What We've Learned

You guys can have a seat, but I love that we started with songs about make His name glorious. And Jesus, I sing for all that you've done for me because even though we're talking this morning about celebrating what we have raised in this amazing faith goal, it is all about making His name glorious. It's all about what He's done for us and through us. It's not about taking our hands and doing this, patting ourselves on the back. It's about taking our hands and lifting them up to Him and giving Him all the glory. Am I right, church? That's what we're about here this morning and let's make sure we got that straight.

Well, hey listen, good morning. My name is René. If you're visiting, I'm one of the pastors here. In fact, even if you're not visiting, I'm one of the pastors here. But how was your Thanksgiving? How many of you watched football on Thanksgiving? Can I see a show of hands? How many of you had turkey on Thanksgiving? How many of you had a tryptophan coma on Thanksgiving, which you're still in now? Please no raising hands. How many of you did the turkey trot in San Jose on Thanksgiving morning like I did? Did you guys really do it? That was awesome. How'd you do? Okay. I got to do the turkey trot and I have to reveal here today that I finished second in my division. My division was 52 year old gray-haired pastors from Aptos. There were two of us, but still that's something. No, it was a ton of fun.

Hey listen, as you heard Mark say, this morning's going to be a little bit different than what we usually do in church. It's Thanksgiving weekend, so we're going to give God thanks for what he has done here, specifically this fall. For the last seven weeks this fall, we have been studying faith. We've been reading a book that we wrote about faith, doing home groups about faith, doing faith projects. It was very cool to see this. We had small groups spring up in homes all over the county and judging for the pictures that you guys sent me, you guys had a blast in your home groups like this one. Inexplicably, if you look closely, they are all wearing tiaras and doing the princess wave. I don't know why, but that's okay. That's good. Many groups apparently had fun on Halloween. At least I'm assuming this is Halloween. This is Santa Cruz, so this could be any day of the year.

We also had groups outside the county like this group in Salinas. Hello Salinas group. That was very cool to get that. And also this group in Fresno. Can you believe that? Give it up for Fresno. Yeah, we love Fresno. These guys were so nice to me that I decided I have an official change of heart about Fresno starting today. Starting today, we will henceforth refer to it as "Fres-yes" here in our church. Hey, I'm just curious, how many of you either hosted a group or led a group? Raise your hands. Raise your hands. These were, keep those hands raised. Put your hands together for these people. They showed a lot of hospitality to a lot of people.

But the past seven weeks have not just been about studying faith. They have been about us taking the most giant step of faith that we have taken as a congregation in this generation. We have been calling it the 2020 vision because all the components of this will end up in the year 2020. And if you're just joining us this weekend, there are three components to phase one of this that we've been focusing on this fall. Building a children's ministry center here. That's a big building that would go out by the gymnasium building here on our campus. Plus building a library and vocational training and classroom and medical dental clinic building in India at the Little Flock Orphanage. Plus we want to raise a substantial amount of food and funds for the Second Harvest Food Bank.

And you might see a common thread with all these three projects. The vast majority of people who get food from Second Harvest are single parent families with young children. And so the three components of the 2020 vision were all about the next generation. They're all about kids. And so we wanted to involve all ages. And so seven weeks ago we gave the little kids at our church and our preschool and our grade school little piggy banks to save for these projects. And I got to tell you we were overwhelmed with the response. We had no idea the kids would do this, but they all decorated their own piggy banks and wrote prayers on them. And this is just an example. I love this one. This is from a Landon who put his name across the top. But I love what he wrote on the side. I don't know if you can read that, but it says to God. To God. And that kind of chokes me up because that's what this is all about, right? They got it. Sometimes kids, I think somebody once said something about the faith of a child, you know, and that's what it's all about. The kids got it. This is to God.

And so what we did last weekend, we really wanted to give the kids a memorable moment in their lives. And so we had the kids come into our services and bring in the offerings and they lay them here at the altar along with written prayers for all of these projects. How many of you were here last weekend and saw this? Was this not one of the most moving things you've ever seen in your life? We had... It was amazing to see the toddlers and the junior hires, the middle schoolers, the high schoolers, the teens all bringing in. We gave Pringles cans to the teenagers, you know, so that they wouldn't have piggy banks. They'd have Pringles cans. And look at them all. This is just one of the services. And then the adults gave our pledges. We all exercised our faith together. And then last weekend we ended it all up with a concert, Lincoln Brewster. How many of you guys came to that concert? That was an amazing celebration. And the proceeds from the concert went to the 2020 vision as well.

So today we reveal... How did it go? Because this was a massive, massive faith goal. If you add up all three components, it's a $10.75 million goal. That's over $10 million in gifts and pledges. Now, that's a lot of money by anybody's measure. But I want to tell you something that I have not told you yet in this. And you'll know why when I tell you this. That in March I met with a couple of fundraising experts who have done this for years and years for hundreds of churches and colleges and so on. And they told us that a church of our size and our attendance figures, it would be a home run if we raised somewhere between seven and eight million dollars. But when we looked at these projects that we really felt led to go for, it's expensive around here and it added up to over 10. And so we thought, well, let's go for it and see what happens.

So how did we do? Did we reach our goal? Does anybody here want to hear the totals? I said, does anybody want to hear the totals? Well, I want to tell you in just a few minutes. But first, what have we learned about faith in this seven week intensive immersion in faith? Because that's what this is all about. We're just going to kind of review this all and then we're going to wrap up this morning by giving you the reveal. Last week I asked you to send me your emails because I said I wanted this to be the sermon you wrote. And I got to tell you, I was so encouraged reading emails like this. I got hundreds of these, way more than I can include in a sermon. But I'll give you just a taste.

This woman wrote, I'm not going to lie. I was annoyed going to church during the faith series. In fact, I was pretty sure I'd hate it. I'm surprised my wife was this candid, but still, I, no, just kidding. Just kidding. But this was a real email, very serious. This woman says, I've had past hurts from church, which has always made me distance myself from church and God. And so I went expecting to hear the usual about faith. You have to have faith. You have to have more faith. You have to strengthen your faith. Well, to my surprise, I learned it's okay to have doubts. I learned it doesn't mean my doubts make me farther from God, but they're a reason to get even closer to Him. Really, I understand God better. And now I've decided to stop finding excuses, not to trust Him. I want you to know that I've rededicated my life to God and I've opened myself up to being more involved with His family at church. Isn't that great?

And I heard this, I read this again and again and again in this series. I read every single email, every single Facebook post, every single remark on Twitter and every letter and card you wrote, and they all kind of fell neatly into four categories that you said made impressions on you in this series. The first three are the first page of your notes and the last one's on the second page. So grab the message notes that look like this that are in your bulletins. They have a faith logo on top. This will help you follow along. First, people pointed out that they learned that faith is a fact, but also an act. Faith is a fact, but also an act. Faith is a fact about the fact that God loved the world so much. He said, "Jesus Christ is only Son to die on the cross for our sins and to be resurrected and that is a fact that I stake my life on." But like the brother of James, Jesus, the brother of Jesus, James wrote, "What good is it my brothers if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?"

Faith is a fact, but it's also an act. One way we tried to show this at the very start of our series, hundreds of TLCers volunteered on one Saturday morning, served at projects all over the county like the Homeless Services Center where you guys cleaned and mopped and swept and painted. One small group even completely renovated the play yard that they have there for homeless kids. Excuse me, you put in nice turf and plants and a lot more. You guys also volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club and at Delmar School and at many more places all over the county. Now why would we do these things? What does this have to do with faith? Well, Jesus said, "Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." In other words, good deeds open hearts to the good news.

Now another way we try to do this in this series in a way that our church has done this for several years now is the first component of the 2020 Vision Project for Second Harvest, the food bank. Now I just want to give this some context here. This church has been so generous to the food bank. It's really become part of our DNA and as your pastor, I am in awe of your generosity. You've given over a million meals worth of food and donations to Second Harvest food bank each of the last two years. Now just to put that amount into context because you might be used to getting used to that and you're saying a million meals like probably everybody does that. No, nobody does that. As far as I know no church in America has ever done that and to further put it in perspective, I'm in Subway the other day and I see this sign. Subway is the biggest food chain in the world and it has as its goal this year to donate one million meals to Feeding America which is the national organization of food banks that Second Harvest is a part of. Now that is awesome. I love that they are doing that but I just want you to have some perspective to give God glory about what our church has done. If the biggest food company in the world is trying to get to a million meals as their donation, that's a lot and I'll be honest with you, I did not think that that was a possibility for us this year.

In fact, I'll tell you something else that I didn't tell you guys earlier. This is true confession morning for me. I'm telling you all kinds of stuff that I've been keeping from you but I thought we could not do this this year because we're having a building campaign this way. In fact, I scheduled an appointment with Willie Elliot McCray who's the president and founder of Second Harvest and I just had to tell him we're not going to do the food drive this fall because we got a building campaign and so I sat down to break in the news over here in the church office and I said Willie, I got to tell you something man, we've enjoyed working with Second Harvest. We will again but this fall instead of the food drive we need to do a building program and so and I look at Willie and this body language is just like his shoulders are sagging and his head is drooping like this and so literally I changed my sentence midstream and I said and so we are going to give a portion of our capital campaign to the food bank and I just wanted you here to tell you that and I thought what did I just say? What did I promise? And so that's what we're going to do.

In fact, we decided to totally rethink the way we did this campaign before we launched it and have a component of it that we call compassion first. In other words, we decided in advance no matter how much we get for our building and you have to understand this even if we don't reach our goal, our priority is to in advance commit to Second Harvest Food Bank and in advance commit to the Little Flock Orphanage so that if we get anything it's going to go to them first and only after their needs are taken care of do we give the money toward our building. So what happened? Well food rolled in last weekend, a lot of food and last Monday we packed it and we packed it and we packed it and Second Harvest got it and trucked it out and weighed it and weighed it and it turns out that your donations of actual non-perishable food items were 128% higher than last year plus then we gave our portion of the 2020 Vision Project funds to the Second Harvest Food Bank.

So what did it all total up to? Well I want to ask in this service the co-chair of the Holiday Harvest Food Drive for Second Harvest Food Bank and also the CEO of Plantronics Ken Canepan to come up on stage. Would you please welcome Ken as he comes up on stage here. Ken it is great, great to have you here. I'm so glad you could make it. Thank you so much for having me. It's good to see you.

Well it's my privilege on behalf of this church which in following Jesus who told us that when we feed the hungry it's like feeding him and that's what motivates us. It is just my deepest privilege and and joy to give you this check which when added to the donations totals over one million meals to the Second Harvest Food Bank.

Well I just I want to say a couple of words of thanks because as you pointed out Twin Lakes has for the last couple of years given over a million meals which is you know a staggering total and for so many people in this community and it's literally one out of four who depend on Second Harvest in this community for food. It's given them hope because you don't have hope if food never arrives and every year thanks to Twin Lakes and what you've done the food has arrived and you told me about that campaign and how many things that you had to depend upon people to give and I you know if if I wanted to make one one comment about that which is you've you've told me about this before but you know when people give they are they are blessed they are blessed with less stress more happiness they're blessed with better health they're blessed with living longer they're blessed because they have given to Jesus when he arrived at their door and I hope that in return for all you have given to this community you enjoy all of those blessings.

Thank you very very much. Thank you for what you do. Hang on just a second. You guys may or may not know this but as CEO of Plantronics Ken's already got a lot on his plate it's a huge company but as you've probably read in the paper this year Ken has had a battle with cancer and he had to take a leave of absence he's now back at the company but we are committed to we really appreciate your leadership at Plantronics it means so much to this community and we are committed as a church to praying for you in your recovery aren't we church yeah let's thank Ken for everything he does thank you so much really really appreciate it thank you. Ken's a good man he's a good man faith is a fact but it's also an act and it's a cycle you know when you act in faith then it bolsters up your confidence in the facts of faith and what that produces is number two we saw that faith is contagious.

Faith's contagious many of you wrote me and said that you saw this and felt this that there was just this growing crackling sense of electricity around here people going yeah I can move out in faith in fact I got this email just this week from Anastasia Stone you guys probably remember how every week in the series either live or on video we had a faith story and Anastasia shared her faith story remember she told us that she and her husband had tentatively two years ago decided to check out the idea of fostering children and that turned into a passion for adoption and now she's a representative for the county for adoption services they adopted twins and she told us if you'll remember that they were hoping to adopt another baby so I gotta update you on this last week they went to court and the adoption was finalized this is a picture of that moment for their family and even the judge came over to say hi to their new family member and now this was all very very contagious as our church heard her testimony so Anastasia wrote me René you need to know that since you asked me to share there are two new TLC families actively pursuing becoming foster parents another four TLC families came to the first orientation another hundred people from TLC want to help in other ways like being respite parents 18 foster kids have already received backpacks the TLC filled and she says a couple at TLC already has another little boy in their home that they've adopted they brought him home from the hospital on November 21st that's contagious faith aren't you guys stoked about that that is so awesome to see the ripple effect of faith that is this next verse in action this is from Hebrews 10 let's read this verse out loud together church and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but let us encourage one another I love that this is what church is supposed to be about right to spur one another on to love and good deeds not to anger and dissension you know some pastors I think kind of have the the combative radio talk show host model right where where I'm gonna get up there in the pulpit I'm gonna be incendiary that's not what this verse says this is spur one another on our right to love and good deeds and it's so neat to see how outrageous faith can be contagious faith give you another example that somebody emailed me this week Carrie Mendoza wrote me two months ago during the faith series I heard about that dress a girl ministry in church that's the group here at TLC that makes dresses for female orphans all over the world she says I thought well what if we made purses to go along with the dresses in the next shipment because the little girls get bibles and so on this will give them something to put those bibles in so she says I called the leader and she told me that's fine but their next shipment is 200 dresses and I said okay she said my girls aged nine and seven were excited about it but I was apprehensive 200 purses that we were supposed to make for the 200 dresses but I had faith that God would give us the endurance and the help we needed because that's what you've been telling us he would do and so we got to work then a few friends found out what we were doing and wanted to come on board and then more and more people got interested long story short as of this writing we have 202 purses to give to the orphans this Christmas isn't that not great that's contagious faith and another way that we really saw faith being contagious was the little flock component of our faith goal just as a reminder here's a 30-second clip to show you what little flock orphanage is like near Chennai India watch the screen every child has a dream to belong and be loved folks become kings girls will be queens wrapped in your majesty when we love when we love the least of these then they will be brave and free shout your name in victory when we love when we love the least of these it is an exciting ministry and they've got so much going on that what they really need is a classroom building of their own with a library with three vocational training classrooms with a medical and dental clinic with a computer lab with offices and much much more and this whole thing captured the imaginations of our kids here at church talk about contagious faith two brothers actually homemade Christmas ornaments I told you about last weekend but they sent me a video telling me about what they're doing watch the screen so we are raising money for the little flock orphanage because we are selling little Christmas ornaments that cost $4.99 we already earned $25 in like 10 minutes that's $4.99 operators are standing by I love this that guy's gonna be a salesman so these boys talk about contagious faith they went door to door selling these ornaments and a neighbor girl saw them and got so excited she joined them faith is contagious.

So what does all this add up to? Well I want to call up a very special guest today would you please join me in welcoming the founder and president of little flock children's home dr. VG Kamach as she comes up. VG it is such a deep privilege for me just as a representative of this congregation and as an arm of the body of Christ who told us to look out for the least of these to give you this check it's like a dream come true for me to be able to say this will take care of all of your needs to completely fund your new building for little block thank you congratulations I'm reminded of what Jesus said when he came I've come to give you life and give you life abundantly and everything that twin lakes has done for little flock is life giving the members of this congregation who come every year some of them took a 10-year visa which means they're coming every year for 10 years and they have reached out to the community with so much love and so much care that it has transformed the people in the village number of the women in the village cannot find jobs because they're from the Dalit community and they're not easily employable that's the untouchables so they came to me this past year and they said to me little flock is life giving to us I think that is one of the components of what you're doing you're giving life and by building this community center everything about it is life giving training our children providing a library for our children and the entire village kids and teaching people how to learn skills that will support their family our children have come from such difficult backgrounds and have experienced so much suffering that we are overwhelmed just by hearing their stories but they give life to us by saying to us but we have you and we have twin legs and you stand behind us and you are like those people with your prayers and gifts and support that lift our arms up as we go forth and serve the kids so I want to thank you for being a blessing to us thank you so much for what you do.

Viji we love you and we love the kids that's for sure so you see what happens when faith is contagious there was another theme that really came out a lot in your emails and that's number three there in your notes faith is a way through not a way around faith is a way through not a way around do you get that faith is no guarantee that you won't have trouble in fact Jesus guaranteed you will have trouble he said in this world you will have trouble trouble comes to everyone but faith is a way through it not a way around it uh somebody wrote me my husband and I have been attending twin lakes for five years I'd hear the messages I'd be inspired but then quickly revert back to my behaviors of control anxiety and fear all that changed in January 2012 when I found out I was pregnant with triplets I know I went into pre-term labor and we thought that we might lose the babies now look at this when the boys were born they weighed just three pounds we spent over two months in the NICU and there were many ups and downs as scary as this time was I felt a sense of peace in my heart deep down friends and family were shocked at how calm I seemed listen to this at first I blamed my calm on pregnancy hormones but really I knew it was stronger than that focusing on faith during this time took the weight of the world and of three helpless babies off my shoulders now there's good news all three boys survived and they're now energetic healthy and happy boys now listen to this this is a new picture that they just took she says life with triplets is crazy and at times I find myself reverting back to stress and anxiety about how we're going to make it but this series has really brought me back to God's faithful promise of strength faith is a way through not a way around you know in Hebrews 11 the word faith is repeated 27 times and that's why it's called the faith chapter and there's only one other phrase that's repeated in that chapter it's repeated three times it's the two word phrase even though like in verse 39 these were all commended for their faith even though none of them received what had been promised God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect these people kept going these people in the hall of fame of faith not because faith magically gave them prosperity and perfect health but because of God's promise of something better on the other side and I just really want to stop and address a group of people that's here today there's some people here at celebration weekend and you do not feel like celebrating right now you look around you hear the music you see all the people and you don't feel all happy clappy because something's happened in your life maybe an illness maybe an accident something else and it's hit you hard and you thought to yourself I guess I'll drag myself to church maybe I'll find some hope there and now that you're here you're wondering why you're here and you're wondering what God has in store for you in your life well I want to tell you this I don't know what it is of course I don't know what God has in store for you but I do know this it's something wonderful it's something wonderful in this life and then at the resurrection God has planned something better ahead for you so don't give up keep moving forward in that faith faith is a way through not a way around think about it that's why the cross is the symbol of our faith you ever thought about that what do Christians wear around their necks the cross not a daisy or a pony or a unicorn you know or a four-leaf clover a cross why because faith means God takes the worst life can give us even death on a cross and he turns the symbol of torture and hopelessness into a symbol of hope for billions of people why because on the cross Jesus paid for my sin and for your sin so that we could also partake in his resurrection and that's why I'm going to ask the band to come back up and lead us in a moment of communion right now because I want so much for you not to mistake the message of this faith series faith is not about you or me mustering up enough optimism to do something good because there's times we all run out of optimism faith is about remembering the promise of the cross it's about you and me trusting in Christ and so let's just pause for a couple of minutes and take communion to remind ourselves of the body and blood of Jesus if you're just joining us today you're welcome to partake with us you don't have to be a church member if you recognize the bread as the body the cup as the blood of Christ symbols of what Jesus did for us the ushers will serve communion and then you're welcome to take a piece of the bread and the cup and you hold them meditate on them and that at the end of the song we will partake together so let's remember what Jesus Christ has done for us now during communion and at the end of this time the venue service is going to filter into our room and they will join us for a final point together but for now let's focus on the cross of Christ how deep the love of Christ, our hope, our strength, our song. How high, how high, how deep the love of Christ, our hope, our strength, our song. How high, how high, how deep the love of Christ, our hope, our strength, our song. How high, how high, how deep the love of Christ, our hope, our song. How high, how high, how deep the love of Christ, our song. How high, how high, how deep the love of Christ, our song. You reign forever, you reign, you reign, oh mighty, you reign, you reign, forever, you reign, you reign, oh mighty, you reign, you reign, forever, you reign, you reign.

As communion finishes being served and as our video venue service joins us from next door, would you just join me in a word of prayer, let's just pray right now. With your head bowed, just for a minute, think about how marvelous and how wonderful your Savior's love is to you. Think of the cross, it's not just a metaphor, it's real. The God of the universe loves you so much that he took all of the weight of sin and guilt away from you that there's now no condemnation in Christ and today he loves you unconditionally and perfectly and infinitely. There's nothing you can do to make him love you more. We don't give to the orphanage or to the food bank or to the kids because we want God to love us more. He already loves us infinitely. We give because he first loved us. Just out of a sense of over abundance. The greatest, most precious resource in the world, more precious than gold or silver or any physical resources we could ever build to a capital campaign is the love of God and he lavishes it on us without end. God, thank you so much for your love demonstrated to all of us on the cross. And it's because we believe that though we don't completely understand it, but we place our trust in that. And so we find ourselves filled and overflowing with love. Surging with love and power that goes from you through us to the world. What a pleasure it is to live generously that way. God, you're a great God. And so we remember this together. Remember the body of Christ broken for you. Let's partake. And the blood of Christ shed for you. Amen. What a great morning. What a great, great morning. The venue service, if you didn't know, we have a video venue service that watches this service over at Munskey Hall. And they wanted to be here for the final reveal. And so they just came in. They're sitting in the aisle. Let's welcome these people to Twin Lakes's auditorium service. It's a great weekend already, isn't it? I don't even have to tell you the final numbers. It's already a great weekend because we've already given over, I mean, just think of what you've done. But if you gave a dollar to this, you, as part of this church, have already given over a million meals to the food bank. You've already given a complete building to an orphanage in India. You know, what a weekend. You've already seen Stanford beat Notre Dame last night, which was awesome. I have to do something to stop myself from crying. But it's been a great weekend. And now let's land the plane. We want to remind ourselves that faith is about God's power, not my power. The Bible says God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. Now, I can imagine a lot that God can do more. And watch this. According to his power that is at work within us. Again, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's about God working within me. But here's the thing. I must take that first step in faith. I have to take that first step. So many of you told me how you did that during the series. This is just an amazing balm for a pastor's soul. Emails like this one. My name is Shawn Valenzuela, a 20-year-old kid from the Santa Cruz area. About two months ago, I attended my first service at Twin Lakes. And that morning in service was the first time I truly accepted the Lord into my heart. I left church crying in excitement for the Lord the whole way home. I felt like a new person at only the age of 20. I have a purpose on earth now. He took his first step of faith. Isn't that awesome? And maybe you've been thinking about your first step of faith soon. Do it now. Look, the Bible says, "By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he didn't know where he was going." As we saw in this series, God didn't give Abraham a road map. He just told him the next step. So take the next step for you. Now, I don't know what that first step in your journey is for you, but you probably do. It's different for everybody. It's not just happening at conversion. There continue to be first steps of faith because that's how we grow, right? Maybe for you it's writing the first page of that book or going to the first recovery meeting. Or making the first phone call. Think of what you could be setting into motion. The food drive, somebody had to put the first can on the pile. 20/20 vision, somebody had to make that first pledge. But when you take that first step in faith, you set things into motion. Other people with more resources show up. Other people with other skills pop up. But listen, God can't help you with steps 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 until you take the first step in faith. And then he says, "All right, here we go." See, here's the key concept of faith. Jot this down if you've got your notes with you. Where God guides, God provides. Never, ever forget this. Where God guides, God provides. In fact, let's say that together. Where God guides, God provides. Like the Bible says, and this is the story that really sums all this up. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age, and Sarah herself was barren, was enabled to become a father. Because he considered him faithful who had made that promise. And so, from this one man, and he as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, and as countless as the sand on the seashore. God can do things through you as numerous as the stars in the sky, as countless as the sand on the seashore. If you'll just take the first step of faith. The bottom line is this, the leap of faith is so worth it. It is so worth it. You want evidence of that? Like the Bible says, you yourselves are a case study of what God does, right? Twin Lakes, you're a case study of what God does. This 2020 vision is a case study of how faith works. Somebody just had to start, but then God starts to move. As I said, we already saw a million meals given to the food bank. Already saw an entire building funded for Little Flock. So now, what about the third component, the children's building? Some of you are going, my head is about to explode. You have to say it right now. Okay, but first I just want to say this. Whatever the total is, this has truly been about faith building, and not building a building. And whatever kind of a building gets built, that building will be a faith building. And I want to say, church, you gave and pledged so sacrificially. It was amazing to see pledges come in raging literally from $1 to $1 million, and every amount in between. And we needed every single one of you. And the pledges continue to come in. This number keeps going up. The total I'm about to reveal to you will keep going up. In fact, some of you just told me before this service, I thought we were supposed to bring in our pledges this weekend. So it's not too late for you. You can still bring them in. But it's cool. We first saw that God was up to something when we totaled the kids' offerings. They were the first numbers we totaled up. The kids were amazing. It took us three and a half hours just to empty out their piggy banks that afternoon. It took four people working two and a half hours with the bank's change accounting machine just to count it. And the way they raised their contributions was great. These two middle school girls, sisters, actually, they knit together these little scarves, and then they sold them door to door to raise their contributions. It wasn't just like, "Mom, Dad, give me some change. Put it in the piggy banks." They actually did all kinds of work. And check this out. Doing this sort of thing, in the piggy banks and Pringles Cans alone, the kids brought in $10,000.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Plus several boardwalk tokens, and that's how I knew it was actually the kids. But because this is a children's building and the kids were so much a part of this, we want to do something special for the reveal right now. I'm going to ask some kids to come on stage right now, and the kids each have a numeral in their hands that they are not going to turn around and reveal to you yet. So I'm going to get my little podium out of the way. We haven't actually rehearsed this with these kids, so anything could happen. But why don't you guys come all the way down here. Look at these figures. Some of you are counting up the blank things right now. And so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to start over here on this end, and when I tap you, I want you to turn over your card. Okay, got it? But not until I tap you. You guys ready for this? Can we have a drum roll? Here we go. Okay. All right, go ahead and turn your figure around. It's a six! All right, turn that around. It's a one. Turn yours around. It's an eight. And why don't you turn yours around, Elijah? Go ahead. It's a comma! See, some of you are counting up and you are going, "We raised one billion dollars." No. Go ahead and turn yours around. Go ahead. Go ahead. All right, now why don't you turn yours around. And we have one more to go. $10,220,816. Let's give God the glory, church. Let's sing that old song. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below. Praise Him, all Godly, heavenly hosts. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. Give God the glory. Stay standing, everybody. Stay standing. Heavenly Father, we just want to dedicate this building to you. May this be a lighthouse that remains about the light and not the house. May it just be a launching pad for generations of ministry to reach our community and our world with the love of Jesus Christ. God, thank you and help us never forget the lesson we have learned through this, that you are able, that you are God, that we can put all our faith and trust in you together as the body of Christ, because you do amazing things. You're such a good God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Let's sing the great song about how God is able. Lift your voices and let's celebrate on this celebration weekend.