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

Today is a special day.

It's the last weekend that we as Valorous Church will be worshiping in this venue, and we're actually moving next week to a temporary venue across the waterway at our new campus.

Come on, let's give God a hand clap for that.

And then eventually in a few weeks, after we move out of that temporary venue, we'll move in to the foyer of our new campus, and then hopefully within a few months, we'll move in to the arena of our new campus.

Come on.

So we're excited about that as a church family, and there's a lot of challenges on that journey, but one thing is for sure, God is good.

Come on, God's good.

And as we are doing this last service here, and we begin to take a lot of the technology out, a lot of the lights are having challenges, the screens are down, a lot of the sound is stripped away, all the effects and all the background things, the song that really comes to my mind is this.

It's kind of an old song that says,

♪ When the music fades and it all is stripped away, ♪

then it goes something like,

♪ I'm getting back to the heart of worship. ♪

♪ It is all about you. ♪

♪ It is all about you. ♪

How many of you believe that today?

It's all about Jesus.

I'm getting back to the heart of worship.

So y'all didn't know I could be a worship leader too, did you?

It's all about Jesus.

It's all about his goodness.

It's all about the things that he has done down through the years.

In our church and in many churches across the world.

But today we're here to celebrate some of the things he has done over the last 17 years out of this venue that we have been allowed to be in.

And as we turn the chapter, turn the page, and the story that God is writing through Valorous Church, we're gonna be moving over across the waterway again next weekend and starting a new chapter to see what God wants to do.

But God has been so good in this venue.

There's been a lot of valleys, but there's also been a lot of mountaintops.

There's been a lot of lives changed.

I think about whenever we moved into this venue in 2006.

We left the North Myrtle Beach High School to come here.

But before we got to the North Myrtle Beach High School, God put something in our hearts to come to this community and plant a church back in 2003, late 2003.

And so we moved in over at Barefoot Resort, and we started a little church in our home there where we began to meet with 12 people. 12 people.

And over the years, God has changed thousands, tens of thousands of people's life.

And we started there in 2003, and I think back to the goodness of God.

I think about 12 people meeting in a living room and began to talk about the possibilities of what God may want to do through a church that he plants in this area.

And we began to share that with our neighbors and our friends, and many of them began to start small groups in our community.

We began to meet in homes, in various homes, and God began to do amazing, amazing things.

And it's been quite a journey, because we moved from that living room to, we were fortunate enough to be able to, one Sunday, land at the Courtyard of Marriott in a little conference room there, and we began to invite some other people outside of our neighborhood to come to church, and they come to church, and their life began to change, and eventually we got to the Sea Watch here in the Myrtle Beach area.

We got to their conference room, and over the course of about a year, we were able to build a core group of people to birth what was known then as Barefoot Community Church.

We were able to develop a core group of people in that little conference room to move over to North Myrtle Beach High School in the auditorium.

They were so gracious to us to let us move into that high school with about 80 people, and we were there about a year, setting church up, tearing it down every single week, doing all the donkey work.

It was amazing, and it was pretty incredible, but the most incredible thing along the journey wasn't just doing the work together, but it was seeing God begin to touch people's heart and change people's life and change their destiny.

And I think back to those early days, and actually when we moved into our neighborhood, we met a couple of families, and one of those particular families was the Porteous family, Bob and Joanne Porteous.

And by the way, Miss Joanne is sitting right over here on the one, two, three, fourth row today in the third seat.

She's an old lady now, come on, somebody.

So Miss Joanne, I love you.

I love you much.

But Miss Joanne was one of the first cheerleaders of this church, and she's like, you know what, let's have faith in God.

Let's trust God.

And I remember we would sit down every single Monday morning, and when we met with 12 people in the living room, we moved to 70, 80 people in the C-Watch, we grew to 125 in the high school, and we would just sit around and celebrate the things God was doing in people's life.

It was amazing.

We'd sit around a dining room table, and she would talk about it, and we'd just talk about what God wanted to do and just trying to figure it all out.

And then all of a sudden, this venue that we're in right now today, this last Sunday here, God opened the door for us to move over to Main Street here in North Myrtle Beach, if you're online with us, to move in this venue.

It was an old rundown theater.

We were able to soup it up over the years and do a lot of cool stuff in here.

And I think about all the cool things we did, but really what touches my heart is the goodness of God all the way along that journey.

Because the reality of it is is none of us still really don't always know what we're doing as far as ministry goes.

We just know the constant, and it's God is good, and he wants to work in us, he wants to work through us.

Come on, somebody.

And he wants to do amazing things.

And we were able to move over here, and I remember when we went to the high school and said, we're gonna move into this venue on Main Street.

It's got 900 seats, we got 125 people, and you know what, they only wanna charge us $11,000 a month rent to be in there.

And they all looked at me and said, are you crazy?

Because at that particular time, our weekly intake for tithes and offerings was about $800 a week.

I don't know if you do the math, but 800 times four or five doesn't equal 11,000, okay?

A month.

But we believed.

And we began to believe that God would touch lives, change lives, and people would get on board with what he's doing in the world.

And we came over here, and I'm here to report to you today, through the years, we've had ups and we've had downs, but there's been multiple ministries, thousands of people's lives changed.

We walked in here with 125 people that first year.

From about June of 2006 to December, we grew to about 250.

Then from about 250 to 750, then the multiple services, then the multiple campuses, God allowed us to start a campus back over in Barefoot Land, allowed us to start a campus in Whiteville, North Carolina, allowed us to start a campus in Swaziland, down in South Africa.

Come on, somebody.

God allowed us to start all kinds of ministries.

And people walked in this church, their life had been transformed by the goodness of God, and then participating in the ministry.

We've started local homeless shelters.

We started local counseling centers out of the ministry of this church.

We started local churches.

Come on, somebody.

Out of the ministry of the church.

We started churches around the world.

God's done multitudes of ministry out of this church, people coming together, recognizing who God is and then expressing Him to the world.

And I think about all of these amazing memories of what God has done, and I want to hang on to these good things of what God has done, but I also want them to propel us into what God is still going to do.

Because He's not finished yet.

He's not finished working through Valorous Church yet.

Though this closes a chapter with this venue, and we're going to move to a tent because our next arena's not quite ready yet.

You know, God is the same God.

He's the same God whether we strip the music away, the lights away, whether we strip, you know, everything away, we go to a tent, we go to an abandoned theater, whatever it is, He's the same God.

He does amazing things.

And it doesn't mean that we're not to use all those things for His glory to help reach people, but He's a God who is at work in His people's life.

And I'm inviting you today, if you haven't got on board with the journey yet to celebrate what God is doing, now would be a great time to get on the train because God's on the move.

And He's doing amazing, amazing things.

And down through the years, there's been a lot of change.

And things will continue to change because change is what we have to be willing to do in order to express God to the world around us.

We've got to be able to recognize how God is working and be willing to, by faith, change some of the ways we do ministry sometimes in order to reach people and touch people's life.

We have to recognize the hand of the living God working through His people.

So we have to sometimes change some things.

And again, they will continue to change, but there is one constant in all the change, and it is the God we worship.

It is the God we worship who expressed Himself through the love He showed through Jesus Christ.

And though things will always change at Valorous Church and many churches around the world, there is a constant, and it is a God who is good, who loved humanity, who gave His life on a cross to reconnect you no matter where you are to the God of the universe so you could come in communion with Him and you could relate to Him and you could discover who He says you are.

And then you could begin to participate in expressing Him to the world.

Simply said, God is to be experienced and God is to be expressed.

In other words, God wants you to experience Him.

But as you experience Him, He wants you to discover Him in you and then express Him to the world.

Begin to understand who He's created you to be and then join in with what God is doing and express who He is to the world.

He is constant, He never changes.

And one of the reasons we meet together as a family is to worship God, but it's to stare up one another's face.

That God is who He says He is and He's gonna do what He says He's gonna do.

My friend, I don't know what you walked in here with.

I don't know what trouble has come into your life, but I know there's a constant and I know there's a promise that there is a God who loves you.

No matter what is coming to your life, what difficulty is plaguing you, what has happened around you, there is one constant, for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son.

Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, shall not waste away, but have eternal life.

And my friend, that eternal life is found through Christ in Christ alone.

That eternal life is found from knowing who God is through Christ Jesus and believing on Him for the forgiveness of your sin and my sin and entering into a right relationship with God, communing with Him.

And then as you commune with Him, get involved with what He's doing in the world.

Some people are searching for happiness.

Some people are searching for purpose.

People walk in here every single week broken because of life's circumstances.

But I'm here to declare, you know what?

No matter what changes in this world, God's love is constant and He is who He says He is.

And we can hang on to that promise.

Because if you can learn how to hang on to that promise, you can get through anything in life.

If you can begin to hang on to who He really is, and no matter what you've done or how far you have gone or somebody around you have gone, God can redeem them in a minute, change their life and begin to transform them.

And my friend, today, I wanna leave you with that constant.

God is who He says He is.

And as we leave this venue, I want you to embrace who He is as we move into the future.

If you have your Bibles with you today, I'm gonna invite you to turn it to Hebrews chapter 10.

And there's an encouraging word about how to be involved with God's church and really impact the community around you with God's goodness.

One of the reasons we changed our church's name from Barefoot Community Church to Barefoot Church back in the day was we began to understand that God wanted to use us as a people to reach more than one community, which was the Barefoot community at that particular time.

So when we moved into this venue, we said, you know what, God wants to use us to impact more than just one community.

Let's call it Barefoot Church.

But as the journey has gone on through the years, we discovered not only did Barefoot Church really work against who God was calling this people to be, as far as a name goes, we began to understand that it's not who He really called us to be, just kind of a laid back group of people, but a group of people who were living life on purpose and expressing God's goodness to the world.

And so just a little time ago, we changed it to Valorous Church, because what is valor?

Valor is simply being brave.

But as a church, we're being brave, not just to be brave, we're being brave of what God has done in our life and the goodness He has shown us as a church and expressing it to the community around us.

In other words, we're fighting against the forces of darkness in this world, we recognize that.

There's many things tugging on people's heart in this world, but we believe that no matter what tugs on people's heart, there's a good God and His church is called to express that goodness to the world around us so people can fall in love with the same God that you're in love with.

And so we changed our name to Valorous Church a few years ago, and I want us to be a valorous people, not only in this location, but as we move across that waterway into the tent, eventually into the foyer, eventually into the arena, I want us to be a people that are always expressing the goodness of God to the community, have an impact on the community.

We went from 12 people to multiple thousands on special weekends here at Valorous Church.

God has allowed us to touch vacationers, maybe you're a vacationer in a room today, but people come in here for one time, they went to Kroger to get a loaf of bread.

Back in the day, buy a loaf.

They're like, dude, there's a church and theater, let me go check it out.

They come in here, God touched their life, changed them.

They go back home, ministry started in them and through them wherever they go.

Well, what's amazing is God has strategically placed us in a vacation capital of the United States, one of them.

And people come here, seasonal people.

It's amazing, some people move here six or eight months out of the year.

One of the reasons we started this online broadcast was simply to begin to reach people, because a lot of people attend online before they ever come and walk into a building, but it's also to minister to those people that are here part time.

Sometimes they're here six months, they go somewhere else for six months, but this is their home church.

This is where they're getting the fuel that God has given them to go somewhere else and do ministry.

And so the online campus is really important every single week.

I just want you folks to know we're gonna be moving the online campus to the tent also.

But the reality is this, the reality is when you come in here, understand God wants to be worshiped, but when you worship God, God's power begins to change you so you become a worker in his kingdom.

In other words, worship changes us.

It's not only knowing who God is, it's beginning to understand who he says you are.

Because when you understand who he says you are, you get involved with what he's doing in the world.

And when you get involved with what he's doing in the world, you begin to have a sense of joy and peace and happiness.

You're not just walking through life doing something, you're doing life with a purpose.

And though things come against you in that purpose, you walk in the fullness of that.

And really what the ministry of this church is, is helping you understand the goodness of God and who Jesus is and how he come to redeem mankind, but also is to help you, my friend, whether you're eight or you're 88 or you're 108, help you step into the fullness of who God says you are, into ministry.

Because God has called you and me to administrate his love to the world.

And if you've experienced that, the question is, is what part does God call you to play?

And so as we move from here to there, let these words encourage you today.

Hebrews 10, as the writer here writes to the young Hebrew church that had been scattered, he reminds them of the goodness of Jesus and what Jesus has done.

And Jesus is a great high priest sitting in the heavenlies, putting his enemies under his feet, and he wants to encourage them to keep on keeping on.

Here it is, he says it in verse 23 like this.

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

Don't waver.

He says, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

God can be trusted.

Your mama might not can be.

Your boyfriend might not can be.

Your parents might not can be.

They should be.

But sometimes human beings, no matter how good a human being, a human being will break a promise, but the Bible says that God doesn't break his promises.

God can be trusted to keep his promise.

And my friend, that right there can change your life if you really get that in your heart.

God can be fully trusted to do exactly what he says he'll do.

And so the writer goes on to say, let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works, to ministry.

And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, infuse each other with courage, especially now that the day of Jesus' return is drawing near, though this was written 2,000 years ago.

These people live with an expectation that Jesus didn't just come once as a suffering servant, but he's coming again as a savior and a king to put all evil under his feet and rule and reign forever and ever and ever with his people.

And see, I believe that message today.

And these people live with an expectation is that Jesus was going to do what he says he's going to do, that God is going to do what he says he's going to do.

In other words, he is coming back.

I'm thankful for the cross.

I'm thankful that he come once.

I'm thankful for the knowledge of the resurrection.

But the resurrection should empower you to live towards what he's going to do next.

In other words, what he's going to do next, according to his word, is he's pouring out his spirit right now to men and women alike so that we can spread the goodness of God.

And when the goodness of God reaches its fullness, as God sees it being reached, then he's going to return.

Come on, somebody.

Living with the expectation he is going to return.

So that should motivate you to get up and do the work that God has called you to do in this world.

So I wrote down a few things about a church that impacts its community.

And the first one is this, is we have to trust God's promise.

We have to trust his promise.

Look what it says.

It says it there, and it says, let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.

The Bible says in 2 Timothy 2, chapter 2, verse 13, it says, if we are unfaithful, he remains faithful.

Another translation says, when we are faithless, he is faithful.

He cannot deny who he is.

Other words, when I'm completely out of faith, because of life's circumstances, God is still faithful.

When I don't even have the audacity to believe, God is still who he says he is.

In other words, he's a constant God.

And for God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son, whoever would believe, whoever would just begin to trust that he is who he says he is, will have eternal life.

And so God is still standing there, though you may have been faithless, you have not had the faith to believe.

I want you to know today, God is still there.

God has not moved.

God is still who he says he is.

He still gave his life on a cross, and no matter how far you have gone, or no matter how down you may feel, there is a God that is still there.

He's constant.

But you have to set your mind on that promise.

Though you may feel unforgiven, you may feel a certain way, begin to set your mind on that promise, and things will begin to change.

Listen to what Colossians chapter three, verses one and two says.

It says, if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.

Focus on him.

Look what it says, it says set.

Everybody say set.

Set your mind on things above and not on earthly things.

In other words, fixate.

That word set's an amazing word.

It means to, to, let me just use this example.

Over at the new campus, they've been setting a lot of tall steel beams in concrete.

And that's kind of what that word means.

It means fixate.

When they set that beam in solid concrete, no matter what comes, it's unshakable, it's unmovable.

And so the wind storms don't take it down because it's set.

God's calling you to set your mind that Christ is who he says he is in spite of the circumstances, in spite of your faithless situation.

God is who he says he is.

Set your heart, set your mind, believe that and begin to see what God can do.

Let it not be movable.

God is not changing his mind about who you are based on what you're doing.

He has already set who you are whenever he forms you in your mother's womb.

And he is set to express that love on a cross so you would begin to hopefully one day wake up from your spiritual darkness and see his amazing love for you and what he's done on a cross.

The Bible says once you wake up and you see that, that he came to pay a high price to recommune you with the God of the universe, if you will set your mind on that, nothing will ever be able to shake you again because your mind is set on the eternal God who is eternally in love with you.

See, think of it this way.

Have you ever played with Play-Doh before?

It's soft, it's moldable, but once you set it aside and let it set up and get hard, it no longer can be formed now into something else because it's set.

And I invite you to set your heart and your mind no matter what's going on or what is going on, set it on God has done what he says he's done and he's going to do what he says he's going to do.

My friend, he is coming back in spite of what you hear, what you see, what you think, what you feel, he is coming back and he is declared, he's given full revelation of who he's going to be when he comes back and all you got to do is read about 20 chapters in your Bible to discover that.

And it's when Christ returns, the book of Revelation, it's a revelation of who Jesus is in the fullness of who he is.

It's a revelation of who he was, who he is and who he is to come.

It's an amazing revelation to begin to get to see.

And when you can begin to grab hold that Jesus is coming back in spite of what's going on in the world, I don't care what politics are saying.

I don't care what economy is saying.

I don't care what evil is saying.

God is going to come back and do what he says he's going to do.

He's going to set things right.

And my friend, when you begin to put your heart in that promise, it begins to give you the motivation to move forward.

He says, begin to set, hold tightly to this hope that we affirm.

The next thing I wrote down is this, is a church that has extreme impact in its community.

It thinks of ways to motivate people to do ministry.

See, because you're created to do ministry.

All ministry is, is administrating God to the world around you through the various gift he has given you.

And all people that have put their belief in who God is, is giving a gift, a spiritual gift, the Bible refers to it is, to administrate God's goodness and love to the world around them.

And so we have to think of ways to get people involved in ministry so that they can administrate God's love to the world.

This is why we are always inviting people to get involved.

Again, yes, people do ministry, but also ministry builds people.

In other words, we don't just use people to get things done, though people get things done, when you are getting things done, that ministry that you're doing builds your faith in who God is.

Because it's who God has designed you to be.

As a human being, you are created in the image of the living God to be an image bearer of him in this world.

And how God is bearing his image in this world is through his church.

Those who have been redeemed out of darkness into the wonderful light of Christ.

He comes into their life, he begins to transform them so that they can begin to administrate his love and goodness into the world.

Do ministry.

And so, again, if you want peace in your heart, I gotta ask you, what ministry are you a part of?

What ministry are you doing?

I don't care if you're six, you can do ministry.

Or if you're 80, you can do ministry.

It's amazing.

Because God created it this way for you to be an owner and not just be a renter.

There's a big difference because see, renters, they just kinda rent something and use it for a period of time.

But owners take hold of something and they steward it.

And then they begin to work with it.

And the ownership God is calling you, he says you're joint heirs of the kingdom that is still to come.

You're brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus of the kingdom that is still to come.

In other words, you're a citizen of something that is not here yet.

You're a citizen of the kingdom.

You're an owner of the kingdom.

You have responsibility in the kingdom.

God has called you to participate in the kingdom.

And whenever you take on that responsibility, things begin to change.

Joy begins to happen.

It's not just outreach.

It's outreach with a purpose.

Hoping that someone through the love you're expressing as you're reaching out to them comes to know the God you know because you're administrating that goodness to them.

There's various forms of goodness God gives to his church.

There's teaching, there's serving, there's sharing, there's generosity.

There's all kinds of spiritual gifts that God gives to his church.

And when you participate with your spiritual gift and we think of ways to motivate you to participate with your spiritual gift, it begins to change everything.

A church that hangs on to the promise of Jesus, that participates in ministry, begins to change the world around it and have tremendous impact.

And again, they begin to have joy in their heart.

My friend, you need to understand you were created for ministry.

You need to get your family involved in ministry.

Listen to what the scripture says, Ephesians chapter four, verses 12 through 13.

It says, speaking of church leadership here, and it says, their responsibility is to equip God's people to do the work and build up the church, the church, the body of Christ.

This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God's son that we'll be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.

So it says we all have a responsibility to be ministers and participate in the kingdom, administrating God's love and doing what he says in the world.

Ephesians 2 10 puts it this way.

It says, for we, everybody say we.

We.

That means all of us, more than one.

It says we are God's masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus.

He's changed our life, not so we can just perform, but we can be transformed into the likeness of Christ.

And as we're transformed, we use our gift.

And look what it says.

It says, so we can, we're created anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

So that means God has a good work for us to do, a good thing for us to do.

And again, when we're participating with that good thing, everything begins to change in our life.

The circumstances around us don't always change, but our purpose and our sense of living begins to change.

It's amazing.

Sometimes the circumstances are like a tornado and it just gets crazy.

But what happens is God is still who he says he is.

He's constant.

He fulfills his promise.

He involves his people and he invites his people to be involved.

And so here at Valorous Church, man, what we do is we are constantly say, stay involved in the work of the ministry.

And I realize people get tired because let me just be quite frank with you.

Some ministry is donkey work.

Everything isn't always about harvesting, but there is harvesting that takes place.

But sometimes, you know, God calls us to do donkey work.

It's hard.

When it gets hard, you get tired.

And I understand that.

And we all need to learn the proper place to go get rest.

But do you really understand where rest is?

Because rest isn't in a day.

Rest is in a person.

His name is Jesus.

In other words, your peace and your rest is found in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus alone.

He is the fulfillment of what we would know as the Sabbath.

He is the one that we're to rest upon.

He is the one that we're to put our hope in.

He is the one that we are to trust always.

And our Father is always working, but we're always resting in him and being involved in what God's doing in the world.

Rest in Jesus.

He'll change your life.

Find your hope in Jesus.

Rest in Jesus.

Work the gift that Jesus has given you.

Involve your family.

And the last thing I wrote down is this, because this is extremely important.

No matter where we meet, a church that changes and makes impact in its community meets together to encourage one another.

Meets together to encourage one another.

Look what it says here.

It says in Hebrews 10, verse 25.

It says, let us, let us, that's more than one, not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now, that the day of his return is drawing near.

So in other words, we're to gather together to use our gifts to express God to the world, but as we gather together, we're to encourage each other and build each other's faith up in who Jesus is.

Because there's days when you become faithless.

There's days when I become faithless.

But when I gather with God's people and I look into the eyes of people who have been transformed by the goodness of God and keep on keeping on because of what God has done in their life, my faith begins to be built.

Not only by what he's doing in my life, but what he's doing in your lives.

And so the question for all of us is, are we meeting together on a regular basis to encourage each other?

We're not just getting together.

Part of worship is bringing encouragement to the body around you.

It's using your gift to begin to help build up the body of Christ, other believers, so that we can go out into this world and together do the work that God has created us to do.

And what I've discovered on my journey is greatness is a bigger number than one.

In other words, I can't be great by myself.

You can't be great by yourself because God has created us to be together as a body.

And it's bigger than one.

A church isn't great in the community unless the body, all of us, are participating and administering his goodness to the world.

And so God hasn't called us just to be, you know, a good church.

He's called us to be a great church.

And that means that we all need to begin to use our gift and begin to express God to the community.

But sometimes we don't feel like doing that, do we?

But what will encourage your faith, my friend, is to begin to meet with other believers and see in their faith in Jesus in spite of what's going on in their life.

One of the greatest things about gathering week after week with God's people, to me, is to look at a person and think of some of the horrific things that they have gone through and they are still trusting and having faith in God, that he is who he says he is, and they're stepping in to ministry in spite of their circumstances.

My friend, we would call that a testimony.

It's the testimony of those around us.

And sometimes we can hear a testimony with somebody getting on a mic and telling about who they used to be and who God's transformed them into being.

But my friend, when you're a part of a family and a community and you don't just hear the testimony, you see the testimony, it begins to encourage your faith.

One of the greatest ways to move from being faithless to trusting God to be who he says he is is to get around some people who are walking in a life of faith and beginning to look at their story and what God's doing.

And again, only time really tells the story.

But at the end of the day, it's not just hearing what somebody says, it's also seeing God at work in their life.

And my friend, I look around this room right now and I see people that God worked in their life 15 years ago, 17 years ago, 20 years ago, and I see them still stepping in to the goodness of God.

You know, in the days that I feel faithless and I feel like I can't move on, keep moving on, I begin to look at some of you folks and say, you know what, let my faith be encouraged by their faith because it's our faith together in Christ Jesus that allows us to keep on keeping on.

So one of the greatest reasons to meet together is to encourage each other's faith, begin to see the faith that people have.

It's not some kind of pretend thing.

Sometimes it's tears.

Sometimes it's hurt.

Sometimes it's pain.

It's authenticity.

And it's not people just standing there and acting like things aren't happening.

It's no, you know what, these things are happening, but I'm hanging on.

And my friend, I feel like I can keep on keeping on because as God transformed my life, He's transforming your life, we can begin to shine the light of Christ into the world.

It's vital.

If you really want to have impact on people's life, it's for you to get around a community of faith and begin to exercise your gifts and see what God can do.

We're getting ready to move into a new season.

And my friend, I don't know if you've been on the train, off the train, you need to get on the train again or what it looks like, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.

What matters is God is basically stopping His train here at Valorous Church.

And He's saying to some of you sitting in this very room, some of you online today, today is time to get back on the train because the train is moving across the waterway and I'm getting ready to do more and great things.

Trust me in who I say I am.

You know, sometimes we get hurt.

I get hurt, you get hurt.

But at the end of the day, we work through those things and we begin to see God do amazing things in and through our life.

I invite you to participate in what God is doing and let's see what God can do.

I'm scared to death.

It's been an amazing 17 years in this venue.

I've watched God change lives.

I know we're building a great arena across that waterway, but the enemy begins to say nobody's going to show up because there's going to be in a tent.

And right now my wife would say I'm faithless.

So I'm going to invite you to encourage my faith next week and show up in the tent.

My friend, God has been good here and he's going to continue to be good.

But I just want to share with you today, we're here and we're inviting you to be a part of what God's doing.

Trust his promise, get involved, and let's keep meeting together to encourage each other's faith.

I'd love to pray for you.

God, thank you so much for every person here today.

Thank you for every family they represent, every people they represent.

God, I thank you for your goodness of how many of our lives you have changed by allowing us to be in this venue.

God, we're thankful.

We're thankful for the good times, the bad times.

God, all the resources you've provided, all the people you have provided along the journey, the ministries you've started out of here.

God, we're grateful.

God, we don't really know the fullness of what's next, but by faith, God, we know you've been faithful in the past, you're going to be faithful in the future.

And God, we're going to trust you and your goodness.

We're going to step into it, God.

We're going to seek to follow you and obey you and work together and love each other and express your goodness to the world around us.

God, as we move from here to there, if there's a person today that needs to be touched by the goodness of Jesus, the grace of God, his mercy, put their faith in the finished work that he showed on the cross when he forgave them of their sin and the power of his resurrection and get on board with what he's doing, God, I pray today that their faith would be encouraged, that they would no longer remain faithless in who Jesus is, that you would encourage them today somehow, some way, through what they've experienced here with God's people.

God, you are to be experienced and you are to be expressed.

And I pray from this point forward, we would be a church that always seeks to experience you, but always reaches out to express you to the world around us.

God, be with us in this move.

Be with us in this transition.

Be with us in this change.

God, we're moving from a theater to a tent, from a tent to a foyer, from a foyer to an arena.

And God, I pray that as we step into that arena with your goodness, that God, it would be filled up dozens of times a weekend with people seeking your grace and your love.

God, that you would minister to this community like you've never ministered to it before through your people.

God, today we surrender.

It's your church.

Build your church, Jesus.

We pray it in your holy and precious name.

Amen.