Is the church just after my money?

so my my my well hello and welcome good afternoon welcome to christchurch my name is beside me that way is the uh yes right here's the talented sally burch hey sal how are you doing hi everybody hi matt yeah i'm doing really well thank you have you had a good week yeah on the whole it's flowing by at a million miles an hour but you know what we're here that's the main thing it's sunday afternoon it's time for church and it's crazy the last day of january which i'm very excited to see the back of january wow okay already uh can you believe it's been like four or five weeks never a fan of february i have to say january i always find a little bit of a tricky month this year has obviously been harder than most so i feel like you know the start of february is a good thing for tomorrow absolutely absolutely now welcome to the live stream if this is your first time here crowd church is a digital church and online church that's right uh we are an online church and we say that we're a church for those that might not you know might not see the point of church or might not understand what church is all about but you know you have a level of intrigue you just want to know more you want to figure out how to live this meaningful life well that's what we get into every week every sunday and today is no exception sally and i are hosting this live stream absolutely it's great and it's great to be with you even though it is still january it's still great to be with you yeah absolutely well put matt really good yeah we are here for you for um anything you want to comment on or if you want to send us a message then we have a whatsapp number which should appear as if by magic oh yeah everybody any second now there we go oh wow look at that um if you would like to send us a message or anything we can pray about any prayer requests or anything then that is the number that you need so please do get in touch also comment along in the comments we love to have have your comments well most of your comments we love to have um some of them are a little bit random but that's okay that's okay everyone welcome here so everyone's welcome good to see you let's see who we've got with us today already we've got gemma nicola matt um i saw something from trev uh sharon's watching along with us lovely to have you all with us this afternoon welcome along everyone yeah absolutely uh so great that you're here and uh thanks for your comments keep commenting keep posting uh your highs where you're watching from uh how are you getting on with the live stream if you like you can also send to that whatsapp number any photographs but be warned we may use them so some people do like to send in photos and stuff we may use them and this week so we're going to try something new i've not told you about this but we are going to try something new okay it is called i believe the young people call it a hashtag into the 21st century with a bang matt evans brilliant absolutely so josh is going to explain a little bit more about that later on in the catch-up video but hashtag crowd church uh we're gonna start using that hashtag uh as a way to stay connected with you guys so that is coming up love that matt can i just um refer to one of the comments that we've already had from i know which one you're gonna refer to yeah okay go for it i'm black and white let's just clarify this so matt edmondson has a super duper top-of-the-range state of your camera to do the live stream whereas i've got a 20 pound from amazon webcam so i'm not sure exactly what that says but i think we need to up either upgrade my kit matt so that i can join in the color but no look there is there is some color look look there is some it doesn't help that i'm wearing a black jumper today but thanks thanks for noticing matt crew yeah it's matt emerson does have the super duper camera and light going on in his studio absolutely now actually what i can do here i'm just ch i'm playing around with the settings i've made you a little bit more on color there we go oh there we go thank you things that we can do but yeah we need to improvise on this map put it put a nice filter on this that would be brilliant you don't need it it's me that needs it i need the expensive camera for all this soft focus nonsense you're okay you're okay you don't need these these cameras um so yeah thanks matt thanks for that comment i'm sure sally appreciates that and no doubt you're going to hear from her and her lawyers anyway gemma orange here says birthday month what's that all about it's her birthday in february i think that's what she's referring to okay well happy birthday in february gemma let us know when it is and we'll we'll definitely play the happy birthday tune we've got some happy birthday jazz which we can play uh so we've got ben paris saying hello from low stuff all the way from myself hi ben lovely to see you this afternoon amazing to have you along with us ben is a really old friend of mine from way back in the day when really was black and white it was that long ago we used to watch the snooper in black and white on a sunday afternoon i know we've got sarah hey sarah how are we doing it's all going on isn't it so let me tell you what we've got coming up in today's live stream as you're joining us and saying hi in the comments we have got uh sharon coming up soon sally's going to show in just a second then after the talk we're going to have a little bit of worship uh which again sally will introduce then after the worship we're going to have like a little conversation between me and son where we just talk about the talk does that make sense yeah we talk about the talk yeah yeah we do and then after that uh we've got catch-up video before we close out so we aim to finish somewhere between quarter to five and five o'clock just so you know and if you are new with us if this is your first time with us uh then you are welcome here uh we we love the fact that you're here and if you're not a member of a local church and you know what we would love it if you were a member local church but if you're not then please consider this to be your church we would love for you to be a part of what we're doing now absolutely so yeah get involved as much as you want to of course there's the what's that number again if you want to send us a message or if we can be of any help to you then you can get in touch via our website as well you could send us an email and we would love to hear from you absolutely absolutely awesome right should we get into the talk okay yeah absolutely so we have got the fabulous sharon edmondson doing the talk for us today and she is looking at the next part in the book of mark which we've been working through for quite a long time now and her talk is all about is the church just after your money so this is another really interesting look at the book of mark and what jesus has to say so without further ado let's hear from sharon hi for those of you who who are new to our live stream my name's sharon and i'm married to the gorgeous man who's hosting today we have three kids josh zach and zoe who are 19 17 and 13. and if you've been with us before you'll have seen them all at some point i volunteer part-time at a women's charity teaching english as a foreign language and helping with the crisis support there and i love working there as i get to hang out with loads of fabulous people from around the world though we've not exactly been able to meet much in the past 10 months due to kovid but enough about me now last week sally asked the question isn't the church just full of hypocrites this week i'm going to look at the question isn't the church just after my money by the church i just mean any group of people that call themselves christians every now and then there seems to be another story in the news of a christian pastor who's exploiting people to get money for some dubious project sometimes telling people they won't be blessed if they don't give maybe you've had a bad experience of this yourself is this what christianity is all about is this what god wants now there's no way that i can give a comprehensive look at what the bible says on the subject of money in such a short time but hopefully it will provoke our thinking and start a discussion before i get into all that i want to ask you a question do you like people watching or did you like people watching in the days when people were allowed out has anyone ever seen someone do something stupid because they're walking whilst looking at their phone do share your most memorable people-watching moments in the comments when matt was a teenager he worked in a chippy he was walking home after work one night and walked past his local karate club a man and a woman walked out of the karate club and started arguing the argument turned into a fight with lots of kicking and punching and blood so matt decided it was a good show and just stayed and watched wally in his chips after a while he saw the woman kick the man where she shouldn't have kicked him and then they apologized to each other and that was the end of the fight the reason i'm asking about people watching is because this week's passage in mark starts with jesus in the temple in jerusalem watching the people there what does he see what are they doing let's read the first of the passage jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury many rich people threw large amounts in but a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins worth only a few pence so jesus saw some rich people put large sums of money into the offering bucket at the temple and he saw a poor widow put a relatively small amount into the offering but wait doesn't this reek a tv evangelist asking for money and exploiting poor people or the offering bucket being passed around in a church service and people being like forced to give isn't this just another example of a religious organization pressurizing into giving what they can't afford we all know that does happen the god of the bible certainly doesn't approve of exploitation last week sally talked about the verses that come before the ones we've just read and in them jesus had to go a particular group of religious people saying about them they devour widows houses and for show make lengthy prayers these men will be punished most severely psalm 14 verse 6 says this you evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor but the lord is their refuge and another verse in the bible says this true spirituality that is pure in the eyes of our father god is to make a difference in the lives of orphans and widows in their troubles and to refuse to be corrupted by the world's values at the time this was written orphans and widows were some of the most vulnerable vulnerable people in society so the bible's saying we should look after vulnerable people there are many verses in the bible that talk about god being a god of justice and not of exploitation but often we can judge a faith by its misuse but it's far better to judge it by by what it actually says and whether or not it's actually true for example if the doctor gave me some liquid medicine and told me to drink it three times a day but i decided to rub it on my skin it wouldn't mean that the doctor was bad when i didn't get better if i then went and told everyone how rubbish the doctor and the medicine were i would be misrepresenting both and so it is with faith just because god's name is used to justify all sorts of evil things doesn't mean that god approves of those evil things so should christians even be talking about money should faith affect what we do with our money today in our culture we often see a sacred secular split where matters of faith are seen as private and spiritual and that our belief shouldn't have any effect on how we actually live or on society jenny mariner touched on this at the end of her talk or in her talk at the end of last year about religion and politics if god does in fact exist and is who the bible says he is if he did in fact create the physical world and everything in it from the vastness of the universe and beyond to the detailed world that we can see through a microscope if he set the physical and spiritual laws in motion it makes sense that he is the authority on every aspect of life if god really is the god of the bible which obviously i believe he is he is the one who created us in his image out of love and given us innate value and worth it doesn't make sense to try to improve our lives by adding a little bit of god or spirituality on the side it makes much more sense to say lord i submit my whole life to you including my money and that's part of what it means to be a christian a christian is someone who's stopped living for themselves and has decided to follow jesus in every area of life including their money and god's not a harsh dictator who's out to get us jesus said if you continue in my word you're really my disciples and you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free i quote that verse a lot because it's meant a lot to me over the years when we follow god's way including the era of money it brings freedom because we're living as we're designed to live i've said it before but a fish that breaks free from water is not really free because it's now going against the way it was designed and we can manage our money in our own way and decide what to spend it on or decide to keep it all for ourselves but that would be like a fish out of water when we follow god's principles with money we're like the fish in water so what did jesus have to say about the people he's watching in the temple let's read on calling his disciples to him jesus said truly i tell you this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others they all gave out of her wealth but she out of her poverty put in everything all she had to live on is jesus saying we have to give away all we have maybe and maybe not there's another story in the bible of a rich young man who came to jesus and jesus told him to give away everything he had and to follow him but to another man king solomon god gave him a huge amount of wealth the rich young man was a slave to his money whereas solomon wasn't we need to listen to what he is saying to us personally it's more to do with who or what we are serving now i don't have time to go into the topic of how to hear god's voice but why wouldn't god want to speak to the people who he created jesus said no one can serve two masters either he will hate the one and love the other or will be devoted to one and despise the other you can't serve birth both god and money if we're rich we can be addicted to money and want more and more and put our security and all that we have our identity can be in our prestigious high paying jobs our designer gear our holidays abroad if we're poor we can be afraid of not having enough and become obsessed with money that way but god wants our ultimate trust to be in him not money or anything else why because he's a good father who loves us and wants us to trust him trust speaks of relationship now years ago i gave up some stuff to follow jesus so i didn't have a whole lot at the time so i suspect it was a lot easier then than it would be now and i wasn't destitute like the woman the widow in the story for those who are new and don't know the story i became a christian when i was 15 or 16 and totally knew that god had come into my life but somehow still for years after that the whole faith thing wasn't really working for me i was just um very mixed up inside and my mind was just a big mess so i told god that he had one last chance either he had to sort out my life or i'd walk away from him i looked for gap years being run by churches and i came to look at the one being run by a frontline church in liverpool and when i arrived to look around i had an overwhelming sense that this was where i was meant to be and at this point i wasn't always sure that god existed but i was totally sure i was meant to be in liverpool i booked on the course but it cost a certain amount of money which i didn't so i went back to cornwall where i was working at the time and i saved up some money and i sold my car which was the only thing i had worth selling at that time and i moved up and that year totally changed my life no exaggeration so sometimes following jesus does mean giving up certain things now at the moment i don't have a sense of god telling us to sell everything but maybe he will in the future and we need to be open to that the most current question for me about money and provision is lord do you want me to keep volunteering or should i get a job that pays or maybe both i'll keep praying and figuring it out but one way that christians can put god first with their money as an act of faith that he is their provider is to give the first 10 of what they earn back to god and this is what the bible calls a tithe and it's something that we do and we also have the adventure of being able to give more than this i love this verse let giving flow from your heart not from a sense of religious duty let it spring up freely from the joy of giving all because god loves hilarious generosity i've asked a few people how following jesus has affected the way they handle money and here's what they have to say sometimes i'm definitely tempted to think about money as something that like makes everything better makes me feel better and makes me happy um but what i've recognized since knowing jesus is that there's nothing that money can buy that compares to the joy and the contentedness that um focusing on him and the gift that he gave me and over the years he's kind of guided me in different ways in order to to help me use my money to be a blessing to other people before it's a blessing to myself um so whether that be you know just really tiny things like offering to pay for a friend's meal or maybe giving to charity and lots of different ways what i've learned is there are lots of ways to use it as a blessing to others before you need to spend it on yourself i have to trust god in my work and i do trust god whenever i go to look at a job quote for a job and decide whether to accept that job if they said yes we we pray about it me and my wife and he always provides for us always has done and it's it's great it's not easy um we've had a couple of times where it's gone quite down to the wire and we've prayed together because we said to god is this what we should be doing you know if you want me to give up this business and go and get a nine-to-five job again then i'll do that and within hours he's provided a great big job one was with literally within a few hours i've got an email and the next one was i woke up in the morning and there was an email saying yeah we want you to do this work and sometimes we put quotes in and it can take a year before we get anything back it tells me that god loves me and two it provides for me hi following jesus means that me and my husband tied that means we give the first ten of all of our income to our local church we do this because we just really really trust that god will provide for us that um yeah he will do more than we can and he is our provider and nowadays we do it like just out of faith we don't really think about it money comes in we type 10 that's just like the way it is and he's never ever ever let us down when we do this so in recent months like we've gone to one income and we've got one little toddler and another baby on the way and there'd be months recently where we've just been like it doesn't work out like how we're gonna get to the end of the month we've got like god just puts it on people's hearts they just send us money like randomly and recently like our tires on the car were totally bald um and we were like oh i'm gonna pay for them and then a check just came through the past just to cover the cost of all four brand new tires i can honestly say that every time i give i give away i bless others it either blesses me on the inside and i know that i've helped somebody or god provides for me in some way and um most recently um my husband's been blessed with a bike a bicycle which has been amazing and i know that that's a gift from god so i know that we can trust god always and because he's god he owns it all anyway and for me it's often um a bit of a internal heart thing to say i will um believe and trust that god has got my best interests at heart and that he can use what i give him to bless others and he also loves me and wants to bless me i know this last year has been very hard for a lot of people with covert and we do jobs in people's houses so we've not always been able to work and we've had to take a loan from the government but i can still look back and and trust god and thank him for the jobs he's given us and this these last six months probably been our busiest and perhaps our best year as a business god provides and it's great having that opportunity to trust him so back to the verses about jesus in the temple watching people putting money into the offering what did jesus have to say about it jesus didn't have a go at the rich guys for putting in the offering the amount that they did but he did notice someone that most other people were overlooked he saw a poor widowed woman being poor a widow and a woman would have given her a low social status at that time but jesus noticed her and she didn't have a huge amount to give that would attract attention and make her seem like she was an amazing person but jesus noticed her are you someone who's well off god would say don't put your security in your status and your money you're no better than someone who's less well-off are you someone who's struggling to make ends to me know that jesus doesn't overlook you and that what you have to offer is valued one of the things i love about being a christian is that god calls all sorts of people to be part of his family rich poor somewhere in the middle different nationalities different skin colors and languages sometimes if we're going through a financially tough time we can think that we can't make a difference we can compare ourselves to someone like bill gates who's given away billions and think that our tin of beans we've given to the food bank is fairly worthless and there's another story in the bible where a boy gives his lunch to jesus and jesus is able to multiply it so it feeds many i'm not suggesting that jesus will literally make a tin of beans expand but that with him the effect of our giving can be greater than we expect in a world where grand gestures of giving and noticed and celebrated jesus noticed the poor woman's sacrificial giving trusting god with our money can seem like a stupid thing to do if god is an angry controlling tyrant but if he is who the bible says he is it makes the most sense in the world the god of the bible is a loving god who sacrificed everything for her for us he's got our best interests at heart but not just our interests but the interests of all people here are some verses that speak of god's sacrificial character and i'll finish with these for god has proved his love by giving us his greatest treasure the gift of his son and since god freely offered him up as a sacrifice for saul he certainly won't withhold from us anything else he has to give wow wasn't that brilliant so challenging thank you so much sharon a lot of time and effort i can see has gone into that and i found it really really brilliant so thank you and i can see from the comments as well that everybody else found that equally good so well done sharon brilliant job if you've got any questions about that then please do put them in the comments matt and i are going to have a little discussion about sharon's preach after the song that we're going to play next so do put your questions in as well so that we can talk about those and have a bit of a discussion that'd be brilliant so we're going to sing a song now and you can just read the words and listen and meditate as we play this song or you can join in if you want to it's actually an old hymn and it's called all creatures of our god that john farrington has done a brilliant job of putting a new spin on it so we're going to enjoy that now the only thing i want to just bring to your attention is obviously in some hymns we have some older language um so you might find that and then the word hallelujah which basically just means praise the lord praise god so let's have that song now and we'll be back with you in a bit all creatures of our god and key lift up your voice and with a single o praise him hallelujah thou burning sun with golden beam thou silver moon with softer gleam oh praise him hallelujah thou rushing winded out so strong ye clouds that sail in rejoice the lights of evening find a voice let all things there create a bless and worship him in humbleness praise praise the father praise the son and praise the spirit three awesome awesome track there i hope you enjoyed that uh i just love some of these old himself i don't know if you like them i'm a big fan of some of these old hymns they're just yeah i don't know that one actually it's lots of him i do know but i haven't i don't know that one very well but great job john thank you very much yeah yeah very good job very good job indeed now uh write in the comments uh any questions that you've got based on sharon's talk uh is the church just after my money i think my if i was to sum that up in one sentence it would be this i think god could care less about your money i think he's got enough of his own but the bible is very very interested in how you spend your money and how you manage your money and it's got all kinds of practical advice not because god needs it but because he's got some ideas on what you do with it right and so therefore what we do with it is a really interesting decision a really interesting choice and i don't know how you find it so do you find it easy to talk to people about money uh from a christian point of view or do people just think you're a little bit nuts i think if you tell people um that aren't christians that you give away ten percent of your money i think they think you're absolutely bonkers i really do people do things what on earth i mean lots of people who aren't fresh christians are incredibly generous don't get me wrong i know lots of my friends who give to charities uh you know support lots of worthy causes and things i think it's that ten percent um and then sort of you know giving on top of that that people find a bit mind-blowing that's really interesting no i i agree and it's worth pointing out what we're not saying is christians have the monopoly on generosity that's not what we're saying at all uh i think um what's interesting for me in all of this is the reason for giving so um you know the bible talks a lot about we can do this because he he first did that right we loved because he first loved us we can give because he first gave and i think that's the thing that separates christians is when we give we give because it's a recognition that actually god has given so much to us that actually it's not a hardship to give back does that make sense yeah yeah it totally does i think you know that there's that sort of giving and then there's the giving out of the need that we see in the world as well which is also absolutely of course that's so important as well but yeah you're right um and i think coming back to the sort of story of the widow it's all about the heart isn't it you sort of touched on that a little bit there matt it's really about the heart of your giving um and why you're giving not just because you think oh i've got to give 10 you know it's how you actually do that with your heart like you say it's not the amount that you're giving it's it's the attitude that you're giving with yeah yeah i love that analogy the bill gates analogy jeremy and the bill gates gives billions and so it's easy to compare what you're giving to something like that i think well it's not going to make a difference but then that that idea that you know if you're familiar with the bible there's a story in the bible way that sharon referred to where god takes a small boy's lunch you know the loaves and the fish is a very famous story and he takes that small offering that the kid bought and miraculously did amazing things with it and i think that's that's a really good mindset to have actually sometimes we can't give you know but a few pence that we have in our wallet but it's amazing what god can do that when the heart of the person giving is right absolutely i mean matt has put in the comments about um you know not having the money to give but gives him volunteering well that's incredible isn't it because that's you could be earning money and or you know doing that but you're actually giving your time volunteering that is an amazing um gift as well and god will definitely honor that so that's brilliant matt really really good yeah it is it's a really again that's just really fascinating to me because i find i mean i'm in business right and so you made a lot of business people and sometimes the easy thing to do are you mad i don't think you mentioned that before i haven't mentioned that before i don't think you haven't okay uh yeah yeah um it's it's that kind of and i find amongst amongst the community of business it's easy to throw 50 quid at something to make a problem go away to make guilt and go away but giving your time giving your energy giving giving yourself into something well that that demands a whole other level of of generosity i think sometimes doesn't it yeah absolutely and and worth more than money sometimes you know isn't it really um i mean i was just thinking while i was listening to sharon i was thinking about um a really good example of that sort of giving that made such a difference to my family was when i was a child i um grew up here with just my mum and my brother and we didn't have very much money at all um and there were times that we would get to the end of the week and i know my mum has told me in later years that she didn't know how she was going to feed us or how she was going to make that last 50p um you know stretch to to feed us to the end of the week and then there would be an envelope of money under the door she'd come home from work and and then somebody had put 10 pounds or something in an envelope anonymously and just given given that and that that provision was incredible um and that that just you know made such a difference to us 10 pounds might not have been very much them but for us it was you know whether we would eat or not um so that that's different obviously i work my husband works and we don't worry about how we're going to eat um but to try and take those principles from my childhood to kind of how we can help other people i think it's really really important no it is and now you're in a position where you give the ten pounds for somebody to go and eat right it's um yeah that's always the amazing thing uh and like i say don't ever underestimate the power of a small gift now one of the things that people you i i get asked about this on occasions but if you've been watching the crowd live stream for a while you will notice that every week one thing we don't do is ask for money and there's a really interesting decision that we've made not to do that because i know for many uh people watching the live stream who aren't christians money is a big deal and this belief in this idea that the church is after your money so we just don't ask for it um because like i said we don't i don't think god needs your money i genuinely don't um i think you should give and you should give generously um but i don't want to come across i don't crowd to come across as we're just after your money but do take the opportunities to give and i'm going to contradict myself a little bit here sal if that's all right whilst we don't actually ask for money in the live stream i am going to tell you that imagine if trust james was on a few weeks ago um over the next few weeks is raising funds and i think if you if you're looking for something to give then you may want to consider this right imagine if trust have gone and bought a house that is going to be used to house homeless people um and maybe homeless families they bought a specific house where they can now do that this will be the third house imagine if i've done this with and they fill it with people who are struggling and they rehabilitate them to living and we've heard from various different people's stories over the last few weeks from hannah and and so on and so forth they are raising funds for their third house so uh have a look at imagine if trust.org to find out more information but that may be something worth thinking about just putting that out absolutely a brilliant if you want a charity to support that is an amazing one and they do so much good with the money that they're given so definitely wholeheartedly recommend those sharp tipping has been an interesting comment in about and prosperity gospel and how can we give wholeheartedly instead of a having a give to get mentality that's a really good point there sure i think prosperity gospel is all about um you know giving giving more giving what to get more and it's all about you the focus is on you what if i give what can i get in return yeah um whereas we're talking about you know a heart of giving where actually you're not giving to to get back if i give god will bless me we're giving that's what god wants us to do that's what we've been called to do and to help those in need that we we see around us and in the world i think that's the heart is really the difference between those two things would you agree matt yeah i think it's a really interesting question because uh the prosperity gospel is a name given to a lot of tv american evangelists who will say um give us you know a thousand dollars and god will bless you a hundred fold and give you whatever a hundred thousand dollars back um and they will take scriptures out of context where it does say you know give and it shall be given unto you and uh if you and all that sort of stuff and they they take these references from bible to creative theology which says god is interested in making you a millionaire and i think at the heart of it some of those scriptures are right and my testimony is in your story just a minute ago sally's when you give um god blesses you in return right you you do there just seem to be this sowing and reaping which you can't get us away from in scripture yeah it says in galatians paul says do not be deceived right this is really interesting scripture do not be deceived god is not mocked right he is not mocked whatever you sow you are gonna reap okay and so there is this whole idea of sowing and reaping but like you said cell i think it's totally right don't be deceived god is not mocked if you're thinking that god is some kind of slot machine that you put your you know you're pounding you're gonna get 10 pounds out you're going to be on a road of disappointment and hurt whereas if you give because god gave that's awesome that's that's a ride that's worth being on i have to answer absolutely yeah totally agree totally agree yeah brilliant i mean i think in my life i've seen there was really interesting wasn't it the kind of testimonies that people had about um you know how god had given to them exactly what they needed or just at the right time and i you know shared that example of my child but i've seen that in my life as well at various different times worth a try you know if you if you've never kind of tried that before if you've never tried sort of uh asking god for those things that you need you know maybe that maybe you could give it a go absolutely what have you got to lose what have you got to lose it is one of the common prayer requests that we get you know people are struggling and god needs to move and so we can pray that god would get involved and sometimes sometimes and i'm not saying this is all the times but sometimes when you need stuff god may just lead you to give stuff it's a really weird uh idea that god has but it's you know yeah it is it is what's going on yeah really interesting comment from james sloan as well that some of the richest people i've ever met are poor and i think that is about what we what we class as riches isn't it you know we're talking about money but there's so much more to riches than just money so that's a really good point yeah i think i think it's a really great point that actually wealth is not measured by the size of your bank account but i think it's measured by the bigness of your god personally i remember a story can i tell you a story it's a bit of a cheeky story um i remember i remember over the years meeting various billionaires right i've met quite a few of them uh over the years and it's just you know they're amazing people and there's some of them are a bit out there but some of them are lovely and i remember sitting down with one guy and i won't mention his name very uh eccentric billionaire and he said to me um after we'd been getting to know each other for for a number of months he said matt he called me matty actually he said matty he said you don't seem bothered by all the money that i've got now you can imagine this billionaire is surrounded by yes people right who are just just yes all the time just because he's got the money and i was i was i was never like that with him and i said to him i said well here's the thing right the bible says that the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous i said you're the sinner i'm righteous i said everything you've got is technically all mine anyway he thought i was a little bit nuts but we were having a little bit of a laugh together in other words my wealth was you know compared to him he had way more money in the bank account but i think my overall wealth was probably much greater because i knew christ and still right and that's that's a great thing there uh so i like that some of the richest i've people i've met are poor and they're so happy and content sharon's put here i think the difference and let me put this on the broadcaster you can read it i think the difference is in seeing ourselves as a channel we receive from god so that our needs are met uh but also so that we can bless others i think that's a really good analogy and i'm obviously going to say that because it's my wife i'm especially live on it i'm going to say that but i i do think that's a really good analogy what do you think so yeah i like that i like that analogy yeah i think that's really good thank you sharon absolutely i mean it is really isn't it about kind of giving out about heart we keep coming back to the same thing it is about that heart isn't it and that why why are we doing this why are we talking about giving i want to make the point as well that we're not saying that it's wrong to enjoy material things or um you know to have those nice holidays and do those things that you want to do you know with the money that you earn we're just talking about what god you know so asking god what he might want you to do with those things you've got as well absolutely absolutely okay so uh we're starting to create a little bit of a tradition now um around yeah let's let's round this off uh with a really good question question really important question i had to read this twice to try and get my head around what nicholas actually saying would you rather be chased by a duck-sized horse or 50 horse-sized ducks why would you 50 horse-sized ducks i mean that would be terrifying terrifying no a little little mini hall you could just pick it up and tuck it under your arm i mean what what what's this question about i i read that question i'm going i think nicola you should probably go see the gp that's all i'm going to say right i think it should be a horse-sized duck or 50 duck-sized horses yeah i think i think that way around would make a little bit more sense brilliant well thanks for bringing the uh spiritual question this week uh nicola as always now speaking of spiritual speaking of uh all things uh ketchup thanks by the way for that so i enjoyed that conversation uh yeah it's always good to talk about money it's a it's a complex one now what i want to do uh is i am going to bring on the catcher video so this week josh is going to be talking about ketchup and uh he's going to be talking about the new hashtag theology so watch this 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 a member of the team here at crowd church and i am a student at the university of saint andrews studying physics now if you've never watched the stream before welcome it's awesome to have you here let me just quickly explain what ketchup is every week we get photos and videos in from members of the community and we put them in this little segment of the stream called catch up just so that we get the opportunity to see what everyone else is getting up to this week was my first week back at university in the loosest sense of the word most universities across the country are doing exclusively online teaching at the moment because of the coronavirus and you know just trying to keep that at bay which means that i am going to be home for the next few months doing lots and lots and lots and lots of math equations over the computer my university has sent me some parts because when you do a physics degree you have this section called labs part of the job of being a physicist is experimentation and so what we've been doing is these remote electronics labs so they sent me a multimeter a bunch of electronic components an arduino board which is like a microprocessor microcontroller and a whole bunch more wise this feels like a kind of weird unboxing video you get to see some pretty cool stuff when you do physics it's not all mattes i mean it is all mattes really but that's beside the point that's enough for me let's get on to the other catch-up clips so it's a die-cutting day today there's the machine there's all the stuff that i've done so far great thank you very much for sending those in it's always wonderful seeing what everyone's been getting up to over the week now before i carry on with the sort of the the end of the video spiel there's something exciting that i want to announce you can tag us on instagram if you use crowd catch up every week i will check that hashtag and if you put any posts out on instagram with this tag then i will see them and we can put them on catch up so hopefully that just makes it a little bit easier to get your stuff on here that is all from me thank you very much for watching and i will catch you next time okay thanks josh ketchup videos look at that pie look great so you know it was amazing it was um cookie dough like on the top and the bottom with kinder chocolate bars in the middle and chocolate chips that oh my goodness it's like a million calories in one slice but it was incredible it was worth it did you save me yeah did i save you any i did but you didn't come get it so i edit myself sorry okay listed didn't go to waste so did you get that on the hashtag hashtag ketchup so tag your videos and pictures with crab ketchup and josh will use that maybe makes it easier you can of course like you said in the video still use the whatsapp number which is currently on your screen down there and you can send in your information to that number and josh will get that as well uh as all your other ways of connecting with us so thanks for sending those in now let me give you one quick notice before we go uh disciple if you were watching the intro you saw this thing called disciple starting this week third of feb what's that all about and i said we give a little bit more information in the live stream exactly we don't know we just don't know so wednesday evenings at 8 p.m on zoom we are going to be running something called disciple where we look at what it means to be a follower of jesus in a bit more detail you don't have to be a christian's joint you can of course be a christian and we're going to get into some of the fundamentals of what it means to be a christ follower it is going to be amazing i know that because sharon's running it and so anything shown just like that is always great so if you would like to come join us on a wednesday evening at 8 00 pm for the disciple uh calls for the course getting connecting and i mean this is great because it's you know we've got the live stream but here we get see you we can chat we can do all that sort of good stuff we can do on zoom so do come and join us for that it is going to be uh well it's going to be great it's going to be ground breaking life-changing earth shattering you know all those kind of good things wow matt you're really promising a lot there i hope i'm not over promising and under delivering uh so no pressure babe yeah yeah brilliant okay so uh what's coming up next week sal well we've got the usual things hopefully we'll have more hashtag catch up uh pictures to show you as well from different people can i just say i'm in honor of josh doing an honor in all even of jobs physics physics degree as an andrews i mean where does he get the brains from clearly not me definitely not me yeah amazing no so we'd love to see more of those so we're going to have more of that next week and of course we have got the fabulous mat to my left here doing the preach next week matt what should you talk about next week that's a great question i've not figured it out i have figured out next week we're getting into mark chapter 13 next week where jesus um is basically going to talk about the future what is our future and is it good these are two questions we're going to get into next week so we're going to look at what jesus says about that which is it's going to be good yeah really timely a really timely talk as well for you know how things are at the moment when it can feel a little bit hopeless so looking forward to lots of encouragement there matt um and then we've got some music for you as always and the usual sort of chat and thing so be great to see you if you would like to join in be really nice to see you absolutely it would definitely be nice to see you now we've got some more songs now matt we've got some for the outro we have so uh this part of the service basically what we're going to do is sal and i are going to say torah and we're going to play a couple of worship songs uh that's at the end of these worship songs the livestream will end automatically you are more than welcome to stay connected keep in the comments and worship along and sing along if you like please do make sure you come back and join us next sunday here at 4pm gmt that's when we broadcast it'll be great to see you thanks for all your comments on facebook and youtube it's always great to join in the uh and now it seems we're getting these weekly crazy questions from nicola you never know what's gonna happen right yeah you never know what's gonna happen so no pressure nicola but you need to be here every week with another crazy question for us so we like that and we love it we love it when you join in uh to the comments and we love it when you get involved in the discussion and ask questions as well so keep doing that that's absolutely brilliant isn't it matt absolutely so uh in the whatsapp on the whatsapp number that you see here please do send in any prayer requests that you have any questions that have come up from today you can obviously send them on the whatsapp number or email us be great to hear from you uh and let us know how we can help you and bless you now i think that's everything from us so uh so all all that's left for me to say is terrar have a great week i hope it's a good one beginning of february gonna be awesome awesome thanks i appreciate it see you soon take care everyone bye god anything less than your life giving true my heart only in you do i have it all only in you jesus god of goodness anything less than your life how great you are how great am beyond measure how great you are how great you are how great i am how great you are measured how great you are how great you only only in new jesus before i spoke a word you were singing over me you have been so so good to me i took a breath you breathed your life in me you have been so so kind 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 never-ending reckless love of god when i was your foe your love for me when i felt no worth you paid it all for me you have been so so kind to 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 reckless love of god there's no shadow you won't light up mountain you won't climb up coming after me there's no wall you won't kick down lie you won't tear down coming no wall you won't kick down lie you won't turn out coming after me coming after me there's no shadow you won't light up a mountain you won't climb up come it the snow wall you won't kick down lie you won't tear down coming after me you're the overwhelming never-ending reckless of god oh it chases me down fights till i'm found i could it i don't deserve it still you give yourself away oh the overwhelming never ending you