Find Your People

Yes, thanks Spencer and Emma for sharing a little bit of your story. Isn’t that crazy? 11 churches and they stopped at number two. So that’s, we’re so glad to have them here and that video just ties in perfectly with what we’re going to be talking about today.

If you do call Shepherd’s Gate your home and you weren’t able to be here last week or watch online, I do encourage you to go back and watch that message as we’re spending these four weeks in August really just setting up what we believe God has placed on our heart to be our new discipleship method for working with people in the church. And so last week I got to talk a little bit more about Eric Shanburn who’s our discipleship pastor and so he and I are sharing this sermon series. In fact, we’re actually sharing the sermon today.

So you don’t get one pastor, you get two and we haven’t done this in a long time but we got through the nine o’clock with no hiccups, right Eric? So we’re good to go. But if you weren’t here last week, this is basically the case that I made is I don’t think the year starts on January 1st. I think a new year starts every year September 1st.

And none of you sent me a text message or an email and disagreed with that, especially if you have kids. It just seems like this natural progression in our life where everything can kind of start over and you can hit the reset button. I also mentioned last week that churches are now in this cycle of every five years they go through a kind of an awakening and they kind of can feel new and fresh after just a short period of time.

And as I said, we’re right in the midst of explaining and unpacking our new discipleship path. So we’re going to be doing that for the rest of August and then we’ll be right back into the book of Exodus come September, which is really my primary way of discipling the whole church. Myself and our preaching team here is digging into God’s word and helping you understand the truths that are in scripture.

And so the two things that I love to do is preach through a book of the Bible, but also to meet with people individually. And so Eric now on our staff is really in charge of all of the discipleship, the staff that serves with him from kids till death. Till you breathe your last breath.

So he’s got a lot of responsibility. And so this is what we’re going to be looking at today is people. We want to help you find your people.

Next week we want to help you find your place that you would call Shepherds Gate your home church. That you would be proud to call this place your home church. I never understand it why people go to churches if they don’t like the pastor and they don’t like the church.

Like you’re just torturing yourself. There’s churches in every single direction and we don’t want that for anybody that calls Shepherds Gate their home. We want everyone to be excited about what it is that God is doing in this place.

Amen? Amen. All right, got to warm you guys up a little bit. And then finally we’re going to talk about finding your purpose.

I mentioned last week I just got back from Ethiopia and I’ll be talking a little bit more about that trip on that Sunday. So let me ask you this right off the beginning, right off the get-go. Who do you consider your people? You’re doing better than the nine o’clock already.

They were completely silent. I just thought great we have a whole church of people that don’t like people. How about this? This will help you out.

Your immediate family. Is your immediate family your people? It’s okay to say no. Unless you’re sitting next to the person, okay? I truthfully some people have immediate family that are a little wacky.

How about your extended family? Sometimes. Depends on what side of the family, right? How about church family? Have you all found your people here at Shepherd’s Gate? Okay. And then you think about work and school friends.

You’re like, Tim, I don’t connect with anybody at my school. Or if you worked where I worked, you would not want to be friends with any of those people either. How about neighborhood friends? Anybody actually talk to their neighbors and consider them a friend? And then finally this is one depending on a season of life, how much our kids drive our schedules, even our social schedules.

And so as our kids are in sports or activities, it kind of drives the people that we connect with and we become friends with the people that have their kids in the same programs as us. Does any of you have those kind of people in your life? Now, stay with me. Tell me if you think this is true.

Technology has made being connected easier to all those groups. However, our relationships aren’t growing deeper. That there’s a problem in society that we’re growing further and further apart from what God intended us to do and how he intended us to function.

In fact, go back to that chart for a moment. This is what I’m seeing. You can tell me if you agree with this or not.

In our immediate family, it seems like we text message each other instead of talking and family dinners are becoming fewer and fewer. Okay, how about extended family? Instead of actually getting together with our extended family or going, you know, on family reunions or, you know, back in the day people would even have all of their extended family over grandma’s house for, you know, Sunday dinner. Now we just connect with our extended family through social media.

Like that’s our relationship with our extended family. How about church family? We live stream instead of actually show up for in-person worship. And all of you that are watching online, we love you.

We just miss you and really want you to be here with us unless you’re out of town. How about this? Your work-school friends. You can just go to school online or you work remotely and so you’re not really around people.

This is one of my favorite ones. How about our neighborhood friends? I’ve seen people build amazing backyards with trees and bushes so that nobody can look in on what they’re doing in their backyard. God forbid we ever talk to a neighbor in the front yard.

That’s scandalous, isn’t it? That’s why we have automatic garage doors so that you can safely get your vehicle into the garage and shut the door and not have to talk to a soul. I mean, does anyone remember the day and age when they used to put porches on the front of homes and you could sit out there in your lawn chair and it was a great way to stalk your neighbors? Great people watching. Or even the kids activities.

I’ve seen this even with our boys that we have. Instead of actually talking to the parents that you’re surrounded by and with, you’re all looking down on your phone because they give us apps now that track every single step of our children. Like my kid was in baseball and we had this app that tracks every one of his movements and how many times he swung the bat and whether he got strikes or balls and his ERA.

I mean, everything that you get from a major league baseball player, you also get with a 12-year-old because that’s what you need as a parent, right? And what it’s doing is it’s just making us more isolated. We’re not looking up. We’re always looking down.

We’re all going to have neck problems at some point in our lives because we’ve lost this kind of inability to connect with one another. In fact, let me give you some more fun stuff here. In 1990, only 3% of Americans said they had no close friends.

Then in 2021, it jumped to 12%. What happened between 1990 and 2021? Internet and the dumb phone came out and we all became smarter because we got smartphones and more isolated. How about this? In 2025, half of our country is living in isolation, feels left out, or lacks companionship.

So half of every person that you walk into or you associate with or half the people even in our church don’t have somebody else they call a friend, someone that they can actually rely on. And again, God did not merely create us to be connected. He created us to belong.

And he wants us in community. He wants us in his family. And so our desire is for Shepherd’s Gate to be a biblically functioning example of what it is that he actually wants to do in and through us.

Do you agree? All right, because I’m going to walk you through the book of Acts. And I told you last week that I’m a simple man and I love going back to the basics, the simple scriptures that repeat this for us. And whether you’ve been in church your whole life or you just started coming to church, this is where we get these ideas.

This is why we preach the way that we do. Acts is when Jesus has ascended into heaven, okay? So he’s already risen from the dead. He’s appeared to his disciples.

He’s ascended into heaven. He has now given his followers the task of going out and telling others about Jesus. And so we get to see the pattern that they set right from the very beginning.

And it tells us this in Acts chapter 2, the people devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. So they came together and church leaders would teach and instruct them in scriptures, which is what you’re doing right now in this worship service. And then it says, and then they went home and into their basements and they watched the Detroit Lions football games by themselves.

What does it say? The apostles’ teaching and to fellowship. That’s why churches have fellowship halls. We have a west lobby because we’re in the process of expanding and renovating.

And so oftentimes it can feel very claustrophobic out there, but we love the fact that our people stay and connect and talk and rub shoulders with one another, including the staff. The staff is always in the west lobby after the service because we want to be available to you. It says that awe came upon every soul and wonders and signs, God’s performing miracles, prayers are being answered in their midst.

All of the believers were actually together and they willingly shared their resources with those inside and outside of the church, which is what I love about Shepherd’s Gate. We spend a lot of time and a lot of energy serving those outside of our walls in practical ways. We have collections throughout the year.

We do things to help facilitate this and live this out even today. And then it says that every day they continue to meet together in the temple courts. Like every day they showed up for church.

How many want to sign up for that? Anybody? If you guys haven’t met Jeff yet, the guy leading worship, we’re going to honor him at the end of the service and he’s going to have this formal installation today. But man, wouldn’t you like to wake up every morning and just have him lead you in worship over a cup of coffee? I just feel like I could listen to his voice all day every day. I love the way that he sings.

But here they are. This is what they did. They came together.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together. So not only are they gathering as the church, which let’s be honest, a lot of us, it’s difficult to have that rhythm and that routine in our lives of being here every week for an hour, an hour and 10 minutes, let alone they’re actually opening their homes and sharing meals together. And some of you are like, I don’t want to go back to that time period.

In fact, I thought COVID solved that all for us. We don’t even have to be in each other’s homes anymore. Anybody think that? You’re not going to raise your hand.

I know you’re not. And yet we believe that this is when relationships are strengthened. Think of the vulnerability you have to have when you open your home.

Think of the, you know, the message that that sends to somebody else when they’re in your home. Now, again, I just got back from Ethiopia and part of the story was the guy who was my facilitator, who was supposed to walk me through the country, he lives in Grand Rapids. And so he came up with this idea that I would fly from Detroit to Chicago, he would fly from Grand Rapids to Chicago, and then we would have a direct flight from Chicago to Ethiopia.

Here’s the problem. I got to Chicago, and he didn’t. And it was just the two of us.

So then I had to decide if I was going to get on a plane and go to Ethiopia all by myself, which I did. And then I got to the airport in Ethiopia, and I’m a guy that’s not afraid to ask questions. It actually took six different staff people at the airport to help guide me to eventually make it outside, where Ethiopians were there waiting for me.

And I spent the first two and a half days with people that live in the country. I was just going on a vision trip, and that all of a sudden became a mission trip. Here’s the craziest part.

The first meal that we shared together that night, there was three of us, two Ethiopians and myself, they ordered this thing that you share. So there’s this big bowl, and all the food’s just in the middle. And I said, no, I’ll just have my own meal over here.

And they were, they had their hands in there, and they were digging around. And then one actually had his fingers in his hand, and he took his fingers in his hand, and he shoved it into the mouth of the other guy. And then they did exactly what you did.

They started laughing. They said, don’t worry, we’re not going to make you do this. This is how we show friendship and affection in Ethiopia.

Wow. Nuts. Again, I’m just talking about having people in your home, maybe just for appetizers, or for drinks, or whatever the case may be, to get to know people, and to let down your guard, and to actually have people that walk through life with you.

What do they do? They praise God, they enjoy the favor of all the people. Other people see what’s happening with the church, and people say, I want to be part of a community that’s actually full of joy. I want to be part of a community where people actually like each other.

That’s how the church grows, as the Holy Spirit continues to do the work that He does in producing that faith in our hearts and our lives. So let me end by telling you this. We actually want Shepherds Gate to be an axe to church.

You agree? We love you enough that we don’t want you just to come and sit, listen, and leave. There’s plenty of churches that’ll let you do that. There’s churches that you can go, and you can hide in the back, and then leave, and you can spend years not building relationships with anybody else, and we just don’t want that for you.

We don’t believe that that’s what is best for you, and most importantly, we just don’t believe that that’s what God wants for you, or your family as well. And so this is a big part of what Eric’s going to be explaining, and how we feel God is leading to connect more people here at Shepherds Gate. So will you give my good friend, Pastor Eric, which I like to call Professor Eric Shanburn, as he comes at this time.

Before I get to some details, I want to share a story with you. This is from one of my favorite passages of the Bible, one of my favorite stories from the life of Jesus. It’s the story of the paralytic man.

When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home, and many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even at the door, and he was preaching the word to them. Can I get the picture in your head? And they came, bringing him a paralytic man, who was carried by four others. And when they could not get near him, Jesus, because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him.

They raised the roof. They removed the roof. Get that picture in your mind now? When they made an opening in the roof, they let this man down, this paralytic man down.

He was on a bed. They lowered down this bed, and Jesus, seeing their faith, he said to the paralytic man, son, your sins are forgiven. Now, there were some posers there, some of the scribes, some of those who didn’t like Jesus too much.

They were sitting there asking questions in their hearts. What is this man? Why does this man speak like that? He’s blaspheming God. Who can forgive sins but God? Jesus, of course, knew what they were thinking and saying.

And he says to them, why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven, or rise and take up your bed and walk? But that you may know that the Son of Man, talking about himself, has authority to forgive sins. He says to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and immediately picked up his bed, and he went out before them all.

So they were all amazed, and they glorified God, saying, we have never seen anything like this. Don’t you wish you were there? See that? Well, here, maybe this will help you. This picture here to kind of show you what it was like if you’re in the room there.

You see, we all need Christian friends. We all need some friends of faith that are going to carry you and lead you to Jesus. It’s not just a friendship, it’s a little different.

It’s a fellowship. It’s friends that are going to carry and lead you to Jesus. Notice, Jesus forgives this man who was paralyzed after he saw something.

What did he see? Faith. Whose faith did he see? His friends. Isn’t that amazing? Like, Jesus is inspired to, when he sees the faith of the friends of this man, then he acts.

So your faith has power in the life of somebody else. See, God wants to work through you. Your faith in God can work in somebody else’s heart, in somebody else’s life.

It’s kind of amazing. It really blows our mind to think about this. I don’t know what the paralytic’s faith was like.

I don’t know. I imagine, who knows what will come. Maybe he asked questions his whole life.

Why am I paralyzed? Why did this happen to me? I don’t know. Maybe he asked those kind of questions. Maybe you’ve asked those questions before.

But it was Jesus, he saw the faith of his friends. The power of that fellowship, of that group of friends around him who were willing to carry him and lead him to Jesus. That’s what we all need.

And think about it this way. You’re, see, you need that in your life to help you follow Jesus, but you also have the opportunity to be that for somebody else. That’s what we mean when we talk about small groups here.

I’m not talking about pickleball. I’m not talking about large gatherings. I’m talking about, do you have four friends like this in your life right now that you meet with on a regular basis? You read the scriptures together.

You pray together. You know what’s going on in their life. You encourage each other.

That’s what we need. Maybe you need more than four. You might need eight.

This is a picture from the Lord of the Rings. How many have seen the Lord of the Rings? The Fellowship of the Nine. What do they do for Frodo? They surround Frodo and they help Frodo carry his burden, don’t they? And they help him rid his life of this evil that was a result of this ring.

Do you have a friend that’ll carry you to Jesus, that’ll lead you to Jesus? Do you have that in your life? Here’s another example from nature. If you’re a nature person, I’m a nature person. I love trees.

I hug trees. I like trees. Any other tree huggers here? I literally will hug a tree.

I’m weird, I guess. But Jenny and I, my wife Jenny, we went to San Francisco a couple years ago. Anybody been to San Francisco? Beautiful.

When I go, we gotta go see the redwoods when we go to San Francisco. I’ve always wanted to see the redwood trees. They’re the tallest living thing on the planet.

You realize that, right? They are literally the tallest living thing on the planet is the redwood trees. And you can go see them in California. It’s amazing.

They’re super tall. But one thing I learned about when we were going through the redwood forest was how shallow their roots are. It’s amazing.

They’re the tallest thing on earth. They go get to like almost 400 feet high. I mean, it’s crazy.

But their roots go like maybe six feet down. It’s amazing how shallow their roots are. You typically, when you think of a tree, you think of like the opposite thing under the ground, you know, the roots.

It’s like the same distance, but not with redwood trees. So what they do is they grow, the redwood trees, they grow out their roots sideways and they intertwine their roots with the other tree’s roots next to them. So they have this network, and it’s this network of the roots of each other that is what makes them strong.

Isn’t that amazing? That’s what we need. That’s what I need. I need this.

I mean, pastors need this. Let me tell you, it’s not easy as a pastor to develop finding this fellowship, find this group of guys just around you that you can encourage each other and be in that same playing field. It’s not easy.

I actually get that a lot from my fellow pastors. We actually meet together, a lot of us, on a regular basis, and it means a lot to me. That’s why I became a pastor in the LCA.

That’s one of the reasons was I really saw this. I really desired this fellowship of guys who were in ministry together. Do you have this? Have you struggled to find this? You know, sometimes you get in your 30s and 40s and 50s.

People, you know, the guys, they moved away. You know, everyone’s moved across the country. You can’t get the band back together anymore.

That’s one of the purposes of the church, especially this size. If you went to a church of like 30 people, I guess that would be pretty easy to find a small group. You are the small group.

But this is a church of what, over 1,000, 1,500 people call this place home. Lots of people here. It’s hard.

We have to get smaller. And I’m not talking about group. I’m not talking about drumming.

I’m not talking about your serving team. I’m not talking about the women’s Bible study on Wednesday where 120 women get together. This is something different I’m talking to you today about.

What does it look like here for us to have that? Because a lot of you, well, at least half of you probably don’t have this. What does it look like to have this faithful group, this fellowship, this community of Christian friends that helps you become a disciple of Jesus? That’s the purpose. The purpose is, the focus is you growing closer and deeper in your walk and faith in Jesus Christ.

This is my primary role here is to help you find this. And so we’ve created something that I want you to consider today. I want you to step into this today.

Now we do have larger, some other larger gatherings here. You know, we, this is what, three, four, five hundred people on each service. We do have some smaller, larger gatherings that you can get involved in.

We’ve got kids programs, students, young adults have started up. Married couples, we’re starting that right now. We’re going to have something that, an event coming up this, later this fall.

Men’s ministry, women’s ministry, you hear about that right now. Seniors ministry. We have widows that get together.

We have widowers. We have a lot of these larger gatherings. But that’s not what I’m talking about today.

Although those are great and important and you can find your people there too. But we do need to get smaller. So I’m talking about discipleship groups, a group, a fellowship that’s going to help you become like Jesus.

Now over, churches have called this many names. In fact, you’ve had many names for these here. In the past, you’ve called these house churches, I think, or mini church, or home church, or different names like that.

I think right, right now we have what we call life groups, which serve this purpose. So we’ve come up with a new name for you today as we roll out a new version of this. You ready? We’re going to call it small groups.

It’s pretty amazing, very innovative. But seriously, we’re looking, I’m looking, I want 200 of you to sign up. Now when I say sign up, it’s, we have an interest, a small group interest form.

So it basically helps me get to know a little bit about you and what you might be looking for. So I can try to find a group. You might say, well, we just had a baby.

We would love to find another couple here who just had a baby, or two other couples who just had babies. That’d be great, all of us to get together. That’d be amazing.

Well, I’m here to help you find that and to help you guys come together and to develop that close fellowship, that close group that you need, we all need. Now one of the obstacles to this was commitment. Nobody wants to, I don’t know, I got to commit myself to strangers for the rest of my life, a life group? I don’t want to do that.

So we’re going to, we’ve made some changes on this. We’re going to do this in seasons. So really, this first season is just 10 weeks.

I’m going to help put together a bunch of small groups that will meet in a home, or they can meet at church here, or you can meet out in the community for just 10 weeks. You know, you can meet every week and meet every other week, you know, two or three times a month for just 10 weeks. That’s it.

After 10 weeks, if that’s your, if you found your people, awesome. Keep being together. If not, well, we’ll do the next season.

We’ll try again. We’ll keep trying until we get you to find your people, that your group that you want to be around. Now these small groups involve a few things.

Fellowship, it means you’re getting to know each other, you’re praying for each other, you’re learning what you can pray for in each other, and you’re also studying the Bible together and learning about yourself and about how to encourage each other. So that’s the focus. It’s not an activity really, it’s a focus in your spirit, in growth, spiritual growth and knowledge of our Lord and praying for each other, supporting each other, encouraging each other to follow Jesus.

Now some people have said, well, I like that, but I don’t, don’t ask me to teach it. I’m not teaching the, it’s not like, don’t think of it as a Bible study. We have to formally teach it.

There may be some of you who might want to teach it and teach a Bible study, but a lot of you might say, well, if you give me something, I’ll do it. So we will have that as an opportunity too. We will have that provided for those of, for those groups that say, well, we don’t have someone who wants to teach Bible study, but we do have, we will, can facilitate a discussion about something you give us.

So just so you know, it’s low commitment, but it’s also, we’re going to help those of you who don’t have a trained Bible teacher in your group. We’ll help you to develop someone who just can develop some questions and we’ll give you that material too. So there’s a lot of variety here.

We’ll find something that’ll work for you and your group. So how do you do this? What’s the next step? Well, the most important step is you fill out this information form. This is the most important step because otherwise, I don’t know that you’re interested.

Now, some of you are already in a small group. How many are in a, now remember, I’m talking about the kind of group I’m talking, not a pickleball, not a serving team, not a youth group, but this kind of a small group. How many of you meet in somebody’s home in this kind of a small group? See, some of you do here and some of you have been doing that here for a while, but it’s definitely a minority.

And that’s what I want to bring to the rest of you because those of you who have had that, you understand what I’m talking about. Okay, you know exactly what I’m talking about because you’ve experienced it. The rest haven’t yet.

Wouldn’t it be great if they experienced what you’ve experienced? That’s what we want to do here. So we want to encourage you. So you just go to this, you can use your church app on your phone or just go to the website.

Feel free to do that right now if you want. It doesn’t take that long. You can go right to the, if you go to the church app, you just hit groups and you’ll find your way right to the small group.

You click it and you’ll have a little, a little interest form that you’ll fill out. Take you two or three minutes. So that’s the first step.

You can go to the website and do that as well. We’re actually going to have a table out here after church. I’ll be out there and Jen Price, my administrative assistant, will be out there as well at the table.

If you need some assistance in that with your phone or the website or if you just have more questions about it, we have some more details out there as well. I didn’t want to go too far into it today, but we give you enough details. We can come see me at the table as well.

But let me close, let me leave you with this. Next to Sunday worship, this kind of small group is the most important part of you becoming like Jesus. I truly believe that.

See, those who walk with the wise grow wise. That’s from Proverbs. Another great proverb is iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

We’re created to have this. This is how we’re created. God himself is father, son, and holy spirit.

He’s got his love, got his community. He’s created you that way. We need this.

It’s important. It’s the most important thing outside of our worship time together where we receive the body and blood of Christ and we worship together is this small group, you know, eight to ten, eight to twelve people where you get together and you can really enter into that close-knit group, a band of brothers, a sisterhood, or a family, a bunch of families getting together, a small group. It’s the most important thing outside of this Sunday morning.

Tim said, you gotta convince him out of this this week. I’m like, I’m gonna try. How do I convince him, you know? Well, I hope you see in today’s scripture that Jesus even recognizes this.

He recognizes that that group that surrounds you, that their faith has an impact on you, on your life. We all need this and we all need to help others in this too. Not just about you, but it’s also you being a part of that group.

So, I want to encourage you today. Don’t forget this. If you don’t fill it out today, remind yourself this week.

Go to the website. It’ll take you two minutes and let me help you find your fellowship, your group that’ll lead you to Jesus, that’ll carry you to Jesus, that’ll encourage you, that’ll surround you with his love, and I think you’ll experience that joy, that joy and peace and love. You experience that in a small group of other Christians.

Trust me in this. Let’s pray together. Lord, I’m praying for all those who are here today, all those who are at the nine o’clock service.

I know I need this more in my life than I have right now and I’m committing to finding this for me and for my family. Lord, I pray that through your Holy Spirit, you will remind all those who are present today to take a chance, take a risk, to trust that this is what they need in their life. More and more in our society, we need this.

We need to be surrounded by your people, God, so that we can follow you and trust you and grow in our faith and knowledge of you. And it’s all for your glory, the glory of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.