is Palm Sunday as we get ready to celebrate this Passion Week as we look forward to Easter Sunday next week. We remember Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem where the crowds were singing, Hosanna to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And we shout Hosanna and welcome Him here to this house this morning. And I know He's here today, why? Because I brought Him with me and so did you.

And we know and we can feel and sense his presence in our midst this morning. Today, you might be looking around, if you're visiting with us, it's a joy to have you here at the Lord's house at Centerpoint. I want you to feel at home, and you might say, this is a little different type of service.

But we look forward to the fifth Sunday of every, when we have a fifth Sunday throughout the year, we have a family service. And we bring all of our children in here with us because, listen, we're not just the adult church and then there's the nursery and then there's the children's church. We're all one church. We're the body of Christ. And it's good for us, from my perspective, to have children come in here and learn what it means, not just to roar, but to hear us roar.

to hear us sing hallelujah and to ask those questions about what hallelujah means and for us to be able for them to look around and to see you know people worshiping God

Throwing up their hands and then you have the opportunity to go home and maybe in the car and they'll ask a question about that or two. It's a wonderful teaching opportunity, but for them to be in the atmosphere and experience a mighty move of God. I can remember growing up in my home church, we had certain men that were, I considered them giants of the faith.

and I learned to look at them and hear them pray and be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit and I learned to pray through going to the old prayer room and hearing them wait and wail before God and it's good to have our children in that type of atmosphere so that's why we do it this morning and we welcome them to our service today. Well with today being a family service we're going to do something a little different. I know you probably think well

It's Palm Sunday, so we're going to hear the traditional Palm Sunday message. I'm sorry that you're going to walk away a little saddened this morning about that. We're going in a little bit of a different direction, but because we have...

all the family here together. We've been sharing with you a little bit about some exciting plans and opportunities that the Lord has made available to us moving forward. Vision focus about our facilities and things that the Lord is doing in our church. We shared a little bit about this with you in our annual church business meeting back at the end of February. So now we kind of want to follow that up with some

some more plans and some more interest and you might even have some questions a little later on to ask us but I've asked Pastor Nathan and Brother David to come up this morning and they are kind of, they're very instrumental in what the Lord is leading us into. Both of them have specific giftings and abilities that the Lord has granted them with to help us lead

lead us into this new step forward when it comes to growth and opportunity and facilities and land and all these different things. So I appreciate them being here and I appreciate their desire and their willingness to help lead us into this new adventure moving forward. So guys, y'all come this morning. When I was grabbing this mic and Nathan had his, do y'all remember back in the 90s and early 2000s when we'd have offering and there'd be a special singing to a track? This isn't that.

But it did make me think about it for just a second. You may have something planned, but I do not. That was not on the script for me. Man, this is exciting. Pastor entered into that segue nicely, and it's really encouraging to be up here with David, honestly. It's kind of surreal at the time, because he and I grew up in this church. You were there when I was born. I was not there when you were born, because you're a little bit older than me, and

And so we've grown up knowing each other. We've gone different paths. He's gone off to Alabama to school and then up to Washington and come back here now. And now we play on the worship team together. He serves on the board. We...

We kind of do ministry together and it's really kind of full circle for me. And you know, when we were talking about how do we set the stage for what we're about to talk about this morning, Pastor wanted us to kind of build some excitement to kind of encourage y'all to see the vision that we've been working on behind the scenes with a team of people that are sometimes smarter than us. Sometimes as an understatement, most of the time smarter than us all the time. And we've been trying to bring this vision to light. And here we are in this moment.

And I believe God has set the stage for this time at this season of our church to take us to the next level. And I believe that looking back at the history of that is important because it takes us from where we were and gets us to where we're going. And many of you in this room, we're going to go back and Brother Phil, Pastor Phil can put this up on the screen. This is the timeline, the history of Centerpoint Assembly. And we're going to go way back.

1952. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand if you were born in 1952, but I know there may be a few of you. Ms. Dixie raised her hand, so I'm going to call her out. But

1952 is when the church at Chickasaw was established. Now, I can almost guarantee that there is no one that was a member of the church or even an attending person of the church when it was established in 1952. But we start there because we're trying to get you to the place to understand that we'll see in just a moment. We're coming up on the 75th anniversary of the establishment.

the establishment of this body of believers. Now we've changed names because being called Chickasaw First Assembly when you're not in Chickasaw is a little confusing so we did have to change names but there's been a lot that's taken place since 1952. So when we move along from 1952 to really where we are today a lot happened. I'm not going to get into the history of that because one I was not alive I mean I was 92 I was three I know Alabama won a national championship I

Got an amen from over here. That's all I know, but I did not put that on the timeline. I thought I would mention that. But we purchased the land that we sit on today. We purchased it. Now, we know 92 was a long time ago, and so it's like, what happened in that time? But we have to understand that the purchase of this land was taken from a vision even before our pastor that currently has been here died.

A long time. Now, we figured it out the other day. It was eight, 20, holy moly, like, decades. I was talking in decades the other day. Like, now we can operate in decades. But this took place in a vision for this church beyond, I love it, one man, like, one person. This was not just, you know, Pastor Spence came along, and then he just wanted to move the church out of Chickasaw. You know, that guy just changed everything. We had to change our name. Like, this was a vision of our body. And then...

He came along, and I mean, the vision was just carried forth. And so from 1992, we had a lot that transpired. We operated in Chickasaw. We did the thing there. You know, we had many things that happened. And I think it's worth it. The reason we keep directing our attention this way when we're talking about this, to anybody who is not clear to it, we're so blessed that we've got our former pastor here.

- Amen. - They got this whole process started. - Amen. - That's the reason we keep kind of turning this way. - Yeah, the purchase of the land was done under his leadership. And so it really is a full circle again, David and I being up here, brother Guy being back here, just seeing this take place,

It's surreal for me. And so from 92 to 2003, we had a lot of things that happened. But I throw this in there because it's going to bring us to today where we are in a moment. But 2003, unbeknownst to us, we had not done much work with this land here. But there was what we know. If you were at the business meeting, you've heard David and I's grievances time and time again about wetlands.

wetlands. We're not going to talk about wetlands this morning because we're here to encourage you, but wetlands are discouraging, I'll be honest with you. But there was a law that was passed due to some hurricanes, and the wetlands...

plan changed so it changed the landscape of this property but still in light of that we moved forward to try to get our building here to get our church moved here and so in an effort to do that we come to the next timeline where this is kind of the big thing we we sold the old Chickasaw church now I know that was a big monumental moment from 1952 to 2007 we sold the church and

in Chickasaw. Now, if you've ever been to Kansas and Thompson, and you've seen that church that's sitting there, that is where we operated. That is where our church was for many, many decades, nearly, yes, a half a century, essentially, when we operated in that. When we sold the building and we coexisted in that building for two years, for two years, we and another church operated together in

I wasn't old enough to understand, but it seemed everything went smooth from my standpoint as a teenager. Like, it all went good. The only thing I have grievances for, and thank God we don't have to do this anymore, is that we broke down service every Wednesday and set it back up every single Wednesday. The sound equipment, everything, because we operated in the same venue. But we did that for two years. And then we get to 2009 when we actually moved out of the building and we operated in Chickasaw First Baptist Gym for...

For many, many years, like it felt like years. It was just, but it was great. It was a great time.

Like, I look back at that, and that was some of the most pivotal times of the Lord moving in my life. I mean, I'm not going to get into my testimony, but my testimony happened right in that year, in 2009. And we're talking about just things that are setting the stage for where we are today. And so from 2009, we move on. Two years happened that we operated in that gym. Youth service on Tuesday night, because we didn't want to bump up against the First Baptist, so it was cool. We had some of our youth that would go to the First Baptist youths.

youth on Wednesday, some of theirs that would come to us. It was a cool experience. I know David was out and in a lot during that time, but it was a very, very fun experience for me to be a part of that. Then we get to 2011, and this is kind of where we get into the meat of where we are today. We broke ground, and I use that term loosely, broke ground, but I'll let David take over here, but we started the process here at this facility. Sure, and one

One of the things that's interesting between 2009 and 2011, it's true, I wasn't around, I was either in Tuscaloosa or later up farther northeast, regrettably. What's interesting, Phil, if we could go to the very next slide, we were talking about this this morning. There was a lot of literal groundwork that needed to happen, figurative and literal. Anybody aware with the topography of this property understands that flat ground is at a premium.

But what's interesting to me is there was a lot of groundwork involved. But look at this. January, we break ground. We pour the foundation. Look when we're done. All these years we've been going through, but once the foundation was laid. Now, was there underlying work that went into it? You bet. Tons. But man, once the foundation was laid.

Well, I think about the story as I'm reading through the Old Testament right now about people that may have just been born and walked into the Israelite camp right around the time they went into Jericho. And like, man, this is great. We marched around the city seven times and the walls fell down. And everybody else is like, we were in the wilderness for a long, long time. Like, listen, y'all need to just hold up. And so if you've been a part of that process, you understand there was some wilderness, right? Don't give a too loud of an amen, but, you know, it was there.

Let's go to the next one. Hold on now. There's a big gap again. You know, we were 2003, 7, 9, 11, 11, 23. I think there's a couple ways to look at this. One thing you can say, well, why did we stop doing stuff? The other one is like, think about the growth of our church since we moved in here to what we're looking at now. Some of the growing pains that we're looking to address now, maybe they didn't even exist back then. Yeah.

Think of growing pains as a blessing, is the way we're looking at it. 23 is an interesting year because we established a committee, and what we're going to talk about, I want you to keep in mind that what we're talking about today is not why that committee was established. The board came to our asset development committee and said, you know, we've got some student ministries and different things. They just need some space outside. Could we just put up a pavilion?

just on some of that land out there. You know, we had gone through 2020 where we had kind of used some of that land for our drive-in services. So it's like we knew we had some land that we could use, but can we just get a pavilion? We looked at quotes for a pole barn. You know, just what's it going to take to erect some sort of structure so that the Royal Rangers, they're on top of the, I call them the missionettes. I have no impact. They're always the missionettes to me.

They're all on top of it. Can't we get these boys outside under a pavilion or something? So we looked at that, and then we thought to ourselves, well, hold on now. We've got land here. Maybe some of it we can't use because of the wetlands, but even this land that we can use, why are we going to put up this structure that in maybe just two or three years we're just going to be tearing it back down? So we thought about these things, and the board said, well, hold on. Before we go and put up something temporary out there,

What is it going to take to do something a little bit more permanent? What can we do with our land? And so in 2024, we did a feasibility study and we said, OK, we've got 11 ish acres of unused land back there. These wetlands. What can we do with it? What will it cost to do something? 2024 was a trying year because we got our answers. We ran down those figures fast.

We talked about it briefly in the business meeting back in February. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably if you add the dirt work in, probably over a million dollars that would increase the value of the property, zero. It was tough, but we had to get the answer, so we did. And so we kept on moving. We said, okay, well, we've got some land. What can we do?

And we weren't really sure. Well, before we move to David, I want to give credit to that committee because these years to you as timelines to these people, I know they've probably been yelling at David and I like we want to do more. And so if you were a part of that original asset development, I know we've got some serving in the nursery. Would you stand your feet? Miss Kim, Miss Dixie, I know you're a part of that. I want I want you to give them a hand. Andrew was in it. Brother Joe, you stand up. I know we've had Brother James was in that.

I mean, I looked at the dates in our group chat that we started April 2023, and here we are three years later, and I'm sure along the way, y'all were like, what are these two clowns doing? Like, running this, like, where are we going? But, man, they were a great team, working and understanding that, hey, all of this happened, and you'll see in a moment that the reason all of this took place, what I believe, and we've talked about this behind the scenes, is the Lord was at work

with things that we don't even know about. And it's coming to fruition right now in our season that we're in. And I'm believing that God's going to bless it. So I'm sorry to cut you off, Dave, but I wanted to give recognition to those, that team, because they've been through a lot in the years in the past. There was a lot of hurry up and wait. We would do, we would do intermittent projects. And I mean, you were right. If you look at some of our messages in that group text, sometimes they seem very optimistic. They're like, you know, I've

I think we've got this going. And then when you look at it in hindsight, you kind of have to smile and shake your head. But so what we decided was that, okay,

If we're going to do something permanent with the property as a whole, what we want to make sure is that we don't build on top of ourselves. Basically, anything we do is going to be a part of something bigger. We don't want to be tearing down what we've already built up. So that's what this means when it says a master plan subcommittee was formed. And we developed a master plan. We're going to show you what that looks like in a little bit. And some of y'all, I think we've shared some of those pictures before. There will also be pictures you haven't seen before.

But that's what the master plan was to make sure that anything we did wasn't going to hinder anything else we wanted to do in the future. March 2025, we taught we at this point we had already hired a GMC engineering firm, architectural firm to help us with this plan. They helped us out. We've still got them on retainer.

They said, listen, there's a couple of different things you can do. We talked about this in February. It's like you can do it out here, but man, it would be really convenient if we could go in this direction. So in March of last year, we started approaching the two separate landowners right next door. We talked about it at the business meeting. It didn't work out. We thought we would be able to get it done. It didn't happen. But once again, God's working in the background.

20 years later, which by the way, in terms of the federal government is like that. It's a miracle that these are being considered, the consideration is ongoing to redo these regs just 20 years later. That's nothing. November 2025, we talked about this at our business meeting. Proposed regulations, final rule regarding waters of the United States, wetlands come out. Comment period ended in January 2020.

We're on hold right now, which means our next date, we talk about it, thank you for giving me two, we're establishing a new building team. This is important because in June, if you'd give me one more, this is a rough estimate. We can't control the federal government, praise God. Sometime in the summer, getting in the interim, we're not slowing down. What did we talk about with this building? Before the foundation was laid, groundwork was happening.

So what we have done now is in kind of in the shoes of the old asset development committee, we're establishing a building team. And so this morning, out of a kind of abundance of excitement for myself and this team, knowing what we're looking forward to, I feel like whenever you kind of name that group and you get a

people in place, it becomes real, right? Whenever you say, hey, we've got a team. And so this morning, what we wanted to do is just take a moment. If you are a part of this building team moving forward, if you would just stand to your feet, I want to bring some recognition. If you don't know who you are, then you forgot the phone call that we had and the message. But these are some of the ones, some of them are working in the nursery. These are people that in this church serve in different ministries, have a part of, you know,

hands-on day-to-day here in the trenches working with our kids, working with our students, working with the adults on the worship team, in the sound booth, in the nursery, serving on off day, all kinds of things. And so we put together this team to basically say, hey, we're at this point now to where it's real. Like we've got to make some decisions. And the asset development committee had run their course, done the thing. And so we need to begin to have tangible design decisions

standards, whatever we want it to look like and move forward with the process. And so we've established this team, the board has approved it, and we're at that stage right now to where we're moving forward with the building process. And again, this is all in an effort to get to the ultimate goal of having the facilities here to fulfill the ministry that God has called us to. And so looking at that, as they're happening right now, we're getting to that place to where in just less than a year, we're going to be at our 75th anniversary.

And so today, you know, the purpose of this is to bring you up to speed to where we are, but to also encourage you with understanding. And Pastor's message is going to roll right into this to give us the foundation to understand that this church that we operate in is like we are his temple. Into the 75th anniversary, you can put the last slide and you can show the total timeline here. You see the gap from 1952 to where we are next year in 75 years. A lot has taken place.

There's a lot of things that God's doing inside, and I think about the souls and the lives that were changed because that timeline does not have the room to fit the people that have been impacted through the ministry of CenterPoint, but we want that to continue.

Like I look at that and I don't see wasted time. I don't see a long, arduous process. Man, it's taken us 75 years to get to where we are. I think of two things. I think of 75 years of blessing and that God has sustained us. And I think of the future. I think that God has prepared us for this place. Pastor talked about it just the other day about churches closing their doors at a high rate.

At a high rate around the world. We don't want to be that church. We want God to bless us. We don't want to stay stagnant. We don't want to be satisfied with where we are. We want to grow in the right ways for people to come to know the Lord. Not just in numbers. Not just taking people, you know, that are somewhere else. We want people to come to know the Lord. And so looking at this, we know that we have a goal. And Pastor's going to talk about that later. But we've got to get to that place to where we see the vision. And we see what's taking place. And we see God's work at hand.

And so we wanted to show you a few of these images in just a second that kind of highlight what we're moving into with this building committee, with this team, with the church. Because just because you're not on the team doesn't mean you don't have a say. If you were at the business meeting, you understand that our church is open door. Like if you want something, you ask. If you need to find something out, and the reason I made them stand up is so you can go hound them. You know, if you got a question, Dave and I don't take them. We defer to these guys. So we'll put that list out there. We'll put their cell phone numbers, their addresses. Yeah.

Everything, you know, you send them postcards constantly. But if you have an idea, after the business meeting, I had several people come up to me and was like, what about this? What about this? And some of the things we had thought about, some of it was like, hey, I've never thought about that before, maybe. And so you are the body of this church.

Like, I want you to understand that. Like, I mean that with every fiber of my being. Like, I could not be the youth pastor here if it wasn't for my wife, if it wasn't for these leaders, if it wasn't for this church, if it wasn't for you as parents. Like, we would not be an effective ministry. And so as a body at large, we have to understand that there is something bigger than any one person, any one group, any one ministry. It is our church.

And so this first picture is going to show kind of our land. If you don't know, we've got a lot of land. David alluded to it earlier. Eleven acres. There are wet stuff back there. And this is what we have. And so we kind of have a football field right beside it, sitting back there with a lot of land in the middle. That is how much land we have here at the church.

So the little portion down there, the red portion, is what we're going to get into, the little white little building. That is where we sit today. And so understand that we've got a lot of places to grow into. But the process that we're getting into now with this building committee is the next phase. Okay, Lord, what do we need to do next? And we've identified that we have some needs with classroom sizes, ministries that need to grow. And so for us to do that, our goal with the Asset Development Committee was to assign people

the next need and we came up with hey we need some type of gym we need a structure that we can house all these things and we can run community outreaches we can do a lot of different things and so we come to this next slide and this kinda shows the next proposal that we're working on this is our vision for the next phase

Now this is a small rendering because again, this was made without a building team. This is just a layout and this is where we have left off. Our building team is going to come in and we're going to design this thing to look good, to function right, to be the next thing that we need. But a lot of work has taken place to get to this point in our church.

And so when we're looking at this, and Pastor's going to lay out kind of the foundation for this next effort that we're approaching, I want us to visualize this and understand that this is a tangible goal. This is something we can strive towards. A lot of, and even though I know behind the scenes a lot of this talk that we've had over the years, it's hard sometimes to get our mind around it. It's hard to be like, yep, we keep talking about this every year. I think about Pastor Phil trying to get the kitchen done. Man, we didn't even throw that in there. I didn't do that to you.

Holy cow. Like, I mean, he turned every stone. But just a lot of work that's taking place. But

to understand where we are and that we have something at hand, like that we're moving towards something and there's a vision of what God wants to do. And we're in that season and we're in that path that God has for us. David, anything you want to add to that? Yeah, I mean, if you just look at this image, for people who haven't recognized it yet, the red building and the kind of the middle portion, that's where we are right now. We are...

looking at something that's going to not only benefit us as a church, we're looking to benefit our community. I don't think y'all realize, for the size of church, we already do a lot. We have voting here. We bring in Speed the Light district conferences here. We do a lot for the community already. We are broadening the scale of what we can bring to our community to reach the lost. Yes.

Yes, it will benefit those in here. We'll be able to get the rural rangers out of impacts here. Yes, that's all true. Everything we do with this project is to reach. And if you just look at the scale, obviously things will change. Like Nathan said, we're going to nail down some different things as this process goes along. We are broadening the scope of what we can do for our community. Amen.

All of these little boxes, if you're on the bottom half of the screen, these are all spaces where different ministries can take place. Obviously, the gym in the middle is the big kind of set piece, but just imagine every one of those smaller rooms. That's a chance for somebody, somebody's child, somebody's teenager to come in and learn about God.

every single room amen and we can go to that next image pastor phil this just kind of shows again this is all loose we're in a flowing process but this just kind of gives you a vision of where we are this is looking at a back view of our church and so the goal is to have this tie into our existing facility we don't want this to overrun and if you've been a part of we've had different committees trying to set this building in here our sanctuary redesign and it's all kind of reached a

a point to where we're like, we don't want to do this yet until we get to the next stage. And so the fact that we have something of this nature means that we can move forward in a lot of different areas and that we have a lot of different things that we're trying to do. And so we wanted to have this available for you. You can go to the next image. And this is what we're going to kind of leave up for Pastor to kind of go into his message in just a moment, to see the future at hand. Like this image

It is a building, as David alluded to, it's nothing more than just a building if we just build it and we just have it sitting there. If we do that and we say, man, we did a job, we passed the regulations, the Lord blessed us, we can develop all this, and we've got a building,

But we don't fill it with the purpose that God has for us. We've missed the point. And Pastor talks about it all the time. We've got to keep the main thing the main thing. We've got to focus on what it is. And I think about that song that we were just singing, The Lord Will Provide. If we do what we're called to do, and if the Lord somewhere along the line redirects us, I pray that we're attentive to his ear to hear that.

And be like, this is what we need to do. Our building team, we didn't just pick them because they serve. We didn't just pick them. They are spirit-filled people who hear the voice of God. And so I hope in those meetings that we get there and God's directing our steps, that we think about, as David said before, the people that are going to be in those classrooms.

How can we minister to this community? How can we take care of our own? How can we grow this? How can we give opportunities for those to come to know the Lord? That should be more than just a building. That should be a place for God's presence to operate and to use us as this church to help this community, to help the lost, to win souls, and to get to the place that God has for us. And so, man, I'm excited. I mean...

I've seen this image and these things going on for a while, but I don't know if you're as excited as I am in seeing this and understanding that this is something that's real, that God's doing. And, you know, this message this morning that Pastor's going to bring to us gets us to the heart of understanding that, man, I think about the temple and the sacrifices they brought in the Old Testament and how important that was for that community, how

How important it was for those people. And when I look at this building and I look at my family and I look at this church and I look at the people that we minister to, I think about God's presence residing in there and us bringing to completion what he started back in 1952.

Why the church was formed, why the land was purchased, why this building was built, why God has allowed these things to happen along that timeline to bring us here. And Lord, help us carry that to the best of our abilities with you in mind. And I'm believing that the future is bright here at CenterPoint, and God is going to do great things. And so thank you for letting us speak this morning. Thank you for your time. Pastor, I'm going to invite you to come up to bring us home into the Word of God.

But I just want you to be in prayer for our committee and this team this morning and our church as we move forward and believe for great things of what God is doing here at the church. Amen. You know, it's exciting times. And I think sometimes that we look around at what is happening in our church and we think about the future or sometimes we get focused on

building project or a building plan or expansion of ministries and that kind of takes the excitement in our attention but I think they Nathan and David hit the nail on the head when they said listen it's not about the building

I think if we sit here today and we focus on we're going to build a gymnasium and we're going to build classrooms and we're going to expand to where we can breathe in our ministry and it's about the building, we're going to miss it. There are churches right here in this city right now that focused on facilities that are closing at this moment.

It's not the building. The building just becomes a tool that God blesses us with to facilitate the outreach of lost souls. God has called us to the work of not just constructing beautiful buildings, but he has called us to the work of reaching the lost in these last days. And we are living in the last days.

and the Lord has strategically placed this church in the heart of this community for such a time as this.

Now I know that Nathan said we don't think anybody was around from the beginning in 1952. But Sister Barbara's here this morning and her family was a part of that, the starting back in 1952. So praise the Lord for his faithfulness. So when we think about the excitement and we think about we have a visual that we can put in our mind right now.

And I know in our life, a lot of times we think, well, okay, so get the bulldozers out here and let's get started tomorrow. But things don't normally happen like that, okay? It's a period of time. There's vision that's cast. And that's exactly what we're trying to do today is cast vision for the future and what God has in store.

We were able to move into this facility from Chickasaw for a greater outreach perspective, for God to help us to fulfill, becoming from more of a community-minded church to more of a church that reaches the metropolitan area of Mobile, Alabama.

And the Lord helped us to make the move through, mentioned about Brother Guy and Sister Jan purchasing this property with that vision all those many years ago. And the Lord allowed us to move here. And we finally had a place that we could call our own without having to set up and tear down and all that stuff that we went through for four and a half to five years.

living in Chickasaw and then at First Baptist from our old facility coexisting and then at First Baptist in the gymnasium. So we kind of breathed and we're like, thank you God for finally allowing us to be here. And listen, God made it happen.

There was nothing that we could do. I could take you back through so many twists and turns through the whole financing process where during that great recession that took place in 2008-2009, after we had sold the facility, we couldn't find financing moving forward because everything about financing had changed at that moment. So because of the faithfulness of certain people in this body,

and willing to come alongside and say, listen, I'm going to support and I'll co-sign for the church to make this happen. The Lord made it happen for us to make the transition here. Now, when we look around at what the Lord blessed us with, we're very pleased and very happy. But in our minds, we knew this is not going to be a long-term solution.

Because we have all these different ministries and we went back from visualizing a facility that would facilitate the growth of all these things to, all right, we had to scale it back, scale it back, scale it back just to get us here on the property. And then we realized we're going to have some very tight facilities.

places for ministries to meet and they'll be competing against each other and that's exactly what's happened now we want to envision moving forward and you know loosen the grips on these ministries so they can expand to a greater capacity without any restraints on them whatsoever so we think all right now that we're at this point so how do we get to this place God just like God God is here in 2011

And I always say, people will ask me, well, you were here when the construction took place, and how did that happen during that time? And I'm like, this is the church that God built. God made it happen. Because it was impossible for the people and for man and a pastor to make it happen, but all things become possible with the Lord and His timing. Amen.

And I remember there was process that we went through about the construction and all of that because we found out we had all this wetlands and how were we going to be able to expand in the future. And these different ideas came back and forth about do we build here? Do we count our losses? Do we sell? Do we go find something somewhere else? And we were at a point of we had to have a decision.

And I remember praying one morning and then through the week and just say, God, we need a clear direction from you on what we need to do. And I felt the Lord speak to me very, very definitively one morning when I woke up. And he simply said this, what's in your hand? Spence, what's in your hand? And I started thinking about that scripture and I'm like, well...

We don't have land in North Mobile. We don't have a facility somewhere else. We don't have the resources to just abandon where we are and go somewhere else. Well, what do we have? Well, we have 10 acres of swampy land, but we got two to three that's good. And the Lord said, take what I've given you and go forward and use it.

And at that moment, we started the construction, and then God went ahead of us and made all of the resources possible. We got to this point here. We're at the first of the year, and we're getting ready for our annual church business meeting, and I started a personal reading plan to read through the Bible this year.

And as I was reading through and going through my daily reading, I landed in the book of Exodus and the Lord started showing me some things. Even as we were talking about this facility and what we're looking at moving forward and that whole process about are we going to be able to get the property over here? Are we going to have to pivot over there? And all of these different things. And the Lord led me to the book of Exodus. And this morning what I want to do is I want to read something to you.

From my devotion, I believe the Lord has spoken to me, and I believe it's for all of us to be reminded of today. In Exodus chapter 35, the Lord spoke to Moses. And when God spoke to Moses, he said, listen, I'm going to build a tabernacle, and the tabernacle was going to be in the heart of my people. It was going to be set up in the heart.

Every one of the tribes of Israel would camp around the tabernacle, but my presence will dwell in the center of my people.

And then the Lord gave the plan to Moses. It was the Lord's specific words that he said, listen, this is how you are to construct it. This is what it's going to look like. And this is what you're going to need to make it happen. And then this is what the Lord says in Exodus chapter 35, beginning in verse 4. Moses said to the whole Israelite community, this is what the Lord commanded them.

From what you have, take an offering for the Lord. Not for a building, take an offering for the Lord. Everyone who is willing is to bring to the Lord an offering of gold, silver, and bronze, purple, blue, and scarlet yarn, fine linen, goat hair, ram skins dyed red, and other types of durable leather, acacia wood, olive oil,

for the light, spices for the anointing oil, for the fragrant incense, and onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod and the breastplate. So we see that the Lord specifically spoke to Moses and said, there are certain things that I am going to build my tabernacle with. And how many of you know that God could say, there it is. He can make anything happen at any given moment.

And a lot of times we look around and we want God to do something miraculously. God, we just want you to make it happen. So we sit here today. We get excited about the potential of the future and where it's going to be and what it's going to look like. And so now we want to see, now that it's been presented, now we want to see the construction equipment out there. And let's just make it happen. But the Lord...

Just like he told Moses, he said, it's time for you to tell my people all who are willing to bring an offering to me.

And these are the things that are going to be needed to construct this tabernacle. And my presence is going to dwell with you in the heart of my people. And he lists these things, gold and silver and bronze. These are metals. Blue, purple, scarlet, yarn, fine linen, goat hair, ram skins, specifically dyed red.

Other durable leather, acacia wood, olive oil for light, spices for anointing oil, for fragrant incense, onyx stones, and other gems. These are the things that he laid out. So Moses took God's word and he went and he stood before the people and then he says in verse 20, still Exodus chapter 35.

Then the whole Israelite community withdrew from Moses' presence and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them. Underline that part. Everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought an offering to the Lord for the work of the tent of meeting and for all of its service and for the sacred garments.

All who were willing, men and women alike, came and brought. Now listen, I have some helpers this morning that's going to help me to help us paint this picture of what it was like. Okay? What did they bring? What did they bring to God as an offering? They came and brought gold jewelry of all kinds, brooches, earrings, rings, and ornaments. They all presented their gold offerings.

Who has gold? As a wave offering to the Lord. Everyone who had blue. When I call it, come on, guys. Who's got it? You got blue and purple and scarlet yarn. How about fine linen? What about goat hair? Ram skin dyed red and other durable leather. Hey, I like that. Bring that right on down. I might wear that by the time the church is over with today.

They brought to them. Those presenting an offering of silver or bronze brought it as an offering to the Lord. And everyone who had acacia wood for any part of the work brought it. Every skilled woman spun with her hands and brought what she had spun, purple, blue, and

scarlet yarn and fine linen and all the women who were willing and had the skill spun the goat hair the leaders brought onyx stones and other gems to be mounted on the ephod of the breastplate and they also brought spices they have spices okay that's all right spices

So could the Lord wave his hand or speak and then make what we need possible? Absolutely. Absolutely.

My God can do anything that he wants to do in any way that he wants to do it. But what have we learned over a period of time of serving the Lord? God wants to bless his people, and then he wants us to be reminded where our blessings have come from, and it comes from heaven above. Not anything do we have that's not Father-filtered that comes through our hands. Everything that we have comes from the blessings of God.

Those who honor God, those who put God first, those who remember God always bring back a portion to say thank you to the Lord for what you have accomplished. So whatever we have need of today, whatever we have need of for the future or for the work of the ministry, God has already made it possible and it's in our hands this morning. And we've got to realize that.

A lot of times we want to look outside. We want to look beyond. We want to look to the world. We want to look to something miraculously. But always God wants to look inside first. He wants his people to realize that, listen, I have been with you. I have blessed you. You are my people. Everything that you have is here. And all that we have need of is in the house. We've just got to be willing to let go and say, here we are, God. Use us.

Four times in that portion of Scripture, the Lord said, everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them. He didn't say God demanded it or Moses was going to come into the camp and go into your tent and pull out all these things if you have it. He said, I'm giving you an opportunity. My work, my presence is going to come and dwell amongst you in the heart of your community.

And this is how I want to come and this is how I will come. And he gave them the opportunity to come. He says, if you're willing, I'm not demanding this of you, but if you're willing and if you have a heart that moves you, bring these things to me and it will be constructed and I will show up in a powerful way. Everything that we have need of, the Lord has or the Lord will provide.

If we trust in him. Now you might ask, and I thought about this. How in the world did Israel have all of these things? God was not going to command them to give something that they didn't possess.

How in the world, if they had been slaves for all these years, and now they're wandering around in the wilderness, how are these people who were just slaves wandering in the wilderness, how did they have these things to be able to give?

Well, the Lord already knew that they were going to need these things and he was going to command them to give these things to him for his presence. Otherwise, he would not have asked. So where did this group of slaves have all of these possessions and all this riches? Well, if you jump back with me to Exodus chapter 12, you'll clearly see. In Exodus 12, it says in verse 33, the Egyptians...

urged the people to hurry and leave the country. They had been under all these plagues and attacks because Pharaoh was hard-hearted and wouldn't let the Israelites go. And God brought all the plagues on the land of the Egyptians. Leave the country, for otherwise, they said, we will die.

So the people took their dough before the yeast was added and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughs wrapped in clothing. And the Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing.

And the Lord had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for, so they plundered the Egyptians.

Now think about this. The enemy of God's people, the very people that were oppressing them and had placed them in slavery, the richest nation on planet Earth at the time, the only superpower of the day, the Egyptians, the hand of God was against them and the people wanted the Israelites gone so bad. We'll give you all the wealth that we have. Just hurry up and get out of our land.

And in the process, the greatest transition of wealth at one particular point in time from the wealthiest nation was given to the slaves, the people who had nothing, and they looted the land of Egypt and crossed over heading toward the promised land. Now wealthy with all the loot of the Egyptians. And then at some point, here they are probably dragging on

of the loot of the Egyptians with them throughout the desert and then the Lord says I want my presence to dwell amongst you and this is how I'm going to come we're going to construct the tabernacle I could give you these things and I could blow it in the camp just like I blew quail into the camp or give you manna every day to eat but you know I've already blessed you and now that I've blessed you

If you're willing, if your heart moves you, I want you to give an offering back. All of that that I gave you in the first place when you left Egypt, all of it's mine. But I want to give you an opportunity to be a blessing so that my presence will come. He had already given them these things. Everything that we have has come from the Father.

Sometimes I think we look around and we think, well, everything that I have in my bank accounts and my wealth and my riches and all these things, it's mine because I've worked hard for it. No, it's not. It's all God's. Everything that the Lord has, everything about this earth is the Lord's. Everything that comes across your hands is the Lord's. He has given it to you.

Now he asks for a tenth back. That's his portion of a way of saying thank you. You don't take the tithe from God. That's God's. You want to be blessed? You can't rob God. The Lord says, you've robbed me. Well, how have I robbed you? You've robbed me in the tithe and offerings. You're withholding that. That's my portion and you're holding it for yourself. And sometimes there's holes in the bags.

Because we don't have enough to get by and we need to do a little self-inspection and let the Holy Spirit speak to us. The reason I don't have enough is because I've robbed God. I'm holding on and I'm taking his portion and thinking it's mine. Really, God could have asked for the whole 100%. But he wants to test our heart. You trust me? If you hold the 10, listen, you're never going to get by with the whole 100%.

But with me, I'll bless you exceedingly abundantly more than you can ever hope, dream, or imagine possible with the 90 when you put me first. This isn't Pastor Spence. This is God. God made unfavorably disposed. These people...

You know, their hopes and dreams probably was thinking about when we get to the land flowing with milk and honey, then I'll have this and I'll have that and whatever. But what they needed more than anything else was the presence of God. And the Lord told them, I want to show up in your midst and I want to use you and I want to bless you. But this is what I need back from you. Could God have made them blink and then all of a sudden the tabernacle was there? Yeah, I don't think that would have been a hard thing for God to do.

But he said, I want you to give it. And when you give it, look at what I'm going to do. Jump back to Exodus chapter 36. And this is where I'm going to close because I'm running out of time this morning. Remember, the people brought the offerings who had a heart, who had a heart to bring the offering, who was willing to do it with the right heart and the right spirit. Just like with our tithe and our offerings that we give, God doesn't want us to give begrudgingly.

He wants us to come with a joyful heart and realize, God, it thrills me to be able to give back to you and for what you're doing. Look at how the people came. Exodus 36, beginning in verse 3. They received from Moses all the offerings the Israelites had brought to carry out the work of constructing the sanctuary. And the people continued to bring freewill offerings morning after morning.

So all the skilled workers who were doing all the work on the sanctuary left what they were doing and said to Moses, the people are bringing more than enough for doing the work the Lord had commanded to be done. And then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp. No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.

And so the people were restrained from bringing more because they already had more than was enough to do all of the work. What did that tell me from that scripture? God didn't send armed guards in. Moses didn't send armed guards into the tent to grab these things out and say we're going to construct. No, if the people's heart moves them.

If their heart is right, if they're willing to give, there's more than enough. Because why? Because I have it? No, because he gave it to me. It's all his. And we've got to change our mindset to realize that, listen, I want to be about what God is doing. God's work is the most important thing. If we truly believe we're living in the last days and we don't just amen it to make the preacher feel good,

But if we believe that we're living in the last days and there's a lot of work to get done and a lot of people to be reached, then we back what we believe in with our resources. Are you with me? With our resources. I heard somebody say years ago, people jolly well do what people jolly well please. Their resources back it up. If it's sports, they're going to put a lot of resources in sports. If it's education, their money is going to go to education.

If it's leisure, it's going to go to that. But if our heart is after the will of God in his kingdom and reaching lost people, our resources will go toward that. If we truly believe we're living in the last days, that we have got a work to do to reach souls, then we've got to redouble our effort to say, this is the most important thing of my life. God, here I am. Use me.

I don't think it was by accident that in my reading plan this year, and it's not just reading straight through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It's jumping all over. That I landed on this portion of scripture. And when we started planning this service, the Lord brought me right back to this to say, this is my word to my people today. He wants to do great things and he has done great things.

There are people in this world that have never tasted of what you and I experience and the joy and the presence of God on a weekly basis. The atmosphere, I tell you, during worship this morning, there was a tangible excitement at the level in this room that we could feel. And people outside of these doors need to know that there is a God that dwells amongst His people and with His people. The Lord's given us a resource.

God wants to bless us. God wants us to grow his kingdom. God wants us to be a bigger light to this community than we've ever been before. The promise that he gave me when we started this construction is the glory of this latter house will be greater than the glory of the former house. And we have a great history in the past. But greater things does God want to do in the future moving forward. The resources are here to make it possible.

Now, my goal, personal goal, there's some steps we've got to take to get from where we are today to that. First of all, we still owe a portion of a mortgage on this building. In order to free up resources to get to this, we've got to pay this off.

Now I think the greatest thing for us to do would be for it to celebrate the goodness and the favor and the blessings of God is by our 75th anniversary in February to be able to burn the mortgage note on this building as a day of celebration. Now you might look around and say, Pastor, now you're talking a little bit crazy. Because look at who we are in this room.

And look at how many resources we have and look at how much that we owe. Less than $400,000. That's a lot of money. But in my, this is not my, I don't have a, I'm not a CPA, all right? But in figuring up, in my mind, we need 324 gifts of $1,000 in the next 10 months.

You know, I look around like, well, there's not 324 people in this church. There's not 324 groupings in this church. No, it's not. But I didn't say it all came from just right here. But gifts, this church has had a wide outreach over the years. 324. Now you might think, well, I can't give $1,000. I don't have it to give. Well, you can break it down and think about it. If everybody would be willing to give $100 more,

Over the next 10 months, you can give $1,000, $100. Now listen, you can't take your tithe and put it toward debt payoff. You're robbing God. It's already God's. Now you might think today, well, we just did missions pledges last week. Now you're coming back with this. I don't talk a lot about money. I do not. You know it if you've been here long enough. We don't take up offerings anymore. We trust God and believe in you for the resources.

But if we're going to get to a goal, we've got to do something. We've got to take a step. And as we take a step to believe in God and to say, here's my portion, God. I've got this I can give to you and I'll lay it down. God will bless and make it possible for us to see another miracle in February of next year. But we've got to do our step today. You can't take the reason we did missions last week and this this week. Missions is first. Souls are first.

Okay outreach is first our tithing offerings is first then this comes next but if listen there are there are a lot of things that we do on a daily basis that if this becomes a primary purpose for you there's things that you can let go of to see the kingdom built a trip to Starbucks a week a

Going out to eat for lunch every day or so, every other day. Something you can cut back on to say, I can do that. I can give $100 a month for the next 10 months to give my portion. Some people in this room can do more than one gift of $1,000. Some of you have corporations or friends or people that have been touched. All of us can do something. And at the end of the day, to God be the glory, what great things he's done. Thank you.

We make one step here. We cross this one off and say, God, thank you for what you've done. Then we're going to believe God to make that resources out there possible. Listen, we might save a million dollars on that property out there if this wall goes through. Now, I'm going to close with this. I've got to shut up. I couldn't help but think about it this morning watching and hearing Nathan and David up here.

Because there's a portion of this story here that says God specifically equipped two primary individuals with giftings and abilities through the Holy Spirit for specific works. Now, going all the way back on the timeline, when we're sitting here with the board and we find out about the wetlands out there, here was the every month, the argument.

I know we got all those wetlands out there. We're not going to pay anybody. We're not going to do it. We're just not going to do it. We don't like it. It's a racket. It's just the way it is. But nobody understood what was going on. What was the law? What you had to do with creating wetlands or filling in wetlands out there. Now we got two individuals.

One's an attorney and one deals in civil engineering that are, I believe, specifically equipped and in positions where they are for such a time as this. That fully understand and can give us guidance on how God wants us to move forward. His timing is always perfect. To God be the glory. This is what I want to do. We have individuals here who have cards in their hand. I need you to help me this morning quickly.

I would like you to pass these out this morning. This is a pledge card, just like similar to last week, that we handed out for missions. $1,000 is what I would like to see or what I have envisioned in my mind. 324 individual giftings we need to pay this building off over the next 10 months. We see that as an out-of-reach goal.

Well, for man, it might be an out-of-reach goal. But for God, it's not. But if we take a giant step individually and say, God, I'm going to do my part, and I'm going to take a step, and I'm going to bring my offering to you, God will make up the difference because it's all God's in the first place. Remember, it's not just about building a building. It's about facilitating ministry. It's about outreach. It's about souls. It's about the kingdom moving forward.

So I want to take a minute and I want us to pray and I want the Holy Spirit to speak to you. And I'm going to say right now that while we're doing this, Andre and I are giving the first thousand dollars today. I'm not going to ask you to do something I'm not willing to do. The first one, I'm laying the gauntlet down because I believe God is able to do exceedingly abundantly more than anything that we can hope, dream, or imagine possible. God...

You make the difference, but I'm giving what I can to your kingdom. And Lord, thank you for what you're doing. You're going to make it possible what seems to be impossible today. Lord, you did it in the past. You'll do it again. I thank you, Lord, for our history, and I thank you, Lord, for what you've done in the past. But God, we're not living in the past. We're looking to the future.

And God, you've given us this great, wonderful moment and opportunity to advance the kingdom of God. And you want to use our church here at Centerpoint in a greater way, Lord, than we've ever been used before. So I pray, Lord, that you would speak to every member of this congregation today about what it is we can bring as an offering. Anyone who will.

It's what the scripture said. Anyone who's willing, anyone whose heart moves them, let them bring it to the Lord. So today, God, we want to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. And we want you to speak to us today. And as you speak to us, Lord, we are going to be obedient to take a step of faith and to trust you, God, for the future.

And God, we thank you in advance for all your many blessings and your faithfulness today. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, let them lead us. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you this morning. And then when you're done, just like last week, what I'd like you to do is to get up symbolically. You're laying your offering before the Lord with these things this morning. And then we'll come back and we'll close out in just a moment.

Don't stand if you want to this morning. Helps everybody facilitate the move. God's not empty.

♪ Gives us blessings, oh the Lord will provide ♪ ♪ We sing everything I need, everything I need ♪ ♪ The Lord has it every single time ♪ ♪ The Lord will provide everything I need ♪ ♪ The Father has it every single time ♪ ♪ The Lord will provide the precious life ♪

God's not guilty and it seems. But I know the Lord will do it. I'm going to declare this everything I need, Lord. Everything I need. Everything I need. Every single time the Lord will provide. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for listening to the Holy Spirit.

God's going to do something supernatural. I believe it. He's not calling us to something to fail. He just wants us to be found faithful. And at the end of the day, just like this facility, when we walk in here, we'll walk in here shouting and say, look at what the Lord was able to do. To God be the glory. What great things he has done. Before you're dismissed, I want to ask my dad, mom, and family if they would come this morning.

Some of you, most of you know, we've been praying. My dad's been on our prayer list for a while. And tomorrow morning, he's going in for open heart surgery again. But, just as this song says, I know the Lord will provide. And he's faithful.

So I'm going to ask if my family would come this morning, and we, just like we did with Brother Kevin a couple of weeks ago, we're going to ask the anointing oil and our leadership team to come because the Lord tells us to call for the elders of the church, to lay hands upon the sick and pray the prayer of faith, and when we believe, the Lord will provide and the Lord will answer. Brother Guy, come with us this morning.

All of our leadership, if you'd come this morning to help me this morning, today, Brother Guy. Church, right now, you know, we've been called to action. And, you know, I think about just the ministry that we have here at our church. We've got people in this church that need a touch from the Lord. And our God is something, I mean, He's able to do things that we can't do. I mean, He's going to go before Brother Ronnie tomorrow. He's going to do a miraculous work. And we're believing that.

He's going to take care of the needs in your life that you cannot face, and we believe in that. We have a community here that we're talking about a building, but we're talking about lost souls that only He can do. And at the end of the day, church, we are here to facilitate the ministry of God. Whether it's healing, whether it's provision, whether it's lost souls, whether it's a community outreach, whatever the need is, our God can provide it.

And so as you give these pledges and you are challenged and our pastor has laid it out beautifully that a willing heart the Lord can use. And the Bible is specific. And I loved it that they turned away those that gave because they had too much. I don't know if pastor will turn you away after a while.

I just pray that the Lord blesses you individually so abundantly that your cup overflows in your job, in your family, in your relationships, and that God honors your faithfulness and your giving. And so that beyond what you give here today and what you pledge to give, the Lord touches your life outside of this so that you can be a blessing to the others.

And at the end of the day, his provision is all we have need of. And so, God, we give it to you, Lord. We close this service out with, Lord, just an understanding of who you are, God, and what you want in our life, Lord. God, that you are the one that gives it anyways, God, and we're just giving it back to you. Father, we're allowing your presence to be known in this house today, God. So I pray, Lord, that as we go, Lord, that you would bless this church, God, that you would bless everything that we have need of, Lord, in this room today, God.

Lord, you're the one that provides, God, and I believe, Lord, that you are going to give the provisions, Lord, ahead of time, Father, and make a way, Father, when there seems to be no way, God. Lord, so I just give it to you this morning, God, and the days to come, God, as we prepare for Easter, Lord, that you would go before us, that you would give us opportunities, Lord, to speak your name to those around us, God, and next week, God, we would have testimonies of what you're doing, Lord. God, it's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen. You be blessed today.