The beginning of the year tends to be a time for fresh starts, we refocus and remind ourselves of what is most important. As we look back on the past year we sometimes realize we may not have been doing everything perhaps we should have been doing. For some they realize they need to quit a habit, or form a new habit like eating healthier, or spending more time with family, or perhaps like making a habit of exercise. In fact many of us make New Years resolutions to commit to doing these things. After eating all of the goodies over this past couple of weeks, I am reminded that I should probably make a resolution to exercise regularly this year.
Last week Roger shared with us the words from the Apostle Paul who made a resolution, it wasn’t a New Year resolution it was a life long resolve. He said he was going to “press onward and take hold of that which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brother I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:12-14).” The goal Paul spoke of, that he was pursuing with a single minded passion was to know Christ and be perfected in his righteousness. In other words Paul’s life goal was to know Christ, to be like Christ, and to do all that Christ wanted him to do.
What an excellent goal for us to shoot for, to know Christ better, to be more like Christ, and to do all that He wants us to do, until the day we meet him face to face in heaven. This is something all of us should be working toward.
As we press onward in a new year, we need to also remind ourselves that there is a goal which God has given us collectively as the church, something he has placed as a priority for us to be striving for, a specific mission, the…main thing if you will.
At the end of Jesus’ time on this earth he spoke to his disciples and gave them clear directions for what the main thing was, what their mission was. Let me read some of Jesus’ last words or words written about Jesus in the Bible.
In this first reading, Jesus’ disciple John concludes the purpose of writing his gospel, he writes:
John 20:30 “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Jesus’ last words recorded in Mark’s gospel:
“He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned (Mark 16:15-16).”
Jesus’ last words recorded in Matthew’s gospel:
“Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go 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 I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20, NIV)."
Jesus’ last words recorded in the book of Acts
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8, NIV)."
All of these final words either spoken by Jesus or said about Jesus point to the same thing. The main thing God is concerned with is that all people would believe in his Son so they may have life in his name. Therefore those who believe in his Son and become disciples or followers of Jesus (the church) have a mission of sharing this good news with others so they may experience this new life too.
As John Wesley, the founder of Methodism put it when speaking to his lay preachers, “You have nothing to do but to save souls.” Saving souls, making disciples or lifelong followers of Jesus, they are all just different ways of saying the same thing. The church exists to help people trust in Jesus and receive the abundant life God offers now and to live with him forever in heaven. That is the main thing.
The Primary Work of the Church – Saving Souls
As we look back on a year completed and look forward to a new year, there are questions we should be asking ourselves to determine if we are fulfilling God’s mission.
1) Are people coming to faith in Christ?
2) Are people growing to spiritual maturity in Christ?
How many new faith commitments have we had in the past year? Are we seeing new people in the church who desire to be lifelong followers of Jesus? The answers to these questions help us understand how well we have been working toward the mission of connecting people to Christ.
Are people growing to spiritual maturity in Christ?
It helps to know what we mean by spiritual maturity. We can define spiritual maturity simply as this; becoming more like Jesus in our everyday living. Our heart, our mind, our character, and our actions become like Jesus’, some days might be better than others, but generally speaking we are maturing to be like Jesus. We sometimes summarize this with the Great Commandments; to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus loved perfectly.
We can ask ourselves, are we loving God more? As we grow spiritually we should desire to worship him, spend time with him in prayer, study his Word, serve him in the church and community, follow his commandments, and give him our time, talent, and treasure.
Do we love our neighbor more? As we grow spiritually we truly love others in our heart, it is not something we have to force ourselves to do. We even manage to love our enemies. We pray for those who persecute us, we provide for those in need around us, and we reach out to those who are lost and do not know Christ, which by the way is the most loving act we can do. If you want a good understanding of what it means to be spiritually mature read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 5-7.
We can ask ourselves as a church, are people loving and caring for each other more? Are people loving and caring more for those outside the church?
While living out the Great Commandment is a sign of our spiritual maturity, we sometimes get the Great Commandment mixed up with the Great Commission. We think the mission of the church is to love God and others, and if we do that we are successful. Loving others is not our mission, it is a product of who we are as followers of Jesus. When we follow Jesus we become a people who love. The church’s mission has been and will always be to help others know and follow Jesus too.
Could you imagine the CEO of GM going before his board of directors and shareholders who ask him about the drop in auto sales, and his responded, “yes, we are selling a lot less cars, but our people are the friendliest in the business.” I don’t think his board of directors and shareholders would take that too well because they are not n the business of being friendly, they are in the business of selling cars. I realize we are not a business, we are the church. We operate by different rules entirely, however we need to remind ourselves that we do have a mission, and the eternal destinations of people around us are dependent upon our work.
What happens if we, as a church, lose that single-minded focus, is that it will get crowded out by other things, even very important things. God gives us a specific mission because he knows our lives are busy, and our time slots fill very quickly. We have family responsibilities, kids and grandkids sports, boy scouts, girl scouts. Even in the church we have many responsibilities which need to be done, committees, ministries, Bible studies, all good things. Yet God reminds us that for the church there is one priority above all others. To help people know Christ and grow in Christ and this should help us prioritize everything else we do in the church.
Every year we need to take a hard look at ourselves and ask, does everything we do in the church reflect this mission? Does every committee, every meeting, every ministry, every fund raiser, every mission project help people be disciples? If not, why not? Are there things which we need to end or be altered to reflect this mission? Are there new ministries God is calling us to, to help accomplish this mission?
I was at a ministry seminar this past October where the speaker, Jeff Patton, who was a pastor and is now a church consultant, shared a story about going to a church to consult them on how to be more effective in their ministry because the church was declining in membership and attendance. On that particular day he arrived they were having a turkey dinner and they invited him to join their feast. After the dinner he commented on what a great meal it was and he asked some of the people in charge, “why do you have this turkey dinner?” They replied, “To raise money?” “Oh and what does the money go toward?” They replied, “To purchase more turkeys for the next dinner.” So Jeff tried to clarify, “let me get this right, you have a turkey dinner to raise money to purchase turkeys to have another turkey dinner?” His point was clear, they were not keeping the main thing, the main thing. They were wasting people’s valuable time and energy doing things which did not help accomplish God’s mission.
Our job, particularly those of us who are leaders in the church, is to keep the main thing, the main thing. Helping people to be disciples, to know Christ and grow in Christ.
If you don’t think this is our priority, I challenge you to read the book of Acts and observe how the mission of spreading the good news was a priority for them.
New Hope –
This past summer God began moving on my heart the need for us to reach the youth in our community for Christ. It seems that drugs, alcohol, sex, violence, and abuse, have become common everyday struggles for the young people in our community. In fact in the last month, there have been at least two occasions, that I am aware of, of young people in our community overdosing on drugs. It is becoming an epidemic in our community, and it seems to me the best way to address these problems is by keeping the main thing the main thing. We need to reach the youth to know Christ and grow in Christ so he will change them from the inside out and we’ll see the addictions and the violence go away. Furthermore the work of pollster George Barna reports that if a person hasn’t made a commitment to follow Christ before 19, statistically speaking they are pretty much not going to do it when they grow up. I know there are many exceptions to this, but generally speaking this is the rule of thumb.
This past summer while I was struggling with these thoughts, Leroy Sutfin, the pastor at Zion UCC in Brutus, called me to ask me if I had heard of a group called the Seven Project. I admitted I had not. He had experienced this group in the Wolverine and Indian River schools. He described them as a young Christian group that gave motivational talks relating to relevant issues of middle school and high school students. They would give an assembly at school during the day, and in the evening they invited kids to come back for a “religious program.” During this program they shared the good news of Jesus and how Jesus can change their lives. Leroy told me that the first time the Seven Project came to Wolverine, 30 kids made first time commitments to Christ, kids who may have never stepped foot in a church before. Needless to say he got my attention. Over the summer and into the fall I contacted the Seven Project and have been working with them and the Pellston schools and I am glad to say the “Seven Project” will be coming to Pellston. The date is set for Wednesday, March 21st. Our council board has already approved to help support some of the costs of the group. We have at least five churches in our community working together to make it happen.
My goal is to have 50% of the student body attend the evening program. This has the potential to reach many youth who wouldn’t normally attend any church. This could be very big for our school and for our community. The fallout from this event could require us as a church to step up to the plate at work with the youth in our community.
The event alone is going to need significant amount of manpower. We will need people to talk one-on-one with youth who come forward for an invitation. My goal is to have at least 50 of these counselors between all the churches in the area. We will need people to pray for this event, people to make food, people to provide transportation (since it is in the evening), and people to host some of the Seven Project people. I’ve talked with pastors in Indian River, and this has done amazing things for their community.
I’m really looking forward to what God is going to do through us in 2007 in reaching out to people in our community, especially the youth, for Jesus Christ. Once this event is over it won’t be over. Imagine if, as a result of this event, 20 kids want to be a part of the youth group and perhaps come to church. Are we going to step up to the plate and help it happen? Are we going to prioritize our resources to help keep the main thing the main thing?
Epsilon –
Every month in our newsletter is our mission statement. Let me read it for you:
The mission of Epsilon United Methodist Church is to help people become followers of Jesus Christ by reaching out to them with the love of Christ (outreach), building them up in faith (maturity), and equipping them to serve God and neighbor in love (ministry).
We chose to focus on three areas to accomplish this mission: 1) reaching out to those who don’t know Jesus, 2) maturity - helping people grow in faith, and 3) ministry - helping people serve Christ and each other.
This past year we decided to try an outreach at Easter and we had our first Easter Eggstravaganza complete with Easter Egg hunt. We had 75 children show up. We continued our family fun day which every year we meet new unchurched families from our community. We had our first alternative Halloween party called Pumpkin party with 25 kids. We honored the healthcare workers in our community. We invited the community to our annual Christmas cantata and had 206 people.
This past year we began a new Bible study focusing called Intro to Christianity which Roger Fate to help people mature in their faith. We added a second class for older kids for our Kids Club and Children’s Church to help give the older children something more appropriate to their age to help them grow in their faith.
More people are getting involved with serving, using their gifts in ministry to help others in the church and outside the church (get percentage of people who are involved in some ministry of the church) whether it is being a greeter before church, singing in the choir, helping with one of our children’s ministries, doing fellowship snacks after church.
We celebrate all that God has done through us this past year, he has blessed our church greatly. Wow, what a year, we thank God. Yet, I know it’s easy for us to get in a comfort zone and be satisfied with where we are now. We look around us and see new faces, and a full sanctuary, and think, “We’re there, we’ve arrived.” But I don’t believe God is done with us yet. As long as there are people in our community who don’t know Christ and aren’t following him, our work isn’t done. This doesn’t mean we necessarily have to do more ministry this year (we had a pretty busy last year). It simply means we need to be intentional about what we are doing. It may mean adding things, it may mean cutting some things out to free up peoples time. We must remember to keep the main thing the main thing and not give up the task of making disciples of Jesus.
I’m really excited about 2007 because I know God has given us a hope and a future. I would like to encourage you, if you have ideas that excite you about making disciples for Jesus I encourage let me know, or areas you would like to serve I would encourage you to contact myself or our lay leader.
