CONSISTENCY IS HARD WORK
TEXT: 1 CORINTHIANS 15:58
THEME: CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY FOR GROWTH
Every morning I try to get up at 6:00am to go to the gym to work out. I have been doing this in Waynesboro for the last 3.5 years. The key in working out is consistency. You have to get up every day and go a few times a week. Showing up once or twice a week does not help. This simply maintains, but there is no development or lasting results. During my time at the gym, I have seen some various levels of behavior. There are those that get super motivated in working out and severely push themselves to the limits from the very first. These people show up the next day very sore from the workout, but they are motivated so that work hard again. You should see these people. They can workout for hours. They will hit every major muscle in the body. You might see them the next day and they will do it all again even though they can barely walk. By the time next week rounds around, they super worker outers are no where to be found. You see them in town in a few weeks and ask where they have been and they provide some excuses. One week at the gym is not going to make a huge difference in a person’s life. You have to be consistent in working out. It is an every day activity.
Personally, I see consistency as one of the major problems that we are struggling with in this congregation. You might all know better than me, but I have seen a pattern in this congregation. I have only been here for 3.5 years, so I am by no means the expert on this within the congregation. But since I have been year we have hovered around the 170 average morning attendance mark. When I first got here, we never saw the attendance over 170 or in the 150’s. We were always in the 160 reach. Every week with fail. As I have labor with the congregation we have pushed up to the 170 mark a few times. For a while, we were averaging 170 for months. We never dropped below this mark. We even started to push higher where we averaged 176 for the entire year. So as we started to grow to the 180 number in average attendance, we seemed to drop down again. And we started to see the 150 mark more consistently. This really causes people concern in the congregation. Just listening to the comments in the congregation we get worried about the 150’s. 160 and every body says very little, 170 we all walk away happy with ourselves. And 150 we started to think about growing the church.
So I told you all this, this is the pattern that I see in the congregation. So here is what I think about the pattern. In this congregation we are comfortable with 160. We like to grow more, but for the most part we are happy with what we have. Everyone is happy, everyone is content. Now when we get to the 170 mark we walk about feeling good about ourselves. We feel that we are growing and positive stuff is happening in the congregation. Also as we grow to this number we feel some growth pains and some change which we never like. None of us really likes change. I don’t, you don’t either. So the worship service is a little more chaotic, there is some new people in the pews that we do not know. There is just some changes that start to happen. Now when we are in the 150 number we all get concerned. We start to have some meeting on how to grow the congregation. We maybe check up on a few more people and ask where they have been. We start to long around more in the congregation. It changes again in a bad way so we do not like that. In fact, this is what is happening. When we are in the 150 number we start to get busy working more. We make more calls and invite some more people to worship services. We know we need to be more evangelistic, so we are. This causes us to start to grow again because people are concerned about the growth. We start to push the 170 mark and then we relax and feel good about yourselves. We are growing and doing well. So we drop the work and take it easy. We start to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Just as we do this, the numbers start to decline again.
We are missing in this congregation the number value for growth. We need consistency. We have a great congregation. We have great elders. We have Mitchell and Sheryl with us. We have a great group of deacons. The members are wonderful. We have everything to make a great and growing church. Maybe the only negative is that I am preaching here every week. But fortunately, the talents and the quality of the congregation make up for me the weak link. We have a great congregation. But the only problem is that we lack consistency. We get comfortable too quickly in trying to grow the church and impact souls for Christ.
Fortunately, we have some instructions in the Bible to help us. In Luke 9:59-62 Jesus has some difficult teaching to swallow. It fact it might even seem harsh or unloving. At it’s first read, you believe that Jesus is not very merciful or kind. Where is the forgiveness and kindness. Do we get second chances? But these verses speak loud to us today. Jesus is using hyperbole to express his thoughts. He says “And He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Permit me first to go and bury my father." But He said to him, "Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God." And another also said, "I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home." But Jesus said to him, "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Jesus is serious about consistent effort in following him. Once we start on the journey with Christ, he wants us to be completely dedicated. But in this text Jesus is not even willing to let the person bury his father over following him. And as the conclusion of this teaching, he says that a person cannot start plowing a field and then even look back. Once you start you need to finish. He uses this teaching because of you are like me, you get sided tracked. You get focused on other stuff. As the congregation grows, we feel good about ourselves. We focus on something new. When we pull our energy together in this congregation, amazing things happen. Every year we have a great VBS and every year a few more people come to the congregation because of it. But we just forget about keeping on. We get sidetracked. I do, you do.
We must be serious about being consistent in this congregation. It always amazes me that we will start to decline. I get worried about the number or people leaving and every time we bounce back. We come out looking good. But as much as this impresses me, we do the same thing when the congregation is growing. We always fall back. Just when I think that we have overcome we fall back. We must be consistent in our work. We are always happy or sad in this congregation or just right. This is why Paul tells the Corinthian congregation to be consistent. Paul knew that this would be a struggle for congregations. He said “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58). We must persevere in the congregation. Consistency is such a hard thing to gain. It is the difference between success and mediocrity.
I remember the day I learned a valuable lesson in church. Of course my mentor taught me this. It is too true of most congregations. See in most congregations we start great works or programs. We start these programs big. Everyone is willing to give time to them. You have a huge amount of volunteers that are excited about coming. You have people that are talking it up and willing to come too. But with time, things start to fall down. You lose some of the volunteers, people start to complain, and some people quit coming. This is the nature of most things. This is why my mentor told me to start small. When you start a program, start small. See most people start monthly meetings or activities, he says start yearly or quarterly stuff. If it does well increase the times. This way you will have a longer running ministry. But when you start big, you will only watch it die instead of grow. This problem happens because we just do not have consistency. It is so hard to gain.
But we do have a positive example in the word of God of a congregation that increased in work instead of declining. It developed better consistency then most congregations that we know. It is found in the book of Revelation. The text says “"And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this: ’I know your deeds, and your love and faith and service and perseverance, and that your deeds of late are greater than at first (Rev. 2:18-19). This is truly a rare congregation. It goes against the natural flow of mankind. This congregation is doing more now than at the first. They are increasing in good works instead of decreasing. The congregation is more loving, faithful, and serving, because they have perseverance. They have the gift of consistency. Calvin Coolidge once said “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
This one thing—consistency will change this congregation completely. This is all we lack. We have everything we could desire. The time is now for this congregation. But we must have consistency. We need to maintain the tension when the numbers are up. Instead of feeling good about ourselves, we need to continue to press ahead. This about this. Company, families, church do this. When there is a problem or competition, organizations pull together with a strong intensity. But when everything is going well, organizations because lax. There is no longer the tension that is causing people to push ahead. I am not asking everyone to do everything. I am asking you to do your thing. This one think that you want to do in this congregation and be consistent at it. This week you will be counted on. You will be there because that is what you do for this congregation. Act in this congregation that we are in this. We are needing people. We need to have urgency at all times. This is the only way that this congregation will grow. We need consistency. It is hard to do, but we must.
The value of courage, persistence, and perseverance has rarely been illustrated more convincingly than in the life story of this man (his age appears on the right): Failed in business 22, Ran for Legislature--defeated 23, Again failed in business 24, Elected to Legislature 25, sweetheart died 26, Had a nervous breakdown 27, Defeated for Speaker 29, Defeated for Elector 31, Defeated for Congress 34, Elected to Congress 37, Defeated for Congress 39, Defeated for Senate 46, Defeated for Vice President 47, Defeated for senate 49, Elected President of the United States 51, That’s the record of Abraham Lincoln.
