So I want to welcome all of our partner churches all around the country, all around the Atlanta area for sure, our friends down on the south side. And wherever you're watching from, we're just thrilled that you're with us. If you haven't been here in a while, or maybe it's the first time in a long time, we're in the middle of a series, actually the third part of a four-part series entitled, Who Needs Church, where we're answering the question,

who, I just thought you would follow along, yes, who, it's not a trick question.

Yeah, answering the question, who needs church?

And perhaps like me, and we talked about this last, or in the part one,

perhaps like me you would immediately say, oh, I needed church because I needed church,

and perhaps you would even say, oh, I need church, I know who needs church. I need church. But perhaps you would say because you're not a church person anymore and you had not like a not so great church experience. And maybe your response to this question if you're honest. So let me just go ahead and be honest on your behalf. Your response to this question might be, nope, been there, done that,

and I am done with that. I am done with church. And chances are, I don't know, I say this kind of thing

all the time, but I mean it, chances are if we had experienced that, or if we had experienced

what you'd experience in church, I would imagine we would be done with that as well,

whatever that was. But here's the thing. And since I'm a professional, Christian, I'm a pastor,

I can kind of poke a little at this a bit. Okay. Just because a building has a sign out front

that says church on it, it doesn't necessarily mean that the people on the inside

have embraced the kingdom of God message and the kingdom of Christ's message that Jesus came to

deliver to the world, that the church was to export to all the world. It doesn't necessarily

mean that the people on the inside understand what it means to model

the tone and the approach and the posture of the founder of the church, the tone, posture,

and approach of Jesus.

Because the church is not just a gathering of people who believe similar things, although

it's kind of been reduced to that in some of our minds.

But the church is the gathering of Jesus' followers

who actually follow, who actually follow, who do, because doing was what makes the difference.

And Jesus was so clear about that. And the reason the church had such influence in the first,

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