Who here would like St Jo’s to grow?
[presume lots of hands go up]
So [go round asking people] what would it be like if St Jo’s grew significantly?
[take a reasonable number of answers to unpack the question – before returning to the sanctuary]
Jesus stands in the middle of the crowd and says ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” (Luke 10:2)
Silence
Everyone prays
They have seen Jesus pray before – they know when he prays he gets answers.
“ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest”
Silence
Jesus raises his eyes and looks at them. He’s going to tell them how this prayer is going to be answered. They wait expectantly
"Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” (luke 10:3-8)
It takes a moment to sink in.
Hang on – we didn’t mean us!
“See I am sending you”
And [pointing at the congregation] – before you think you get off the hook – this is Luke Chapter ten.
In Luke Chapter 9 Jesus sent out the 12.
The Twelve are the ancestors of the clergy – they would lay hands on the first bishops who would lay hands on the next bishops who would lay hands on the next bishops – in a direct line of prayer all the way down to Bishop Sarah and Bishop Lusa- and from the likes of whom Father Dean and I were ordained priest.
That’s chapter 9.
In which Jesus sends out the clergy.
This. This is chapter 10.
“After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them”
This. This is you!
In China after the communist takeover of 1949 all foreign missionaries were expelled from the country. Outsiders thought the church was doomed – especially when the cultural revolution started, Christianity was declared illegal and all buildings were shut.
But when ten years later Mao died and the cultural revolution ended and Christianity was allowed to come out into the open again – they discovered a surprising thing – There were something like ten times as many Christians Catholic and Protestant as there had been before the Church had been driven underground.
Most of the churches had been in the educated urban areas – but in the cultural revolution people had been forcibly sent out into the countryside – including Christians. And they told people there about Jesus – and the church grew.
A few years later one church – I think in Beijing – crowdfunded and raised the money to buy a whole load of single train tickets. Young people were sent out in pairs, given train tickets to far off town and villages – and told to start a church. They were only given a single ticket. They could return when the church they had started was big enough to pay for the return train fares for them. Within I think two years they were all home and a vast explosion again of growth had again happened.
“After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them”
A quote from Pope Francis
"Though it is true that this mission demands great generosity on our part, it would be wrong to see it as a heroic individual undertaking, for it is first and foremost the Lord’s work, surpassing anything which we can see and understand. Jesus is “the first and greatest evangelist”. In every activity of evangelsm, the primacy always belongs to God, who has called us to cooperate with him and who leads us on by by the power of his Spirit. Evangelism is first and foremost about preaching the Gospel to those who do not know Jesus Christ or who have always rejected him. Many of these are quietly seeking God, led by a yearning to see his face, even in countries of ancient Christian tradition. All of them have a right to receive the Gospel. Christians have the duty to proclaim the Gospel without excluding anyone. Instead of seeming to impose new obligations, they should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to a horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet. It is not by forcing ourselves on people that the Church grows, but “by attraction”.
I have hopefully got you a bit scared by pointing out to you that Luke Chapter 10 isn’t about Priests or pastors or even church wardens – its about YOU!
So having scared the wits out of you, lets give you a couple of things to relieve that –
1)As Pope Francis puts it “Jesus is the first and greatest evengelist” – in our Gospel reading Jesus “sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go” The incarnate Jesus may not be physically with them – but he is with them.
I have always found that when I do some act of evangelism God honours it. For example one time I and group of people from a previous church went round knocking on doors. We would ask “We are here from your local church – We are having a special mass on Sunday when we are praying for the local community - is there any thing you would like us to pray for you for” – and we wrote it down – and we prayed for those prayers in mass on Sunday. We did this several times. And people came. We never told them they had too – but people came. Sometimes it was people we had spoken to on the doorsteps who came to hear us pray for them – but here is the interesting thing – sometimes when we did this some of the people we had spoken to on the doorsteps turned up. But sometimes none of them showed – and yet – on that Sunday when we had done that there were always new people in church even when there weren’t the previous Sunday. They just happened to have felt nudged to try church that Sunday. We had gone out, and Jesus, the great evangelist honoured that by bringing people in – even if they were not the people we spoke to.
2) It is not a “heroic individual undertaking” – “After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him IN PAIRS” – it is always about team work.
A few years back I came across a fascinating statistic. I lost the article and have not been able to find it again – what research had found was that if a person had a single Christian friend the chance of them becoming a Christian was negligible. But if that person had between 5 and 8 Christian friends the chance of them becoming a Christian rose to over fifty percent.
So if you have a friend or even a husband or wife who is not a Christian, simply talking more about your faith may not make much of difference – perhaps you have already found that over many years? The single most effective thing you can do to evangelise them is to introduce them to your Church friends not just as a one off – but building deep friendships.
We are not meant to do “heroic individual undertakings” . The Lord sent them ahead of him “in pairs”
A few months back Kate [the Church Warden] arranged for a group of us to deliver leaflets about the Easter services to the local houses and flats. Now all credit to Kate for coming up with the idea – but credit also to everyone who helped. A mixed group of us went out – some extroverts like me in my uniform happy to strike a conversation with people walking past and give them a leaflet, some more shy people who couldn’t really do that but were very happy putting leaflets through a letter box. Some younger people. Some older people. Some with good knees who happily climbed the to the top floors of tower blocks (or in the kids cases – ran up them). Some with bad knees who put the leaflets through the flats on the ground floor. We worked as a team. And as Kate told me afterwards – new people did turn up to some of those services as a result.
Or take the Wednesday midweek mass. Those of you who only come on Sunday may not have noticed – but the Wednesday mass has grown dramatically over the last year since Father Dean arrived as interim priest. We often now get twenty people there – which makes it one of the largest midweek services in the deanery (and I have covered a lot of them). I think only Christ the Saviour regularly gets more people to a midweek mass. So has the Wednesday mass grown here so much? Well its NOT down to one person. Of course credit to Father Dean who prepares a proper full sermon every Wednesday – He’s not just preparing one for Sunday he is preparing one for Wednesday – and that is a lot of work. There’s also Pat who began preparing a full lunch for after the service – amazing food each week so that a real sense of community has grown up around that service as people stay and talk afterwards. Then there is Susan who is really good at spotting if people are OK so no body gets forgotten about . Nobody is going to say “oh I didn’t come because I was ill and no body even noticed”. And most importantly of all – there are the people who have invited other people to come along. “I really enjoy the Wednesday mass – I think you might too”.
You might feel scared about sharing your faith – but remember we are not doing this on our – not just that he sends us out in pairs – but that he goes with us
"Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. [yes it’s scary!] Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!” And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.” (Luke 10:3-9)
Don’t take a purse – because they were going to rely on God to provide for them – like the Chinese evangelists who had to trust God that enough people would become Christians that they would get their train ticket home.
Some people have interpreted this “living by faith” thing as a permanent calling – Francis of Assisi for example forbade his friars to own anything – they were to go out begging each day – because God would provide. Some Pentecostals have lived similarly. And if that is your specific calling – YES! I don’t personally believe it’s a whole life calling for all of us. But we do trust God to provide what we need. If you go out and do some evangelistic act – God will give you everything you need. Don’t hold back because God will provide.
Let me warn you though with a tale of two churches.
In one church about 90 people went to mass on a Sunday. Not many young families but a few later teenagers 14-18 years or so, some of whom worked in the music group. A new vicar arrived. Over the years he was there – the church slowly declined. Teenagers went off to university and didn’t come back, and the number of new kids didn’t grow. New people came to the church and perhaps they came back for a few weeks, but they didn’t stick. Baptisms happened but the baptism families didn’t stick. The existing congregation grew older. Some people left London – and new people didn’t replace them. Some people ended up housebound or in old peoples homes. Some people died. A couple of people left. One became a Jehovah’s witness, one joined a church of a totally different churchmanship. A few people got ordained – which meant they left. And a few more people died. And by the time the vicar left the church was down to 55 on a Sunday.
In the second church about 90 people went to mass on a Sunday. The average age was well over sixty five – there were four families with young children in the entire church. A new vicar arrived. He stayed about the same length of time as the vicar in Church number one. But in this second church the congregation grew. Older people had sadly died – but new people came in – and stayed. Especially young families. Baptisms happened – and the majority of the families – whether for a year or two or for many years – stayed. With their children. By the time he left the average age of the congregation had gone from over 65 to under 35. New outreach projects happened – from a community funday which this very ordinary church started – drew in other churches and partnership organisations – and ended up attracting over 7000 people. Some of whom – after a few years of going started coming to church. When the Olympic torch ran past - the church were there giving bacon sandwiches to the spectators. A Child contact centre was set up and run by church volunteers – so estranged parents could both see their children. There was a toddler group. There were community lunches . And much more. And the Church grew – while either churches around it were declining – it grew from 90 old people to 120 much younger people every Sunday, growing from being the 13th biggest church in the deanery to the fourth biggest.
Well what cane we say about these two vicars – clearly the vicar of the first church just really wasn’t very good. While the vicar of the second church was extremely gifted. A star.
Except – that the two vicars were the same person.
Because that vicar was me.
So what was the difference between the two situations?
It wasn’t me – I’m the same person.
Both churches were full of lovely people who gave tirelessly of their time for serving the church. So what was the difference between them.
In Church Two – people embraced change.
Pretty soon after I arrived there we multiplied the main service so we could have a traditional mass for the largely elderly white congregation – and a mass a bit more like St Jos for the younger more multi-racial congregation. Did you know that when research was done into what makes Church of England churches grow, the biggest thing that correlated with the church either growing or at least not declining – was change? Churches that had seen a significant change were more likely to have grown and less likely to have declined than chuches where nothing had changed. It did not matter whether it was a good change or a bad change- all that matter was it was a big change.
People took initiatives. Certainly I created an environment where people could take initiatives – but it was laity in the congregation who came up with the ideas for the Child contact centre – or for a ramp for disabled access – or for replacing some of the pews with chairs so refreshments could be in church itself – or for the Community Fun Day that ended up drawing in 7000 people.
Oh – and because people saw that amazing stuff was happening – people increased their giving. Every year but one of my time there not just the giving but the savings of the church went up – despite us spending more and more on doing mission.
Church number one – the people were lovely. But they had a scarcity mind set. The heating had to be turned down to save money – because what if we did not have enough? So in winter the elderly didn’t come because it was too cold.
I tried to hold lunches in the vicarage after mass where I would invite baptism families and also regular members of the congregation so they could get to know one another. I was told this was too expensive and the church couldn’t afford it. So guess what – the baptism families didn’t know anyone (remember that stat about the number of Christian friends you have) – and they didn’t stay.
People when they walked into church were handed – a mass book, a notice sheet which told you which hymns we were singing, a hymn book, a separate sheet with any new songs on it, and (if they wanted to follow the readings) a bible. How were you meant to juggle this huge pile of books [mime juggling ] – especially if you were holding a baby. I raised the money so we could buy screens – but the PCC were frightened that some people might get upset by the screens – so the money sat there unused. I began to produce mass books containing the entire service and readings so people only needed to follow a single book not a vast pile. And I was told I had to do this less often because it was costing too much money.
And guess what – as the people who did give could not see the money they gave making any difference , the giving went down. Which made the lovely but scared folk even more scared. So more corners were found to be cut to save more money, and giving went down again. Its amazing how people will give so generously when they see the money they give making a real difference. Thank you by the way to all those of you who give generously to St Jos!
We had a First Communion service – and the families bought amazing food – African, Carribean and so on. And afterwards the leadership said “Yes – but it took too much effort to wash up. From now on all church functions will just have sandwiches and other finger food”.
And the people who might have been drawn in by asking them to cook – were not drawn in. And the people who might have stayed to chat over Jollof rice or Goat Currey – didn’t see the point of staying for a ham sandwich and community was not born.
"Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals" [Luke 10:4]
The people in Church One were lovely people – but they had a scarcity mindset – they did not trust God to provide for mission – so no mission happened. The people of Church Two were not better people – but like the 70 taking no purse with them, they trusted God to provide for mission – and there was always enough.
Why am I telling you these stories? Because you have a new vicar here. A vicar who has already grown your midweek mass. But will the Sunday mass grow? Well that is not down to Fr Dean. That’s down to you. Will you invite your friends to church? Or if that is too much – will you invite your non church friends to a Sunday lunch that your church friends come to to? Will you join in with leafletting around the parish? Will you makes cakes or jollof rice for the refreshments after mass? Will you make an effort to stay and eat them. Will you go up to Fr Dean and say “Here’s a really good idea of something I would love to do” – and he may say “that’s great but it’s not quite the right time to do it yet” – or he may say “lets go for it now” – but whatever he answers you keep coming back with new ideas not for him to do but for you to do?
In fact lets get some ideas
[get people to share with their neighbours ideas both of things they could do as individuals and that the church could do corporately to share the Gospel]
[take a selection from the audience.]
End with this quote from Pope Francis:
“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.”
“After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him”
Lets be that sort of church. Amen? Amen!
.....................................................................................................................
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