The year was 1857. When a 48 year old businessman, Jeremiah Lamphier. So they had this heart to reach his city. The one of America's cities, New York City. But the good news of the gospel. And so he began a prayer meeting on September 3rd at 12 o'clock at the consistatory of the North Dutch Reformed Church there in New York City. And his hope was to pray for repentance and for revival. And so as he began praying, No one showed up. Really 11 person. Really was there. After a half hour, still only 1 person. After an hour, 6 people. They decided to keep showing up every day at noon and to keep praying. And after the course of a week, 16 people showed up to pray this daily prayer meeting. And they just had this consistent, humble, passionate heart for God to move. And what started as one person followed by another, followed by 6 people. A week later, 16 people. Within 3 weeks, 40 people. And by mid October it's about 100 people gathering every day to pray. But they couldn't have seen coming was that there would be. A crisis in the financial market where thousands of people would lose their jobs there in October of 1857. That left people searching. And wondering where was God in all of this? And pretty soon people started showing up, not just by the hundreds. But by the thousands toward 6 months into this daily prayer gathering, 10,000 businessmen were gathering in various places around the city and praying. And what took place over the next two years there in 1857 and 1858 was really described as another awakening or revival as that it's an estimated over a million people got saved in New York City and across the country as a result of the great prayer revival, isn't that amazing? It started from an everyday person. Not a huge promotion. Not a song, not preaching, but just prayer. Why do I share that? Cause I never want you to underestimate what God can do through the prayers of His people. See, every year since COVID, we've decided to pick a theme to describe the direction of our church. And, and really this idea here was to see how is God working? Where is God taking us? And, and so we we would pray and and fast and and at the end of the 21 days of prayer really share with the church family here the word to describe or shape our next season as a church family. You know, I say that because it really came just personally for me on the other side of 2020, right? Every pastor had some version of 2020 vision entering into, uh, that year, which ironically, no one saw the pandemic coming. And, and so on the other side of that, they said, you know what, let's just pick a word that would describe the direction of our church, and just, just humbly seek God passionately and see what God would do. And so in 2021 our word of the year was in power and really at the end of that year was actually we shared uh the bringing on of a church plant resident. His name was Craig Clauka and ultimately launched grafted Church on the west side of the valley and they're uh they're growing it's awesome and they're baptizing people. It's pretty exciting. And so that was a great end of that year. In 2022, our word of the year was more stemming from Ephesians 3, that God can do measurably more than anything we can ask, think, or imagine. And how God can work and do so much more than anything we can think. Well, at the end of that year was actually when God opened up the doors and we were able to announce the possibility of getting the building that we're sitting in right now. And then in 2023 our word was new based from Romans 6:4 talking about how buried with Christ and baptism and then raised to walk in newness of life and that if you take the word new and and study all throughout scripture you can see how we're called and that. When we get to um become children of God, we're called new creation, right? We're called to follow a new commandment. uh, and there's this newness of life that comes that when you study the word of God that you can be transformed and changed and your mind is renewed on a daily basis. Well at the end of 23 we got to grand open this space and we actually started to see growth like we've never seen before and a lot of new faces started showing up. Well then in 2024 our word of the year was stronger and this is idea of just what can we do now with all these new people to strengthen the people, the staff, the leadership, the systems and so we actually added multiple staff positions. We started changing the systems behind the scenes in the database and volunteer check in and. And processes and all those things behind the scenes, but on the, but in the in the church and in the community we started to see actually stronger community and connections take place so we actually just last year, um, averaged 321 people over the course of the year on a weekly basis, which is a 40% increase from the year prior and more than double what we were just two years ago along with that, we, yeah we can clap for that. That's good. But not just on a Sunday morning, we also strengthen our groups. We launched, we launched 16 different groups and saw over 300 people in groups, meaning that pretty much 100% of numerically, um, we saw people connected in groups throughout this community that met all throughout the week, which is awesome. And then we also strengthened our volunteer and service team where over 200 people were serving throughout the year and then we ended the year with our largest, strongest, uh, Christmas Eve service ever. We had 720 people, um, come over the course of 4 services and 65 people prayed to receive Christ. Amen. And so God's been doing some miraculous things in this church, and, and I feel like in many ways we're just riding this Holy Spirit wave, uh, and, and it's really a lot of fun. And so, uh, really leading up to Christmas, uh, I was already praying for that and then especially in our time of prayer and fasting here the last 21 days of prayer, I was praying for the theme and direction to describe this year and I gotta be honest with you, I didn't love the words that God was giving me and I kept second guessing it. I kept going. That's not cool, God. Like that's not a fun word. Like that's not cool, you know, like, like, stronger, like new, it's like, yeah, it's it's exciting, right? Like, like I wanted something like I even Christmas Eve we're like more than conquerors, like, yeah, you know, and uh like, and then he gives me this word I'm like, that doesn't sound, I don't know, like. Doesn't, doesn't sound sexy. OK, I probably shouldn't say sexy in church, my apologies. But you know what I'm saying though, you know what I mean? Like you get this word like, oh, like you, but the more I started to pray through it and think through it, I realized, uh, actually it's exactly, uh, first of all, what I need on a personal basis. Um, and it's also, I think what our church needs and really as I think about it, it's what our community needs. And it's this so our word of the year that I wanna share with you today is focus. It's focus. Why? If you're taking notes, I encourage you to write this down, that our distracted world. Needs a focused church. Our distracted world needs a focus, church, and I cannot think of a time. Where we are more distracted as a society. More information is being uploaded. Online every single day. Then if you take all previous history knowledge that was recorded up to this point. Think about that, because everybody can report and share and upload. There's more things out there today than ever before. Uh, we heard at a, a pastor's training a while back, I believe it was Ed Stetzer shared this illustration pass along with you that actually the Roman Empire experienced an interesting thing where they were building, you know, the Roman roads and all these things. It's awesome. They actually had a watering system like where they had pipes where they could run water throughout the city. It was pretty incredible what they were able to do. Um, with no Google or anything and uh and so, uh, but what was crazy was that these pipes, a lot of them had lead in them. And so what happened over the course of years is that the same pipes that were bringing life were also bringing with them death. The same thing that was bringing life was also killing them. In the same way, I think today, the lead pipes for us are the devices in our pockets. Right? There's so much opportunity, right? And, and let's be real, I don't wanna go backwards. Right, I don't want to live in a day where there's no Amazon Prime. You know what I mean? Now, I forget a lot more stuff now, like, let's be real, how many of you have no idea what your spouse or a close family member's phone number is? Some of you are looking, how many of you don't know your own phone number? Right? Like we're spoiled, right? We can ask Alex Alexa or Siri or Google anything these days. I, I don't want to go backwards. I love it. But with that, here's the, here's the reality though. Is that with that comes this truth, that a wealth of information leads to a poverty of attention. It's almost like you need water to drink. But instead of from a cup, instead of from just a slow babbling stream. We're standing at the base of Niagara Falls. Getting drenched and yet somehow not being satisfied. Right? It's being surrounded and yet not getting what we actually need. Why? Because we are distracted. Anyone felt good about their day, and then they got online and saw someone who had a better day. Anyone feeling good because they uh they didn't scream at their children as much today as they did yesterday and then they get online and see someone had like organic cucumber sandwiches cut in shapes after they learned Latin together and you're like, wait, what? You know what I'm saying though, right? Like, we, we've never had more opportunity than ever before and at the same time. We are the most overwhelmed, anxious, stressed out, depressed generation ever. Why Because we think we need information, but what we truly need is transformation. And so I think the word focus is actually very valuable to you and to me today because if you think about uh how a camera operates, you have the body of the camera designed to take photos of the world. But a camera is only as good as the lens through which you view it. And so some of you at one, don't have the right lens on the camera. You have been created on purpose and for purpose. But you don't have the lens of faith on your camera, and so you're viewing the world. And it looks blurry. Some of you haven't even taken the cap off the lens and wonder why you can't see anything. And I laughed a little harder, probably accidentally did that. See, when you take a blurry photo, Like you kind of see the images. But there's a big difference when something comes in focus. My generation has been an interesting one as a childhood becoming an adult is because we grew up with the constantly changing version of video games, right? from like the Atari and just like you just had like I remember just like two things going up and down ding ding. we're like this is amazing. So then like a Nintendo, right? And then you had Super Nintendo, like, oh, and then like Sega, and then you had PlayStation and Xbox, and then like these pixelated blocks of figures would come out like, oh, it's so realistic. You know, whereas today, there's like. Just, it's so crazy to me, also another side note, right, like we, we ever told growing up, like if you sit close to the TV, it's gonna be bad for your eyes. And now we have virtual reality where it's like it's close as possible to your eyes. Anyway, sorry how my mind works. I'm just like, were they wrong, were we wrong? I don't know. Anyway, but now everything's so realistic, right? OK. Here's the thing. I want you to see the world. In crystal clear vision. Stronger than any 4K 6K high pixelated vision is this spiritual attention to detail, to view the world through the lens of faith from the author of life himself to see the world as it's supposed to be. Because it's easy to be distracted. I have this bad habit of being on my way home from work and my wife asked me to pick up one thing and I will go to the store and pick up everything but the one thing. Any other spouses with me on that? Right, they, they grocery stores get here, right? They put the milk in the back and by the time I get to the back, I'm like, oh, what's, oh, OK, you know. It's so easy for you. OK, let's be, if you're not in the store, have you ever gone into the kitchen to get something and then forget what you walked into the room for? Or you start a project and you go to the other room to grab a tool, and then you're in that room and you see another project, and so you begin that one, and then, oh, I need to go to the garage and you go to the garage, like, oh, I just needs to be plugged in. It's like, no, I need to go outside. And next thing you know, you have 10 partially started projects and none of them done. I think for many of us, that's how we live our lives. Why? Because it's so easy to be distracted. When God calls us to be focused. We're jumping into a new series today entitled Brave Faith and as we look at our focus for this year, we're gonna take a look at the focus of the early church. And in the fall, we study the beginning of the book of Acts and and today through Easter, we're gonna jump into the rest of the book of Acts and seeing how the church, the movement as we know it really got started. And in reality, they had so many more challenges than you and I have today. Because they had no power, they had no money. They, they were getting persecuted and attacked. They didn't even have the written New Testament yet as we have it. But they had proximity to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They had the Holy Spirit living inside of them and a passion to obey what God tells them to do. It was nothing that the world said you needed to take over the world, they changed the world. And I think by studying the early church and the bravery of the men and women in the Book of Acts we can actually apply principles to your lives and to my life the day that we too can go and change the world. If you have your Bibles open up to Acts chapter 13, I believe it's one of the most pivotal passages in history, and I'll explain in just a moment, but for right now let's go ahead and read this together. Now there were in the church in Antioch, prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called ***, Lucius of Cyrene. Mannian, a lifelong friend of Herod the Patriarch, and Saul, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, Set apart for me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them. And after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. Now this seems like a small thing, but in reality, this, these three verses potentially changed the world. Why do I say that? Because up to this point, much of what was happening in the early church was by Holy Spirit accident. It's not by accident, but they weren't setting out to do things, right? Like they received the Holy Spirit of lives they were persecuted, so they were scattered and so they would see somebody on the road and heal that person or they'd stand before somebody else and heal that person and they'd have a conversation. But in chapter 13, what we see here is one of the first intentional actions of a local church for missions. The very first missions program didn't come out of Jerusalem but from Antioch. And I think this is on purpose and really fascinating to me because you think the first missionary program to reach the world should start from the disciples, right? But it's not actually from the disciples themselves, but from everyday ordinary people, not gathered in Jerusalem, but in Antioch. And the leaders that were being developed there, it lists 5 of them, and it's a very diverse group. So you got Barnabas, who was described as a son of encouragement, OK? He was the person that welcomed Saul into the next Saul becomes Paul. Actually, Saul's name gets kind of transferred here to Paul in Acts chapter 13, random fact there. Saul was this Jewish name. He from this point on when he goes on missions, he actually refers to himself by his Roman name Paul, potentially to reach more Gentiles. It's random fact there. But same, same guy, same name. So those two guys you might have heard of before. But then what's interesting here is you have in there uh Simeon who was called ***, so *** literally means black. So you have an African man who was potentially described as someone launching missions into the continent of Africa. You also have Lucius of Cyrene, so potentially also of African descent. So now you have a diverse group of people and it is not just this group of Phariseeutical Jewish religious leaders, but rather this diverse group. And then the most interesting one I think is Mandaean. Who, uh, in the ESV here it says a lifelong friend, um, but in the original language there's some commentators note that the phrasing for lifelong friend might actually indicate that he might have actually had relationship too, so potentially like, uh, close to the family or maybe even a foster brother of Herod the tetriarch and that Herod is the guy who actually killed John the Baptist. Imagine that family, OK? So you have the brother of the guy or foster brother of the guy who killed John the Baptist. You have Saul who killed Christians and was the number one antagonist of Christians. You got Barnabas, who's best known as just encouraging guys, you can do it. And then you have in here, and then you have two guys who don't fit the mold of early religious leadership. And yet it's these 5, that this diverse group of everyday ordinary people that are pursuing God that God sends out to launch the first missional movement that now has expanded the gospel to the ends of the earth. And what are they doing as they gather? It says in there that they were worshiping the Lord. Some translations describe that as ministry to the Lord. It's the same terminology or picture that would describe what priests did in the Old Testament when they're preparing sacrifices and their priestly duties at the temple. And so this is pretty incredible to think about, but before you ever minister for God, it makes sense to first minister to God. When we sing, bless God, right? You're praising God for who He is, right? We just finished the series on prayer, right? Our Father hallowed be thy name. You are ministering to the Lord, praising God for who He is and what he has done. So here is a group of everyday ordinary people not described as the early religious leaders, not in Jerusalem, but in Antioch, coming together, praying, having a church service, worshiping the Lord, asking the Holy Spirit to fill them and move them, listening to what the Holy Spirit says, and then actually doing what it says. Notice that the end of their prayer meeting is for them to go and to reach the world. They're fasting, praying and laying on their hands on them and sent them off. Christianity is really the only movement that doesn't exist for its members. Did you ever think about that? That our primary focus is actually to reach the people who are not already here yet. Because church is not a building to come to, but a movement to belong to that we really are the church when we go and we live sent. In this prayer service happening here in Acts 13, actually is very similar to what Jesus did with his disciples, the very first time he called them his disciples here in Matthew 4:19. He says to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Now then they were primary fishermen by trade, and so he's using a metaphor here to say I'm going to give you a new purpose. To cast net for people. They didn't literally go and cast nets for people, that would be great. I could almost see Peter doing that, right? Like in Jesus' name, like pull them in but. Sorry, this is how my mind goes, right. And so, those early disciples really had 3 components. A disciple follows Jesus, and it's apprentice under Jesus to do what Jesus did. It's not just following an idea or a principle, but following the person in the life of who Jesus is. I am the way, the truth and the life, right? We are following Jesus. Not just a set of morals, but the person of God. Then the second thing is to have fellowship with believers, cause Jesus actually called them together. Now in Acts 13, we see that they were together in a church service, gathered together. It's not uh an isolated sport. It's a team sport here. OK. And then ultimately, when they are gathered together, when they are worshiping the Lord, when the Holy Spirit moves, the Holy Spirit actually sends them out. So they fish for people. So what does it mean to be a disciples to follow Jesus, the fellowship with believers in the fish for people. So let me ask you, With everything going on this year, where is your focus? Where is your focus this year? Cause what you see and what and how you speak ultimately shapes the season that you're in. Do you ever go shopping for a new car? What do you see on the road the whole time you're shopping for a car you see that car, right? It seems like an oversimplified truth, but I think we forget it sometimes that you will find what you're looking for. Are you looking for God in everyday aspects of life? God's provision comes in unique ways. Just last Saturday, OK? Just last Saturday, I came to drop something off cause I wasn't gonna be here. I was at a church plan launch. My dad, um, stumbled through the message, but whatever. No, just kidding. He actually did a great job. He's sitting in the back. Thank you for filling in. And, uh, and so I came to drop something off and actually Wendy came in just right before me to drop some off too, and we came in and there was 1 inch of water from the back of this hallway all the way up to the nursery room. And there was spewing water on the top of the water heater. Um, and so on one hand, you're like, oh God, really? I miss your church and things break. Right, but can you imagine if like Wendy and I think God knew it couldn't just be me because it was me, I don't probably wouldn't figure things out, but Wendy figures it out and I can just try to help and then we had some other people come in and help us. But if we hadn't showed up Saturday night, we would all just be in a pool Sunday morning. Right? So in God's provision, it's like, oh something broke, but actually God had us here in the time that we're not normally here to do something that we don't normally do. And just a reminder that, hey, I, I got you. So even when things break, I'm gonna provide for you, right? And praise God for, for the workings of Jose coming in, lumber bringing in the shot back, pra praise God for people like Mike Stark who comes in and is able to work with warranties and replace the water he got replaced within a week and it's functioning great, which is awesome. And so it's been so cool to see how God provides for everyday things and everyday needs, but you gotta look for it. You gotta pay attention to it. And so what's our focus this year? I believe God's placed 3 faith focuses for us as a church, and they've really been our focus from the beginning of launching this church, but what I wanna do or what I'm really feeling in the sense that in my spirit as well and in scripture is that it's time for us to really double down. Because we have the building, we have some people, and it's fun, but I don't want to be pulled in 1000 different directions. In our distracted world, I wanna be a focused church, specifically focused on making and multiplying disciples of Him. Amen. So what does that look like? We have 3 faith focuses for this year. Number 1 is to plant the gospel. Plant the gospel. And what we have here is that ultimately, I wanna know, do you know God? Do you know God? Now, do you know facts about God? Not my parents know God. But do you personally know God? Do you have a relationship with the God who made you, the God who saves you? Because it's God who's gonna change everything. See Jesus in his prayer, John 17:3 says, and this is eternal life, that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So eternal life doesn't begin the moment you die. It's not just some cloud you go to when you die and you get to play a little harp. OK, eternal life actually begins the moment you place your faith in Jesus and so that allows you to pray heaven down instead of living culture up so that when you can experience little glimpses, little appetizers, little bites of heaven, now because you can see God moving, why? Because you can know him on a personal basis. This is eternal life to know Jesus Christ. You gotta plant the gospel into your life. Do you know him? Hebrews 12:13 says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Notice that there's two categories here. There are things that hinder and there's sin. That means that some of the things that are distracting you aren't even bad. Sometimes it's not just choosing the worst thing, it's about we get stuck choosing the lesser thing. If there's something that in itself is good, but it's keeping you from what and who is great, then it's a distraction. It's pulling you away. Is there something that is weighing you down? Is there something that is hindering you? From where your focus needs to be. Is there a sin that is entangling you? It's almost like trying to run like a self- inflicted, like, you know, when you do a three-legged race and you wrap around someone else's leg, sometimes what sin does is like we wrap around our own legs. And then we, we're trying to run like this. I can't run very fast. It's like well, your shoelaces are tied together. Right I love what it says here too. Let's continue going on here. It says, and let us run with perseverance, the race marked out for us, meaning that you have to run your race. Some of you are distracted by other people's race. It is so much easier to compare. And to criticize than it is to create. I do not want to be the church that is stuck comparing ourselves to other churches. Or being critical of what's out there but instead being the church that's gonna run the race set before us and who God's called us to be, amen. Right? Again, it's easy to feel sure of your calling and then you scroll through your phone and now you're not sure. Stop comparing somebody else's middle of the book to your first chapter. Right? Sometimes you're in a season that's very difficult, that's very challenging, and it doesn't look like your neighbor's season, but guess what, you're running a different race. You're on a different journey. You have a different story to tell. And here's the reality, at the end of your life, you're not gonna be held accountable for somebody else's race. So how do we do that? Verse 2, by fixing our eyes on Jesus. There's the focus, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Just consider him who endured such opposition from sinners so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Don't lose heart, Church. Your journey might not be easy. In fact, it promises that it won't be. But keep your focus on him. Mark chapter 4 parable of the soils. We don't have time to share the last soil here it says, and other seeds fell into good soil and produced grain growing up and increasing and yielding 30-fold and 60-fold and a 100 fold. He said, he who has ears, let him hear. But then in verse 20 when he's describing the good soil, he says, but those who were sown on the good soil are the ones who hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, 30-fold, 60fold, and 100 fold. Do you want to bear fruit in your life? It starts by planting the gospel into your heart and into your soul and into your soil of your life. If you want apple trees, right, you gotta plant apple seeds. It sounds really basic, but in reality, in all my years of pastoring, like I, I see this so often, and look, I'm not judging because I'm with you, right? Someone would be like, hey, I really wanna grow in my faith. I wanna know the will of God. Awesome, are you reading the Bible? No. Are you praying? No. Are you going to church? No. Are you in community? No. Do you worship? No, but I wanna know. OK. Start by fixing your focus on Jesus and you do that through spending time daily in the word of God and in prayer and in worship. Are you, that's what we're gonna do every Sunday morning. And what I want you to do on an everyday basis, plant the gospel. Learn to look and listen for God's presence. Second focus here is that we want you to grow in community. We want you to grow in community. Do you know your community? Cause when Jesus called the first disciples, they were together. When that church in Antioch launched the first missions movement, they were together. And in reality we're described as a family, as a body, as the house of the Lord, meaning that we need you and you need us. Do you know people in this church beyond a superficial level? Are you in a Bible study or a group or an equipping class or a service team in which people know what's going on in your life and they and you know what's going on in their life because we need each other. The very first church, Acts 2:42, it says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. So right after following the word, planning the gospel in your lives is fellowship with each other. We need each other. Romans 12:9-10 says, Let love be genuine, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection, and I love this because I'm a competitive person, but outdo one another in showing honor. It is a race to the back of the line. Right. Imagine a marriage where you're trying to outserve the other person. Out love and compliment and encourage the other person. I imagine the friendship, the parenting, the workplace. Where there is trust built to where you're trying to put the needs of the people around you ahead of your own desires. That place seems pretty special and that place really is the church if we focus on that. See for Christians community isn't optional, it's essential. If you tried a group or a team and it didn't work. Find a different one here in here, right? Like you're you're not married to a specific group, but you need to be in one, you need to be in community and maybe just throwing this out there. If you haven't found the Bible study or the group or the setting in which you feel called to, maybe it's because God's calling you to start one. Right. Your greatest ministry potential might actually come from your greatest ministry frustration. You ever thought about that? Oh man, this church, I really wish it had blank. It could. And it's not perfect. Look, you look at that first group, can you imagine the conversations they had? You know they're giving Saul a hard time. Like he's trying to hold them accountable, like, really, Saul, you're gonna, you're gonna talk to me about being harsh to people. Right, like, but yet they make it work. What's our focus? We gotta plant the gospel. Do you know God? Number 2, you gotta grow in community. You gotta know your community. You gotta be known, connected. And the third focus here is to multiply, specifically to multiply through service. Do you know your mission field? Do you know your mission field? At the end of all their meetings. At the end of all their meetings The end result was like wow, that was awesome, can't wait for next Sunday. They went out. Right The whole purpose of a huddle in the big game is so that you can go out and execute the play. The huddle is not just meant to sustain us for the next huddle. Right We're supposed to encourage to spur one another on, to hold each other accountable, to pray for, to pray with, so that when we get sent out, we are going out as a united body to make a difference for His kingdom. Amen. What if every single person in here led someone to crisis here? That sounds like revival to me. But where does that start? It starts by being intentional. It starts by praying. It starts by writing down a list of names that you can be praying for on a regular basis, start by thanking your family, your workplace, your school, your sports team as an opportunity to share the good news of the gospel. Are we willing to live? Acts 1:8 says this that you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. They did that because why? Because the gospel is personal. But it's never private. It's personal But it's not private. You got to make a decision. To share And trust God with the the outcome. Plant grow, multiply. If we do that as an organization, if we do that as a church, I think if we do that as an individual, if we focus. I'm following Jesus, fellowshipping with each other, fishing for people, plant, grow, multiply. If we do that, I think we could be like that church in Antioch. And launch something that's gonna bring revival to the whole world. Will you pray with me? Dearly Father, we love you. We thank you for your son Jesus. It starts with you, and it starts now. God, we put our faith and trust in you. When you plant The gospel into our hearts and our lives. We believe that your Son Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins that when he rose again. God, you provided the way for eternal life and forgiveness. As we spend this time taking communion together, may we align our hearts and our lives and our focus on who you are. We love you God in your son's name we pray. Amen.