#1 Becoming Whole Series Kickoff: The First Step? Rethink Righteousness
Time Stamps
00:00 - Welcome from Dan and Anna
03:05 - Talk: Becoming Whole - The First Step? Rethink Righteousness
27:00 - Exploring the Five Areas of Biblical Wholeness
31:33 - Conversation Street: Deeper Than Filters - Finding True Wholeness
38:32 - The Power of Being "Sound" in Every Area
Why God's Idea of Completeness Trumps Instagram Filters
Ever caught yourself editing a photo before posting it? Tucking in that tummy, smoothing out those lines, whitening those teeth just a touch? You're not alone.
This Sunday, Matt kicked off our brand-new "Becoming Whole" series with a candid admission about his own battle with the photo editing app. It sparked a bigger conversation about what true wholeness actually looks like – and spoiler alert: it's not found in Photoshop or Instagram filters.
The Perfection Trap
"Like many of us, I fell into the trap of what psychologists call maladaptive perfectionism," Matt shared. "It's a slippery slope, this obsession with perfection, driven by fear of failure, feelings of unworthiness... In trying to fix ourselves, we often end up breaking more pieces."
Sound familiar? Our culture's relentless push toward surface-level perfection leaves many of us feeling like we're constantly falling short. We're bombarded with images of the "ideal" life – the perfect body, the dream job, the Pinterest-worthy home – and yet, even those who seem to "have it all" often feel something's missing.
Matt recalled a wealthy client he once worked with: "He had billions in the bank, not just millions. Private jets, helicopters, properties in every corner of the globe... Sure, he was fit as a fiddle and wealthy beyond comprehension, but spiritually? Relationally? He was poor."
What Biblical Wholeness Actually Means
At the heart of this series is a different definition of wholeness:
"Biblical wholeness is nothing missing, nothing broken, complete in every part, through and through, no part wanting or unsound."
Unlike our culture's one-dimensional view of success, biblical wholeness encompasses every aspect of who we are. Over the coming months, we'll be exploring five key areas:
Spirit – Our connection with God (the trunk of the tree that supports everything else)
Soul – Our mental and emotional wellbeing
Body – Our physical health
Relational – Our connections with others
Economic – Our approach to work, money, and giving
True wholeness isn't about excelling in just one of these areas while neglecting the others. It's about finding balance and health across all of them, with our spiritual health as the foundation.
The First Step: Rethinking Righteousness
So where does this journey toward wholeness begin? With something theologians call "the divine exchange."
Matt shared a touching story about his father wishing he could take on his sister's illness when she was a baby. That desire – to exchange our health for someone else's sickness – reflects something deeply godly.
"At the heart of the Christian faith lies this divine exchange," Matt explained. "Jesus takes upon himself our failings, our brokenness and our sin... and in exchange, He gives us His divine righteousness, His right standing with God."
This is the stunning truth at the core of Christianity: we don't have to earn our way to wholeness through endless self-improvement. Instead, Jesus offers us His righteousness as a gift.
"It's not something that we can earn in a million years, but it is a gift we can receive in a heartbeat."
Beyond the Surface
During Conversation Street, Dan and Anna unpacked how this view of wholeness challenges our superficial culture.
"We live in a very instant Snapchat, Instagram society," Dan observed. "Everybody's lives are fine in that split-second, surface level."
Anna added: "How freeing to know that we don't have to keep striving through self-effort... The gospel is such good news because it's not that we have to become perfect. It's that God makes us perfect."
This approach to wholeness isn't about ticking boxes or maintaining appearances. It's about receiving a gift that transforms us from the inside out, bringing completeness to every area of our lives.
A Different Kind of Perfect
In a world obsessed with filters and facades, there's something incredibly liberating about this message. We don't have to present ourselves as flawless to be accepted by God. We don't have to achieve some impossible standard of success to be considered "whole."
Instead, we're invited to pursue a different kind of perfection – one that starts with accepting Jesus' righteousness and then allows that gift to transform every aspect of who we are.
As Anna beautifully summarised: "Fullness of life... that's all-encompassing, isn't it? It's every part of your life being full, but full of God, full of wholeness, completeness."
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Matt Edmundson: [00:00:00] Welcome to this week's Crowd Church service. We are a digital church on a quest to discover how Jesus helps us live a more meaningful life. We are a community, a space to explore the Christian faith and a place where you can contribute and grow. Our service will last about an hour and in a few seconds you'll meet our hosts for our service who will introduce today's talk.
After the talk, we will have a time of worship and reflection, after which we head into Conversation Street, where we look at your stories and questions that you've posted in the comments. Now we want to invite you to connect with us here at Crowd Church, and we've got a few ways in which you can do just that.
Firstly, you can engage with [00:01:00] Crowd from any device during our livestream, and if you're up for it Why not invite a few friends over and experience the service together? Church is all about connecting with God and connecting with others. And one of the easiest ways for you to do that is join one of our mid week groups where we meet.
Online together to catch up and discover more about the amazingness of Christ. You can also subscribe to our fairly new podcast called What's The Story, where we deep dive into stories of faith and courage from everyday people. More information about All of these things can be found on our website at www.
crowd. church or you can reach out to us on social media at crowd. church. If you are new to crowd or new to the Christian faith and would like to know what your next steps to take are, why not head over to our website crowd. [00:02:00] church Next, for more details. And now, the moment you've been waiting for is here.
Our online church service starts right now. Hello
Anna Kettle: there. Hi guys. Nice to see everyone this evening. We made it, didn't we? Just about. Only by the skin of our teeth, hey guys. It's honestly, ten minutes ago we were stuck outside a security gate, weren't we? Yeah,
Dan Orange: I was stuck inside. I couldn't get out, you couldn't get in.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah,
Anna Kettle: new gates. We literally had a secure new gates on the sort of the complex where the studio is. Yeah. Have just been fitted this week and yeah, we had a bit of a security malfunction with a gate. The code wasn't working. It's oh no, I can't get in and Dan can't get out. So he thought he was sleeping in the car park and I thought I wasn't going to be here to broadcast.
And
Dan Orange: apparently we're now being monitored because this big sounder came out [00:03:00] over the whole
Anna Kettle: area. Yeah, slightly scary, made us feel a bit like criminals. So let's hope we don't get busted while we do this. But we're here. Yeah, we made it guys. So this is no small feat. It feels like we may not be as well prepped as normal, but we're here.
All right.
Dan Orange: And it's a new series. Yeah, new series today. It's exciting.
Anna Kettle: Yeah, so we're starting a brand new series called Becoming Whole. Yes. Yeah, we're super
Dan Orange: excited. Yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to this. So Matt's gonna kick off the series, give us a bit of an overview and talk about righteousness.
So I'm, yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah.
Anna Kettle: And I feel like everyone's excited to have finally finished the never ending act series. So it
Dan Orange: was a brilliant series, but it was a brilliant series. Very in depth wasn't
Anna Kettle: it? Yeah, it was long. Who knew Acts, the book of Acts was so long. So no, we did enjoy it, but we're keen to get into some new content now, which is going to be good.
And we've got, did you say we've got Matt speaking today? Yes,
Dan Orange: we've got Matt [00:04:00] speaking today. Shall we? Without
Anna Kettle: further ado. Yeah, let's crack on and
Dan Orange: get stuck into it. And remember, while the talk's on, please just send any questions you've got in. Yeah. And then we'll endeavour to answer them afterwards.
Yeah.
Anna Kettle: We'll endeavour to, yeah. Yeah.
Matt Edmundson: Here we go.
Do you ever feel like something's missing in your life? Like you're not quite there, you're not quite whole, maybe. Do you remember, if you're of a certain age, you may well remember the famous movie, Jerry Maguire. And in that film was a famous line, You complete me. It was a powerful Hollywood moment. Great scripting that makes you feel good.
But what really completes us? Is it just a case of finding our Dorothy or finding our Jerry? Today we are kickstarting a brand new series, which I'm super excited about, and we have called it Becoming Whole, where we're going to find out the answer to what it [00:05:00] means to be truly complete, truly fulfilled, and truly whole.
Now, in this series, we're going to. Going to be unpacking this concept of wholeness from a biblical perspective and obviously we're a church and hopefully I think it's going to change a whole bunch of stuff for us. Oh, yes. And today, what my plan is to give you an overview of the series, the five key areas that we're going to be getting into, five key areas.
That I think the Bible talks about wholeness in as well as a kickstart in that by looking at how rethinking righteousness, our right standing with God is the first step to wholeness. So grab your notebooks now, if you are watching and you are not a regular to crowd, maybe not a regular church goer, or perhaps you're still exploring what you believe and you might want to help.
All this applies to you. Let me invite you to view this as an opportunity because everything in life is an opportunity, isn't it? But it's an [00:06:00] opportunity to explore maybe a different perspective to the usual self help and improvement messages that we hear. It's a chance to see how biblical principles can offer perhaps a new kind of fulfillment.
One that maybe you haven't thought of before. You will, no doubt. Enjoy it though. So do stick with us, especially if you're like me, if you've ever found yourself asking if there's more to life than the daily grind, we wake up, we follow our routine, we meet our responsibilities, and then we do it again the next day and then again the next day and again.
The next day, it can feel a little bit like living in Groundhog Day, if now, surely there has to be more, something beyond the ticking clock, the changing of the calendar pages and the relentless pursuit of the next thing on our to do list. We are constantly busy. It's a badge of honour in a society.[00:07:00]
Like ours, isn't it? I am busy. But is it getting us anywhere new or meaningful? And we can feel deep down if we really listen, a persistent whisper, a calling, maybe, to something more profound, more fulfilling. It's a call.
I'm not saying that routine and responsibilities are important, because they absolutely are. But it is possible, I think, that we've become so accustomed to them that we've lost sight of what it means to really live, not to just exist, but to thrive. In this series, we're going to explore that space beyond the everyday, about finding the meaning in the midst of the mundane.
Now, obviously, you can also have the appearance of being whole or fulfilled, can't you? But still feel like your life's lacking depth somehow, like something is not quite [00:08:00] right, deep inside your soul and on the outside things look great. Maybe you've got a good job. The, the great salary, a nice home, a social circle.
It ticks all the boxes of what society tells us. Fulfilled look like. A fulfilled life is supposed to look like, right? But in my experience, it's easy to get caught up in the trappings of these things, to chase after the so called benchmarks that we're given, believing that once we reach them, we feel complete somehow, feel somehow fulfilled.
But I've known many people devote Huge chunks of their life to success or achievement thinking they would find wholeness at the end of it. But they don't. So in this series, we're going to dig beneath the surface and search for true, authentic biblical wholeness in our lives. If you've ever felt this disconnect, if you've ever looked in the mirror and wondered who's really looking back at you?
[00:09:00] Then I think you're going to be in the right place. This series is about bridging that gap between the person in the mirror and the person maybe that God sees. So what does it really mean to be whole? That is the question. So let me press this button here. Let me take you back a few years to when this photograph was taken.
Now, this is a photo of me, a slightly younger version of me it's a work photo shoot that we did. And in this photo shoot, we had posh cameras, we had nice lighting, yet after about 20 attempts, not a single photo seemed good enough to me. Each one had a flaw in some way. I just was not happy. Maybe it was a stray hair or a crooked smile or just that feeling that something wasn't quite right.
What I was seeing was not marrying up with the idea of what I thought it should look like. So I turned to Photoshop. Oh yes, [00:10:00] I tucked in my belly a little bit, I lifted my chin, I adjusted my arms, smoothed out my skin, maybe whitened my eyes slightly as well because I couldn't look. at a photograph of me without wanting to change it, or should I say improve it?
And it's not just me that goes through this though, is it really? We're all into our Instagram filters, striving to portray this picture, this image, this version of ourselves that screams we're okay, we're whole, we're good to the world. It's our modern day battle. with an age old longing to be complete, to be whole.
So why do we do this? Is it just for social validation? Or perhaps there's something more profound, which I think there is. And it all starts in the Garden of Hedon? The Garden of Eden. You see there, humanity knew wholeness, a state I think we've been yearning [00:11:00] to return to ever since it was lost.
And the good news, I'm not convinced that yearning is actually in vain. James, the brother of Jesus, wrote this in his letter. He said, Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, or whole, lacking Nothing. Wow, it's a great quote, isn't it? Now, biblical wholeness then is nothing missing, nothing broken, complete in every part, through and through, no part wanting or unsound.
What a great definition. Let me read that again. Biblical wholeness is nothing missing, nothing broken, complete in every part, through and through. No part wanting or unsound. As soon as I edited that photo, when I made my belly look thinner and my arms, a bit more then it actually became broken.
It wasn't complete. It wasn't [00:12:00] authentic. I wasn't complete. I wasn't authentic. Those filters. We're an outward response to an inner brokenness. So like many of us, I fell into the trap of what psychologists call maladaptive perfectionism, which is a very posh term, isn't it? But it is a slippery slope.
It's this sort of obsession with perfection, which is driven by a fear of failure or feelings of unworthiness. It's a quest I think that often leads us further away from being whole, ironically, and causes things like depression and anxiety and even obsessive compulsive disorders. So in trying to fix ourselves, we often end up breaking more pieces.
And the pursuit of wholeness becomes a cycle of self criticism and comparison. But if the goal is to get back to Eden, to that state of completeness and wholeness God designed, then can we [00:13:00] truly find it in ourselves? Can a self help book or a therapy session, as helpful as they are, and maybe as needed as they are, Can they really restore us to our original design?
So true wholeness for me, true biblical wholeness, completeness, comes from a source beyond our own efforts. And it is simply a gift from God, a return to the state he intended for us before before we went and messed things up royally. So if I go back to my photo here, wholeness isn't something that I can create.
It's something that I receive. And now I realise that I've managed to not manipulate another image of me in that way again. Seeing this image though, some might say I've gone too far the other way. [00:14:00] Yeah, now I just don't care and that's probably yeah. What are we going to cover in this series on becoming hope?
So let's look at that question. Now I remember a work trip that I took years ago with a very wealthy client that we were working with. He was a man who had everything most of us would ever dream of. He had billions in the bank, not just millions. Private jets, helicopters, properties in every corner of the globe, whatever he wanted he snapped his metaphorical fingers.
And it was his, and one time we were talking, got chatting away, as we do, as I did on these kind of trips that we went on, and we were talking about how he was onto yet another marriage, about his relationships with his kids and how they were strained to say the least. They actually didn't really want anything to do with him.
Sure, he was as fit as a fiddle and wealthy beyond [00:15:00] comparison. But spiritually, relationally, he was quite a poor man and in many ways, I was wealthier than he was. And he wasn't the only one that I met that had this issue. For a season, I got to hang out with many super wealthy people and very few of them were whole people.
And that sent me on a path of exploration. I realised that wholeness Isn't, by it's very definition, isn't just about one aspect of our lives. Now, I know it sounds a little crazy when I say it out aloud, but for a long time I actually thought wholeness was just about me saying, sure I'm a Christian, therefore I'm whole.
Then I read verses like this, where Paul is writing to the church at Thessalonica. He says, Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul and body, be preserved blameless at the coming [00:16:00] of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's an interesting passage because it talks about being whole, spirit, soul, and body.
And our soul covers our mental and emotional well being. And body that obviously covers our fit, finical, just covers our physical wholeness. Now there are a few more areas that the Bible talks about too. Spirit, soul body also talks about relationships being whole in our relationships and even in our economic health, which covers our work, our money, and our giving.
So these are the five areas that we're gonna look at through this series. So let me bring this up here. Here we go. Here's a beautiful image of a tree. Now we're gonna be looking at, area number one, which is spirit. We are gonna be looking at soul. We are gonna be looking at body, and we're gonna be looking at relationship.
And then finally we're gonna be looking [00:17:00] at economic, wholeness and health. So they're the five areas that I think scripture to. There are other areas. I appreciate, but these are the five areas that we are going to get into over the coming weeks and months. What does spiritual health look like?
What does soul health look like? What does body health look like? What does relational health look like? And what does economic health look like? You put all of those together and you start to create a picture of biblical wholeness, right? And that's what we're going to be looking at over the next eight, 10 months.
Oh yes, it's going to take us a little while. Let me tell you, it's not a quick fix. Just pointing that out. Now we're gonna dive into each of these areas and the one that we're gonna start with first is this one, which is spirit health. This is the most crucial, think of spirit health as the trunk of the tree.
Your spiritual health supports everything else. That's why it's the trunk. Now, the client of mine that I was talking about, despite his riches, despite his wealth, despite [00:18:00] everything he his. Tree trunk wasn't particularly sound. He was physically strong. Yes, financially sound. Yes, absolutely but spiritually not great and then relationally not great and then there was a mental and emotional health that he was going that he was So wholeness isn't about just one area, that's my point here.
So as we start a new series, we're going to start by studying spirit health and then broaden out. And when we look at spirit health over the next few weeks, we're going to look at things like prayer, Bible study, what it means to be led by the spirit of God, what it looks like building the fruits of the spirit in our lives, like joy and kindness.
And it is in those that we're going to discover what Jesus talked about when he said, one of his most famous verses in John chapter 10, verse 10, he said, the thief does not come except to [00:19:00] steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.
That's such a promise, isn't it? So as we journey through this series, remember my client. Remember that true wealth, true wholeness isn't just about what you have, it's about who you are in every aspect of your being. It's about abundant life that Jesus brings us. And that's is very good news. So as we're kickstarting this series, how does rethinking righteousness lead to wholeness?
That's the next question that we need to answer. So I believe that true righteousness is the very foundation of wholeness, the cornerstone that holds everything else in place. Why? Wholeness starts first and foremost with our spiritual health, which is what I've said, it's the trunk of the tree. But at the [00:20:00] heart of our spiritual health lies this very idea of righteousness, because without righteousness, there is no spiritual health.
Righteousness is simply right standing with God. Years ago, I was in my sister's bedroom, Amy, with my dad. She was just a baby then and she was really quite poorly, quite ill. And my dad was changing her nappy, or diaper for our American cousins. But in that moment, he said something that I've never forgotten.
He looked at her and he said, you know what Matt, I wish I could be sick for her. And in that moment, my father expressed a desire to take on her sickness and give her his. Health, right? He wanted the ability to exchange hi to exchange sort of states of being his wellness for her sickness. He wanted this exchange, and it turns out [00:21:00] this idea of an exchange, this desire for us as dads to exchange something good that we have for something bad that someone we love.
Has is actually very godly because at the heart of the Christian faith lies something that theologians like to call the divine exchange or the great exchange. And Paul talks about this in his letter to the Corinthian church. This is a vivid description of it. He says, For he God made him, Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.
My dad had the desire to exchange, but he didn't have the power to do it. Jesus does, which is awesome news because he takes upon himself our failings, our brokenness and our sin, which is let's face it, it's the enemy of righteousness, our right standing with God. And in [00:22:00] exchange. He gives us his divine righteousness, his right standing with God.
It's not something that we can earn in a million years, but it is a gift we can receive in a heartbeat. It really is. And that gift gives us the ability to stand boldly before the throne of grace all because of what Jesus did. We swapped states of being. We were spiritually dead and he exchanged that for his abundance.
Life. Yes. . It's just amazing stuff. The more you dig into it. And that's why spiritual health depends on righteousness, and that's why righteousness is the first step to spiritual health in the gospel of Matthew. Jesus tells us this in chapter six. He says, do not worry saying, what shall we eat or What shall we drink?
Or What shall we wear? How often do we do that? For after all these things the Gentiles seek, for your heavenly Father knows that you need [00:23:00] all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all of these things shall be added to you. And Jesus tells us. Not to worry about earthly needs, but to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
It's quite a profound statement if you think it through. And the reason is, in doing so, everything else seems to fall in place. So wholeness is about prioritising and it's about understanding where true fulfilment actually lies. Now the uncomfortable truth. For many of us, is that our attempts at self improvement fall very short.
We try and say, drink a little less, or eat less carbs, or exercise more. We try and be a better person, swear a little bit less, spend more time with the kids, not all bad things, but the Christian idea that our efforts are insufficient can [00:24:00] be really jarring in a culture that applauds self made success and personal virtue.
It just does, right? We live in a world where the pursuit of moral and spiritual perfection is often a solo endeavour, a sort of a success path built on personal achievements and self effort. But that's not the Gospel. And Jesus tells us to focus on Him, not us. Focus on Him. To seek first His righteousness, God's righteousness.
But who, or what then, is God's righteousness? Jesus, that's who, and through Jesus we discover that He has made us. The righteousness of God. It's mind blowing. It's a virtuous circle, in effect, that as we first seek God and build our spiritual health, we find ourselves, our true, authentic, beautiful and whole [00:25:00] selves, where there's nothing missing, nothing broken.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like something worth pursuing. It makes sense to pursue the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first. It's not always that easy though, and that's why I'm excited about this series, so make sure you subscribe if you haven't done so already. If you head over to our website, www.
crowd. church, and fill in the email sign up form, we will email you each week a link to our study you're not going to want to miss any of them. You really aren't. This whole idea, understanding what the Bible has to say about wholeness. Now, if you want to look at this idea of righteousness a little bit more, because, if you can imagine the depth of this topic being the ocean, we have just taken a little thimble out of the top. It's just such a beautiful topic and so deep and powerful. There is a great video called What Does the Bible Say About Easter, where Pete Farrington explains it further, so you [00:26:00] can check that out.
And of course, if today's talk has brought to the surface for you any prayer requests, doubts, or even breakthroughs, We are here for you. Do reach out to us. Share your thoughts, your struggles, your victories. Remember, here at Crowd, you're not alone. We are a community. We genuinely are. And we'd love to support and uplift you as we do each other.
Now, I hope you are excited about this becoming whole series. I am. It's going to be a great series filled with insights and revelations that can truly transform our understanding of what it means to live a life of faith. Fullness and Purpose. And as we delve into each aspect of wholeness, from our spiritual health to our relationships and all that stuff, what we see in the mirror will become more and more like what God sees.
And I can't wait to see how it unfolds. For each of us.[00:27:00]
Dan Orange: Wow.
Anna Kettle: There's a lot in that, wasn't there? There is, yeah. Really good. Yeah. A talk led by Matt. Yeah. A
Dan Orange: lot in that talk and a lot coming up. I'm excited
Anna Kettle: about. Yeah, definitely. Where do you begin? What really challenged you in that, Dan? Where did you? Oh, sorry. You're just playing with your microphone.
What did you find particularly challenging? What's one thing you found particularly
Dan Orange: challenging? Firstly, I'm quite, you I'm quite looking forward to this whole series that there's just everything that it's going to cover and quite in a quite practical way as well. But I think for me, the main thing we were chatting about it when Matt was talking was we live and I've said this lots of times on crowd, but we live in a very instant Snapchat, Instagram society.
We live that everybody's lives are. Fine in that split second surface level it happening. Yeah. Surface level. [00:28:00] Yeah. Yeah. And it just doesn't fulfill
Anna Kettle: We're the social media generation, aren't we? And I think that shaped us in that it's easy to have the appearance of the thing looking perfect because we are it's the filter generation, isn't it?
Yeah. Put the right filter on and everyone looks beautiful, we've got lights and all kinds of effects going on here in the studio. I don't look this good when I'm sat at home. But it is that, isn't it? It's that it's easy to pursue a perfection that doesn't actually exist in and of itself.
But that a lot played out in social media and online, don't you? That kind of chasing a perfection, like whether that's image. And how you look, that perfect like gym body we were talking about, that eternal youthness that doesn't really exist unless you use a lot of Batox and fillers.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: So the, cause we were mentioning that there's stuff that you, that is good for you, that is, and Matt talked about it, self help isn't, it isn't a bad thing, but it doesn't fulfill. And what happens if. If you can't [00:29:00] go to the gym every day, or if you go to the gym every day, but it still doesn't give you that figure you wanted, where, what do you do then, what do you look for?
Anna Kettle: Yeah, then and as you say like it's, going to the gym or any number of things like going to see a therapist Yeah, it can fix so much, but some people will never have the perfect celebrity body, right? Yeah, I never will I'm over 40 I've had a child like it's good It's not impossible, but I'm never gonna look like a six foot model because I'm you know, five foot two so So there is like that kind of, some things are just not achievable for everyone and it's that kind of drive to I don't know.
Dan Orange: And I don't think some things are achievable to Not out of self effort. No, and I suppose perhaps there's a whole, there's like the Disney, everything is possible and it isn't possible. And even in the [00:30:00] Hollywood life. Style, the Hollywood image we see films, and we know they're fake. Then we expect those actors, actresses outside to be that perfect and that perfect bo perfect person throughout.
And
Anna Kettle: they, and not only that, we watch the storylines where someone falls in love and it's like beautiful and happy ever after. And we know that's not always our relational reality. We live in families. Yeah, where people are breaking and imperfect and it's not happily ever after. It's hard and all relationships are hard sometimes, aren't they?
And so when our marriages aren't perfect or our families aren't perfect, we're like what went wrong? And so yeah, and I think that's what I really loved about what Matt said that he was like self effort is good but it only takes us so far like self effort is not enough and How freeing to know that we don't have to keep striving through self effort, but to me, I just thought, I just, sorry, I'm moving away from my mic, getting too animated and moving around people [00:31:00] for me, the bit that really excites me about what Matt was saying was that, he was talking about the gospel and righteousness not being of or in making, You know that like it struck me that the gospel is such good news because it's not that we have to become perfect.
It's that God makes us perfect. Yes, and how freeing to not have to do it all yourself and be it all yourself. And that actually you're released from that, those superficial things. And actually you can be made truly right with God and truly whole, truly complete. I think you said the biblical definition was like nothing missing, nothing broken, complete and whole.
And we, and that's something we can't fully do for ourselves, but we get it as a gift. Yeah. And how incredible. I know it's how incredible good news that is. Yeah. It is slightly mind blowing,
Dan Orange: isn't it? Yeah, it is. And every time we talk about this it is mind blowing because it is counter culture.
It is
it, everything we know [00:32:00] and do isn't. good enough. We can't make ourselves good enough to get to heaven. We can't make ourselves good enough to be perfect in God's eyes. We can't make ourselves meet all his laws and requirements until he, we allow him just to take over. We allow that gift of him dying, becoming He died so that we can have that life and we can have that righteousness.
Yeah, that's right. And it doesn't mean we don't just sit back and don't do anything. Yeah, but no matter how much we flog ourselves or do this and do that, it's God's standard is perfection, isn't it?
Anna Kettle: Yeah, and ironically, our culture standard is perfection. It's just that it cannot achieve it through self effort.
So so many people are striving for perfection, it's unattainable in [00:33:00] terms of the kind of perfection quite often seek, which is, what Matt started, which is wealth, which is fame, which is the perfect body and, all of those superficial, forms of perfection, not, they're not even bad things to want, are they?
Who doesn't want to be a bit better off? But you work with lots of wealthy people in your jobs,
Dan Orange: and I see, yeah, I'm in their houses all the time and they've, yeah, a lot of them have everything that we'd want, but they have just as many problems and life is the same for them as it is for us.
Perhaps sometimes they can blot it out with holidays and, yeah, and fast cars and things like that can distract for a while, but it's still, they're still in the same situation. When we were talking before about perfection, Matt mentioned this quite a few times, he mentioned the statement standing with God.
And I think that's his standards. If we're without God, where is your [00:34:00] standard? Where is that perfection? Because it's. It's a wavy line because it's whatever you think it is or it's whatever the fashion says it is, but we have a standard and God can put us in that right standing with him and It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?
Anna Kettle: Yeah, it's such a helpful way he explained it. It was really, I found it quite profound. And yeah, I think he said I wrote it down actually. He said wholeness is not just about what you have. And that kind of sums it up for me. And I think, and that's why I'm so excited about this series and getting stuck into it actually, because I'm like.
It's not just about what you have like materially and that's what you're saying about some of your clients. They've got it materially, but they're not any more together because of that. And it's like this wholeness in what do you say, spirit, soul, body, relationship and economic. And if an economics one element of it, but it's not all of it.
And yeah, and I know they're not the only areas you can be [00:35:00] whole, but they are five big ones. But particularly that might, that spirit, soul, body. That's so important, isn't it? Wholeness in
Dan Orange: those words. And I'm sure we'll find out in further talks, but that economic in that which is money and health as well.
That doesn't mean that to be, yes. And it doesn't even mean having enough. It just means knowing that you're provide learn,
Anna Kettle: provided for. Going back to the definition, like having nothing missing, nothing broken, being complete and whole in. It doesn't mean always being super comfortable, having everything you want.
It's also about freedom, I think as you were talking, I was just like, you know what, actually, economic wholeness, part of that for me is freedom. I'm not fearful about my money. I'm not fearful about not having enough that I'm actually free to give, free to serve God with my money and free to give it away.
I'm free to. It's just not got a hold on me Yes. Or what I do. And that is [00:36:00] economic. Yes. I think that you
Dan Orange: wholeness as well, isn't it? Yeah. To have yeah. To not have it have a
Anna Kettle: hold of you. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly
Dan Orange: That. Matt quoted John 10 10, which says I came to give life and life in all its fullness. So this is what we're not, what we're talking about is not just it's not just a level or. We said a standard, that's not the right word. It's not just okay, we're going to get you to a state. We're going to get ourselves to a state where we're okay. We're content or we're okay on this line. But God said, I want to give you fullness.
I want you to be filled. I want you to know what this life is. Yeah. Yeah. Fullness of life. That's a big. Big
Anna Kettle: thing, isn't it? Yeah, that is one of my favourite Bible verses, actually. Just think, yeah, like fullness of life, as you say, that's all encompassing, isn't it? It's every part of your life being full, but full of God, full of wholeness, [00:37:00] completeness, full yeah, it's a great promise.
And yeah, I guess over the next few weeks, we'll learn a bit more about how that can look in reality. I wondered if anyone had put any comments in over here, actually, I can see Miriam said healthy relationships are brilliant and yeah, that's one area I want to explore loads more. But I think absolutely yeah, that's what I'm excited about getting into and not just like our culture is so obsessed with like sex and relationships and that is part of relational.
Hornace, but actually it's such a small part and I've got single friends and like we both have family members and actually Hornace in relationships is also about having great friendships and great community and actually that's something I'm more passionate about than any other form of relationship, actually.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Orange: Yeah. If you can't be open with someone or talk with someone, then that's a relationship that's. Catastrophic, isn't it? It's a relationship that's flawed. Yeah,
Anna Kettle: [00:38:00] It's superficial again, isn't it? It's going back to that thing that we started with. It's so much of a culture like settles at the superficial level and there's not that
Dan Orange: depth.
Yeah, and and it's masked and topped up with things. If we can occupy ourselves as Much as we can, then we don't have to think about those other things. We don't have to dwell on those as well that perhaps going back to economic health, perhaps having more money means that's a problem. Yeah, because it's much easier to feel your life.
Yeah, the stuff to distract. From that time of just having time on your own, with yourself.
Anna Kettle: Matt's just put biblical harnesses, like here's the exact definition, there's nothing missing, nothing broken, complete in every part, through and through, no part wanting or unsound. That's just a great definition, isn't it, [00:39:00] I
Dan Orange: love that, I really do.
I love the word unsound, there's no cracks in it, there's no, if you're being like a engineer type person, if you knock something, there's a nice resounding thing. There's nothing, there's no hiss. There's no worry. There's no fault deep down in it. Yeah. It is sound. It is solid. Yeah.
Anna Kettle: You really get that because you're much more practical
Dan Orange: than I am.
I can picture it. Yeah. I like that word.
Anna Kettle: Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. Matt says we'll be covering all of these when we talk about relationships. Yeah. That'll be a really good section.
Dan Orange: Yeah, I'm looking forward, I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah,
Anna Kettle: yeah, it's going to be a good series. Definitely.
Dan Orange: And I would encourage you to go back and have a listen to that talk.
I think I'm going to listen as well. Yeah. To Pete's talk about Easter and why it's important.
Anna Kettle: Yeah, I don't know if I've seen that one before. I'm not sure. I don't know. I think I might have missed that one. There's a lot of crack content out there now, yeah. I don't think I've seen them all, but yeah, it looks good, that one.
Yeah. Definitely. We're coming around to Easter again, aren't we? [00:40:00] Yes. I can't believe we've just had February off term. Like, where has this year gone? Yeah, it's crazy. So far. It's mid February. Halfway to Easter. Started Lent, haven't we? Just a question, a bit off topic. Do you give anything up for Lent?
Dan Orange: I don't normally, no.
Anna Kettle: Do you? No, I don't. I am not a New Year's resolution person. I think I've said this before on Crowd Church. I'm not a length giver upper either. I like, totally respect people who do it. Yeah. And it's really a good discipline for some people, but I don't know. I never get on well with putting things out.
Yeah,
Dan Orange: I'm doing the talk on self control in, I'm hoping a couple of months. So perhaps I might have to pick up on that.
Anna Kettle: No I like the idea of it, but in practice, also we were away this week. So Lenk crept up on me and it was here before I really, and it was my little boy's birthday at the weekend.
So we were all busy with that. And then. It was like pancake day and then you get into Lent and it's Oh, I haven't really thought about it. So definitely didn't do [00:41:00] anything for it this year, but it is a good, I love this season. It's like coming in spring and we're like on the run down to Easter
Dan Orange: now.
Do you feel, because there'll be people that watching this, some have got a church background, some not got a church background, some have a very strict, more orthodox or like Church of England or we're more of an evangelical background and I think some of the things that we do miss out on is those events in the calendar.
Not that they don't save us, but they do help focus, don't
Anna Kettle: you think? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. Sometimes we can, yeah, we can lose a bit of that, can't we, in that like freedom and flexibility of like how we do church sometimes. But yeah, I, one thing I kind of love about the Church of England, for example, is they do liturgy really well.
I wouldn't want to do it all the time, but sometimes it can be really beautiful. Like I'm a writer and I love words. So for me, like that ability to use some of those refrains can be really powerful. Yeah. I think they do things like lament, [00:42:00] like different parts of church do lament and, grief much better than we sometimes say.
And yeah, liturgy can be used really well with that kind of stuff. So we're getting a bit off topic here, aren't we? But, yeah, we're we've covered off wholeness anyway, haven't we, I think so.
Dan Orange: So next week prayer. Next week and then get on to a lot of great
Anna Kettle: topics.
Yeah. I'm excited. When are you next? When are you next with us?
Dan Orange: I'm actually will be with you next week because I'm doing the talk on prayer. Perfect. Dan's going to be back next week. I'm sorry about that guys.
Anna Kettle: Two weeks. No, you shouldn't apologise. Two weeks in a row. Two weeks of Dan. Brilliant. Yeah.
I'm back in a few weeks for the talk as well. In a series. So yeah. And then hosting. Yeah. Early March, I think. So back pretty soon. But yeah. Yeah, super, super excited about this one. Yes,
Dan Orange: I think that sort of wraps it up for today. It
Anna Kettle: does. Thanks for being here, everyone. We've got lots of people chit chatting in the chat bar, so thanks for all coming.
And
Dan Orange: if you're watching this [00:43:00] on, not on the live stream, then again, you can still send questions in. Definitely. You can put them in the comments or you can just email, go onto the website, crowd. church. And find lots of information. There's a WhatsApp to contact us. We'd love to get in contact, love to pray for you if you've got any requests.
Yeah. And if you've got any prayer requests, then perhaps next week would be a good one to listen to, to get some ideas of what
Anna Kettle: prayer is. Yeah, definitely. And I think if, we're always happy to pray for people anytime, just drop us an email or. Yeah, just reach out to us on social at any time we're on Instagram and so on, aren't we?
So yeah, just reach out to us on the website and yeah, there's a group of us who just always up for praying or just chatting or yeah, if you've got questions and want to know more, we're always around. Matt says they've had a lot of prayer requests this week already, so that seems like quite a topical, timely.
A lot of requests. It's timely that we're doing that next week. About money, yeah. Definitely. Yeah, really good. Yeah. Great. [00:44:00] Thanks for joining us and we'll see you all very soon, won't we? Yes. Very soon.
Dan Orange: Sorry. Now, my. My, my kids really like this internet channel called Daily Dose of Internet and he finishes off with very soon.
I'm sorry that stuck
Anna Kettle: in my head. You just hear that in your head. Go and just do it for them.
Dan Orange: We'll see you again very soon.
Anna Kettle: And if anybody knows where that comes from, Beynon's like marks. Cool, see you, we'll see you guys.