Hey everyone, welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the Bible teaching ministry of Rick Warren. Hey, we're excited you've joined us today as we begin a powerful new series, how the church meets your deepest needs.

Together, we're going to uncover the joy and strength that comes from being a part of God's family.

All right, let's get right to Rick for a message called Why You Absolutely Need a Church

Family.

You know, every Sunday in the United States, about 120 million people go to a church worship

service.

Now let me put that in perspective.

That means more people in America go to a church service on one single weekend, 120 million people, then we'll go and attend every single professional sporting event

in America in an entire year.

Now, today I want to ask the big question.

Why? Why do they do this? What are the benefits? Why are over

two million, excuse me, two billion people around the world, a member of a church family somewhere

in the world? Why do they do this? What are the benefits? What's the payoff? Why get out of bed and go attend the service at a church when you can stay home?

How would you answer that question? You know, having been a pastor for over 40 years, I happen to know that most people who attend to church service have no clear reason or idea why they're there.

Now, I'm sure that some of those millions who are attending church around the world,

not just in America, but in Berlin and in Buenos Aires and in Hong Kong and in Manila and

all the other places where we're reaching out, I'm sure that some people attend out of habit

or out of tradition, or maybe they go out of duty or they went to a church service

out of guilt. Or maybe they went because somebody pressured them to go. Somebody were to ask you,

why are you a part of a church family? What reasons would you give? What would you say? We need to

review who we are and what we are. We need to identify why we do

what we do and what are the purposes of a church family. Now you need to have clearly in your mind

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