Well, I first like to welcome all of those joining us across the city, different campuses,

locations here around Atlanta, across the country, around the world.

It's awesome to be joined up with so many different people today as we're really starting

something new and we're headed into a new season.

Last week, we finished up a series, but we launched a brand new season, this deeper, wider

season, and it's really created

a lot of positive energy and momentum in our churches, in our organization, and our network of

churches, amongst our staff. And I want to talk a little bit about it, because I was having a

conversation with a friend of mine, not long ago, after one of our vision gatherings, and he was

telling me a story about a conversation with

his friend, but it was sort of revealing. At first, I didn't know where the story was going,

because he told me, you know, since the pandemic, he's had this friend for a long time, but since

the pandemic, he's been talking to his friend, who lives in a different city, by the way.

So he has this friend. They're both business leaders. They do some work together, but they've been longtime friends. They're both involved in their churches and really heavily involved, feel called in the marketplace, but really

involved in their churches. And they compare notes and stories all the time and both are part of

really thriving communities of faith. And he started telling his friend recently that, you know,

he's felt a little tension related to his church. And he's telling

me this after this gathering. I was like, oh, gosh, what is this all about? He's like, you know,

and again, this guy's been involved in our churches for a long time, multiple campuses. And, and he said,

yeah, I just feel like since the pandemic, and look, I got lots of grace, lots of things have changed, but it just feels like since the pandemic, you know, we've been coasting. And I was like, really? And he's like, yeah, I just, you know, it's just how I've been

feeling. And he said, when I told my friend that, he said, you know, if you're coasting, you're going

downhill. Which maybe we could just stop the message right there and we could all go home. I was like, that is so good. It's so true, too, because if you're coasting, you're not going uphill, you're not building

...