Questions to Start Your Year Off Right

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- All right. So we're going to doing --

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- And I'm looking here or am I looking at you?

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- Do I want to say this out loud?

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- I just had a Slim Jim.

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- I don't know if this should go on the internet, but, uh --

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- Hey, this is Brian, Senior Pastor at Crossroads.

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Happy New Year!

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Hopefully the last year went pretty well for you

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and hopefully next year goes really well,

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maybe even better for you.

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So this is one of those times when everybody

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Crossroads gets to be in the same place because,

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a lot of our community doesn't live close to a facility.

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But we've closed down our facilities to help

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our volunteers and staff recover and enjoy the holidays.

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And so all of us at Crossroads, no matter what site

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or outside of the site world that you are in,

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are here right now. This is our weekend experience.

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So it's good to have you with us today.

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Today we're going to be talking about things

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that will get you to a new place in your 2026.

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Thanks for coming. Let's get going.

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- Hey, you made it through the holidays.

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You deserve a moment to rest and reflect on 2025.

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Let's take a look back at the year that was.

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- Eagles fly. Koko.

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- Headed to the Lakers.

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- Swift and Kelce engaged.

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- I'd love to see this end once and for all.

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- Eyes up here.

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- All new. - American Pope.

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- Release all -- - Political activists.

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- 6, 7. - 6, 7! Ha-ha.

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- So last year a lot.

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For some it was a blur of blessing,

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for others it was a bit of a battle.

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Either way, it's a new year, and you know what that means.

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It's time to make lists of resolutions

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that none of us end up committing to.

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Okay, stay with me.

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If you want to drink less coffee or do more push ups,

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or finally finish that extended Lord of the Rings,

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you should totally do that. - For Frodo.

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- A new calendar year is

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a chance for a fresh start, after all.

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But what if this fresh start was about something more?

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- Some more what?

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- Okay, let's back up.

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The term God's Kingdom is super vague. I get it.

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God's Kingdom is really just anywhere people

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experience His power at work.

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So what could that actually look like?

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- Just as we thought.

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- Does it look like healings or miracles

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or repentance or dreams?

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Families mended, lives completely changing?

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God is up to something. We have the receipts.

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The waters are stirring.

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One might even call it the start of a revival.

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Plus more good news, this kind of power

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is available for you too.

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God has given you authority to be bold in 2026.

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You can step into the new year confident, expectant and ready.

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Are you ready?

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- It was a 1978 Chevy Vega. It was orange.

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You couldn't tell what was paint and what was rust.

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- I drove a 1985 Ford Escort.

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The only problem with that was the year

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was probably like 1995,

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but I had the bangingest system in that car.

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I had my six by nine speakers on the door.

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I had my little pull out radio.

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- I want to say a 1993 white Chevy Caprice.

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Me and my buddies found this light,

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it flashed red and yellow.

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So not not red and blue. That would be imitating a cop.

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That's not allowed. And I don't condone that.

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I don't think you should do that ever in your life.

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However, we put it in the front of the car,

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and we used to pull out behind people and put it on

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and drive up on them and they would pull over.

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And again, I tell you that to say,

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you should never do that. You should never do that.

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- New Year's Eve, New Year's Day at the latest.

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I don't linger.

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- Third week of January before we get rid of that thing,

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until it's absolutely clear that it's about on its last leg,

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and it looks more like a Charlie Brown tree

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than the tree we started with.

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- Until end of February.

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Not the end, but like into February.

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You have to wake up one day and decide

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I want my house to look worse today.

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I just ate my tongue.

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Does that ever happen to you guys?

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- You want a drink?

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- No. I'm good.

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- So in black church culture, there's this thing

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called Watch Night service.

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And so literally, I didn't even know what it meant

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when people would say the ball dropped.

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For the first 18 years of my life, we were in church

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from, like, 10:00 at night till like 1:00 in the morning.

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Quite frankly, I love it. I actually miss it.

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And you can hold me to this, one of these days

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I'm gonna throw a Watch Night service celebration

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at one of our Crossroads sites.

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We're gonna do that one year.

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- Three New Year's Eves in a row

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somebody in my family ended up in urgent care.

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And so I just, by the third one, I was like,

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I'm done with New Year's Eve.

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And then we haven't been in urgent care for probably,

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I don't know, 7 or 8 years now.

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- Most disappointing New Year's Eve ever

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I went to Kansas for a Georgia Tech Kansas basketball game.

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And then me and my buddies were like, "Let's go out,

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let's go New Year's Eve. It's gonna be amazing."

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And there was nothing,

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nothing happening in Kansas City. Nothing.

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- A question I ask myself, and actually

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everybody in my family every year is

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imagining Jesus asking us,

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"What is it you want me to do for you?"

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That's an actual question He asked before to a blind man,

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which is kind of a maybe an insensitive question,

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like, should you ask a blind guy that?

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Why don't you just pray for him?

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Why don't you? If you can heal him, Jesus,

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why don't you just do that?

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I don't want to give a whole sermon here,

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but it's really important for us to be able to know

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what is it that we want God to do for us this year?

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Not necessarily the goal

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that I've got to do to reach that goal.

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I think that's really a good thing

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and we can invite God into that.

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But what are the things that you just want Him to do for you?

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And it could be frivolous.

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It could be serious.

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It could be whatever.

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We ask that question every Christmas Eve,

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and then we write it down

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and we don't look at it for a year later.

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And then my grandkids, my kids, my son-in-laws,

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my daughters-in-law, we go back and we revisit

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what is it we said a year earlier,

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and to see how many of those things happened.

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And then we have the new thing for the next year.

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And by the way, it doesn't always have to be

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to solve world hunger.

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Well, I want Him to do for me is to --

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We think of this altruistic, really somber thing.

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It's fine to ask for that.

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But one of the things I asked was, I think it was

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I want to get a bull elk this year.

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I think, I think, I think I asked that

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and, uh, crazy, this year I've gotten two. Wow, wow, wow.

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The other thing I'll be saying to Jesus for this year,

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Jesus, what do you want me to do for you?

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I want Him to give me a marriage

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that's at 100% physical capacity.

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I want Lib to have recovered from all of the stuff

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relative to chemo and radiation,

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and for her to have enough hair that's back

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that she doesn't have to fight a wig that's making

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her hot flashes from recovery from cancer treatments

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and hormone stuff. I mean, it's just a long, long thing

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and I'm hoping sometime here in 2026

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I have my wife back fully physically,

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and we can be the physical couple

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that we've always wanted to be or always have been.

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- So I picked this question: who is in your life now

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that wasn't there at the beginning of the year

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for a very specific reason.

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One of the ways that I go back

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and reflect on the year that has just happened

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is by looking for patterns in my life.

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I think that oftentimes God does a long, slow work

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where if we step back and watch for certain patterns,

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we can pick up where He's been at work

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that maybe we would have missed otherwise.

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And so one of the ways I do that is

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in this particular question, because the pattern

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I see in my life over many, many years is that

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when God is moving, He will start to surround me

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with the people that that's going to take.

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Whenever He moves us, I think, to especially somewhere new,

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He -- it's always led by His Spirit

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and it's always shared with other people.

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And so I start to watch, like, who's coming into my life

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that maybe wasn't there before?

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And does that indicate a movement in what God is doing?

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And so some years it really does.

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Other years it doesn't.

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I always enjoy those questions where I'm watching for patterns.

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So this year for me, I hadn't thought about this yet

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until very recently.

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And I see that God has brought three different women

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who are incredibly strong, bold,

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I would even say decisive leaders.

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And that told me something very specific, because

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that has not been the case in a really long time.

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I would say even there have been years recently

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where I've actually felt alone, professionally speaking,

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in what I do and what I'm seeking to do.

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And this year I feel like it was an abundance

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when I looked back, the three.

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There are three different women who are in my life

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in a very significant way that are all

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seeking after Jesus, and they're all touching

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pieces of what I'm doing.

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And it makes me excited to see,

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maybe for the first time in a really long time,

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I'm actually going to have other women who are sort of

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in the work that God has called me to in the Kingdom with me.

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And that makes me really excited.

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I love, I love our guys.

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I love all the men that I work with.

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But man, there's something special about

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watching God bring some new women into my life.

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- I came up with this question: what new adventure

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do you want to step into next year?

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And the reason I came up with this is because

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I find that we all have something

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that we are dreaming about,

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and often we don't say it out loud.

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And so this idea of what new adventure

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is a way to say it out loud.

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And actually, mine isn't crazy,

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but it is something that I want to do.

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I used to set a goal of how many nights I want to sleep outside.

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I love camping and there is something about being outside

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and being around a fire that is so invigorating for me.

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And so this year, I want to spend

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at least seven nights waking up in the woods.

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Doesn't matter where they are, but somehow,

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some way I want to do that.

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I've got some thoughts on how I want to do that.

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My daughter and I, we're probably going to do

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Red River Gorge at some point,

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so those will be some of those nights.

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I have always wanted to do a section hike

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of the Appalachian Trail, so that's something

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I'm kind of wrapping my mind around.

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Maybe that becomes some of the nights this year.

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Some of that will be Man Camp,

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some of that will be Revival, perhaps.

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But I want to spend at least a week outside

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waking up outside in the woods,

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looking up at the stars at night before I go to bed.

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- Okay, my question for all of us

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is really a three part question, which is

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what was the best part of this last year?

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What was the worst part of this last year?

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And what are you looking forward to the most in the next year?

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It's actually a question that we've asked

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in our small group for years and years

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on everyone's birthday.

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And it's kind of like the when one year ends

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and the next one's beginning, reflective questions.

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The first two are, remember,

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because the Bible commands us to remember.

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It's actually the third most commanded thing

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in the entire Bible. Remember, remember, remember.

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And not just the good stuff.

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God says that like, remember my wonders.

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But then He also says, remember the bad stuff.

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Like, remember that you were slaves.

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And so it's important to reflect backwards and remember.

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And then the third question is the hope question.

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It's to say, "This next year,

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I'm looking forward to something.

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I have hope for something."

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It doesn't have to be like this big spiritual thing,

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but just something, something good.

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One of the verses that's always meant a lot to me

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in the New King James Version,

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which is the first version I ever heard it in,

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it says, I would have lost heart

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unless I had believed that I will see

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the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

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And it's just this little thing in the Bible

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that goes like, you got to have something you're hoping for.

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You got to remember and believe that

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you're going to see God's goodness,

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not just like someday when you get to heaven,

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but like here and now.

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There's more good coming.

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And so ask those three questions.

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My answers, the worst part of this last year

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was we put our kids in school for the first time.

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They've been homeschooled their whole life.

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That's a whole 'nother story.

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And they wanted to go to school and we were like,

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"Awesome, let's do it."

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So we put them in a school

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and one of my kids was bullied, like, pretty much

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out of the gate for the first half of the school year.

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And it was -- it was probably the hardest season

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Sarah and I have ever had as parents

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because we didn't expect it.

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We didn't know what to do with it.

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I think in hindsight we did some stuff well,

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and in hindsight, there's some things I would do differently.

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But was just it was really hard

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watching our kid go through that

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and also hard to know as a parent like what do you do?

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Like when you step in and how do you have

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good conversations that are productive

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and all that kind of stuff?

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Happy to report, by the way, that

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that's completely different a year later.

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A year later, completely different

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for that kid in the same school.

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And so we're incredibly thankful that God did that.

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That's probably the thing that

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was the best part of my last year,

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is watching the redemption arc of how God took

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that hard situation and didn't call us out of it,

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called us to stay in it, and yet produced something

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better than we could have imagined in that same spot.

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The thing I'm looking forward to most next year,

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making great memories.

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Spending great time together as a family.

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Sarah and I and our three kids Ben, Eli, Gracie,

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the clock is ticking on how much longer

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I have them all in my house, which seems insane

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because it feels like yesterday

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they were all in diapers, you know?

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But my oldest is a freshman in high school.

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And so I go, okay, we've got like three more summers

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where he's in our house, like, that we can probably count on,

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probably, maybe he'll have a summer job for one of those

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and need to stay around or whatever.

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But like we've got three more cracks at

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time together to make great memories.

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And so we have intentionally planned to save less money

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so we can spend more with our kids while they're in our house.

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And I'm looking forward to some of the adventures

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and trips that we have planned with the kids

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over this next 12 months.

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- Hey everyone! My name is Joey

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and I am a student here at the University of Cincinnati.

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And I'm here to take you on a little bit of

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a behind the scenes of a way that I saw God

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move in my 2025.

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This is a special place in my heart,

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because it is not only where my personal walk

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and relationship with Jesus began and began to flourish,

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but it is now a place where I get to call home

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and share that love of the Lord

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with my friends and classmates.

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And God did something really special this year

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in one of those relationships.

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And so I just love to get to share that

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with all of you today.

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On our first stop here, I'm taking us to where

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my friendship with my friend Abe really all began.

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It was here behind me in this dorm known as Daniels Hall,

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or formerly known here as the Dirty Dan's.

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And one of those first nights here in this dorm,

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I met my friend Abe, and we began to have conversations

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about similarities of things that we loved in our life

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and ways that we both wrestled in high school,

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and he's a Browns fan and I'm a Bengals fan,

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so we shared some fun jokes over that.

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And this is ultimately where I began to meet him

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and spend time together.

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And now we're back at my house,

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actually in my room at my desk.

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And this is a space that has just become special

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and important because this is a space where

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I just get to spend time with Jesus every day.

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The space where I get to pray on behalf of my friend Abe.

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Actually, just behind me you can see these post-it notes,

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and I would just write little things

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that I want to see God do in my life,

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or pieces of scripture that would increase my fait

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h or challenge different areas that I would believe.

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And they were all built around this idea of just

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seeing God move in ways that I've never seen Him move.

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And I just began to pray for my friends, including Abe,

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and I just asked God to go before me

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and meet them where they're at,

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and that He would begin to move in their heart

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before I could force Him into their heart.

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Now I'm taking us on a little bit of a walk

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to one of our favorite places on campus,

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and that is our dining hall, one of our dining halls,

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and the closest one to our dorm known as On the Green.

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They served up amazing food.

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Orange chicken on Thursdays became a famous hot commodity.

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And this was a place where we began to take

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that beginner level friendship

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to a little bit of a deeper place.

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This was one of the first times where I began to hear

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Abe really talk curiously about what God is doing in my life

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and how he maybe wants that in his own life.

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He doesn't -- He wasn't really ready yet to say,

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uh, permanently yes to something,

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but he was just curious and began to ask questions.

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And it was a time for us to share a little bit of

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my answers and things I was going through and things

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that I was learning in my own walk with the Lord.

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Now I'm here at Crossroads Uptown.

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This just represents the first time that me and him

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actually got to go to church together.

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And that was just a few months ago.

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He had reached out to me one early Sunday morning,

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asked me if we could go to church.

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So I went down to Crossroads Florence,

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listened to service, had a great time,

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and on the way back we, you know, he was like,

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"Man, I loved that."

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So we just talked about next steps that we could take.

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He got himself a new Bible

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and we decided to start reading the word together.

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And I just told him, you know, the best thing

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that you can do is just begin to figure this out for yourself.

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Spend time with God, begin to read the Bible

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and see what He has for you personally.

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And now for our final stop here.

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I'm taking us to where we now meet every Wednesday

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here at Rose Street Cafe, just off of UC's campus.

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Inside, look around the place.

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And this is the very table that Abe and I come to.

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We sit here every Wednesday and we just open the Word.

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We get into a new chapter of the book that we're reading.

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And this is actually the very place

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that Abe gave his life to Christ.

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We were just reading through the book of Luke,

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and he kind of just stopped and was like,

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"Hey, man, I think what we're reading is great,

00:19:17

and I think I've read enough for me to just believe

00:19:19

that God is good and that I want to go all in on Him."

00:19:23

And so we just got to stop in that moment

00:19:25

and read Romans 10:9-10.

00:19:27

That just speaks about confessing that Jesus is Lord

00:19:31

and what that can do for you.

00:19:33

And he went home that day,

00:19:34

and he confessed his life to the Lord

00:19:37

and gave his life to Jesus.

00:19:39

And this is now a space that is so special to us,

00:19:42

because we get to meet and catch up

00:19:44

and continue to read the Bible with one another

00:19:46

and grow and strengthen, not only in our friendship,

00:19:49

but also in our faith together.

00:20:17

- I hope you've enjoyed this experience today.

00:20:19

Before we run out to our next thing,

00:20:22

I just want to pray a blessing over you

00:20:24

and over the year to come in your life and in your family.

00:20:28

So God, thank You for this church

00:20:31

You've given us to be part of.

00:20:33

Thank You for the call that You have in our lives.

00:20:35

Thank You for the plans that You have for us.

00:20:38

God, I know that your word says You have plans

00:20:40

to prosper us, not to harm us.

00:20:42

And so, God, would You give us Your Spirit of hope,

00:20:45

Your Spirit of peace, Your Spirit of endurance

00:20:49

over our next year?

00:20:50

May we know You more 12 months from now

00:20:54

than we know You now.

00:20:55

May we love You more 12 months from now

00:20:58

than we love you now.

00:20:59

May we see breakthrough in our lives

00:21:01

in the specific places You have set for us. Amen.

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