As we come to the end of this year and face the beginning of a New Year with a clean slate, we need to good look at our church and ourselves. We need to see where we are and where we should be. In the business world, many companies when planning use a method of business analysis called SWOT analysis. It is a method that if we apply it to the church should help us to “count the cost, to see whether we have sufficient to finish the task before us. S.W.O.T. is an acronym for Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. While time this morning does not permit us to expound on an exhaustive SWOT analysis of our church, let us consider some of our major strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And having done so let us make the necessary changes, plans, and commitments to be effective in the service of the King of kings, Jesus Christ.
I. Our Strengths
A. What are our strengths? What do we do well? What assets do we possess?
B. Our Faith
1. Romans 1:8 "First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world."
2. Our faith is not in a religion, a denomination, or a philosophy but it is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
a. Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, “I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist; I do not hesitate to take the name of Baptist; but if I am asked what is my creed, I reply, `It is Jesus Christ.’"
b. Romans 10:9-13 "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. [10] For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation. [11] For the scripture saith, Whosoever believes on him shall not be ashamed. [12] For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. [13] For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
c. Imagine, if you will, a wire stretched between the Terminal Tower and the BP Building on Public Square in Cleveland. A lone individual stands on the ledge of the 32nd floor of the Terminal Tower and announces his intent to walk across the wire to the other building. Of course, a crowd has gathered below because what he intends is a bit strange. The tightrope walker asks the crowd if they believe he can make it across. They nod in assent (who would be dumb enough to try without a reasonable chance?). Carefully, slowly he teeters his way across almost falling. Reaching the other side he holds up a wheelbarrow and asks the crowd if they think he could push it across before him. Some nod in assent. Some shrug their shoulders in response. The tightrope walker then singles out a man and yells down to him, "Sir, do you think I can make it?” The response is affirmative so the walker says, "Then prove your faith by riding in the wheelbarrow." Christ calls to us personally, saying He will guide us over life with its dangers. Will you ride in the wheelbarrow?
3. Our faith is build upon the solid foundation of the Word of God.
a. Romans 10:17 "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
b. D. L. Moody, “I prayed for Faith, and thought that some day Faith would come down and strike me like lightening. But Faith did not seem to come. One day I read in the tenth chapter of Romans, "Now Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." I had closed my Bible, and prayed for Faith. I now opened my Bible, and began to study, and Faith has been growing ever since
c. Acts 17:11 "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so."
C. Our Love
1. God has given us a group of people who love each other.
2. Colossians 1:3-4 "We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, [4] Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints,"
3. Someone has said, “Meeting the emotional needs of people takes highest priority. They want to know, `Do you like me?’, `Do you care?’, and `Can I find a place here?’"
4. John 13:35 "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."
5. I Corinthians 13:7-8a “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails”
II. Our Weaknesses
A. What can we improve? What should we avoid? What do we do badly?
B. Lack of faith – we believe God can but often we fail to believe He will.
1. Mark 9:23-24 "Jesus said unto him, If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes. [24] And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief."
2. A W Tozer - Millions of professed believers talk as if He were real and act as if He were not. Our actual position is always to be discovered by the way we act, not by the way we talk.
3. We raise our hand and declare we believe but don’t get in the wheelbarrow.
4. Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.
5. Feeble, nominal Christianity is the great obstacle to the conversion of the world.
C. Lack of Vision
1. Proverbs 29:18a "Where there is no vision, the people perish..."
2. God has to help us let go of our tiny vision in order to release the greater good he has in store for us.
3. Henri J. Nouwen in an article entitled Jesus and Mary: Finding Our Sacred Center (Christianity Today, Vol. 40, #13) expressed a great truth. He wrote, “I know that I have to move from speaking about Jesus to letting him speak within me, from thinking about Jesus to letting him think within me, from acting for and with Jesus to letting him act through me. I know the only way for me to see the world is to see it through his eyes.”
D. Lack of commitment.
1. There is a difference between being merely involved and being truly committed. "The Kamikaze pilot that was able to fly missions was involved--but not committed."
2. Commitment without reflection is fanaticism in action. But reflection without commitment is the paralysis of all action.
3. Luke 14:28 "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sits not down first, and counts the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?" Luke 14:33 "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsakes not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."
4. William Booth (1829-1912) the founder of the Salvation Army – Our reservations are the damnations of our consecrations.
III. Our Opportunities
A. What are our open doors?
B. Fields that are white
C. John 4:35 "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."
D. There are more than 7,305 families in North Ridgeville representing more than 24,000 individuals (1999).
E. I have used this illustration before but I believe we need to be reminded of the danger of not availing ourselves of every opportunity. One of the great disasters of history took place in 1271. In 1271, Niccolo and Matteo Polo (the father and uncle of Marco) were visiting the Kubla Khan. Kubla Khan at that time was a world ruler, for he ruled all China, all India, and the entire East. He was attracted to the story of Christianity as Niccolo and Matteo told it to him. And he said to them: "You shall go to your high priest and tell him on my behalf to send me a hundred men skilled in your religion and I shall be baptized, and when I am baptized all my barons and great men will be baptized and their subjects will receive baptism, too, and so there will be more Christians here than there are in your parts." Nothing was done. Nothing was done for about thirty years, and then two or three missionaries were sent. Too few and too late. It baffles the imagination to think what a difference to the world it would have made if in the thirteenth century China had become fully Christian, if in the thirteenth century India had become fully Christian, if in the thirteenth century the East had been given to Christ. In that, we have seen man frustrating God’s purpose in history.
IV. Our Threats
A. What obstacles do we face?
B. Indifference
1. Bruno Yasienski – Do not be afraid of enemies; the worst they can do is to kill you. Do not be afraid of friends; the worst they can do is to betray you. Be afraid of the indifferent; they do not kill or betray. But only because of their silent agreement, betrayal and murder exist on earth.
2. There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference.
3. Luke 11:23 "He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathers not with me scatters."
4. Too many people follow the path of least assistance.
5. Revelation 3:15-16 "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou were cold or hot. [16] So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
C. Distraction
1. Mark 4:18-19 "And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word, and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful."
2. The carpenter’s gimlet makes but a small hole, but it enables him to drive a great nail. May we not here see a representation of those minor departures from the truth that prepare minds for grievous errors, and of those thoughts of sin that open a way for the worst of crimes! Beware, then, of Satan’s gimlet.
3. Ephesians 4:27 "Neither give place to the devil."
