Acts 2:38-47
38 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-- for all whom the Lord our God will call."
40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."
41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.
45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
(NIV)
If there is one thing that the other Presbyterian ministers know about me, it’s that I love motorcycles.
I bet that’s something many of you didn’t know about me, but the ministers of the Presbytery of Tropical Florida know it.
Many times I’ve attended a Presbytery meeting and during the course of the day, three or four times people will come up to me and ask, “Maynard, did you ride your motorcycle to Presbytery.”
I always tell them “no, I drove my car.”
I was in a committee meeting at the Presbytery office just last week and someone asked, “Maynard, do you wear a motorcycle helmet?”
I told them I never did, because it wouldn’t do any good anyway. Everyone smiled.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I went to Key West to attend the annual overnight meeting of the Presbytery. My wife, Ginny, rarely attends a meeting of the Presbytery, and she noticed people kept talking to me about motorcycles. After all, if there is one thing ministers know about Maynard Pittendreigh, it’s that I love motorcycles.
After dinner on the first night of the meeting, someone came up to me and my wife and said, “Maynard, I was down on Duvall Street and I found the perfect T-Shirt for you.”
Well, if you’ve seen the T-Shirts on Duvall Street, you will understand why I was hesitant to ask about what the T-Shirt said. But I had to ask. “Tell me about this T-Shirt.”
The minister told me that on one side the T-Shirt had a big picture of a motorcycle. On the back, it had these words – “If you can read this, my wife has fallen off.”
I told my friend that the next time I rode my motorcycle, I would have to wear that shirt.
Now, I’m going to tell you something that none of the ministers in our Presbytery know about.
I don’t like motorcycles.
I don’t own a motorcycle.
I don’t ride a motorcycle to Presbytery meetings because the last time I rode a motorcycle was in 1969.
That was, in fact, the only time I have ever ridden a motorcycle.
I need a chair to sit in, a cup holder for my drink, a steering wheel, a seat belt and an airbag.
I’m just not a motorcycle sort of guy.
But somehow, the rumor got started at Presbytery that I love my motorcycle. Three or four years ago, I gave up trying to set people straight.
Now, there is a rumor about the Presbyterian Church.
I don’t know how it got started.
And unfortunately, we have given up trying to set people straight.
The rumor is – and I bet you’ve heard this – “Presbyterians are the frozen chosen.”
We are dull.
We sing dull songs.
We go to dull meetings.
We have dull classes.
We never smile, except by accident.
We never laugh, at least not in worship.
We have dull sermons – OK, maybe the part about sermons is true. At least sometimes.
But friends, Presbyterians are not the frozen chosen.
It bothers me whenever anyone says that.
To call us the frozen chosen is to suggest that Presbyterians are not children of an exciting, loving God.
It suggests that the last place you would ever want to be is in a Presbyterian Church.
This rumor that we are the frozen chosen has always bothered me. In fact, not long ago I wrote a book with the title, “The Presbyterian Church Welcomes You.” I started the second chapter by saying, “Woe to anyone who dares to say in my presence that Presbyterians are the frozen chosen. Our church is alive with the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. We are a people who love the Lord Jesus Christ. We demonstrate a love and concern for our neighbors. We are an incredibly active group of Christians.”
I spent last week at the annual meeting of the General Assembly. And I left amazed that anyone could possibly call us the frozen chosen.
The General Assembly is the national level of our church.
The local governing level is the Session, composed of the elders you elect. You see their name on the back of the bulletin every week.
The next governing level is the Presbytery, which is made up of churches from several counties. Our Presbytery of Tropical Florida goes from Lake Okeechobee to the north, to Key West in the South. From the Everglades in the West, to the Bahamas in the East.
But national level of the church is the General Assembly. This is where we do the work of God that takes the whole effort of the denomination working together. This is the level that deals with sending missionaries all over the world. This is where we decide on ministries to the poor and the hurting in other nations. This is where we fund disaster relief programs. This is where we set national church policy.
I have to tell you that no one can ever go to a meeting of the General Assembly and ever say, “We are the frozen chosen.”
You go to a General Assembly meeting and you realize that we are living out the Second Chapter of Acts.
Now, if you start reading the Second Chapter of Acts, you will insist, “there is nothing here that even remotely sounds like the Presbyterian Church.”
In our Scripture lesson, we started at the middle of the chapter and that is where it obviously sounds Presbyterian, but let me read to you the opening verses of chapter two:
1. Presbyterians Are A Welcoming Church
Acts 2:1-4
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
(NIV)
Errr…. When was the last time this happened at Sunrise?
But in truth, this is the only time in the New Testament this happened. From time to time the Holy Spirit of God has made himself visibly manifested, but the last time he came appearing as a flame sitting on top of someone’s head was this one time in Jerusalem, over 2,000 years ago.
But beyond this dramatic, first appearance of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, what we see as we read further in the Book of Acts is that God cut through the economic, social and political barriers of people. Through a miracle, people were able to speak to one another and understand other languages they had not learned.
I wish through some miracle I could speak all the languages of the world – I wish I could speak Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish. There are times I wish I knew how to speak English.
In the Book of Acts, this came as a miracle. It was instant knowledge of language.
We have to work at this today.
The Presbyterian Church is working hard to achieve what was in the Second Chapter of Acts – we are trying to reach across cultural, social and political barriers.
We are not the frozen chosen. We are a people who reach out and welcome everyone.
Every minister has patterns of speech. I know I have some. Anette has one. It is a beautiful phrase I’ve heard her use in several of her prayers. “Everyone included, no one excluded.”
That’s us. That’s the Presbyterian Church.
You could see this at General Assembly with the theme for this year. The theme was everywhere – on banners, and on brochures, and on a sign at the entrance of the Convention Center where we met – “A house of prayer for all people.”
Presbyterians are not the frozen chosen, we welcome everyone. We welcome all people.
You could hear it in the music in worship. Beautiful traditional music from Europe, with Bach and Handel, with the organ and choirs. Music that was from Korea, Afghanistan, Africa – Christian music that may have been new to me, but was glorifying Christ and saying, “We cut across all lines of division. We welcome everyone.”
When you say, “Presbyterians are the frozen chosen,” you are saying, “You’re not welcome here. You wouldn’t like it here.”
But that is not who we are.
2. Presbyterians Are A People of the Book – God’s Book
Let’s take another look at the Second Chapter of Acts.
(2:42) "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."
We devote ourselves to the apostles’ teachings. Presbyterians love to study the Word of God. We gather for worship and there is a sermon – a teaching from the Word of God. I don’t know if I have ever seen a Presbyterian Church that didn’t have Sunday School so that from the youngest to the oldest there were opportunities for Bible Study.
If you want to be a good Presbyterian, you’ve got to open this book. You’ve got to study the teachings of the Word of God.
There is no way you can read and study the Bible and be a frozen chosen short of person.
The Bible is an exciting book.
It tells us time and time again to praise God.
Which is another way of telling us to be happy about what God is doing.
Frozen chosen aren’t happy.
The Bible is a challenging book.
It tells us to love one another.
Frozen chosen don’t impress me as loving people.
Do you think of yourself as a frozen chosen sort of person? Open the Bible – join a Sunday School class. Study the Word – you won’t be frozen long.
3. Presbyterians Enjoy Fellowship
Let’s take another look at the Second Chapter of Acts.
(2:42) "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship…"
We at Sunrise like fellowship. It’s not just Sunrise, it’s all Presbyterians. All Christians.
We love to get together.
Just a few weeks ago, many of our members went to a baseball game. What a night! It was cold. Well for Miami – I think it was 71 degrees. And windy! At least I think that’s why the Marlins outfielders kept missing the ball. And rainy – I never believed we would actually play all nine innings, but we did.
And there we were, a bunch of Sunrise members, enjoying the ball game and enjoying fellowship with one another.
Of course, one of the things we love about going to these games is that we get to see out church’s name on the scoreboard. We wait for it. We look for it. When we see it, we cheer it.
They put all the groups up there on the big screen.
All the offices that go as a group. All Boy Scout Troops that go as a group. And all the all the churches that attend as a group.
And then we saw it, and much to our dismay, they made a mistake.
How complicated is this -- Sunrise Presbyterian Church.
That’s what it was supposed to say.
But instead, there on the big screen for all the world to see, someone in the Marlins office had typed our church’s name incorrectly – Pittendreigh Presbyterian Church.
Well, a week later they fired the Manager. I’m not sure there was a connection, but I hope next time we go they’ll get our name right.
And that is just one thing we do together – Miami Zoo trips, to plays, to picnics. Or just in the courtyard after worship.
We like to be together.
And it’s important.
It’s biblical, and it’s here in the Book of Acts.
Fellowship.
We are a body of Christ. Not a bunch of lonely Christians.
You cannot be a Christian in isolation. It is something we do as a community.
Fellowship is important because we are a body of Christ.
We bear one another’s burdens.
We support one another.
We enjoy fellowship.
Frozen people can’t do that.
But Presbyterians aren’t frozen.
4. Presbyterians Are A People of Worship and Prayer
Let’s take another look at the Second Chapter of Acts.
(2:42) "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."
“Breaking of bread and prayer” -- sounds like eating to me. If you’ve been at Sunrise for more than a couple of weeks you know we can’t do much without eating. The motto of our church is supposed to be “The Church where love lights the way,” but we act like out motto is “If you feed them, they will come.”
We enjoy eating when we come together because sharing meals binds families together, it binds friendships. Meals often seal business agreements. And sharing food builds up church fellowship.
But in the Second Chapter of Acts, the breaking of bread is not merely having lunch together. It is the sharing of the bread of Christ, the body broken for us – the Sacrament.
The Book of Acts says the New Testament Church devoted themselves “to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
We jokingly say we Presbyterians can’t do anything without eating together – maybe that’s true, maybe not. But what is true is that we can’t do anything without worship.
It is literally a church law. It is in the Book of Order, our church’s rule book, that we can’t do anything without prayer. We can’t start or end a committee meeting without prayer.
Everyday at General Assembly, we started with a worship service.
One of the precious memories people who go to General Assembly come back with is the memory of the first worship service that opens the General Assembly’s week. I’ve heard that from everyone who ever attended a General Assembly.
What binds us together is not the building.
It’s not the food.
It’s not even going to a baseball game together and seeing our name on the scoreboard.
It’s worship.
How can anyone ever go into the presence of God in a worship service and stay frozen and dull?
It’s wonderful to be a people of worship and of prayer.
Some of you may have been reading my daily emails about the General Assembly. Others of you may have read about it in the newspapers. You may think of some of the decisions as being controversial, and I know that many of you have questions or comments about them. Perhaps you wanted me to talk about some of them today. But that’s for another time and place. Let me tell you about other resolutions that didn’t make the newspapers.
A resolution to pray for peace.
A resolution to pray for the military chaplains.
A resolution to pray for people in Colombia.
A resolution to pray for Presbyterians in Cuba.
These never made the newspapers.
But we are, above almost everything else, a people of prayer.
5. Presbyterians Are Proclaiming The Good News
Now there is one more thing I’d like to reflect on about the Presbyterian Church and the Second Chapter of Acts.
It’s from the middle of the chapter, but it was where we started our New Testament reading for the day.
38 Peter said, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off-- for all whom the Lord our God will call."
40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."
41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
Evangelism.
Sharing the Good News of the Gospel in such a way that people are brought to Christ.
I went to a baseball game in Denver. I hope you don’t mind, but I was within walking distance of the ball park.
Coming out of the park, there were a number of street preachers. I don’t think we see much of them in Miami. But there they were. They had climbed up on benches and were standing on wooden boxes. They even had these old megaphones – you know, the cone shaped megaphones people used to speak in to amplify their voices.
And they were preaching.
I don’t know – you walk out of a ball game and some stranger is yelling at you “You’re a sinner and you’re going to die and go to hell.”
It’s not my way to do evangelism. And I didn’t see anyone coming to Christ or being inspired by this preaching.
What few comments people made about him – well, I can’t tell you because I’m not supposed to use that kind of language in the pulpit.
But I thgouth about it later – at least he’s doing something. At least he’s trying. I don’t think he is succeeding, but he is trying.
I think this is the one weak point in the Presbyterian Church’s relationship with the Second Chapter of Acts.
If there is any truth to the rumor that we are “the frozen chosen,” it is here, with evangelism.
We are frozen in place, and we are not moving out to reach others for Christ.
Now, I’m not asking you to go to Pro-Player Stadium with a megaphone and to tell people they are going to go to hell when they die. There are better ways to do evangelism that that.
But we need to do something.
The saddest moment in the General Assembly – from my point of view – was when one of the church leaders, the Rev. Cliff Kirkpatrick, gave a report. He said he had been doing his job for 20 years. In those 20 years, he had seen the Presbyterian Church decline in membership by 20%.
Now, that’s a sin.
Church growth is not that difficult.
I know, because in my experience I’ve seen how easy it can be.
In my last church, the congregation doubled the first year I was there. It doubled again the second year I was there.
None of my other pastorates had such dramatic growth as that, but they all grew.
Except one.
Sunrise.
Why aren’t we growing?
We have talked about this in our annual elder and deacon retreats for the past three years and I’ve come to the conclusion that we are not growing because we do not want to.
I came to that conclusion very easily – it did not take a lot of research or discernment or insight on my part. I came to that conclusion because I have had members – including elders – tell me they don’t want Sunrise to grow.
They like a church this size.
They like knowing the people here.
They don’t want to see the church go through a growth program because then we won’t be Sunrise anymore – we’ll be different.
But friends, like it or not, we are changing.
People die. People move away.
We’re going to change anyway, so if that’s true, why don’t we change by letting God add to our number, as he did with the church in the Second Chapter of Acts?
Let’s get unfrozen and move out to reach people for Christ.
We have a new Evangelism Committee chairperson and we have several new members of that committee. Their next meeting is this Wednesday at 7:30 PM.
This month’s issue of the church newsletter has several suggestions about what we need to do to grow.
But before we do anything else, we have to do this one thing – we have to want to grow. And as a church, we’re not at that point right now. But we need to get there.
Years ago my son was on a little league baseball team, and that year he was on a team that couldn’t win a game. The end of the season came. Last came. They hadn’t won a single game. The kids dragged into the dug out. They went to bat with gloomy faces. They didn’t stand in the outfield. They were sitting in the outfield.
Now I’ve always hated these parents of little league players who think they can do a better job than the coach and who visit the dugout. But couldn’t help myself. I went to these kids in the 4th inning and said, “Guys, what’s with you. You can win this thing. You’re only ten runs behind!”
Yeah, like that could really happen.
Well, one of the kids – her eyes got as big as saucers and she said, “Hey that’s right. We’ve never been this close to winning before. We can win this thing.”
All the kids got excited.
The next kid at bat, actually hit the ball.
Unbelievable! Made it first base. Incredible.
The team actually won the game.
They already had the skills they needed – they just needed the desire to win.
All they needed was for someone to tell them that they could win this thing.
I’m telling you. You have the skills. All you need is the desire.
Do you want to grow?
Hey guys, you’re only 20% behind for the past 20 years – but we could win this thing!
We could grow.
Do you want to grow?
Copyright 2003 by the Rev. Dr. W. Maynard Pittendreigh
