More Than a Social Club: Reclaiming the Purpose of Christian Fellowship

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:00:56] Well, good morning, Lake City Church. Let's stand on our feet as we worship Jesus this morning. Come on, let's put our hands together. We're so excited you're here.
[00:11:12] Good morning. Turn around. Diop, your neighbor. Welcome to Lake City Church.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_16]
[00:11:15] Lake City Church. If you're a guest with us this morning, fill out your guest card. You can find it online or in your worship guide.
[00:11:43] Bring that to the Welcome Center in the lobby. We have a special gift just for you. Thanks for being here with us this morning.
[00:11:49] It's Life Group Sunday

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_20]
[00:11:50] Make sure you come back this evening For our drop-in dessert reception From 4 to 5 p.m.
[00:11:56] There's a group just for you

[00:11:57] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_12]
[00:11:57] Lake City Church We are having our water baptisms On Wednesday, March the 4th If you're ready to take your next step In your journey of faith We want to do that with you And so you can register for this
[00:12:08] On your church center app

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_16]
[00:12:09] Thank you again for being here this morning Check us out on our socials Or visit us at lakecitychurch.org And remember We love you God loves you Make it a great day

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_01]
[00:12:20] Good morning and welcome to Lake City Church today.
[00:12:26] Today is a very special day because we had our first fourth service.
[00:12:32] And technically you are now the fourth service.
[00:12:35] All right.
[00:12:37] And all of those services had lots of people in them.
[00:12:40] And so it worked out really well.
[00:12:42] So hopefully maybe you had a little extra parking room or a couple extra seats next to you.
[00:12:46] Don't let it like last too long because it's going to fill up.
[00:12:50] But this is the time of the service we just like to give back.
[00:12:54] And on the screen behind me is the four different ways to give.
[00:12:57] And normally if I'm out here, it is also Make Room Sunday.
[00:13:01] And if you don't know what Make Room is, it gets very crowded here at times.
[00:13:06] And so we're working to double the size of our parking lot, double the size of the building, and our children and youth facilities.
[00:13:13] And you can see it all around us and all the red clay that's moving.
[00:13:16] but this time in April or a little bit later, we are going to start seeing the frame of the building come up out of the ground and it's going to look very real, very fast. But you know,
[00:13:31] you know, we all come here on Sunday for, for many reasons. And one of those reasons is because we have a personal individual relationship with Jesus Christ and we come here to worship him, to,
[00:13:43] to pray and to learn and to be taught. But you know, when we go into a building program, it's one of those moments where as a church, we are exercising our faith in a very corporate way,
[00:13:55] in a way that we all have to sacrifice a little bit. We all have to pray. We all have to be part of it. And I just want to say thank you. And the rest of the leadership team says thank you for
[00:14:05] everything that you've done. And just keep praying what God would lead you to do, because every dollar that comes in the make room goes straight to the bottom line of that building project.
[00:14:15] and it's one less dollar that we will owe at the end of the project.
[00:14:19] Can we stand this morning?
[00:14:22] Lord, I just thank you for what you've done here at Lake City Church, God.
[00:14:27] Lord, you have poured out your blessing on this church and this congregation, Lord.
[00:14:32] Lord, people are coming to know you on a weekly basis.
[00:14:35] And I pray as we continue into worship that your Holy Spirit would just begin to be poured out on this entire place.
[00:14:42] And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

[00:15:04] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:15:04] As simple as love You welcome the children You stop for the one We want to see people The way Jesus does Your kingdom is simple Lord, teach it to us Your kingdom is humble As humble as death
[00:15:38] His king is a savior Who gave his last breath They do Your kingdom is all Broken, all bled May we live and stay Come to us quickly

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_10]
[00:16:54] Forever our Your kingdom is back

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_08]
[00:18:43] Lord, teach us to serve As it is with your king

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_11]
[00:18:51] Let's lift up and shout.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_10]
[00:20:19] God is good.
[00:20:22] You guys can be seated.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_18]
[00:20:23] Every choice we make, every word we speak, every step we take, is a seed placed in the ground.
[00:20:40] Some seeds are sown in faith, trusting God with what we cannot see yet.
[00:20:47] Some are sown in fear, holding back, protecting ourselves, choosing comfort.
[00:20:54] And most days, we don't notice the ground changing.
[00:20:57] But over time, something always begins to grow.
[00:21:03] Galatians 6 reminds us, a man reaps what he sows.
[00:21:07] what we reap is never accidental it reflects what has been planted nurtured and allowed to take root because the future we hope for starts with what we sow right now morning everybody

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:21:29] hey you guys doing well everybody pumped and excited oh yeah well i i just happened to have my girlfriend with me today and uh it's always good to have diana with me and i i just have to
[00:21:46] tell you a little secret and that is that tomorrow is her birthday i can't i can't tell you how old she is um actually you 69 okay i was wondering if you're gonna say yeah but but she looks getting
[00:22:03] old you look like you're you're 39 49 don't lie she just gets younger and prettier and sweeter every day. I don't know about that. After all these years, guys, I said to the young guys at
[00:22:20] the earlier service, I ripped her out of the cradle at age 17. We were married. Not exactly.
[00:22:28] And we've been together all these years. That's not allowed anymore. Yeah, they call that something else. You go to jail for stuff like that these days, I think, but it worked for us. Hey, I want
[00:22:40] to reiterate something you saw on the video a moment ago, and that is that this Wednesday evening we are doing water baptism. If you've recently committed your life to Christ or recommitted your life to Christ and you'd like to be baptized, go online and register because there's nothing like
[00:22:57] celebrating when people are baptized. They've given their lives to Jesus. They come out of the water. The newness of life in Christ Jesus is just exuding from them. It's a great celebration, and if you need to be baptized, register. If not, just be here to celebrate with all the people that
[00:23:15] are going to express their commitment to Christ here on Wednesday evening. We're going to jump into the message here in a second, and Diana's going to pray us in, but how many of you have
[00:23:27] been watching the news and see what's going on in our world today? Anybody? Okay, a few of you. I'm not a big proponent of everybody just covering themselves up in news, but I think it's probably
[00:23:41] a good thing to know enough so that you can pray for things going on in our world. In fact, as the body of Christ, I think that's one of our responsibilities, to pray for our world and the
[00:23:52] things going on in our world. And as you probably know, we are engaged in a war in Iran, and so when Diana prays in a moment, we're going to pray. She's going to pray for our service people,
[00:24:08] our military forces that are engaged right now, and pray for our president, our military leaders for wisdom. We're going to pray for Israel. We're going to also pray for the Iranian people that God would liberate them so that they can worship Jesus freely in that country. I don't
[00:24:26] know if you've heard, but there is a revival in Iran that's been going on for the last few years.
[00:24:31] There are actually millions of Christians. They've had to be underground, but I'm believing that God is going to liberate them so that they can go above ground and worship Jesus freely. Wouldn't

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:24:41] that be cool? We're believing for that. Yeah. It's amazing. Revival taking place over there and for them to even meet in homes is dangerous and you could lose your life. I wonder how many of us would go to a meeting with that kind of a fear over us. So we need to pray for them because
[00:25:03] I believe God is doing something miraculous for them. Father, we thank you so much for the privilege and the liberty to come and worship you freely. Father, we thank you that you have done so much
[00:25:17] for us. And Lord, we just want to remember all of the people, the believers around the world that are going through these difficult times. Lord, we pray for the Iranian people, God, that you would
[00:25:29] give them liberty for the ability to worship you freely. Father, we pray for Israel that you would protect them, keep your hand upon them, Father, and that you would give wisdom to our president and the military. Father, protect them as well. And Lord, we ask that your kingdom come, your will
[00:25:46] be done on earth as it is in heaven. Lord, we love you today. Amen. Amen. Well, today is the

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:25:54] final message in the series that we've been in for a while called Sowing and Reaping. The verse we have used as our text, our theme verse is Galatians 6-7, where it says, don't be deceived,
[00:26:06] God is not mocked, for whatever a person sows, he will also reap. And I'm going to say it one last time, at least last for right now, and that is that everything in your life is grown
[00:26:18] from the seeds you have sown. It's the law of sowing and reaping. Today is Life Group Sunday, and you probably heard that from the video, but today is Life Group Sunday. Let's give a shout
[00:26:32] out for Life Groups, y'all. Today is the official launch of what we call our spring semester of Life groups. And just in case you haven't been around for too long, Diane and I, we are all in for small
[00:26:48] groups. We are just totally and completely committed to small groups. Yes, it's exciting.
[00:26:55] It's fun. It's wonderful to come together with hundreds and hundreds of believers.
[00:26:59] It's fun to have multiple services and all of that, but it's not enough. Every one of us, we need to be connected with a smaller group of people, and that's where a lot of life is lived.
[00:27:13] And so we are all about life groups and these small groups and what comes out of these groups.
[00:27:19] So with that in mind today, Diane and I want to talk about sowing relationships.
[00:27:26] And at the core of it, life groups are about growing relationships.
[00:27:31] If you were to go on our website, lakecitychurch.org, and if you were to click on the Connect button or the Life Group button, whatever it says there, a whole list of groups would drop down.
[00:27:42] You'd see names and group titles and all of that.
[00:27:46] And you'd be amazed.
[00:27:47] We've got so many different kinds of groups.
[00:27:50] We've got intense Bible study groups for all of you deep, deep spiritual people.
[00:27:56] We've got those groups.
[00:27:57] and you can study deep in the Word. For the rest of us, maybe it's bread-making groups. Yes, we have a literal homemade baking bread kind of sourdough group, and they make some delicious bread. I know. I'm an honorary member of all these groups, and I just have to taste test
[00:28:19] all the bread. We have art groups. We have empty nester groups. We have prison ministry groups. We have grief sharing. Somebody told me after the last service, they said, hey, we didn't even know that we have a prison ministry group. I want to go minister in the prisons. And I said, yeah,
[00:28:37] go online, register. You can go to prison, and hopefully they'll even let you out.
[00:28:44] We have grief share groups. We have marriage groups, walking groups, men's groups, women's groups, singles groups, young adults groups, and the list goes on and on. Yes, these groups are fun, they're instructive, but they're also delicious. And I love that. But the true bottom
[00:29:03] line objective of every group is the same. Do you know what that is? It's about building relationships. Loving relationships are the number one characteristic of a believer and a group of believers in the body of Christ. Jesus said in John 13, 35, he said, by this all men will know
[00:29:23] that you're my disciples if you love one another. So, loving relationships are the identifying mark of a true disciple. So much so that from the very beginning of the early church in the book of Acts,
[00:29:38] you see a demonstration of these loving relationships being lived out. Like passages, for instance, Acts 2 verse 44, it says, all the Lord's followers met together often and they shared everything they had. They broke bread. There it is. They broke bread together. It is
[00:30:01] biblical. They broke bread together in different homes and they shared their food happily and freely. The point is that the early disciples of Jesus, they placed a high priority on loving relationships. But here's the thing about relationships. They don't happen accidentally.
[00:30:21] They're grown intentionally. You have to do some sowing in order to have some reaping of relationships. It doesn't happen often, but every now and again, someone will come to me and they'll say, Pastor Rob, I can't grow a relationship here in this church. And I always ask them the same
[00:30:44] question. I ask, are you in a life group? And the answer is always no. And so I hope you'll hear me on this. If you don't sow some time, some effort, and some energy into relationships, you will not
[00:31:00] grow any relationships. It's the law of sowing and reaping. But there are so many benefits, fruits of these loving relationships. And today, Diane and I want to just talk a little bit about a few of these benefits or fruits of loving relationships that are found in the context of
[00:31:22] a life group. And the first benefit is encouragement. Encouragement. 1 Thessalonians 5.11 and says, therefore, encourage one another and build each other up. And I just love, let me jump in with something that I, I see Tony out here, big Tony. We were talking in the lobby between
[00:31:41] this service and the last service, and several men began to surround us, and it was kind of funny.
[00:31:48] One of the men said, he said, looking at the men in our life group, and they were the men that had gathered around. And this one man said, it's so special because we're all so different. And that
[00:32:02] gentleman was a professional football player. We have Tony, who's a professional. What were you, special ops or army? Sorry. He blew up things and people and did away with the bad guys.
[00:32:16] You had another guy who is an entrepreneurial farmer and somebody, I don't know, all different.
[00:32:22] And yet, what amazed this one man, the football player, he says, what's so special about it is we didn't even realize we had things in common, but when we came together, we realized that we really do.
[00:32:35] And they were just encouraging one another, and I love that aspect of the life groups.

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:32:40] Wow, I love that too.
[00:32:42] I think that Jesus gives us hints to the keys to the kingdom throughout his words in the Word.
[00:32:51] And, you know, he told us when you pray, when you fast, when you give, when you, you know, the word becomes living inside you.
[00:33:01] When you seek first the kingdom of God, all these other things will be added.
[00:33:06] And I believe another key to the kingdom is to find your place in the body of Christ.
[00:33:12] We are the family of God, aren't we?
[00:33:14] But sometimes we have a lot of strays wandering around.
[00:33:18] I don't know.
[00:33:19] You know, it's like, I'm not really, you know, connected, but Jesus wants us to be connected.
[00:33:28] If we can't love one another in here, it's hard to go out and love one another.
[00:33:34] And the world wants to see churches that are loving each other.
[00:33:40] They're walking in unity.
[00:33:41] and it's so encouraging. Whenever I come to the church, whether it's serving food at CR, going to the homeless or doing other things, I mean, I love doing that stuff because we have so much joy when we come together and we're serving each other. It's just super
[00:34:01] encouraging. And I heard an analogy that I thought was kind of cool. It talked about what would you be a honeybee or a wasp in in you know if you were a bee but i i thought about that
[00:34:17] either you're an encourager or you're a discourager and i think we all want to be that honeybee where we're not only getting encouragement but we're giving encouragement and i think every time we come together with the family we want to be encouraging to other people we want to let them
[00:34:37] know that we care about them. And there's a little Hebrew word, anava, that is interesting because usually it's translated humility, but it means really that we take our God-given space. We fill that space. And so many of us, we kind of move in and out, and we don't fill that space that God has
[00:35:03] for us. So, I just want to encourage you today that there's a lot of joy. There's always encouragement when we get together with a group of people that love Jesus, and you don't have to
[00:35:15] be in a big Bible study. You can be in a break bread group. You can be in many different types of groups, but it's always encouraging and strengthening to our faith. I love that aspect.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:35:28] like we could talk a long time about encouragement. Another benefit is growth, spiritual growth.
[00:35:33] In these groups, we are literally helping one another grow. Ephesians 4.15 says, speaking the truth in love, we, plural, will in all things grow up into him who is the head that is Christ. And so, through that interaction, there's growth.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:35:53] Right, right. I read a statement the other day that I really thought about. It says we are controlled by what we don't know. And the hard thing is we don't know what we don't know. And so
[00:36:05] sometimes we're missing things in ourselves that we need to hear from other people in the body of Christ. And I feel like God wants us to continually seek to grow. And if you're not seeking that,
[00:36:21] if you're becoming a little stagnant, which is easy to do. Sometimes I feel lazy and I don't want to get up and get up early, seek the Lord, read the word, pray. But when I get around my
[00:36:33] fellow believers, we encourage each other. Hey, we're going to push forward. We're going to grow in God. We're going to seek him more than ever. I love this scripture in Mark 4, 24. It says,
[00:36:46] take heed to what you hear. With the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And to you who hear, more will be given. And I just love the way that was put in Mark because it's really
[00:37:01] about hearing from the Lord and not just hearing, but using it. And I think that in the body of Christ, there's so many things that we can grow into. And when we're in a small group, we can
[00:37:15] convey those things we can talk about them we can experience you know learn about our gifts learn about what jesus wants us to fulfill as his purpose so i just encourage you yeah it's a it's
[00:37:28] a growing experience c.s lewis said this and i'll let you talk and he said i have determined to learn something from anyone and so we we just have to have that learner's heart you know that we're

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:37:42] always open to receive. That is so true. I was just thinking about one of our groups is the Lake City Mountain Bike Group, and they ride their bikes down mountains. I know that sounds crazy, doesn't it? To me, it does. It sounds very dangerous. Robbie is here, and I think he's only
[00:38:04] broken a few broken bones, but they've got some great testimonies out of it. But I remember Robbie tells, and I might not have this 100% right, but Robbie will correct me later if it's wrong, but I
[00:38:15] remember him talking about one time they had all ridden their bikes down the mountain, and when they got to the bottom of the mountain, they were just sitting around talking, and they began talking about spiritual things. I don't know. I think it maybe have been they were talking about
[00:38:29] the message from the previous Sunday or whatever it was, and that setting of a bunch of guys just sitting there at the bottom of the mountain, sitting on the ground probably, they started talking about biblical truth, and asking questions, and through that dialogue, that
[00:38:44] interaction, there was spiritual growth that was taking place, and I just love that. You can't ask, in fact, I hope you don't ask questions in a large meeting like this, because we only have so many
[00:38:56] minutes to convey, but in a small group, everyone can ask questions. Everyone can share and give their perspective and it helps all of us to learn and grow in that setting. So I love that. Here's
[00:39:10] another one. We better keep going. A third benefit is accountability. Now accountability to some people sounds like a negative word, but it really isn't. It's a very positive word because we all need accountability. Proverbs 27, 17 puts it this way. It says, as iron sharpens iron, so one person
[00:39:31] he sharpens another. So, we need one another. We need the honesty, the input, yes, even the accountability of other people in our lives. Now, I hear, I don't know, I'm not a member of a gym,
[00:39:46] I'm not a member of a fitness group. I was just born buffed like this.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:39:52] You keep thinking that.

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:39:55] But I hear that for those of you who are part of a gym or some kind of a fitness thing. I hear that they put people in groups for certain exercises, and the reason they do that
[00:40:07] is to have some accountability. So, if one member of the exercise group starts to slough off, another member can give them a pop in the you-know-where and say, come on, let's go.
[00:40:17] Or if one of the members doesn't show up, there's others to say, hey, I missed you. Where were you?
[00:40:23] And it's the same thing spiritually. We all need someone that's watching us. If we don't have anyone that we're in connection with. It's possible for someone, especially as we grow as a church, for someone to come in and to go out. And maybe no one even knows. No one really knows
[00:40:42] what they're going through, what they're struggling with and all. And so it's so important, that whole

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:40:47] concept of accountability. You know, we actually, women, we do have an amazing workout group on Saturday mornings and I walked by them yesterday morning and I just saw them all working out and I was like this is amazing and then what they do though at the end of the workout they pray together
[00:41:06] they ask for you know what are you going through what needs do you have so it's it's really awesome that we can mix it all together we don't have to have spiritual things over here like Jesus always
[00:41:19] mixed it together the last thing he did before he left the disciples would make breakfast for him you know that's amazing i think we're spirit soul and body and god can be with us in everything we
[00:41:32] do but um i think humans naturally don't like correction or input like we kind of shy away from it like i don't want to hear that you know i'm good i'm good but we need it sometimes
[00:41:49] And the Lord's kind of taken me through some things over the last few years that I've realized, you know what?
[00:41:56] I am open.
[00:41:58] I want to receive because Jesus is still working in me.
[00:42:02] I'm not perfect.
[00:42:03] I don't, you know, confess that I'm any guru.
[00:42:08] That's for sure.
[00:42:09] But we need input.
[00:42:10] And Rob and I, when we were youngsters doing youth ministry, we kind of felt like maybe we were supposed to go a certain direction, and so we went to our youth pastor over us.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:42:25] Well, let me just jump in.
[00:42:27] At that point in our ministry, we were having a lot of offers or invitations to go to different places, and we were kind of leaning toward going this way.
[00:42:39] And this man of God who loved us and knew us, had a relationship with us, he came to us and he said, I really don't feel like that's the direction you need to go.
[00:42:48] I think this is the direction you need to go.
[00:42:51] And at that age, we had a little bit of rebellion around the edges.
[00:42:58] One of us, anyway.
[00:43:01] But thankfully, we listened.
[00:43:05] And we heard that input.
[00:43:07] and we're so thankful that we did listen because it changed the direction and the trajectory of our lives and of our ministry we possibly wouldn't even be here today if we hadn't listened to that
[00:43:22] input for our lives so so this whole thing of accountability is so important um yeah we had

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:43:29] some rough edges to smooth out but um i'm so thankful that he shared and was honest with us because we stayed on the path that he asked us to stay on.
[00:43:43] And then in the coming years, we would experience one of the most amazing revivals that we've ever seen.
[00:43:51] And we went from like 100 youth to 1,000 over the next couple years.
[00:43:57] And we would have missed that if we hadn't stayed there.
[00:44:00] So God has a plan, and sometimes we need verification of that plan.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:44:06] We need accountability.
[00:44:08] Here's the last one I want to mention today, and that is the benefit of support.
[00:44:14] Being a part of a life group gives you support.
[00:44:16] Sometimes it looks like prayer and counseling.
[00:44:19] Sometimes it looks like comfort.
[00:44:21] But support is such a huge part.
[00:44:23] Galatians 6 says, carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
[00:44:30] Is there any one of us who doesn't have any burdens?
[00:44:34] I don't think so.
[00:44:35] Maybe your burden is light today.
[00:44:37] Praise the Lord.
[00:44:38] Then you can come alongside someone else and carry their burden.
[00:44:42] Maybe your burden is heavy.
[00:44:43] You need someone to come alongside you and carry your burden.
[00:44:48] It's so important.
[00:44:49] Romans 12, 15 says, Rejoice with those who rejoice.
[00:44:53] Weep with those who weep.
[00:44:55] Sometimes you come in and somebody's all excited because God has answered a prayer.
[00:44:59] There's some kind of a cool victory, breakthrough, whatever.
[00:45:02] And we're all like, Yoo-hoo!
[00:45:03] We're rejoicing.
[00:45:05] Other times you come in and someone is just, oh, something is really heavy on them.
[00:45:10] And we say, oh, I'm so sorry.
[00:45:11] And we cry with them and we pray with them.
[00:45:14] That's the element of support that is so, so important in life group relationships.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:45:19] Yes, I've had a women's group for years, and some of the women have stayed in there this whole time.
[00:45:26] But there's such a powerful thing when you're in relationship with people and you just come together in the spirit.
[00:45:34] When you come to this place to meet, it's not the building, it's the people, of course, but the life and the power and the presence of God is amplified in us when we come together.
[00:45:48] And we've gone through lots of things together, and it's not so much what we learned or what we taught, but it was that I was there for you when you needed me, and you were there for me when I needed you.
[00:46:02] and i think the enemy tries to separate us and you know life gets super busy and we think well i don't really have time for that i don't you know i can't make that meeting or we get discouraged
[00:46:16] like discouragement is the number one thing i think the enemy uses against us because we tend to isolate ourselves when we get discouraged and i feel like the lord wants us to rise above some of that and get to the point where we make it a priority and a number one goal to strengthen
[00:46:40] ourselves in the Lord and call on a friend. You know, if we're going through something, call, get prayer, go to that life group, go on Wednesday night and get prayer. We have amazing times on Wednesday night, but I think that the enemy wants to separate us because he
[00:46:59] wants to bring disunity to the church. And I feel like there's so much power when we come together as one, as a unified body. And so that's what God is desiring from us, to not only love Him,
[00:47:16] love one another, and then carry that love out to the world. So thank you guys for listening.
[00:47:23] We have a little testimony that we're going to share with you real quick.

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_17]
[00:47:28] I'm Celeste, and I lead Reviving Your Mind here at Lake City.
[00:47:38] Hi, my name is Claudia, and we moved here from Florida about two years ago.

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_22]
[00:47:41] And I'm John.

[00:47:42] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_17]
[00:47:42] My name is Juana, and this is my husband, Zoe.
[00:47:44] A testimony that we had come out of our group this year was a girl who had joined our life group in the middle of battling unbelief and battling suicidal ideation.
[00:47:55] She recently reached out to me to let me know that she has a thriving relationship with the Lord, and it was through this group that gave her the strength and community to get back up and keep
[00:48:06] going. This is why we do what we do at Lake City Church and in our life groups. We joined the Young

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_22]
[00:48:12] Marriage Group and that became the Young Families Group and it's so fitting because it became a

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_19]
[00:48:17] family that we learned to serve together and do life together. We're part of the Hispanic Connection Life Group here at Lake City. We moved here four years ago from Texas without family and this group
[00:48:27] has made us feel at home here at Lake City.
[00:48:31] This has become our family away from Texas, and we encourage you to join a life group today.
[00:48:37] It's an amazing thing.

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_22]
[00:48:38] I would say come tonight at 4 o'clock and find your life group at the reception.
[00:48:42] Join a life group.

[00:48:46] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_13]
[00:48:46] Amen.

[00:48:48] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:48:48] I'm ready to join a life group.
[00:48:51] I'm inspired.
[00:48:51] Y'all go ahead and stand up with me, will you?
[00:48:53] I'm going to ask Diana, we're going to pray over this spring semester of life groups, And I look forward to seeing everybody there tonight at 4 o'clock for the life group reception.
[00:49:08] So, Dinah, pray for us.

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:49:09] Father, we thank you so much that we can be in this place and to worship you freely and to be able to share in koinonia, that fellowship in the spirit.
[00:49:23] Jesus, Lord, I pray for every person here that they would find their people, that they would find relationships, that they can grow together in you and in that special fellowship that we have together.
[00:49:40] Lord, I pray that you would just bless each of the life groups, that you would bless those who join, that we can draw closer to you in unity in Jesus' name. Amen.

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_15]
[00:49:51] Amen. If you're a guest with us this morning, we're so glad you're here.
[00:49:57] one of the things we do every Sunday morning here at Lake City is we share together in the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion. And when we do this, we're actually celebrating the fact that God loved us so much that He sent His one and only Son, Jesus. Jesus loved us so much that He gave
[00:50:13] His body, He gave His blood for us. And so, Father, as we prepare our hearts to receive these emblems. That little cracker reminds us of the body of Jesus that was bruised and broken for us. That little cup of juice reminds us of the blood of Jesus that was shed on Calvary's cross.
[00:50:34] And God, I just pray as we receive these emblems that once again we'll be reminded of how much you love us, of how much you sacrifice for us. God, we receive your love, We receive your forgiveness, and we're thankful for it.
[00:50:51] In Jesus' name, amen.
[00:50:54] Amen.

[00:52:47] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_09]
[00:52:47] with my heart stretched to all so why don't you get shy on me lift up your song you've got a

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_11]
[00:54:02] inside don't you get shy on up your song praise this morning we love you Jesus you are worthy in

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:56:56] this place we give you all adoration all praise you are worthy in our hearts so Lord today we ask that you would use Lake City Church, use us Lord, to reach this community. Help us to be
[00:57:14] a hope and a light to a broken world.
[00:57:18] Lord, let us think of your will and your ways because they are far better than our own. I pray that we would make a difference in this world.
[00:57:27] That we would pray for it.
[00:57:29] We would seek people out.
[00:57:31] We would love those who need you, Lord. Be with us.
[00:57:39] work in us and work through us. In your name we pray. Amen. Come on church give God praise this

[00:57:46] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_11]
[00:57:46] morning. Hey we love you. God loves you. We'll see you at the reception. All right all right

[01:31:34] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_20]
[01:31:34] welcome life group leaders. If you guys want to make your way in and start finding a seat around some of these tables we're going to get started right on time today so we can get you guys well
[01:31:42] not out of here because we got to stay for the reception. Just come on in from the lobby out there if you can make your way in and grab a seat around these tables.