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Beyond The Message is a weekly podcast that dives deeper into the weekend’s teaching. Released after each Sunday service, it offers thoughtful conversation, added insight, and practical reflection to help our community process and apply what they heard. Whether you're revisiting the message or catching up, this podcast is designed to help you go deeper throughout the week.
Welcome to Beyond the Message, the weekly podcast at Christ Community Chapel, where we dig into the weekly teaching that takes place in our weekend services, apply it to our lives, and go a little bit deeper talking about what God is teaching us. I'm here with my friends Jamie Hewitt, Sara Koons, and Brent Blake. Brent, new to the podcast. If you haven't met Brent, he's one of our pastors. He works on our creative and communications teams. And of course, I'm Jimmy Kozy. Really glad you've joined us. So to start though, we're filming this on Monday, which is unusual for us because yesterday, for the first time in a long time, maybe the second time I've ever seen happen, working at Christ Community Chapel, we canceled weekend services because of snow, which never happens. So, I would call that an adult snow day. So, you know, when I was a kid, obviously you get super excited about snow days as adults. It doesn't happen very often. So my question for you guys is, what is the highlight of your adult snow day? Because I assume you woke up yesterday morning at least anticipating you might need to go to work. And then of course, everything got canceled. So what happened? We hung out in pajamas and watched the service yesterday morning. That was the highlight of the morning. And flashbacks to yesteryear in the midst of the pandemic and being stuck with only a screen. But there was something special about getting to just be our family on the couch, singing and worshiping together and then listening to the sermon. Highlight the whole day, we went on a hike with our kids and then I went down a snowy slide, which was very aggressive. Intentionally or unintentionally? It was intentional. It may have been a mistake, but yes, I was on a playground. It was intentional, but probably a mistake for my nearly 40 year old body. So. Okay, welcome to getting old. Still a highlight though. Brent, speaking of getting old, how was your, snow day? my snow day was good until about 9:30 in the morning. So, I am usually on the other side of the camera from this. And we like to talk about food during this icebreaker. And I always want to comment because I'm a breakfast guy. I love breakfast breakfast. So outside of preparing everything for online only, I made a huge breakfast. Hash brown, sausage, eggs. Man, we were, we were good vibes, you know, watching the sermon. And then I went out for the second time because I'm not one of those guys that waits till the end and shovels. Cause I know what that's of course you gotta work it out over time. And I went out for my second shovel and at the very end something popped in my back and my whole day went way downhill after that. So beginning of the day, great, huge breakfast. End of the day, laying on the floor, can't get up, and my kids just looking at me like they don't know what to do because I'm ginormous and a 13 year old trying to help me off the floor seems like climbing Mount Everest. So it's that existential crisis for your son. Yeah. Okay. I got to watch football. Yeah. And good news, couldn't do any more chores so I paid my neighbor. Yeah, it was just a chill day. It was, we just hung out, we, yeah, we ate, we ate together. We watched. Yeah, a lot of sports. but it was, it's always nice to get out of the, I guess hurry. Right. That feels like, is always happening. So when you get an unexpected day, we're like, wait, we don't have anything to do. It, it, it really does feel truly like restful. Which was nice. Yeah. I would say the same is true for us. We similarly, to what Jamie said, we it. You know, having worked at a church for 15 years now, it's rare that I go to church just with my family, so to speak. And that's kind of what happened yesterday. And it was just very chill and had a really good conversation with my 11 year old daughter after the sermon. Everything from what's a squatter to what does Pastor Zach mean when he says Christianity is dying in America? The difference between Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, modes of baptism. I mean we went, yeah, you. And then my daughter, who is very similar to me, so I understand her when she says things like this. We're about 40 minutes into this conversation and I can see she's done. And so she just looks at me and she says, dad, my attention span is waning. And that was her cue to say, you know what, I'm going to go. Good self awareness. And I was like, cool. We had a good talk. it was a great sermon, Pastor, Zach. We talked. It was continuing our More Life series and he was talking about how God has more for everybody out there. He had four points. they went like this. The first is God has a mission. And so if you recall, he talked about how the idea of big hairy audacious goals or bhags in business and that actually God has a big mission that he is playing out, in the world all around us. He Said the second thing was that it will succeed. So if you look in scripture, revelation makes it clear that every tribe, tongue and nation will be represented in his kingdom, that the, the success of God's mission is guaranteed. It's going to happen. His third point was we can miss it. That there are ways that we as Christians or as the church can miss out on the party as he referred to from the parable, that he, that he referenced, and that we can miss it. And then finally, the fourth point was why would we want to. That there's nothing better than living our lives on mission for Jesus. Of course, if you missed the sermon, you can find it in the description below. Click there. Or any one of hundreds of other places like YouTube or our website. But I just wanted to hear from you all what was your. As you sat and listened to this sermon, which maybe you got to pay more attention to this sermon than anyone in quite some time. What were your takeaways? What really jumped out to you? Yeah, the point about that we can miss it. I like when he talked about there's a party and you don't want to miss out on it. Kind of this idea, it's not very spiritual, but fomo, you know, the fear of missing out. But there is this idea of I do want to be a part of that and it can, and it can pass you by. Like, I do think you have to be an active participant in that. And so even his illustration that the church is not a cruise ship, but a battleship, I really like that because I think it made it feel like, yeah, you are actively part of that's not being served. Yeah, we almost. We often think about FOMO as being caused by following Jesus. I think, at least for me personally, where it's like, I feel like, you know, that's a trust or distrust thing, where whether I agree or believe with what, believe what Jesus is saying is actually going to be the best thing for me. But there's a worse kind of FOMO that we can experience, maybe without even knowing it, that we would miss out on a higher and deeper purpose in our life. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I think just the tone, in some sense of the whole sermon, the challenge and invitation, I think that if we want more, which I think all of us do deep down, subconsciously, we know that things have to be different than the way that we're currently operating. And so this idea of, hey, we don't want to miss it if we want the more life that Jesus is offering, how do we have that? And So I think the sermon really had a deep and powerful charge and challenge and invitation of, saying, where are you at with Jesus mission? And I'm sure we're going to talk more about the details of that over the rest of the podcast, but I think just the call to more. Yeah. And, one of the things I really loved about this sermon in particular, you know, if you know Pastor Zach well, like, this is he. That's his heart. That everything he talked about in this sermon is for, you know, as many people as possible to come to know who Jesus is. That's the. The kind of leader he is. So this felt like to me having known him for some time, it's. It's like he's laying this stuff out that he talks about this all the time. Yeah. It feels like it would be hard to have heard that and just be like, no, thanks, I'm good. I'm just gonna keep. Actually, you know what I think I'm gonna do? Staying where I'm at, what I wanna do. Yeah. So. Yeah, yeah, no, I thought first, thing, Cause we did have our Thursday night service, the Q and A, which I won't talk about because you have to come. We just talked about it. Yeah, yeah, we talk about it, but we don't talk. It's funny, the messages that I get online, like, can you put the Q and A up? And I'm like, nope, you gotta show up for it. So keeps it kind of like Fight Club a little bit. Things don't translate through the screen. Yeah. but the Q and A, I actually told Zach afterwards it was one of my favorite ones because it was. There was a lot going on, which was fun. but I think my favorite part of the sermon, which we're going to talk about here in a little bit, I think is where Zach talked about consumerism a little bit, to Sarah's point, like with the cruise ship and, being a pastor coming out of 2020 and Covid and everything we became, especially in the church you can. It was a great thing because we had to operate in a different way, which was helpful. But everything became accessible out of that. And so we've built this kind of consumer world where I can go find worship over here. Even on a day like yesterday where a lot of churches shut down, I could go watch this church's worship and this church's sermon. You just kind of go the buffet. And, Which is nice that you can find that. But it become. It can become very problematic in your life where you're just picking and choosing what you want from everywhere. Yeah. And so Zach really went, went in on that and I thought it was really helpful because I think we don't realize when we're doing it all the time. Well, it's, we do it in every other area of our life. And so, you know, it makes sense that we would try to apply. I can order any food. That's right. I can customize it. My expectation is if I go to a restaurant and even if there's a dish described on the menu, but I want it differently, they're going to do it for me and they're not going to put. So, yeah, it's interesting. What if there was a restaurant where you couldn't do that? It was like you're only getting. If I had the restaurant, that's. If the chef is good. That's right. Yeah. People would self select. I think for me, we're going to watch a clip in this in a second. But just one of the things that really jumped off the page or the off at me was, the connection between participation in mission and relationship with God. And, you know, he. Zach talked about how some, of the best relationships are built side by side, working on something big together. And I think that just connected something in my brain, about, you know, the idea that if you want a vibrant relationship with God, a big part of that is going to be participation in his mission. So why don't we go ahead and, queue up that clip from the sermon and then we'll talk about it a little bit more. And when God is big and we are small and we are working together, guess what happens? Our neighbors start to say what is going on there? And they start showing up. And when they start showing up, God starts rescuing and including and changing and redeeming and breathing in more life. And all of a sudden we're looking at the Bible, we're looking at our lives, and we're seeing the same thing. Do you want that it begins this simply. God, you have a big, hairy, audacious goal and I want to be part of that. Listen, I hope you've had this experience. The best relationships I've ever had in my life are relationships with people where we are working together to accomplish something great. That's why I love marriage, because my wife and I are partnering together to raise children, to, to serve the church. I love the people I work with because every day we come in trying to figure out how to help, you know, God's love for you and grow in God's love for you. That's why I love working with church planners or our global mission partners and dreaming about ways to get the message of Jesus into neighborhoods and countries where it currently is not. You can form such incredible friendships on a team or in a company or in an organization, because there's something powerful about pulling in the same direction. Did you know church, that's the relationship God wants with you? Yeah. So that. That's the part I was referring to where it just, I think I can speak for myself. You know, sometimes when I think about what it means to build a relationship with God or to grow. So in my relationship with God, I tend to gravitate toward a knowledge acquisition or I should read more, I should pray more. But I think what was insightful for me with that, those comments were just the idea that actually, one of the. One of the most, impactful ways to build a vibrant relationship with God is to jump in and participate in his mission. I'm curious what your reaction to that, if you, if you resonated with that or what you thought when you heard that. Yeah, I think, he talked about the basketball team a little bit. Like. Yeah, the difference between. So this is one of those where it's like, I don't know if that was in 6, 37, 30, or the Q and A, but he said it somewhere. Yeah, yeah. He preaches like jazz. He says, I love it. Spaghetti, you know, Pastor Joe's like a waffle. Everything's in its place, and that's like a spaghetti plate. Anyway, he, The thing that I liked about it, I love sports. So, in football season, I really love football. And we're at the end of the football season, and right now there's a bunch of coaching jobs open. And the thing that I thought of is how we're in a age with social media and everything where everybody's an analyst, right. So everyone can tell you what you're supposed to do or how to do it. but what makes someone great is the person that can implement that rather than just conceptually sit and come up with a plan. And so it's just the difference between everyone having opinion and saying, this is how we should do it, or this is what we should do, but who can go and execute that thing? And so both are important, but anyone can sit in this environment and talk about it. And I think with God and church and mission, and as an ex church planner, especially with church planning, what you do, Jimmy, everybody can say, this is how you'd go start a church. And the thing that I would always tell church planners after doing it is it's one thing to sit in a room and say, this is what our church is going to look like conceptually how the church should be. Yeah, yeah. It's another thing to go out and actually pull that off and it's a lot more difficult. And I think with God's mission, sometimes we get so consumed with saying, this is what it should look like, this is what we should do. And God sometimes being like, go and do it. Yeah. And I think that was Zach's point is like, go and do it. And like building practice and theology and all those things will come with putting your faith into action. So just stick with that for a second. I'm curious because, you know, you referenced church planting. You planted a church, did you find this to be true in your time planting and launching the church that you planted, that being, side by side with God in, in that mission drove you into a more vibrant relationship with Him? And how did that play out for you? Yeah, I think on the pre launch side, I, thought about a lot of things conceptually or opinionated or trying to build things. When you're in it, you have no choice. Either you, you back out and bail or you dig your heels into a deeper level of faith and trust and God opening up the doors to things. I think we, we moved to a location where we knew no one. When we planted literally zero people, God told us to go somewhere and we showed up in a city. So every person that came to our church, we had to meet in some way. And there was a moment, literally the first day we signed the mortgage on our house and I was like, we just ruined our lives. This is the dumbest thing we ever did. Like, we should have not done this. and God's faithfulness, even in that of just opening up opportunity and saying, like, I asked you to move and I'm going to deepen what this looks like for you and it's different for everybody. So my situation will be different than Brandon, who's planning, in Chagrin Falls park, and Jorge. And I think, think what I found is you can build all the systems and all the practice, but once you're in it, God is going to take you to a different depth that you didn't even know or understand. And I found that in all kinds of even coming back here and stepping away from my church plant. I think when you move and take this step of faith, God is going to deepen your understanding of him. And when you deepen your understanding of him, your dependency on him and all those things, it goes directly into Zach's point about becoming small and trusting him. If God is big and you are small, then, you have to trust where he's leading. And when God is big and I am small, I'm going to be m more dependent on him in every single way. And even trying to understand and learn from Him, I think transcending church planning, I think it's true for all of us. I think back to my life personally and long before I became a professional Christian, working at a church or on staff with a ministry. Ministry. there was a season where I was a volunteer in a ministry called Young Life. And I think about myself. I know that I would never have grown in the way that God grew me in those six years if I had not been deeply engaged and intentionally engaged in mission in those ways. And so I even think, for anyone listening to this, wherever you're at, you know, most people listening are not church planners, but just people sitting in a pew on a Thursday or a Sunday. What does this look like for me? And I'd say from my own experience, being engaged somehow intentionally in God's mission is integral to your own growth. I was just reflecting after the sermon in this. I don't know, it may fail as a illustration, but the idea of, like, how do you be healthy? Is like, well, it's diet and exercise, and it's like the idea of somebody being like, well, I'm a diet person. I'm out on exercise. I think that that's irrelevant. Or somebody being like, I only exercise and I don't care at all about. It's like, in order to be healthy, you have to have both. And it would be foolish to, you know, mutually exclude one from the other artificially. Yeah, I was just. I was very much reminded of the verses in, Matthew 22:37 through 39 that says, first and foremost, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind, your soul, your strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself. So he's asking us to do both those things. Right. Because we can't have one without the other. Like, we can't be on mission with God if we don't know God, and we're growing in our discipleship that way. Right. But then when we are, like, it feels like, at least in my mind, like, I have no other choice. But then to know God is to be on mission. Exactly, exactly. So that's. Yeah. Because he Is on mission. Exactly. Yeah. I think, that made me think of, One of the things that tends to happen in Christianity is people will draw what I believe to be a false dichotomy between growth and mission. Or they might say evangelism and discipleship. Brent referred to the basketball, team analogy that Zach made at some point on Thursday night between the hours of 6:30 and 9:30pm and, But the idea behind it is, you know, people, if we think only about growth, and we. We define growth as knowledge and knowing more of the Bible, the analogy goes that that's like a basketball team that is practicing every day but never plays any games, and that. That would be out of balance. My question is what. What do you think contributes to that sort of false dichotomy? Or to. To. Because like Jamie, what you just said a few minutes ago is so true that. That there is. It's. They are inextricably connected, growth and mission. So why. Why do we differentiate them? I think it's easier in some ways to conceptualize, or plan or let's. In the church world, let's just say, like, you can read a million books. Yeah, you could read a book every day. I went through a season when I was. Some people are wired in that way. Yeah. They're like, that's what I want to do. Right. I was. When I was getting my master's, I just wanted to read. And so I consumed and consumed and consumed. And it got to a point where I said, I'm consuming a lot, but I'm not putting it into action because that's. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's easier than going out and doing it. Right. So it was easy for the rich young ruler to come and say, I want to follow you. And then Jesus says, give up everything you own. And it wasn't about the possessions, it was about where your heart is. Right? Yeah. It's not like the rich young ruler had a knowledge gap. I don't understand what God wants me to do. I do understand it. I just don't want to do it because he committed all the commandments. He had done everything. But that's where I think it goes back to. Like, we see God is small and us as big, right? Because then it just turn. It gets turned on its head because then we don't think that God can do the big hairy, audacious thing. Like, we aren't expectant in that. And so I think to me, that's where we get in trouble. So we have to see God as this big God who can do all these things. And we. And again, we want to be part of that. Like, I don't want to miss out on that. I don't want to be the old guy on the porch saying, I wish something crazy had happened. And the other guy's going, wow. I was able to see all these things happen in my lifetime. So I think that has a lot to do with how we see God and how we see ourselves. Yeah. I think Zach talked about the Book of Acts. Right. I'm probably jumping out of order and we have things planned, but, you know, it is what it is. But, you'll never be asked back. That's messed up. The, he talked about the Book of Acts and Right. How we're still like, the Book of Acts doesn't end, we're still living in it. Yeah. And I think sometimes we look backward and we're like, look what the church was doing. Look what was happening. Look how the Holy Spirit was moving. Because you could never read Acts and think, this is boring. Yeah, Right. And all this stuff is happening. And to Sarah's point where we can easily find ourselves looking back and reading and saying, wow, I wish those things would happen now. Like, I wish when I would show up, the Holy Spirit would move or God would move and things would happen. And I want to see miracles. I want to see people saved. I mean, Peter uneducated, no theology class. Like he, huh, followed Jesus around for a few years and he messed up most of the time. Even right before leads, 10,000 people to Jesus. No one told him how to write a three point sermon or give a good illustration or give an invitation. But he had this moment where it was like, I can sit on my knowledge or I can go and do something. Yeah, it's like defining spiritual maturity not as the amount of knowledge that you have, but as the percentage of that that you're actually obedient to and living and then in some way joining in and participating in the mission being the means to maturity. I was actually thinking about this as I was driving in today was Jesus's invitation to his disciples to be a part of mission while he was with them. You know, it's like they clearly did not understand. If you watch them processing, they're figuring out who Jesus is. He is revealing himself to them along the way, but he doesn't wait until it's somehow arrived before he does that. Somehow that was a part of their journey. And that's, I think, the growth and Mission, how they have to be alongside one another. So maybe I'd like to land with this. In the sermon, Zach talked about a cycle that happens. and I think it, it started with God, gets small, then we get big, and then we start fighting, and then they leave. So, how would you challenge, people who are listening to this podcast, people who are part of our church, to intentionally push back and fight against that cycle so that we can all be at the party and participate in the mission that God has for us as individuals and as a church? Yeah, that's, that's a really good question. And I, I, I thought about that quite a bit, just because it felt convicting for myself. And something that I feel like the Lord revealed to me is like, hey, Sarah, you don't, you don't pray with, like, big, hairy, audacious goals. Like, you need to pray with more, tenacity, with expectancy, with saying, like, hey, I, I, sometimes I pray for things that I think maybe I could probably end up, that I could do it anyway, that I could do anyway. Right. Like, I'm not really, I know the answers to the test I'm going to get. Yeah. And so I think there's a part where it's like, no. To truly be dependent on the Lord is to ask for things that I know I can't do on my own. And I would, I would need others to join in with me to do that. So that is something that I feel like, hey, in my prayer life, I need to be praying in ways that probably seem outrageous and maybe even foolish, but in a way that would further the kingdom of God. Yeah. Yeah, I think I, agree with that. I think, praying, one of the things that God has, I think, impressed upon me over the last probably six months is that however passionate, or excited I think I may be about his mission, which, if I'm honest, it wanes and waxes. And, you know, he is always more passionate about it. And so, you know, whether it's church planting Brent referenced, you know, I'm involved in Orchard, our church planting residency and finding church planters is exceptionally difficult. It's the, one of the most challenging positions that we try to recruit for here. But one of the things that God has reminded me again and again is like, I want churches in these neighborhoods more than anybody at this church does. And so, yeah, but, like, believing it and trusting and praying in alignment with it, it's a different kind of thing than saying, like, a prayer like you said, where I'm going to pray for something that I know I'm probably. I'll be able to do that. Yeah. that way I. Yeah. It turns out it's almost like I can check it off the list and be like, yeah. Yeah. I think sometimes we pray small. Oh, yeah. Because we don't really believe, like we say, but we don't really believe God is as big as he is. Yeah. Like, I think of, like, the Old Testament, like, they seem like Lord of the Rings, like, folklore. Right. Things that have happened. But like the story of Joshua where he prays for the sun to stop in the sky so they can win the battle. Like, when's the last time you prayed, for the sun to stop? Never. Like, that big of a prayer. Like, I would never do that. It wouldn't occur to you because you wouldn't believe God would do it because he's. If we're being honest, God is small. Right. Like, we think God can do the little things, but we don't believe he can stop the sun or move or 10,000 people come to Jesus, at least functionally. Like, we maybe intellectually would say, yeah, I believe that God can do any of those things. But that goes back to the basketball thing. Right. Like, it's good in concept, but we don't know how to practice it. Yeah. What would our worship services look like? What would our kids programming and student programming and young adult programming? Like, what would church planning look like? Maybe you pray instead of for two people, for 10 people or 20. Yeah. Like, what if the wall filled up? Like, you praying a big enough prayer to say how many it was? Six. Is it 60, 60 and 30 years. Yeah. What if we did that in 15? Is God big enough to do that? Absolutely. Yeah. I don't know if we really believe that all the time. And it creates a big mess. Right. Like, even with that Peter illustration, our church system would say, like, oh, they came to Jesus. Now they need to go through a class and get baptized and do, like, what do you do with 10,000 people that come to know Jesus? Like, that's crazy in one moment. What if our churches look like that? So it sounds. What I hear you guys saying is the first step to reversing that cycle. And the only step, really, is to find yourself struck by how big and capable and powerful God is. And then the rest of those things are like dominoes that will fall in line and maybe just think the last one where the last point is, they'll stop coming. I do think that there's, an intentionality of having people in mind. It is really hard to ask for God to move with people that you're indifferent towards or don't care about, or you just don't have any relationship with. Correct. And so I think, like, who has God put on your heart? And if you are struggling to have an answer to that question, then maybe that's the problem. And so I do think have people in mind with real names that you know. And if you don't have that, then take a step to, begin building that kind of connection with people that God could be calling you towards. And I think if you're doing those two things at the same time, if you have people to aim at and you're trying to make God big, in the end, he's going to through you. Yeah. Thanks for. I'm going to wrap up. Oh, no, you're good. I just wanted to say there's probably a million things we could talk about in this sermon. I told Pastor Zach afterwards I was. It was one of my favorite sermons I've heard him preach. people really should go watch it, because even, like, the, Because you said we fight and what we want in a church, like, he hit really good on that. And I think when God's big and you're small, those things don't matter. That's right. Because we forget God called us for where we are for a reason. And so you can lay almost anything down when you believe that. So you should go watch it. I think there's so many. We'd be here for an hour if we really talked about it all. An hour's a long time. So thanks for giving your time today. if you missed the sermon, like I said earlier, it's in the description of this episode or it's on our website or YouTube. Make sure you go, check it out. Thanks for tuning in, and we will see you next time.