I've been painting for years, but it wasn't until about four
years ago while I was studying abroad in Spain that God gave me
a vision for Hosanna revival.
I had this idea to rebound and paint my bilingual Bible because
it was plain black and I wanted it to be beautiful and
personal, a reflection of the way that the words on the inside
really made me feel.
There God sparked in me a vision to use my artwork for something
way beyond what I could have ever imagined, something that
would draw other women closer to him.
The vision was simple: use beautiful artwork to attract women to
scripture.
It seemed crazy at first, and it really wasn't being done
anywhere else, but God showed me where it could go.
The question was, was I willing to follow?
Once I stopped wrestling and said, yes, that spark finally
caught and everything took off from there.
God makes cells, volcanoes, and literally puts the stars in the
sky.
He makes every single thing that exists.
And I'm painting replicas of his creations.
God, the original creator, created me in his image and sharing
that with Him is such a gift.
I think no matter what we're creating, whether it's food in the
kitchen or spaces for people to feel welcomed and loved,
knowing that our creations can really draw people to Jesus is a
fuel to the fire.
And that's absolutely why I create.
I'm Katie and God is igniting life in me through helping women
discover the true creator.
Yeah, I love hearing from people who love what they do.
It may not be my thing all the time, but if you're passionate
about what you're doing, then I want to hear more about that.
So, if we haven't met yet, my name is Justin and one of the
things I'm passionate about is music.
Music helps center me, it helps ground me in a moment.
It helps me express some things that just other things can't or
don't.
And so around here we use music to connect to God.
We sing songs about Him and to Him.
And that's how we're going to start today.
So if you're in the room with us, stand with us.
If you're at home, turn it up.
We're going to singing together.
Jesus, the very whisper of your name cancels out darkness.
Jesus, your name destroys every single thing that has tried to
work against us to keep us down.
Your name, Jesus, is enough.
It's enough.
So, God, I just pray over every person in this room, every
person watching, God, that they would hear Your name and feel
darkness flee.
Got, that they would hear your name and feel the weight come off
of their shoulders.
God, that they would hear Your name and know that You know them.
You know what they're going through and you will lift
burdens just with the whisper of your name.
So God, we praise You, we thank You.
We love You.
In Your precious holy name we pray. Amen.
Well, ya'll sound great.
It was amazing worshipping with you.
Seriously, it's an honor to do this with you all.
So we want you to know each other.
So why did you say hi to someone next to you?
Maybe tell them what you did
yesterday. And then after you do that, have a seat. I"m glad that you are here with us.
It's no secret if you'd been around a length of time that I like
motorcycles, but you might not know the origin of how that came
about.
It was the craziest, most stupid idea I thought that I'd ever
heard up to that point.
I was in a group meeting with a bunch of men in the mornings.
We were meeting for a couple of years.
Then one of the guys said, "Hey, why don't we -- Why don't we
take our wives, fly out to Vegas, rent motorcycles and like
hang out for four days or so with everybody?".
And I thought that was utterly ridiculous.
It was outside my mind of how someone should spend their time,.
outside my mind of how someone should spend their money.
I hadn't written a motorcycle since I was twenty two years old
and I was married for three weeks and I sold it because we were
low on cash.
And I hadn't written a motorcycle since and I hadn't thought of
riding one since.
And my body was on overdrive, medically speaking, my adrenal
glands were fried.
They were open all the time worrying about budget things,
staffing things, preaching things, all kind of stuff.
And so play was nowhere on my mind at all.
We decided to go because I put in my mind of, "Oh, well, this
will be sort of ministry, so I could actually make it work
because I'm trying to build on these guys and their marriages.
So I'll be able to do that.".
And what I experienced blew me away.
I got restored, I got refreshed, and it actually opened up an
entire new lease on life.
Two things I've learned that make life work, purpose and play.
If you don't have purpose, your life won't work.
And if you don't have play, your life won't work.
I can think of these on two axis.
I've kind of devised this.
I've been thrown around people and it seems to make sense.
We have the x axis, which is purpose and the y axis which is
play.
These are two things that if you don't have these things, your
life is not going to work well.
What is purpose?
Purpose is when you have a point for living that day, when you
have a to do list, you have things you've got to get done.
You've got people you've got to talk to.
You've got something that's propelling you to get up in the day.
It's moving your day forward.
That's why I like it on the x axis.
You're kind of moving.
It's like chop, chop, chop, chop.
What is play?
Play is utterly unproductive.
You're not moving.
You're not chop chop.
If you are moving and chop chop on a motorcycle at 80 miles an
hour, you're moving and chop, chopping because you're not
thinking about anything else that's going to add to your
paycheck.
You don't thinking about anything else that's going to increase
your notoriety with people.
You're not thinking about anything else that's going to justify
that time.
You are off and you start to get restored.
When you see that the intersection of purpose and play, if you
see somebody who has in the lower right corner, who has all
purpose, they're going where they need to go.
They're work in bookoo hours every week.
I don't even know what bookoo hours is, but bookoo for you might
not be bookoo for you.
It's a matter of your own personal capacity.
When you see somebody that's all about where they're going, what
they're doing, and that's all they're doing, it's all they're
about, their life eventually becomes painful, becomes painful.
This is where I was.
My adrenal glands were fried.
I was breaking down physically, gaining weight, back getting
worse and worse.
I was having to convince myself to do things like preach, which
I love and I know is important, but I was having to convince
myself and try to fire myself up for it.
There was all kinds of fraying on the homefront and all over the
place because I was about working, building a church, doing
stuff was important stuff and without any sense of distraction
or play, life became incredibly painful.
If you are all play, all being off, not really doing anything
that is productive.
If that's all -- That's another extreme thing.
If you're in the upper left.
If you're all the way up there, your life becomes pointless.
What is the point to your life?
This is, by the way, why these things are very clear, when you
retire and your goal is just to not have purpose, it's to golf
or watch Price is Right or whatever it is.
When you do that, statistics are very clear, you die sooner
because we all need to point to our life.
And so we're only playing, we're only detaching, we're only
watching TV, we're only reading novels, we're not going to have
something, it's going to be pointless.
If you have no play in your life and you have no purpose in your
life, you have a pitiful life.
It is pitiful. Nothing
is good going on in your life at all.
Where I want to get more of us to, it's where I am right now, I
have been for a while.
I want to get more and more people to, in fact, we're going to
do a journey in this fall.
A journey is something we haven't done for a year and a half and
we're going to do on this fall.
It is a -- it is a full on creative press to try to bring an
area of spiritual growth to our lives.
We're going to do it this fall.
So we will shut things down around Crossroads and we have the
best services we possibly can that coincide with groups that we
all get in and awesome stuff we can do at home if we want.
And it's going to be around this upper right progress,
quadrants.
It's going to be around this entire matrix actually having
purpose in play.
It's going to be getting to a place where you prosper.
Where you prosper.
When you have a high degree of play and when you have purpose,
your life, there is a prosperity that comes to you.
Now, I hate to use that word almost because unfortunately that
word prosperity has been hijacked by the televangelists.
And that word is only used by some pastors in relationships who
you should give, you should give more so God prospers you.
And to be clear, I'm a big fan of giving.
The closer I get to Jesus, the more I want to be like Him.
And He's a giver.
He gave His life.
So that's a great, great message.
But that is such a fine smidgen of what prosperity is worth.
Thirty one hundred times in the Bible the word prosperity is
used.
Over thirty one hundred.
Let me say it, over thirty one hundred times in the Bible the
word prosperity is used.
Here's one of the early ones.
Deuteronomy 22:9:
You may prosper.
You may succeed and all you do.
Having prosperity, it's being in a land that is lush, it's being
in land where there is -- there's purpose.
It's being in a land where you don't feel impinge upon and
squashed on.
It's like there's wide open spaces.
You're just -- you're just -- you're just living large, enjoying
and cruising through life.
And this is why God talks about this word, there's all kind of
angles to this word.
Over thirty one hundred times.
The Book of Jeremiah 44:17, it says:
Man, it's an awesome thing when you have plenty of food.
In fact, when all your needs are met and a heck of a lot of your
wants are met.
That is amazing.
One more, Psalm 1:3, it says this: He -- Who is he?
He is somebody who is being blessed by God, who is close by
God.
Now, there's a lot of going on here.
We imagine or you can see this, there's a body of water here
that's going by here.
Right?
And you've got this tree that's growing.
And whenever a tree is growing and its roots are going into the
ground, it's going into ground that's right beside the water
table and it's an incredibly moist ground.
It's luscious, moist ground.
Some of us really don't like that word moist, I know.
Do you not like the word? Who
doesn't like the word moist?
Just raise your hand.
All right.
I will not say moist anymore.
So, it's this land where all the vitamins and nutrients are in
there and the roots are growing.
And when this happens, this tree starts blossoming, growing.
It's a figure for what our life should be like, we should be
planted beside God, where we're feeling His presence and where
the our hearts going deeper and we're getting more and more
grounded in character and in His truth.
And while this happens, it says: Fruit comes out.
Now, I think it's interesting that it's fruit.
It doesn't say vegetables.
It says fruit.
I am pro vegans.
I am pro vegetarianism.
I'm not one because animals taste too good.
They just do.
But I am pro it because every day, I have a lot of salads and I
just I --every time I'm like, "I think I could become a
vegetarian. I really could."
It's wonderful.
But like I said that I like the taste of animals too much.
But here is here is the thing that's interesting about this
first.
And people are very specific when you want to really, really be
healthy and you want to get vegan, they're more specific saying
it needs be a plant-based diet, plant based.
What are they saying by that?
Well, it's basically vegetable based, plant based.
Fruit is God's dessert.
Fruit is God's way to play with our taste buds.
Fruit is God's way to give us strawberries and blackberries and
explode.
If all God was concerned about was the purpose, the purpose of
you having fuel and energy to do the stuff that you need to do,
then there wouldn't be any need for fruit because desert.
If you really want to be healthy and you want to not eat
animals, you need to do broccoli and spinach and all that.
And I like all those things.
But it's interesting, this verse says fruit.
So when we prosper. there
is an advance in our life.
We feel like we're advancing.
We feel like we're getting things done.
We can see points on the scoreboard.
The metrics are looking good.
There are things that we can measure.
And we're feeling pleasure and we're playing and our tastebuds
are dancing just because God is good and because we are human
beings, we aren't human doings.
If all we're doing is that stuff, we're gonna hurt ourself.
So my request for you is this summer, the rest of the
summer, take care yourself.
Don't leave vacation days on the table.
Take care of yourself.
Know what it is you need to accomplish every week.
As we get closer to this fall we're going to amp this up because
we want the best view it's gonna be called the Play and Purpose
Journey and it's going to be really effective.
Man, it's good to be with you, my name's Lena Schuler.
I'm the Crossroads Anywhere Community Pastor.
And just last week, we were out visiting our community in
Newport Beach, California.
One of the people in that community who's part of the watch
party that happens there is my friend Meghan.
And Meghan's got a pretty sweet story.
And she actually might be the most joyful person that I know.
So, why don't we check out what Meghan has to say.
Hi, I'm Meghan, and I'm out here in Orange County, California.
[ cheers and applause ]
We gather friends from Cincinnati and friends who are locals to
meet and do life together.
I'm from Cincinnati originally and actually met Jesus while
I was a college student at the University of Cincinnati through
Crossroads.
When I was a college student, this is a great way to invite your
friends to church if you ever need one.
I had some friends who said, "Come over for a girls wine night.
We're having wine at our house in our living room.".
Great way to bait and switch your friends into a Bible study,
which is what I walked into in my friend's living room.
I met Jesus there.
I got baptized in a bar.
It was awesome.
And now I live in Orange County, California, and do life with
some awesome people out here.
Just this last weekend, I had an opportunity to talk about what
life is like being in community when I had a friend come visit
California and say, "How did you make so many friends after
college? Nobody makes friends after college that easily.
And that's super hard to do.
What is your secret?".
And I said, "The Crossroads Anywhere map.
You obviously just go to church and you make friends at church.
Like what does other -- what does any 23 year old do?
That's super normal.
Right?".
And encouraged her to go seek that out because I have found the
most amazing community out here and get to encourage her on
towards her faith and getting to seek that out for herself
because that is where joy comes from, is from friends and
having community like this.
When I was in college and met Jesus, it was not easy at first.
It was super crazy to be in a world filled with people who were
always wanting to go out.
And I used to want to do that and I still did.
But I didn't want to at the same time, because I really wanted
to live the life that God had for me and walk away from some of
those things as hard as it was.
So when I met Jesus, I was living with my best friend at the
time, literally sharing a room.
And my friends, my roommates, people I was in class with would
say things like, "Why aren't you fun anymore?
Like what happened to you?
Why don't you do the things you used to do?
"
And I actually got to say all the time, "Well, I go to this
awesome church, you should come with me.
I want you to have your life changed.
And I want you to experience the joy that I've experienced in
that community and knowing life with God.
So please come with me, because that's the best gift you can
give a friend is to invite them to know the God who made them
and who loves them.
So at the end of college, right after graduation, I actually got
to baptize my best friend, who I was living with at the time.
And there is no greater joy in the entire world than getting to
do that.
We're on a Go Trip together and it was the coolest thing.
And she gets to live in that same joy and we get to share
stories of what God is doing in our life all the time now,
which is so incredible.
Now, in the workplace, I just recently had something happen in
my professional life, which most people think has nothing to do
with your church life or with God, but really it does.
I've learned a lot about money.
I've learned a lot about how to be a hard worker.
I've learned a lot about how to let my -- do the things I say
I'm going to do and how to be good on my word and really be a
great employee because of the things I've learned in church.
I was in my desk recently and had the funniest, coolest thing
happen.
I found out I was getting a tax return and I live in California.
So, if you don't know that, that means no one gets a tax return.
It means that you don't get a tax return.
It's not a thing that happens.
But because I was tithing and just giving the way that I learned
to handle my money.
My co-workers asked me, "Well, how the heck did you get a tax
return? You know, what do you do?".
And I got to talk to them about giving and why I give.
And that's -- that was not a big deal for me.
So recently in a staff meeting, I had a co-worker say to me,
"You know, I've really been thinking differently about how I
want to spend my money and how I want to be generous because of
what you said.
And because of what that inspired in me."
So that was a really -- I mean, that brought me so much joy to
be able to experience someone else taking that on for themself
and hopefully getting to now be generous as well.
So in all of these different stages of life, or whether it's
someone from the past reaching out, saying, "Hey, I've noticed
your joy on social media.
I'm going through a really hard time and you just are full of
joy and you have great friends.
And that's not really common in the world we live in today.
What's what's the secret?".
Well, the secret is Jesus.
The secret is you go to church and you make good friends and you
live in community with other people and you get to do fun
things together and you get together in homes like this with
amazingly hospitable people.
And you get to do that because of following Jesus.
So in any different setting in life, in any different scenario,
there is so much joy in sharing Jesus with friends and in
inviting them with you to experience the life that you have
because of your life with Jesus.
And it's brought so much joy to my life, and it will bring so
much joy to your life as well.
And if you're on the Crossroads Anywhere map and are looking for
somewhere to go on vacation or take your group, your living
room full of people on a domestic go trip, come join us out
here in California.
It's amazing.
And this is the best place in the world to do church and do life
with people.
So... [ cheers and applause ]
I couldn't even count the number of times that I've been sitting
around a table or someone's living room and the conversation
has come up, "What am I doing with my life?
What's my purpose? Is
what I'm doing meaningful, does it matter?"
I can think specifically of one dinner I had, it was shortly
after I graduated college and my very best friends came over
for dinner in my apartment.
We were sitting around the table in the kitchen and we're just
talking about how life is going.
And most of my friends, all of my friends took 8 to 5, 8 to 6, 9
to 9.
I don't know, corporate jobs, OK?
And so we're sitting around this table and I was the only one in
my friend group that didn't go work at a big company after
college.
And I remember sitting there and we're just talking about how
work's going, how life's going.
And one person after another around that table at some point had
a bit of an emotional breakdown.
And the conversation went a little something like this.
"I just don't know what I'm supposed to be doing."
"I don't know if I'm even passionate about this job.".
I don't know if I have any purpose at 10:00 a.m.
on a Tuesday or 4:00 p.m.
on a Friday."
And person after person had the same feelings, the same
experiences.
And I was sitting there and for the maybe the first time, I
wasn't the one crying around the table.
Usually I'm, I can be fairly emotional.
And I wasn't for myself in that moment, but my heart broke for
my friends who just were feeling so lost and purposeless and
like they didn't have meaning.
And I can honestly say I don't -- I don't feel like that right
now.
I didn't feel like that then either.
I felt this sense of purpose and meaning.
And it's not because I work at a church.
It actually has nothing to do with the fact that I work at a
church.
And so there's this whole idea of a meaningful life.
Like, how do we get it?
Is it even possible?
Is it a myth?
Is it magic?
Is it math?
It's really simple, actually.
It's just going deeper into your relationship with God and
inviting other people into it with you.
It's inviting other people to experience whatever it is that
you're experiencing.
And whether that means that you believe in God this much, you're
not even sure yet really if He's real.
Or if you and God are tight and you've been in this powerful,
amazing relationship with God for the last 20 years.
Wherever you are on that spectrum, God wants to do something in
you.
He is doing something in you right now.
And if you choose to invite other people into it and share it
with the people that you're around day in and day out, the
people that mean the most to you, your life is going to have
meaning, it's gonna be purposeful, it's going to matter.
I really, really, truly believe that.
And I believe that because I've experienced it.
And again, not because I work at a church.
It actually has nothing to do with my job.
It's all of the time and all of the opportunities outside of my
Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 6:00 job.
I am the person that loves sharing the new things that I
experience.
I love it.
So if I see a great movie, you're gonna hear about it.
If you're looking for a date night and you live in the
Cincinnati area, let me plan in it for you, because I want you
to experience the best restaurants and the best things that
I've experienced.
Shout out to Sotto, Nada, and Boca.
David Falk, I hope I get a gift card out of this.
Best restaurants you'll ever go to in Cincinnati.
Anyways, if I get a great deal on shoes, I'm gonna tell you when
you compliment my shoes, I'm gonna tell you how much they cost
because you better believe that they were on sale.
And I want you to get the good deal and I want you to get to
celebrate the good thing with me.
That's just part of who I am and how I'm wired.
And here's the thing with your relationship with God, I can
remember sitting standing in my kitchen in college, actually.
And one of my roommates, I wasn't really sure where she was in
her faith.
I wasn't really sure kind of what she believed at all about God.
And I just flat out asked her one time.
She was getting something out of the freezer and she said to
me,.
Well, yeah, I believe in God.
But it's it's just kind of between me and God.
It's a thing that I actually think is really personal.
And then she went back to the freezer and did the thing that she
was doing.
I remember thinking.
Between you and God.
Is that right?
Is it just between you and God?
And now I believe, no.
Whatever you're experiencing with God, whatever your
relationship or lack there of with Him is, it's not just
between you and God.
It's between you, God, and everybody that you meet, everybody
that you touch, everybody that you do life with.
It is not a thing between you and God.
It's a thing between you, God and all of your friends and your
family and your roommates.
When God's doing something in you and you're experiencing Him in
new and fresh ways.
So as a kid growing up in church, you know, there were those few
Bible songs, those few church songs that we all kind of learned
in Sunday school or Kids' Club, whatever you were a part of as
a kid.
You know the songs like the B-I-B-L-E, yes, that's the book for
me. I stand alone on the word of God, the B-I-B-L-E.
Do you know that one?
If you didn't, you should learn it because it'll help you spell
the Bible.
But there were others too.
One of them was This Little Light of Mine.
Do you guys remember that one?
It went: This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
It goes on and on and it says, hide it under a bushel.
No, I'm gonna let it shine.
Don't let Satan it out (poof) it out.
I'm gonna let it shine.
And it goes on to just talk about how we've got this little
light and we should let it shine.
Well, that actually comes directly from the Bible.
We just made a kid's song out of it that's kind of cheesy, but I
remember it 28 years later.
And this is where it comes from, it comes from the book of
Matthew, in Chapter 5.
And Jesus, man, Jesus had a meaningful life.
Jesus had a life that mattered.
I mean, we're here in 2019, still referencing him, talking about
him.
I'm actually modeling my life after His, trying to be like Him.
I'd say his life was pretty meaningful.
And so He gives us some, like, instruction on how to live.
And he's doing this to a whole crowd of people on a mountain in
Matthew 5.
And this is what he says:.
Jesus was living such a meaningful life that crowds of people
were following Him and just like sitting there listening,
wanting to listen to what He had to say.
And this is one of the things that He says to them.
And we hear Jesus referred to as the light of the world, but
right here you know what He's saying?
He says, "You are the light of the world."
You.
That means if Jesus is doing something in you, then you are the
light of the world.
And what He's doing in you is going to light up your house, your
family, all of your friends.
And so if God is doing something in you, you can't hide it under
a bushel.
You can't hide it under a basket.
It should be on a lamp stand lighting up your whole home,
lighting up all of your friendships, lighting up your
workplace.
And I found that when I let my light shine, when I let what
Jesus is doing in me out for other people to see and other
people to experience.
Oh, my gosh, the amount of meaning and purpose that is brought
to my life is unbelievable.
And so I just want to share with you some of the things that I
do, some of the things that I've been practicing and trying to
get better at to let my light shine.
Some of the things I've been practicing trying to get better at,
to invite people into experience God with me and
it's been giving me purpose.
And I hope that it might give you some purpose, too.
So here's the first thing.
I regularly choose to pray.
Now there's all kinds of ways we can pray, all kinds of things
we can pray about.
But specifically, I pray for my friends who I want to experience
God.
I pray for them by name.
I pray for them regularly in a regular rhythm.
And so one of the things that we started doing as little kids in
my house growing up was we had a paste list.
This was a list of names that went on our bathroom mirror that
every time we pulled out our toothpaste and brush our teeth
twice a day for 60 seconds apiece, as the dentist says, we'd
stand there brushing our teeth.
Brush our teeth.
And, you know, you're kind of standing there looking at yourself
in the mirror.
Maybe you're like thinking about your day.
And instead, what you could do is you actually could look at
that list of names on your bathroom mirror and for 60 seconds,
twice a day while you brush your teeth, you can pray for your
friends and your family by name who you want to experience
Jesus
I do this right now.
We just moved into a brand new house and I just wrote the names
on my mirror yesterday.
Here's a picture of the names.
Hopefully you can't actually really read them because if one of
you is here and watches this it might -- it's fine.
And so these are the names of people that I love dearly, that I
want to experience God the way that I'm experiencing God right
now.
You know, we can work.
And when we work, we work.
And when we pray, God works.
And so there is an opportunity for us to pray regularly for the
people that we want to experience God the way that we are
experiencing him.
I Timothy 2:1-5 says:.
One of these people that I did this with was Meghan.
Meghan, The Spark Talk that you just saw was someone who I met
as an eager beaver freshman wearing a lanyard walking around
campus.
And she was so far from God.
And she wouldn't mind me telling you that because she believes
that to be true and she tells everybody.
And I put her name on the mirror in my bedroom in college.
And every time I curled my hair or straighten my hair or did
anything to my hair, I would pray for Meghan.
And man, three years after that first prayer, I actually got to
watch Meghan receive Jesus.
I got to be part of that.
I got to baptize her.
And now Meghan is sharing her faith.
Meghan is sharing what she's experiencing with God with all
kinds of other people all the way across the country.
And it's beautiful.
And. oh, my is that fulfilling and does that bring meaning to my
life.
Now, here's the second thing that I do is I actually use my
words.
I talk to the people that I want to experience God and I share
with them what He's doing in me, what he's doing around me.
And I want them to know, I want them to hear my story.
And this doesn't mean that, like, I have this five minute deal,
this spiel that I tell people from start to finish tied up with
a bow of how God changed my life and everything's amazing.
No, not at all.
It means when someone asks me the question, "Hey, what's new?"
I intentionally think about what's something I could share that
might pique their interest in what I'm experiencing at the
church
or might pique their interest in what I'm experiencing with God.
And so I intentionally have to think about how am I going to use
my words to share with other people what God's doing?
One of these times -- I have a friend who a few years ago,
really unexpectedly lost her mom of cancer.
And so when I say unexpectedly, I mean, none of us expect to
lose a parent at 20 something, right?
Before we get married, before we have kids, before we hit all
these major milestones.
And so we were actually at one of the local bars together, the
big group of friends.
And it was the day that her mom had, passed away.
And so she came in just emotional and really not well.
And I debated, I was like, should I? Should
I say something, should I not say something? Like
what's helpful in this moment?
And I felt like, man, I've really experienced the comfort of
God.
I've experienced the peace that surpasses all understanding.
I've experienced hope that comes after death, maybe way, way
after death.
And I wanted that for her.
And I didn't want to keep that a secret.
I didn't -- I didn't want to just sit there and have a beer
with her and pretend like nothing happened.
And so I just asked her, I said, "Hey, you know, one of the
things that's been really helpful for me is just prayer.
Like when I talk to God, I actually feel something different.
And I know that this is really crappy and this is really hard.
I would love to just pray for you to be able to feel comfort in
the midst of this if you're OK with that.".
And of course, she's through tears like nods her head.
And so I get to pray for my friend who's experiencing something
terrible.
But I had to use my words.
I had to actually go outside of my comfort zone and say, "Hey, I
believe in this thing and I've experienced this with God.
I'd like to share it with you.".
Now, I don't know if her life is totally different now.
I don't know if she has this major deep relationship with God
right now.
But what I do know is that in that moment, I believe I did what
God wanted me to do.
I shared Him.
I shared what I was experiencing, what I have experienced
through Him.
And so -- and maybe you've been healed.
Maybe you've experienced a miracle.
Maybe you're in the midst of a miracle.
Maybe God's brought you comfort that doesn't make sense or peace
that surpasses all understanding.
Or maybe He's pulled these puzzle pieces together in your life
that shouldn't have come together.
But they did come together.
And you've got friends who are experiencing something hard or
something new or who are longing for what you have.
You can use your words to share with other people what God's
done in you, what He's doing in you, what you've seen, felt,
experienced.
And you can share that and hopefully pique some interest for
your friends to want that.
It then says:
So at the time Jesus was walking around with people, He was
saying, "Yeah, pray for people and tell people when I'm doing
something.
Tell them, I want them to be amazed.
I want God to get the glory for what he's doing through prayer
and through the work of sharing."
And lastly, one of the other things that I do is I choose to
invite.
I choose to go one more step beyond just sharing and actually
invite people to experience God with me.
So this is really simple, actually.
Three words to remember.
If you're trying to figure out like, how do I invite this
person?
If you can remember: you, I, and so.
It's a really simple way to invite.
So you start with a, "Hey. You
right now, you just had a brand new baby.
How exciting.
Congratulations.
I just had a baby a year ago, and when I had my baby, I freaked
out.
I was like, "I don't know how to be a parent.
No one trains you in how to be a parent.
But at Crossroads, we've got this great thing called Kids' Club
that I would love for you to experience with me.
So do you want to come with me sometime?
Do you live near a Crossroads site?".
That might be a really easy way for you to invite your friends.
Or maybe it's something like what happened with my friend a few
years ago.
And you say, "Man, you are going through something really tough
that I hope nobody else has to go through because it's really
hard to lose your mom.
I've not experienced that.
I don't know what that's like, but I almost lost my mom once.
She had a stroke and we thought that she wasn't gonna make it.
And in the midst of that feeling I had to lean on God and I had
people that I could call to pray for me that I've met through
the church.
So would you maybe want to come and watch church with me in my
living room with some of my friends who experience church that
way and who would be great people to pray for you when you
experience something crappy?".
You, I, So; really simple.
And if you've got friends who are maybe entering into a brand
new life stage: new baby, new home, new marriage, or
ones who are going through crisis: divorce, loss of someone
they love.
Those people. they're
longing to experience comfort and peace and community, the
things that maybe you've experienced in the midst of the
church.
Those are great people to invite in to experience what you're
experiencing, whether it's through showing up to a church
building or watching something online or listening to a
podcast.
We've gotta pray for our friends.
We've got to share with them what God is doing in us.
And we have to invite them into something.
Invite them into community with us.
1 Corinthians 9 says:.
I want you to do everything to share the good news and to share
in its blessings.
God has uniquely made you with specific gifts and talents and
passions and desires.
And He's made you to have a meaningful, purposeful life that
matters.
I got to meet and get to know a family who, man, they have a
meaningful life right now, their life is mattering.
They're impacting all kinds of other families and individuals
who live in the Los Angeles area.
And they've got a pretty cool story.
I'd love for you to just meet them and see what God's doing in
their lives and in their home.
Let's meet the Byerlys.
Hi, I'm Stephanie Byerly.
And I'm Robert Byerly and we live in Newport Beach, California.
I think we started going to Crossroads before we moved to
Cincinnati in 2003.
The first journey that we were part of was the Consume Journey.
And I think for us, that was the first time that it's ever
really been explained to us that everything we own is God's.
And that was really impactful for Robert and I because of the
way it changed our thinking.
And we also just grew a lot.
We grew in community during that time.
So super impactful for us.
So we moved to California the first time in 2012.
I had an opportunity with my job and we came out and had the
choice to live in a couple different places.
And we landed on Orange County.
So we had met some families through school.
Stephanie had hosted a Labor Day back to school kind of hangout
brunch at her house.
Everyone shows up at 11 o'clock.
And people ended up just hanging out until early afternoon, 4:00
or 5:00.
It was really the first group of people that we've connected to
with that we really liked.
So Stephanie had suggested,"Hey, why don't we do a journey deal
together with all of you?".
And they're like, "What's a journey?".
And when we went on to explain, it was a small group deal and
we just created a place where people can hang out.
We say, bring your kids, come late, which is --
always happens.
Always happens in California.
Our goal was really just to build friendship and relationships
with other people.
It wasn't to keep some kind of timely schedule.
And that's how it started.
So if it weren't for the idea of the Journey group, if it
weren't for the idea of inviting people into your homes, we
wouldn't have had invited them over and made that connection
with them.
I'm Meghan, and in part at the Crossroads Anywhere Community
here in Newport Beach, California.
So when I finished college, I accepted a job in Orange County,
California, after graduating from the University of Cincinnati.
Literally, besides my job, I had no idea where I was going to
live or really what life was going to look like at all.
I was super scared to move.
Then at the same time, when I got to California, I
roadtripped out here with two friends from Crossroads,
actually.
And when I got to California sent them on a plane home and
literally had nowhere to move into.
I found a place to live, thankfully.
Following that, the goal was to find community.
So I had put myself on the Crossroads Anywhere map.
I put my pin on my office, actually, because I didn't know where
I was going to be living yet before I moved out here.
And then once I moved out here, I put my pin on my home
location.
They had seen me on the map and we actually met in person at a
Young Life dinner.
They said, "Oh, we're Robert and Steph and we're from
Cincinnati."
I said, "Well, I'm from Cincinnati.
What are you guys doing out here?"
We left Cincinnati on the same day and we couldn't believe that
we didn't know each other in Cincinnati because we had a lot of
different mutual connections.
They invited me over for coffee.
They invited me over for dinner.
They invited me over for everything and to do every little piece
of life with them and with their family.
And we were in a mode of trying to find people that were from
Cincinnati or part of the Crossroads community that we're
living in and around Orange County.
So we just kind of looked, okay, who was on the map that's here?
I remember going online and seeing who's this Meghan Pope
person?
So I think you might have reached out or something.
But we just tried to get connected with her.
We were invited to go to this Young Life event on its their
annual fundraiser.
So a good friend of ours, a guy named Dan Chambers said, "You
know, I was at an event and there's a lady named Meghan that's
from Cincinnati, and she's younger.
And she went to went to a place called Crossroads or whatever.
You start thinking about it.
"Wait a minute.
Is that the same person that was on the map that Dan knew?"
I think we instantly had the excitement for Crossroads.
I think that instantly connected us.
It's funny.
We want to protect her and take care of her and check in on
her.
And, yes, you know, she's like family to us really.
Yes.
The first six months that I was out here and really didn't have
a lot of stability yet, my car got hit.
Without missing a beat, Steph just tossed me her keys.
And I drove her car around to work for two weeks until I could
get my stuff straightened out.
The first year I was out here in California, I actually couldn't
go home for Thanksgiving.
So naturally I went to the Byerly's.
I kind of joke with my friends who were my peers, "Like my
California mom and dad.
I'm going to hang out my California mom and dad, or I'm house
sitting for my California family.".
"Or I'm watching the dog or walking the dog from my California
family while they're out of town."
I get the example of what it looks like to be generous with your
money and what it looks like to have a marriage that centered
on Jesus and what does look like to be really faithful to your
career and to your family at the same time.
Getting to be part of someone's family, in someone's home, in
someone's life, it's so natural for me to get to pick up on
these things and get to see these things that they do.
We all need community.
I think the longer we've been married and the longer we've had
kids, we've just realized that you have to lean in to other
people.
When we share our wounds and our weaknesses, it's the best way
that people can connect with us.
And I think a lot of times when you don't know people very well
and you're in a new situation, it's really intimidating to just
invite strangers in your home
and not really know what -- how they're going to receive that.
But I think because we were growing along the way, we just knew
that it was something that was so meaningful to us.
Everyone should have the chance to experience what I've had,
I've gotten to experience, which is moving somewhere new, not
knowing anybody, but because of my faith immediately having
community and having friends.
What I would say to somebody if they're a part of the Crossroads
Community and they're watching online and they're at home or
they're in a coffee shop and they're by themselves.
I would just say be invitational and ask somebody to to watch
with you.
Right?
Whether it's in a coffee shop or whether it's on your, you know,
hanging out on the couch because people want to be invited to
something.
They want to be -- They want to feel a part of a community.
I found community through Crossroads Anywhere and I'm so
thankful.
How encouraging is that? Man,
I'll tell you, if you ever get to meet that family or those
people in person, you're going to love them even more.
Well, two of the things that you heard them mention in their
story are things that actually you could do right now.
You could start thinking about doing right now.
The first is they mentioned a Journey.
This all church Journey for five weeks that the whole church
does together where we get into groups and we get to experience
church on a deeper level with other people.
And so that's actually coming up in the fall.
It's the Play and Purpose Journey.
You can head to Crossroads.net/journey
to check that out, but be thinking about whether or not you
might want to lead a group for the very first time, host The
journey in your home.
It could be a great way for you to get connected to community
wherever you are.
Speaking of getting connected to community, the other thing they
mentioned was the Connect Map.
And so maybe you are about to move, you've just moved.
Maybe you've been in southeast Indiana or South Dakota for a
long time, but you've not actually met other people who are
part of the church there.
If you head to Crossroads.net/connect,
you can put yourself on the Connect Map, you can search for
people who are near you, groups that are happening near you, ad
you can connect with other people through that tool.
It's pretty sweet.
Well, if you want your life to matter, another way that you
could have meaning is you could invest your money in meaningful
things and things that matter.
One of the things that my husband and I invest our money in is
the church, because we believe that the church is the best
rescue plan for all of humanity.
We believe that God's gonna do amazing things in the church and
through the church.
We've seen it, we've experienced it, and we want others to
experience it, too.
And so we invest our money here.
And so if you want to become a giver, you can do that by heading
to Crossroads.net/give
and invest in something that has purpose and meaning and might
just make your life matter in a whole new way.
Next week we start a brand new series called How to Hear from
God.
And a new series is a great opportunity for you to open up your
home and invite other people to watch church with you, to
experience church with you.
So maybe you want to start that next week.
We'll see you back for week 1 of How to Hear from God.