The Danger of the ‘Sinner’s Prayer’: Why Ritual Cannot Replace Regeneration

• Faith and Doubt 00:10:00 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor acknowledges that faith and doubt run on parallel tracks and that there is no certainty in this life, yet God strengthens faith through sovereignty and mystery.
• God's Sovereignty and Goodness 00:08:04 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor asserts that God remains good even in the face of tragedy, challenging the notion that God owes believers healing or specific outcomes.
• Suffering and Trust 00:06:29 ▶️ 📄
  > The narrative explores the tension between believing in miracles and accepting suffering, highlighting the struggle to trust God's plan when miracles do not occur as expected.
• Grief and Processing Pain 00:15:31 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker describes the initial reaction to loss as pain and grief, noting the isolation from family and friends, and the decision to seek help through a book and community.
• Faith and Unbelief 00:22:15 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker discusses the breakdown of faith after losing children, the struggle to pray, and the eventual realization that faith can coexist with doubt and that God is good even when healing does not occur physically.
• Definition of Faith 00:28:54 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor clarifies that faith is not 100% certainty but a trust that allows for doubt, and that the church should be a place to express hard questions to God.
• Eternal Healing vs. Physical Healing 00:23:25 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker distinguishes between physical healing on earth and eternal healing in heaven, asserting that eternity is the ultimate goal and that physical healing is not always the 'better' outcome.
• Response to Pain 00:30:03 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker emphasizes that how one responds to pain is critical, citing the example of turning pain into worship and praise, which can inspire others to return to faith.
• The Reality of Suffering 00:32:51 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker asserts that believers are not shielded from pain, using the example of Jesus suffering as the ultimate proof, and advocates for open, biblical discussion of pain rather than avoiding it.
• Eternal Perspective 00:37:49 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker discusses how the loss of a child shifts one's perspective on eternity, moving from a desire for miraculous healing to a hope anchored in Jesus' victory over the world and the promise of eternal life.
• Community and Support 00:40:41 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker encourages believers to 'lean into community' by showing up for others in grief and joy, offering practical support like meals and presence, rather than offering unsolicited opinions.
• Community Support 00:41:23 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor discusses the importance of showing up for others during difficult times, citing examples of people bringing journals and waving from outside the hospital during COVID.
• Spiritual Warfare and Testimony 00:42:22 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor identifies the enemy's desire to keep people in sadness and urges the congregation to rise up and tell their story for God's glory.
• Evangelism through Social Media 00:43:11 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor encourages using social media platforms to share the story of pain and doubt, noting that God can use these stories to impact others.
• Relationship with Jesus 00:44:02 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor concludes by stating that true strength begins with a relationship with Jesus, without which one is doing life alone.

• Sermon Illustration 00:00:57 ▶️ 📄
  > Chris and Naomi Moore share their personal story of losing their son Milo to a malignant rhabdoid tumor and their daughter Mallory to a brain tumor, illustrating their journey from seeking physical healing to finding peace in God's sovereignty.
• Sermon Illustration 00:09:56 ▶️ 📄
  > Ed Young shares his personal struggle with doubt following the death of his daughter Libeth, using the analogy of faith as a bank account to explain how God provides strength during trials.
• Sermon Illustration 00:27:58 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker shares a personal story of fracturing their foot from a skateboarding accident at age 18, using it as an analogy for how faith gets fractured by problems and needs time to heal and restore.
• Sermon Illustration 00:26:47 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker recounts a story of a couple from their previous church who battled seven years of infertility, and how God miraculously provided for their family within weeks, contrasting this with their own subsequent loss of faith.
• Sermon Illustration 00:41:49 ▶️ 📄
  > The speaker shares a personal anecdote about a friend picking them up from the hospital and driving two and a half hours to South Padre Island to go fishing during a rain delay, illustrating the importance of leaning into community for support.
• Sermon Illustration 00:41:23 ▶️ 📄
  > The pastor shares a personal anecdote about being in the hospital, where friends brought him a journal and waved at him from outside during COVID. He also mentions a friend who drove him two and a half hours to South Padre Island for a fishing trip during a real.

• Pastoral Charge 00:37:17 ▶️ 📄
  > Parents are urged to prioritize building spiritual 'muscle memory' in their children by consistently taking them to church.
• Pastoral Charge 00:43:11 ▶️ 📄
  > Use the church app to share the video message with others.

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:00:01] Our culture is obsessed with before and after. If you go online, for example, you'll see before and after pictures and we thought at Fellowship Church we would do before after. We kind of changed the phrase before after because so many of us, in fact, I would say not just many of us, all of us have unique stories. We really do. And God wants to write his story in your life and mine.
[00:00:31] And if we, because we have a freedom of choice, allow him to do so, wow, it is the way life is supposed to be lived.
[00:00:41] So today I want you to meet a couple of people who have a riveting story, a story like very few I've ever heard meet Chris and Naomi Moore.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:00:57] Scripture tells us that when we draw near to God, he draws near to us.
[00:01:14] And I used to think that was just a beautiful promise for a Sunday morning service, but I never thought worship would become the oxygen that kept my family breathing in our darkest hours.
[00:01:26] Hi, I'm Chris.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:01:41] I'm Naomi.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:01:42] And we've been on staff for two years, both a part of our worship team, Fellowship Creative.
[00:01:47] I work with our student worship team in the Mixed Youth Ministry.

[00:01:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:01:51] And I get to work with Pastor Lisa on lots of amazing ministry opportunities.

[00:01:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:01:55] We met in 2013, leading worship together at Bible College here in Dallas.
[00:02:01] Worship's always been a huge part of our lives, because when we worship, it's a unique way to feel the presence of God.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:02:08] We were friends for about a year, and something, like, clicked.
[00:02:13] We said, we're going to get married, which was kind of crazy, but we knew deep down that we were each other's person.
[00:02:18] So we got married, and the Lord blessed us with a child.
[00:02:22] Meow was born.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:02:24] And God blessed us with another child.
[00:02:27] And Millie, she's a firecracker.
[00:02:29] She's amazing.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:02:30] In 2015, we decided to move to where Chris is from and his family.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:02:36] We came on staff at my parents' church in Brownsville, Texas.
[00:02:40] Seeing our kids grow up in the church, it was so beautiful.
[00:02:44] It was amazing.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:02:45] But there is one dream I had, and it was to have a little boy.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:02:50] Right around that time, Naomi got pregnant with a boy.
[00:02:55] And we named him Milo.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:02:59] Everything was great during the pregnancy.
[00:03:02] And then it was time for Milo to be born.
[00:03:05] We were at the hospital.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:03:06] Her oxygen level began to drop.
[00:03:09] And then the doctors came in and said, we're going to have to do an emergency C-section.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:03:13] I was losing a lot of blood quickly.

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:03:16] But God carried us through.
[00:03:18] And on March 1st, 2021, Milo was born.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:03:23] I remember spending like the next few weeks just like with so much anxiety.
[00:03:28] I remember telling Chris like, man, I feel like something's wrong.
[00:03:31] And then about two months later.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:03:33] It almost felt like there was like a, like a ball, like something here, super hard.
[00:03:39] I go to the pediatrician's office.
[00:03:41] They discovered within a couple of days that it was this tumor called the malignant rapdoid tumor.
[00:03:47] There is not many treatments available for it.

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:03:50] The next thing I know, a nurse comes and she's like, he's going to be airlifted to Driscoll Children's Hospital, which is about two hours north from Brownsville.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:04:00] The doctor hands us this diagnosis, and I was just thinking, like, God, like, what are we going to do with this?
[00:04:16] I said, in our line of work, anything is possible.
[00:04:20] And she says, where do you guys work? What do you do?
[00:04:23] And I said, well, we're all pastors, and we believe in the God of miracles.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:04:28] No matter what the doctor would say every time they walked in through the door, we were going to choose to sing or to praise in the middle of that.
[00:04:38] His first chemo started and his body was not able to flush out all the fluids and he was drowning, basically.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:04:49] We had to put a drain in the side of his body.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:04:52] While Milo is like fighting for his life, the doctors and the nurses that were on that oncology floor were praying with us you know and they were like we believe he's gonna make it through and it
[00:05:04] strengthened my faith he was able to finish that chemo round and it was result time the doctor came and she was so excited and she was like it shrunk and we were so excited god's healing him
[00:05:17] this is amazing we celebrated that day for the first time in a month we were able to leave the hospital it felt like that was a moment that was like a light at the end of the tunnel we made it

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:05:28] we praised god feeling like our prayers had been answered about a month later we did chemo round

[00:05:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:05:38] three after he finished his chemo i saw it looked like a vein bulging a little bit and then the next day it got bigger the cancer had metastasized in his head and that was like that was so crushing

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:05:53] I remember the doctor saying, it's a few weeks. This is what we would have. It felt like a knife was in my chest.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:06:12] There was no way that they could do a surgery because if they did a surgery, he could die under the knife.
[00:06:20] There's nothing the doctors can do. There's nothing we can do.
[00:06:23] I think that was where we experienced some of the most tension in our relationship.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:06:29] I came from a spiritual background where we were taught if you have enough faith, miracles will happen.
[00:06:36] And if you don't get the miracle, maybe you didn't have enough faith.
[00:06:42] And I'm raised in that culture that says, I believe those miracles can happen.
[00:06:48] And I was believing it for Milo.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:06:50] Me with my mom, I was like, I'm just seeing him like suffer and the amount of meds he has to take.
[00:06:57] and he's just like he's crying he's complaining he's in so much pain and like i just like i want him to be okay i don't want him to feel that i wanted him to find peace with god and chris was
[00:07:10] contending he's gonna be healed and that was like a big tension point there was one night in specific where we were both in the bed with milo in the hospital room and we were having that super tense
[00:07:22] conversation of like why can't you just see he's suffering and just say goodbye and then he's pleading his case and this was one of the sweetest moments we'd ever had Milo had like

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:07:33] one minute where it was Milo again it wasn't like in pain Milo or anything but he looked at us like with his big eyes and he smiled and we laughed and we were like I said he's probably laughing
[00:07:49] You know, it's like mom and dad, stop fighting, get it together.
[00:07:52] And it just felt like a moment that we were able to experience with him again.
[00:07:57] Like this is us and our son and he's okay and he's going to be okay.
[00:08:04] And whatever happens, God is still good.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:08:12] It was a hard prayer.
[00:08:15] Would you let him not suffer anymore so that he would find true healing in eternity?
[00:08:22] We cried.
[00:08:23] We sang.
[00:08:25] And he marched into heaven singing a song of victory.
[00:08:32] Sitting outside at the gravesite, I remember saying, I promise I'm not going to let this steal my song.
[00:08:50] Being in that moment, saying those words were words of faith for me.

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:08:59] After we buried Milo and did his funeral services, I lost hope, you know?

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:09:08] I realized, like, I have unbelief for healing.
[00:09:12] just because of what happened with Milo I think I took on the role of like God owes me a son God took him away from me and so surely he owes me he owes me this and so I remember at that time

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:09:29] his parents were part of C3 Global the network of pastors that fellowship leads and and it's a place where pastors can come and be resourced once a year we came to C3 conference And just a year before that, Pastor Ed and Lisa had lost their oldest daughter, Libeth.
[00:09:47] At the conference, they talked about how they processed and were still processing their pain, but how Jesus and the church carried them through that.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:09:56] And I still struggle with this over Libeth's death.
[00:09:58] I do. I do.
[00:10:00] I'm like, why God?
[00:10:03] I mean, Lisa and I have followed you, started Fellowship Church.
[00:10:08] What?
[00:10:10] I still deal.
[00:10:11] Lisa does too with that. Faith and doubt, they run on parallel tracks. There's not certainty in this life. However, in God's sovereignty and mystery, Lisa, he has strengthened our faith.

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:10:28] See, our faith is like a bank account. We've just been dropping faith into this account over and over, and we've been living off the interest. But when Lee Beth passed away, we dug deep into that account and we pulled that faith out and God has given us the strength.
[00:10:47] And so let me just tell you something, the road winds are going to hit, but you can be ready.
[00:10:51] You can be prepared because this is not the final chapter. This is not the end.

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:10:59] I'd never heard leaders in the church speak so vulnerably and it really helped me start

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:11:05] processing my pain and rebuilding my faith. That night there was a live recording and that's when I heard the song, Even So.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:11:14] Those words were just really kind of like

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:11:32] doing surgery on my heart.
[00:11:34] And I remember leaving that night thinking like, God actually owes me nothing.
[00:11:38] Just salvation is more than enough.
[00:11:42] Like he gave me everything.
[00:11:43] He gave me his son.
[00:11:45] He owes me nothing.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:11:46] Milo is whole, he is healed.
[00:11:49] And so in, I was like, Chris, you know what?
[00:11:54] Maybe we should try again.
[00:11:56] And a few days later, we found out we were pregnant with a little girl.

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:12:01] And we decided to name her Mallory.

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:12:03] The pregnancy was going great, and around week 28, I went in for an ultrasound.
[00:12:09] The doctor comes in, and then he says, we found fluid in her head.
[00:12:14] And then they were like, this does not look good.
[00:12:17] There's solid mass here.
[00:12:18] As soon as they said solid mass, like, I knew this is cancer.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:12:23] I just remember kind of just feeling so crushed, like, not again.
[00:12:30] Like, I can't do this again, you know?

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:12:37] I said, we're going to gather at our house, and we're just going to worship for 24 hours nonstop.
[00:12:44] We got everybody from the church.
[00:12:47] We literally just prayed for 24 hours, and we would ask God that you would have your will.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:12:52] Your will.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:12:53] Your will be done.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:12:54] That was all we prayed.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:12:55] man we went to bed and we're laying there and Naomi said something's wrong 20 minutes later

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:13:03] here I am again emergency c-section and that anxiety that I felt like after Milo's c-section

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:13:11] it hit me again in that moment and I literally couldn't like I was trembling like my whole body was trembling and the anesthesiologist was like you need to calm down you need to relax and I couldn't like I could not calm down he took Mallory out and it was so quiet no cry

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:13:31] next thing I know she's out of the room the doctors immediately airlifted us back to Driscoll hospital where Milo was diagnosed they came to the conclusion that she was brain dead they were keeping her basically on life support till Naomi got there so that she could be there and hold

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:13:52] Mallory. We finally get to Corpus, and I see Chris there with Mallory, and she's on all these machines, and I was able to hold Mallory, and with our family, we prayed there, and we dedicated
[00:14:11] Mallory to the Lord. They turned all the life support off, and I mean, they had told us it

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:14:19] would take like seconds to a minute minutes turned into hours and hours turned into days so we decided with the doctors to airlift her back to Brownsville the hospital that she was

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:14:35] born in um so that she could pass at home about four weeks after she was born we started noticing she was finally having issues like with breathing and that night I stayed in the room with Mallory
[00:14:51] and i woke up and and mallory um she she had passed chris was sleeping in the room this is like four o'clock in the morning and i remember going to the room and just looking at him sleeping
[00:15:08] and trying to figure out like how do i tell him like how do i wake him up and tell him like our

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:15:18] little girl's gone. When Valerie passed, it felt like the type of song I was singing was different.
[00:15:31] This was a song of pain and grief and hurt. Two years, two different types of cancer, two children that we had to bury with no medical explanation whatsoever. We found ourselves

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:15:48] isolating from family. We found ourselves isolating from friendships and our coping

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:15:54] mechanism was to work and we worked hard and I don't think we really processed what what happened

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:16:04] we didn't process with our girls we really didn't process with each other I hit a very negative place in my mind and I started questioning um if I should live I called Chris and we went to the
[00:16:20] beach. And I think that was the first time I fully expressed to Chris how not well I was. I think that's when we realized that we needed to do something. We're not well and we need to get well.
[00:16:38] Around that time, Pastor Ed and Lisa released a book called A Path Through Pain. It encouraged us

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:16:45] because they were able to show us how they went through their grief process in the passing of

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:16:50] their daughter. I remember opening it and just reading their journal entries. It made it feel real. It made me reflect a lot. And I remember sitting there reading these chapters and writing and journaling. I was starting to like crack open a shell. There was this section that really just
[00:17:10] brought a lot of clarity that pain and joy can coexist together. And if you bring it to Jesus, like he is more than able to help you walk through it.
[00:17:18] We started wondering if maybe Fellowship Church could be the community we needed.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:17:23] I sent my resume over to be a worship leader and I didn't think anything of it other than, God, here's our will, we're surrendered to you.
[00:17:33] Maybe a month later, I get a notification on screen that says we would like to interview you.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:17:38] We decided that we were going to make the bold decision to move to Dallas.

[00:17:43] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:17:43] We just head straight here on a Saturday.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:17:46] On a Saturday.

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:17:47] Got here on a Sunday.
[00:17:49] And literally on Sunday, all the girls went out to a lasso at a kid's camp.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:17:53] Me, Mia, and Millie went out to a lasso ranch for kid's camp.
[00:17:57] I'd never seen anything like a lasso ranch.
[00:18:03] Seeing, like, all the activities and Mia and Millie meet other kids their age was so awesome to see them kind of, like, break out of their shell.
[00:18:13] It's just what they needed.
[00:18:14] But Millie gave her life to Christ at that camp that year.
[00:18:19] Just to be able to see that, like, it just felt like an instant, like, thumbs up from God.
[00:18:29] Like, this is the right decision for our family.
[00:18:32] We are in the place we need to be.
[00:18:35] The last two years, God has done so much healing as we've learned the healthy way to process pain.
[00:18:52] And one of those ways being helping others process their pain.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:18:57] Leading students and adults in worship every single week, Jesus is working in all of our lives, healing what is broken as only he can.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:19:07] And I get to be a part of helping Pastor Lisa with ministries to help hurting people like our widows groups, support and recovery groups, and one that's near and dear to my heart is MEND for mothers who have endured infertility
[00:19:21] or the death of a child.
[00:19:24] As we help others learn how to process their grief we're also learning how to process our grief and grow stronger together as a family i get so emotional just to see where i am now i'm just filled with like so much gratefulness
[00:19:40] of god's grace for me in that season

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:19:43] there's still a level of grief that we carry daily sometimes in life we want to shake the

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:20:03] fists. Why God? Why God? I don't need to know why because I know the who. And when I know the who,

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_10]
[00:20:10] everything changes. Our pain was put upon him at the cross. And then he went to the grave and he

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:20:30] rose again on the third day. And through that, we get the hope that says we're going to see our children again one day and we're going to be all reunited for an amazing homecoming all because of
[00:20:43] what Jesus did upon that cross and that empty grave and that's the hope we carry today

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:20:48] I would like for you to meet Chris and Naomi Moore I'm sure we're all just processing what

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:21:42] we've just seen. And I just want to commend the two of you for being such a beautiful, godly example to us and to Fellowship Church. I want to ask you, Chris and Naomi,

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:22:03] about your belief in faith. What did that do to your faith during that time? And

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:22:15] even today for me after experiencing the death of two children it really my faith kind of went all the way down like to zero and I remember when after all that it happened even praying for my
[00:22:36] girls like whenever they would have a fever or a virus that was going through their body I couldn't even like pray God would you heal them just because my belief had just been so broken
[00:22:47] right i understand but i had to hold on to the verse that says lord help my unbelief and i remember just sitting sometimes in the room and just like saying god i don't even know what to
[00:22:59] say because i don't even know how to pray right now but i know that he met me there even as i was trying to and nothing would come out of my mouth but just at least trying to um over the years has
[00:23:13] really, I feel like my faith has, is starting to come a little bit more. Like I'm starting to believe again that God can heal at times. Yes. And there are times when he won't, but he's still

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:23:25] good. And healing is different. There's healing physically here on earth and there's healing eternally in heaven. And we tend to think that the one on earth is the better healing. We give that judgment and that's not true. I mean, eternity is the goal, but obviously there's all
[00:23:43] the pain and things that go with it. Tell me a little bit about when you gave your life to Christ and both of you and, and then how your journey of faith began. You know, it's crazy. I'm a pastor's

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:23:57] kid, right? Grown up in the church. And I can't tell you how many times growing up as a kid, I was sitting, you know, seats like you're sitting in and say that prayer. But what changed for me
[00:24:10] was when I decided to daily follow Jesus no matter what the cost and I think that was kind of the game changer for me is realizing that things are going to happen in life you're going to have ups
[00:24:24] and downs and this is a big down for us but Jesus has been faithful to us and we're going to be

[00:24:31] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:24:31] faithful to him and keep following him I grew up in church as well my parents are also pastors and And so every Sunday, every kid's camp, I don't think I fully understood what it meant to be a Christ follower,
[00:24:45] just because I had been around it so much and I don't think I had articulated it to myself what it meant to follow Jesus.
[00:24:51] But in my 20s, I moved out of my parents' house and I had to make a decision for myself to be a follower of Christ and to model that to my friends and the people around me.
[00:25:05] So around in my 20s, that's really when I defined I have decided I'm going to follow Jesus.
[00:25:12] Yeah.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:25:12] I was going to ask you about about faith, because that's an issue that everyone deals with when we go through pain.
[00:25:22] Lisa and I have dealt with it when Lee Beth went to heaven and we still deal with it.
[00:25:31] The just shall live by faith.
[00:25:33] No question about it.
[00:25:35] we should believe God. We believe God is, and we know God is a miracle worker. But as you said, Naomi, he sometimes chooses not to heal like we want him to. Yet sometimes in our world,
[00:25:53] we're like, okay, if you have more faith, then, you know, things would be different. Or maybe you did something or I did something that has caused this blockade from this breakthrough or this miracle. And just talk to me a little bit about that, because faith is not some
[00:26:15] commodity where we turn God into an Amazon delivery. You know, that that's not biblical

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:26:23] Christianity. That's good. You know, about a year before Milo had gone through his journey, of childhood cancer, we had just prayed with a couple there from our previous church where they were battling seven years of infertility. They could not give birth. And we sat there and we
[00:26:47] prayed with them. And literally within a few weeks time, just God miraculously provided for their family. And I remember them calling us saying, we can't serve in the kids ministry anymore because I'm pregnant. And I was just like, wow, saw God move in so many ways. And then you fast
[00:27:07] forward a year and your faith gets just rocked, you know, but what you're anchored to is really important. And it'll test your faith, whether you really had, you know, faith all the way deep down
[00:27:24] anchored in him or just kind of shallow faith and that really tested our faith um and faith is kind of like this thing i think we were talking about it earlier faith is like you know it gets fractured
[00:27:38] sometimes you go through problems in your life where it it gets a fracture and you need jesus the scripture says that he binds up the brokenhearted you need jesus to come around that fracture and let it heal over time. Because what happens when we take off the boot, right? I had
[00:27:58] a fracture one time where I fractured my foot from a skateboarding accident. I don't skateboard anymore. I'm not that cool. I'm 34 years old. And that happened at 18. And just the other day, I was just feeling that, you know, that fractured my foot because I didn't leave the boot on long
[00:28:15] enough. And we need to really, before we can grow that level of faith again, we need to let the Lord bind that part up so it can heal and restore our faith and Naomi what you said too is so

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:28:28] critical because oftentimes faith and doubt or faith and unbelief go on parallel tracks as well and it's okay to have doubts I even have doubts doubt your doubts and feed your faith but faith is not 100 certainty if it were it wouldn't be faith so it's okay and church is a
[00:28:54] place to it should be fellowship churches to express your doubt to throw and lob those hard

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:29:00] questions up to God I remember Hebrews 11 like after experiencing everything that we had experienced Hebrew 11 was a chapter that I really kind of dissected a lot just because it deals with faith and it starts listing all the heroes of the faith and everything that God had promised them
[00:29:18] but at the end it says they did not see what they were promised fulfilled but they still died in faith yes and that really challenged me and another verse that really affected me was to run the race
[00:29:30] that's set before you and Milo ran his race yes he did Mallory ran her race and they did it with courage that I didn't know a kid could have and just to see the the fingerprint that they left
[00:29:44] behind in that hospital in our life in our kids life but I also have to continue to run the race that God has set before me and I can't quit you know God has called me for something God has
[00:29:57] called Chris for something and just because they finished their race doesn't mean I end mine I

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:30:03] continue you know how you respond to pain is important I didn't know this until we were in the hospital room and going through this level of pain you know turning our pain into worship and into praise and and just setting that atmosphere up with music and all the time it
[00:30:23] if it wasn't Naomi's laptop it was my guitar and we were worshiping and what I noticed is at the end of that whole experience, several nurses that were on the verge of, you know, coming back in
[00:30:35] their faith to God, most of that floor told us, hey, I just want to let you know, you guys inspired me so much. I'm going back to church this weekend. You know, story after story, direct message after

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:30:50] direct message. Response to pain is important. And sometimes, you know, as Ed and I received texts about people walking into a recovery group or stepping back into church because they saw that we were leaning so much on the Lord. And those are sweet, sweet texts. And you would think, wow,
[00:31:13] but it didn't change the outcome. However, when your focus is on the will of God versus your own will, they are indeed so sweet. It's like God has given you just a little gift to say,
[00:31:31] I'm expanding eternity and your pain had something to do with it. And we have an option last weekend after the amazing story that was shared before after series last weekend, I had somebody come up in the atrium and they said, Hey, I know that next week's going to be about when, you know,
[00:31:50] bad things happen to good people. And I can just tell you that we've stayed away from church because we just don't understand how God allows things like this to happen. And I'm curious. I mean, maybe we'll be here next week to see. And it just jarred me because I know that's the big
[00:32:05] question. I mean, look at you, you're faithful, you're serving, you're worshiping, you're leading worship. And my response to that is what's the alternative to do this without God, without any hope, without any faith. I mean, that's just tragic. So if maybe you're in that situation,
[00:32:25] uh, where you're saying, well, I, you know, God, this and Ed, you've said it before too, that the worst thing happened to the best person. Yeah. If you think about Jesus and you think

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:32:36] about bad things happening to good people, the worst thing happened to the best person who ever lived. And look at that whole situation. So we're not going to be shielded from pain. And one of the
[00:32:51] reasons I love Fellowship Church is that we talk openly, biblically, and honestly about these issues. We talk about pain. We talk about faith. We talk about doubt. And that is a very healthy thing. And I know there's some churches that, and this is no disrespect at all, but they would kind
[00:33:15] of skirt around those issues. They just are going to talk about the encouraging part, the joy, but but you have to talk about the reality because the bible is a book i mean that that just puts it
[00:33:34] out there so that's what's so so amazing about your story i like too what you said chris too in the earlier service about moving into the presence of god daily and we talked about the
[00:33:46] importance of that corporately as well yeah it's so important is i think i said this as well

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:33:54] before you raise the fist, raise a hand. And it's so important because sometimes we think that somehow God can't handle our anger, that somehow God can't handle our pain, but he is the one that had all pain put upon him at the cross. And, and, and gratitude will shift your perspective

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:34:20] 100 immediately and chris i had someone between services i was out in the lobby and this person said that's the most powerful story i've ever heard and then they said i i i can't go through pain and i said you know what i understand what you're saying but god will give
[00:34:43] you the octane the strength to take you through it yeah and the power of the local church everybody

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:34:51] I kind of thought, well, Ed and Lisa are pastors. So, you know, they're going to go through something hard. Um, obviously they're going to say the church is, you know, was the hope of the world
[00:35:01] for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just telling you, um, when you go through something like the tragedy of loss of a child, something that painful, I mean, at that moment, Ed and I are just trying
[00:35:14] to remember, oh, we're, we're pastors, we're leaders. I mean, it was so painful. We, we had no bearing, but the church was indeed our place of refuge, even though it was hard to step back
[00:35:29] in because there were so many reminders of our daughter. And I'm sure as you guys, you locked eyes with people who had prayed for this miracle. They had prayed for the healing of your children.
[00:35:42] talk about what it was like to do the very basic things to just keep showing up so I'm Hispanic

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:35:51] and Hispanics are not allowed to have any kind of allergies those don't exist you gotta suck it up and I remember um I was little I was probably like eight or nine and I got bit by a wasp on my foot
[00:36:06] and my mom was like just take a Benadryl we're going to church because we had a Wednesday night services. And I remember sitting in the front row and she elevated my foot, but my whole leg was
[00:36:17] swollen. I guess maybe I was allergic, but she didn't believe it. And I remember sitting there in pain, but my mom built that in me that regardless of you can have a fever, you can have
[00:36:30] the flu, you could be great. We're going to go to church anyway. And if she would not have displayed that for me at an early age, I don't think I would have had the muscle memory to go to church
[00:36:43] and show up the day after, you know, or even when we, when the kids were able to come back home for a little bit in hospice, we went to church with them because church is a non-negotiable.

[00:36:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:36:57] I mean, and you use this word muscle memory. I'm thankful that I grew up in a family where that was a priority. Not everybody does, but now's the time to make that a priority. So if you're a
[00:37:10] parent, you have every option under the sun to not show up. That's just the way our world is today.
[00:37:17] I mean, whether it's sports, extracurricular activities, what are you going to do? How are you going to build that muscle memory in your children? Because it will matter. It will matter one day and probably that day will be sooner than later. And, uh, I just can't stress that enough.
[00:37:39] Let me ask you this. What's your, how has your perspective maybe of eternity shifted?

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:37:49] I would say to start off, I always say faith for the miracle, right? That's a starting spot.
[00:37:57] but if he doesn't heal jesus has a promise in john 16 33 and he says in this life you will face trouble but take heart for i have overcome the world and what does he mean by overcome that means
[00:38:15] at the cross he overcame it in the grave he rose again and now he gives us a hope in eternity that we are tethered to for the rest of this life no matter what you face yes no matter what you're
[00:38:30] going through job said job said it he said hey you give and take away my heart will choose to say blessed be your name because he realized god was the creator of all things and the creator is
[00:38:41] taking us from this place which is temporal to eternity which is forever yes so good what would

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:38:50] you say just in wrapping up as a word of encouragement to anyone who might be just reflecting on the loss of a child or going through intense pain now with the diagnosis, a relationship, a lost job, whatever their pain might be to whatever degree it might be,

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:39:11] what would be your encouragement? When, when Milo was diagnosed, my sister-in-law was pregnant with her son my nephew and Milo passed and we still you know there's still life giving and taking and then when Mallory was born my sister-in-law was also pregnant at the same time with me with
[00:39:32] a little girl and um I had a choice to isolate and say this is too hard for me I can't celebrate because I'm grieving um but there's this bible verse that says weep with those who weep and
[00:39:48] rejoice with those who rejoice and it's a dance where I meet you and you meet me where we're at

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:39:55] together and it was hard for me you know like we just took a family vacation and me and Millie are

[00:40:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_04]
[00:40:02] there with my niece and nephew Saintie in Norway and they're all the same age and seeing all four of them it was and just like that I had a glimpse of like what it could have been what I feel like
[00:40:12] should have been you know but I cannot let those sad moments dictate joy because God said I have come to give you life to the fullest and I have to partner with God to be able to experience fullness
[00:40:29] in the middle of loss and pain and so if you are going through a hard moment like that I want to encourage you to challenge yourself to celebrate with those who are celebrating but also those who
[00:40:41] are celebrating I want to encourage you to be able to understand and grieve with those who grieve and sometimes it just means saying absolutely nothing because sometimes we have the best intentions but some people said really funny things to us while we were going through this
[00:40:58] you should have done this you should have done that and that's not the time to give opinion it's time to support it's so true um and so show up with a meal because we don't feed ourselves
[00:41:06] I think I ate McDonald's way too much. DoorDash has terrible options. Hospital food is terrible.
[00:41:13] No offense to cooks. If any of you are here that you cook at a hospital, I'm really grateful for your heart. But after a while, I couldn't do it anymore. But just showing up for each other.
[00:41:23] People came to the hospital and just gave me a journal. That was it. Hey, I just drove by. I want to give you a journal. Or they just showed up and it was during COVID and people couldn't
[00:41:34] come up and so they just hung around the front of the whole the hospital and they were like hey we're outside look at us and they're all waving at us and they would facetime us so just showing
[00:41:43] up for people makes a big difference lean into community i mean it's so powerful like when we

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_05]
[00:41:49] were in the hospital pastor ed i had a friend of mine pick me up from the hospital drive me two and a half hours to south padre has the boat ready takes me fishing during a real that's a good
[00:42:02] tough yes that's a great and that's a great friend and I just think it's so important to lean into community like fellowship there's so many groups there's a group for every single need we'll ever
[00:42:14] have and what better place than the local church that's so good well I think we want to wrap up

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:42:22] just with a prayer for you guys because one of the things Naomi and I talked about leading up to this week is that the enemy doesn't want this story told. No. The enemy wants them to sit in
[00:42:35] sadness, to settle in the situation rather than to rise up and tell this for God's glory.
[00:42:43] And when that is the case, he works overtime. And so I just hope we will continue to, we prayed up until this point as a team and as a staff, but if you'll join us in praying for their family.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:42:53] And honey, you know, something that's beautiful about social media, there's a lot of negativity on social media, we know, but something that's beautiful about it is we are going to post this on all of our different platforms. And I would encourage you to use our Fellowship Church app
[00:43:11] and you can send their message, their video to people that God puts on your heart. Because as Lisa said so beautifully, all of us are going to deal with pain and misfortune. All of us are
[00:43:27] going to deal with doubt. So let's get this message out because there's no telling what God is going to do through this story because God is the God of the story. That's right. We want to

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:43:42] welcome Mia and Millie out on stage. Mia is down front. Millie's coming back from backstage.
[00:43:49] beautiful, beautiful girls. Come here and stand with your mom and dad. They are two of the sweetest at camp last week. I mean, every corner I turned, there was a hug and even around the halls of
[00:44:02] fellowship church, just so precious. But we want to pray for you because this all begins, this strength that you see right here begins with a relationship with Jesus. Without that, we are doing life alone. And so our prayer is that if you have not invited Jesus into your heart,
[00:44:22] that you would just bow your head right now and that we could pray for you.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:44:27] Let's bow our heads together. Every head is bowed and every eye is closed. And you might have prayed this prayer to become a follower of Christ before, and that's awesome. So have I. Lisa has,
[00:44:38] everyone here on the stage has, but I want to give you an opportunity. If you've never made this decision to give the totality of your life to the Lord. And just say these words after me. And you're saying these words to God. Just say, God, to the best of my ability,
[00:44:59] I believe that you love me and that you sent Jesus to die on the cross for my sins.
[00:45:07] I believe he was buried for three days and then rose again and right now I admit to you that I'm a sinner I confess my wrongdoings to you and I turn from those and I believe
[00:45:27] God that you arranged the wrongdoings of the world my sin to fall on the shoulders of Jesus taking my place and right now I admit to you I'm a sinner I turn from my sins and ask you
[00:45:41] Jesus Christ to come into my life. I give you everything in my life, tax, title, and license, Lord. If you pray that prayer with me, you are born again, born again into the family of God.
[00:46:02] You have a physical birthday. Now you have a spiritual birthday. You might be online and maybe you said that prayer. Just connect with our online pastor. You might be in downtown Dallas. You might be in Fort Worth. It might be in Frisco. Maybe you're at one of our prison campuses. I don't
[00:46:22] know. You prayed that prayer, and I want you to know that there's a party going on in heaven because another name was registered in the Lamb's book of life. Others of us here, God, we're going through pain. Some pain is mentionable, and there's some people dealing
[00:46:47] with pain. That's unmentionable. We would never know it. And Father, you minister. Holy Spirit, you deal. You comfort. You surround them with your peace and your strength that surpasses all of our comprehension. We thank you so much for this great family. And we ask your
[00:47:10] strength and encouragement upon them as they continue to walk the walk and tell this

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:47:17] your story. In Jesus name we pray. We are so excited to offer so many different types of groups that you can be a part of. If you are going through anything in your life, just as Chris
[00:47:32] mentioned, we have everything from addiction recovery groups. We have grief recovery groups, divorce recovery groups. We have MEND, which is Mothers Enduring Neonatal Death, a huge ministry here at Fellowship Church, and we have those resources for you in all of our different
[00:47:50] environments at every atrium. There'll be people out there. Also, A Path Through Pain, a book that Ed and I wrote that talks about our journey, and so please stop by there or go to the tables on
[00:48:01] either side of the worship centers where you are, and let us pray for you. There's a connect card in the back seat. Yep. A blue connect card. You can pull that out. If you have a prayer request
[00:48:15] or a specific pain and you want us to pray over it, right now is a great time to take that card, fill out your name, information, put that prayer request down because we don't just collect these
[00:48:28] cards and just say, oh, here's a bunch of cards. No, we specifically read each one, pray over each one. And we want to connect with you about how to help you walk through your path through pain.
[00:48:44] So this has been amazing. Can y'all give it up for Chris, Naomi and their girls. And so as y'all saw in the video, Chris wrote a song, he and Naomi, and if you'll be seated, they have agreed
[00:49:04] to share the song in its entirety with us. So while you're filling out those cards, we'll pass a bucket after the song is over, but let's just lean in and worship along with Chris and Naomi.

[00:49:32] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_07]
[00:49:32] He's still looking, even when he can't see, maybe I don't see his plan.
[00:49:52] He's still looking out.

[00:52:59] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:52:59] Welcome to my YouTube channel.
[00:53:01] Make sure to share, like, and comment.
[00:53:03] I would love to get into interaction with you.
[00:53:06] We're going to have a lot of fun on this channel, but also we're going to go really, really deep.
[00:53:12] Again, thank you for connecting with us.