February 2025 Thrive Night

More than anything, God, I pray that the Holy Spirit would fill this room. We roll out the red carpet for you, Lord. We ask you to be here and to come in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

All right, all right. Well, welcome to Vision Night 2025. We're so excited that everyone's here. We know our numbers are low because, you know, hashtag sickness took out a bunch of people. But we're thankful for everybody that did show up tonight.

And we are excited to forecast the vision that we feel like the lor given us for the ministry for this year. As always. Stop looking at me. I'm okay. I promise we'll make that.

We're making it. As always, something that's always on our hearts is we will always give honor where honor is due. And we want to say thank you to pastors Jay and Mel for giving us the opportunity, believing in this ministry. Yeah. Give it up for Pastor.

So grateful for them. They put such high value on the importance of the family unit, building a Christ centered relationship with those in the church. So we're so thankful for them. As Josh and Candace told you guys, last year was our inaugural year for the 2024 Young Families Ministry. It was such a great year.

It was a year that we spent seeking the Lord with the foundational truths for our families and our marriages. Everything pertaining to children, parenting, finances, marriage, intimacy. It was a year that flash mobs and the 90s themed trivia were the highlights of the night. Who came to date night with that stuff? Anybody in this room?

Heck, yeah. Okay, so the majority of you guys did. Okay, y' all just wait to hear what our date nights are for this year. It's gonna be good. And it was also a year that we made room and sometime.

And for some people, it was their first weekend away from their kids ever. Yeah. Or in a long time to have a weekend away for a marriage conference. So it was such a great year. We're so thankful for all of you.

And we know that the Lord has big plans for 2025 and his heart really is for this ministry and strengthening the family unit. Amen. Well said. Okay, we want to take a second and recognize, number one. I want to recognize right back here.

They won a gift card. April and Troy Savage, can you guys wave your hands? They were on our young families leadership team in 2024, in our inaugural year, and they have been promoted, I guess select. I'm not sure how it works. Two elders here in the church and God has chosen to give them some additional responsibilities which we're grateful for.

And they have officially taken those on, so they won't be serving in the capacity for young family leaders. But we want to introduce you guys to the folks. You've already seen some tonight and some you haven't, who are on our young families leadership team. I think we have a slide, but can I get all the young families leadership team just to come up here to the front? I want to just kind of love on y' all for a second.

Introduce everybody. So for. Yeah, give it up for them. Clap. Do a dance.

I'm not sure. So first up to our right here. And your left would be. Of course we have. I'm sorry, guys.

Never mind. Josh and. Sorry, I didn't forget your names. I'm like, where am I at? Josh and Candace, they're here.

And then we have Danny and Laura. And then. I didn't realize how funny you guys were. I said, be funny, but y' all were really funny, so. No, we did.

We're grateful for the fact that the Keanu have joined our team. Naomi and. Sorry, I'm smacking your face, aren't I? They've joined our team, but they all have given us some information about how long they've been at the church. So Josh and Candace have been here for four years at the refuge, married for 15 years, and they've got three kids, David, Nicole, and Everly.

Taylor and Stephanie Brown, who are not here, are also joining us as well. They are part of our team who've joined us for the second year, but they could not be here tonight. Gian and Naomi attended the refuge for about a year and a half, two years, somewhere in that range. Married for 12 years. You guys have, like, 36 kids.

No, I'm kidding. You have three kids. No. Pardon me. Three.

Yeah, four kids. I'm sorry, I'm reading two lines. Four kids. Milo, Luna, Rayma and Ira. So.

And then Danny and Laura. You guys been married for 12 years as well? I said 12 years. For y', all, it's been 10 years. For you, it feels like 12.

Okay, that's helpful. It's been 10 years. I'm sorry, 10 years. For you guys, Danny and Laura has been 12 years. They've got three boys, Pete, Anders, and Connor, and been at the church for about six years or so.

Taylor and Stephanie, like I mentioned before, they've been at the church for seven years, and they have been married for 13 years. And they have Winnie, Darren, and Sabir. So this is our leadership team for 2025. My wife and I are so thrilled to have all of you guys on. Give it up for them one more time guys.

Thank you guys so much.

So we already mentioned the mission statement once. Throw that mission statement back up here just to see marriages and families thrive through biblical instruction, practical guidance and life giving relationships. It's very simple, three prongs. That's what we want to focus on. And everything we want to do flows from that very simple mission statement.

So take it away for next part. Yep. So with 2024 being the inaugural year, we spent time just asking the Lord what He has in store for us for this year. 2024 was a year where we tilled the soil and planted the seeds that established the ministry. As 2025, we look forward to growing deeper roots in the Lord that help mature the family unit produced.

So then fruit is produced. So we've got a couple of different scriptures that we're going to pull from for this year. We're going to start in Colossians 2, verses 6 through 7. And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on Him.

Then your faith will grow strong in the truth that you were taught and you will overflow with thankfulness. The fruit that we hope to produce and mature in Christ is found in Colossians 3, 12, 15. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. If any of you have a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you.

And all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ in your hearts rule in your hearts. Just as members of one body, you were called to peace and be thankful. Amen. So Andrew and I were sitting with Pastor Prabhu, who's our executive pastor for the ministry, and we were forecasting vision.

At the end of last year, we were talking about what we feel like the Lord has given us just for our family specifically. And we're going to challenge all of you guys later to think about what does it look like for you guys to forecast vision for your family. But as we were sitting and we were planning for this year, the Holy Spirit dropped this verse into my mind and I was like, it's Colossians 3. And so I read the verse in our office and we just sat there and I was just amazed at the Lord that there's so many virtues in the scripture from 12 to 15. Kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and peace.

It's these virtues that we're going to implement the entire year. And you're going to see how we're going to integrate all these virtues into every single meeting that we have and every single teaching. It's going to literally be what we thrive on this year. And interestingly enough, if you continue down in Colossians 3, in my Bible, at least it's literally labeled instructions for a Christian household. Amen.

So Colossians 3, 18, 20. Wives, submit to your husbands as a fitting for those who belong to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly. Children, always obey your parents, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not aggravate your children as they become discouraged.

So as we continue on through this year and as we forecast what we feel like the Lord has given us for this year, we're going to show you how we're going to implement all of these virtues and the instructions. And I'm going to remind our children. Yes. That it says in the Bible to always obey your parents. Quit being disobedient, kid.

Always.

We need to highlight and underline that one. I meant to say this before, but as we, as scripture says in Colossians 2, so that as we put down roots, let our roots grow down into Christ, then we're gonna let our lives be built upon him. Where we become rooted at, fruit should then be produced. So just like we sowed seeds in year one for refuge young families, the inaugural year, guys, we didn't know what we were doing then. We still don't know what we're doing now.

Just want you to know that. And up front, we. We're following the voice of the Holy Spirit. But where we put down seed, I believe the Lord wants to water and let roots flow down into that. So with that, I want to show you guys our brand new logo.

You want to see it? Throw that logo up there. Wrong one. That's okay. Though before that.

There we go. So we have a brand new logo of which we have several variations of, but I'm going to explain this. It is an oak tree, and oak trees, of course, they have deep root systems. So it's obviously very simple to imagine why we chose to do this, but it plays great into the idea of Colossians 2 and letting our roots grow down into Christ. So this logo, now that we have a brand new logo, thanks, by the way, to Abby Houston, if you're in this room, very thankful for you.

So this logo, what do you do when you get a logo, you slap it on something. So we want to slap it on a T shirt. So we have brand new T shirts that have been created. The pre order starts today. If you want to get a young family's T shirt, you can.

And the way you can do that is through that QR code right there. They're 21 bucks tonight. They will go up to 25 bucks after tonight. So I want to give you guys a heads up. You can get extra small if you want to put one on a kid, all the way up to 3 XL if you want to get one as well.

So. But those T shirts just say exactly what we want our ministry to be, which is rooted, rooted in something that's important, which would be Christ, as our whole lives should be. And it has Colossians 2. 7 as the scripture you see in the white text there underneath the tree. So we wanted to first announce that there was going to be a logo, that we're trying to take this thing somewhere.

And also that you can actually get some merch if you'd like some. So. Which we are very grateful for that. Yes. And with enough interest, we're going to get children sizes as well.

So yeah, it would make me happy if we were all the dorky matching family. Dorky matching family. I love that. So love it. But as excited as we are for a logo and a T shirt, we're even more excited to share with you guys what the first half of Refuge Young Families is going to look like as far as events.

So if you guys are note takers and or calendar planners, we got a bunch of stuff to throw at you. So we're going to alternate on some of this stuff. Why don't you take the first one? Sure. Yeah.

Okay. So March 28th is going to be our first Refuge Thrive Fellowship night for the year. It's going to be our spring date night and the theme is eating around the world. It is our goal that we're going to have different food stations and we'll literally be eating around the world. We're going to have fun trivia that night.

So come with your stretchy pants on. This is not a night to come with your high waisted jeans. Come with a dress or stretchy pants on. Because we're going to be eating around the world. You will need to register for this event and there will be child care, but you have to register for it.

Right. It will be $10.50 per couple. So do make sure that you guys register. The date nights go really quickly. Till we reach max capacity.

It's always a really fun night that we have a lot of really great turnout and fun events for. And clarification, we're not watching your children, so don't bring them. Oh, so don't bring your children. No, we're not bringing the date night. Childcare is.

You got to hire somebody. So praise God for that. So at least that's it. Right now we're hoping we can get a different solution for that. Actually, that's in the works right now, but that's too soon to mention that.

But that's okay. So 10, 1050 a person come to date Night. It's always fun. The last one we did In September was 90s night, which was a lot of fun. Been a great time with it.

So coming up on April 25th, it's our discipleship night with Pastor Stephanie Petrunick. She is going to bring the. I mean, she's going to bring the heat about spiritual warfare in the home. So many of you ladies actually attend Monday prayer, and so it's nothing new for you. Oh, she's taking it over.

All right, here we go. I'm going to take this over. She's commandeering the ship. I love Pastor Steph, and I am so excited about this one. So as a woman attending mmp, which I know a lot of ladies in here do, we've gone through many series inside the Women's Prayer talking about spiritual warfare and what does it mean to shore up your house to make sure that your walls are strong and tight?

Well, the women are, like, here, but some of the men are down here. Hey, I'm sorry you can't come to mfa. It's fine. I'm the men's pastor. We're going to bring MMP to you.

So we are so excited. Pastor Steph is coming, and she is going to talk all about spiritual warfare in the home. But I'm so excited about her take on it because she's already been through the phase of life that we're in, so she's going to have a really interesting take. Things that maybe she would have done differently now, knowing what she knows when she has kids that don't live in the home, what are the things that maybe she wasn't tight enough on? What are the things she'd absolutely not do now, knowing the information that she knows?

So she's going to bring a really amazing perspective concerning the night. And it's going to be a night full of deliverance and freedom and our first virtue of the year, peace. Will obviously be unpacked and discovered in this night. Amen. She did way better than I was going to do, so that's good.

We love Pastor Steph. There will be childcare at this event. Just like there's childcare for tonight. There's just not a QR code on the screen. But it's open as of right now.

You can go on the. On the church app, the website, and you can register for childcare if you do need that for that thrive night. So this will also be a really great night to invite friends and family, too. And all of our events are always open to people who don't attend the refuge. But if you know of a family that's really struggling spiritually or having a lot of warfare, this would be a really great night because Pastor stuff's really going to talk about the things that would bring in spiritual.

Spiritual warfare in your family. Everything as simple as a TV show to your kids playing with the wrong set of cards. So, yeah, I mean, just call it out. Yep. Okay, everybody get your phone out and then say these words.

Wednesday night. Wednesday night. Wednesday night. Put that next slide up there. All right, Young families has taken over two Wednesday nights in May.

So we got a Wednesday night takeover coming up. That right there, that QR code right there. Get your phone out. I need input from you right now. You can tell us what you want us to talk about, because we're talking about parenting and culture.

Where are you struggling at? What are we dealing with? There's all kinds of stuff you can put on that QR code. As far as responses, I put some ideas on there for you already. As far as things that might be general topics, but things like strong willed children, disciplined kids, what do you do about, hey, blended families, all those kind of things.

We're taking over two Wednesday nights back to back, and in the month of May. So Pastor Steph's coming here in April. We're taking her job in May, which is awesome. So. But we do need you guys to tell your friends if they want to hear anything about a biblical parenting.

What things should we talk about? We want feedback from you. We've got some ideas, but we'd love to hear from you guys now, too. So for those in the room that don't have kids yet, I'd still come to this. I want you to know that, because it might be a good idea to take some pointers about some few things that we've done wrong.

So just want to point that out there and also mention that. Yeah. So in the Wednesday Night services. Like he said, we're going to be talking about parenting and culture. Culture concerning everything.

The toxic world that we are raising our children in. Everything from the agenda that the world is trying to put on us, lgbtq, whatever else is left after that. Culture, the agenda concerning that, how to raise biblical children, godly children in an ungodly world. So that's what we mean about parenting and culture. But we want really specific questions from you guys because it not only will it just be the young family's ministry that we're ministering to, but we're going to be able to minister to the entire Wednesday night service.

So we're really excited about that opportunity. The virtues that we're going to cover those two Wednesday nights are going to be humility, kindness, gentleness, and patience. And you don't have to register for that because Refuge Kids is happening on a Wednesday night. So just come, bring your kids, Bring your whole family. Bring your whole neighborhood.

That sounds great. So speaking of Refuge Kids, In June, on June 20, we're going to have our next Refuge Fellowship night, and it's going to be in collab with Refuge Kids, which is just so amazing that we can blend two ministries together. And it's our heart that as we continue for kids and young families, because without one, there's not another. True. So on June 20, without one, there's not another.

True. So on June 20, we're going to have a family park night where we're going to gather together as a church body, and we're going to have a really fun time together as a family. And if you guys have been around a while, and those that remember our old school ACFs, think what that was like. We'll have hopefully some burgers and dogs, maybe a potluck dinner. But I heard maybe with that, Refuge Kids is going to help to plan some fun games for the kids.

Who knows? You're going to need a bathing suit, so I'll prepare that. We'll see. So that will be fun. So we're really excited about that because it's going to be a fun night, not only just hanging out together as a ministry, but we're going to be able to incorporate our kids in that as well.

And we want to. This is a family ministry. Obviously, your kids right now are in the back with childcare. Thank you, Courtney. But we want them to be involved.

We want them to be involved with what we do. So speaking about family, one of the big things that we've struggled with really, in any ministry, but especially in this Ministry, if you have young kids is some of you guys are a part of a small group. Sorry. Oh, and then in July we're having summer break. So nothing in July.

My bad. Go on vacation. Go on vacation. Small groups have been a challenge for a lot of things. To help mitigate some of that, we are instituting what we are calling monthly park days.

All right. This is really simple. It is zero pressure. You come for as long as you want to come and you leave when you want to leave. All that we're going to do here is create an avenue and a location and a time.

So March 22nd is our first park day. Frank Lisk park, at least right now, unless something falls through the shelter. I want to give you a heads up on that one. So Frank List Park, 11am these are all Saturdays. April 12th at 3pm and then May 10th at 10am These are all opportunities where young family leadership will be present.

We'll make sure that we have some way to kind of have a ground zero for anything we're going to do. And. And then really it is bring your kids, hang out, talk, build community. One of our core principles of this ministry is building life giving relationships. It's hard to do that in small groups because one of the major reasons small groups for this age group and demographic is hard.

Many of them don't have childcare or they don't provide childcare for that. So we're trying to do our best. Or you have 30 kids in a house or you have. Yeah. So and some, some of you guys have done that and some of you guys are doing that.

So praise God for you. You. But we want to add one more thing or one more available option to where hey, we can get together. It's very non. Commit.

Show up when you want to show up and leave when you want to leave. Bring your kids though and we're going to be there. If you have kids, great. If you are married and have no kids, still come and build some community. So Franklin's park is where we're going to do that right now.

The best way to find out if anything were to change about that, put that next slide up there. Kenny, stay connected. Some of you guys got a text message from me maybe a couple of times. Those actually come from me. I write those out and they come from me and you can literally respond on your phone and it will come back to me.

So if you need to text, you can respond. And how you get on the mailing list for that text message or email is right there. Just tell Me, you want to get it, and then your name goes on it. If there's a park date change or a location change or an event coming up, a date night, a thrive night, a whatever night, you will be told about it if you just use that QR code. So that's really important that you understand how we're trying to communicate as broad as possible for stuff.

So it's very, I guess you could say, with young families. Some of y', all, man, your kids pooped on their shoes like, an hour and a half ago. Some of y', all, like, blow out diaper from your kid on the way out the door. I get it. We get it.

We get how hard it is just to get anywhere. So we want you guys to know we're trying to meet everybody's need and understanding. So now, one last piece. We do really, really want to make sure that prayer and communication is a key hallmark of this ministry. Spouses that pray together, even when it's awkward, even when it's difficult, even when you fought in the car on the way over here, spouses that pray together and talk to each other have such a high probability of making it.

And the ones that don't. You get the picture. What we want to do tonight is I want to invite Danny and Laura Christiansen to come up here. They're going to kind of transition us into the last leg of tonight's vision night, which is just taking a few moments of intentionality to cast vision for our own marriages. I'm not going to speak for them, but there's a few things they want to challenge us with tonight that I've asked them to do.

I'm going to turn the mic over to them. So give it up for Daniel.

Thank you. Wasn't that awesome? Who's excited about this year? I just want to say thank you to Pastor Andrew and Sam, because if you've been to some of the meetings that we've had the past year, you can just tell the intentionality and the prayer and how they're seeking the Lord for everything. And I've been really blessed by it, and I know that anyone that's been here has as well.

So thank you very much. Yeah. So, like Pastor Andrew said, what would a vision teaching night be without some practical application? So wanted to encourage you guys to lean in, as Pastor Andrew said, to really talk about what it looks like to cast vision for your own marriage. Maybe this is something you've done before.

Maybe it's something you've never done. So we really wanted to capitalize on this time to allow you guys just to create space. I feel like we're pretty spread out, but if you even need space just to focus on yourselves and your spouse to have this conversation, we recommend that you do so. But really just setting a foundation for what that looks like in your own marriage. I think we have a slide that kind of articulates.

There you go. Exactly what you guys should be talking through. Obviously, all are very, very important. I personally would love to recommend really leaning into number two. If the pictures on the screen of just the leadership team is any indication of how fruitful this audience is, it is very tough to be present.

So capitalize on this time to do so. Talk about what it looks like to be present in your own marriages. Maybe some of those pressures or hurdles that stops you from being present. So take the opportunity to. To pray over each other, too.

As Laura said, we want that to be a hallmark and an anchor as a part of this ministry. Maybe that's common, maybe that's comfortable, maybe it's not. So that's why I said take. Take this opportunity to really lean in and do that together and then speak a blessing over each other. Yeah, I think that's just a huge, vital part, too, of just getting eye to eye.

As Naomi was praying this morning, just talking about the distractions and challenges of the week and the day. I think sometimes it's hard to get present and look each other in the eye as we're just trying to get into the weekend. So use that time tonight. We are honored to serve you guys and to be here. We are so thankful that you took the time to be out.

Be out here on a Friday. We're going to play some soft music, so you guys can take time to do that. And then after that time, Pastors Andrew and Sam will be back up to close us out.