Morgan Teruel: Thanks for tuning in to the Sandals Church podcast. Our vision as a church is to be real with ourselves, God, and others. We're glad you're here, and we hope you enjoy this message.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: Hi. Thank you for listening to Salesforce podcast. This is Matt Brown. You're gonna have the opportunity to listen to a speech that I gave at the Hill Teen Center in San Bernardino a couple weeks ago. And so many of you wanted to be present, but couldn't be present.
And so I wanted to you to be able to hear what I had to say about it. It's such an awesome opportunity for us to give and partner with our friends in San Bernardino County to make a difference for teens. So I hope this inspires you and helps you understand why we wanna do this. Thanks so much and God bless.
Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown: This is so good for now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, man. It's so good to be here.
And, just just real quick, because I I know we've we've all got lives and busy days, but Sandals Church was started with a dream, with a vision. And what I talked about, that chairman Ken was talking about today is that we all have a part to play in God's story. And, and that role in God's story is far more important than you know. And God took a young man like me struggling with addiction, struggling with all kinds of issues, And he transformed my life in a local church when a pastor by the name of Greg Laurie spoke and I found out that God loved me. And I'm grateful to that.
And we all play a part and my part is simply calling people to be real. Someone said tonight I can't believe that you always dress like yourself no matter where you go. Which I think was an insult but, but here's what I would say. Even when I'm around politicians I dress like this because who else would I be? I need to be myself and that's that's who I believe Jesus was.
Jesus said the truth will set you free. And that's really the vision of Sandals Church. And so we started in my living room in Riverside, California, eventually making our way to the gym at Cal Baptist. That was actually the successful days. And now there's 14 campuses across the state of California and people all over the world that are listening to this vision to be real.
And today they heard about San Bernardino. All over the world there's people in France and people in China, people in South America that are gonna hear about this project and give to this because they care about what God is doing. And I fell in love with San Bernardino, really through pastor Chris. When I met Chris, he told me the story of this church and just the difficulties that they had faced. And for those of you who don't know, this church burned down to the ground and, their insurance was the same company that insured the 2 towers on 911.
And so when those towers fell, that insurance company went bankrupt and they were unable to pay the the the bills here and they were unable to bring this church back. When I met pastor Chris, this church was in bankruptcy. I tried really hard to negotiate with the bank and they wouldn't negotiate. And so what we decided to do at Sandals Church is we decided to do something very, very different. A lot of people take from San Bernardino.
I challenged our church to give to San Bernardino. Amen? And that's what we did. And so we took over the loan out of bankruptcy and Sandals Church assumed all the debt that this church had. And then we poured in about another 1,000,000 and a half dollars to make this livable.
And what's amazing, it's incredible that people have come back and this is now a community for people to thrive. But here's why I love San Bernardino. San Bernardino is one of the most untapped, talent pools in our state. I do a podcast. It's one of the most successful podcasts, in the Christian world that there is.
And I don't say that to brag. I say that to let you know who my co host is. My co host, amen, is, yes, is Donna Martin. Yes. And Donna is from San Bernardino and she attends this campus.
And here's the thing that you need to know, I picked her because she's the best there is. She's absolutely the best there is and there is so much talent like this in San Bernardino that just needs an opportunity, that just needs a shot, that just needs somebody to believe in them and identify them and say, I think you can do this. I think this is your calling. I think this is your part in God's story. And so I'm just excited to partner with you guys.
And just so you guys know, a lot of people challenge others to give. I'm not that kind of leader. I never ask people to do what I'm not going to do myself. My wife and I will be giving to this. Sandals Church will be giving to this.
We have an event coming up that you can pray for. It's called Giving Tuesday. It's where we talent challenge our church to give over and above for some project that we've identified and we said we wanna give to this. And just to put that into perspective for how you can pray, last year on Giving Tuesday, our church gave over and above on a Tuesday. Right?
I don't know why it's a Tuesday. On a Tuesday, we raised $580,000 for our project last year. Amen? So this year this year, a 100% of what we raise is going to this project. A 100%.
Okay? And here's and here's what I want you to know about me. There are some nonprofits that have offices here. I want you to talk to them. Because when you partner with Sandals Church, we're a different organization to partner with.
There are no strings. There's no hidden games. There's no hidden agenda. We wanna love San Bernardino and we wanna partner with people who wanna love people in San Bernardino. And so just talk to them.
What's it like? What's it like working with? Because I hear all the time, what's the catch? There is no catch. We just love this city.
We just love you. We wanna pour out God's love on this city. Hey. And if that draws people to Sandals Church and they meet Jesus, that's great. If it's just a kid who learns a skill, who can go on to school and improve their lives, that's great too.
That's great too. And so I just want you to know the secret sauce of Sandals Church is that we do this together. It's 14 campuses locking arm and arm. A campus in the San Francisco area, a campus in the Central Valley, 12 campuses in Southern California, Christians all across the world locking arms because we are stronger together. K?
Stronger together and we can do this together. So it's my privilege to be here tonight. And, I just love pastor Chris. He's truly an extraordinary individual and I'm so grateful that you guys would pray about being a part of bringing this teen center because we all know that teens spend the only limit to their success is the people around them, the people that love them, and the people that believe in them them. And that's really their ceiling.
So I look forward to being a part of this. And thank you for being here tonight. Chris, I love you.