Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] Hi, everybody.
[00:00:08] I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being with us today. And if you're visiting or you're new to Westside, I just want to say welcome to you. My name is Evan. I'm the other senior pastor. And we're really grateful you're here with us today.
[00:00:21] And next week, a little preview and an invite to come back next week. Ben and I are going to be up here on the stage together doing what we never do, which is talk to each other. So this is going to be.
[00:00:32] No, we talk a lot, but not always in front of you. And so we're gonna be talking about our heart for our church as we continue to lean into shared leadership, which looks like Ben and I co pastoring the church together.
[00:00:46] Yeah.
[00:00:47] Some of you are like, it's not just you alone, Evan Woo. All right.
[00:00:51] But we believe. We believe in shared leadership. And we're gonna talk about how that isn't just about two senior pastors. It is about that, but also how we lead our staff in sharing the mission that God has for us and volunteers in all of our ministries. We believe that God calls us to lead and to minister and to be an expression of the life and love of Jesus together in every space.
[00:01:15] So come back and you get to experience us together on next weekend. But we wanna talk today about kind of a continuation of what Pastor Ben talked about last week. How what God is doing and calling us to be as a church that within these four walls, it's not about your preferences. It's not about just a comfortable space for you. And that extends to. It's not just about my preferences or Pastor Ben's preferences. And it's not about our egos or how big of a church we can grow or how much influence we have. That something about when we gather should actually be us looking to the way of Jesus and saying, jesus, we want to follow your model.
[00:01:56] And in these weeks, every fall, when we talk about the vision of the church and who we are becoming, I am so grateful that we actually don't have to make that up.
[00:02:04] Aren't you grateful that I don't have to go in a room somewhere and decide what God is calling us to be as a church, that we actually have a model in Jesus. We look to his words. We look to the statements he made to his first disciples as he commissioned them to go into all the world and to be this thing called the church that he set up. We don't have to invent this, but we do have to pay attention.
[00:02:29] And so, with clear eyes, we look to Jesus in 2026 and 2027. Can you believe it? That sounds like the future to me.
[00:02:38] We look to Jesus, and we are taking from his words that were spoken in the first century to say, jesus, where are you leading us as a church together?
[00:02:50] And I think it's beautiful and wonderful what God is doing in this place.
[00:02:56] And I remember going back to 25 years ago. I was in high school and admittedly had some very religious friends. We were just.
[00:03:09] And so we'd get together and, like, argue about what version of the Bible is the best things that are super cool and super fun.
[00:03:16] And it was one of these nights where we were hanging out and we were talking, and one of my friends in the group, he came and he was, like, really frustrated because he had seen a poster for a concert that was happening in town.
[00:03:29] And this concert, something about it was just making him angry. And he started talking about how this band was coming to perform a show inside a church, but they were not sufficiently Christian in his mind. They were not holy enough in his mind. They were what? Those of you who grew up evangelical, you might remember they were a crossover band.
[00:03:53] Thank you for the gasp. Yes, a crossover band. So they were Christian, but they also played secular music. I know it's crazy.
[00:04:03] And I think, honestly, what it actually meant is that from time to time, someone would see one of the drummers smoking a cigarette, and that was all they needed, you know, to be on the blacklist.
[00:04:13] And so my friend was very frustrated, and so we're talking, and finally he gets so worked up, he's like, I'm gonna go over there.
[00:04:21] So he gets in his little red hatchback and he drives across town to protest this concert with his King James Bible in hand. No joke.
[00:04:30] So he went into the concert, and he started to physically try to pull kids out of this horrible den of iniquity.
[00:04:40] That church, of course, was Westside Church.
[00:04:47] The youth pastor at this church at the time who hosted that concert, rightfully so, physically removed my friend under 10 minutes. And he came back with a real sense of martyrdom for what he had endured and the persecution that he went through. And within the year, I was attending Westside because I was like, they've got better music and cigarettes. So, you know, we're all joking aside, I did start attending Westside, and I was remembering that story because we're just gonna talk about today what Jesus calls us to be not just in the four walls of this church, but what God has called us to be as a church for our city.
[00:05:24] And I would tell you that you have to go back throughout the whole 72 years that our church has been in the city. Can you believe it? 72 years.
[00:05:33] There's a pizza joint over in the box factory still standing. That was the first place. That Bend Foursquare Church, our church, Westside Church, was planted in 1954.
[00:05:44] Still there. Go there after, get a lot of pizza.
[00:05:49] For 72 years, we've been called to be something in the city. Not a church for ourselves, not a church that is just all about building our own thing here on the corner of town, but a church for the city. And I will tell you from 25 years ago, from the perspective of. Of some real religious young guys looking at what God was actually calling this church to be, we couldn't understand it because we were too inside our own religious bubble. But this church has always carried the DNA of being for outsiders. Thank God.
[00:06:20] This church has always been called and had the DNA of those looking to the outside and saying, God, how would you express your compassion and your care and your salvation to those not on the inside, but those on the outside?
[00:06:34] And may it be for us in 2026 and 2027 and on, that we would not lose sight of what God has called us to be. That we would not become the church that preaches to the choir. Come on.
[00:06:46] But that God would do something in us that allows us to speak in the language of the culture in which he's placed us, like Jesus did. Jesus came into this wildly, wildly religious community, wildly religious culture. And he starts hitting the streets and he begins to teach. But he doesn't teach like the Pharisees. He doesn't teach like the religious leaders of.
[00:07:06] And he starts talking about shopkeepers and lost coins and fields with treasure in them and pigs and goats and sheep. A lot of agriculture back then, right?
[00:07:14] But he speaks with the language of the culture in which he was planted. And so it should be for us.
[00:07:22] And we don't see this just because I made it up. We see it in the book of Acts, Acts, chapter one.
[00:07:27] Let's read this starting in verse three. After his suffering, he presented himself and gave him many convincing proofs that he was alive. This is Jesus. He appeared to them over 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. And on one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command. Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And then they gathered around him and asked him, lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?
[00:08:00] See, as soon as Jesus says, I'm going to give you a gift, go wait for it in the capitol.
[00:08:05] What they hear is cool. We're kicking out Rome, right? You're going to give us that kind of power.
[00:08:10] But then he said to them in verse seven, it is not for you to know the times or the dates the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
[00:08:27] The power that Jesus promised that would come by the Holy Spirit was not a power to dominate, but it was a power to witness what they had seen and heard. So that something about what they would walk into and the life that they would live would say that they were the ones who had been with Jesus.
[00:08:43] This is the power of the Holy Spirit. And so they go into Jerusalem, they stay in Jerusalem rather, and they gather in a home. And there's about 120 of them. And it's a nice, manageable size group. And I would imagine that somebody in that group was like, I hope the church that Jesus started before he ascended, I hope it stays this small. This is really nice.
[00:09:05] You know, this is really manageable.
[00:09:07] This is a pleasant, controllable, predictable space.
[00:09:11] Like, we could select the right worship songs and have a good plan for kids programming and just make it this.
[00:09:19] And I think oftentimes we come into what Jesus has called us to be as the church in a city. And we quickly realize that if we can just stay within these walls in these controlled, predictable spaces is actually kind of comfortable and kind of pleasant.
[00:09:37] And for these believers who were there praying and waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit, I have to believe that somebody who was real comfortable with 120 in that home got a little bit disappointed when the Holy Spirit came and said, nope, you're not going to stay here.
[00:09:52] And the Holy Spirit falls and they begin to speak in the language of outsiders and they move into the streets. And it says about 3,000 got added to their number that day. Because the Holy spirit was present.
[00:10:04] 3000 got added. And that one person that really liked the house church thing was like, aw, man.
[00:10:11] And I wanna tell you, I love church plants, I love small churches, I love house churches.
[00:10:16] Beautiful things happen. In all sides of the churches. I'm not trying to hold up mega churches, like, as the goal or something, by no means. But I'm saying that whenever we get comfortable in controllable space, if we earnestly invite the Holy Spirit, he's gonna mess that up for us.
[00:10:33] The Holy Spirit's always gonna move us further and further out. We gather, but then he scatters and he pushes us out into the real messiness of meeting people where they live and work and play in the real world with the language not of the insider, but language of the outsider. This is the model we have in the early church. It reminded me of a conversation we had several months ago with a friend of ours, a youth pastor in town, Good guy. And Pastor Josh asked him. He's like, how's your youth group going? How's your youth ministry going? And the guy goes, ah, not great.
[00:11:11] He said. This past week, one of our students, he brought three friends. And, man, we didn't have chairs set up for that.
[00:11:19] It's amazing.
[00:11:22] We had to, like, find chairs in another room and bring him in. Ugh, you know, and no shade to him. God bless what he's trying to do, I guess. But here's the thing. We have to be ready that God's gonna push on us and expand the table, expand our capacity in relationships, expand who we let in, expand who we're willing to be vulnerable with, expand who we love.
[00:11:50] Because there is a danger for us as a church when we get so comfortable in closing ranks and becoming exclusive. When the Holy Spirit comes, he pushes us out to reach and to encounter those that he loves so dearly with the life and the love of Jesus.
[00:12:12] So the Holy Spirit is poured out on the friends of Jesus, the believers in Acts 2, and they receive this power.
[00:12:19] And what does this group of Jesus followers do with this new power that they've been given through the Holy Spirit? Acts 2. 44. We skip down.
[00:12:30] It says all the believers were together and had everything in common.
[00:12:34] They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. And every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes, and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
[00:12:53] As soon as the believers receive power, what does it cause them to do with that power? Does it cause them to go out and dominate and overtake and overwhelm their culture and their community? Does it cause them to take charge and take control of Jerusalem. No. What the power of the Holy Spirit does for that early church as they receive the gift that Jesus had sent, it leads to unity, generosity, and hospitality.
[00:13:19] Unity, generosity, and hospitality. Where is the move of revolution to kick out the Romans and establish God's kingdom on earth? It's not here. Because when the Holy Spirit comes upon the early church, it expresses itself in this subversive, counterintuitive way that looks like unity, generosity, and hospitality.
[00:13:43] A church that is empowered by the Holy Spirit in 2026, 2027 will not seek control or domination of the community in which they are planted. If it's the Holy Spirit that is on us, we will, through unity and generosity and hospitality, look like something of the early church that had been with Jesus and it showed.
[00:14:03] And what's the result? Verse 47. They enjoyed the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved.
[00:14:11] Favor of all the people.
[00:14:14] Whatever impulse is in me or is in you, that the truest, most real version of Christianity looks like an us versus them in the city in which we've been called. I would show you Acts chapter two, that through unity, generosity, and hospitality, they actually enjoyed favor to everyone who encountered them.
[00:14:33] That when a church exists not to build their own empire, but to serve the city in which they've been planted, it looks like the Holy Spirit's work.
[00:14:42] And what is the result? God adds their number. People experience hope. People experience healing. People come to the saving knowledge of Christ Jesus for the first time in more than six years, at least.
[00:14:59] What we've seen in the response to the Silver Rail tragedy over the last weeks is a coming together of many churches in this city that, to be honest, we don't agree on a lot.
[00:15:12] Me and a few of my pastor friends in town, we got together and we wrote a letter of support and care for the Silver Rail community. And then we invited other churches to join on. And as of this morning, we have 19 other churches that are signed on to this expression of support and compassion.
[00:15:34] And I'll tell you what, we don't agree on much. I was looking at the list, and we've got, like, evangelicals and we've got Baptists and we've got charismatics and we've got United Methodists and free Methodists and Nazarenes and Anglicans, and I'll tell you what, you get us in a room and have a sign of statement of faith or a doctrinal thing, we'd be like, no, sir, not today.
[00:15:53] Not with these guys, right?
[00:15:55] But at some point, we have to come to the place, I believe, if God is at work in our city where we say we're not gonna agree on everything. That's not the point. The point, we love Jesus and we love the city in which we've been planted.
[00:16:07] And this whole exclusive. Yeah, this whole let's just close ranks around people that only agree with us and only look like us and only sound like us. And then we're gonna lob our opinions at the city and the culture in which God has planted us. I just gotta tell you, it doesn't look like the Book of Acts to me.
[00:16:26] But when we come together and we say, you know what, we're gonna let some things that we disagree on be secondary to our calling as the people of God, the people who follow and love Jesus, that he calls us to the place that we've been planted. He calls us to serve and to love in the city in which we live.
[00:16:46] And so we reject this us versus them mindset. We reject this vision of Christianity that the more powerful and dominant and militant it is, the better it is. When we look at Jesus, we see that although he had all authority in heaven and earth, Philippians 2 says, although he had all power, he chose to lay that down and to become obedient even to death on a cross so that God might elevate him, God might exalt him.
[00:17:12] And so we follow Jesus in this same mindset that in the places that he's given us to love and to serve, we lower, lower, lower ourselves to pray for and believe for the peace of the city in which God has placed us. And this reminds me of going all the way back to the Old Testament. In Jeremiah 29:7, when the nation was in exile in Babylon, Jeremiah writes this. He says, also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.
[00:17:42] Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
[00:17:47] And this idea of peace and prosperity in the city in which you've been planted is something that the Hebrew language would call shalom. It's what Jesus would have greeted his people every time he would have entered a room. Jesus would have said, shalom, peace be with you. What does shalom look like in the city in which God has planted us? Right here in Bend and Redmond and sisters, I know there's a lot of cities, but the city that God has placed us in, I believe it looks like many things. It looks like goodness expressed in healthy life giving relationships because we're here because we're in the city that God has planted us in. Our neighbors will experience truth that sets people free from manipulation and deception and manipulation by algorithm. Come on, somebody, let's go.
[00:18:32] Our neighborhoods would experience beauty that reflects the creator and the arts and the culture. We don't need a separate, like, subculture that's only exclusively Christian. Good art is reflective of a good creator. Amen. Come on, preach, Evan.
[00:18:51] Somebody is wearing their Christian T shirt, and they're just closing their jacket over it right now. They don't want to be.
[00:18:57] It looks like justice that gives voice to the voiceless and welcomes those on the margins.
[00:19:04] It looks like prosperity for the place we call home.
[00:19:07] And if you hear the word prosperity, you're like, oh, we're going prosperity gospel here. No, no, here's what prosperity gospel teaches. It says, church. You give me enough money to. I can buy a private jet, and God will give you a sports car. That's what prosperity gospel is. Don't woo that.
[00:19:23] Here's what prosperity, as in the shalom of God for a city looks like. It looks like nobody goes to bed hungry on our watch.
[00:19:32] Nobody.
[00:19:33] And you say, evan, that's unrealistic, and that's foolishness. We will never have enough resources to solve all the problems. We'll never have enough resources to solve all the housing issues. We'll never have enough resources to solve all the poverty. Well, try me.
[00:19:46] Yeah, we're gonna run out of resources. We'll run out of money. But until that day comes, you try me. If you have a bill that needs to be pa, if your kids are hungry, you try me. You come here, and we're going to figure out.
[00:19:59] We're going to figure it out.
[00:20:06] And the front office staff said, whoa, Evan, wait a second. What are you promising here?
[00:20:11] I got the microphone, baby. Let's go.
[00:20:22] Jesus, we pray for prosperity of this city, not for our own convenience and luxury, but so that every child would be fed and every homeless person would find shelter.
[00:20:36] Lord, we pray, use us.
[00:20:39] Use our resources, our time, our money. All of it poured out as an offering to the city in which you've placed us so that many would know that we've been with Jesus and that's done something in our hearts and how we look at the city you've placed us in in Jesus name, Amen.
[00:20:58] Amen.
[00:20:59] And then finally, wholeness for hurting people, body, mind, and soul.
[00:21:06] When I think of wholeness, I think of a couple in our church, Lindsay and Thomas Keeley, who are really into, like, wellness and wholeness. And Thomas is a registered nurse. And up until about 2024, you would have seen him behind me, oftentimes on Sundays playing the bass as part of a worship team. Thomas grew up in our church and was an intern here years and years ago.
[00:21:29] And in 2024, his mom got a terminal cancer diagnosis, followed a couple months later by his own leukemia diagnosis with an aggressive form of leukemia. This is Thomas and Lindsey during their stay as he's getting a stem cell transplant at ohsu. And they brought their podcast rig into the hospital room because, you know, millennials. And so if we're breathing, we're podcasting, baby.
[00:21:59] But what they've done is they've used their voice in a time when and all of their lives were really their stability and their sense of health, and all this was crumbling. They actually used their voice to bring comfort and encouragement to those through their podcast, through their presence, through a book they wrote.
[00:22:20] And as we've followed along with them in these couple years since the diagnosis, I'll tell you, it's been up and down.
[00:22:25] We've been praying for healing and peace and through the loss of his mom and stays sometimes weeks at a time at OHSU in the hospital. And it's not been all good news. And yet there's a resilience and a determination in Thomas and Lindsay to express the life and the hope that they have in Christ, even on their worst days. And if you've been a patient at the cancer center here at St. Charles over the last few months, the St. Charles foundation bought a bunch of copies of a book they wrote called the Comfort and Healing Companion. And they're giving these out to all the patients that come through the St. Charles Cancer Center.
[00:23:05] And I'll tell you what, they didn't ask my permission to write this book.
[00:23:09] I didn't sign off on the content. How dare they?
[00:23:14] But what they are doing through this book is actually ministering the life and the love of Jesus, which is the heart and the purpose of this church and the community. And what I want to say about Thomas and Lindsay, I know they're watching right now, is that you are beautifully expressing the heart of Jesus, not to encouragement from a distance, but in the very middle of the trouble to look like hope.
[00:23:39] And so with the writing of this book, as patients sitting in infusion rooms, they're reading about the hope and the peace that can be found.
[00:23:53] And maybe it's not explicitly talking about, you know, how to get saved or come to know Jesus. But I'll tell you what, this is saturated with the spirit of God and for you in every environment you live in and work in. And whether you're a patient experiencing a bad diagnosis or you're working out at your gym or you're at a soccer field on the weekends or in your place of work or you're at your kid's school, I'll tell you what, you carry the spirit of God with you wherever you go.
[00:24:31] And you don't need my permission, you don't need Ben's permission to express the life and the hope we have in Jesus to serve our city is the programs that we will create here at Westside Church. Absolutely. But it's you.
[00:24:45] You are the hope of the world. You are salt and light because why? Because Jesus is in you.
[00:24:55] The spirit rests upon you.
[00:24:58] A quote from the Keely's is this vulnerability is courage. Vulnerability is not a sign of weakness, but it's our greatest measure of strength.
[00:25:08] And when you show up in the mess, when you show up without trying to control the outcome, it's one of the bravest things you can do.
[00:25:14] Compassion means to be with suffering.
[00:25:17] And Thomas says I'm letting go and letting God so that even the hardest things I'm going through can be turned for good, for somebody's sake.
[00:25:27] May it be for us that wherever we find ourselves in the ups and downs of life, in the good times and the bad times, that everything that we do is for the sake of somebody else.
[00:25:39] Being encouraged, being filled with hope, being brought back from a place of despair and darkness because you're there, they experience the peace of God. That looks like shalom.
[00:25:52] So we weren't given the power of the Holy Spirit as a church so we could win control of our city or enforce our opinions.
[00:25:59] We were given the power of the Holy Spirit so we could be witnesses to what we've seen and heard and experienced in the presence of Jesus.
[00:26:08] And I believe this, that in the years ahead, the greatest testimony Westside will have is not how large our gatherings become or how impressive our facilities are or how influential your pastors are. I believe that the greatest testimony of what God has done in us and that the Holy Spirit is with us is that bend in central Oregon. Experience something that is more loving and more generous and more hospitable and more hope filled because we are here.
[00:26:40] It's the kind of church I want us to become. I believe it's the kind of church that we have been and will continue to be.
[00:26:48] Not a church that is made in the image of Evan or Ben, but a church that looks like Jesus.
[00:26:54] Amen.
[00:26:56] And so, Lord, today move us beyond predictability and comfort and convenience in these four walls. And Lord, continue to fill every space with the life and the love of Jesus.
[00:27:11] Lord, we follow you into this prayer for our city, the serving of our city, that we would show up to support and love and serve God. Make us a church that looks like Jesus, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:27:33] It's in your name we pray. Amen. Amen.
