Is it time to take a step back and see the bigger picture?

hmm my uh foreign me hello everybody and welcome to crowd church it is my pleasure and privilege to be your host this afternoon and i'm on my own flying solo so no matt edmondson to take the mickey out of today but don't worry he's doing the talk so there'll be plenty of opportunities for that later on so i really want to give you a warm welcome hope you feel welcome today um crowd church is a fabulous online church for perhaps christians or if you're not a christian maybe you're looking for answers to questions maybe you're wanting to find out about how to live that meaningful life then crowd church is for you just before we get started um i just want to mention about a member of frontline we're also part of frontline church based in liverpool and a member of our church called tommy who died this week so just want to acknowledge that and say that our love and prayers go out to tommy's family and he was a fabulous guy really friendly a kind word for everyone and he'll be remembered really really fondly so i don't want to carry on without mentioning that this morning so all this afternoon even i don't even know what time of day is and there isn't even matt here to correct me maybe that's a good thing it's lovely to see you all on the comments i can see lots of people have already commented so that's brilliant thank you so much i need that little encouragement this afternoon and so it's lovely to see oh so many people mark and matt and jenny and even trev people from all over the country and all over the world joining us this afternoon you are really really welcome now you can get in touch with us in lots of different ways there is of course the facebook messages that you're sending us now or on youtube and we should have hopefully magically appearing a whatsapp number somewhere on the screen any second now see if our technical uh technical specialist is working so there we go good job thank you so there's the what's that number so if you want to get in at all then please use that or you know join along with us in the comments we would love to hear from you and of course if you want any prayer or if we can help you in any way then you can contact us as well via that whatsapp number or via our website okay so i need to tell you what is actually happening in crowd church this afternoon well as i said before we've got the brilliant matt edmondson doing the talk in just a little while we've also got some worship today one of my favorite worship songs so that's something really to look forward to later and matt and i will be having a little chat about the talk and drawing out a little bit more afterwards a bit later on and we've got our catch up josh has put together our brilliant catch up as usual and then we'll have a little bit more worship at the end so let's just have a little look oh yes matt has just mentioned that there's some weird thing in facebook at the beginning at the top of the title that linking us to amazon but don't worry we are nothing to do with amazon and that's just a facebook mistake so we do apologize for that but yeah nothing at all to worry about there so who have we got joining us this afternoon we've got a few more people there saying hello hello sharon hello jenny love to see you lovely to see you all this afternoon so as i mentioned before matt is doing the talk and his title for the talk this afternoon is called the big picture now i do have to give a little warning here you know if there are small children in the room or people that are very sensitive you might find the very beginning of matt's talk a little bit disturbing and you'll see why when we go over and join matt for his talk in a minute but please don't be alarmed it is just matt edmondson so there's no need no need to be worried and so let's do that right now shall we let's go across to matt and hear what he's got to share with us today take it away matt do so today we are gonna look at this idea of zooming out the idea of needing to take a step back and to see the bigger picture oh yes we're gonna get into that today so let me set the scene from uh today's passage in mark's gospel okay jesus is in the temple he's chatting with the crowd there's a large crowd around him that he's chatting with when he asks the pharisees a question okay now the pharisees if you've been in some of our previous broadcasts you remember are some of like the key religious leaders of the day okay they were not friends of jesus they were slightly hostile towards him but they were just a small part of the crowd the majority of the crowd as we're going to see a little bit later was really enjoying jesus at this point in time and the conversation right i think they were enjoying the banter as well if i'm honest with you because you know that's what i would do so what did jesus ask the pharisees right he's in the is in this is in the temple there's a large crowd and he asks them a question what was the question he asked them well to answer this we are going to have to look at matthew's gospel okay and in matthew's gospel where he accounts this story in chapter 22 verse 41 jesus asks what do you think about the christ whose son is he they the pharisees said to him the son of david okay so this is a question now the irony is not lost on me here because if we were to just look at the story in mark's gospel we would miss this particular detail right mark doesn't record the question that jesus asked the pharisees this initial so by taking a step back by zooming out and seeing the bigger picture uh by looking at both accounts of the story and not just focusing in on the details of one we get a deeper understanding of what's happening i do wonder you know if god engineered it this way just so we could understand this lesson of zooming out today i don't know i'm not saying one way or the other i'm just saying the irony of it is not lost on me okay so this idea this idea of zooming out and getting the bigger picture uh is something that i think we all need to take account of um you know detectives use it don't they uh when they go to a crime scene they don't just ask one person they look for as many eyewitnesses as possible so they can get a better understanding of what happens right they zoom out the account of just one person can be quite biased they want more data more information they zoom out and and that's the power of this thing and actually when we look for example at the evidence of christianity if we take the approach of a detective we will see that there were a lot of witnesses to the life and resurrection of christ probably more so than any other historical figure it's one of the things i love about my christian faith that yes it is about personal belief and my personal experience and relationship with god but much more than that it stands up to scrutiny you know my mind is as engaged as my as my heart is with my faith it's not i don't have to switch my mind off because it all doesn't make sense i don't know there is evidence there you know when we're willing to search for it and by zooming out and seeing the bigger picture we can find it so jesus asked them what do you think about the christ now this for me is such a great question now do you watching this live stream have any thoughts on this matter do you have an opinion where are you at right now with this idea of jesus being the christ now we covered this idea of the christ much more in a talk we did back in may called jesus asks who do you say i am it's a question that jesus asked peter one of his disciples and this sort of conversation happens and in that talk we looked at what does this word christ mean because we talked about how christ is not jesus's last name uh it's it's important to realize this right that christ is in fact his title it means messiah the chosen one the anointed one and and so we have to sort of understand what was jesus chose to do and what was he anointed to and we talked about how he is good news to the poor he is freedom for those in prison he heals the blind and sets free those that are oppressed and proclaims god's blessing on all of us right and it's an amazing thing uh when we start to understand what christ means that the christ brings to humanity true freedom i mean real freedom not the pretend nonsense that we sometimes mistake for it but real true freedom and that means having the ability to choose our fate to choose whether or not we journey with christ and to choose whether or not we live out the meaningful life that he has for us but what do you think about that what do you think about jesus being the christ now i appreciate i'm pushing here a little bit i'm asking you the question a lot but you know what that's okay i'm okay with that because you know this is church after all and where else could we talk about this you know we want church certainly crowd church we want crowd church to be a safe space for you and i to explore the christian faith to ask those questions to to get into it and part of that exploration part of that exploring is knowing where we are right now at this particular point where am i at with jesus i mean be totally honest with yourself you know god can handle it uh he's he's interested in what you think about him not some kind of pretense just genuinely honestly where are you at right now with your journey with christ so let me maybe phrase this question a little bit differently let's do this on a scale of one to ten one being as far away from god as you could possibly get to 10 being i don't know apostle paul kind of status dude i mean so close to god uh that you've kind of written two-thirds of the new testament on that scale of one to ten where about are you whereabouts are you on that scale just have a little think about that there's no right answer there is no wrong answer there is only the truth the answer be honest with yourself because maybe for some of you you're out of two or a three um you would definitely not call yourself a christian you've kind of tuned into this because you came across it on facebook or youtube uh or you've been coming along for a few weeks and you're a little bit intrigued right you have this sort of base level of intrigue about jesus who was he why are these christians so uh so sure that you know jesus is the christ and all that sort of stuff so you've got a little bit a little bit of intrigue and but you're still quite low on the scale or maybe you're a seven or an eight i've been a chris christian for many many years i don't know i don't know where you are at but what my goal here is my hope for crowd church is that if you're at a two we can help you get to a three and then we can help you maybe get to a four in that journey the same as if you're a seven how can we help you get to an eight right that in effect is our vision it's our mission in a nutshell right there we are here to help you journey with christ now how do we do that well we started off with the live streams and we've been going with them for you know almost a year now uh we're planning more content for the website we're going to be starting midweek groups fairly soon and there's a whole lot more in the pipeline let me tell you to help you at your various stages with but for now the best advice i can give you and can i encourage you to do so is just keep coming back to the live stream just keep watching keep asking your questions keep thinking about this jesus be inspired about him right i mean do the usual stuff subscribe and you know like and all that sort of good stuff on facebook and youtube to stay in touch with what's going on because let me tell you jesus is definitely worth it yes he is so what do you think about the christ jesus asked but then he also asked whose son is he and they replied to him the son of david the son of david what does that mean because you know this is actually quite a popular way to describe jesus in the new testament well basically it is a messianic title so when people referred to jesus as the son of david they meant that he was the long-awaited deliverer that you know the fulfillment of all of these old testament prophecies in effect that he is the messiah the christ and that ties in with jesus's question why do the religious leaders let me read this properly why do the teachers uh of religious law claim that messiah is the son of david so jesus here is acknowledging it but it's important to understand that he's not challenging this title but what he is challenging is that he is only the son of david because you see if jesus was only the son of david then he was only ever going to be human and that's what he points out with his answer right and it's this detail that jesus wants his listeners in the crowd to zoom out from right just to take a step back they were focused in the pharisees were focused in on this one specific idea that he had to be the son of david but as a result they were missing a much bigger picture about jesus right that jesus is much more than just the son of david that he is much more than just a man he is much more than a good man or a holy man and jesus points this out how can the messiah just be the son of david when even david called the messiah lord that was his response that's what he asked them okay if i translate that into modern day vernacular he's like guys listen zoom out look at the bigger picture here stop just focusing on this one detail because it doesn't make sense to do so zoom out see the bigger picture and put all of this in context so what were they missing about jesus what were they not zooming out for well uh jesus asked them two questions doesn't he he says what do you think and the second one is whose son is he and it is this question that they are missing out on right you see right at the beginning of our study in mark's gospel i mean right back way back uh back in chapter one verse one uh mark says this the beginning of the good news about jesus the messiah the son of god and this is the point that mark is trying to make throughout the whole gospel of mark that jesus is in fact the son of god now yes jesus he is the son of david that's his messianic title but he's more than that jesus is the christ he's the messiah but he is also the son of god and it's a huge and bold claim it's a massive bigger picture that jesus is asking us to zoom out and see as i'm sure you would agree jesus being the son of god is a claim that is central to the and has probably been one of the most misunderstood and debated propositions in the last 2000 years so the bible when referring to jesus as the son of god it's talking about jesus and his divinity the divinity of god and for that well for that we have to get into the trinity this idea of the god the father god the son and god the holy spirit and this is again you know let's zoom out i mean this is massive zoom out isn't it because to see jesus without seeing him in the context of the trinity misses one of the key points of the new testament now john 3 16 is perhaps the most well-known verse in the bible and it tells us that god so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life god so loved the world that he gave his son god's son part of that trinity part of himself now to many people this doesn't make sense right because if god is great he wouldn't come and get involved in the mess of humanity would he no no he just wouldn't do that he certainly wouldn't die on a cross because that would be a huge sign of weakness and god is great he is not weak okay and so god would probably not do what the christian faith would say that he did 2000 years ago and can i say right that if you are at the start of your christian journey if you're that kind of two three four five and you've you've yet to make that that sort of um decision that actually you know you're going to do this properly as a christian you're going to have a lifestyle of being being a christ follower on that christ journey you're going to have to wrestle with these two questions to get to that stage right and to be fair two questions you're going to have to constantly wrestle with is jesus the christ and is he the son of these are the two questions you have to find out the answers to right you see jesus says the christ is the messiah he is the one that came to set people free he was the one that came to break us free from the oppression and to bring the healing but he did this as the son of god and this is important he didn't do this as just a mere human he did this as someone who was fully human but fully divine god at the same time it's what the bible calls a mystery for very good reason right because it is a mystery um that yes god is great and god is awesome and he is loving and he does actually get involved with humanity he takes part in the pain and the suffering not because he is weak but on the contrary because he is strong and strong in his love for mankind and humanity that god loves you and he loves me and he loves the world so much that he did come that he did get involved that he did die and that he did raise from the dead and in that resurrection for those that believe as john said there is a new start a new hope a new beginning a meaningful life in him i mean this it's amazing isn't it really and the just the just the joy and the excitement in me when i think about it is insane and i wish i could communicate that through the camera i wish you could sense that and understand and as we grow in our understanding of jesus being the christ and the son of god and that he came and died so that i could live is just oh i mean it's wow stuff right and that's why mark tells us after jesus brings this issue up right he's talking he's asking the question to the pharisees and he's kind of correcting them zoom out guys see this in the bigger picture it says the large crowd listened to him with great delight yeah no kidding right because this is stuff that they'd never heard before everybody just thought god was mad at them that god didn't care right but they were delighted the christian faith is delightful it isn't easy but it is delightful jesus is delightful now let's be real here because not everybody that was listening to jesus talking was delighted with what he was saying right i mean we've we've mentioned about the pharisees they weren't fans of him no no they had a few issues jesus and the pharisees and we're going to see later how some of the religious leaders plotted to kill him and it's amazing to me how different people can listen to the same message and take different things out of it it's why the police you know going back to the detectives they want to question multiple eyewitnesses as we see things and hear things we pick things out of it and somebody else over there will pick something else and collectively we get the whole picture but when we just focus in on these one things all we ever get is what we've taken out of it right and it's easy to do isn't it we can focus in just on these things and it becomes our thing when we do it's how we interpret the world we do that with our own worldview you know the the lens in which we we view life in which we do interpret the world we interpret what is said and done through our own political ideas our own theology our own life philosophy our own experiences and it becomes our thing and it stops us zooming out and seeing the bigger picture you know the truth that god in heaven came down and rescued mankind because of his great love for us boom right there i mean mike drop moment so my question is is it time for you to start to zoom out and see the bigger picture are you too zoomed in on science for example i know many people are i literally get emails every week from someone who will say to me something like um about this christian thing uh yeah the science has disproved it all hasn't it science has proven there's no god now let me be clear i am a big fan of science love science love the study of science but if you but if if that's all you see you miss the bigger picture so if you zoom out just a little bit then you will realize that if science has disproved god then you would never ever find a christian scientist anywhere in the world yet the truth is a disproportionate number of scientists are christians that faith is the very reason a lot of study science and when we zoom out we see a different picture a bigger picture or maybe you're the other way around maybe you know you're the kind of person that thinks that science is from the devil and cannot be trusted but the same argument applies isn't it is if if that is true then you could not say you could be a christian and be a scientist but we need to zoom out we need to see the bigger picture and when we do jesus can actually change your life absolutely no doubt are you too zoomed in on your point of view right this is an ouch moment so convinced that you are right that you cannot see the point of view of the person next to you zoom out and let god show you a bigger picture now this was brought home to me recently uh just before recording this message i was on a business call and actually i needed to zoom out i was focused in too much on some detail and actually when we started to zoom out see a bigger picture man alive did we have a fascinating conversation that could potentially be very very fruitful for my company right the power of zooming out not being so zoomed in on one particular idea or my own particular way of thinking are you too zoomed in on your lifestyle i mean you may have found a way to live that works for you and you're at the center of it but when you zoom out you see uh actually with your own eyes that maybe there's a little bit of selfishness there or maybe it's the other way around maybe you're so zoomed in on what other people think on their lives on their needs and what they say about you that you don't see a bigger picture about yourself and maybe your body is screaming for you to rest and to uh be still and to pray or maybe to exercise but you're so zoomed in on doing stuff for other people you don't see that are you so zoomed in on covid that you are full of fear and anxiety is it time to stop zoom out and see the bigger picture of god's grace and his ability to cope with your concerns and worries and still have a plan for your life i don't know right and if i'm honest the truth is the last thing i want to do is try and go through some kind of horoscope list you know some horoscope type approach to figure all this out but what but i do want to know what do you think right what's going on in your life at the moment where do you need to zoom out and see a bigger picture now as we go into our time of worship let me ask you what about jesus what do you think about the christ whose son is he two key questions right do you need to zoom out and see a bigger about who jesus really is brilliant thank you matt lots of really really good questions there lots and lots to think about and we're going to go into a time of worship to give us some time actually really to unpack some of these ideas and to think about it and this is one of my favorite worship songs this is reckless love and um really really think about the lyrics as you're listening or as you're singing along there's one part that talks about um leaving the 99 and that's actually talking about a story that jesus told about a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to go and find that one sheep that's lost and jesus is saying that you know that's the person that's lost that hasn't doesn't know god that god is searching after and because that's how much he loves you how much he loves us and um really talks about the overwhelming love of god in this song as you're listening just imagine that that's you that's you that god has got that overwhelming love for so we're going to go into this time of worship now and then we'll join you back again afterwards before i spoke a word you were singing over me you have been so so good to me before i took a breath you breathed your life in me you have been so so kind to me oh overwhelming never-ending reckless love of god oh it chases me down fights till i'm found leaves the 99 i couldn't earn it i don't deserve it still you give yourself away oh the overwhelming when i was your foe still your love fought for me when i felt no worth you paid it all for me oh the overwhelming never-ending reckless love of god oh it chases me down fights till i'm found leaves the 99 i couldn't earn it i don't deserve it still you give yourself away oh the overwhelming never-ending so there's no shadow you won't light up mountain you won't climb up coming after there's no wall you won't kick down lie you won't tear down coming after me mountain you won't climb up coming after me lie you won't head out snow wall you won't kick down lie you won't tear down coming there's no shadow you won't light up a coming after me you're the overwhelming never-ending oh it chases me oh thank you so much john and anna grace farrington who put that together for us it's just so beautiful and such incredible words i mean just i always find it quite overwhelming to think about that love that god has for each and every one of us um really brilliant and nicola put in the comments about thinking about the cost it would have been for that shepherd to go and find that sheep and that's absolutely right you know it's not at no cost and that god does that so thank you nicola for that um and mark put a sick tune i'm not sure if mark's maybe a bit old to be referring to it as a sick tune but yeah it is a really good one so thanks again guys for that absolutely brilliant right okay let's get matt back in shall we and we can have a little chat about his talk and ask some questions if you've got any questions then do stick them in the comments hi matt it's good to have you back next week hey sal this is this is more familiar territory for me right here it is it is i've definitely missed you math i've missed being able to take the mickey out of you but people have been doing it for me by the comments so that yeah to be fair you definitely have been taking the mick uh that's fine you know but it's um yeah it's really weird actually when you when i'm not saying next you've been able to reply to that to that banter so i'm just talking to myself loving the power and loving the power but then but then matt has all the power of the technology so i've got to be you know i've got to be careful haven't i apparently i think you've done great sale good job well done oh thank you thanks for everyone for your encouraging comments really appreciate that um i forgot to even say my name right at the beginning so sorry the very talented and beautiful sally butch who's hosting the right today sorry about that um brilliant talk matt thank you very much for that thanks so really good lots and lots to um and lots of questions for you so i thought we'd crack straight on with that if that's right with you yeah let's do it one of the questions i thought uh would be interesting to think about is what do you think it is that stops people from doing that zooming out what keeps people kind of focused on on those things that stop us from getting the big picture i think it's a great question i think for me i can only talk from personal experience right for me i think busyness is a real thing that stops me from zooming out do you mean that you just you just get your head down and you keep going and you keep going it's the relentless grind of life sometimes and before you know it you've kind of you've not stopped or thought about anything have you you just kind of just keep going and it's that i think that busyness that that for me is one of the key things and so i remember i was walking around the park this morning and because i can i'm not in i'm not in self-isolation anymore which is a beautiful thing we i was walking around the park yes and um i did like a little 5k walk around the park you know what it took a good a good 10 15 minutes just for my brain to slow down i mean just just for all the questions that my head's sort of processing at the moment just to stop and just take that time to zoom out and go god you're awesome so what i mean and and just start that that sort of that that that worship and that prayer but it it took a little while i'm not going to lie just yeah but for me actually getting out and walking um is one of the key ways that i can i can slowly and undo jeremy or slowly wind down the brain a little bit and get that space yeah that's absolutely right i think that's particularly hard at the moment isn't it when we're all you know either on our own or with our families all the time the sort of two extremes really isn't it and it's actually quite difficult to get that space to to actually think these things through or to have some time to actually contemplate the bigger ideas um and then when we're not in this position that we are at the moment we're just constantly rushing from one thing to the other um without without a break really to kind of think these things through so it is important isn't it to kind of find that space wherever we can yeah it totally is and i think i think this phrase head noise is a really interesting phrase for me you know the noise that goes on in our head and i've i don't know about you but i've found over covid and over lockdown in some respects i'm not i'm not as busy i'm not i'm not technically driving to the office i'm working from home do you know and i think one of the things i've noticed under lockdown for me and people that i've seen is it becomes easy to fill the minutes where you're not doing anything with stuff right whether that's social media or watching netflix or whatever it because we just we like this going from one thing to the next and so even if we have the space and the possibility we fill it with other things jeremy and that other stuff that that entertainment side of things and so again i don't know maybe this is just me that does that but this again for me is one of the reasons why actually getting out and having a walk is just i can't watch netflix while i'm walking around the park what i mean just that that cutting myself off from the head noise yeah i think also probably because there's a lot of worries and anxiety at the moment as well over the whole situation that maybe we're wanting to fill our minds up all the time with everything so that we don't actually have to stop and think about things that might be a bit more scary um so that that can be a barrier to it as well i suppose yeah that's a very good point so that's about the art of distraction you know distract yourself from having to think about stuff yeah i'm very good at that yeah i'm very much i used to talk to a friend of mine about you know these different kind of psychological things different types of personalities and things like that and you know what are you and what you and i came up with i'm an i'm an optimistic ostrich okay so i'm i'm calling this new term i'm an optimistic ostrich so basically what that means is i bury my head in the sand and just go oh it'll be okay it'll be okay it'll be fine um which isn't always a good thing and or a good place to be so i need to actually kind of maybe give myself some time to kind of think those things through yeah absolutely ostrich if anyone wants to coin that phrase as an official title you heard it first right yeah yeah it sounds like a t-shirt slogan it does i think yeah i think you could happily have that for a present if you wanted to uh um the other thing i wanted to pick up on from your talk was about the the faith idea and it really kind of um resonated with me when you were talking particularly about science and things like that and i think sometimes people expect you to be able to answer every single questions to kind of prove that god exists or to prove that you know jesus is who he said he is um but actually that's not that's not our job to do that is that that's not what we need to do what do you think about that no i think you're right i think um you know especially when you first become a christian one of the things i noticed a lot of my friends were like well hank because i became a christian when i was 18 right so a lot of my friends were like well hang on a minute what about dot dot dot what about dot dot and to be honest with you we still get that now what about doctor that doesn't make sense you know and i think i think it's a really interesting question you know the bible tells us or paul talks about how we should be ready to give a defense of our faith and to study out some of these questions to be able to answer some of these questions but i i tell you now i can't answer all the questions about science i just i i'm not that clever i'm really i've got a few basic things so i'm comfortable with where i'm at uh but this is this is the beauty of the christian church there are so many that are scientists for example that are really good friends of mine and i can go to them and i can talk to them about it and i can ask them the questions or i can study it out uh to get those questions answered but i i don't think as a christian i'm ever afraid to not be able to answer somebody's question jeremy so if someone comes to me and goes can god make a stone so heavy that he can't lift it and you sit there and you kind of go what i don't know and yeah it's okay to go i don't know and i to be honest with you i don't care it's not going to change my life one little bit so i think you're right you don't need to know everything uh i think that's a a bit of a fallacy yeah i think you're absolutely right brilliant just very quick then before we move on to a really important question that someone's put in the comments um just very quickly tell us matt how's jesus changed your life since you aren't answered that question for yourself to say that he was the son of god what difference would that have made could you sum that up in just 10 seconds yeah yeah yeah yeah just a quick 10 seconds you remember the the old uh the old song amazing grace i once was blind but now i see it's that um it's that the simplicity of it is that i once was blind but now i see you could talk about that metaphorically you could talk about it in so many different ways um but i think life i don't know how actually life is where am i in a different place too if i'd become a christian i just know i'm different jeremy and i respond to life differently i once was blind but now i see and that's basically all i know i was going one way in life and i had had a worldview and a thought pattern but now it's it's totally transformed and changed okay good answer matt well done thanks um okay so the most important question of the day from the comments um what's your favorite cheese that's a fantastic question you know what one of the things that every year dave and julie connolly dave's been on the podca on the podcast he's been on the live stream before right and we've had dave speak a number of times and he's one of the founding pastors of frontline such a top bloke i love the man to bits right every year for christmas him and julie buy me a present they buy these little cheese little cheeses you know covered in wax and they they give me the gift every year the joke's the same matt hears your baby cheeses right and it's a great joke to say at christmas but this year one of the cheeses they gave me was a sort of chili spiced cheddar cheese ooh oh my goodness that was like eating a slice of heaven that is my that sounds amazing do you want to hear a cheese joke go for it okay um what did the cheese say when it saw itself in the mirror i don't know so what did the cheese say hello me sorry it's a little bit of a throwback to the christmas joke sorry i want you to know that if you put these things in the comments we listen we listen we care about people in the comments sorry gemma orange is definitely the bottom there so sorry so sorry sorry that was unscripted too i love it move on very quickly right quick we are going to move on to uh our catch up so we love it when people send us in photos and little videos of what you've been doing in the week and then every week josh will put them all together in a fabulous way for us and then we can be a bit more connected with each other so if you would like to send in something for next week we would absolutely love so here's josh with this week's catch up hello and welcome to this week's sunday catch up for those of you who don't know me allow me to introduce myself my name is josh edmondson i am one of the core members of the team here at crowd church and i am a student at the university of saint andrews though as of late that really has been a virtual student rather than a physical student which is a bit of a shame for those of you who have never watched this part of the stream before or you know if you've just never watched the stream before at all welcome it's wonderful to have you but let me just quickly explain what ketchup is catch up is the part of the stream where members of the community send in videos and photographs of what they've been getting up to and we put them on display so that everyone just so that everyone gets a feel for how everyone else is getting on over the past week i have been doing a lot of this yes that's right the highly exciting activity that is chess puzzles if you don't know i'm i'm a pretty big fan of chess i'm trying to get better and apparently one of the best ways to actually get better at chess is not necessarily to play chess rather to do chess puzzles and so i've been doing lots and lots of those over the past week highly exciting i know i also finished reading a novel in a series called the stormlight archive which i've been working through for a little while this book is almost one and a half thousand pages long so it took a little while to get through but i finished that excellent book highly recommend series but that's enough for me let's get on to the catch up videos great thank you very much for sending those in i always love seeing what you guys have been getting up to if you would like to see your video on catch up please do send them in to the church whatsapp number you can find that number on the bottom corner of the screen we love having those videos in and it's great being able to put them out there so that everyone you know feels a little bit more connected that's all from me thank you very much for watching and i will catch you next time brilliant thank you so much josh for that and sorry about the never-ending percy photos this is my cat well my kitten that we got just before christmas and i just can't stop sharing pictures of him so i do apologize let me know when it's getting really boring and i will stop sending in pictures of percy every week but he is absolutely adorable and so funny so they're going to keep going for a while please please send us any pictures or short videos so that we can add them to the cat job we'd love to see what you've been up to in the week and as you can see it doesn't need to be anything majorly exciting that was just a few pictures of us on the walk um so yeah if you've got some brilliant walks around the area to share that would be lovely as well okay so that just leaves me really to say thank you so much for joining us this afternoon it's been lovely to have you along thank you for um mentioning the comments as well we'd love to see everything there and as you can tell from the questions we do actually listen to what you're saying so keep commenting there that's really helpful so thank you for that um and also if you would like any prayer or anything at all then please whatsapp us or go to the website and you can send us some email there there's that handy what's that number for you just come up down there so note down everything's backwards it's really strange okay so next week i'm actually doing the talk next week and the title is wait for it christians are hypocrites so you won't want to miss that one so please join us next week matt will be leading i'll be doing the talk and we'll be having some worship and catch up as well in the meantime please stay with us we've got a couple of great worship songs coming up in the outro so do stay with us for that and um yeah we look forward to seeing you next week so have a great week take care of yourselves stay safe and see you next week thanks everyone bye god of goodness anything less than all of you anything less than your life giving true never satisfy only in you do i have it all only in you jesus too i have it all only in new jersey my heart could never satisfy my hope all only in how great you are how great and beyond measure how great you are how great you are how great and beyond measure how great and beyond measure do i have it oh never-ending reckless love of god when i felt no worth you paid it all for me down fights till i'm found leaves the 99 still you give yourself away lie you won't [Applause] mountain you won't climb up coming after me the snow wall you won't kick down after me or the overwhelming never-ending