IF WE’RE REALLY SERIOUS - Part Four
Philippians 4: 4-9
Matthew 28: 16-20
February 15, 2009
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
Click below for audio version of sermon.
We come at last to the final part of a four part series of sermons, “If We’re Really Serious.” Using a set of eight characteristics developed by Bishop William Willimon and other church leaders, we’ve worked our way through all but three. If the previous five haven’t been enough to cause you to recognize that turning our church around is mighty hard work, these last three should convince you. Because in order to become an effective church we need to not just be about working harder or working smarter. Rather, for this church to be more than just a declining body over the next 20 or 30 years, we are going to have to have a whole new outlook on what it means to be church.
Let’s get started. Characteristic number six of effective churches is that they “make growth a priority and figure out how to grow.”
When I was pastor in Avon, we took in 305 new members in seven years. I was something of a legend – in my own mind at least. So, you say, what did you do and can we do it here?
The answer is I didn’t do all that much differently there than what I’m already doing here and we’ve only taken in three new members since my arrival.
As I see it, there are two main differences between now and the years 1983-1990 when I was in Avon. The first difference is something over which we have no control. Specifically population movement.
What I didn’t tell you is that in the years we took in 305 new members we probably lost more than 100. Those were years of high employment in the insurance industry which seemed to delight in moving people all around the country. So for every three we might get, we lost one to corporate moves. As well, times were different also in that when people moved to town in those years they actively looked for a church to join. They just don’t now.
One thing though that was true in 83-90 that we can learn from is that the Avon church took great pride in growing membership. It was a very high priority for them – not for just a handful of leaders, but for everybody. They did a very good job of welcoming visitors. They did a very good job of following up on visitors. And they did a very good job of integrating the new members with the old.
But it took work. Growing a church has to be a priority for virtually everyone. Growing a church has to be the first thing every leader thinks about when they plan their activity: What can we do to attract new persons to our church via this planned activity? What can we do to involve newer members in this planned event?
For all who haven’t had “growing church membership” at the top of their priorities, it will mean a lot of changes in the way we do church business.
I have no doubt Willimon and his cohorts are exactly right: no church can be an effective church that doesn’t have the collective support of all its members to do whatever it takes – within the bounds of reason and the confines of being faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ – to grow.
But here I want to insert a very important clarification. Some may have understood what I’ve been saying about growing to mean that we want to grow in order to have more people who can help pay the bills.
But this is precisely the wrong reason we should want to grow. What’s more, focusing merely on saving our institution won’t work. If that’s our focus we won’t have God’s blessing. In fact, if we focus merely on saving our institution, we’ll lose the institution.
It’s just like what Jesus said about people: “Those who try to save their lives will lose them; but those who willingly deny themselves will save their lives.” The same is true of churches.
Instead, we want to grow not to save our own institution, but for the sake of the persons out there who don’t know Christ and who are not serving God’s purposes in the world. This must become our driving motivation and passion. Using an old-fashioned vernacular, the church exists to “save souls” and help God save the world. All we do is for Christ’s sake and their sake – not our own.
We come, finally, to characteristics seven and eight. I am joining these two because I think it helps us understand them better. For these characteristics are probably the most crucial to our success.
Number seven reads: An effective church will have a clear sense of its primary purpose and keep focused on its primary God-given mission.
Number eight reads: An effective church will keep focused upon Jesus Christ as the originator of, and the purpose for the church (rather than church as just another human oriented institution.)
As a church, how do we define our primary purpose? We’ve talked in previous sermons about the church being the body of Christ. That is, we understand ourselves to be Christ’s body in the world. We are Christ’s hands, mouth, feet. Accordingly, Jesus’ last words to his disciples are his marching orders for them and for us: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”
Our primary purpose as a church, then, is to go out there and make new disciples of Jesus Christ – gain him more followers and baptize them and teach them so that together we can, as Christ’s body, do Christ’s work of loving the world, caring for the world, healing the world and bringing the world closer to achieving that blessed biblical state characterized by the word, “shalom.”
Characteristic number eight comes in to place at a crucial point. What I’ve just said about number seven would likely not bring many objections. Number eight though will be our greatest challenge.
Why? Because to be an effective church – a responsible, authentic church – requires that members put the church and its mission – being the body of Christ in the world – as their top priority. Requires us to take church out of the category of just another institution or group to belong to.
This will be difficult. Most of us have been taught that it’s perfectly okay to have “church” at best somewhere in the middle of our priorities. There’s our job; there’s our family; there’s our country; there are our commitments in the community, and there are what we call – incorrectly actually – our own private lives.
Most church members will agree that church is important, but at the top of their priorities? Well.
Now, lest you think that making church a top priority means you will spend more time in the church, this characteristic is suggesting no such thing. Instead, having church at the top of one’s priorities may even mean less time in church because it will mean the whole of our time will be spent “being” the church out there in the world and with the people that God loves so much.
Still, to say the least, for church to become the number one priority in our lives will require, for many of us, a radical, radical shift in values.
Those in the monastic movement have a prayer: “Lord, show me the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is.” Friends, the truth about ourselves is that we are made to love and serve God. This is our ultimate happiness. This is our great beauty. Everything else that competes for our primary loyalty is just a distraction.
When one “gets it” – really “gets it” – life changes profoundly and often dramatically. Sometimes this “getting it” happens immediately. Sometimes “getting it” is more a gradual dawning of awareness. And sometimes, despite spending many years in church, some never “get it.”
But when one does get it – that the truth about myself is that I’m made for God – and I live out this truth in the body of Christ – then participation in the body of Christ – wanting to be a vital part of Christ’s work on earth – leaps up the list of priorities until there’s nothing more important than living out one’s true destiny by being part of the church in the world.
Accordingly, the church we want to become will not come about by merely adding programs or changing the way we worship, though we are going to add programs and we may even change some of the ways we worship. But these won’t be the things that save us.
Instead, the church we want to become will come about only because of changes in your faith, your lives, your values, your priorities and mine. Will come about because we “get it.” Get it that our truest identity is found in knowing we were made to love and serve God and live out Christ’s commands as part of his body on earth, the church.
On the one hand, then, our task is easy. An old friend sent me a joke this week about a preacher who was addressing the great financial needs of his church. He said to the congregation: “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we have all the money we need and more to meet our financial needs. The bad news is that it’s still in your pockets.”
It’s sort of like that with the spiritual renewal, the re-thinking about church that we have to do to be a new Prospect church. If we can get everyone to change their lives and priorities, to get-it! Presto: we have a great new church. It can start tomorrow! That’s the good news. The not so good news is that, realistically, we know we’ll never get everyone on board.
But, you know, maybe we don’t need hundreds of people who get it. Maybe, as when Prospect Church was being born back in the early 1800’s, we will only need a few good Methodists. A few committed Methodists.
What do I mean? Stay tuned. God is still messing with my head. I think I’ll be ready to share more about what I think this means as our Lenten study unfolds.
In conclusion. Wow. That’s a long time coming. Because there were no football games I was interested in watching, I sat down on New Year’s Day to jot some notes for what I thought was one sermon on “the church” to be given in January. And look what has happened. But, friends, I think God is in this. I feel God’s hand in this. Do you?
In conclusion. Two words. Urgency and patience. Most of us do well with one, but not the other. If we’re about God’s work, we’ll need to be expert at both.
By urgency, I mean: This can’t wait. We have to do it today, not tomorrow, or next year or with your next pastor. When Jesus first declared himself on earth, he said “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” now. Look through the gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry and it is filled with words like immediately and suddenly and now. God’s work can’t wait!
And we can’t wait because our declining membership, attendance, financial resources and our increasing average age say we’re at a tipping point. From here, we go one way or another with decreasing likelihood of making things better if we don’t act now.
Urgency. But also patience. With each other. With ourselves. Patience. Like Moses, I may not get to the promised land with you. But if we together can get this good ship heading in the right direction – and I believe strongly that we can – well, for some of us that will have to be its own reward.
I find myself so anxious to talk with you about these sermons and where we go from here in our Lenten studies that begin in two weeks on Sunday afternoons. Even if you have never in your life come to anything in the church besides Sunday morning worship, please come. There’ll be soup!
Heidi says that one of your most favorite hymns is our next one: “Here I Am, Lord.” She had originally planned to have the choir sing it for the anthem today. Not knowing this, I had chosen it for our last hymn. The end result? You get the best of both worlds. The choir will sing it next week; and we will sing it now.
Dearest new friends: We are on the cusp of decision time. We can’t wait. God can’t wait. This is, indeed, decision time. The Lord is calling? Whom shall I send? How will you answer?