Right from the very beginning, our church has always had a heart for shared leadership. We've never been built on the gifts or passions or talents of a few, but the sacrifices of the many. You see, shared leadership simply means people come together and submit their gifts, their passions, their talents, their ability to a common vision for an exponential return.

And when we look at the Bible, the Bible is really built on this shared leadership model. Moses had Joshua, Aaron and Miriam. Jesus raised up the 12 disciples. The First Century church was led by Paul, Silas, Timothy, Barnabas. And you get this theme, this pattern that it's not about a leader, but about multiple leaders coming together to use what they have for the good of others and the glory of God. In fact, in Exodus chapter 18, Moses leading the Israelites, he is getting worn out, he's getting burned out, the people are getting defeated and discouraged. And God gives Moses some incredible wisdom through his father-in-law, Jethro, and basically says, "You can't do all this by yourself. You got to raise up some other leaders and empower them to lead with you.

Then there will be an exponential return and the people will leave with shalom." Shalom means peace, prosperity, wholeness, wellness, the comprehensive flourishing in all of life. In other words, when God's people lead with shared leadership, with multiple leaders engaged, using what they have for the good of others and the glory of God, everyone gets to experience shalom, peace, and comprehensive flourishing. You see, so many of you know that we are one church that meets in multiple campuses that carries the hope of Jesus to thousands of locations, but it might not mean all that much to you. On a Sunday, you might be sitting in your campus and the only thing you're really aware of is what's happening at your campus, but the reality is we're one church, which means we have one vision, one heart, one set of values, one overarching theological belief structure, we're moving in one direction in total unity, but we have multiple campuses with shared leaders, multiple campus pastors and staff and teams and incredible leaders that lead the way. And we're in thousands of locations because wherever you are, that's where we are.

And I just want to show you some of our campuses and some of our campus pastors so you can see how this shared leadership model really works. You see, this is just Justin. He's our Denton campus pastor and he's been a part of Valley Creek for 22 years. Justin is an incredible leader. He's a man of encouragement. He launched our first campus and he sees what can be in the midst of what is, and he calls things that are not as though they were. He's a great campus pastor.

And then there's Jason. Jason has been at Valley Creek for 16 years. He's our Flower Mound campus pastor, and Jason is one of our primary communicators. He is a great teacher of God's word. He knows God's word. He loves God's word. And Jason is an incredible pastor. He pastors and shepherds people so incredibly well. Jason is a great campus pastor.

And then we have Brian. Brian's our Gainesville campus pastor. He's been a part of Valley Creek for 17 years. What I love about Brian is Brian always says yes to God. Whatever God is asking him to do, he says, "Yes." He's tenacious and he loves to serve the city. He couldn't wait to get to Gainesville to start serving that city. He is doing an incredible job and he is an amazing campus pastor.

And then there's Rob. Rob's our Lewisville campus pastor. He's been a part of Valley Creek for 15 years. And what I can tell you about Rob is Rob is a man of incredible integrity and character. Rob always has hope. No matter how dark or how disappointing, or how hard things may be, Rob has the hope of Jesus flowing through his life. And he is a great campus pastor.

And then there's Trip. Trip's our online campus pastor. He's been a part of Valley Creek for 14 years. And what I love about Trip is he loves to help people take next steps on their journey with Jesus. And he's taken all of his technical ability and all his love for people and he's put those together to help us pastor people all around the world. He is a great campus pastor. And I want you to see these men who love God, who love you, who are a part of our church, who are leading the way, and every single week, they pastor the flock. They shepherd God's people. They lead you towards Jesus not because they have to, but because they want to. And they believe they've been called by God to do that.

And not only do we have great campus pastors, we have a great executive team that helps lead the way in the central realities of our church. You see, we have these amazing leaders. We have Brad Lanham, who's our executive pastor of operations. He's been a part of Valley Creek for 26 years. For two and a half decades, Brad has been leading the way with godly character, being a voice of wisdom and stability and consistency to help us lead the church into the future.

And then you've got Dave, he's our next gen pastor. He's been a part of Valley Creek for 11 years. He oversees everything from kids to VCLA. And Dave's a man of wisdom. He's deep waters. He thinks like the kingdom of God and he loves the next generation and wants to see them be raised up.

And then we have Becca. Becca is our executive pastor. Her and her family have been here for 20 years. Becca oversees all of our staff and all of our ministries, and she's just a great leader. She leads with her whole heart and she makes everything around here great.

And then we have Ben. Ben's our associate pastor. He's been a part of Valley Creek for 25 years. Ben helps us develop leaders and create Valley Creek and kingdom culture in every area and ministry. And what I can tell you about Ben is Ben is a man of pure heart. He has a pure heart before the Lord and before people, and he loves God and he loves you.

And what I want you to see with our campus pastors and our executive team is how long they have been here. Every one of them have been here at least a decade or longer. And in a season where there's so much change and transition in the world and people are coming and going everywhere, what I want you to see is the stability. What I want you to see is the consistency. What I want you to see is those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish. They are deeply planted in Jesus and in this family. They are oaks of righteousness. And oaks love to hang out with other oaks. Mature people love to be around mature people. And those mature people create acorns which drop and plant and grow into saplings. Those saplings eventually become mature trees. And that's what these leaders offer you in your life.

In the midst of all the craziness and all the chaos that's out there, look at this consistency and the stability. And if you've ever wondered how we do what we do around here, why a decision was made the way it was, why we're going in the direction that we're going, just understand that every person that I just showed you, we don't move forward unless that entire group is in 100% unity about what God is saying to us. If one person has a dissenting voice or a sense that that is not from the Lord, we stop, and we wait, and we pray and we discuss. Like Acts 15, we wait until it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. My hope would be that that would give you tremendous confidence about this church and what we're doing, because this is shared leadership with different gifts, and passions, and talents and abilities, making it all happen. And not only do we have great campus pastors and an executive team, we have an amazing staff of central leaders and local leaders.

I wish I could tell you about every single person that's on our staff, their names, their stories, what they do, how they contribute, but what I want you to see is here is a group of leaders who is using what they have for the good of others and the glory of God. They serve you, they love you, they're laying down their lives for you. They are on mission. They are a part of a movement of hope for the city and beyond. These are incredible leaders. And not only do we have an amazing staff team of leader, we have tremendous leaders, serve team leaders throughout our entire church. Hundreds and hundreds of volunteers, serve team leaders that lead the way and use what they have to be a part of this movement of hope. Like this list of names is so overwhelming, of leaders, but this is just some of our next generation leaders. I could literally give you slide after slide after slide after slide of all of the amazing leaders in our church who use what they have for the good of others and the glory of God.

This is what shared leadership looks like. It's not built on the talent of a few, it's built on the sacrifice of the many. And we want to raise people up and empower them to use what they have for the good of others and the glory of God. We believe we're better together. That the Bible says, "One can put a thousand to flight, but two can put ten thousand to flight." And so the heartbeat of our church, by design, is to raise up and empower as many leaders as we can to release God's kingdom into the city and beyond.