Being a Blessing
Genesis 12:1-3
When I arrived here more than six years ago as Pastor, I met with the congregation in small groups, and asked 3 simple questions: “What do you like about the church? What do you want to keep the same? What do you want to change?” Out of those conversations, it became clear that God had laid on this congregation’s heart to become a multiethnic church. It was prompted by demographic changes post- Katrina on the Westbank and the new people it brought into this church. We didn’t know exactly how to do that or what it would look like, but together we started this journey together. Our call to go in this new direction was not unlike the call of Abraham in our Scripture today.
Abram lived in the town of Ur on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Archaeological digs have discovered that Ur was a highly developed civilization. There was elaborate wealth, skilled craftsmanship, and advanced technology and science. It was a metropolitan city which tells us something about what Abraham had to leave behind. Regardless, he set out by faith for a land about which he knew nothing and which probably offered him little compared to what he had. Abram’s age was not a deterrent in leaving Ur for some unknown land either. He was 75 when he entered the land of Canaan. Think of it. Abram would have been on Social Security for over 10 years. Rather than thinking of a new land and a new life, most of us would have been thinking of rocking chairs and rest homes. So you can well imagine the objections in Abram’s mind when the call of God came. Yet he left Haran, not because it was the easiest thing to do, but because God said, “Go!” Go where? This is the vision God gave: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you.” What’s amazing is that Abraham’s doesn’t question God but instead just goes! Only then God will show him the destination. That’s called faith!
That’s like the story of Gretna UMC starting six years ago. God said “Go!” And that’s just like God! At the heart of God’s name is the word go. Our God is a sending God. The vision was to become a multi ethnic congregation meaning we were to leave who were and what we had known and go into what God wanted us to become. We learned a few weeks ago that our God is a sending God and today we see He sent Abraham as He is sending us but we had no idea what it was going to look like or where we would end up. But we knew we needed to take the first step. So we started a new service called Mosaic, targeting a multi ethnic audience and we re-started a traditional worship service called Traditions. Over the last four years, we have grown from averaging just 6 baptisms and professions of faith a year to an average of 29 baptisms a year the last three years. We’ve grown from 2 outreach ministries to 7 and from a little less than 400 members to almost 500 members. We’ve grown from less than 5% ethnicity to more than 40% ethnicity on Sunday mornings. And God is not done with us yet! We have not arrived. There is still more work to do to fulfill this vision!
But amidst all of this, there is one troubling trend. While our worship attendance grew from 146 when I arrived to an average of 219 people in worship on Sunday mornings in the first three years. The last two years, we have experienced a 5% decline in attendance each year. And the number of first time visitors which should be between 5-10 people a week are only averaging 2-3 people per week. First time visitors are the lifeblood of any church. And if we don’t get more people through the doors, we will not grow as a church and if we don’t grow as a church, it will limit our mission. How do we do that? First is by being a living witness to our oikos, the 10-15 people God has placed closest in your life for you to influence them for Christ, and throughout our communities. We are to live distinct and different lives as ones seeking to follow and live like Jesus and by doing so, we love people, influence them, develop relationships with them and introduce them to the reality that God is in the midst of their lives. If you will, we are to become like a virus who infects with the love of Jesus everything we come into contact with. Second, we are to invite people into the life our church. That means inviting people to worship, to outreach events, to Bible studies, to Men’s and Women’s Ministries, to the Food Bank and any other expressions of the life of this church. In my New Year’s sermon, I told you that we needed to hold a Friend Day where every member of this church invited their friends, relatives, associates, neighbors and their oikos to worship. And we’re going to do that on Sept. 8.
Third is through raising awareness of the church in the community and extending public invitations through marketing and advertising. Though Gretna UMC has been in existence for 117 years, many of the 250,000 residents on the WestBank don’t know who we are and many, who do, have the mistaken impression that we’re a white church, because for 110 of the last 115 years that’s who we’ve been.
But we also need to get the word out about our church and ministry through marketing and advertising, money we don’t have right now. That’s why we’re starting a four week special giving emphasis called, “Illuminate,” to raise the funds for a major marketing and advertising campaign. But it’s more than a financial campaign. It’s the opportunity to spur spiritual growth in you like nothing else before. We are called to “Connect diverse communities to a lifestyle devoted to Jesus” and to make a difference in the WestBank as we seek to build the Kingdom of God here in our midst. But here’s the thing: we won’t be able to have that kind of impact if we remain the same size church that we are now. We need to reach more people for Christ and the only way to do that is by getting more people through the doors.
God says, “You go and I’ll show.” But the fact is, we don’t like God to lead us that way, do we? If we’re honest, we want God to show us first and then we can make up our mind if we want to go or not. We want to know where we’re headed, what we’re going to do, what it’ll be like and more importantly, how it’s going to impact us and the things we hold most dear. But God doesn’t do that. Most of us want a Mapquest God who lays out the entire journey step by step all the way to our destination. The problem is we have a GPS God that gives us one turn, one step, at a time. If you’re like me, you want to know the next 3-4 turns too. But God doesn’t do that. God leads us, one step at a time, giving us just what we need to know in the moment. When God called us on this journey to becoming a multiethnic community of faith, it would have been great if He had laid out the entire map. But I can tell you as can the elders and Worship Planning Team that we’ve been on this journey going step by step and not knowing whatthe next might be. Why? Because that’s how God leads. It forces us to live by faith. So like Abraham, God gives us one turn or step at a time.
And this is the way God works in your life as well. If you want God’s best in your relationships, your marriage, your children or in your work, then you’ve got to be willing to take that one next step God has in store for you and stay on that path until God shows you the next step. No matter how great or how horrible life is, you have to honor God with your faithfulness to continue on that path until he shows you that next turn. If you get off path with the GPS, the nice voice tells you that and then says, “Recalculating.” And what happens is that you have to turn around or take another route and it ends up taking even more time to get to your destination. Why is this the way God leads? He wants you connected to him.
Most churches when they start a giving emphasis have an artist rendering of a new building and architectural plans to share. We don’t. That’s not what this is about. This is about getting the word out to the WestBank about who we are and what we have to offer. With that in mind, we’ve been fortunate to be working with the top media buyer in the city who has donated her time and is guiding us in how to be the best stewards of our advertising dollars so we can get the best bang for our buck. We have to get the word out, invite people to join us and get them to walk through those front doors so they can experience the presence of God, the love of this congregation and hear the invitation of Jesus in their life to a relationship with him. Marketing and advertising is not to replace you influencing your oikos for Christ and inviting people to church with you. It’s meant to supplement it. Look at it this way: if somebody tells you about a new restaurant, you are much more likely to go to it if you’ve already seen it or heard about it. That’s what marketing and advertising does. It helps us communicate our message, our vision and our identity to the WestBank so when those invitation are extended, they’re much more likely to accept them because they already know something about the church.
What are we giving to? Our vision, “Connecting diverse communities to a lifestyle devoted to Jesus,” and that means Life change. Behind me you’re going to see the names of the people who were baptized in this church in the last three years giving their life to Christ and with that, their eternity was changed. That’s what we’re asking you to give toward. This isn’t about a building or a piece of land. It’s about reaching more people for Christ so we can make disciples and make an eternal difference in their life. Revelation 21:23 says, “And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it.” It’s about illuminating every street, every business, every home and every life on the WestBank with the message and mission of Gretna UMC and the light of Christ. Jesus came into the darkness as the Light of the World to make disciples. When he rose from the dead, he illuminated the world with His love, forgiveness and glory that absolutely no darkness can diminish. That’s the Good News! And Ephesians 5:12 says, “Everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” Our work is to be light in the midst of darkness for Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.” This isn’t just about some of you. It’s about all of you, women and men, children and seniors, every one of you becoming light in the world.
There are 250,000 people on the WestBank and we’re averaging less than 200 in worship. How can we get the word out to that many people? If we tried to do this individually, each of you would have to try to develop 1350 relationships with new people and then invite them to church. But it can if we raise the money needed to get the word out in a marketing and advertising campaign, you can concentrate on your oikos. We have the best message in the whole world, the Gospel, and the best leader in Jesus. We have the best theology in Methodism, one of grace. We have the most unique New Orleans music. We have the most beautiful sanctuary. We have the most diversified church where anyone can come and be accepted and loved. And we’ve got some pretty good preaching too, or so I’m told. We should have the best advertising and marking to let the entire WestBank know all for the glory of Christ.
I believe in our vision. And I believe in our God and I believe in our Savior Jesus Christ! He’s bigger than your problems, bigger than your finances, bigger than your worries and bigger than the challenges we face as a congregation. God is calling us to step out in faith. He’s saying “Go!” and that means you and I have to make a decision about whether we’re going to step out in faith with Him as He is leading the way. God has blessed you to become a blessing. The only questions is, “what are we going to do with that?”
So we’re going to start this financial campaign by doing something completely backward: we’re going to give our money away. This is the Become a Blessing Project. It’s not about your money. It’s about your heart. We are called to risk it regularly. We’re giving you this because I want to see what we can do as a church to really bless others and in the process to get a taste of what it really means to bless someone else. If you do, you will begin to see that everything that you’ve been given is a gift of God. It’s not yours anyway. It was given to you so that you might be able to bless someone else. The same is true with the money in that envelope. It’s God’s money and it’s been entrusted to you to accomplish the will of the Father. There’s three rules with this money. First, you’ve got to bless someone with it. This is about blessing someone else. Rule #2, you’ve got to share what you do with it. Tell your story and share it by emailing me your story. This isn’t bragging because it’s not your money. Third, you can’t give it back to the church
Illuminate is not about bricks or mortar or money. It’s about your heart. It’s not about building this church, it’s about changing lives. It’s not about the money in the envelope, it’s about your heart. This about unleashing you, so you can be light and Illuminate the world around you. I want to challenge you this morning to be a blessing to someone because everything you’ve been given is a blessing from God. Then on September 1, I’m going to ask you to give the biggest gift you can give to kickstart illuminate so that we can lift up the name of Jesus and Illuminate the WestBank with the Good News!.
