Real Community | Pre-All Church Message | Pastor Andrew Cromwell

You are listening to Koinonia Church, where we are igniting contagious faith in the one

God who restores all.

Good morning, good morning.

What a wonderful morning this morning.

It's September 1st.

Can you believe it?

Here we are.

The fall is here.

We've got another month, at least two months of heat, so it's not like the cool is here.

But there's no doubt that kids are back in school, and we're kind of getting back into

the routine of things.

And so this morning, what I'm going to do is sort of set us up for what is our traditional

altered series that we go into next week.

And we're going to be talking about the subject of reach.

As you came in the door, you might have seen that display there at the center, talking

about reach and how we're going to be talking.

We're going to be talking over the next six or eight weeks about how Jesus came and reached

out for us and to us, and he's called us to reach out to others.

And so we begin that series next week, and I want to invite you to be a part of it, but

I want to invite you not just to be a part of it on Sundays.

I want you to be a part of it during the week in terms of a journey group and a small group.

And I'm going to do that by talking to you this morning about what it means to have a

real community.

I think it's interesting.

I think it's interesting that it's possible to be in a room full of people like we are

this morning and yet to feel very alone.

It's possible for you to even come into church week after week after week and not to build

any relationships within the church.

It's possible for you to come and sit for 90 minutes.

You might have even fist bumped the person in front of you and we would tell you to greet

one another or give them a high five, but you might not know their name and you might

walk in and walk out every week and just kind of feel like, oh, I'm not going to be able to

see them.

You might feel like, well, I visited with the Lord, but I didn't really visit with anybody

else.

There's something that's missing in a church that doesn't have real community.

And in our world, one of the things that's missing is community.

We are so isolated.

We're so consumeristic.

We're so sort of self-focused that if we're not careful, we become sort of just about

what we're about and we forget that what God has actually done in terms of the church is

he's given us a family.

And if you look around the room this morning, all the people that are in the room, I just

want to let you know that this is your family.

These people are your family.

One of the great things about family, flesh and blood family, is that you don't get to

pick them.

I'm related to some people.

Some of them are in the room today.

And all of those that are in the room, I really like you guys.

But I'm related to some people that I don't really like very much.

Right?

I mean, I don't know about you, but there's always somebody in the family that just,

just rubs you the wrong way.

And, but you don't get to pick your family.

You're flesh and blood with them.

You're related to them.

You're connected with them.

And if you've got good parents, if you've got a good mom and dad, they're teaching you

that, hey, even though you don't like them, even though it seems like you can't get along,

even though they rub you the wrong way, you're going to respect them.

You're going to talk to them correctly because why?

They're a part of your family.

If they get knocked down, you're going to go help them.

You're going to go defend them.

Why?

Because they're part of your family.

I want you to know this morning that if you're part of the family,

of God, you have a family.

You have people that you're related to, people that you're connected with.

And that, that group of people that God has given you, they are an important and essential,

critical key to your growth as a follower of Christ.

This thing of following Jesus.

Yeah, you can give me that.

That's pretty exciting.

A couple of, a couple of you like that idea.

This thing of following Jesus is not a solo sport.

It's not a solo activity.

It's not just about me and Jesus.

It's about the community.

And if you're a follower of Jesus, and you're a follower of Jesus, and you're a follower of Jesus,

and you're a follower of Jesus, and you're a follower of Jesus,

you absolutely have to understand that community is, is a part of what God has called us into.

Before I start preaching and going all kinds of different places,

let me just look at my notes for a second.

This is, this is what I want to do this morning.

I want to do two things.

Let me just tell you up front.

First of all, I want to convince you to get into a group.

So no big surprises.

This is not going to be a bait and switch.

At the end, all of a sudden your emotions go, oh, and you're going to sign up for a group.

That's not the way it's going to work.

I'm telling you right now, you need to be in a group,

and I'm going to spend the next few minutes telling you why you need to be in a group.

This is not just a Pastor Andrew idea.

I'm not just into groups because I think they're cool as a church thing.

This is not a church fad.

This is actually what we're called to be if we're in the family of God.

We're called to be part of community and part of a group.

The second thing I want to do is if you're in a group, I want to help you improve your group.

Because some of you, you need some help.

Right?

And your groups need help.

One of our core values is you came in the door this morning.

You might have seen on the wall, we've got a great display,

a new display of our mission statement and our top core values.

One of our core values at Koinonia Church is authentic community.

And the reason it's authentic community is because the Scripture tells us

that that's an essential part of who we are.

And it's also our name.

Koinonia is not a Hawaiian word, right?

It's actually a Greek word.

It comes from the New Testament.

And it means the in-depth sharing of our lives.

It means partnership.

It's the idea that what we're doing with God

is we're partnering with Him and what He's doing in the world

and in the church with those who are called according to His purpose.

And this thing of having real community together

is something that we have to work at.

It's not something that happens by accident.

Most of the community that in my life has happened by accident

has not been the greatest community.

I don't know about you, but when I grew up,

I just sort of fell into some relationships with other young people

that we kind of got along, but I discovered,

oops, they're kind of not about the thing.

They're not about the things that I need to be about.

We're kind of getting in trouble.

Why?

Because I was not being intentional about this thing

called healthy and real community that is so important to us.

Now, I teach this message, what I'm going to teach to you right now,

I teach this message at least once a year.

And so the ideas within this message,

you have maybe even heard me teach it before.

But the reason, if you were to ask me,

Pastor, why do you keep teaching the same message year after year,

is I would simply answer this way.

Well, I'll stop teaching it when the people start.

I'll start doing it.

So it's not enough even that you can preach it back to me.

It's only going to make a difference when we actually do this thing.

Because this thing of community is essential.

It's not optional.

And you may say, Pastor, I've gotten through my life with Jesus,

and I've never been in a small group, and look at me,

and I would just say, you are missing out on an essential piece

of what God has given to you in the family of God.

And there is something that you will never get in the Sunday morning service

until you get out of the family of God.

Until you get out of the family of God.

You love Rose, and you get into a circle.

Now, I love Rose.

Pastors love Rose.

Pastors love full rooms.

Pastors love worship services.

I mean, this is great.

But it's not about this.

It's about actually us growing together as a family.

And that won't happen if all we do is fellowship with the back of somebody else's head.

There's something different that happens when you get in a circle,

and you're staring at the faces of other people.

You begin to learn their names.

You begin to pray for them.

You begin to understand their life a little bit.

You begin to relate to them.

And suddenly, as you meet with them week after week,

you begin to become invested in their life,

and they become invested in your life.

And you pray for them, and they pray for you.

And you come back, and you say,

Hey, that thing we prayed about last week, how is it going?

And there's something that begins to happen in the dynamics of authentic community

that will never happen if your church experience is only coming in the door

and leaving out right afterwards, after 90 minutes is done.

And so I want to talk to you about this thing that we do as a church.

Remember, the church is not a building.

The church is not a place that we come to to experience that we are the church.

The people of God are, in fact, the church of the living God.

And so there's a certain way that we have to learn how to behave

if we're part of the family of God.

If you come to my house, there are certain rules in my house,

and it might take a little while for you to figure them out,

but pretty quickly you'll discover, oh, in the Cromwell house, we do things a certain way.

My kids are sitting, they're kind of hiding from me this morning.

I can see them sort of sitting.

I can see them sitting back there.

But they would tell you, if they were to come up, there's a couple of rules in our house.

One of them is that you don't slam the door in our house.

In other words, you can't be mad and go to the room, take that.

That don't work in my house, right?

And so as a matter of fact, if a door gets slammed, somebody goes, it was an accident, right?

Because in my house, we're not into the passive aggressive, we're going to slam the door,

we're going to have conversations, we're going to be in control of our anger,

we understand we're going to get angry,

but we're going to understand how to have relationships there.

But if you were just to walk in, I might have to give you a little coaching on how it works in my house.

Just same thing if I went to your house, I would want to know what your house rules are.

The thing that we're talking about today is what are the house rules that God gives us?

What does he tell us about being a part of his family?

1 Timothy 3.15 says this,

I'm writing these instructions so you'll know how to live in the family of God.

That's it.

That family is the church.

So Paul says, listen, I'm going to tell you how to live.

Because it's not just based on whatever you walked in with and whatever you assume.

I've made many wrong assumptions before about people and their families and how they live.

And then I got into their house and I discovered, oh, it's a little bit different.

This is so good that Paul says to us, listen, I'm going to tell you beforehand,

this is how we get along, this is how we live in the family of God.

The outline today, I just want to say I'm indebted to Rick Warren for this.

It's such a good one, it's hard to change it.

And so let's just talk.

If you want to take notes this morning, I want to encourage you to do that.

You would write this down.

What are we supposed to do as the church?

What do we do as the family of God?

I think it's pretty clear we can see what we do as the church.

If we look at the book of Acts, Acts is the early church.

It's right after Jesus is resurrected.

He goes back to be with the Father.

And the apostles now begin their mission of going out into all the world.

And the church begins to grow in those early days in the city.

And we see a picture of it in Acts chapter 2, verse 42.

I'm going to read about five verses there.

And then we're going to use that as a place of talking about what it means to be in the family of God

and how to act as a church family.

So you can turn to Acts chapter 2, it'll be on the screens as well.

And let's just look at this.

And they devoted themselves, it says, to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship,

to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

And awe came upon every soul.

And many wonders ensued.

And signs were being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes,

they received their food with glad and generous hearts,

praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Such an incredible picture.

Such an incredible picture of this church that just a few days before didn't even exist, right?

I mean, it was just a few days before there was a group of people, about 40 people, 70 people rather,

up in the upper room waiting for the Holy Spirit, afraid and kind of wondering what was going to happen.

And then here as the Holy Spirit falls and they begin to preach the good news of Jesus Christ,

all of a sudden a dynamic starts to happen because of the unity,

the unity of the believers.

And they start to visit one another's houses and they go to church, to the temple to pray.

And they break bread together and they begin to share things.

Oh, you have a need? I can help meet that need.

And suddenly, all of a sudden, what was 70 people becomes 1,000 people and becomes 3,000 people.

And before you know it, this incredible force, this church that is a living organism,

it's not just a group of people who are getting together because it's a club,

it has the very dynamic power of God at the center of it.

It's the church.

Within just a couple of hundred years, completely turns the Roman Empire upside down

and you have the emperor who used to call himself God is now bowing his knee to Jesus Christ

and saying, I too am a Christian.

How does that happen?

It happens because the church is a living, breathing force.

It's a community that refuses, it's a counter-cultural community.

It refuses what the world is offering and says, no, there's something else that we're a part of.

What are we a part of?

What are we supposed to do?

The first thing is this.

If you're taking notes, write this down.

Number one, we study God's word together.

This is what we do in church and this is what we do in groups.

We study God's word together.

It says, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

In the message translation, it says they committed themselves to learning the teaching of the apostles.

Now, what's the apostles' teaching?

Well, the apostles' teaching is the teaching that they received from Jesus.

The apostles' teaching has been what they wrote down in the New Testament.

The New Testament that we have today, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and all of Paul's books,

it is the scripture now that we have that everything that we do as followers of Christ

is based upon the solid foundation of the word of God.

And so the reason that we get together is not just so that we can have community by itself.

It's so that we can have community and study the thing that is formational and foundational for all of us.

The word of God will wash us.

It will cleanse us.

It will strengthen us.

It will edify us.

It will change us.

It will confront our bad ideas.

It will encourage us to go out differently than we came in.

See, what we're talking about in groups is not just getting together to do an activity.

Now, there's many activities that you can do, and many of them are good.

You can go to a bowling group.

You can go to a fishing group.

I mean, there's all kinds of things that people are into.

They do.

What defines what we do as the Church of the Living God is that our interest is that we're looking more deeply into this thing

that has power to change our lives.

And so we study God's Word.

Now, that word study is important.

Study means not just read, and it means not just tell your opinion about what you just read.

Now, sometimes you'll get together, and in some groups I've seen this happen where it's,

well, you know, let's read a couple of verses.

And somebody will read a couple of verses, and then, well, what do you think about that?

Oh, that's interesting.

What do you think about that?

Well, that's it.

And they'll just kind of go around the room and say what everybody thinks.

And I'm thinking, God, help me.

Right?

Because, you know, if it's just based on what we think, we're all in trouble.

Right?

So when we're talking about studying God's Word, what we're doing is we're going a little bit beyond what my opinion is.

We're actually figuring out what the Word of God says, what does it mean, what the context of it is.

We're looking into it more deeply.

It requires a little bit more out of us than just getting around and saying, what do you think?

No, no, no.

Forget what you think.

Let's find out what it means.

Let's find out what the Word of God says.

And once we go deeper, then we find.

That it has the power to transform our lives.

Now, we study God's Word together.

I love the together phrase.

Because you can study God's Word by yourself, and you should.

You should have a daily habit of reading God's Word and intaking it on a regular basis.

Because you'll find the more that you intake God's Word, the more your thoughts become to be transformed into His thoughts.

And the less you read God's Word, the more you tend to be influenced by social media or by your friends

or by what people say.

But when you keep coming back to the solid rock of the foundation of God's Word,

it becomes something that gives you this rooted sense that I'm not just being pushed back and forth by somebody's opinion.

You know, here today, I'm over here, and then I'm somewhere else tomorrow.

Because the Word of God is this foundational stone that I've based my life upon.

But if you only read it alone, then I would just say you get yourself into trouble.

There's something about studying the Word.

There's something about studying the Word of God together that gives us a greater balance than when we do it just by ourself.

I don't know about you, but people get weird when they're by themselves too much.

I think we saw this during COVID, right?

We saw people get isolated, and they get in front of their computers or in front of their phones and their tablets,

and they start looking at YouTube videos and following the rabbit trails.

And before you know it, everybody's a conspiracy theorist, right?

And people came out from being alone, and they were like,

they started to tell you what they believed, and you're like, oh, man, something happened to this person.

Like, hey, why don't you hang out with us for a little while?

We'll bring you back to normal again.

Like, you went somewhere else.

Because when you are in isolation, it's a dangerous place to be.

Of course, the enemy loves you to be isolated.

The enemy loves to convince you you don't need anybody else.

The enemy loves to tell you, yeah, it's just you and Jesus.

Forget the rest of everybody else.

You can just do it.

I'm telling you, the reason why we're supposed to be with other people, other believers, is because we need them.

We need them.

There's something powerful about when I listen to you and you listen to me,

and we begin to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us,

then we begin to encourage one another and grow,

and it's so important for us to do it together, not just by ourselves.

The second thing is this, is that we practice learning how to love.

When we're talking about the church of the living God,

we're talking about being in a circle rather than just in a row.

What we're doing is we're learning how to love other people.

And small groups are a laboratory for learning how to love people.

There's a lot.

Have you noticed there's a lot of weird people in the world?

And every time I go to a small group, I notice, wow, there's some different people.

And it becomes an opportunity for me to begin to love them because it's not necessarily my preference the way that they act.

It's just like the people that I talked about you're related to,

that you have to love because they're part of your family.

You don't get to choose, you just, they're part of your family, so you have to love them.

It's the same way here.

In your small group, what you'll find is there's always some people that will rub you the wrong way.

You come to that group, and you're thinking, man, what is up with them?

Why are they so opinionated?

Why do they talk so much?

They're always, you know, what is it that they, you know, they're always about their thing.

And you just go, I can't.

Can I find a different group?

Is it possible that there's a group of people that we could just, like, all agree on some things?

Because what you find in a group is you find diversity, diversity of thought, diversity of types of people, of backgrounds, of ages.

I love at Koinonia, one of the main ways we do groups is it's kind of mixed.

Now, we have plenty of life stage groups, right?

So we have men's and women's, and sometimes we'll have life age groups.

But most of our groups, you'll find there's older people and younger.

There are different kinds of people in the groups, different backgrounds, rich and poor, all that kind of stuff.

And so by necessity, when you get into a group like that, you'll just find some people that are different than you,

and different people are a little bit more difficult to love.

And it becomes an opportunity for you to practice exactly the thing that you're called to do as a follower of Christ,

which is to learn how to love others.

And so when you come into the group and you go, oh, there's some weird people here, you just go, okay, God,

now I guess you're going to give me some grace here to learn how to love some people that I don't necessarily get along with to begin with.

And what you'll discover is that maybe they're not the only weird ones.

I mean, if John is weird and Susie is weird and, you know, you're weird too, probably.

Imagine that for everybody that you find it's difficult to love them, there's somebody in that group that's going, oh, Andrew's pretty tough to love too.

The thing about groups that's interesting.

Is it's always easy to love someone else at a distance.

It's really easy if I, until I get to know somebody, I really think they're pretty normal.

This happens, this probably happened to you.

Every once in a while, I'll meet somebody and I'll tell my wife, oh, you need to meet these people.

They're so cool.

Let's hang out with them.

And then we'll go hang out.

I'll go, oh, my gosh, that was the biggest mistake I've ever made.

Like, they're so weird.

Like, they're not really cool.

I mean, I just, I had that 30-second conversation with them and I made an assumption.

And now I bumped up against the reality.

And I'm discovering, uh-oh, I've got to learn how to love them.

They're not as easy as I thought.

That's what happens when you start to get close to someone.

You now bump up against who they really are.

They're not impressing you anymore.

See, I can impress you, you know, if we're talking for 60 seconds.

You might think, Andrew's a pretty cool guy.

Wait until you hang out with me.

Right?

I ain't that cool.

Right?

And as a matter of fact, we're probably going to have some disagreements.

And you're going to figure out all these things.

Why?

Because finally you get close enough.

You get close enough to begin to know the person.

And you begin to confront who they are.

They begin to confront who you are.

And then you have a choice.

Am I going to love them even when it's difficult?

Or am I going to run out the door?

Am I going to learn how to extend some grace in this situation?

And groups are perfect for that because groups are imperfect.

One of the problems with church, I'll just, this is just to kind of reflect it for a second.

One of the problems with church like this is sometimes we get too good at church.

And so because we get really good at church, we're going to do the worship right.

Now, I'm all for doing church well because it's, I want to do church excellently.

But sometimes we, you know, you come in, it's like, well, the speaker's really great.

They know how to pray.

Then we flow right into worship.

And there's a couple great worship songs.

And the band is rehearsed.

And everything's perfect.

And then Candice comes up and does transition.

And man, it was fantastic.

And they come up and give the word.

And then, and it's just like, it's, wow, it just all happens just so seamlessly.

And it just seems so easy.

And then we get into a group.

And we're like, oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

And you try to pray.

And nobody wants to pray.

And you're staring at each other.

You read the verse.

And nobody has anything to say.

And nobody did the homework.

And, you know, and you're just going like, well, what is this?

It's real life.

It's an opportunity to learn how to do community together.

It's actually coming face to face with this thing that gives us an opportunity to grow.

But if all we do is attend an event that is church, and we're never actually being the church,

we will never grow.

We will never grow beyond our just liking the event.

And we'll go, oh, the groups are weird.

They're so hard.

Yeah, they're so hard.

Get into a group.

Learn how to grow.

Learn how to get beyond the fact that it's difficult.

Bring something to the group.

And before you know it, you'll find, oh, man, they're actually an incredible place where life happens.

But you're going to have to get through some of the weird that happens along the way.

Does that make sense?

Is that helpful?

It's so very important that we're with people that think differently than us.

That have a little bit different perspective from us.

And so let me just move on.

Number three.

Because I could just stay here, you know me, and let's just keep moving.

Number three.

We eat together.

I like this one.

We eat together.

It says, to the breaking of bread.

And the TEV version says they shared in fellowship meals.

See, what they did in the early church and what we do in small groups is we eat some food together.

They went from house to house, and they broke bread together.

And if you tell me, if you're going to invite me to your small group, I don't really care what you're going to study.

I don't really care who's leading it.

My question is going to be, what are the snacks?

Like, who's bringing the snacks?

Are they good snacks?

Are they lousy snacks?

Like, do they know what they're doing?

Like, because if there's food, at Koinonia we have this thing, if you feed them, they will come.

And so in groups, one of the beautiful things that happens is there's usually some food.

And the reason we do that is because.

Around the table, barriers come down.

People get a little bit more relaxed when there's a little bit of food, a little bit of sugar in their system.

You know, a little coffee.

And we get a little bit more comfortable.

And suddenly what was difficult and sort of, you know, it was awkward in terms of the conversation would begin to flow.

Because there's just something about food that becomes more familial and becomes so much more intimate.

And so in your groups, have some good snacks.

Don't have the lousy snacks.

Don't just get the crummy food.

You know, bring some good stuff.

Right?

Now, some of you take this to a level that's a little sick, frankly.

I mean, I'll talk to some of you.

And I talk to you about your group.

How's your group going?

Oh, man.

Josh brought some great meat yesterday.

I mean, it was smoked.

It was so tender.

It was the most amazing thing.

Next week he's going to bring, you know, some sausages.

And I mean, they just talk about all their amazing tri-tip and all the stuff that they're going to do.

And I'm just like, man, you guys have lost your mind.

Some of you need to tone it down just a little bit in terms of the snacks.

But have a little bit of food.

Have a little food.

Eat together.

Enjoy it.

And do some competitions.

Make it wonderful.

Because it becomes another element that actually draws community together.

And it's something that's so wonderful.

Number four is this.

We pray for each other.

An essential and important part of your group time is that you spend time, as it says in the NCV version, praying together.

Now, praying together is key.

Now, when I say that, immediately some of you are getting, like, super nervous.

Because you've never prayed out loud in front of a group before.

And you're immediately imagining that you're going to get to this group, and they're going to turn to you, and they're going to say,

would you please close us in prayer?

And you're going to say, uh, no.

It's okay to be nervous.

It's okay for you not to know how to pray out loud.

But it's not okay for you to stay there forever.

Right?

I mean, all of us had to learn at some point how to speak.

And we didn't worry about.

We didn't worry about how we were making a fool of ourselves.

Right?

Everybody in this room at some point had to learn how to pray at the beginning of your walk with Christ.

And so it just, you have to begin by doing it.

And in small groups is one of the greatest and safest places that you can begin to expand and learn the language of prayer.

I mean, it's really, it is quite easy.

You just finish the sentence.

Thank you, Lord, for this group and the great snacks.

Amen.

Thank God for a short prayer.

Man, that beautiful.

Right?

I mean, nothing wrong with a short prayer.

But this is where church gets real.

See, it's in the context of small groups that you get to lay hands on one another.

It's in the context of small groups that you go around the circle and you say, what's really going on in your life?

And somebody says, you know what?

I've got this situation at work and I don't know what to do.

Can you guys pray?

And we pray together for them in that situation in the group.

And we pray for families.

And we pray for relationships.

And we pray for broken bodies.

And we pray for things that just only God can answer.

And we do it together and it unites us together and knits our hearts together.

And we're inviting God himself to come and to do something in those people's lives.

And sometimes if I'm not in that group, I don't have people praying for me.

I mean, you want some relationships, but I want more than relationships.

I want some people praying for me.

I need the power of God actually applied to my situation.

And the dynamic that happens in that unity of small groups is that the Holy Spirit shows up.

And before you know it, people are praying for each other.

They're giving words to each other.

Hey, man, I feel like the Lord would encourage you in this way.

I got this verse I want to give to you.

I think it applies to your situation.

You're going to leave strengthened today.

And, man, it's like, wow, I want to be part of that kind of group.

That's the kind of life, that's the kind of family that God has given us.

Number five is this.

We encourage each other.

It says, and they were selling their possessions and belonging.

And distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

Another translation says, they shared everything with each other.

And helped each other when anyone in the group had a need.

The beautiful thing about groups is that when you have authentic and true community,

there are opportunities for ministry that are just automatic.

They're just created by the fact that you're in that group together.

When someone in the church has a need, the first thing we ask,

is do they have a group?

Because nine times out of ten, if they're in a group,

the group is already meeting the need.

Right?

If somebody's going to the hospital, the group is arranging for meals and child care.

And they're beginning to share the need.

Or, you know, if someone needs encouragement, they're gathering around them.

I mean, all types of ministry happen because of small groups.

And when you don't have a group, you're just kind of out there by yourself.

But when you have a group, everybody just automatically goes, yeah, you need something.

We'd love to do that.

And there's an encouragement.

There's an encouragement that happens with that.

You have something?

I can share what I have because we're in this life together.

It becomes a powerful force that begins to demonstrate what it's like to be in the family of God.

Being in the family of God involves and it needs other people.

And you need other people.

You need that circle around you to pray together, to encourage one another,

to study God's word together, to eat together, and to begin to love one another at a higher level.

When the church did that, as you see in Acts chapter 2,

when they did that, what ended up happening is the church grew as a result.

See, I love that the church didn't grow because of good advertising.

The church didn't grow because it had great programs.

It didn't grow because there was a great worship leader or because they had great children's ministry.

It grew because of the life that was happening, the authentic community that was happening in between the saints.

And as they went from house to house,

they lived life together.

Other people went, I want that.

I want what you have.

And so he said, well, yeah, come on into the group and we'll pray for you and we'll begin to encourage you.

And before you know it, then the Lord continued to add more and more and more to their number.

And before you know it, the church became a force that could not be stopped in the earth.

So I want to invite just for a moment Matt Rodriguez to come up.

And he's just going to share for a few moments about his experience with small groups at Koinonia.

So would you welcome, please, Matt?

Good afternoon, everyone.

Man, small groups are so important to me.

Just a small testimony of just my life and how I entered into this group that I go to religiously every Wednesday.

Pastor Chad had been asking me plenty of times before he'd been texting me,

hey, come to this meeting.

Come to this, we need people.

We need you to hear the word of God.

He understood that I was in a point in my life where I was very alone.

I was isolated.

I didn't want people to hear my dirty laundry.

I didn't want people to see that I was a sinner.

And so I was nervous about just going into groups at all.

He invited me into this purple group.

I have it at home still.

I filled out two pages.

That's how disconnected I was.

I didn't want anything to do with it.

There was a moment in my life where I finally said, okay, I've tried everything else.

I need to see what this Jesus is about.

I kept hearing about this Jesus that died for me, and it was enough for me to study a little.

And so I said, okay, fine, Chad, I'll show up.

Where do you want me to go?

He said, come on Wednesday.

There's a group of 10 guys that I want you to meet, and they'll love on you, right?

And so I said, great.

I'll go in there.

And it completely transformed my life.

I cannot express that enough.

Something happened.

I walked in.

It was immediately just loved upon.

They didn't look at me at the things that I've done in my life or the things that I shared.

Instead, what they did is they empowered me.

They gave me words of encouragement.

They prayed over me.

It was like something I've never experienced in my life before.

You mean to tell me you actually care about my feelings?

About who I am and the mistakes that I've done?

So after this, I said, okay, I'm ready to give my life to the Lord.

I got baptized, and then on my way home, a couple of services later, I was driving home,

and I heard the Lord say, it's time to let it all go.

I said, well, what do you mean by all of this?

I don't.

I thought I'd let it go when I got dunked into the water.

He said, no, there's some things that you have in your home that I know that you need to get rid of.

And I looked into my, as I walked into my home,

I had prayed that I wanted to lay a foundation in my house.

And he said, well, it's time to let go of the things that are hindering all of your prayers.

And I said, okay.

And I knew he was pointing towards the closet where I had $2,500 worth of merchandise that I bought

that was of a rap group that I listened to that was of not of the Lord.

I'm not even going to say the name, but I wasn't ready to let it go.

There was monetary value there.

There was emotion there.

There was something.

There was something of the world that I did not want to let go.

And he said, it's time.

It's time.

So I had already been in this group, and I had some brothers that I called upon.

I said, hey, man, I heard the Lord tell me it's time to let it go.

And I was willing to give some of these items to people that I knew that listened to this music.

And he said, why would you give your sin away to someone else?

I said, well, what do you want me to do with it?

He said, I want you to burn it.

I said, well, I don't have a fire pit that big.

And he said, call somebody.

So I called somebody from the group.

And they had a fire pit.

I said, I'm on my way.

He said, no, I'm on my way.

And I was like, why would you bring it to my house?

I don't want to burn it and leave it here.

He said, no, it needs to be.

I feel the Lord is telling me that it needs to be in your house.

So he showed up.

Five other guys from this group came.

And I just started unloading all of this just garbage, right, all this garbage that I held on to for so long.

And I'm telling you, it was a lot of money.

And I threw it in there, and we lit it on fire.

And there was this piece.

I couldn't understand.

How did I burn a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff that I bought?

And I feel peace, and I feel filled.

I've never felt it before.

We sang.

I mean, it was a breakthrough for me that I would not have received if I would not have stepped foot in this group.

And I'm not saying for you, I'm not calling you to say, hey, we need people in groups.

Hey, we need, no, you need to be in a group.

Like, it's a necessity for you.

I did not understand what it meant to be in a group, to have brothers pray for you.

Or I've only been in a men's group, and I've been in a group with my wife before.

But the importance of having people just loving on you, having people just showing you that the Lord cares about who you are.

And the most important thing of all is that there is a place at the table for you.

You know, like, you can come with your dirty rags, and the Lord will, he'll wipe it all clean.

He'll let you know that you belong here.

And that's the word that I want everybody to receive, every man that is ready to lead their family.

I needed to be a man that had to lead his family in the right way.

And the only way I could do that was to let the world go.

I just, there's something about Jesus in my home that I just will never let go.

And I'm thankful, I'm thankful for it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

So after I burned it all, and we celebrated, and everybody left, my wife closed the door.

She looks at me, and she starts crying.

And I'm like, yeah, it was beautiful that I burned it all.

She goes, no, I've been praying for this for a very, very long time, and I didn't tell you.

And I was like, wow, like, all through obedience, all through just me saying, okay, I'll go ahead and do it.

All through me just hearing the call, hearing the Lord call my name, saying words over me, using other people, believers, to lay their hands on me.

And then now I get to see the same thing in men.

When they come inside, they come in broken.

I'm like, hey, man, I was the same way, but I'm ready to give you the good news.

I'm ready to show you who Jesus is.

I don't save you.

The Lord saves you.

I'm just going to point you to that direction.

That's all I'm going to do.

And that's what I have for each and every one of you.

I would pray that you hear this call.

And if it's a group that you don't like, try another one.

I mean, there's many groups.

There's groups you can go together with your family.

There's groups that you can go just you.

With nothing but men.

I mean, when I jumped into this group, we had 10 guys in our group.

Chad was like, it's all I want is 10 guys.

And we have like 65 guys in our group now.

It's crazy.

We have to split it in half.

We have to find different ways.

We have to send people like, hey, you start a group.

Like, it's just a wonderful movement for us to see that the Lord is moving in our lives.

All because we're obedient.

All because we love him.

All because we needed him, ultimately.

And so that's my encouragement to you guys is please try it.

Just give it a try.

I promise you.

You won't regret it.

Amen.

So good, man.

So good.

It won't happen unless you decide.

Right?

It won't happen unless you take the risk.

And I know what you're saying.

Perhaps, like, you know, I've tried a group before.

It didn't work.

Or I just can't see myself doing that.

Or I can't add one more thing to my schedule.

And I would just say excuses, excuses.

You know?

Either you believe.

You believe what the Lord has told us about the best way for us to grow as followers,

as his followers or not.

Either we understand how to be his family or we miss the fullness of what he has for us.

I want to just challenge you.

Hey, why don't you get into a group?

Why don't you get into a group?

The way that you do that is super simple.

If you've got the Church Center app, one of the main items on the Church Center app at the bottom of the app is groups.

Because groups are so important to us.

Because we understand that's where so much life and growth happens as a follower of Christ.

And so go to the Church Center app.

Click on groups.

You can see all the groups that we're about to start this next week.

The way that works at Quintinia is that groups are seasonal.

They don't last forever, thank God.

And so you get into a group and you're in it for a period of time.

And then they take a break.

And so groups are going to start beginning next Sunday, that next week.

That's on September 8th.

And all through that week, there's groups every day of the week.

And in the evenings.

In different places.

Some are at the church.

Some are in people's homes.

Lots of different types of groups.

And so sign up for one.

Make the commitment to say, you know what, I'm going to do it.

And I'll just guarantee you when it comes time to go to the group that day, you're going to not feel like it.

Something's going to happen.

It's going to make, you know, you're going to be like, you're going to have an excuse.

But just make the commitment in your heart.

Like, I'm going to grow.

I'm going to believe what the Lord says about this.

I'm actually going to press into this and watch and see what God does when you're faithful to be obedient to him.

Would you stand to your feet?

Let me pray for you.

Thank God for his family.

Thank God that we're not alone.

Thank God that he gave us each other.

Right?

I thank God for you.

That you are teaching me.

I'm praying that I'm teaching you.

That together as a church, we're moving forward.

It's together that this community is transformed.

Right?

It's together that lives really are made different.

That marriages are restored.

Right?

family. If you're not in the family this morning, then I want to invite you into the family, right?

The way that you get in the family is through the door. The door is Jesus Christ. He said, I'm the

way, the truth, and the life. If you want to follow after me, if you want to come through to me, to the

Father, I'm going to give you the way to the Father. The good news about Jesus is that he turns to each

and every one of us, every man, woman, and child that's here this morning. He gives you the

opportunity and you the invitation to come in and be a part of his family. What we have to do is

simply say, my life for your life, Jesus. He's already offered it to us. He's already made himself

available to us. But if you've never actually accepted and received him, today I just want to

say, today could be the day to do that. Today is a day of invitation for you to come in to the

family of God. And you might be saying in your heart, I don't know, maybe this is the day. I mean,

I came to meet with the Lord today. Well, I just want to tell you, this is the time to meet with

him. If you need a relationship with Jesus, if you don't have one, would you just raise your hand and

I want to pray for you so that you know that you are a part of the family. You're saying,

yes, I am.

Yes to the invitation today. Any here this morning that are raising their hand? Yep. Anybody

else? Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank

you. This is what we're going to do. I'm going to just go ahead and invite you in just a moment to

come down up front and we're going to pray for you when I close the service. And the way that

we do that is we're going to have people pray for you and then I'm going to pray a blessing

over those who come down. But if you would turn to your neighbor right now, everybody in the house

and say, do you need to come down? And if so, I'll go down with you. And then would you just make

your way down? If you raise your hand, make your way down right now. And if you need to come down,

come on down. Turn to your neighbor, say, do you need to go down? I'll go down with you. Go ahead.

Everybody say it. Sometimes we don't have courage. Anybody have the courage now? All right. And come

down and meet me right here. We're going to pray for you. I love the little courage that we get

when we talk to each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's wonderful. Just come right here

right here. Thank you, Lord. Awesome guys. Awesome. Awesome. And I'm going to have the

prayer team just kind of come and stand right behind you guys. And we're going to surround

you in prayer. We're just going to sort of seal the deal this morning. What's happening right now,

of course, is new life and transformation. And what's happening right now is not just a

momentary thing. It's an eternal thing, right? When we say yes to the Lord and to his family,

he welcomes us in. And it is a thing that he signs the deal. The deed is done. And we

are now inside of his kingdom. And we're off to the races. And so, church, would you just

extend your hand to those that are here? And let's just pray for them. Lord Jesus, we thank you

that you knew this day, this time, this moment, and every person that's standing up here reaching

out for new life in you. And we thank you, God, for new life. Thank you, Jesus, for your love.

Thank you for your acceptance. Thank you for your forgiveness. Lord, thank you that even when we

don't deserve it, because there's no way that we can deserve it,

just love us anyway. And you extend your hand to us. So, Lord, we reach out to you. And we're

asking for salvation. We're asking for a new life. We're asking for a new future. We're asking,

God, that you would come and do what we can't do. Would you change us from the inside out? Lord,

would you just, even right now, seal the deal over these men and women? Lord, would you make

a before and after moment that they'd walk out today a new creature, because you have made them,

Lord, a new creature. You've given your life for their lives.

And made the future forever be different. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Amen.

Koinonia Church, where we are igniting contagious faith in the one God who restores all.