Welcome to the Bethel Church Sermon of the Week. We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Candace Johnson.

For more information about this podcast and other resources, visit bethel.com.

In our prayer meeting earlier, Nathan Mueller, who is our outreach pastor, he oversees the

holiday feast, but also the Thanksgiving Day feed at the Veterans Center. I don't know how many

people were able to be a part of it, but we guess we fed around 500 people, and he just said

it was just an incredible day, and that his heart was really to create a family atmosphere and there was music

and dancing and as he shared the different things that he was doing I was just overcome with

how much gratitude for his heart for family and I realized that I think that our city is going

to be healed as we learn to embrace each other and create a sense of family for the larger part of our city is going to be healed as we learn to embrace each other and create a sense of family

for the larger part of our city because the poverty and the mental illness is a big struggle for

reading and I believe that a lot of that stuff gets healed in family and so really excited and it happens

to be that that is something I'm going to be talking about today. So I wanted to read our first slide here.

And this is our mission statement for Bethel Church.

I love to talk about it because if this is your church or even if you're visiting, this is a lot, this is a good information for you to know because it's who we are.

And it reads, we are a vibrant family of hope-filled believers.

And I just want you to know that we intentionally added vibrant family because I know we're on a journey and yes, could we get better?

Yes. But is it who we are? Yes. And we are going to get better. And it's not changing.

Eric and I've been in this role for eight and a half years, and it's something

that consistently the Lord just keeps reinforcing. You'll get better at Candace. Try this. Try this. Figure out how to be

a vibrant family in a movement church with a school and ministry, and we're doing it. And if this is your

home church, that's what we're doing, we are a vibrant family and that is not changing

a believers who deeply experienced the love and presence of god we had to put presence in there

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