This morning we’re going to view a video clip. Don’t worry about understanding the dialogue in this segment. In this clip, you’ll see two men walking through an airport terminal. As they walk and talk, their voices are slightly muffled and there is someone making announcements over a public address system. The dialogue isn’t what we’re going to look for. As we watch it, see if you can identify where this airport is located. Let’s see if we recognize the airport. We’ll take a quiz – a multiple-choice quiz afterwards to see who among us recognized this ‘famous’ airport. We’ll choose from four well know airports… you know, just for fun, we’ll make it five – a five choice quiz. Let’s watch:
(Video clip shown)
Now, does everyone recognize the airport? It’s not Tulsa International Airport. Here are your options:
A) Vancouver International Airport, - Vancouver, Canada
B) Salt Lake City International Airport – Salt Lake City, Utah
C) Silicon Valley/Orange County Regional Airfield
D) Centennial International Airport – Denver, Colorado
And I promised you a fifth option… we’ll say…
E) Somewhere half-way to the moon.
Okay, made your choice?
I’m sure we’ve all figured it out already.. the correct answer is… “E” – somewhere half-way to the moon. That video clip, as I’m sure you all recognized is from Stanley Kubrick’s landmark film, “2001.” How appropriate that the first sermon delivered in 2001 reaches to the film of the same name to begin.
Kubrick’s film was released in 1968, and actually began work and shooting in 1965. And it today stands as quite a milestone in the history of American Film. And the vision it portrayed of what then was the distant future was not all that far-fetched after all.
In “2001” the film there is a large, international space station. Read the news lately? In 2001 reality we are building and operating a large, international space station. In “2001” the film a daddy uses a video-phone to call home. In 2001 reality such devices exist and rumored to be entering the mainstream marketplace in much more cost-effective means very soon. In “2001” the film business such as Hilton Hotels and AT&T are coaxing people to utilize their services while traveling ‘abroad’ in space. In “2001” the film there are brand-new industries, business and divisions within corporations preparing to make profit on travelers and, yes, tourists in space.
And there are, of course, some obvious elements of the film that are not a reality in the year 2001. Much of this well-known motion picture is still indeed science fiction.
And what I’d like to draw your minds to this morning is that the activity, the life, the world that is projected in the motion picture “2001” is a wholly different one that anything that would be experienced by the average person walking down Main street USA in 1965 or 1968.
I think I need to remind you that the same thing is very true in reverse in dealing with reality. The world in which we will live in 2001, is significantly different from the world which that average person knew and experienced in 1966.
The world has changed dramatically in the past 40 and 50 years. We live in a very different world in 2001 than the people who attended the premieres and opening weekends of the film, “2001.”
We live in an era where change is taking place at record pace. We are the frontier of a with a new way of life and new understandings of what it means to live, to love, to work, to play, to mature, to succeed and to survive. We have experienced dramatic shifts in our culture, amazing transformations in the political landscape, wholesale re-drawings of the geographical borders of nations and world powers. How we make purchases, how we stock our refrigerators, how we recreate on the weekends, how we meet our mates… is all changing in ways no one could have imagined. Technology is reinventing and one-upping itself at a blinding speed. The market place, the work place, the school house, the communities in which we live are entirely different today than they were even a couple decades ago.
Just look at Owasso. I was in a conversation with a lady earlier this week. She commented that when she moved to Tulsa some 18, 20 years ago, Owasso was a small, rural township. Today, it’s a suburb and community all its own; growing and exploding.
The way that people organize their thoughts, evaluate their lives, determine their priorities, set their values… these things have change in important and consequential ways as well. In very real terms how Americans decide: a) who they are, b) what they will fight and die for, and c) what really is ‘truth’ has completely changed since 30 years ago.
The world is quite a different place today than it was 30 or 40 years ago. The world, and the people who live, work, love and exist within, have changed.
I was watching a four hour special on the Arts and Entertainment Network a month or so ago, entitled “The Second Millennium of Christianity.” It was brief, but detailed account of the second thousand years of the history of ‘the church.’ It revealed some of the difficult and tumultuous times and disappointing practices of the church during the first 600 years of this time frame. It dealt in detail with the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther and the likes. It also included very positive descriptions of Protestant missionary activities across the globe along with profiles of distinguished individuals such as Billy Graham.
As a side note, I noticed as the program ended, they didn’t in any way mention the “Restoration movement.” They spent considerable time talking about the formation of the Lutheran church and the Methodist church and a few other mainline denominational groupings. No discussion or history regarding the movement which gave birth to the Disciples of Christ, the Christian Church and the churches of Christ. Nothing about Barton W. Stone, Thomas Campbell, Alexander Campbell… not even Max Lucado. Almost hurt my feelings. It’s as if they didn’t even know we existed. Or perhaps, while the Restoration movement represents a significant discourse that should be continued today, it isn’t the pinnacle moment of Christian theology and history that some of us have thought it to be. I mean, after all, there were people who wanted to be Christians and to honor Christ with their lives before the mid-1800s. There were those who were praying fervently for God to lead them in understanding and personally applying pure truth in their study of the Scriptures.
In any case, I mention the special, because there was a very provocative, and a difficult quote in it. One of the scholars they were interviewing said this: “When the world changes that much, you can’t practice religion the same way anymore.”
Kind of gets your attention doesn’t it?
On one hand it makes perfect sense. We today, don’t practice church or Christianity as it was practiced in the Dark Ages. We have different tools, different technology, different education, a different language, a different world-view. We don’t live in rural France so we don’t practice our faith the way that people did in rural France a millennium ago.
Oh there are universal, timeless principles of Christ and His truth that are still central to our identity and our lives. We still believe in the inerrancy of Scripture, the Sovereignty of Christ, the power of prayer, the practice of worship and evangelism. But the world has changed and we practice our faith in quite a different way than they did.
However, on the other hand, that principle is terribly frightening and bewildering. What does that mean for us? We know the world has changed considerable over the past 30 years. Yet, we still practice Church the way did 50 years ago. Very little about the mechanics of our services, the structures of programs, the scheduling of our calendar, the expenditures of our budgets or the very ways we try to reach and prepare people has changed. We’re doing church the way it has ‘always’ been done?
Why?
We don’t want to change. We think we don’t need to change. “Why should we change? We’re not the ones who wandered away from God,” we say. “We’re not the ones jumping into all the mess, corruption, filth, violence, sexuality, perversion in our society. The world is doing that.”
Of course they are. What else are they supposed to do? They’re trapped in darkness - they don’t have the light and insight and leadership of Jesus to guide them. Why don’t they have Jesus? – Because the Church of Jesus Christ has failed to do what it was put here to do. Need proof? Look at our society. Are we as an American culture closer to the character and nature of Jesus Christ? Or are we quite a bit further?
Think about how the morals, the ethics, the desires, the appetites of our culture have shifted only in the past 40 years; and 40 years isn’t that long of a time span when we’re talking about centuries and millenniums. Oh, there is a more ‘spiritual’ fragrance amid our nation, but it’s hardly a pursuit of the Divinity and Sovereignty of Christ. You don’t need me to highlight the lowlights of our entertainments, our leaders, our media, our own lives do you? In the past 40 years we’ve shifted quite dramatically away from the nature, the character and the Truth of Jesus Christ.
We, the church have failed.
“Oh, that can’t be…” you say. “I have been a part of wonderful, positive, excited churches. We’ve been in classes where teachers worked hard to really teach God’s word with truth, where preachers made the Bible come alive. I’ve been a part of groups where I really was touched and impacted by how God had worked in the lives of others. I prayed with other believers and seen God do amazing things…” you’ll insist. You’ll go on for a couple hours telling me about terrific programs, great services, wonderful leaders, and meaningful moments.
And the entire time you will commit the same sin, without even recognizing it, that the church has been committing for most of our history – certainly over recent decades: You’ll focus on us. Us – the church – and the church people.
We try to blame the world for its sinfulness – contending that they’ve rejected Jesus and so that’s why they refuse to change…
Its not Jesus they’re rejecting. It’s the church. Its not that the American public is uninterested in spiritual things. They are very interested. The American community has tested out the promises of materialism, secularism, sensualism, work-a-holicism and has found it all lacking. As a true, post-modern generation, Americans today are on a quest, a journey. But it is hardly “Christian” in the classic understanding of Christianity. And it certainly has nothing to do with the church. Common, normal, intelligent American adults are fed up with the hypocrisy, the duplicity, the egocentric mindset and self-righteousness of the American church. They’ve experienced our rush to judgment, they’ve heard our condemnations, they’ve seen the lack of true transformation in our lives, they’ve watched as we’ve warred amongst ourselves, they’ve noticed as we’ve refused to evaluate ourselves or consider change and they’ve decided that they don’t want anything we’re selling. People are open and searching for the meaning and hope and love of God. But they’re quite sure it can’t come from that over-institutionalized, hypocritical, closed-minded, irrelevant religious group down the street.
The world hasn’t abandoned God; God’s people – the church – have abandoned the world.
So much for being the aroma of Christ, or the salt of the earth, or a light on a hill…
Somewhere, somehow we have become very mistaken about why the church exists. I heard one speaker describe our difficulty this way; he suggests that we’ve confused being in the church with being on a cruise. We think we’re on a cruise ship.
What’s it like on a cruise? You buy a ticket, fill out the necessary paper work, and climb aboard with high expectations. I’ve got a ticket that entitles me to great service, good food, wonderful entertainment and they should have already thought through everything I need, with someone I can call on to satisfy or fix anything that’s wrong in the cabin.
On a cruise, they feed you all the time; seven or eight meals a day. You can eat as often as you want, all you want – regardless of whether you’re hungry or not – just indulge. And they serve it up nice, don’t they. Big, giant buffets, overflowing, fancy, rich deserts - help yourself. Feed yourself – eat, eat, eat. Who cares if over-eating isn’t healthy? Who care’s if you’re becoming overstuffed, bloated, and interested in healthy exercise.
And then on a cruise, they have all these great shows; big productions, great music, fantastic performers. They make you laugh, they touch your heart and warm your soul – entertainment just the way you like it.
When you come on board the cruise ship, they make sure you don’t have to do anything for yourself. Someone meets you at the harbor and refuses to let you carry your own luggage. “Here, let me do that for you… why should you carry your own baggage?” They unlock your door, turn down your bed… working so hard, waiting on you hand and foot – doing anything they can to make sure you’re having a good time and enjoying every minute.
They have all these great meaningless games for you to play like shuffleboard.
They take you out on the deck or to little islands where you can go sightseeing, play tourist, take pictures, make memories. You can even meet some of the more domesticated natives and see how the foreigners live – but never with a risk of being more than a few minutes away from the safety and comfort of the cruise ship and its eager-to-serve staff.
On cruises you lay around in the sun, maybe reading a book, or sipping a cool beverage, just doing nothing and soaking up the atmosphere and time.
I don’t have anything against being on a cruise. If you like that kind of vacation, save your money and enjoy every minute.
Doesn’t this sound like how people approach being a part of the church? I’ve bought a ticket to the cruise. You owe me. There better be great food, great service. I’d better be able to request my favorite kind of music, the shows better be great, my kids better be kept busy and happy… Everyone is here to meet my needs, to look after me.
We’ve got people all over that are sure they’ve bought a ticket and the church is here to look after them, make them comfortable and safe, teach their children, clean their laundry and change the oil in their car I guess.
Don’t let me sound cynical. You and I both know I’m speaking in overgeneralizations and in hyperbole. But we both know I’m also speaking truth. The church of Jesus Christ is filled with people who have their tickets in hand and are just sure this cruise should be underway and done the way they think and enjoy best.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten sea sick.
This is the beginning of a new millennium. And the new millennium demands a new church. Instead of inviting people to come join our cruise, perhaps we should instead be communicating a call. A call to the Kingdom of God; a call to relationship with a God who wrapped himself in human flesh named Jesus; a call to a life of service, mission and compassion. A call to Christianity – not church-iantiy.
Let me show you what I mean. I’m going to contrast the old mindset of cruise ship church-ianity with the new call, the new church for the new millennium. We’ll look at four thoughts.
In the cruise ship mindset, people are committed to the church – the church as an institution. We train people to see the church as a destination and a club – for members only.
In the new millennium we have to call people to be committed to Christ himself. We call people to a life-long, life-changing relationship with the Divine Christ. The church becomes not a destination, but a conduit and channel through which people can find resources, relationship, tools and training for their relationship with their Lord and Sovereign.
On the cruise ship, leaders search internally to measure success, to evaluate priorities, to make plans, to know what to do. They’re constantly checking ‘your temperature’ and working behind the scenes to maneuver politics and to build ownership to keep the passengers comfortable and happy.
But in the new church leaders search externally to see what impact God has had on the local community to measure success and make plans. They seek to represent the interests, not of those who already have tickets, but instead represent the interest and needs of those who aren’t yet in the church – the lost.
On the cruise ship, people are constantly looking for new attractions, new improvements, new additions to make the cruise more pleasurable. “That cruise line has this kind of show… That cruise boat has this kind of pool… we need to copy what they’re doing if we’re really going to be happy.” It’s the same mindset that somehow allows us to think that if we just do church good-enough, pretty enough, spiffy enough, fancy enough with enough good advertising and good press people will just pour in and turn around.
But in the new millennium God’s church calls people not to look for the next attraction, but to look for needs. The new church calls people to look for needs in the body of Christ, in the community, in homes, in schools… always looking for a way to demonstrate God’s love and grace through serving, sharing, giving and loving.
Finally, on the cruise ship, leaders are trained and conditioned to be directors. The cruise ship folks make sure everyone is making the right kind of decision, is towing the party line on all policies and practices. We teach people to correctly ‘manage’ the truth so that they’re confident in what we’ve told them to believe. We promote into office anyone who can prove themselves to manage money or manage other people. We can’t let the people on the cruise get too crazy, too passionate… All of this emphasis on management is because there is this constant fear of something or someone getting out of control.
But in the new millennium, the new church is training and preparing disciples. Disciples aren’t interesting in protecting the company, they live to promote the Christ. Disciples are missionaries who are sent out; disciples are ministers and servants who wade through the masses to offer the kindness of Jesus; disciples are learners who teach what God has revealed. The new church knows that disciples are already under control – under the control of God himself.
We have very often confused the practices, programs and products of our faith as essential, unchangeable elements of Christianity. We have made the terrible, yet easy, mistake of confusing doing church with being Christian. We’ve mistaken going through the motions of man-made worship practices for God-ordained marks of movement towards Christ. Disciples of the Lord have always made mistakes, just ask the Apostle Peter. But Jesus has also always trusted his disciples to carry his message, his hope and his love to the world.
A new millennium demands a new church.
Look again at these words of Jesus from Luke 5: “No one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.” (Luke 5: 37-38)
Jesus himself is the Divine Elixir – the wine that is as old as all of time, and who makes his mercy and love new each day just as the rising sun. He is the wine.
But the wineskins… the church must become the new wineskins.
In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees and teachers of the law were like old wineskins, too rigid and too focused on their own religion and expectations to truly see Jesus, much less accept him as Savior and Lord, or to hear his call that the Kingdom of God is at hand. In the new millennium, Christianity requires new approaches, new traditions, new structures. Our programs and ministries can’t be so inwardly focused, so self-serving, so unbending that they have no room for a fresh touch of the Spirit, a new method, or a new idea. We, too, must be careful that our hearts do not become so rigid that they prevent us from accepting the new way of thinking that Christ brings. We need to keep our hearts malleable so we can accept Jesus’ life-changing message.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll keeping saying. We exist to pour the Divine Elixir of Jesus Christ into containers from which the world can drink. That is the agenda of the New Millennium church.
I hope you haven’t heard me in any way condemning or disparaging the New Heights Church. I am entirely in love and impassioned for our church. I can’t imagine myself ministering, preaching, pastoring anywhere else. I feel very good about the work God has done to initiate this new work; I am incredibly confident about who God has called to ignite this body and act as leaders and servants.
I also can see what God still has in store and in mind for us. I can see the incredible things God wants to do in our community if we will partner with Him and be the church He is calling us to be. I can see the extensive things God wants to do in the lives of the unchurched through you if you will hear His call to be a disciple, a missionary, a minister.
Now I’m not arrogant enough to believe that I can see everything or that my eyes are always clear and unclouded. But I know what I’ve seen in the church-ianity cruise ships. And I’m sick to stomach and it sickens my soul. I know that the people on the cruise ship mean well. But I can’t ride along with them, much less captain that boat.
I have heard the call. Have you? Have you heard the call to give your life away so that Jesus can use it to get someone else to a place where they can hear him too?
Over the next 8 or 9 weeks I’m going to share with you what must happen; 8 or 9 truths that must be true if we are going to answer God’s call. I don’t know everything, but I know these ideals must be a growing reality at New Heights if we are going to be God’s new church for the new millennium. I think you’ll like what I’ll be saying. I believe it’ll be inspiring and visionary. I don’t think anything I’m going to say is going to be all that new or innovative. But I do hope that what is said will be clear, concise, convicting and practical. I don’t think there will be any question about the validity of what I’ll be saying. The question is whether or not we’re going to put this into practice.
“His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Ephesians 3: 10-11
The church exists to demonstrate God’s wisdom to a heavenly audience. In its immediate context, this verse is probably pointing to the uniting of Jews and Gentiles in a single body. He has redeemed us by Christ’s blood, forgiving our sins and lavishing us with his rich grace There is an even larger sense, however, in which the church provides the arena within which God’s ‘manifold’ wisdom reveals itself.
God has infiltrated and positioned himself among His people through His church. And today, all of Heaven and Hell watches and waits to see if this entity, the church – the union and embodiment of Heaven and Earth – can allow herself to be soft and pliable again in the hands of the master potter – to be made new again to hold the ancient and fresh divine wine of Jesus Christ.
My question is, have you been along just for the ride? Have you been guilty of harboring cruise-ship expectations? Have you settled for or even chased after church-ianity instead of the genuine article - Christianity?
Are we really ready to jump ship and abandon the cruise-ship mindset of the past? We can. Paul reminds us:
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4: 22-24
That’s a truth that applies to our personal and private lives before God, and to our identity, our vision and future as a church. There is much in our past that is going to have to put off. There is a great deal of who we are and what we do to make Christ known that must come from God’s re-invention of His church. May we become the true body of the timeless Christ as He presents himself again to a new generation in the new millennium through His new wineskin, the church.
I close this morning with a simple, and slightly fictionalized, story. The theology of this story is terrible weak. But the spiritual truth of its implications is unquestionably accurate.
The story goes that after Jesus had died and resurrected, after he had appeared to all the disciples, after he had given his people the great commission and ascended back to Heaven, he was met by Gabriel. Gabriel of course is overjoyed to see His Lord returned to Glory. They speak about his experience, about the Lord’s love for His people, and about his plans for the future.
With the welcome complete and the exalted Christ now seated at the right hand of the Father, the arch-angel asks him who he had left behind on Earth to finish the work he had begun.
"Just a tiny group of men and women who love me," replied Jesus.
"That’s all?" asked the angels. "What if that tiny group should fail?"
Jesus said, "I have no other plan."
Ride all the cruise ships you want. As for me and my house, we will answer the call of the Lord – in 2001 and beyond.
Kyle Meador
New Heights Church of Christ
106 N. Main
Owasso, Oklahoma 74055
newheightschurch@yahoo.com
www.newheightsfamily.org
