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State
of the Church Address 2008 Matthew 25:31-46 Christ The King Sunday, Year A A sermon
preached at First UMC De Queen, AR on November 23, 2008 by the Revd David S
Williams At the close of the church year Christ the King
Sunday functions as the hinge that connects us to the opening
of the church year, the season of Advent. We end and begin on
the topic of the last things. The question at the close of the church year as
we anticipate the arrival of the coming Christ is how are we to live faithful
lives entrusted with the precious gospel of Jesus Christ in the meantime? Matthew’s answer is swift and to the point. Christ will
come again and judge the nations and we need to be sheepishly prepared.
Our gospel lesson is the parable of the last judgment. It is set in the
context of a series of three parables about preparedness – ·
prepared
virgins with plenty of oil, ·
prepared slaves entrusted with the master’s precious
gospel treasure and willing to take faithful risks with that treasure, ·
and prepared
sheep whose sole pastoral existence is the unnatural activity
of caring for human need rather than the natural inclination of caring
for their own sheepish existence eating grass like a bunch of gorging
goats. In other words, loving God with the whole heart and life
should be embodied in our radical risk-taking mission of love, care,
hospitality, generosity and compassion of others as we prepare for the
coming Christ in the last days. For Matthew this is doing the will of the Father (7:15-21).
This is being the faithful and fruitful people that God desires us to
be when he arrives at the close of the age. And when he judges us, the king says, that when we were
doing all those acts of hospitality, kindness, mercy and risk-taking mission
for the least, the last and the lost, we were actually doing it for
him (25:40). In light of this parable on preparedness how well
are we prepared to meet the Christ?
What is the state of our church? Are we sheepishly doing our own thing, what comes natural
to us: feeding ourselves, gorging on the grass like goats, enjoying the
blessings of the pastureland or are we sharing the feed and the fields with
others, are we sharing the blessings with those in need, are we doing what
doesn’t come very natural to us – caring for the least of these? The greatest commandment – loving God and neighbor –
is what we have been talking about the past two months and as we have learned
loving God and neighbor with complete devotion is what defines the way of
Methodism. John Wesley’s pastoral direction to help us live out the greatest
commandment was the general rules:
1. Do no harm 2. Do good and 3. Stay in love with God. If you are on the church council then you have received a
pastor’s report at each meeting. These are some of the things that the church
tends to measure as a way of assessing our spiritual pulse, whether or not
we are moving from maintenance to mission, whether we
have a pioneer spirit or the spirit of settlers (as Rev. Bodenhamer
challenged us to consider) – it is sometimes called the trinity of
building, bucks and butts. In terms of our building, we have not
realized a new facility, with very little renovation. However, through the
effort of our board of Trustees and our “One’s for the Many,” we have made
our church safer through the installation of windows in parts of our
educational building and nursery, new fire extinguishers, and a new shingled
roof to our leaking problem. And through the work of our renovation study committee, you
will be receiving a report informing you of the needs in our current
facility, the resources we need to renovate, and options for our church to
realize our mission and vision into the 21st century. Our hope and desire as a church is to renovate. The
congregation is in consensus about our desire. However, we will need 100%
participation. Every member needs to commit time, talent and treasure
for us to realize our dream. The motivation for our desire must be predicated on our
desire to glorify God and create space that lifts up the
name of Christ. We must be motivated by our desire to facilitate
our mission and ministry as the people of God committed to making
disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And that must be at the heart guiding us in the renovation
process or we will find ourselves embittered over the color of paint and
carpet, who gave the most and who gave little. We must stay the course,
focused on our mission, and stay in love with God and one another. Remember, “Unless
the Lord builds the house those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1). What is God calling you to do? To Give? I want to invite
you to seriously consider remembering your church in your will. Please,
prayerfully consider leaving a legacy for future generations. In terms of bucks, we will have paid our apportionments
at the close of this year as well as participated in all six special
offerings, including Catch the Vision and the Christmas offering for the UM
Children’s Home. Some of us are very committed to giving compassionately
through the ministry of our UMW and UMM, as well as funding educational
opportunities for a student in We are slowly climbing out of deficit of nearly sixteen
thousand dollars this time last year. In the midst of economic crisis, we
have received thirty new givers this past year, we have lost twenty for some
reason, and quite a few members have grown in their giving, some giving a
tithe for the first time in their lives. We are seeing signs of growth in stewardship and
generosity. And I want to say thank you for your generosity. Thank you for
your faithfulness in giving. Because of your obedience and faithfulness, God
is blessing the lives of the least of these and God will continue to
bless the mission of our church. However, we have much work to do in this area. For so long
our church has succumbed to a scarcity mentality. We need to grow with
a missional mentality. We live in the red rather than the black.
We borrow from Peter to pay Paul. And it is my conviction that
we must change our giving patterns if we are to realize God’s vision for our
church. If we are committed to the mission and ministry of God’s
kingdom we will steward God’s resources responsibly. We will
walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). And that faith is most
vivid when we share the gifts that God has blessed us with in a spirit of
gratitude and generosity. We can give more, which means we have more growing to do.
We are admonished to “go on to Christian perfection.” Not that we have
attained it, as In terms of butts, we have seen an increase of 10%
growth in morning worship attendance. And many attest to greater desire in
growing in their faith and passion for worship and hearing God’s word. The mid-week ministry in our Kid’s of the King have
experienced up to ninety plus children on a given Wednesday. So many young
educators in our church serve our children by teaching them the Christian
faith week after week and we are grateful for your service to Christ and the church.
You have really inspired us to minister and reach out to “the least of
these.” However, we have suffered our losses. We have lost ten
members, some of whom were back-bone supporters of our church, this past
year. We gained a young family – your pastoral family. We received a transfer
by renewal of vows. We baptized one child. We transferred about four members
out to other church’s (this is always a good thing). That is a healthy sign
they are actively living out their faith in Jesus Christ in another community
of faith. However, we have had no professions of faith this
year. And I assure you there are persons on your job, in your civic clubs, in
your neighborhood, in your school that are lost and in need of the
life-changing gospel – the life, love, peace and purpose that only God can
give us in Jesus Christ. We need to grow in our membership, yes. However, it is my
conviction that we must grow in our discipleship and membership is part of
our growth as Christian disciples. We spent a lot of time talking about
Christian discipleship and how that relates to our membership vows over the
past few months. I find it interesting that we have many non-members who are
out-doing some of our members. We have recorded 283 members and our worship
average is 113 this year. Where are the other 170? Granted many of these
persons live out of reach. Some are homebound. However, many are simply
inactive. We need to grow in our faith as disciples of Jesus Christ.
We need to stir the grace of God up. We need to avail ourselves the means of
grace. We need to go on to Christian perfection. Let us pray for the work of
the Holy Spirit that can restore us and renew us into the image of divine
love. And if you are a member of If measuring statistics is part of what we mean by
assessing the state of our church, then that is a snapshot of the
nature of the Trinitarian strengths or weaknesses of our church in terms of building,
bucks and butts. That is a snapshot of where we have been and where
we currently are. However, I want to suggest to you that a church, any church
for that matter, should be measured by its spirit rather than size.
Not that measuring statistics is wrong. However, we need to reframe the
question, because if we are being faithful then we should also become fruitful
as God’s people. What is the spirit of our church? Do we embody the
Methodist way of loving God and neighbor with the whole heart? When others in
our community talk about us do they immediately see us as hospitable
sharing sheep or disgruntled gloating goats? Please, hear me out it is not my purpose to separate
the sheep from the goats today. If I were to do that then Rebecca would be
pulling out the boxes after lunch today. No, judging is the coming
king’s job. However, it is my conviction that sheep and
goats exist in every community. Yet I believe all of us desire to be on
the sheep side – the winning team. And I suppose if we are really honest with one another
there really is a little bit of sheep and goat in all of us. On
my better days I’m a pretty good sheep. On others, I can be a
faithless goat. What contrasts the two is what they did and did
not do. What makes them similar is they were both unaware that the Christ
was among the least of these. Are we becoming more sheep-like in our
features or are we settling for goat-like qualities? Lord, have mercy on us
as we seek to embody your love in sheep-like ways. When Christ comes again how will he judge Matthew seems to suggest we are judged by the qualities
of righteousness that we embody in our community. That is what I mean
about spirit. It is the fruit of the Spirit – the character
of Christ that we should hunger, seek and desire. And it is in this word that I want to hang my hat
on: the depth and quality of our relationships and life together as
Christian disciples committed to God’s missional purposes for the
transformation of the world. And it is in that spirit and direction that we will be
pursuing together as long as I’m privileged to serve as your pastor. However,
we need a spirit of unity and harmony in our desire to pursue
Christ-likeness with the whole heart. Your Connected in Christ team has begun the hard work of
moving us in this direction. And we feel the congregation has spoken. Through
prayer, discernment, training, conversation and work, we have come up with a
vision we believe God has given us and that we should be committed to as the
people of God. This is not the vision of your pastor, although it
definitely has my hands and heart in it. It is the shared vision of
your CIC team and it has to become our shared vision together as a
congregation if we are going to realize God’s missional purposes in us and
through us as the church. Here is our new purpose: Our Vision: God’s people passionate about God’s
purposes sharing God’s word and showing God’s love for the
transformation of the world. Our Our Values: We believe in order for us to
accomplish our mission and embody our vision we have to be intentional about
these five peculiar practices: 1.
Radical
hospitality. 2.
Passionate
worship. 3.
Intentional
growth as disciples. 4.
Risk-taking
mission and service. 5.
Extravagant
generosity. We will be spending a lot of energy next year casting
vision and moving in a direction together as the people of God committed to
the way of Methodism for the transformation of the world. We will be doing
this through the preaching and teaching ministry of the church. We will recite our vision. We will receive our vision on a
book mark so we can pray for our church and learn it. And we will most importantly
seek to live out our vision and allow the spirit to cultivate a missional
heart in our church as we intentionally attend to these five peculiar
practices. And as we move in this direction our CIC team will continue
their work in developing a ministry plan that will keep us intentional in
accomplishing our vision and mission. These are the areas of growth we need to consider keeping
one another accountable in the New Year as we seek to be intentional about
accomplishing God’s missional purposes for the transformation of the world. ü As we pursue this missional purpose we are going to have to be present
and accounted for. ü As we pursue this missional purpose we are going to have to pray
and seek God’s will and purpose for our church and our own lives. ü As we pursue this missional purpose we are going to have to grow in our giving
– sharing the gifts God has blessed us with generously and joyously.
Every member should be giving a proportionate part of their income with the
goal of a tithe. This should be the norm, not the exception. ü As we pursue this missional purpose we are going to have to step up in
our willingness to serve. And we need to be more intentional in our
ministry together in 2009. We need 100% participation in sharing in the
ministry of the church. Every member in ministry should be the norm of
our church, not the exception. ü As we pursue this missional purpose we are going to have to give witness
to the love of Christ in our lives. We are going to have to invest in
others and invite them into the life of Christ. We do this by sharing
God’s word and showing God’s love. ü And as we pursue this missional
purpose we have to go
together, glow together and grow together. We need a spirit of unity
and harmony in order for us to fulfill God’s dream through us. I know what harmony sounds like. But what does unity
and harmony look like? It looks like Aaron Culver! On the designated work day, several gathered to begin
removing the pews and leveling the old sanctuary floor. Amazement silenced
the work crew when brother Aaron Culver walked in with his nail apron and
hammer in hand. “Brother Culver, what are you doing here?” asked one
of the younger men. Grinning ear to ear, Aaron replied, “Sonny, I came to
work.” “But you voted against this!” another retorted. “I know, … but the church voted for it, and I’m part of the
church!” Aaron’s spirit, work and $1,000 check verified that. That my friends’ is a picture of the harmony and unity
we need to realize God’s dream for us. It is a picture of holiness and
harmony in working clothes. That little church learned that fellowship is
more than a handshake after church. It is genuinely sharing the burdens and blessings of
others. It is lovingly and happily working together. And this unity validates
the gospel and glorifies God. Eventually, the new facility was
named the Dear people of God, I am blessed and privileged to serve as
your pastor. And I love you with a pastor’s heart. I consistently pray for
all of you and desire to assist you in your spiritual journey. You have been
such a blessing to our family. And we thank you. It was this time last year that the Lord brought us
together and today I we are grateful for the privilege of participating in
the ministry of the kingdom with you. We’ve been together for a year. And I
believe God want to accomplish more through us for another year than we have
yet dreamed or imagined. The state of our church is good, but we believe God
is calling us to greatness. The good news is that the Spirit is
on the move doing a good work in us and I’m convinced the good Lord will
complete it at the coming of Christ (Phil 1:6). Until then, we’ll work till Jesus comes, we’ll work till
Jesus comes, we’ll work till Jesus comes and we’ll be gathered home. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen. Let us pray. God, you have been faithful to provide all the gifts and
resources for us to accomplish your will on earth. We thank you for being by
our side and for lovingly moving us along. We have more work to do. There are
still hungry bellies to feed, naked that need clothes, lost that need to be
found, strangers needing a place to call home and prisoners needing to be set
free. By the power of your Holy Spirit help us to tend the things that matter
most to you and empower us to reach out in love and do no harm, do good and
stay in love with you. Help us make an eternal difference in someone’s life
this year. In Jesus’ name. Amen. |
