You are invited to step into the family of God by strengthening your relationships and serving alongside others. Whether you are ready to give your life to Jesus or join a team, your participation is essential for the church to grow and impact the world. Come forward today to encounter His love and commit to walking in His purpose.
Well, good morning, Real Church. Good morning. You "look great today", church. Thank you. You look great.
Would you would you guys I know you sat down and you're all but just stand back up, high 5 2 or 3 people. It's worth it. Community's a big deal. Relationships are huge. Tell somebody they look great today.
If they're still sitting, go tell them you love them. Come on. It's that awkward church moment that makes the introverts feel uncomfortable, but it's necessary because in the body of Christ, there's community. It's a big deal. I'll say this.
Relationships are the currency of the kingdom. When God wants to get something done, He does it through the context of relationships. He does it with connections within His body. So if you don't like building relationships, man, you're missing out. Some of those relationships, God is is what God wants to do in your life is held up in them.
So until you build a relationship with them, you're not gonna see Jesus as clearly because he's pushing connection in his body because God created synergy, and the best place for it to work is in the body of Christ. Amen. Oh, come on. That wasn't a loud enough amen. Amen.
Everybody say amen. Amen. All the introverts in the house say amen. Amen. They were whispering under it.
My name is David John Phillips. I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor at Real Church. There's no place I'd rather be, nothing I'd rather be doing. Thank you for choosing to spend your Sunday morning here with us. And as my beautiful bride, Courtney Michelle Phillips, would you guys give her a hand?
Thank you for honoring my wife. But as my beautiful bride, said so clearly, we pray that you encounter the love of Jesus in a very real way. That when you you encounter it in such a real way that when you leave, you're forever changed. Because when you really encounter the love of Jesus, it doesn't leave you the same. You are forced into the "valley of decision".
And that's not a bad place. That's a good place. You'll either choose to reject His love or choose to continue to pursue Him. And I'm telling you, He's worth pursuing because He's been in pursuit of you your whole life. Amen?
And when you receive His love, when you receive Jesus Christ, that's the only way. Jesus is the only way to the Father. It's the only way to know the Father. It's the only way to walk in relationship with God. When you receive the love of Jesus, everything begins to shift because He's conforming you into His image to make you the reflection of His goodness and His kindness to the world around you.
And He's beginning to prepare you and develop the character and nature in inside of you in order to walk out the fullness of the purpose He created you for. Amen? Amen. Come on. Alright.
So this is the last message of a series titled Who We Are. And I just wanna briefly go back through some of the messages of this series. We titled it Who We Are because of today's message, which is titled Who We Are. But in the beginning, the first message we preached, we talked about testimony because remembering what God has done gives you the faith to move forward and expect like, move forward in expectancy with what God's gonna do. Amen?
Testimony is kind of a big deal, and so we just kinda recounted what *Jesus* had done in real church in 2023. I'll tell you, he's brought a lot of families together in 2023. He's brought a lot of families to real church. We've seen salvations and and baptisms and discipleship happen on a scale that we haven't seen in real church since we started. Amen?
Amen. That's good news. I mean, literally too, families together. People came and heard messages on marriage and then took steps of repentance. Because when there's real repentance, there will always be fruit of repentance.
There will always be actual results of that. If if it's if there's no actual results in your life, then you're not really repenting. You're just saying I'm sorry. So people came, heard messages on marriage, came to me after the after the service, said, hey, we've been living together in sin. It's time for us to get married, and then got married 2 weeks later, 3 weeks later.
We had at least 2 couples this this year. Well, 2 couples this year. Isn't that cool? It's a big deal. *God is bringing families together, and that's what Jesus* does.
When you encounter His love, He restores relationships and bring families back brings families back together so they can be fruitful for His kingdom. What else? Started a ministry focused on prayer, evangelism, and discipleship called Belong. How many of you guys have got to participate in Belong? If you haven't, you're missing out.
It's been amazing. Through through that ministry, on Tuesday nights alone, we've seen over a 100 people make decisions to follow Jesus as their Lord. It's a big deal. And I would encourage every single 1 of you, like, we are all called to live out the Great Commission, to make disciples, and you can't make a disciple without first leaving them to Jesus. So if you call Jesus your Lord and Real Church your home, I would I would encourage you, highly encourage you, to come and experience Belong 1 time every 2 months, 1 time every 6 weeks.
Like, make the sacrifice of your time to come out and learn how to share the gospel in a real simple and real personal way in your daily life. And then you'll be challenged to go out and do it. And it's uncomfortable, but it's worth it because you're getting closer to reflecting the life of Jesus. Jesus said this, follow me. Everybody say, follow me.
Follow me. And I will make you. And I will make you. "fishers of men". Fishers of men.
So if you're following Jesus, you're getting better at fishing for people. Amen? And if you're not getting better at fishing for people, you're neglecting in an area of your life following Jesus. But I'm not an evangelist. The evangelist is not only supposed to do the work of evangelism evangelism.
He's supposed to equip equip the body of Christ for the work of evangelism. The evangelist is supposed to equip the everyday believer to do evangelism in their everyday life. Amen? Amen. So don't miss out on that.
Okay. Number 3, ministries in real church have matured. The teams have grown. The staff has grown. Our speaking team is killing it.
Come on, guys. Give them a hand. We started a prophetic ministry and team, and we had our first worship and prophecy night back in in November, and it was amazing. Raise your hand if you got to come to that. Come on.
It was awesome. We're gonna have another 1 in February, on February 9. You don't wanna miss out. It will be "food for your soul". That's at 07:00.
Right? February 9, right here. Okay. What else? We grew as a church.
We grew from about a 130 and a 100 a 140, averaging on a Sunday morning to now, we're averaging about 200, which is a big deal. And look around, we're continuing to grow. We don't wanna just grow for number's sake so we can have a big ego and say, hey, my church is growing. We've got more people coming at our church than your church. And then compare with the churches that are bigger than us and say, oh, no.
We're not as good as you because we don't have it's not an ego thing. See, it's in line with our vision, mission, and values. Our vision is God's vision for the church is to make disciples. And in Pinellas County, when we moved here, there were less I mean, over 90% over 90% of Pinellas County was not in church on a Sunday morning. Now think about this.
Let's put this like, some people say, well, I I can serve Jesus and not go to church. Okay. Okay. But the Bible says that if you walk in the light, in *1 John-1*, if you walk in the light as He is in the light, you will have *fellowship* 1 with another. So the quickest way to see if somebody is falling away is they stop having having fellowship with the body of Christ.
Right. I'm gonna say it again. If you walk in the light as he is in the light, you will. Everybody say, will. Will.
Have fellowship, 1 with another. Right. So, as soon as I see somebody stepping out of fellowship, I start praying for them. I'm concerned for them as a brother in Christ because I love them. And it should be the same for you because I'm not personally connected with everybody in here.
But everybody should be connected with somebody and multiple people because relationships are the currency of the kingdom. Amen? And so we're not done at Real Church until everybody in Pinellas County is healthily connected to a body of Christ and maturing in a relationship with Jesus such that they're doing ministry in their daily life at their jobs in different places and being empowered to live out their God given purpose. So it doesn't mean they all gotta come here, but, man, I want them healthily connected somewhere, and that probably means we're gonna grow. Amen?
Amen. Okay. So that's locally just a quick snapshot of what God's been doing. But we're not just a local church. Every local church should be meaningfully connected to the global body of Christ.
Amen? Well, just a quick reminder if you haven't heard, we were a part, like, a major part of pioneering a ministry to unreached people groups in Pakistan that went in 3 years from 1 person, Macedonian call, asking us to come share the gospel in an unreached people group to now there's 54,975 **Christians**, not just decisions, Christians actively being discipled who were not Christians before in over 1000 villages with 1,100 leaders now in 3 unreached people groups and 2 states, and God used this church to pioneer that in Pakistan with our friend Daniel. I mean, just think about this for a moment. Me and Jerry got to go in March to this area with with these leaders and preach the gospel to 47,000 Pakistanis, and over 22,000 gave their life to Jesus, and over 17,000 were healed or delivered, documented. It's hard to clap because you're like, wait.
I'm serious, guys. *God* wants every local church to use the giftings, talents, and abilities that he's put inside of them to make a synergistic effect for their local community, for their local region, and for the global body of Christ while learning from the global body of Christ too. Amen? Amen. We got to take our first group mission trip this last year to Uganda, which was life changing.
It was miraculous. I mean, God did so much, and everybody that went was changed forever because not only did they give out, they received so much from some of my mentors that are in Uganda. You guys got to meet pastor, doctor, my African dad, John Wandera. Did you not? In November, if you weren't coming here yet, you missed out.
Go back and listen to the podcast. He's awesome. He's full of Jesus. He's planted 675 churches in South Sudan, in Uganda, in Kenya, and he's just getting started. But he came here, preached, but he hung out with me for, like, I don't know, 10, 12 days, just under 2 weeks.
We went around. He went to belong with us on Tuesdays and was forever impacted by the culture of prayer evangelism and discipleship. Sent him to a couple friends of mine where he saw the same thing, ended up going back to his church in Uganda, which runs a little over 500 addition to all the other churches he's planted. He started sharing the same culture with his church in Embali, Uganda. He messaged me 3 days ago.
He had just trained 15 of his ladies who had been praying for revival, trained them on outreach the same way we do it on Tuesdays. They went out 3 days ago for 1 day, and those 15 ladies saw 105 decisions for Jesus. And he's training the youth the same way and sending them out next week. Come on. We're just getting started.
We're going back to Uganda in July. Oh, 1 more thing, just so you know about those 15 ladies. When they came back at the end of the day, they came back weeping and broken. You know what they were saying? Why have we been wasting our time?
Pastor, why have we been wasting our time? The "harvest is ripe". Why have we been wasting our time? And, it's my call to the church in Pinellas County. Why have we been wasting our time?
You are all ministers of the gospel of Jesus as your Lord. And, man, we if we can learn to pass a test in high school, then we can learn what it looks like to share the gospel and step outside of ourselves to love somebody else more than we love ourselves in our daily life. And, that's what it takes. And, if the church in Pinellas County starts doing that, we'll start making disciples of the county. And, we won't we'll see way more than just 10% of the county in church on a Sunday.
Amen? Amen. Okay. Oh, this is short. There we go.
Much better. Second message was Gabriel Mullins, and he preached a powerful word on faith. Right? Testimony of what God has done gives you faith to move forward with what God's gonna do. Then he prophesied a beautiful word over our church.
You should go back and listen to it. *God*'s gonna do some amazing things. It's on our podcast. Third message, Brad and Kelly Russ. Last week, they preached a message.
They're from Zambia, missionaries from Zambia. Now here's the thing. As a part of the Who We Are series, we had a couple of missionaries from Zambia come and preach, and it's vitally important and it's part of our DNA, and I want to tell you why. You might not know this about me, but last year, praise the Lord, I was blessed to to finish being obedient to something God told me to do 7 years ago. I got I got my doctorate last year.
And that doctorate is in *missions*, development, and leadership from a global context. The global mission of the Church. Global leadership, global development. My what I wrote about, my thesis, was how a local church becomes a globally connected church. And praise the Lord, we're doing it.
There's this in me, my DNA, there's this tension, this healthy tension that I believe every local church to some to some extent, to the grace that God has given them should have, where we're radically focused on our Jerusalem, on our local city, on reaching our city and make making disciples for Jesus Christ and helping the body of Christ and other churches to do the same and learning from people in the community. It's vital. But if we're only focused on where we are, then we're selfish because we're only focused on ourself. There is a global body of Christ that we should be radically focused here, but at the same time, sowing what is going on here into the global body of Christ so they can learn from it, but also learning and connecting with these leaders out here so we can learn from them and let them impact the the local body of Christ as well. That's how the body of Christ is supposed to work, connected and in synergy with 1 another, and praise the Lord that that is who we are, and it won't stop.
It will only multiply. Yeah. Amen? Amen. So I'm excited about that.
Now, the fourth message, which is today is who we are. You've seen what we've done, what God really, God has done in us. And to understand who we are today, you have to understand where we are now, what that looks like, but then also, you need a clear picture of where we're going. See, we've been fasting this last week. Our our our body here has fasted this last week.
Fasting builds faith. Fasting builds the capacity to hear God, and he's given us clear direction. I'm excited to share vision 2024 with you. But first, we need to see what we look like now. So I'm gonna turn it over to my beautiful, amazing, wonderful wife and our executive pastor, Courtney Phillips.
Man, *God* did a lot in 1 year.
He did.
What's he gonna do this year?
Amen.
Man. So I don't know if y'all are aware. *God* is usually, at least for me, a God of direction, but like, he don't give a lot of details. Like, he'll be like, hey, I want you to do this thing. Well, I'm a detail ask him.
I annoy him with details. He'll be like, hey, I I feel like God's wanting us to do this. And I'm like, and? And he's like, just pray about it. I'm like, I don't like that answer.
I want I want everything laid out. I want the plan. I wanna know We we made a joke on our on a women's retreat that we took last year where where it's like, I'm gonna go with the flow, but I need to know where the flow is going, I need to know what time to be there, I need to know what to wear, what are we gonna eat before we get there, I need all the details. And so, when David came to me while we lived in Louisiana, and he said, hey, I believe that God is asking us to pick up our family and move to Clearwater and plant a church. I was like, okay.
More, please. He goes, just pray about it, and I was so mad. I was like, I need to know exactly what to pray about because I don't know what is happening. And I watched I watched a video last night, and he was like, you need to send that to somebody where this girl I'm gonna stand up. Where this girl was like, what I thought it would be like following God, and and God's voice is like, my child.
And she says, yes, Lord. And he says, "quit your job". And she says, okay. And he says, but I'm gonna provide for you $10,000 in your bank account every week for the rest of your life. And she's like, oh, okay.
Okay. And then she's like, what it's actually like. My child, yes, Lord, quit your job. Okay? But but like, what about my bills?
Dead silence. And I feel like that's a lot of the times what it's like following the Lord. And and so when he told me about that, eventually, Lord like started just really like opening up my heart as I am I am like, Lord, is this is is this just a crazy idea or is this from you? And he confirmed it over and over again, and then I got a few details. He didn't give all of the details about what it would look like to plant a church, to lead a church, but he did gave us a couple, and 1 of them was move to Clearwater, that's 1.
Another 1 was to plant with an organization that basically specializes in planting churches because when God called us, we had never even had the thought, yeah, we're gonna plant a church. I always I'm from the country, I just thought churches were just there. Like, they were always just Temple Baptist Church has been there since creation. Like, that's what I thought. I didn't think in the context of planting a church.
So so we we got connected with this organization who specializes in planting churches, then through some really cool confirmations, found out I babysat for the guy that started the organization. I babysat his grandchild, went and ate at Panera Bread with him and his wife. Like, that's like I was like, oh my goodness, I know these people that started this organization that has planted thousands of churches all over The United States. But the good thing about it is we didn't have any idea on what this was gonna look like, and they kinda did. They knew how to start a church to where it's healthy from within, not just healthy on the outside.
And so they gave us some structure to plant within. They gave us some some basically generic bylaws to help keep the church healthy, to kinda develop them with the leaders that we develop over time to make the church healthy. And and in the beginning, we moved here, we didn't know anyone. So it would have been very foolish for God to say, go plant a church, and for us to come meet somebody in Starbucks and say, hey, wanna join us in planting this church and help us make major financial and spiritual decisions on this church? That would have been foolish.
And so we had to wait on the Lord to to raise up leaders to help us carry this vision, and we we began with with leaders from outside of our church who've done this before, who've who have a healthy track record of leading in a church, and then the Lord started raising up leaders from within, and I wanna take a moment to show you who we are. So I'm going to ask, do you have anything to add to that babe?
No. I would say, okay, yes. I always have something to add. I'm very thankful for the families that have been with us for the last 5 and a half, 6 years. It takes a lot to persevere where God has called you and not everybody that has come and left, you know, was a problem at all.
Most people came and were a part of the church for a while and God sent them somewhere else and it's a beautiful thing. But there's there's a few pillars that I'm just so so thankful for. And so, yeah.
So, yeah. I'm gonna ask those of you who are here, our elders, our deacons, our speaking team, our staff, and our staff spouses to just come forward and stand right here. I want I want you guys to kinda lay eyes on those who are leading in in real church. I'm gonna call the team leads in just a little bit.
Just Yeah. Speaking Oh, yeah. Yeah.
It's about time to hear mister Bart speak again. I'm excited. Look at this, man. And what's cool is this isn't everybody that leads in real church. We have so many more and I'm actually gonna introduce you to them.
Some of them are actually not in here because they are serving. Yeah. Like they're out they're out serving. And so, want to introduce you to
our We're missing all of our "gray hairs", they're all serving.
We're I'm gonna introduce you to our elder. So if you're an elder, just take a step forward for me just so that you can be recognized. And again, some of them are not in here right now because they're serving elsewhere.
Jerry and Heidi, those that they've been with us since day 1. You guys, if you've been coming any amount of time, you know Jerry and Heidi Jerry Hunter and and Heidi Hunter. We sent them. She quit her job as a banker for how many years? A lot.
Like 20 years? 25 years? And they went to Fort Worth, Texas to do Jesus year. They're devoting the next year of their life to prayer evangelism discipleship. So they'll be there for 6 months, then they'll come back here full time doing prayer evangelism and discipleship in Pinellas County, which is a huge deal.
And so very thankful for for a couple of our gray hairs, Jerry and Heidi Hunter, pillars in our in our body.
Heidi don't have any gray hair.
She'll laugh with me. I'll edit that part out.
Our media director said she'll edit that part out of the video. So our elders, just so you know, if you haven't been to our established dinner, we hold a dinner once a month where we share all of this and more, and it's an open forum to ask questions. So I'm gonna share with you how you can sign up for our next dinner, which is next Sunday. If you haven't been you call Real Church home, you are considering making Real Church home, you wanna become an official member of Real Church, "Establish is the first place" to go. It is your first step in there.
If you wanna join a serve team, gotta go through Establish. So we share all of this and so much more and open it up to answer questions. But our elders serve as leaders in the church who help to make in unison major financial and *spiritual* decisions leading this church. And the beauty of how our bylaws have been set up is that almost every decision that needs to be made is made in unison with our team of elders. And I believe Christine, she's leading by serving back in kids church.
Right, Mark? Like, the to lead is to serve. Jesus said that in Hebrews, I think it's What is it? Hebrews-13:7. He basically said to lead is to serve.
You need to become a servant in order to lead. And so these guys and ladies have done that faithfully. They have served. And the beautiful thing about our leadership team is no 1 came to Real Church with their *Christian* resume and was like, I deserve to lead this church with you. None of them came saying, hey, this is all of my qualifications to be a leader.
They came and said, I believe in this mission, I believe in this vision, I wanna help carry it forward, put me in in coach. And they began serving faithfully, consistently to help with the church, and the Lord has risen up leadership qualities in them to where we recognized them, started praying into it. There are a lot of you who have those qualities in you and maybe the Lord isn't leading you to be an elder in the church, but the Lord has stuff in you that he wants to draw out and through faithfulness, we'll be able to see that and help empower you to live it out. And And these guys just happen to be put in that position of elders because they can help strongly carry the the church.
What what are the wives to the husbands? Don't interrupt your wives. That was an example of what not to do. Thought
she Pastor.
He didn't a interrupt complete sentence. I'll say this on that, and and this is a big deal. It's not a bad thing to desire leadership. It's not. You know, that's a common misconception in a lot of the Church.
It's not a bad thing to desire leadership, but it is a bad thing to promote yourself to leadership. God's the 1 who promotes. God will anoint you to leadership and then through your faithful service, he will promote you. *Matthew-20*, Jesus himself said to "lead us to serve". An example is King David.
*God anointed* him as king, then he served for 12 years and then God promoted him to authority. He didn't promote himself. So some of you may be anointed to leadership and maybe a a lead role in this church. I'll tell you the process if that's you. It will not you will not be promoted to leadership until you serve the body for at least a year.
If you're not willing to serve on a serve team for a year, you will not lead in this church. Because to lead is to serve. And so if you wanna be promoted without serving, then you're more about yourself than you are about leading them and loving this body. So that's that's a gate. I don't care what your resume is.
You will serve for a year at least, and that's a minimum. And not everybody who serves for a year is ready to be an elder or a deacon, and I'm not saying that. But if you're anointed to that, you will be willing to serve. Because to serve the body is to love the body, and to serve the body is to lead her. Amen?
Amen. Amen.
Yeah. That Hebrews-13 says, consider your leaders and imitate their faith. And I can confidently say that every person that you see here, get to know them and imitate their faith, imitate their walk with Jesus, ask them questions, glean from them. It's a good thing. And we are grateful for you guys.
And just if you're wondering how the bylaws work and all of that, like shoot an email to info@realchurch.us next week and we'll send them to you. Like, we we have nothing to hide. You can look at them. You can see who we are from within, how the structure and organization components work in this ministry. So, thank you elders.
You guys can step back. I'm gonna have you stay here.
And deacons and staff.
Everybody stay So, none of our deacons are here. We have 4 deacons. But you know what's cool? All 4 of them are out serving. They're all being the body of Christ in their world.
Mike and Angie built a relationship. If this isn't on mission, I don't know what is. They built a relationship through sharing the gospel with 1 of the workers on a cruise that they went on years ago. They got her number, stayed in contact with her, and every time she ports in Tampa, she hasn't made a decision to follow Jesus yet, but every time she ports, she reaches out to Angie and says, hey, come hang out with me. And Mike and Angie take every opportunity to go and and love her and serve her and continue to seed her with the gospel.
Come on.
Chuck and Shirley, Shirley is on a plane right now, flying. Chuck took her to the airport. She's flying or she's she's getting her mom settled on a plane to be able to go and have some medical treatments up north. Like, that is a beautiful thing. The bible actually says that those who don't care for their family are worse than a non believer, and I figure that's kind of important is to care for your family, and they are doing that.
But but our deacon team leads by serving, and you can watch them and learn how to serve. And I remember our first deacon was Mike Gabbert, and he, when we were at Clearwater High School years ago, that's where we that's where we started this church, there was a point where he wasn't even appointed to deacon yet, and I remember hearing him with some of the young guys were complaining about getting up early and it was raining and they were having to do stuff, and he was like, man, we get to serve at church, this is awesome, and he was just propelling them to live a life of service to the Lord. And if that doesn't define what a deacon is, those who not only have a heart to serve, but lead through service. And we see them as people that we can put before you and say, "follow these people", they know what they're doing. I don't know I don't know what does.
Amen. Our speaking team, would you guys please step forward? These people rightly divide the word of God and bring it to
us. Amen.
This is not a a David and Courtney show where we come up here and we say, we're so awesome and we speak really well, so we don't need anyone else. That would be foolish because the Lord has put giftings, talents, and abilities in all of these people, and we've seen their faithfulness. You know what, real church, when it comes to any area of moving forward in in leadership, any area, we're looking for fat people.
That's right.
We're looking for faithful, available, and teachable. That's right. And so that is what we've seen in these guys, not just not just in serving, but in serving on Sundays, but serving in their life, leading a life of teaching people about Jesus in their life. And the word says, beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news of the gospel, those who carry the word. And so, wanna honor them.
Can we just give them a hand for teaching us so well? There is never a time when 1 of any of these people, including Jerry and Heidi, are up here on this platform where I'm not like, I'm like a kid at Christmas time, I'm like, Moriah's preaching. Daniel's preaching. Moriah's gonna have like a tree or some clay that she's gonna play with on the stage, and Daniel's gonna have that giant bible, and and I'm like, man, like, I'm I'm that is awesome. Like, I get so excited to hear other people teaching the word of God because we are the body of Christ.
We have lots of different functions. We have lots of different abilities, and the Lord wants us all to come together as the bride and use them to encourage and empower, equip us to live out the discipled life, amen? Alright. So that's our speaking team, you guys can step back. Let's see.
These are some of my favorite people in the world. I get to hang out with them every week. Can we have our staff and the spouses of our staff step forward? And this is significant, and and Dolores isn't here, she is our worship leader. She leads our worship team so well, but our staff help to carry out the mission in the practical ways of real church.
In fact, everybody leads a team, everybody. You've got Ashley, she leads our media team, and and her husband Aaron is so gifted at putting together videos. David's got videos going viral because he's put them together because he said, people need to hear this stuff. So we put them on there and he used his he used his giftings and skills to to to market these videos, and Ashley, her her design ability to create these beautiful like things that you see on the screens and and and to take pictures and edit them and just all of the techy stuff that I don't know a whole lot about. They are so gifted at that.
And the reason that we wanted to bring our spouses forward is because the guys of of Katie and of Katie and Ashley, they come to staff meetings. They come and they help us. They're they're all in. And you've got Mac over here at the end. Mac, wave to him, bud.
Mac leads.
Volunteer and yet volunteers like he's paid. Yep. I mean, it's it's amazing. I'm
so He leads our security team. We've faith. Isn't that beautiful?
It's it's awesome.
So cool. Our staff help to lead teams and they help to equip you to do the works of ministry. They practically lead teams on Sundays and throughout the week, where they want to fulfill the mission of real church. And if you don't know the full mission, our mission is to engage the culture with the love of Jesus. That's 1 of the aspects of that is social media.
A lot of people If you if you have seen an ad or you felt like, hey, I wanna check this church out because you saw something online whether Google, Facebook, YouTube, Insta, other ones. Yes. Raise your hand. Look around. A lot of these people are here because they saw an ad on line.
They were engaged with the love of Jesus.
The introverts didn't raise their hands, so probably double that.
And then we want to establish the believer in the local body because the word says, do not deny assembling together with other believers as some are in the habit of doing. And when we look at our culture, I hear all the time, I don't need the church to be a Christian. You don't need the church to be a Christian, but why wouldn't you be a part of a church if you're Christian? The Lord says to do it. Like, either we obey or we look at God and we're like, nah, fam, I'm gonna do what I wanna do.
Like, we follow him with our obedience, and we connect in the body so that we can show the world who Jesus is in unity. And and to do that, we take very seriously establishing people in this church. If you wanna be established, you can be. De Asia is our established pastor, and she works faithfully to help you get connected, not just on teams, but to people. And and her husband, Alex, he is on the production team, and and he leads the production team, all of the techy things.
That's what he leads. His role along with miss Katie down there in the pink shirt, she's our children's director, they equip you to engage the culture. Katie is equipping not only the children in children's church, but equipping the volunteer team in children's church to engage the culture with the love of Jesus. Alex is equipping his team to engage the culture with the love of Jesus, not just on Sunday, but during the week. Our staff does the mission statement, which is what we do to reach our world.
Amen. And then the fun part is we get to empower people to live their God given purpose. And I'm gonna talk about that in just a minute. So you guys can go sit down.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Wait. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
Before you go sit down, let's have everybody. I want the church to see everybody at the same time.
Everybody.
Like the team leads. We're going to. Okay.
Oh, yeah. Got Y'all are coming back up. But you want Okay. To sit down right
Good. Good. Good. She's 10 steps ahead of me.
So here's how our marriage works. He tells me a few weeks ago, he's like, yeah, we're we're speaking together. And then a couple of days ago, he's like, what's it gonna look like? I'm like, the last time we spoke together, it was just like dinner time talk, like you ask me questions, I answer them, and we just share our hearts with the church. This time, you want me to preach?
And then I shared my heart with him on like Thursday about just just what I saw, and he was like, okay, do that. And, I was like, okay. So, I didn't really tell him what I was doing. So
Here we go.
Alright. Here we go. Okay. Can I have our team leaders, both staff and volunteers? So and I might I might miss 1.
Care team leader, wrecking crew, prophetic team, prayer team, cafe, first impressions, real kids, production, *worship*, belong. Can I have the leaders of those teams step forward? And many of these are are are volunteers. Some aren't here because they're serving. Sorry, Alex, I sent you all the way to the back and now I'm I'm bringing you all the way back forward.
You need Youth is on the bus. Yeah. And youth is youth is in there. Think
Junior high. Yeah.
Yeah. Middle school is is back there. Man, we have a lot of people that come to real church with big vision, a lot. And you know what we do when people come with big vision? We get excited because we're like, man, we get to be a part of "equipping you" to to grow and and and develop the character necessary to carry vision that God gave you.
And we have people that lead teams here, serve through leadership, that I believe are the lifeblood of this church because we're not just here putting up a church and tearing it down every Sunday. We are here to *disciple people. Our teams are discipleship* pockets throughout this church. And I'm gonna share a story with you. A lot of people that come with and I I got permission to share this.
A lot of people that come with *vision* get really impatient in the process of being equipped to walk out and be empowered into that vision. And 1 of the fruits of the spirit is is long suffering, is patience, being willing to let let God do the work that God wants to do in the process. Miss Pam leads our care team. It's a new team at the church that is specifically designed to serve the needs of the covenant members of Real Church, and I believe we'll touch on covenant membership in a little bit. But when she came to Real Church, she didn't come saying, I had this big vision and I wanna do this and I wanna do that.
But in relationship, there was a point where she shared with me, I'm not gonna tell you because it's her vision to to share or not share, but but she came to me with a vision that the Lord gave her many years ago, just to just to share, just in relationship. The Lord showed me this, and and I don't know what it means. I don't know I don't know how if I'm gonna be in in the involved in it. I just know that this is the heart of God. And that's what she shared with me.
And it birthed something in me. It made my heart just explode because I was already *praying* about something similarly in line with that vision. And then over time, she came in and she said she went through Establish, she she got connected, she started serving on First Impressions, I believe. I believe mister Jack was serving her husband was serving in in Real Kids. And that vision just kept reverberating in my head about when it comes to serving the needs of the people, that is in her DNA and it's what God put in her.
And she was willing how how long ago did the Lord give you that vision? It was over 30 years. Over 30 years of long suffering
Waiting.
Waiting, and it hasn't come to fruition yet, but it will. Amen. And I feel so immensely honored that we, as a leadership team and as a church, get to see her thriving. The needs of our church family have never been more cared for when I was trying to do it myself and others were trying to to figure out how to do things than when someone has been not just equipped in the long suffering and equipped in the being willing to serve wherever she is asked, but but when we get to empower her
Amen.
To step forward in what I believe is an incredible call on her life to not just serve the local church, but to serve the community. And so, you have a heart to serve the local body, talk to her.
Can I say something Yes? Just about that whole process? We we love for you to come here and be a part of this church with big vision. It's a major major thing. Actually, part of our mission statement, the last part of our mission statement is empower the ready to live their God given purpose.
I'll say this. We will not empower your vision until we know that you're submitted to the vision of the House. Because to empower your vision without you being submitted to the vision of the House is to empower division, 2 different visions. But once we know that you're submitted to the House, you're faithful, available, teachable, and man, you're just in line with the DNA that God has given this local body, then praise the Lord, I wanna hear everything that God's put in your heart. How can we lay our life down to help you do it?
And if that's, you know, wait a bit or if that's right now, I don't care. Whatever God says. But I wanna know. I wanna know that you're willing to come under the vision that God has given this local body. And then, when we empower your vision, it will be "rowing in the same direction".
Amen? Amen.
Yeah. I remember when when Chris Chris Taylor joined us, he he talked so much about prayer that it was like, look, we know you like to pray. Like, we get it. And he wasn't gunning for leading a team, he wasn't gunning for position, but we watched him Just in him. Serve faithfully.
He's here early, he's here late, he's hauling stuff on the truck, he's helping in so many ways, just faithfully. And then 1 of our deacons, Angie, kinda, I guess, had a conversation with him like, it's it's time to start a a a an intentional pre service prayer team. They're like the ninjas that do the spiritual work in the half hour before service starts, where you don't see, but you experience the fruit of their prayers when you come in here. And so so we, like, it was like, yes, they're ready. He and Angie are leading our prayer team.
Gabe has has giftings and and and talents, abilities in knowing how to effectively train and equip those who feel called to the giftings of of the spirit, those gifts of prophecy and and words of knowledge and those things, and and he's gifted in training people how to use them effectively in the body, and so he he served in just pretty much everywhere, served in the church, and then it was time. And when it was time, and he said, I'd really like to do this, he didn't come to David and say, alright, I'm starting a prophetic ministry, and this is what it's gonna look like. He came and he was like, I feel like this it's time for this. And we're just like, absolutely. It is those who stand under the test of time.
Some, it will be longer than others because the Lord's got some stuff to work out in us. And some, it'll be shorter than others, and we're like, man, you are ready. But the beauty is when it's God's timing, it won't fail.
Amen.
It will never fail. When I was 16 I don't even know if you know this story, but when I was 16, I was I was serving on a worship team, and I went to a church in Crowville, Louisiana and was leading worship on a Sunday night at 1 of their Sunday night services. And this woman came to me after the service, and she said, you are going to lead thousands. I was 16 in a town of only like 4,000 people. She's like, you're gonna lead thousands.
Well, me, as a 16 year old, what y'all don't know is when I was in homeroom and they were like, what do you wanna be when you grow up? I put singer until I was, like, 18 years old. I was like, I'm gonna be the next Christian singer. I'm gonna be the next, like, Darlene Check.
I don't
know if y'all were nineties Christians, but that was my girl. But but I was like, I'm gonna do this, and and when she told me that, I was like, yes, that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be leading thousands in worship. And then, about 7 6 or 7 years later, we got married and then we began serving in a really big church. He was on staff, I was volunteering, and they had a worship team like 1 that you would see on TV, like just the whole the whole shebang, and it was beautifully done.
It was so good. And and I went to the worship leader, and I said, I'm ready to start serving. See, I didn't know that there were some there were some things in me the Lord wanted to get out before I was ready to step into anything greater than what I was doing. And and he said, okay, well, here's the process. You you gotta audition first, and then then if you if you make the worship team, you'll serve in the choir for a few months, and then there may be a point, in the future that will allow you to lead a song.
And the thought that went through my head this is 1 of those inside thoughts. I'm really glad the Lord dealt with me in private and not in public because it would've been very embarrassing, but the inside thought was, I've been singing since I was like 7. Why should I have to audition? Like, don't you know? Like, I'm kind of a big deal in my small town.
*Pride*. Pride.
Just a little bit. And I was like, okay. And so I left and and I felt so I I felt so uneasy about how that had happened, how I how my mind went there instead of, yeah, I'd love to I'd love to audition and be a part of this team, I'd love to serve the church in this way, instead I was making it all about me, and the Lord dealt with me and set my tail down from leading worship for at least a year, maybe even longer, so that he could deal with me, and I wanted to step out. I wanted when we went to a new church, I was like because we had we had moved, I wanted to be a part of the worship team, but the Lord was saying, you're not ready yet. I got stuff to deal with in you.
You're gonna serve in youth ministry, you're gonna serve in children, you're gonna wipe butts in the nursery for a little while, and that was the process that I had to go on. And I'm grateful for it because it developed the character in me necessary to carry out what many years later that I'm I'm so humbled that I even have a microphone on this stage in front of you guys. It's so wild, the process that the Lord is willing to allow us to go through. The frustration that he's willing to allow us to go through, the time between when he gives you a *vision* until he fulfills the the vision, where he has character in us that he wants to develop, and everybody up here has been through that process. And and some of you are in that process right now of the character being developed.
I think about Joseph, and and that was something I was sharing with him. Joseph in the Bible, like, he was his dad's favorite kid. Like, you're not supposed to have favorite kids, but, like, he was his dad's favorite and all his brothers knew it. And then when God gave him a vision, a dream of his brothers bowing down to him, guess what this 17 year old punk little brother did? Hey, guys.
Y'all know God gives me dreams, so y'all know they're right. Right? This is my interpretation, it doesn't say this in the bible. This is the Courtney interpretation. But he told them the vision and they were all super jealous.
And so, they sold him into slavery and he went through, I believe it was like 20 years until of God stripping him of himself so that he could promote him to see the fruition of that vision come true. But the long suffering that he walked through produced the character in him necessary to carry that great call of not just serving his family and saving his family.
Mhmm.
It wasn't for the purpose of him being high and mighty and having his brothers bow to him for how awesome he is, he was saving their lives. God's purpose is so much greater than what we see and what we think. Oh, they're gonna bow to me because I'm so great. No, the Lord had a major purpose that was way more than your dang ego. That's what God wants to do in the equipping process, and at Real Church, we would be honored to help you walk through that.
The first step, go to an established dinner. The second step, let's see. Let's walk in it in relationship. So these guys are leading teams in this church. I'm not gonna go through every single 1, but you need to look at them, remember their faces, go find them and say, hey, I wanna know what it looks like to serve like you do.
Yeah. So you guys, thank you so much. Pam, thank you for your faithfulness to just waiting on the Lord. It's so humbling and and and encouraging. Imitate her faith.
Do what she did.
So so are we bringing the whole "dream team" up now? Alright. If you serve on the dream team in any capacity, whether you lead a small group, you serve on any of the teams that serve on Sunday, you serve and belong, is there What else, baby?
If you serve at real church, come on up.
Yeah. If you serve Come on up.
Surprise. At look around. Man. And what's cool is a lot of the people that serve at Real Church are are out there serving. Yep.
Come on. Y'all fill in the middle. Fill in the middle here. Fill in the middle. Hey, on the sides, come into the middle.
On the sides, come on come on over.
This is family, man.
Do y'all see this? I know you just clapped, but let's clap again. Come on. Praise the Lord. This is a dream team.
It's a serve team, and you guys are a big deal. We can't do what we do as a church without you. Thank you so much for **sacrificing your time** and your talent in order to help Real Church do what it does. Every life that's transformed, every disciple made, you're a major part of it. But not only that, you you you guys don't realize they're being discipled too by being a part of the team.
We all are. When you begin to walk in obedience to the thing that God's called you to do, you begin growing in your relationship with Jesus. And not only that, through serving together, you're building family. You're you're building friendships. You're building relationships.
And you're helping to carry the mission of the local body another step forward because there's giftings, talents, and abilities that God's put inside of you that if if this is if you're just visiting, you have another "home church", go back to your home church. If God's called you to be at another place, go to that home church and begin serving because that church will not be what God's called it to be without the giftings, talents, and abilities in you on display in that church. And, if this is your home church, we will not be what God's called us to be until you're willing to sacrifice your time and your talent in order to help serve and grow the local body here. Because our vision will not be accomplished without the whole body working together in synergy and in unity. Amen?
Amen. Amen. So, I I I got I got news. It's time for our church to grow. It's time for our church we're growing.
As a matter of fact, there are 204 people here today, which is amazing. 162 people in service, 42 children, 42 people in the kids' area with the the the kids' teams and everything. And and we where we are where we are right now as a church, we cannot it's impossible for us to grow anymore. It's and you look around, and there's empty seats. Even with all this team sitting here, there's empty seats.
Yeah. But it's still impossible for us to grow anymore, and I'm gonna give you 2 reasons. You guys can go sit back down.
Can we honor them again?
Yeah. Come on. We we won't call you back up. We promise. Thank you so much.
Natalie, is it a burden to serve, or is it fun isn't it fun? It's so much fun to be a part of this and to hang out with your friends.
So so we are limited as a church body. A lot of people say, well, yeah, because it's because you're portable. You don't have a building. Well, that's probably 1 thing that we're we're limited a little bit by. And guess what?
It's time for us to get a building. It really is. Praise the Lord. I'm not saying we have a building because we don't. So don't don't be like, they got a secret building.
No. No. We don't. In order to get a building, we need to start saving for a building. So as a step of faith, not today, in about 6 or 7 weeks, we're gonna start a building fund, saying, God, we know that you're gonna provide a building for us.
And we haven't started that yet on purpose. A lot of people ask us about, well, when do you get in a building? Aren't you in a building? Our first dedication was to making the net strong. What do mean?
What do I mean by that? Jesus said, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. So real church is a net where He wants to send fish to people to be discipled. And we need a needed a "strong net". We put all of our resources into hiring and having the right staff and the right leaders and the right resources so that when people come on a Sunday morning, they're served well, so that when they go, we have strong small groups, that we have an outreach ministry that's powerful and effective.
And we have most of the pieces of that net strong now, but they need to be stronger. But we're also missing a piece. You might know we don't have a youth ministry. We have a junior high ministry, but not a high school ministry. So at the February, we're gonna put the last piece of the net there.
Robbie Huffman and Jenna Huffman. Do you guys remember Robbie and Jenna who came for the Make Disciples event and helped Chris teach us how to do prayer evangelism and discipleship back in June? Robbie? So Robbie is gonna be and Jenna are gonna be moving here from 30 third Company in order to take over Belong for us. They'll be working part time for us running Belong and for 30 third Company, continuing to help there.
And then once they get their legs under them, once they get their feet about them, right, and they're they're established about summer, we'll start planning for the youth ministry for the the high school ministry. And he'll help us to pioneer a high school ministry which will help to serve every aspect of discipling the family while coming alongside of Keith and Mallory and what they're doing in the in the junior high ministry, which I'm excited about. Amen? Yeah. That's good.
You can clap for that. We wanna be able to disciple the whole family. So when they get here, well, that's I'm confident. That's the full part of the net. So after that, we'll start saving.
As we grow, we'll be able to grow a lot based on the leaders that we have in place. So we'll start saving in order to to have a building. But before we do that, we still have 2 2 areas that we're we're lacking in in order to grow. You saw this whole dream team. It's huge.
Lots of people. You're like, I'm not needed. No. You are. In order for us to grow, we need to strengthen our teams, our kids' teams, our our setup and teardown teams, our product our production team, our worship team, our care team, our our parking future parking team.
We need to strengthen those teams so that everybody that comes in is served effectively and experiences the real love of Jesus and then walks away forever changed. Our small group leaders, the teams throughout, we need everybody working together synergistically on mission rowing forward for us to reach the community that God's called us to reach. So to to be on a team, to be a part of this community, go through establish and and be willing. Like, the only way that you're gonna make a splash for the kingdom is to love. And love means sacrificing yourself for the sake of another.
And what better place to start that than with your church, which is sacrificing your time and your talent to join in, build community, and reach the community together. Amen? Amen. So so there's 1 way we need to strengthen our teams. The second way, there's 204 people here today.
And we're limited. We can't grow anymore. Historically, a church is limited either by the number of seats or by the number of parking parking spaces. Guess what? We only have 91 parking spaces out there.
According to historical context, churches only grow to 1.5 to 2 times the number of parking spaces, which means we're not supposed to be a church of more than a 140 to a 182 people. Interesting. Right? Yet, we have 204 people here. It's because there's life here.
*God is moving. There's disciples* being made. So to begin to fix that, here's what we're gonna do. Don't worry. We're not going to 2 services yet.
We gotta grow our teams. We still got about a 100 more people to grow before that. What we're gonna do is we're gonna ask all of our dream team is gonna begin parking in the back to serve those that are coming for service. And if you call Real Church your home, if you're a member of Real Church, we're gonna ask you to begin parking in what we call the "bus loop", which is that gate that's open that you can pull in and there's a big loop over there on the south side of the parking lot. We're going to ask you to start parking there.
We're going open the both ends of the gate so people can pull in and out of there after service when they're leaving. But I'm asking you to be willing to, if you can walk, to sacrifice a little extra walking time to serve those that are coming in to experience church for the first time so they they can be loved, experience Jesus, and walk away saying, man, I I wanna know Jesus better. Can we do that? Amen. Because if we do that, then praise the Lord, we can continue to grow.
We can continue to impact the county in a big way and impact the world in a big way. And that's a good thing. Amen? Amen. Hopefully, you've seen that Real Church is a family, and you're invited to be a part of that family.
But, you know, just coming to church on a Sunday serving and doing small groups or whatever else you you do as a part of a church, you're still not gonna really be a part of any church family with just that. *Jesus* said nobody can experience, can know, can see the kingdom of heaven unless they've been born again. If you've been longing for real community, I'll tell you, when you become a follower of Jesus, when you say, not just I believe he died and rose again and that's good, so I'm gonna go to church on a Sunday. No. When you have to believe that he died and rose again and then say, I'm gonna follow you instead of myself.
I'm making you the Lord of my life. In that moment, you are born again. I'm not talking about being water baptized 20 years ago. Alright? The Bible says Jesus said you have to be born of water and born of spirit.
You and I were both born of water when your mama's water broke. My mama's water broke, but born of spirit. That's when you believe *Jesus* died for your sin, rose again so you could receive his life, and then you say, I'm tired of living for me. I can't do it on my own. I'm gonna follow you as my Lord instead of myself.
In that moment, he forgives you of your sin because he paid for it already. So he washes the sin off of your back, the guilt shame, the weights of of unforgiveness all fall away, and then he puts the Holy Spirit inside of you in order to lead you like a father leading a child. There's many people that call themselves Christians that just believe that Jesus is real and go to church but have never given their lives to Jesus. They've never said, I'm gonna follow you instead of myself, And they've never experienced being born again, born of spirit. They don't know what it means to have a relationship with the God of the universe.
That's the only way that you'll really become a part of the family of God, with God as your Father. So I ask everybody to stand, and we're almost done. If you know that that's you and you need to give your life to Jesus and you wanna become a part, not of real church, but you just wanna be a become a part of the family of God by saying, Jesus, I need you to be my Lord and my Savior. I'm ready for a "fresh start". I wanna be born again.
If that's you, would you "raise your hand"? I see you. Anybody else? Praise the Lord. I see you.
That's 3. Anybody else? Raise your hand high. Raise your hand high. I'm gonna pray.
No. I'm not gonna do that. Here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna ask the elders and prayer team to come forward. So would the elders and prayer team come forward?
If you raise your hand that you wanna give your life to *Jesus* or what you don't know, 1 of the testimonies of what Jesus has been doing in our Church, there's been many supernatural miraculous healings that's happened on Sunday mornings and throughout the week, Documented going to the doctor, having seizures, brain scans, thinking that the guy is about to die, are gonna die soon, and then prayed for him, supernaturally healed, went back to the doctor and the scan said there was he had never had a seizure in his life. So I mean, supernatural miracles, cancers disappeared. Healing of small things, headaches, you know, so big the little. If you're willing, if pain in your body, if sickness in your body, you need relationships being restored, Gabe prophesied last 2 weeks ago that this would be the year that relationships are restored, that the orphans would come home, that that prodigals would come home. If you need prayer, you need ministry, or if you gave your life to Jesus and you're unashamed, when we dismiss, I want you to come forward.
There's something special about being ministered to at the altar. We'll be here as long as it takes. Amen? Amen. God's good, isn't he?