“I Love this Place” part 2
(Relevant Environments)
Brian A. Moon
The other day I was driving around and I noticed something very interesting. Located just a few hundred feet from each other were two competing coffee shops.
One of the shops had advertising all over the place. Out in the road, and on the sidewalks and on the windows and it was a well-known brand of high-end coffee, but there was no one in the store. Across the street was a Starbucks coffee shop. It had a small sign on the window and a sign on the shopping center marquee but that was it. As I looked at the Starbucks it was full of people. They were all sitting around talking and enjoying the morning. People were even lined up waiting, when they could get the same quality coffee with no wait across the street. I was amazed by this and the conclusion that I came to was that the only difference between the two shops was the environment. The one coffee shop was plain and boring and had cold, uninviting, florescent lighting. On the other hand the Starbucks had brightly colored walls and unique furniture with warm and inviting lighting and music.
It is amazing how much environmental changes can make on your mood and emotions. You can take the same space and turn it from boring to exciting by just changing the environment. Tonight as we continue our series called “I Love this Place” I want to talk with you about one of the things that makes this a place that we all love, and a safe place to bring our friends to come and check this God thing out. Tonight we are going to be talking about some things that we value greatly here, and I am going to ask you to value this also so that we don’t get down the road from here and say, “remember when…” So take out your message handout and let’s get start talking about relevant environments.
(Say that with me- RELEVANT ENVIRONMENTS)
The word relevant means a traceable, significant and logical connection between things. If you were told that you had a problem with algebra in school and they sent you to the language lab it would not be relevant to your problem. You would need to go to the math lab where you could find answers to the questions you had.
Here is the sad part though, most people don’t feel like church is relevant to their lives anymore, and I don’t blame them. Most churches don’t scratch where people itch, they don’t offer any relevance to peoples daily lives. If you came in here tonight and I talked about the Sovereignty of God in the Doctrine of Predestination regarding particularly the perseverance of the saints, most of you would say, “Wow, that had nothing to do with my life.” And you would leave and never come back. It would have no relevance to where you are at.
A recent survey said that 1/3 of Americans don’t go to church because it is irrelevant! And 1 out of 3 teenagers are involved in a youth group, but asked if they would continue after high school and only a 1/3 of that third said yes! Why, it is just not relevant to them.
So what we do in this place every Sunday night is bigger than you might think, we take the timeless principles found in the Bible and we make them relevant to peoples lives. It might be through a drama, through the music, or a video, a multimedia presentation, or some other creative art or the practical teaching, we make it relevant every week!
This is a place of worship, and love, and acceptance, and a place of relevance that is why people say, “I Love this Place” Biblically this just makes sense, the Bible says the men of Isaachar were,
“…Leaders who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.” 1 Chronicles 12:32 God’s Word
We understand the times that we live in, and we strive to make the Bible relevant to people today. Beyond this though, because we are not just relevant to be relevant, we have a purpose in mind with this. We want to create environments in which God can come and work in our lives.
There is the second word, “environments.”
I cannot change your life, the leaders here cannot change your life, your friends cannot change your life, only God can! That is why we try to build 3 environment’s, in which God can come and produce life-change. Last week we talk about our purpose statement which was, “To become a community committed to, Loving Up, Reaching Out, and Sharpening Within.” Tonight though we are going to look into our strategy, or the feet to our purpose, this is where the purpose is put into action.
And for this to work we have to do three things:
(1) Create the environments
(2) Provide leadership for the environments
(3) Involve people in the environments
So without further ado… the first environment is:
The front door
The first environment is what we are calling the front door, say that with me- (The Front Door) This environment I am sure you are most familiar with because you are in it right now, Sunday Nights @ CrossEyed! The front door is special because it is designed with guest in mind, to help people feel like they are welcomed and comfortable with what is going on.
The other day Cheryl and I had some people over to the house and the time leading up them getting there was crazy, I was talking out trash and mopping floors as she was vacuuming and dusting everything. We put stuff in its place and made the house smell good with some of that fancy spray stuff and candles. And it is the same at your house when you know guests are coming over. You try to make things clean, neat, and comfortable for the people that are coming over to visit. There are something’s that you do different when guest are going to be around. You don’t change what you believe, you don’t abandon your values, but you make sure that your guest are comfortable and you probably will not do certain things that you might normally do if it was just family.
The other night I had been out working on my car and I had just come up and changed out of my greasy clothes and it was almost bedtime so I will admit it, I was sitting in my underwear in the living room. All of a sudden, “Boom, Boom, Boom” somebody was at the door.
It was Katie and Naomi coming by to visit. The point is that we should always expect that guest are going to come by to visit us, that is why we don’t do certain things here on Sunday nights… We don’t want to get caught in our underwear!
We know there are times when guests are going to be around this ministry, particularly on Sunday nights,
And that is why we must be strategic in this environment if we are going to be effective! Most groups don’t plan to have guest, they make people do things and act in ways that are not friendly to guest.
But we have decided to partner with you as you invest in and invite people to come to know Jesus. That is why we have designed this front door environment expecting to have guest each and every week, and we act and prepare accordingly. We want you to bring your unchurched, skeptical, and far from God friends here on Sunday nights because this environment is for them.
Sunday nights are a safe environment for people to come and check this God thing out without being embarrassed or looked down upon! The next environment that we are going to look at is the:
The living room
When people come over to your house for dinner to eat most of the time you don’t herd them straight into the kitchen, so what do you do? Well you have them hang out in the living room and you talk and hang out and make them feel at home. The purpose of the living room environment is to turn someone from a guest into a friend. The living room is designed to relationally connect people and create lasting friendships. One of the things the leadership here noticed when we were laying the ground work for this ministry was that we would have a front door that would be wide open for people. And we would have a kitchen, or small groups, where we would do life together, which is the ultimate goal. But in the middle there was a big hole. It was hard for people to go from being one of many to one of only 8 people in a close, intimate setting. So we decided that we needed to make a middle environment that would fill that hole between the front door and the kitchen. We have strategically created the living room to be a stepping stone so that people don’t get lost along the way. It is a place for new people to get connected with regulars, and for regular’s to get connected with new people. It is a place for relationships to be formed! It is a place for friendships to naturally develop over time and the goal is for you to one day come on a Sunday night and feel like you really know some of the people, and that you are not a stranger, but a friend. We have two places that this happens, the first is Huddle Groups.
They are a chance to talk and share about what went on this week and how what was learned tonight can help for next week. The next is Connection Events. It is not a Bible study and it is not a program, it is well… a party! We go bowling, we have a movie night, we go to play put-put or have a Super Bowl Party, whatever, we just have fun together doing something.
Both huddle groups and connection events are there so that people can immediately go from guest to friend and then hopefully to our next environment which is:
The kitchen
Where do most of the family meeting’s, family conversations, and even lessons learned happen in a house? One place around the kitchen table. I can remember growing up having my mom and my dad teach me so many things from conversations around the kitchen table. It was where the important stuff of the family took place! And it is no different here, this is where the “meat and potatoes” are served so to speak. The goal of every person that comes through the doors is to get involved in the kitchen, which is our small groups. We believe that life-change happens best in a small group. In the front door you might here some good music, have a good time watching a video or drama, and maybe get something from the messages which is good, but... As you make some friendships and grow spiritually it is time for biblical, authentic, community. What is community? It is a place where you can be fully known and fully loved. Small groups provide this and they are simply a little group of believers who meet together regularly for Bible study, prayer, fellowship, and to do life together, As a team with teammates to help you if you fall or get tired, and they are there to celebrate and cheer you on to be more like Jesus. Please hear me when I say this… if you enjoy the front door, and have fun in the living room but think that is it, that is where I want to stop, I don’t need a small group… you are dead wrong!
What would happen if you only went in the front door of your house, and maybe hung out in the living room on the couch, but never went into the kitchen,
you never went to the pantry or the refrigerator?
What happens… you die! God made us for relationships, real ones that are beyond the surface level. God has also made it clear that we will never be fully alive, complete people until we are surrounded by a group of people like in a small group.
In John 17 Jesus prays a prayer and the short of it is this:
He says, “May my followers leave the darkness and isolation of loneliness that has never suited the souls of mankind, may they enter into a little community of believers that enrich and replenish and energize their hearts and souls.”
Jesus prayed that all of us would get connected into a small group! Our goal is not to flood the front door with people just for the sake of having big numbers, or goal is to funnel everyone down into a small group.
We believe that is where they stand the best chance of fulfilling their purpose in life, to have a active, personal relationship with God. Tonight as we close, I have a very exciting announcement to make…
You have heard a lot about small groups in the last 8 months and now it is finally time to taste them for yourself. Dinner is served!!! Tonight we have some sign-up sheets on a table in the back and I encourage you to take advantage of this life-changing opportunity. These groups will begin in February and will co-inside with a message series call “Living a Purpose Driven Life” It is an exciting time to be here, to be around to say “I Love this Place”
Prayer Time ---------
God thank you for giving us the freedom to meet together and to organize ways to turn people towards you.
Help us to bring people in the front door and help us to get them into the kitchen.
I pray for our new small groups, help each of us to make the commitment needed to get the most out of them. Amen.
