Rhythms
The Shape of Things to Come, prt. 4
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
September 27, 2008
It has been a long time, but after much preparation, a lot of money spent, and with more than a little bit of anxiety, the wedding day has finally come. The bride looks beautiful, having carefully selected every single detail for the day at hand. More money and time has been spent picking over the wedding dress than practically any other detail of the service, and the bride wears it with that confidence. The groom has managed to show up to the church at the right time and is wearing a tuxedo but forgot to polish his shoes.
The bride is surrounded by her friends whom she has carefully chosen. She has surrounded herself with others who are almost as invested in this day as the she is. They care as much as she does about every detail. They know one day they will get married and they are all living vicariously through her. The groom’s buddies can’t wait to dance in their underwear at the reception.
The bride will stand at the back of the sanctuary surrounded by her attentive court. She has put so much time and effort into this day and is ready to enjoy every single moment as it comes. First the flowergirl and ringbearer in their awesome cuteness. Then the bridesmaids, one after the other, exactly as planned and practiced. The groom and his buddies are already up front waiting because the pastor finally just had to say, “Dudes, quick fly check and let’s go.”
After the ceremony, bride and groom will go to their reception. The bride looks forward to cutting the cake and maybe a playful thrust into her groom’s face. The groom wonders if he’s going to get to remove the garter belt with his teeth. The bride dances with her daddy and cries and thinks about how her name has just changed. She wonders if the honey ham is pleasing to her guests. The groom thinks about the honeymoon. Then after he has thought about the honeymoon, he changes gears and thinks about the honeymoon some more. Then he enjoys thinking about the honeymoon for a while. The reception was fun for a while (while he was removing the garter belt with his teeth), but seriously, isn’t it time they left for the honeymoon? He’s having fun, but he starts looking at his watch.
The happy bride and groom have just arrived at the hotel to begin their honeymoon. She looks around the place and observes that everything is perfect, every detail in its place. A bucket filled with ice and champagne next to the Jacuzzi. Little chocolate mints on the bed. A hotel room refreshingly free from even a hint of a smoke smell. Tiny little shampoo bottles on the bathroom counter.
The groom has also noticed the bed, but wonders what those stupid mints are doing there, since he’s just thinking about…. And that, my friends, is where this tale ends, for obvious reasons.
Scripture says,
Revelation 19:7-8 (NIV)
7 Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
8 Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear." (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.)
There’s gonna be a wedding one day. The groom will be Jesus Christ and he won’t be a whole lot like the groom in the story I just told. He’ll be the perfect groom, one who has waited for his bride for thousands of years. This groom isn’t just going to show up for the service. In fact, unlike brides who prepare the wedding and tell the groom when to show up, this groom has been actively preparing his bride for a very, very long time.
Ephesians 5:25-27 (MSG)
25 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting.
26 Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her,
27 dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness.
Who will the bride be? If you are a Christ-follower, the bride will be you. Not just you, but everyone who has ever loved and followed Jesus throughout all time. The church is the bride of Christ. One day the groom is coming back for his bride. When the groom gets back here, what kind of shape will the bride be in?
As a pastor, I spend countless hours asking this question. Because my concern is that Jesus will return for his bride, only to find he doesn’t have a bride, but just a girlfriend. Jesus is coming back for his bride, not for his girlfriend.
Jesus wants his bride – the one who has been waiting for him and planning for it just like little girls dream about and plan all their lives for their wedding day. Jesus wants his bride – the one who is making the most of every opportunity to prepare for that special day:
Ephesians 5:16 (NLT)
16 Make the most of every opportunity...
Jesus wants his bride – one who is attentive to the details of preparation – who notices when things are out of sync – who cares enough to make everything just right for him.
But I fear that in America, the church just isn’t ready to be Christ’s bride. Girlfriend maybe. The one that moves in and hangs around and splits rent and allows the guy to protect her and keep her from being lonely. The one who’s around because she can’t imagine not having a boyfriend, but who can’t quite let go of some of her exes from the past and keeps a few of them on the line just in case. The girlfriend that dresses up once in a while to look good and make a great impression, but once you get to know her you realize that no matter what she might say or how pretty she is, her heart isn’t yours.
I fear that if Jesus came back today, that’s what he’d find – not a bride but a girlfriend – one not wearing that radiant and spotless white dress he desires to see, but rolling around in a mud puddle made of money, reputation, gossip, envy, and every kind of self-obsession. One that is willing to shack up, but not one looking to get hitched.
But Jesus is coming back for his bride, not for his girlfriend. As the church, it’s our job right now to be getting ready to meet Jesus – preparing our minds and hearts and bodies to be places where a holy God can live.
1 Corinthians 6:19 (NIV)
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
That is our task – the work we have before us right now. Because Jesus is coming back for his bride, not for his girlfriend.
Now what did I tell you last week? I told you that every time the New Testament speaks about the church, it speaks in terms of the character of those in it. Why? Because as the church – the bride of Christ – we are to be preparing to meet Jesus – the groom. And we prepare by becoming holy.
1 Peter 2:9 (GW)
9 However, you are chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, people who belong to God. You were chosen to tell about the excellent qualities of God, who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
And we become holy as we grow in character! And remember what I told you last week? We grow in character as we make commitments that lead us to do exactly that.
1 John 2:15-17 (MSG)
15 Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.
16 Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.
17 The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.
Now you have made commitments to this world that are defining you and killing you at the same time, as they increasingly isolate you from God. But you are called in Jesus to set your life in his direction – to make commitments that will increasingly come to define you and will bring you life. Remember from last week, the church’s job is to help form people in faith, build them in faith, then teach them how to live in response to the rhythm’s of God’s grace in their lives. Well how do rhythms work?
Rhythms always work according to rules. We just finished a little worship music. Every song ever played has some kind of rules set down for it. In 4/4 time, there are four beats in a measure, and the quarter note gets one beat. In 6/8 time, there are six beats in a measure and the 8th note gets one beat. Everyone in the band must agree to those rules, or else no song can ever become a song because everyone will be doing their own thing. Just like different songs have different rules (key and time signatures, tempos, etc.), different churches establish different rhythms for their people as it seems appropriate to help their people prepare to meet the groom. But the bottom line is that it’s the rules, or guidelines, or commitments, that allow the music to be played beautifully and in harmony on each song, or within each church. When the band gets up here to play a song, we don’t sit around arguing about whether we’ll do it in 4/4 time or 6/8 time. We accept the time signature that has been given to us, then we exercise creativity within that guideline.
My friends, it is the church’s job to prepare to meet the groom. But many Christians do not understand the role of rhythms! Many people come into a church that’s playing 4/4 time and they want to play ¾ or 6/8 time. Nothing wrong with ¾ or 6/8 time, but it won’t work to play a song in 6/8 time that is written in 4/4 time. Or people come into a church that is playing in the key of F#, and want to play in the key of C. You can’t do that, and that’s why it’s important for you to find a church that’s playing your song! Because your life will become more like the life of Jesus according to the commitments you make. Some of those will be commitments you make just between you and God, or commitments you make to yourselves. But the church also has been called to set rhythms for the lives of its people – rhythms that, if we play them long enough, will teach our hearts to beat with the rhythms of God’s heart!
So I’m going to finish tonight talking to you about the rhythms Wildwind has developed for its people. Remember the basics. The church is the bride of Christ and we are to prepare to meet the groom one day. The Bible shows us that we do that not through systems or government, but by growing in character, but we grow in character through specific commitments that we make. I refer to these commitments as rhythms we establish in our lives.
From an introduction to the first Free Methodist book of discipline, published in 1862:
You will find in this book the doctrines and form of government of the Free Methodist Church. We do not wish any to subscribe to it unless they believe it will be for the glory of God and the good of their souls. We have no desire to build up simply a large church; but we do hope that our societies will be composed, exclusively, of those who are in earnest to gain heaven and who are determined, by the grace of God, to live up to the requirements of the Bible. It is of the greatest importance that those who come into this organization shall be of one heart and one mind.
Those old-timers got it right! And just like those first Free Methodists, it begins here, with everyone at Wildwind deciding to play in the same time signature, the same key signature, to get on the same page and adopt a way of living that we have accepted as our way. It is up to the leadership of every church to determine what that way is. We decided that a long time ago, and have communicated this way of living clearly in every Discovery class since. Here are the four primary things we have adopted to form the basic rhythm of life in the Wildwind community.
Wildwind Membership Commitments
1. Every member practicing the means of grace and growing in grace
2. Every member serving in ministry
3. Every member participating in a small group
4. Every member making a financial commitment to Wildwind
Let’s take these one at a time and I’ll explain them to you.
1. Every member practicing the means of grace and growing in grace
This is the one commitment where we are asking a bit more of you. Up until today, we used to simply ask you to commit your life to Christ and be baptized. But in light of our determination to take Jesus seriously as a teacher who can change our lives, we’re going to ask members of Wildwind to commit to learning and doing spiritual practices that will, by God’s grace, increasingly produce the fruit of holiness in their lives. I can simplify it by saying that our church will be characterized by a focus on helping people create conditions in their lives where Jesus can be obeyed, then teaching them what Jesus said, then teaching them how to DO what he said! That’s what it means to practice the means of grace and grow in grace.
2. Every member serving in ministry
This one hasn’t changed a bit, although we are moving in some directions I’m not ready to talk about yet that are going to give a new and more exciting meaning to this than you could ever imagine. But for now, it means what it has always meant. Find a place to serve in ministry at Wildwind and plug in. Take your place in the church with a participating role. Be part of this local body of believers in a vital way – don’t just sit and soak.
3. Every member participating in a small group
The wording of this is the same but we’re making some tweaks to our small group system right now that are going to help groups to work better and serve you better. Alpha will no longer be in a class-format, but will run as a small group and will be every person’s first small group experience. Brent currently has enough interested parties to run I believe four Alpha groups starting in the next few months and connect many people who are not currently in groups. We are working to include built-in group break-times into the plan so we can rest here and there. There’s a level of interest among some potential leaders in doing sports groups and serving groups and other kinds of thematic groups to offer more variety and provide a place for more people. Brent will tell you more about that after church at the meeting.
4. Every member making a financial commitment to Wildwind
This is the other one we have changed quite a bit. We used to require the tithe – that people give 10%, and we would not take someone into membership until they were giving at 10%. But we’ve had a change of heart. It’s not that we don’t think giving is important anymore, it’s that I’ve had a chance to observe reality. See, I know that none of our current members are going to start giving less because we’re changing the “rules.” Everyone who is giving is giving “because they believe it will be for the glory of God and the good of their souls.” We only have about 35 members, but we have about 60 people who give regularly. What does that tell us? It tells us that the importance of giving and learning generosity, even supporting Wildwind, is getting through to people who are doing it not because that’s the rule, but because they love Wildwind Church and its work with their whole hearts. So we want to back off and allow your hearts to lead you more. From now on, we’ll ask our members to make and keep a financial commitment to Wildwind every year, and we hope you’ll challenge yourself in new ways each year. Then we’ll teach on the importance of giving at the 10% level and beyond and never stop challenging people to grow in faith in this area. That means the doors of membership at Wildwind, as of now, are suddenly open to many people and families who previously were not members simply because they felt they could not give at that level. Please join us! We will keep encouraging you and working with you, but we want to love you toward generosity, not insist on it before you can be a member.
Now, let me address something. I will be issuing a call for membership soon, and I don’t want any new potential members to think, “I’m not going to do this right now because then everyone will know I was one of the people not giving at 10%.” First of all, so what? You’re not accountable to anyone else. Second, we’re throwing open the doors specifically so people CAN come in! Third, I suspect several of our members now are not giving at 10%. C’mon, face it – what am I gonna do, demand tax returns? We’re all on common ground here – all moving to please God and learn to love him from the heart, free of guilt and free of manipulation. I hope when I place the call to membership, several dozen of you will take the plunge!
So those are our rhythms. Practicing the means of grace and growing in grace (loving God with our hearts). Serving in ministry at Wildwind (loving God with our time). Participating in a small group (loving God by learning to love others). Making a financial commitment to Wildwind (loving God with our worldly resources). We believe nothing determines more who we become then how we devote ourselves to growing in God’s grace, how we use our time and money, and how we invest in relationships with others.
Last week I told you I’d throw open the doors of membership at Wildwind this week and ask you to join us. Now is that time. Cards are being handed out and if you are interested in becoming a member of Wildwind Church, or asking a few questions, let us know on the card and we’ll contact you. Like that church in 1862, “it is of the greatest importance that those who come into this organization shall be of one heart and one mind.” That is what we are looking for. Are you ready and willing to make these commitments with us as we prepare ourselves to meet the groom?
