Hey everybody, we are so glad that you're here with us today. I love this weekend because we get to slow down, center, pause ourselves, and prepare for what is ahead.

So hopefully you're at home, you're in your pajamas, you're in front of a cozy fire with friends and family, enjoying this experience, this church at home experience that we've designed for you.

Now, maybe some of you are asking the question, like, why are we doing church online when it's a

perfectly good weekend? And I understand that question. So first of all, this is an opportunity

for us to honor our multiple of thousands of volunteers that serve every single weekend here at Saddleback.

You pour out your life, you invest in the next generation, you work in production, you do so

much. So this is a weekend for our volunteers to be at home with their families and celebrate.

And on behalf of our staff, Stacey and I, we just want you to know, we're so grateful for you

for the way that you pour out your life into this church.

You're the backbone of Saddleback Church.

Now, also, this is an opportunity for our staff to be with their families.

So many of them are pouring out on the weekends all year long.

And so to staff spouses and staff kids, Stacy and I just want to tell you, we love you. We hope that

you enjoy this weekend together. So we're just going to the place where you are. We're creating a

great experience for you to be able to connect with God and to be encouraged as we step into the new

year. Now, I love the holidays for multiple reasons. I kind of love this idea where I get to eat

some of my favorite desserts. And then there's a part of my mindset that's like, well, when I get to

January 1, I'm going to reset. It's going to be a new year, new habits, new me. And maybe for some of us,

when we think about moving from one year to the next year, we

kind of think things like, well, I'm just going to leave all the junk in last year.

It's going to be a new May, new year.

But isn't it true sometimes when we transition from one year to the next, we kind of bring

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