(This transcript was generated by AI. Apologies for any inacuracies)

So today, I really wanna talk on this subject of encouragement.

What is encouragement?

Encouragement means to basically infuse courage in one another.

In other words, to really begin to have the courage as a church family to be all God has created us to be and do the good things that God has created us to do.

The kind of courage I'm talking about today isn't a courage where you go jump out of airplanes or you do some sort of great feats and great stunts.

I'm not talking about that kind of courage.

I'm talking about the courage to be the people that God has called us to be in this community.

Because God has called his people to be a light unto the nations, to be a light unto the world, and it takes courage to step into that.

In other words, when things are coming against you, pushing back against you, you gotta have the audacity, you gotta have the courage, you gotta have the stamina to step into it and be brave with the good things of God.

And God calls his church to be a church of courage, to be a church that steps into the community and make a difference with the good things that he has designed us to do.

The church are those people who are called out of darkness into the wonderful light, and our job is to begin to reveal the goodness of God to those around us.

Actually, it's why we changed our name from Barefoot Church that we formerly were to this church now known as Valorous Church.

Because we wanna be a people of valor, a people of courage, a people with bravery, a people that are brave enough to step into what God has designed this church to be and begin to let his high name, good name, be known among the nations.

We wanna be brave with the goodness of God.

We were known as Barefoot Church back in the day because our church was founded in a geographical location.

In case you're online with us or new with us, there's a little community down the street here called, it's the Barefoot Community.

It's a community here in North Myrtle Beach.

And we were birthed in that community and we took on the name for a geographical location.

But over the years, God has begun to really unveil our identity as a church and who he wants us to be as a people.

And we're inviting you on that journey.

But who we are is we're a valorous people.

Again, not having bravery to jump out of airplanes and do great feats and all those kind of things, but to be brave with the goodness of God.

The good works that God has called his church to do in the community that he has planted them in.

And my desire today is to help you be encouraged, to be a part of this and let's see what God can do in us and through us.

God wants to do great things through you, but you have to submit yourself to him and begin to let him work in you and work through you.

The Bible tells us this in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 23 through 25.

It says, let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm.

For God can be trusted to keep his promise.

How many of you know today that one of the great ways to stay encouraged is to trust that God will do what he says he will do?

Let me say this.

How many of you believe that God will keep his promise?

Come on.

See, that's the first thing you gotta understand.

If you're gonna live a life with great courage, you're gonna be infused with courage.

You gotta believe and trust that God will do what he says he will do.

That he says that he come into this earth to reveal who he is to humanity, forgive people of their sin, connect people to himself so that people could begin to have access to him and become all God has created them to be.

And so if you're gonna step fully into that, you gotta trust that God will do what he says he'll do.

The Bible says, you know what?

Let us keep on trusting that God will keep his promise.

Then it goes on in verse 24, it says, let us think of ways to motivate one another towards acts of love and good works.

And let us not neglect our meeting together, coming together as a people, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

So my aim today as we move forward as a church is to strive to infuse courage in each and every one of us to be all God has created us to be so we can do this good work that he has assigned us to do where he has planted us as a people of God.

God's people are called to do a good work.

God's people are called to reveal the good news of who Jesus is and the inheritance that he has left a people here in this earth to inherit in their future.

And I want you to know today that what we are as a church, that we're gonna keep proclaiming this good news, we're gonna keep admonishing people to proclaim this good news, we're gonna keep training people to proclaim this good news, and we're gonna keep challenging people to proclaim this good news.

Because it's this good news that transforms people's life.

It's not me telling you all the do's and don'ts.

It's the good news of knowing who Christ Jesus is, knowing what he has done, what he is going to continue to do and to trust fully in his promises.

And if I can encourage you in any way today, it's to simply put your hope in who Jesus is and what he is doing in and through a people's life today.

So today what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the book of Colossians, where the writer here wrote the church at Colossae, some people would put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ, but they were beginning to get a little bit discouraged because lots of other teachings had come into the culture and they began to become a little bit mixed up.

They were mixing all kinds of teachings together and they were becoming mixed up in who they were supposed to be.

So what the writer Paul does is he writes a letter, sends it to them so that they will keep on trusting who they first trusted, Christ Jesus, and move forward with it.

He writes them a letter to encourage them.

And we learn some principles about encouraging each other from this letter today.

And the first thing I wrote down is encouragement comes with prayer and thanksgiving.

If you wanna encourage somebody around you, begin to be thankful to God for what he has done, thankful for what he has done in their life, and continually pray for them on their journey.

In other words, we should be a church praying for our neighbor.

Not just praying that they would get better over some sickness, but praying that they would have the encouragement that God wants to infuse in them to be all God has created them to be.

You should be praying for the person sitting down the row from you.

If you belong to a local church, you should be praying for what we know in the church world as our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We should be praying for one another, that we would step in to the good work that God has designed for us today, that we would step fully into it, without reserve, without fear.

We gotta learn to pray for each other.

And what he says here in Colossians 1, verse three, as he writes this group of people, he says, we who are not presently with you, we always pray for you.

We pray for you, believers.

We pray for you and we give thanks to God the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ.

And then he begins to list out three things that he's praying for these believers.

And I believe that these three things are three things that we always need to be praying for those who belong to Christ Jesus and those that belong to the family of God as we belong to the family of God.

And the first one is this, is he begins to pray for these believers that they continually hang on to the unending love of God and what God has reserved for them in the future, their internal inheritance.

He pray that people will continually hang on to the unending love of God and what God has reserved for them in the future.

Because what this begins to do, as people continually trust in the unending love of God, that begins to get in them and then they begin to spill that love out of themselves on other people that draws people into God's family.

So the prayer you need to have for the person sitting next to you is that they would never give up and never forget the unending love of God.

Because the unending love of God is what changes you, changes me, changes us, so that we can love others around us.

But the world that comes against us will begin to make us doubt the unending love of God, make us fear things around us.

But Paul says, look, I want to say a prayer over your life that you would never, ever forget the unending love of God because it's what causes you to love as you have been loved.

In other words, if we forget how much God first loved us, it's easy for us to begin to love other people based on conditions.

But God loved me unconditionally.

I don't know about you.

But it wasn't based on what I did, it's based on who He is.

And He loved me right where I was before He stepped into my life, before I chose to put my faith in who He is.

And the only way I can keep it straight when I look at another person that seems to be unlovable is to remember that I was first loved by God when I was fully unlovable by Him.

Come on, somebody.

Listen, you need to pray for your kids, pray for your parents, pray for your grandparents, pray for your neighbors, that they never forget the unending love of God.

Because when you forget the unending love of God, you won't pass on this love that God desires for His church to pass on to the world around it.

And so Paul says, look, if you wanna encourage people, pray.

Everybody say pray.

Pray.

Pray that they never forget the unending love of God.

He goes on to say this, he says, also we pray that they would continue to know the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding of who God is.

Why?

Because when we know and we get our wisdom and understanding of who God is and the knowledge of God into our life, we begin to produce the things of God with our life.

We call it fruit.

And Paul says, look, I wanna pray for others that they would have full knowledge of who God is, wisdom that comes from God and understanding that comes from God.

And the reason I wanna pray this over their life is because when I pray this over their life, that they get the wisdom of God in their life, then they can become all God has created them to be and they can begin to produce fruit out of their life.

So why we wanna pray for love that people don't forget the unending love of God is so that they can begin to love like God because love changes things.

So we want them to understand who God is and his wisdom and have knowledge of what God is doing in the world so we can produce good things with our life.

We're not just producing good things with our life just because we're producing good things with our life, but it's who God calls us to be.

And so if you don't know who God is and what God wants to do in you and through you, you'll never produce these good things, these good works that God calls you to wanna do because it's God's design, it's who God has created you to be.

And then the writer goes on and says, look, I wanna pray that you be strengthened with God's glorious power.

See, love helps us love like God when we don't forget his love.

Wisdom helps us produce fruit because we begin to know who God is and we begin to take on who he says we are.

But the glorious power, he says, pray for the glorious power for your friends, for your neighbors, because this power begins to do something amazing in your life.

Then he defines what this power does, what the power of God does in a believer's life.

It's amazing.

He says what it does is it gives them patience and endurance to carry out the work that God calls them today.

Did you know that's what the power of God does in your life as a believer?

It's not so you can be powerful and Lord over other people, but what the power of God does is it helps you never give up.

It helps you never quit on the mission that God has called you to.

What the power of God does is it gives you patience to endure some things, some hardships, some difficulties, some feelings.

It helps you endure those things and it gives you patience in a world that typically we won't have patience with because this world we live in is absolutely crazy.

But if we're gonna be the people of God, if we're gonna be the people of God, we have to operate by the power of God.

And my friend, I need you to be praying for your friend around you that they operate by the power of God.

Why?

So they never quit.

So they never give up.

People give up when their feelings get hurt.

But the reality of it is is God is so good, he's trying to build your faith beyond your feelings.

And he says, you need to learn to operate by faith instead of feelings because faith in God and the power of God will get you through something.

You know, Jesus operated by the power of God.

In other words, he had to get through something.

But he conquered death itself because he was operating by the power of God.

So he got through that pain, he got through that hardship, he got through that difficulty because he could see with God's love on the other side of that painful cross, he endured the cross.

The Bible says that he scorned the shame of the cross because of the joy set before him on the other side of the cross.

That joy was seeing you and me with the love of God.

That joy was seeing you producing what God designs you to produce.

That joy that was set before him was seeing you in communion with God and operating in that amazing power.

So Jesus pushed through the pain.

He didn't quit, he didn't give up because he was operating by the power of God.

You need to pray that somebody in this room around you begins to operate by the power of the living God.

Come on, somebody.

You need to pray that somebody in this room around you begins to operate by the power of the living God.

Come on, somebody.

See, it's not just praying weenie prayers.

It's praying, God, we need you in our lives.

We need to operate by your love.

We need to operate by your wisdom.

We need to operate by your power.

And we wanna be a church that fulfills your vision in this community.

We wanna be encouraged.

We don't wanna give up.

We don't wanna quit.

We don't wanna pull over to the side.

We don't wanna throw in the towel.

We wanna be all you have created us to be.

And so if you wanna be encouraged today, begin to pray for other believers and invite them to pray for you.

Not just your physical needs in life, but that you would operate in who God has designed you to be.

We need to pray about everything.

But see, we need to come to God in such a way to believe that he will empower us to do amazing things with our life because it's what he's designed us to be.

But not only do we encourage others with prayer, we encourage each other with thanksgiving.

Look what he says here in Colossians 1, verses 11 through 14.

He says, may you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father.

He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people who live in the light.

For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and he has transferred us into the kingdom of his dear son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.

We need to be thankful to God for the inheritance that he has for us.

We need to be thankful to our creator that he has given us who have been rescued.

We need to be thankful for the rescue of Jesus, but we also need to be thankful for the inheritance that a good God has given us.

You know, an inheritance is something amazing because an inheritance isn't something you deserve.

It's something that somebody else chooses to give because they want you to succeed in all that you do.

And so an inheritance, if someone leaves you a physical inheritance on this earth, a family member or a loved one, it's not something that you deserve because of who you are.

It's something that they give because of who they are.

And you need to understand God gives those who have trusted the rescue of Jesus, the forgiveness of sin, those who have been delivered out of the kingdom of darkness into the wonderful light.

He has given us an amazing inheritance.

And that inheritance isn't just for the future.

That inheritance is for you to start operating now.

But the interesting thing is when people leave an inheritance for family members and stuff, lots of times what they do is they put parameters on that inheritance because sometimes people will think they deserve the inheritance and they'll take the inheritance and they'll spend all that, waste that inheritance away and not ever do anything with it to make a difference.

And so God, He gives us the inheritance to make a difference.

But when we receive this inheritance, we're to steward the inheritance.

We have an everlasting inheritance with the Lord God.

And I can tell you right now, He has unleashed the kingdom resources, the heavenly resources into your life.

If you're a believer, He's released them into your life right now.

But the reality of it is, are you stewarding those resources?

Or is God having to put parameters and restrictions on those resources because you haven't matured enough to understand that you didn't earn the resources they're given to you to steward, to do good things with?

And God may be having to put parameters on the inheritance because you haven't yet grown in your faith enough to know it's a gift from God and nothing you deserved.

So we gotta be thankful.

We gotta be a people of gratitude for the amazing inheritance that Christ Jesus has passed on to us.

See, if you're sitting here and think that you've done something special beyond other people to deserve the good gift of God, you're missing the whole point of the good news.

The point of the good news is no human can do enough good things to inherit the good grace of God and all He has in store for them.

But God chose to step in to our life and offer it to us if we would so dare receive it by faith and trust Him to fulfill His promise.

And can I tell you today, we need to be thankful to God for what Jesus has done and what Jesus continues to do.

But if you become so self-righteous in your journey, God sometimes will quickly get your attention by putting parameters on the resources so He can get your attention again to know that those resources are for stewarding and using in the proper way while you're here in this earth.

None of us deserve the inheritance, but all of us have a Father who generously gives it if we will receive it by faith.

Thank God for the rescue.

Thank God for the transfer out of the kingdom of darkness into the wonderful light.

Thank God for the inheritance that God has in store for you, me, and the next person, and continue to thank God for all He is doing in your life.

If you have a heart of gratitude and a heart of prayer and a heart of love, God will begin to encourage you in a great, great way.

One of the great ways we can encourage others is to always be thankful to our Heavenly Father.

When we come together, we don't just celebrate Thanksgiving one time a year as a family, where the pilgrims come across and made us into a great nation.

We're thankful weekly here at Valerie's Church because God has set us free.

God has set us free, and we offer this Thanksgiving and this praise to Him over and over again.

Man, do you know we get to come here?

That's an amazing thing that God allows us to come in here, and we get to step in here by faith.

And again, I'm so excited about what God is doing in the life of our church, but let's keep this heart of Thanksgiving.

Let's keep this heart of prayer.

And the last thing I wrote down about encouraging each other is we gotta continually encourage each other with mission and vision, with mission and vision.

There's nothing that will encourage you to get up in the morning when you don't feel like getting up, like a mission or a vision to accomplish the mission.

It will drive you through some stuff.

Jesus had a mission, and Jesus had a vision to accomplish that mission.

Now Jesus has charged His church with the mission, and the mission is the same for every congregation of people that rally around the name of Jesus.

The mission never changes, but the vision of how you carry out that mission can change sometimes along life's journey.

But you gotta have a clear vision of the mission and what you're trying to do, and you have to begin to get on board with a vision and in accomplishing the good work that God calls you to do in the earth.

And so Paul makes it clear here in Colossians of how to get on board with that vision, but I first wanna share the mission that Jesus has given all believers in Christ Jesus.

And that mission is found in Matthew 28.

It may be stated a lot of different ways in congregations, but it's the same all over this earth for a church.

Churches don't have their own mission.

Churches are given a mission by the one that's the head of the church.

His name is Jesus.

So I wanna deliver the mission straight from God's Word today.

And here it is, Jesus came and he told his disciples after the resurrection and before the ascension, Jesus told his disciples, I've been given all authority in heaven and on earth in both places.

Did you get that?

I've been given authority in the heavenlies and on earth.

Therefore, go and make disciples.

That word disciples is a simple word in our culture.

It means go and make students.

Go and make disciples of all nations, all nations, all people groups, all tribes, all tongues.

How?

Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, identifying that they are a part of God's family through baptism.

Teach these new disciples, these new students to obey all the commands I have given you is what Jesus says.

And be sure of this, I am with you to the end of the age.

Friends, that is the mission of the local church, period.

No additions, no subtractions.

It is what God calls his church to be all over this earth as we're going forward with what God has planted in our hearts and lives.

And we have to come together in order to accomplish this mission.

We have to come together and be the church and begin to understand the good work that he's called us to do in a community and be that church operating with the various gifts that God has given to his church and accomplish this mission.

And so that mission should make you ask two questions.

Why would Jesus cast such a big mission?

And how do I participate?

And I wanna answer the first question first, why such a big vision?

Go into all the world, Jesus, do you understand it's a mission just to kind of start a little business on the side of the road somewhere.

That's a mission within itself.

You're talking about permeating this world?

All the world, all nations with this good news?

Jesus, you must have lost your mind because that's big.

Why so big, Jesus?

Well, the reason it's so big is simply stated in John 3, 16, and let me share it with you.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The reason the mission is so big is because God loves people, all people, everywhere, unconditionally.

He doesn't love people based on their nationality.

He doesn't love people based on whether they're a male or a female.

He doesn't love people based on whether they're a boss or an employee.

He doesn't love people based on whether they're barbaric or very sophisticated.

His love is not based on these things.

He doesn't love people based on their age.

And this might be an awakening to some of you in here today.

But he doesn't love you based on the Christian faith.

He doesn't love you based on the Christian denomination you belong to.

He loves you based on who he is and the heart he has for all people.

And God's mission is for all people everywhere to be reached with this good news that God has defeated sin, resurrected from a grave.

So anybody, anywhere can be forgiven and have full access to their great God and become all he has designed them to be.

And God wants everybody to know this good news.

God wants everybody to understand this good news and God wants everybody to step into that good news.

But more so than that, the reason it's so big is because the mission isn't just about human beings.

The mission is about so much more.

And I wanna show you what else the mission is about.

It's found in your Bible in Ephesians 3, 10-11.

It says God's purpose in all of this was to use the church to display his wisdom and its rich variety to the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

It was his eternal plan which he carried out through Christ Jesus, our Lord.

In other words, why is the mission so big?

For God to be permeated in all people in all nations everywhere?

Because it's displaying to the powers and principalities in the heavenly places that are trying to hold back the goodness of God.

It's displaying to them the power of God.

In other words, God can reach into any situation, any domain with his amazing love, power, and wisdom.

And he can touch a human being's life in any place at any time.

And he can transfer them out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

Once they understand the love of God, get the wisdom of God, and begin to operate in the power of God, there's no demon in hell, there's no spirit in the heavens that can hold back who this powerful God is, and he is displaying, and all of them stand in awe according to my Bible at what God's doing in people's heart and what God's doing in people's life.

He's a big God, and he's the God over the heavens, and he's a God over the earth.

See, some of you thought it was just about you.

And the reality of it is, it is about you, but it's in the big scheme of things, all about the amazing love of our creator.

Now, the next question you should ask is, well, how do I participate in this mission?

Because it's a big mission, and I'm gonna walk through this very quickly for you, but it's laid out pretty clear for us in Colossians 1, verses 28 and 29.

The writer here says, we proclaim him, him, Jesus, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.

To the end, he says, I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.

In other words, he says, the writer here in Colossians says, my mission is to proclaim him so I can bring other people into the family.

See, the vision always needs to encompass, though it can look a lot of different ways, it needs to, the vision for the church needs to encompass bringing people into the goodness of God.

Bringing people in.

That's why we wanna be a church of hospitality.

It's why we serve the sausage, the pancakes, the biscuits, all those good things out there.

I hope you enjoy all of those things, but we don't just serve them to fatten you up.

We serve them because it displays hospitality and kindness.

And God wants his people to be a hospitable people, always inviting others to come into the family.

So the vision is simply this, is to proclaim the good news of Christ, and not just with our lips, but with the church displaying in its various forms and various gifts to the world of who God is.

That's why it's so important to come together with God and your gift.

Because when we come together in the community with our various gifts, and we display this hospitality to the world around us, we become a light on a hill.

We're like a city on a hill and we don't hide our light.

We display our light so others come in to know who this great God is.

We proclaim the truth of who Jesus is, not just with our mouth, but with our gifts as a body.

The next thing it says here in this passage is not only do we bring them in, but we should build them up.

See, here he says it this way.

He says, I keep on relating to others.

We proclaim him and we admonish by admonishing and teaching everyone.

So again, we need to be with others in order to share this vision with them.

We gotta begin to be around others.

If you wanna build somebody up, you have to be around people.

This is why it's so important to come together.

Because have you ever tried to admonish somebody that you don't have a relationship with?

They're always gonna give you the Heisman Man.

When you're trying to correct something in somebody's life, correct them so they can get it right.

But you don't have that relationship with them, chances are they feel like you're trying to attack them.

So it's really important if we're gonna build others up in their faith is us to develop a relationship with other people around us so that we can tell them what's wrong.

Because I can tell you right now, if you're not helping people see what's wrong in their life so they can get it right, you're not really loving them.

And we always wanna be a church that not just skips over what each other are doing wrong.

Because if you continually let people wallow in their sinful lifestyle, and you don't help them understand how it's destroying their God potential, then you're really not loving on people.

But if you're gonna stand there and you're gonna admonish somebody, have a relationship with them so they can begin to help, so you can begin to help them see you're trying to bring them out of where they are into where they can be.

See, God desires a relationship with us so we can know He is for us, not against us.

But some of you think God is against you because there's certain things happening in your life and God's never been against you, He's just a good God, He's a good coach, and He's for you, He just wants you to get those old things out so He can put the new things in.

Have I ever had a good coach before?

Good coaches admonish you, they challenge you, they tell you to correct your stance, correct how you dribble the ball, correct how you swing the bat.

You're swinging it like this, or you're swinging, no, they correct you.

And if we're gonna correct people, we have to be willing to have that relationship with them so we can correct them, and then build them up in their faith.

Next thing is this, is carrying out the vision, the mission, not only do we bring people in, build them up, but we train them to be all God has created them to be.

Did you see it there in the passage?

He says we admonish them and teach them.

Why do you teach people?

You teach people because you want people to be a part of what God desires for them to be a part of.

And let me declare what it is, it's the local church.

So many people don't understand that what God's doing in the world is doing through the church, and there is no plan B. God wrote it out in the Bible.

God says in his word how he is gonna work in this world.

And it's to bring the Jew and the Gentile together as one people with him pouring his power, his gifts into that people, and that people operating as a body in the community, reaching the world around them.

And so many people think, well, I can begin to display God by myself on my own.

No, no, no, you're created to be a part of the body.

And if you're really gonna teach people what their part is, you have to invite them to give themselves over and plant themselves in the house of the Lord.

See, some of the reasons some of us are not flourishing in our faith, flourishing in the house of the Lord is because we keep uprooting ourself, and we keep going from here to there, and we're not planting ourself in with the gifts that God has given us, and we're missing so much about what God wants to do through us.

My friend, God is a God who wants to rise you up.

God is a God that wants to work in you and work through us together in this world to change the world.

And the last thing he says in this passage, and I'll read it to you, he's like, you got to only keep on relating to others, keep on developing people, but he says, you got to keep on challenging them to make a difference.

Let me share it with you.

He says, we proclaim him, admonish him in teaching everyone with all wisdom.

So that, everybody say so that.

So that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.

That's the purpose clause, the so that.

He says, we're gonna keep challenging people so we can present everyone fully matured that they will have reached their full God given potential.

We're gonna keep challenging them to step into who God has created them to be.

See, our vision here is simply, it encompasses those four things.

Bring them in, build them up, train them, send them out.

My friend, it's constantly changing based on where we are in life and what we're doing.

Right now, we as a church have a vision to move from this location to the new location.

And again, I don't know if we're gonna be in a tent for the first six weeks.

We're gonna be in a lobby over there for the first six weeks.

I don't know what it's gonna look like, but what I do know is right now, God has given clarity.

Y'all are moving out of here in the end of August and you're moving over there and that's where we're moving.

We don't have all of it put together, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna be a city on a hill and a light into the nations wherever God plants us by bringing people in, build them up in their faith, training them to be who God has created them to be and sending them out around the world to help change the world.

It's mission, it's vision.

We wanna inspire people with mission and vision because we want people to be all God has designed them to be.

We wanna infuse courage in people and help God's people be the people in the community to change the community.

It's all about encouragement.

So my friend, if you're looking for a place to belong, you're looking for a place to root yourself down in, you're looking for a place to be all God has designed you to be, I invite you to step in and let's see what God can do through us.

Let me pray for you today.

God, you're an amazing God.

I thank you for every man, woman, boy and girl here.

God, I thank you for our journey.

God, I thank you how you're bringing us together to accomplish a great work.

God, I pray today that we would be a church that's encouraged, infused with your great courage to be brave with your goodness for the work you've called us to do in this community.

God, help us persevere with your power.

God, help us have the wisdom to know what you've designed us to be and do and help us never forget and lean into your amazing love.

Help us be a people of faith.

Let us trust the word of God.

Let us trust Jesus, our saviour.

And God, let us continue to operate by faith in the days to come.

God, we need a lot of encouragement right now.

We're getting ready to make a big move as a community, as a family.

And God, there's a lot that wants to disrupt that unity.

But God, I pray for unity right now.

We would be a unified group of people around the good news of who Jesus is.

And God, we would step fully in each of our design and be all you've designed us to be.

God, if there's one here today that's never put their faith in the finished work of Jesus, I pray today would be the day of their salvation.

We pray all of this in the Lord Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.