Catch The Fire Toronto - Live, 11:15AM (September 19th, 2021)

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] hey friends steve long here my wife sandra and i we are the senior leaders of catch the fire church in toronto and it's our privilege to welcome you to be part of our online church family we have thousands of people in southern ontario thousands of people around the world that this is how they do church and so we want to welcome you whether this is your first time or you're a repeat part of catch the fire by watching our meetings being a part of our meetings and friends i want to encourage you don't just watch participate we are purposely doing what we're doing so that you can experience god today the purpose of our church is to help people to encounter god's transforming presence so i want to encourage you during the worship time during the teaching time during the ministry time and there's going to be a couple different ministry times offered participate pretend that you're in the front row of our of our live church meeting and so when they say stand stand if they say put your hand up friends i want to encourage you participate in the meetings and you'll be able to experience god's presence today friends we have lots of things that we offer as a church and for those of you that are considering making catch the fire church your church there's three things that we encourage people to do that sort of get the fullness of our church family and number one is by attending and there's two things that you can be a part of you can be part of every sunday we have a live meeting uh you can watch it on demand as well we have live prayer ministry we have life prophetic we have live healing that takes place every sunday we have live small groups that take place every week you can be a part of all of those communities all of those teams you can be a part of you can serve and that's number two you can serve on these teams you don't have to be in our building to be able to serve you can serve from your home like many of our small group leaders are doing and number three is giving everyone who's part of our church family is encouraged to equally uh sacrifice to equally give to be able to cover all the expenses of our church and we have some incredibly generous people and it's like as all of us do a little we do a lot together so friends expect to meet god today thank you so much for joining us and i want to bless you to encounter god's transforming presence specifically for the people who are watching at home so that they are encouraged to push in and thank you everyone for joining us online those of you in the building welcome this is anderson lima he is the pastor of catch the fire nova hamburger brazil uh eight years ago we started our very first church in uh brazil anderson was leading the school of ministry connected with toronto and they had a project of starting a church as part of the school and so that was eight years ago and now you have a building that seats 350 400 450. 450. i've been there it's good not as big as this but big i know our church family helped to purchase that building anyways eighteen now churches in brazil and part of the council of parts sixteen in brazil and one in ecuador another one in argentina so it's eighteen eighteen all together in south america so uh the reason i have anderson here is after the worship time anderson's going to be the one coming up and doing the the flow time that we have just so you know who he is and yeah so this morning is is uh another sort of first out of lockdown is this is the first sunday that we're doing public baptisms we've done baptisms at people's homes in swimming pools and in hot tubs but this is the first time to be able to do one in our building and i think there's three or four people that are going to be baptized we had one lady in the first meeting so that's going to happen after the first song and david bene from our school of ministry is going to facilitate that anderson is going to come up at the end of the worship time i'm going to come up we have an amazing lady in our church named dr sasha hai and she's going to be sharing as part of the the meeting and if we have time a really good sermon from steve long that's me yep church stand up holy spirit we welcome you here you are our honored guest today and we make room for you father just as if there was a a very famous celebrity we would all try to facilitate that that person would have an amazing experience and so holy spirit we say you're above every name and we welcome you here holy spirit we yield everything that we do to you we have an agenda we thought things through but we're happy to pack it all in if you want to do something different this morning so holy spirit come and be with us those of you that are online you get to do something that the people in the room don't get to do and that is to just belt out your songs as loud as you can and at home the words are going to be in the bottom of the screen just like they are for people in the room and those of us in the room the city of toronto rules are that we're not allowed to sing we are allowed to worship we're allowed to hum we're allowed to say the words to yourself behind your mask we're not stopping worship we're just not able to do the out loud singing and so let's worship the lord mr ben over to you [Music] when you move darkness runs for cover when you move no one's turned away [Music] cause where you are fish turns into praises [Music] where you are no hearts left unchanged [Music] so come move let justice roam like a river there were sheep turnips [Music] when you move the outcast finds a family when you move the orphan finds a home [Music] mercy [Music] so come move let's [Music] lord lead us back to you is [Music] [Music] let every tongue and nation surrender all to you alone jesus [Music] king over generations [Music] let every tongue in nation [Music] so come move let's just roll on like a river there worship turn into revival lord lead us is [Music] king of all generations [Music] nations [Music] nation says [Music] [Music] [Music] lead us back to you [Music] good good good morning church family good morning church family this morning is an exciting morning the morning of celebration we have a few friends who want to get baptized this morning and i want to remind you that baptism is a public declaration in front of men in front of all of us but in front of heaven as well of friends who want to dedicate their life to jesus so they make their way to the front common stage and uh i have two questions for you guys if you want to say your name and tell us why you want to get baptized my name is hiles and damatos and i got baptized years and years and years ago and so much has happened since then and two years ago i nearly died too but um i just saw the oldies passed away all things made me when i go down and come back up that's right come on let's cheer for you make your way here just [Music] so what's your name and why you want to get baptized my name is esther and i want to get baptized because i want to commit my life to god he's sacrificed isn't it amazing dedicating your life to jesus yes make your way here well done my name is abby and i want to be baptized because i want to be a follower of god and i also want to commit my life to god wow i want to dedicate my life to jesus excellent what's your name why do you want to get baptized jonah i want to be baptized because i believe in jesus and i want to serve it come on guys jonah well done so friends as a family we want to celebrate and cheer them up and as we go through the water stretch out your hands towards them pray for them and we're going to sing and worship jesus together so let's do it [Music] lead us back [Music] lead us back [Music] [Music] river there [Music] lead us back [Music] [Music] lead us back to you king of all generations let every tongue and nation surrender to you alone [Music] king [Music] nation surrounded [Applause] [Music] let every tongue [Music] [Music] see you see river there were [Music] [Music] lead us back to you river there were ships [Music] let justice roll on like a river there were ships turning into revival lord leaders lead us back to you lead us back to you lead us back to your [Music] oh lead us back to you jesus [Music] [Music] you're [Music] i want jesus your own love [Music] help me know you [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] help me know you honey you're [Music] [Music] help me know you are near [Music] show us your face help me know you wanna need [Music] all i want [Music] you're [Music] jesus [Music] but you're all i've ever needed [Music] help me know you are new help me know help me know the way comes my soul come awake to hunger [Music] awakened [Music] [Music] spirit of [Music] blow through the caverns to overflow [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] awakened my soul come awake [Music] to hunger [Music] awakened [Music] [Music] you did first [Music] come and wake me from my sleep blow through the caverns spirit of the living god come forth fresh on me come and wake me from my [Music] sleep through the caverns of my soul upon [Applause] [Music] this place let your glory [Music] [Applause] [Music] let your glory let this be your prayer over your room wherever you're standing or sitting right now spirit come in this place [Music] let your glory [Music] [Applause] [Music] fill this room [Music] this place [Music] [Music] [Music] god come forth fresh on me come and wake me from my sleep [Music] [Applause] [Music] god come and wake me from my sleep [Music] come for the fresh on me come away from my sleep blow through the caverns of my soul [Music] to overflow to overflow we welcome you we welcome you spirit spirit of the living god spirit of the living god come and rest upon us we're hungry for more of you [Music] we're hungry for more of you spirit sound rushing wind far out of car fall within holy ghost breathe on us we pray as we repent and turn from sin revival smoldering breath of god fan us into flames cause we need a fresh wind the fragrance of heaven pour your spirit out pour your spirit down [Music] [Music] for hearts that burn with holy feet purify strengthen what remains so we the church you bear your life lamperflame [Music] the fragrance of heaven pour your spirit out pour your spirit out [Music] holy anointing the power of your presence pour your spirit out pour your spirit out to pour your spirit out pour your spirit out pour your spirit out pour your spirit out pour your spirit out pour your spirit out [Music] pour your spirit out pour your spirit out [Music] prophesy and sing we can hear the wind blowing [Music] we can hear the wind blowing [Music] the [Music] we [Music] spirit [Music] the power of your presence [Music] the fragrance of heaven pour your spirit out [Music] pour your spirit out oh [Music] pour [Music] pour your spirit off [Music] [Applause] [Music] measure overflow [Music] [Music] out to pour your spirit out pour your spirit out pour your spirit out come on let's ask him pour pull your spirit out [Music] pour your spirit out pour your spirit out [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] presence [Applause] [Music] when [Music] pour your spirit out pour your spirit out the holy anointing the power of your presence pour your spirit out pour your spirit out just pour your spirit out [Music] pour your spirit eyes [Music] we need your spirit [Music] we need your touch we need yours [Music] that's it folks just trust him just trust him throw your life on him i don't know you're facing just throw your life on him he's good and he's so good and you can we can trust in his goodness we can trust our lives and his goodness and believing that he will be for us [Music] yes jesus just release your spirit just pour out your spirit on us and touch your church torture people touch your children bring your life bring your life rivers of life coming upon us i ask you in jesus name ah just come just come we wait on you jesus we need you we need you we need you so bad we need you [Music] we need you holy spirit take us and by hand and lead us during this time we need your leadership we need your voice speaking to our ears and leading us [Music] during this season not only for us but for the people around us our families our neighbors our friends lead us to have a word to them [Music] to release life into them what an amazing time you're facing right now where the church when the world has no answer and the church has the answer has jesus has the life to give it to them what amazing time that you're facing right now just come jesus just come we need you how we need you we need you [Music] this day september 19th to me it's a really really special day you may be seated if you want it 30 years ago this day very day i was supposed to be in a plane flying from brazil to the u.s to leave there that was my goal i was 17 that time and i was dreaming to live in the u.s have a different life i didn't i didn't know god that time my family didn't know god so we are trying to figure out the ways to live our lives but it was something happened in like 30 years about 30 30 days before the september 9 10 i was talking to my dad and suddenly he came to me and said no you're not going anymore i said what that's my dream that weird everything was paid you know the ticket the house the school everything was paid and said no you're not going so i came to my mom and said mom you should convince him she always did so that's mom's job so mom just talked to him you know and tried to convince him that i should go and weirdly she said no what i didn't know is that that time she was looking for god she was searching for god and she went to a church and in that church she received a prophecy that the whole family will meet jesus soon so she understood that my dad said no god wasn't that you know that was god's business doing something so she started to invite me to go to that church and i didn't like church honestly i didn't like god i didn't understand the whole thing actually to me my concept of christianity was something like this that a really smart guy wrote the bible and a bunch of idiots just follow it that was my concept so i went to church she invited me to go and i said you know what i don't want to go and she said this you know what if you go with me you can have the card later on to go out with your friends so i said well that sounds a good deal just wait there for two hours i don't care and after that i can i'm free to go out so let's do it so it went and when i arrived at the church i started to look around people and why they're crying why they are lifting their hands why are you praying so i try to understand that and there's a part in the service that i hate the most when they welcome all the visitors so they stop the service and they welcome the visitors so shaking hands hugging we are brazilians so we like to hide and i didn't like that because i want to be seen you know i just want to be there for two hours to have my car and as soon as the pastor said hey man i was just vanished you know disappeared but one specific day i looked to a boy i don't know why but it was looking to a boy a five-year-old boy sitting in the front row and of course i was in the last row and i looked to him he started to come through the what to the wild and he was not looking to me but i was looking to him and he came he approached me he looked into my eyes five-year-old boy and he said jesus loves you when he said that something happened to me like god that sees you are you trying to reach me are you trying to talk to me so that really caught my attention the next saturday i decided to go by myself so i went to the church the pastor was preaching it was a young adult service the pastor was preaching and after that he invited people to come to the front to receive jesus and i remember i went there i bent my knees and i made this prayer god if you're real i want to meet you if these things that the pastor is saying is true if it's really real it's the real deal i want to meet you i need you to show me that i need you because i i don't believe [Music] and guys it is hard to say in words i don't know if you can express that in words but something happened inside of me i start to cry and cry and i realize that i really meant jesus not a religion not a theology not a message i met a person a real person i remember when i stood up i look around the world was different i look around and something kind of huge joy inside of my heart to look everybody i remember after that driving so many times i had to park because i was crying so much because i could not see [Music] and it was not bad tears actually was a tears of joy that i found the savior [Music] 30 years ago probably my life if i took that plane this day my life would be different but i remember that time after that experience i prayed god i don't know if i can help in some way but i'd like to give my life to help other people to have the same experience that i had i just had 30 years later i'm still doing that 30 years later i'm in canada in a platform talking about this amazing experience that i had with jesus the guy who changed my life forever and i could not explain another way that man that was the best experience ever 30 years later i'm still in love with him and i don't know about you if you're here or if you're watching us at home if you are in the church someone invited you to come invite you to come here or you're just watching and you kind of related the things that i was facing too [Music] i'd like to encourage you just to pray the same prayer that i did 30 years ago say god if you're real i want to know you for real i want to experience that and i don't know what you're facing i don't know what you're going through and we're really in a weird season where people are looking for something we are emotionally sickness facing anxiety depression and not only people that don't know god i mean even those who know god for some reason i don't know what happened but sometimes we forget that he is real and we try to do our stuff by ourselves you know just on our own trying to solve our problems and you get tired of that trying to solve our own problems forgetting that we have an amazing daddy and we can throw all this into his arms and trust him trust in his goodness trust him in his faithfulness so i don't know about you but i'd like to [Music] encourage you this morning to pray with me and invite him to come if you don't know him pray that prayer if you know him just invite him to come to come in your life to bring you peace to bring you joy to remove this that really heavy yolk that you're facing right now and just have this amazing experience that the bible talks about the peace that exceed our knowledge that things that you cannot comprehend in the midst of the whole crazy world that you're facing right now but you have his peace so i'd like to stand stand up please if you're here in this building and let's pray together let's ask god to come and [Music] like i said in the previous service we're in a moment that we cannot lay hands on people who have so many protocols so basically it's up to us to touch god and it's up to him to touch us so now we're gonna have the real deal you know what i mean it's it's there so the experience that you're gonna have it's your experience with jesus can you imagine that you're about to be touched by god in a moment you're about to be touched by god and he can change your life forever that's amazing that is so amazing so close your eyes [Music] if you were like me that you have so many doubts about god church bible christianity whatever i want to encourage you to do one prayer and say god if you're real i want to know you if you're real i want to know you if this guy up there saying is truth i want to know i want to have that experience and for sure god is going to touch you even in your home even in your house in your car whatever watching it is god going to touch you if you're here and you need [Music] something maybe you're tired for all this and you're in the church for so many years but you're kind of tired oh boy it's a really good time to touch him like the bleeding woman just touch his mantle and suddenly he got something from him [Music] i want to pray for you of course but basically i want to pray with you so just go just go start to touch heavens just touch heavens just touch jesus mantle right now and grab the things that you need throw into his feet all the warriors worries all the heavy yoke that you're facing right now just throw into his feet and rest believing in his goodness believing in his faithfulness father i pray for this amazing church for these folks who are here and for those who are watching on online i ask you holy spirit just touch them just touch them just change their lives forever just touch their bodies just heal their sickness just touch their brains their minds their emotions and bring healing to their emotions in a supernatural way father this morning those who were with just really burning they are just feeling something strong upon them as you bring their peace [Music] remove all this heavy yoke and bring them peace for those who doesn't know you here in this church or even online just touch them right now just touch them right now and and just reveal yourself this real and powerful god that can change us forever jesus we love you we love you i know we can we cannot do too much but [Music] i'd like to encourage you right now just you and god just say to him jesus i love you i love you i love you jesus i love you i love you i love you just look into his face and say i love you second corinthians said that the knowledge of the glory of god is in jesus face so once you look to his face you touch his glory so just worship him jesus one more time i ask you ah just touch these people especially those who never had an amazing experience with you just touch them and give them this an amazing opportunity to know you in jesus name in jesus name thank you anderson those of you that are watching right now and you'd like someone to help you just go the next step and to connect with jesus i wanted you to do one of two things either write in the chat that you just prayed this prayer to meet jesus to give him your life you can type that in the chat and our moderator will be able to connect with you or if you want to go to the link that's on the screen ctf toronto dot com slash get prayer now there's an amazing team of people ready to pray with you right now and help you to connect with jesus and those of you in the room and you're you were feeling the tug of the holy spirit as anderson was praying with us and you're you're saying i just need to have someone pray with me as well i need to absolutely make sure that jesus is my friend he's my savior i got good news we have a team to pray with you right now and they're right over here and so i just like to encourage you while you're standing just to make your way over here come up to the front and you'll see this amazing team right here so that's you and you're in the room i just want you to respond right now this is your time just come on up to the front make your way up here right now please [Music] are there folks this morning you just need someone to partner with you if you're here just come on up yep [Music] yep good if you weren't here at the very beginning anderson pastors catch the fire nova hamburger the very first catch of our church that we had in brazil in the south and uh anderson we have lots of portuguese and brazilians do you want to greet them in portuguese and i'll translate okay i'm not going to translate i was waiting for them we found some we found that what was that just uh you used to say that you know okay celebrate brazil guys so good to see you i do it in portuguese in portuguese [Applause] perfect so what he said what the words that i understood i heard him say mutable which means very good so i think he said first sentence it was very good to be here yeah kind of yeah kind of yeah okay that's not bad and then i heard him say the word brazil and that can be translated to brazil thank you anderson he's here because his daughter is joined our school of ministry so this is really good thank you isabelle for being here and his his first child tim was in our school a year and a half ago and you remember when we had a school of ministry that got caught in the middle of the first lockdown and tim and one of the other students being brazilian could not get home remember the flights were just stopped and so uh oldest son had an extended time in toronto so very very good uh friends couple things for you election monday correct uh how do you vote i'm gonna tell you how you vote here's how you vote you spend five minutes before you vote asking the holy spirit to speak to you and my little criteria is this holy spirit on this ballot because you probably don't know most of the people i'm going to guess like like if you're like me i only i met one of the candidates in my riding i did i did not receive any paper anything from any of the candidates i don't know what happened but i just didn't get anything i met one and uh i think you remember sandra and i told that told you she hunted us down while we were on a walk and we got to minister to her and pray with her which is really really cool anyways here's the prayer friends proverbs 14 36 righteousness exalts a nation so your prayer would be if you don't have a a preference if you haven't heard the holy spirit it's which of these candidates has the most potential to bring righteousness to our nation i think that's the prayer and just let the spirit of god help you and if the if you're thinking it's this person and the holy spirit says it's this person go with the holy spirit be okay perfect how about you stand and we want to bless canada how many of you are eligible voters 18 and over canadians have your you know all that kind of stuff so daddy we're a blessing in the first meeting i read from romans 13 which says that god is the one who raises governments up they work for him in one of the verses it says that they're god's servants and so daddy for all the people that are standing for election we thank you that they put their names forward and daddy we're blessing whichever the government is going to be after tomorrow and daddy we're saying for the leader their cabinet the members of parliament father you can talk to these people you can help those who know you to be strong and courageous in their faith you can help those that don't know you to have god experiences and father just like you spoke to herod through his wife she had a dream about righteousness and about jesus and said be very careful with this man father we're blessing everyone who's running their family their support system around them father may righteousness come on them may there be a mantle of righteousness for everyone who's chosen everyone who's elected and we're saying god bless canada in jesus name amen you may be seated uh we've had a whole bunch of you have been asking about when are we starting friday nights again i have sort of good news the challenge of starting up friday nights again is we simply don't have enough volunteers to be able to do all the logistics that are behind the scenes so that's what my sermon is about this morning but we are going to have a special weekend in two weekends from now october one two and three we're going to have a weekend that we're calling going deeper and john arnott our founding pastor is going to be here friday night 7 p.m october 1st and we're going to have a healing push in for miracles friday night meeting yep worship john and carol or john for sure maybe carol push in for the holy spirit saturday night six hours of non-stop worship from 6 p.m until midnight and we talked two weeks ago about one of the highest values of our church is that we are pursuers of god we're going to do that there's not going to be ministry to you at least we're not planning that this is a time we just come and we pursue god and we push in so you can come anytime between 6 p.m and midnight you can leave if you need to you can stay for the whole time uh no bringing sleeping bags and staying overnight but anyways you can come and we're gonna just push in we also have a retreat that starts on the monday following on the fourth for all the catch to our partner pastors across canada it's going to be in huntsville and the couple that are coordinating that is murray nash smith from catch fire raleigh they're the leaders for all of our churches canada central america south america and i had scheduled them to come and preach on october 3rd way before we put this weekend together so they will be with us and on the sunday morning october 3 is going to be a push-in sunday could be a little bit different i told murray nash if all you want to do is just push we're happy to do that they may have a sermon they may not have a sermon but all that weekend is going to be go deeper are we okay with that perfect good and i think i had one more thing what's my one more thing i got it perfect uh thank you so much church family for being extraordinary givers i just want to say it's just awesome to see the faithfulness of our church family we don't make a big deal of giving well we started we make a big deal of being generous to other people to the lord and we just had a board meeting this past week our truck catched our toronto board we're together and again they're just saying our team are managing steering the money that you give us very very well we're right on budget all the things that we're hoping to do we're able to do so thank you so much for doing that those of you that are new we don't pass the bucket in our meeting what we do is there's a box by the door and you'll see james is sitting at a kiosk right over by the door and almost everyone who gives gives via a phone app called pushpay or online and if you'd like help setting that up that's what james is there to do and for those of you at home on the screen all the different ways that you're able to give so thank you very much for doing that we are in vision month and next sunday is sort of the the big deal and we're going to be sharing a whole bunch of new things with you starting us so sorry next sunday so i want to encourage you to be here or to be watching and we have every sunday we're showing or almost every sunday we're going to show you one of 35 vision statements that we have for what we believe our church is supposed to be in five years to 10 years from now some of these are things we're doing now but we need to get a whole bunch better and so today's one is all about you let's watch thanks for joining us we are in the process of unpacking a number of statements that we've kind of pulled together um through process of prayer and discussion and reading the word and looking at prophetic words over us over the years and all of this kind of stuff to look at what's god destined us to be as a church as a community of believers in the city of toronto and and neighboring cities and areas and and all of that and uh i'm excited because we're talking about the outward journey of us as believers that that we're actually called not just to minister to the law but also to minister to the world and to be kind of the outworking of that so this is just an unscripted time i'm here with stephen sanders as you can see and we want to um just chat through what it means to be um you know influencing and kind of disrupting in some ways our city and our culture and we have this statement as part of our vision that says this we are church filled with god-inspired people who bring disruptive revolutionary impact to every sector of society church filled with god-inspired people who bring disruptive revolutionary impact to every sector of society now this is obviously a vision for the future yeah but it's something that we're already seeing today isn't it why is it important that we actually bring impact to society let me just back up before we say impact the way impact happens is that god speaks to people in our church and they're brave enough to say yes and when they say yes god's favor kicks in god's direction kicks in and now they begin to take their rightful place in the things that god's designed designed them to be so it's one of the big reasons why we talk about faith in our church of how do we hear god's voice and then having the boldness the courage to to step into those things and that's where the breakthroughs come so we have some amazing people in our church that affect all sorts of different things medicine and politics and business and family and education then i met a lady that i didn't know her background and she's a principal of a school and she is navigating this whole uh process of how how does she serve in a lower income community lots of hardships and she's telling me some of the stories and it's like oh my goodness you've been listening to the sermons wow you've been you realize there's a call of god in your life for not just my business of being a principal but of affecting change i'm thinking of um some of the doctors in our church that have become the leading people in their sector yeah corey nadine have a cosmetics face what do you call it plastic surgery kind of they have the largest clinic in canada now thinking of sasha who's one of the leading dietitian doctors for especially with people with obesity and they've risen because they've said yes to to god right god's asked him to step out and they've they've said yes and business people it's just like i love this about our church that people are learning to be bold to say yes and when they say yes god has a place for them i got one more story our city unfortunately has lots of gang violence and a while back there was a story of a birthday party that was taking place five-minute drive from our church and a drive-by shooting and a child at the birthday party was killed tragedy well it just happens that one of the ladies in our church has a call of god on her life to care for the families in that very community in that very building and has been meeting with the parents with the kids it's a lot of single moms in that building and this lady that's her name has been bringing transformation and changing people's lives i love that i i think this is probably one of the statements in this vision that gets me most excited it's it's this kind of missional nature and actually the realization that every every person in the church even children in the church uh actually have a a call of god on their life and an area that he wants them to influence and bring revolutionary impacts to just like jesus you know it came and actually he was pretty revolutionary right he was disruptive in the way that he came into culture into society and i believe this is a call for every person in our church whether they're you know a stay-at-home parent or whether they're in high school or um in you know in a factory job or any kind of environment there is this this call to bring these revolutionary kingdom principles into action isn't there i love disruptive people and i love our people in our church and i just love what god's been doing and i just love the testimonies of the people in this church where god has just said you know this is where i think you should go and and they have just said you know what god we're going to trust you we know our lives have been transformed by you we've seen you work in our lives and so they say yes to god so even when there's all sorts of barriers up all of a sudden favor comes on them the doors begin to open finances begin to flow it's a lot of hard work though you know when you have the favor to be able to go into areas of within the city there it's a lot of hard work but it's fulfilling and so i love watching um people um their lives being fulfilled in terms of their destiny for what god has called them to be i'm excited that you know like you said there's already so many testimonies of this within our congregation well how much more so if we start to get intentional about mentoring one another um about empowering one another and and um you know really helping everyone to see that there is actually opportunity for them to do this within their own families their own spheres of influence i mean i get excited thinking about five years from now that every seat in our church every person who's at home and engaging from home is is bringing this revolutionary kingdom impact to their lives and their world around them amen amen does that sound like church you want to be a part of i mentioned some of the doctors and i mentioned sasha and this is dr sasha hi come on over here she is an amazing lady and had the opportunity to interview her a year and a half ago maybe she has become one of canada's leading doctors for obesity and what i love about sasha is that she's not only caring for people's physical bodies but she is helping to transform people's lives with kingdom principles so let's back up sasha how did you get into medicine how did you get into this did god give you a dream how did how did that happen yeah i think god put it in my heart to be a doctor when i was about 12. that was even before i got baptized at 14. uh so it was a pretty direct route i kind of fast-tracked through all my schooling because i this is what i was supposed to do um thought i was going to be a brain surgeon in africa because that's what you're supposed to do if you want to be the best and that clearly wasn't what god called me to so i finished my medical training in 2008 and i did an internal medicine residency finished that in 2012 and i've been in practice since that time and you are based in oakville burlington we're based in mississauga but i run a multidisciplinary weight management clinic that serves three provinces in canada and we're planning to go global so everything that we do is now online which has been amazing over the past year actually we've really been blessed through through covid it's actually expanded our reach we reach people in rural newfoundland now who otherwise would never be able to access our care so it's pretty cool it's amazing you've helped people in our congregation uh and i've heard some of those stories and and it's really really good friends somehow i was online i don't know what night it was a tuesday or wednesday and in the live feed of some of my friends it just says you know here are the people doing something live and i clicked and here's sasha doing one of her facebook uh broadcasts i guess and talking to people and sasha you were you were preaching about identity issues and you were doing all these kingdom things that the bible talks about and you weren't even focused on on physical things you were dealing with hard things why do you do that yeah i mean firstly it's so neat that we can use the internet i was reading matthew 9 this morning and it talks about jesus went into all of the towns and all of the villages to teach and i'm like that's so cool because now we don't i don't have to travel i just use social media platforms um but so much of what i do is i treat obesity and i treat disordered eating behaviors and a lot of that is actually rooted in shame and self-hatred and you know part of the hallmark of binge eating disorder for example is actually that people suffer from so much shame and so what we do is you know we bring people in for weight loss but that's not what they need they need knowing that they are lovable that they are worthy that they are loved and so we do so much work in their mindset and in their heart to bring healing not only to their physical bodies to but to their hearts and minds as well and so i use my social media to kind of speak truth and speak life um about what we do yeah sasha is married to a doctor who's a surgeon and you have three little kids so you're you're a busy mom and a busy lady how do you sort of get inspiration how do you keep going how do you get new ideas how does that happen yeah yeah we're a busy household for sure my husband's actually a gastroenterologist um our kids are six four and two um i'm i think i'm always learning but the thing is i love what i do every day um i just speak life to people and i see people's hearts and minds being healed so i leave every day and i don't feel like i'm working i i come home every day and i'm like i had the best day like people's lives are changed my husband's always like yeah another great day for you right like i never have a bad day it's always your husband's doing colonoscopies and you're changing people's lives [Laughter] you've uh you have one of the ladies in our church who's an intercessor that is there for your business what does she do yeah so betty ann i don't know if she's at this service but um betty ann we hired her she's a contract employee for the clinic and she's an intercessor for the clinic so she prays for the clinic a certain number of hours each week and then gives me prophetic insights uh and it's been amazing actually she and i pray once a month specifically for the clinic the business my staff uh if we have challenging patients and so we're kind of covering the clinic in prayer which is amazing i've seen so much blessing come out of that she has given me a number of prophetic words about pioneering in my field which is very much what i'm doing um so it's it's been so cool to bring like kingdom into the medical world into into the business world as well last question uh people who are watching in the room right now what's your inspirational thought for them yes absolutely i really want to encourage everyone that um sometimes people hear like oh a physician who's doing these things and like somehow that ex that disqualifies you because you're not an md or you don't have no like letters after your name it's really not true for what i have been called to god needed me to do all of these credentials he doesn't care about any of that it doesn't gain me any points in the kingdom but he needed me for my calling for my sphere of influence to have those things but for you he does he doesn't need any of those things it doesn't matter all all it all that matters is what you said earlier steve is saying yes to god and when we say yes to god then the favor comes so i want to encourage you with that perfect okay those of you that when we when we're watching that video and you're going yeah i'm i'm i'm supposed to be disruptive like good disruptive not not evil but disruptive good disruptive and that just really spoke to you can i get you to stand up and sasha do you mind praying for everyone who stands those of you at home you stand as well we can't see you but you can see us kingdom of god can see you go ahead father i thank you i thank you for this opportunity god i thank you that we can gather corporately and lift up your name and lord it is all about glorifying you it is about glorifying jesus in the earth so let everything that we do let all of our words bring glory to your name and i want to just pray for every person in this room everyone who stood up that they would say yes and lord i know that that takes boldness that takes a lot of courage because we so often struggle with fear of man fear of what are other people gonna think what are other people gonna say people are gonna hate me and so god i pray that our hearts would be so uh firmly planted in jesus that we would say yes um that we would face the criticism that comes face the hatred that comes but know that god we are reaching the people that we are supposed to reach we are reaching our sphere of influence i thank you for great wisdom i thank you for great boldness god i pray i pray for supernatural downloads of ideas and blueprints of new businesses and creative thinking god i think that we can tap into the ultimate resource god you know ways of doing things that we haven't even explored yet and so i thank you for that god i pray that for each and every one in this room today in jesus name amen amen last thing sasha your website yeah so um sasha highmd.com you can find me there that will direct you to all my social media platforms i have a podcast called the high on life podcast i'm on instagram facebook youtube as well sasha highmd.com perfect thank you doctor can we thank sasha i am loving i'm loving the stories the interviews i'm hoping that you realize that what we're trying to do is to inspire our church family in this season of like lockdown's been disruptive in terms of how we do church and how life takes place and as sasha said because of lockdown actually her influences has expanded right across canada and she's got three clinics and clinics in three provinces now so that's an amazing thing if you have your bible acts chapter two we're going to look at the very same passage that we've looked at the last two weeks and if you don't have it memorized it's going to be on the screen in a moment two weeks ago we talked about church is belonging and then last week its church is sharing and today's topic is church is serving and so here's the passage acts chapter 2 verse 42. you see the these first words here it says they devoted themselves who is the they us you me go like this i'm the they yup so the very first church in jerusalem this is a summary about the people of the church not the leaders the people of the church they devoted themselves so what does that mean that means they're all in they're physically involved they're emotionally involved they're spiritually involved they are committed to their local church and here's what it says happened they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to fellowship to the breaking of bread to prayer everyone was filled with art the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles all the believers were together had everything in common they sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need every day they continued together in the temple courts let's just stop right there won't you imagine 3 000 minimum people that became became followers of jesus pentecost sunday they form a brand new entity which jesus calls the church ecclesia is the greek word called out people unique people gathered people and this group meets at nathan phillips square downtown toronto every single day that's church plus they have home meetings have you thought about the logistics of that are they having a worship time well who's in the band are they setting up a sound system every single day at nathan phillips square who's doing that are they having ushers are they having a security team are they having a prayer ministry team for all the ministry the signs and wonders that are taking place who's doing the who's doing all the aftercare it's about to say that people are going to get saved daily who who are those people that are helping those people become disciples is there is there a program is there a course is there is there people that are praying with them like we had today what about the house to house because that's what it goes on to say this they broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts praising god enjoying the favor of all the people and the lord added to their number daily those who are being saved if you take just the first 3 000 people and put them into a small group and let's say that there's 10 in a group that means there was 300 either individuals or couples who were connect leaders they can't facilitate unless there's people who have chosen i'm going to get involved this is my church i'm going to be behind the scenes and facilitating all these different things and so friends that's today's talk is behind all these amazing things that the church was doing are incredible people so i don't know if you noticed but we had a really good band today i don't have i don't know if you've noticed but they were completely different than last week's band and often they're different from week to week it's because we got a whole team and i think it i don't know exactly how many but at one point there was 40 people who took turns on the stage did you notice that when anderson was praying and we said are there people that would like to connect with jesus this morning and we had people go over here did you notice that there was a team of people that were ready to minister to serve did you notice that when the crowd got a little bigger extra people joined did you notice that it's because that group of people are devoted to everyone who's part of this church when this church is selling houses from time to time and caring for each other who's who's looking after the stewardship of all that all that money that's that's given the sharing that's taking place there's a financial team there's ushers there's offering buck bucket holders and collectors friends for this church in the in jerusalem to be able to facilitate large meetings you don't read about it but behind everything is a large group of people that are serving each other and that's our focus this morning and we're going to get real practical in a minute i got two quick little points for you number one church that's us is enabling public meetings and that's one of the things that we see in this passage that the the face of the church was these daily meetings that they were having in the temple courts same as nathan phillips square and then the other thing that they had was these house to house meetings but to be able to do a really good public meeting like i don't i'm sure you've realized that we've got like eight cameras i loved when the baptism was on and the last guy was being baptized and i'm just watching over here on the screen and it was like four different camera angles got him that camera got him somewhere up here there's a camera and that camera got him and these cameras got him and it's like most of those cameras have someone behind them don't know if you know but there's three or four people that are up in the booth upstairs doing the switching doing the directing doing all those different kind of things there's people behind the scenes that are enabling those of you that are watching to be able to watch a live holy spirit meeting that's a good thing those of us in the room we benefited from people registering us this morning people who cleaned every chair before you came in for this meeting every chair was cleaned sanitized from the last meeting that we had people are are serving because they're devoted to catch the fire yep and my challenge this morning is those of you that aren't i'd like you to because we do need you so we'll get to that second thing is spiritual connection these people in this church in jerusalem the very first thing that it says is they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching that to me says to growing to being discipled to learning about god personally making a commitment i'm going to grow i'm going to mature i'm going to become a full-out disciple of jesus and as i'm doing that i'm going to be involved in connecting with people that's the word fellowship i'm going to be involved in in the communion aspect i'm going to take the if i could say it the special opportunities of like baptism and communion i'm going to be fully engaged in these things i understand the depth of these things they were involved in prayer that's what the church did they were all in to everybody growing and then growing together because they they would go to a meeting where largely if i could say it they were watching when they went downtown to nathan phillips square not everyone's watching but a whole bunch of people are watching but when they got to their home groups their connect groups they're doing it all they're coming ready to love on people ready to serve other people ready to be committed to the lives of other people and i am just friends so so grateful we have about 400 people in our church that have a visible tangible serving role we have prayer ministry team and as we say week after week most of the prayer team are not in the building anymore they're at their homes ready for the online group for those of you that are watching right now we have a large prophetic team aren't in the room they did prophetic ministry this morning at 9 00 a.m by appointment we have a healing team that's ready to go and in a few weeks we're hoping to have them in the room praying for people we have youth workers and kids workers and i already talked about the worship team and it's just an amazing group of people and church family if this is your church we would like you to not only feel that you belong not only feel that it's your privilege and responsibility to be sharing in the finances but also to be serving and to be giving your life for other people three practical things number one find a place to serve we're gonna do that in just a moment number two take ownership for the spiritual climate of our church don't come to meetings as a spectator and and think well what are they going to do for me today don't do that come as you're driving holy spirit is there someone i get to give a prophetic word to this morning is there someone that i can just buy their coffee for them this morning if i'm browsing in the bookstore uh is there someone that i can just look and go i think i could buy them a book this morning come prepared to give to be involved in people's lives we take ownership for the spiritual climate and we're going to take responsibility to love our community our streets we're going to be the lighthouses friends in our city dr sasha is talking about in her clinic and all the different things that she's able to do to be able to affect individuals she's a lighthouse she's salt and light in her community in her with all her staff the people that visit her and that's what you and i get to do as well sandra and i live in a cul-de-sac there's actu there's 10 total houses in our cul-de-sac and we've had conversations with almost everybody almost everybody in our cul-de-sac knows that we're pastors that we're followers of jesus and it's interesting that many of the times we have a conversation they begin by saying thank you for praying thank you for doing these different kind of things and we've become the pastors of our cul-de-sac yay that's your job as well care for your city be a representative jesus you are the they yup all right church in the room at home if you've got our church app open your phone open your church app and your church app when you open it up has something that has just been enabled this past week you can see on the very first slide here that there's a section on the church app says join our team do you see that i'd like you to click on that if you're at home and you don't have our church app go to our website and scroll down a little bit to a place that's called connect and you'll see the very same buttons there's a button that says volunteer so when you click that button you get to the second page which is where steve long gets to put in my phone number my gender my birthday etc and then the third slide is all the a number of the different opportunities that steve long can volunteer in and i check the three i'm on three teams i'm a volunteer friends i get paid to be a pastor but i also volunteer and so the three teams that i'm on is the outreach team which this saturday is going to be going to the albion arena and we have since maybe may we've had an outreach almost every single saturday at a vaccination clinic and as people get in line we give out water coffee granola bars and then we've also started having spirit cafe which is when people finish getting their vaccine we say if you got five more minutes can we give you a destiny word which is code for a prophetic word can we do a peace treatment over you which is basically help you to forgive can we uh what else do we do dream interpretation do healing prayers we do those kind of things and they sit down and they have ministry and so the spirit cafe team this saturday is going to be ministering some of the school of ministry students you're going to be helping us i'm also on the greeter team that's why you see me outside hopefully being nice shaking hands i'm not shaking hands bumping hands so i'm on three teams so you can check that and then as you scroll down there there's some legal things and by the way friends i made a little mistake if you see halfway down it says please select the statement that applies to you and i checked two of them i'm only supposed to check one i said i'm over 18 and then i said i'm not over 18. so don't do two just do one so i'm in the over 18. and then at the very bottom of that is a submit and if you go click you can go click right now if you go click once you put your stuff in it's going to give you a summary page and you're going to get an email to very same time to say thank you very much and the process is going to begin to be able to include you on one of those teams church family i think we need 200 extra people to be serving to be able to do all the things that we would like to do well good news up until this meeting began 60 people had already had click so we just need 140 of you that are in the room or watching and i meet my my quota just like the police officers pulling over people for speeding i i don't know if they do that i'm just saying i have a self-imposed quota today to be able to inspire 200 people to say this is my church i'm going to serve in my church i'd like everyone to stand with me please if you already are a person who's serving at catch the fire can i get you to put your hand up real high wave your head friends look around that's a lot of people it's a lot of people about 400 from our church family actively serving and friends can i just say when you choose to serve bible principles for those who serve kick in did you know that people who don't serve have limitations on some of the blessings that god's able to give but the bible says that when you give including giving your time giving your heart giving your skills when you give it's the lord who pours back into your life and can i say a selfish thing to do would be to be a servant for other people because the lord is the one who's going to be blessing you amen let's pray together father i want to thank you for today father i thank you that one of our amazing ladies heisman and then three of our kids from kids church publicly said we're followers of jesus and chose to be baptized in front of family and friends father i want to thank you that people this morning made a choice to push in to jesus to have jesus as a part of their lives father i want to thank you that as a group together we were able to push in for worship we were able to sense your presence and and know that you're with us father i want to thank you that behind the scenes today as a minimum of 50 people that did things behind the scenes to be able to not enable us to join a meeting and father i want to say thank you for each of these people who have devoted themselves to being servants for others caring of others and father i'm praying a selfish prayer but father would you speak to other people even today to hit that button and says submit and holy spirit we want we want to be as a church a blessing to you we want to be a kingdom church that reaches more and more people and so daddy we're asking for your blessing church just put your hands that we're going to switch to being filled with the holy spirit before we dismiss the holy spirit would you come and i just be quiet and just sense the holy spirit coming soon as i said that i could feel the holy spirit all over my hands my hands are tingling right now just feeling the closeness of god with me and god if you're for us who can be against us if you're with us we can be as bold as lions if we're filled with your spirit we can be led by you and daddy i want to echo what we had in the video and what sasha said we want to be a church that says yes to you so holy spirit we're saying yes again what would you like to do in our lives this week who would you like us to minister to this week father most of this week is going to be unscripted for us it's going to just happen and people are going to be there needs are going to be there and daddy if we're going to be the the arms the feet the mouth of jesus we need to say yes and we need to be filled with your holy spirit so spirit of god come right now minister to us we welcome you come come come come and be with us please come and be with us please those of you that are watching we have one more opportunity for you and that is if you go to our website ctf toronto.com get prayer now it's on the screen at the bottom of the screen we have an amazing team i know i say that every week but they are an amazing team of people some of them have been on our prayer team 25 30 years these are mature godly men and women that are able to minister to you to pray healing to flow in the spirit to just listen to your prayer need and and minister to you and to the lord for breakthroughs for you so if you'd like prayer right now uh the prayer room is open for the next half an hour so we'd love you to go there church family in the room we also have a a great prayer team for you this morning and team mark is our captain this morning team leader so prayer ministry team if you don't mind going in with um with mark and if you're on the prophetic team in the room today you're on the spirit cafe team in the room this morning you're in the healing team room this morning and you have 15 20 minutes half an hour to help minister happy for you to join the team and if anyone would like prime minister this morning you're in a minute just be able to follow those folks in there please take your coats purses any of those kind of things with you because you're not going to come back into this room we have another exit door that you're going to head out and so that's going to be available for you so anyone who like prayer begin to make your way this way church family make sure you join us next sunday vision sunday going to be a special day hopefully a couple of good announcements for you and make sure if you haven't pressed the click button the submit button on that on our website and on the church app love to have you serve love to have you get involved so god bless your church we will see you next week take care friends thank you so much for being with us today for our online church we are so glad that you were with us my prayer was that you've had a good experience of meeting god i'm hoping maybe even cried a little bit i'm hoping that you felt the presence of god when the prayers were given for you so we want to bless you today and just to remind your friends one of the best things you can do for us and for you is to press that like button to press that share button and just post this on your social media so that your friends see what you're enjoying and we sort of get the word out and i want to encourage you again that if you feel that you want to be a part of what we're doing at catch the fire three things that you can do be attending regularly be serving all those opportunities you'll see on our website and being a part of our financial contributors so thank you so much god bless you have an amazing day [Music] um [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so do [Music] you

Channel: Catch The Fire Toronto

Views: 1,197

Rating: 4.8857141 out of 5

Keywords: Worship, Praise, Canada, Music, Christian, Spontaneous, Live, Encounter, Presence, Transformation, Church, Production, Broadcast, Stage Design, Musician, Catch The Fire, Christmas, Message, word

Id: nqsb4LnZ8k8

Length: 117min 20sec (7040 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021