Hey everybody, thanks for taking time to tune in to the Bridgetown Daily for Tuesday, February 16th.

Today I want to think about this idea. We're in this season as a church where, as we're talking about the future church, who are we?

Who do we want to be when we emerge out of COVID, out of this kind of socially distanced lockdown moment as we begin to gather again as a church?

And we've talked about kind of this prophetic sense that it's time to dream again.

So who do we want to be as individuals, who do we want to be as a church, and then what do we want our city to be like?

And as we think about our city, some have said, like that recent Forbes magazine article, that this could be the picture of what it looks like for a city to die.

And maybe that's the case, but what comes after death in our story, its resurrection.

So what would our city look like resurrected? What would it look like for Portland to be restored and not just to look like it did before, but actually to come back better with justice and mercy?

What if the narrative and what Portland was known for after this year of all the politics and violence and frustration and restaurants closing down?

What if this city was known for something beautiful and better, a place where every man, woman, and child, black, brown, white is honored and there's dignity?

What would it look like for Portland to be resurrected? Because remember, even when Jesus was resurrected, he came back similar, but not the exact same.

Some of his friends didn't even recognize him at first. We want our city to come back different and to come back better.

We want a new story for Portland, but the question is, how do we get there?

If we're dreaming forward about what the church could be, how do we work and how do we put our energy now into what it will look like for the future?

And I would say one of those ways is through prayer and not just prayer, but this idea of intercession, of calling upon God and asking him to move, that he might move his hand in our city to make things better and different.

And it brings me back to this beautiful moment of intercession that you see in Exodus chapter 32.

And if you remember just briefly that story, God has met with Moses on Mount Sinai to give the Ten Commandments.

And while they're up there, Aaron and the rest of the Israelites basically build idols.

They build their little G gods of gold and worship these calves and say, this is your God.

I mean, how embarrassing must that be? They're saying, this is Yahweh who saved you.

These golden calf that they just made in the fire. And while that's happening, God and Moses, up on the mountain, have this conversation.

Verse 9 of Exodus 32, the Lord said, I've seen these people, Moses. They're stiff, necked people.

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