Timeline:

• 00:00 - Countdown
• 09:39 - Welcome
• 16:00 - Message - Why Crowd Church?
• 18:54 - Jesus and the crowds
• 22:05 - Matt 9:35 - The Crowds Gather
• 24:28 - Jesus is intriguing
• 27:00 - Jesus the teacher
• 28:44 - Jesus the Conversationalist
• 31:00 - Jesus the healer
• 34:26 - The crowd is divided about Jesus
• 39:19 - The purpose of Crowd Church
• 44:49 - Worship Intro
• 45:35 - Worship - Reckless love of God with Lyrics
• 53:29 - Catchup
• 59:27 - Christmas 2020 - Service Information
• 1:03:12 - Questions to ponder /Outro

Like you, our journey has changed this year thanks to the pandemic. We were heading one direction, and Wham! COVID falls - and like you and everyone else on the planet we have had to have a long hard look at life and answer some tricky questions - do we carry on as normal and hope things will return to how they were as soon as they can, or do we look at this time, find the opportunity and scare ourselves a little bit by taking a few risks?

We have spent a while now working our way through Mark's Gospel, a book the chronicles the life of Jesus - but we are going to pause here and pick it up again in the new year as we will look at Christmas in December but today I want to talk to you about CROWD.

My eureka - you can do digital church

For many years my family and I have been part of Frontline Church, and we still are. Last year we started a small church plant in Liverpool City Centre called Frontline City. But when the pandemic hit, like many churches we went online. And it didn't take too long for me to finally have a 'eureka' moment! You see, I am a businessman and I run a number of digital companies. And whilst I thought church can and should do digital well, I never really thought about doing a purely digital church before. For me, churches needed walls. It was my default thinking.

So we looked a lot more closely at the idea of running a digital church - something I don’t think we would have thought about before the pandemic, but COVID has forced us all, in many ways to rethink life and what we do hasn’t it?

And as we got more and more into the idea of staying a digital church - we wanted to rename it because Frontline City didn’t really make a whole great deal of sense anymore. So we went with the name CROWD Church.

And I want to explain why. And it would not surprise you to know that the answer to this lies in the stories that we have been reading in the gospels about the life of Jesus!

Jesus and the Crowds

We read in the gospels that Jesus would hang out in various different places. It often talks about him being on the road chatting with people, or on a mountain praying. But wherever He went, usually, crowds would gather around Him.

In Mark chapter 5 there is a story about a woman, who had suffered from significant bleeding for many years. The doctors couldn't do anything for here but in a moment, she gets healed. I love this story for many reasons, and one of them is that it gets a lot more interesting when you understand that this whole event is happening in a large crowd around Jesus. There are hundreds of people all around Jesus, touching him, wanting to get to him. They all want to see Jesus do something. The way scripture talks about it is that this crowd was loud and restless, it wasn't sitting still. It was tightly packed together - and yet somehow, in the midst of all of this - a woman, a social outcast, manages to force her way through the crowd and get healed by Jesus. There was no show, no fanfare - she just came up behind him, touched him and wanted to sneak off. And the Bible tells us that Jesus is amazed at her faith, her desire to press through that crowd and get to him.

I can picture that crowd in my mind. I can hear the loud sound of it and feel the movement of it and the energy of it. Have you ever been in a large crowd? I have. I stood in the KOP to watch Liverpool play before they sanitised it with seats. You were in a crowd with thousands of others. It had an energy about it. It was great in the winter, as you were warmed by those packed around you. You went with the crowd. If it went left - you went left. No doubt! You would always end up in a different position to where you started.

And these crowds were regularly around Jesus.

The Crowds Gather

I read this passage in Matthew's Gospel and see Jesus going to the towns and the villages. He goes to the people, and then the crowds gather. The crowds gather. And it was this idea that really intrigued me - and you can see where the name CROWD comes from. It was reading this scripture that I saw the crowd - and thought to myself, you know - that is it.

Whenever we Livestream or put content out - crowds gather. Sure, it is in a digital context, but the crowds gather. Sometimes they are small crowds, and sometimes they are large crowds.

Take Abi, for example. The first talk she ever did for us online was called Why would I give up the right to do whatever I want with my life, to live by my own standards...? And in that, she tells her story. A young, beautiful, woman just about to head off to university does her first talk. On YouTube - a small crowd - not many people have watched that talk yet. When it went live on Facebook though, in the first week a Crowd of around 1,000 people had gathered. I love that.

So the crowds gathered.

But why?

What is it about Jesus that caused the crowds to gather? What did he do? Why was he so intriguing to people? Why was he so magnetic? What was it about him that caused the crowds to gather? Just take a few seconds...think about that (and maybe write your answer in the comments). What is it about Jesus that would cause crowds to gather?

Sometimes those crowds were small - and sometimes there were thousands. The size doesn't matter as much as the idea that wherever Jesus went, Crowds would gather.

Jesus intrigues me

I think they gathered because they were intrigued by Jesus in some way. They had heard about this charismatic healer that claimed to be the son of God and they were intrigued. They wanted to see some get miraculously healed. They wanted to hear what He had to say. They wanted to see if what they had been hearing could be true. Jesus is intriguing. If you can't say anything else about Him at this stage, you would have to admit that there is a level of intrigue that follows this God-Man. There has to be. Time magazine called Jesus the most significant figure in our world's history. A carpenter from the small town of Nazareth affects history like no other character and it seems He did all of that in just 3 short years of ministry.

There is definitely something about Him that you have to admit, draws you in. You might not believe that He is the son of God, but you have to admit He changed the world.

Well, it is because of that intrigue that we do CROWD. We appreciate it isn't for everyone. When Jesus went to the towns and villages, not everyone came to see what was happening, not everyone joined the crowd. But those that had even the smallest level of intrigue gathered.

Are you intrigued by Jesus? You are in the right place. Want to know more about Him? Please stay connected with what we are doing. Come and gather with the crowds.

So Jesus goes to the towns and the villages and CROWDs gather, so I want to know what does He do then? What is Jesus' MO when it comes to gathered CROWDs and is there something that we can learn from that for our own online church services?

Well, this verse in Matthew's Gospel sums it up quite nicely:

Jesus the (revolutionary and inspirational) teacher

So first of all, Jesus taught. But what did He teach about? Well, He taught about the Kingdom of God - basically, How God sees things and what His plan is. Jesus used parables and illustration, metaphors and story to take really complex matters and simplify to the point that even I can understand them! Super grateful for that.

His teaching was revolutionary and inspirational. He talked about the value of people, how to overcome obstacles, how to forgive and why money is not the answer to your problems. He told people that God wasn’t mad at them and He told them all about the Holy Spirit, the person from the Godhead that lives and dwells in us.

An whilst we cannot claim, in any way, to be a teacher of Jesus' calibre, we can dig into His teaching today and uncover the truths of it, ask how it applies to us and our lives today and draw out from it the practical truths that help us live a full life. We all want to live a meaningful life, it is part of humanity, and I think it is a God-given desire in all of us and as we dig into the teaching of Jesus you start to realise that He really is the key to it all, the key to living that meaningful life.

Jesus, the conversationalist

The thing about the CROWDs though, is that it wasn't all one way. Jesus would present an idea, and quite often people had questions, or they had their own thoughts and views on the matter. So we see in scripture a dialogue that takes place. And this is why we encourage you to comment on the live streams. It's the digital equivalent of putting questions and ideas out there.

I have sat in many church sermons and had questions...what does that mean? Hang on, what about...and occasionally, that was such a good point - say that again! But of course, I could never voice them during the talk. I could never ask them. The best case for me was to write them down in my journal and come back to them later. But here, on CROWD, you don't have to wait. You can put them in the comments. You can ask and debate. And you can also contribute too. I love it when people add in the comments different ideas or verses or stories. When we talk about the peace of God, you can tell you story in the comments about how you felt God's peace this week. By sharing your story, by asking your questions, by debating respectfully, you contribute and shape what is happening - much like what happened in Jesus' time when He addressed the CROWD.

I love that. I really love that.

So Jesus taught. He answered questions, He engaged in debate and He invites people to share their story. He also does one other thing.

Jesus, the healer

Jesus prays for people. In Matthew, it talks about how He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. In other words, He inspired people about the Kingdom of God, He engaged in Conversation about the Kingdom of God, and then He demonstrated the Kingdom of God by healing bodies and transforming lives.

So, again, we have taken note of that - which is why we are going to ask on the Livestream, and on our website, and on Social Media, if we can pray for you about anything. Can we ask God, on your behalf, to show you Himself and demonstrate what He is all about?

You can do that on the comments, you can do that via text message, or via social media, or you can do it by completing the webform on our website.

Fundamentally, we believe that Jesus is alive, that He is intriguing and caring, that He is both God and man and that He rules the universe and yet is still interested in each individual person. We believe that when we pray, it changes things - especially when we pray in line with His will and plans. So we would love to pray for you because Christianity is more than just a thought exercise - it is a living, breathing, incredible relationship with Christ Himself - and you can know Him mentally, but you can also know Him experientially too. Imagine if I mentally knew that I was married, but that was it and my wife and I never connected in a way that meaningful or emotional. Or with my kids, if I didn't talk with them, and help them and be proud of them. Same with God, right. And prayer is the what helps that.

So do let us know what we can pray for.

So I am hoping that you can start to see why we called our digital church, CROWD? When you picture the CROWD in your mind that gathered around Jesus, and look into what is going on and it starts to come alive - it gets real doesn't it?

The Crowd was divided about Jesus

There's a really fascinating story in the gospel of John that I want to look at:

Jesus here is teaching the CROWD about Kingdom news...He is talking about the Holy Spirit which is an amazing topic let me tell you and we are going to find out a lot more about the person of the Holy Spirit, the completeness of the trinity, in our Livestreams and web content.

But the thing I want to look at here is the CROWD's response to Jesus. there was a divided opinion about him.

• Prophet - or holy man
• Messiah - or the Christ - in other words, they thought, as I do, that Jesus is the son of God that He has come to restore the human race to Himself.
• Some didn't know what to think but had lots of questions.
• Some wanted him arrested - to get rid of him, to wipe his memory from existence.

And that divided opinion is exactly the same today.

A few months ago we looked at the questions Jesus asks Peter - who do you say that I am? And in that Livestream - we looked at a few statistics....here they are again:

So today, as in the time of Jesus - we have divided opinion about Jesus. Some of you watching this will be Christians and believe the Jesus came in human form. Some will think that He lived, but was just a normal bloke whilst others of you may think that He lived and was a good, holy man but that was about it. Some of you might not have an opinion about Jesus at all and are unsure about him whilst others my think he should be wiped from the annals of history and don't even think He existed at all.

Even today, Jesus divides our opinion, just as in that CROWD in the Gospel of John.

And we want people of differing opinions to gather, and the great thing about the online church is that church doesn't become an exclusive club but rather it becomes a place where people with different opinions and thoughts can come together.

Church is accessible online. You can just watch the service, as I know many do. And that’s fine. Just keep coming back. Eventually, you may throw in a question, or comment in the feed? You may ask for prayer.

Ultimately though, you have to make a decision about who Jesus really is...and our stance on the matter is no secret. My hope and my prayer is that at some point, as you journey with us, that you would encounter Him in a real and dynamic way and that that encounter wouldn’t be just a one-off - but a regular event. I pray that you see His transforming power in action and that He is worthy of it all.

But for now, just keep coming back. Be part of the crowd each week as we gather. Be intrigued by him. Uncover the story of Jesus for yourself. Get into the teaching and the stories. Ask for prayer. You'll be amazed at what happens.

Purpose of CROWD

So we have a name, and we have a purpose - to be a church for those that don't see the point of church. Be a place where people can find answers to live a meaningful life. Be a place where we discover Jesus. To be a digital place where the crowds can gather, hear the teaching of Jesus, ask questions, share stories and debate. To be a place where you can encounter Jesus if you want to, and a place where you can receive prayer. That is CROWD in a nutshell.

I'm excited about CROWD, and I am looking forward to uncovering the story of Jesus and how he really is the key to living a meaningful life. Thanks for being part of the journey with us.