Matt Chandler - Our Great Mission

Good morning! This is the Carly family. If you were not blessed to know the Carlys while they were here, they were incredible people. They are currently working with our teams in the Middle East. We just had a team return after spending seven to nine days there, and what the Spirit of God continues to do in that part of the world will blow your mind. The men and women on the ground there would tell us to send more like this over there. As followers of Christ, one of the things we want to do is to join God in His work when we see Him at work.

So, just so you know, I am praying, and we are praying, that there will be dozens of families like this who forsake the comfort of their suburbs and become the tip of the spear as we push back against the wickedness of this world. The things they are witnessing are what my heart longs to see here, and I feel a twinge of jealousy. If the Lord would let me leave this assignment and go have experiences over there, I would do it in a second—sorry, kids! But I have to play my position on the field, and right now that position is right here. I hope that in time, I’ll have one more great adventure with the chance for a good death, rather than just hanging out with you guys in polo shirts. There’s nothing wrong with polo shirts; they fit nicely. I’m just saying I have a vision for my life that I want to fully embrace in time. Right now, it’s here with you wonderful people, and hopefully, one day by the grace of God, He’ll let me go and play.

Now, here’s my role on Celebration Weekend: my role is simply to remind us, and that’s what I’m going to do. But I want to start by making you aware of some things happening behind the scenes this fall. In 2017, we, the elders of this church, began to sense that God was asking us to do things that didn’t make any sense. Namely, we felt we were supposed to roll off all of our campuses to become autonomous churches. By any metric other than obedience to God, this is a foolish pursuit. We are talking millions of dollars in real estate, millions in cash, and thousands of people. We were literally saying we would purposefully become the fastest shrinking church in the United States—this is not the metric by which you judge success in 2020 or 2021. Yet, compelled, we set out to do it.

Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes right now: there is a series of lasts occurring. The Plano campus is now Citizens Church, and they voted 90% to become an autonomous campus. You can’t get Christians to agree on 90% of anything; I think if «Is Jesus Lord?» were posed, it might come in at 86%. These are people who believe in being a gospel light to this community. This is where they shop, where they go to school, where they get their coffee. They want to be gospel lights here, and they voted 90% in favor of it. Dallas is Northway Church, and they voted over 90%. Fort Worth is Redemption Story Church, and they also voted over 90%. Our last transition is happening because, in a couple of months, our Southlake campus will no longer be a campus, and for the first time in almost 20 years, we will be an autonomous local church.

Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes: we had our last central elder meeting. That might not mean much to you, but it has filled this pastor’s heart with joy to know I will never have that meeting again. Can anyone say thank you? This group of elders who have helped shepherd and lead this mega church from all over came together; we had dinner, shared stories, laughed, encouraged one another, hugged, and said, «See you on this side or the next.» We’ll maintain these familial relationships, but this is a significant change.

On top of all that, we’ve been planting churches everywhere: Mosaic in Richardson, East Side in Dallas, Christ Freedom in Louisville, Capital City Church in Austin, Trinity Gospel Church in South Dallas, and Union Church in Brighton, Michigan. We have four or five others ready to roll out. In fact, in a couple of weeks, I’m going to teach and preach on why we plant churches, and then I’m going to ask you for a hundred thousand dollars. I know you can laugh, but it’s coming! This isn’t just aspirational; are you tracking with me when I say we want to plant churches everywhere? That’s not aspirational, we are doing it and actively pursuing it!