Faith is refusing to settle for what's in front of you, believing that there is more beyond the horizon. It's being willing to follow God into the unknown, and in the process, we find freedom for ourselves. Faith is the ability to see what can be in the midst of what is. Can you see it?

I think God's calling us to double down, to take our four and turn it into eight. I think we need to risk what we have to find what God has in store. So what if we said, "We don't want to be a church for a city, we want to be a church for the region." A missional move is when you take a next step to create space, movement, opportunity so that someone else can take a next step on their journey with Jesus. You see, all a missional move is, is when you choose to move forward with Jesus so someone else can move forward with Jesus. So we feel like God's inviting us to start a university campus. And then we want to do a campus in Gainesville. And then we feel like God is inviting us to start one in Northlake, Argyle or Roanoke. And the fourth one, we have no idea. The fourth one, we feel like as we get these ones going, God is going to speak to us.

And here's what we've sensed from God. What if we just drew a big circle around North Texas and said, "We're going to own it, in Jesus' name." This is our new Gainesville campus. Come on, look at this space. Can you just imagine the people that are lost, lonely and broken that are going to come into this space and have an encounter with the hope of Jesus? For the first time ever, whatever campus you're at, whether you're in Denton, Flower Mound, Gainesville, Lewisville, the venue or watching online, come on, let's give it up. I am super excited to announce to you that we have officially purchased and closed a land for our next campus and it is going to be Argyle.

Valley Creek Argyle will exist right here in this space. And when we have all the resources and the disciples to make it happen, and the culture to be able to reproduce to go there, we will get going on that one. But here's what I want you to see. We are creating the future together. This doesn't exist. But now this belongs to the kingdom of God. This is now in the process of becoming a harbor of hope. Now, all of a sudden, you can start seeing it. Like, that's exactly where the Gainesville campus now is. This is exactly where that piece of property now is. Like, we're creating the future together. And so over this last year, as we've been working through this online reality, it was really obvious to us that God knew all along that the fourth campus was going to be the online campus.

We thought it was city to region; God had something bigger. It was really city to global. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. When we started on this phase of the journey, we did not see it. But we held on to the goodness of God and we moved forward into the unknown. Three years ago, God invited our church to Missional Move: Hope for the City. A missional move is simply when we take a next step so someone else can take theirs. It's when we choose to move forward on our journey of faith for the sole purpose to create space and opportunity so someone else can move forward on their journey with Jesus.

And Missional Move: Hope for the City was one of the biggest things God had ever asked our church to do. To double down, to go from four campuses, to eight campuses. Instead of just being a church for a city, to being a church for a region. And when we stepped into that journey of faith, we did not know that one year into that journey, a global pandemic would break out. And yet in the midst of that global pandemic, God's kingdom has been advancing. You see, we were able to buy our Gainesville property and build it, and launch our Gainesville campus which is thriving and doing amazing things, and is literally one of the largest churches in all of Cooke County. We bought our Argyle property, more than 30 acres on the corner of 407 and 35W, an amazing location that will be an incredible harbor of hope for the area and the region of Argyle, and Northlake and Roanoke.

And then we launched our online campus, the fourth campus that we didn't know what it was going to be, but God knew exactly what it was going to be. And it's serving thousands of people every single week, an online harbor of hope across 65 countries all over the world. And here I am standing on the corner of what will be Valley Creek University Campus. Come on, Valley Creek. I am literally standing on the property of what will become Valley Creek University Campus, a two-acre piece of property on the corner of Eagle and Avenue A, literally right on the University of North Texas campus property. We were right across the street from the UNT Welcome Center. I mean, this property is immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine. This will be a place where students who are lost, lonely and broken, who come from all over the place, will be able to come into a harbor of hope and find hope in Jesus' name.

This lost, lonely and broken generation will be able to come to this property, to this harbor of hope, to this training center of life and discover who they are, who God is, and what they were created to do. You See, this place is full of students all day long, every day, and we are a church of generations, and we can't wait to serve them in the name of Jesus. You see, we have been looking for this property for the last three years and hadn't been able to find any success. And then one day, one of our leaders was hanging out with a friend of his who's not a part of Valley Creek. And he was telling him what we were doing and what Valley Creek is all about, and what we were looking for. And his friend looked back at him and said, "Well, I have some property right on the university campus, and I'd be willing to sell it to you."

And we came and we checked this place out. And it was even better than we had been praying for. And so this is now what will become Valley Creek University. And I can't even begin to imagine all that God is going to do in this place. And so come on, Valley Creek. Here we are. Here we are in the midst of a global pandemic and yet, the kingdom of God is still advancing. Little by little, we've been moving forward with God quietly, behind the scenes, giving, serving, leading, praying, believing, moving forward in faith, and look what God has done. Two of our four campuses are launched. They're thriving. People are coming and are a part of them every single day. We now have the property for the other two, and all of that is debt-free.

Come on, the kingdom of God is advancing and no global pandemic can stop it. And a Word of God once spoken continues to be spoken. God told us what he wanted us to do. And because we decided to keep following by faith regardless of what was happening in the world, he is providing, he is leading, he is moving, and he is guiding. You see, we didn't know what was coming, but God did. And maybe, just maybe, the reason there are so many healthy people in our church is because God invited us to attach our heart to him before the pandemic even happened. Remember, Jesus says, "Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will be also." In other words, your heart follows your treasure and attaches itself to that thing. So maybe, just maybe, God invited us to give before the pandemic to attach our heart to him, to the mission, to the movement of hope, so that when the world got crazy, we wouldn't drift away.

In fact, when you came in today, they gave you two of these Missional Move: Hope for the City brochures. One of them was the one we gave you in 2019, that was the vision of what we wanted to do, of what we were dreaming about, of what we were hoping that God was going to do. And then one is the update of 2022 of what God has actually been doing. And my hope is that you will take some time to look at these two together and see that God is actually doing immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine even in the midst of a global pandemic. Sometimes we have to look back to see God's faithfulness to build our faith of how he's moving and what he is doing. And what I want you to see in these, Valley Creek, is we are literally creating the future together.

All four of these campuses, they did not exist before 2019. Two of our campuses are now up and thriving. We have the property for the other two that now belong to the kingdom of God. But that's literally seeing what can be in the midst of what is. That's faith. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. It's walking into the unknown with the God who wants to be known when he invites us to trust him and literally to create the future with him. And so because of your generosity, and your trust, and your leading, and serving, and praying, we literally created the future together. I literally remember sitting in a meeting before we shared any of this with you in 2019 with some of our leaders, and I remember just doodling on a little piece of paper just the region map that we were talking about and just putting a big question mark at the bottom of it like, "Is this even possible?

Could we actually do this? Could God do this?" And here we are three years later, two of which were a global pandemic, and we have all four properties debt-free. That's creating the future with God little by little. And so I just want to say thank you. Thank you to every one of you who has given sacrificially, who has served, who has led, who has prayed, who has gotten involved. We couldn't do this without you. This is what a family on mission looks like, and this is what we do together. And so here we are. You either took this ground by faith, or you're now enjoying it by sight. You either took this ground, or you've shown up since we've taken it, but either way, we're all at this base camp together and we all have a responsibility to now steward it with all our heart.

And so we will go as fast as we have the leaders, and serve team members, and resources to build and launch university in Argyle. And so maybe it's time for some of you to get involved. I love in Isaiah chapter 6 when Isaiah is taken to the throne room of heaven and God literally says, "Whom will go for us? Whom shall we send?" And Isaiah raises his hand and says, "Here I am, send me." Maybe it's time for some of you to raise your hand and say, "Here I am. Send me. Send me into this mission." And being sent doesn't mean you have to go to university or Argyle. It just might mean you get involved at your campus so someone else can go to those other campuses. Maybe it's time for you to join a Kids team, for you to get involved in raising up students, for you to use your gift of music on the worship team, or your creativity in the creative teams.

Maybe it's time for you to lead a Circle, make disciples, get involved in operations, get involved in prayer, in ministry, in serving the city, whatever that looks like, because this is what God has called us to do. Missional moves are what we do as a church by design because this is what a movement of hope for the city and beyond looks like.