Matt Chandler - All In

If you are a guest with us this morning, let me introduce myself. My name is Matt Chandler, and I’m one of the pastors here at The Village. We’re glad that you’re here. If, at some point in the next hour and 20 minutes—that’s what you can expect; maybe an hour and 15 minutes, though probably not—God stirs up your heart and you want to know more about our family of faith here, there are a couple of ways that you can do that. You can scan the QR code in the seat back in front of you, and we can get to know each other digitally. Or, and this will always be our preference, when the service is over, you can head outside these doors to my left, your right, take a left into that room right there, which is called Connection Central. There are men and women in that room who can answer any questions you might have about us—what we believe, how we practice what we believe—and you can start to feel out whether or not this might ultimately be a place for you to plug in and belong. We don’t really believe in just going to church here; we want to belong to a people. Over a given period of time, this is for the good of our own souls and the glory of God. You’ve shown up on a weekend that’s a little bit different for us. This is the culmination of probably close to four years of work as we’ve prayerfully considered and sought the Lord for what to do on this corner. We have a reputation in town that is by and large positive, but we’ve also been known as a «turnaway» church for the last 20 years. What I mean by that is this can be a hard place to get into. In fact, just to show of hands, how many of you have been turned away before—either your kids or you? You can just look around the room. That’s not good; it’s not good for people to try to move toward the healing power of the Gospel, only to hear there’s no room in the inn. That story ended up beautifully in a manger, but for everyone else, it’s angrily trying to get back out of the parking lot. We have set our face to finally do something about that. What you’ve seen as a five-week public-facing campaign called «Beyond» really has two pieces to it. The first is that we wanted to say, «This is where the Lord’s taking us; this is where He’s leading us, ” and I wanted to ask, „Hey, do you want to come with us on that?“ Knowing that not everyone will want to come with us in that is okay, because there are a lot of great churches around here. We’re not the only place that God is moving and active in our area, but He’s doing some cool stuff here. I just wanted to share the cool things He’s doing and invite you to come with us on this journey. The second piece is this capital campaign to retrofit this corner to make us more of a welcoming home and hopefully, by the grace of God, solve what has been a persistent issue for two decades. We’ve said all along that the goal of the campaign, in particular, is 150. What we meant by that is that 100% of you meet with the Lord and ask Him what He might have you give over a three-year period for this campaign. The 50 refers to the cost of the campaign, but we’ve said since week one that if we nail the 50 and miss the 100, then we’ve lost. This is the weekend where we’re bringing our „yeses“ to the Lord. If you’re a guest, what you’re going to see is that this service is going to be a little different. We’ve got some testimonies lined up; we’re going to sing a bit more. My part is about 15 minutes—not a Matt Chandler 15 minutes, which is about 28; it’s a true 15-minute homily. Then we’re going to respond. What you’ll see is that our people have been given a card about what they might be able to give. You probably got handed one on your way in, and we’re going to ask them to come forward during the service. We’ve got little baskets up here where we’ll drop those cards, and you can participate in as much or as little of that as you want. Let me say this: many of you have already turned in a card, but we want you to participate again today. If you forgot your card or have already turned one in, will you raise your hand real quick so we can get you a card? Please keep that hand up, as our ushers are on their way. I’ll tell you that you’ll need to write „duplicate“ at the top of it or „revised“ so we know this is a duplicate or that you’ve changed something in the first card you submitted.