INTRODUCTION:
In just a few days, Christ the King Oak Harbor will turn five. To those who have been here since the beginning, that may seem amazing. It seems hard for me to believe that in just a few months I’ll celebrate my fourth anniversary as pastor here. Birthdays give us a chance to celebrate the good things that have happened, as well as provide an opportunity to look ahead and see what extra responsibilities we’ll have now that we’re “bigger”.
With our children we often do this. We say things like, “Now that you’re nine, you’ll be able to stay up later, and you’ll be able to earn a larger allowance. You’ll also be able to go to grandma’s house by yourself. But now that you’re nine there are going to be a few extra things being asked of you. You’ll need to get yourself ready for school all by yourself. You’ll need to help with some extra chores around the house. You’ll need to be responsible for doing your homework in a timely manner.”
With our children, what was acceptable when they were infants is no longer acceptable when they grow up. For instance, it is somewhat cute when a toddler drools all over himself. But if a seven-year-old does this we rightly think something is wrong.
We expect a two-year-old to throw tantrums when they don’t get their way, but we expect quite a different mode of communication from a teenage son or daughter.
For those of you who are new to Christ the King I want to take a couple minutes to share where we’ve come from, and then give some focus to how I think we need to “grow up” as a church body now that we’re five.
Our History
In early 2000, a group of Oak Harbor residents were attending the Christ the King Church in Mount Vernon, pastored by Dave Browning. Under the leading of the Holy Spirit, Dave began to talk about the need to develop a multi-site church, with hundreds of small groups meeting all over the Skagit Valley, and with worship centers strategically located in every community.
Jim Cochran approached Dave and suggested that CTK start fulfilling that vision here in Oak Harbor. That led to a public information meeting, in which a number of people joined the team, and in fact God brought together a team of people with the exact gifts needed to get the church started. And so, on October 11, 2000, CTK Oak Harbor was birthed. The service was on a Saturday night, at Solid Ground Coffee Shop (at it’s former location 3 doors down from where it presently stands). Pastor Dave Browning taught, Scott Goldman and Stacy Donaldson were among those who led worship that night.
The church continued meeting under Dave’s leadership for over a year, growing up to a size of about 90 people. It was about then that the leadership team began praying for God to provide someone to lead the church full-time, since Dave was at that time simply teaching and leaving the rest of the work up to the volunteer leaders in Oak Harbor.
In November of 2001, a young pastor and his wife drove up from Canby, Oregon and interviewed with a group of the leaders, and taught at a Saturday night service. For some reason the leaders looked beyond his youth and his relative inexperience, and they extended an invitation for him to become Christ the King Oak Harbor’s first full-time pastor. That young man was, of course, myself.
In February 2002, our family made the move to Oak Harbor, and we began the work of helping this church take the next steps of growing up. We started a Sunday morning service that Easter, with 80 people coming to that brand new service. (Of course the week after easter we only had about 20 people – but it was a start!)
Our children’s ministry at the time consisted of a sort of “one room schoolhouse”. We had all children from infants through 5th grade in one room all together, with one very brave teacher who was doing the work on her own.
Melissa Goldman stepped up and took over the job of trying to recruit more people to teach the children, and soon we had two classes – one for elementary and one for preschool and below.
In early 2003 Crystal Gienger was hired as our Children’s Ministry Director, and the ministry took on a new enthusiasm as she built a ministry team, and we faced the challenge of splitting the classes into four age groups, and for a limited time trying to offer those classes for three services!
In the summer of 2003, it became apparent that we needed a new home for the church, and with mixed emotions we said goodbye to our little “coffee shop church” and began meeting here at the Senior Center in the fall of 2003. At the same time we moved Solid Ground to it’s present, smaller, location.
Since that time we’ve had lots of successes and our share of failures. We’ve seen attendance peak at an average of 250, and seen that number slip back down under 200. We’ve known the joy of planting a daughter congregation in Coupeville, as we did in January of 2005. We’ve also experienced the spiritual struggles that have come as a result of stepping out in faith to start that church. We’ve had many leaders come and get involved, and have had to learn how to gracefully say goodbye to them when the Navy calls them elsewhere.
But through it all – we’ve made it. And now we’re five! Hopefully we’ve stopped “drooling on ourselves” and have put some of the problems of being a brand new church behind us. But if we take an honest look at where we are as a congregation – I think you’ll agree that we are maturing in some areas, and still needing to mature in others. If you’ll allow me I’d like to make a few comparisons between an immature church and a maturing church, and we’ll see where we think we fit in.
1. Immature churches are full of people who cry out, “Meet my needs!” (Arrows IN)
Maturing churches are full of people who cry out, “How can I meet the needs of others?” (Arrows OUT)
To Clarify: as an outreach church, we will always have people who are immature in their faith (or perhaps have not yet come to faith in Jesus). So we will always have a portion of our congregation who have needs that they need to have met in order to help them come to maturity in Christ. The problem that often happens is when those who have been believers for a longer time continue to come to church in order to get their needs met.
The Apostle Paul talked about God’s design for the church when he wrote…
Eph. 4:11-13 "It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
Get the picture? God gifts leaders in the church to help prepare the rest of the people for works of service – so that the whole church can be built up and come to maturity. This process of maturing doesn’t happen when a small percentage of people are serving – it happens when the majority of the people are looking for ways to meet the needs of others.
Maturing churches are full of…
• People who will lay aside their own comfort to start a new small group.
• People who will give up some of their time to lead a ministry team.
• People who will give up their desire to “take in worship” every week in order to lead a children’s class.
• People who will get out of their comfort zone and find ways to minister to their neighbors, co-workers, classmates.
2. Immature churches are filled with people who say, “I’ll be there when I can make it.”
Maturing churches are full of people who say, “I’ll be there. You can count on me.”
• Imagine a football team made up of players who said “I think I’ll be there for the first couple of quarters, but I’m not sure about the second half.”
• Imagine an orchestra where the musicians told the conductor they were happy to be in the orchestra but they weren’t sure if they would be able to make it for the concert.
• Imagine a school where the teachers told the administration they would be in their classes whenever something else didn’t come up.
• These may sound silly. But I’ve got to say I am dismayed at the number of people that either I or someone else has called to ask if they can get involved in some sort of ministry who say, “Yeah – I’ll help if I’m there, but I can’t commit to being there on a schedule.”
• We will stagnate in our growth and maturity as a church as long as we cannot find people who will commit themselves to ministry on a regular basis. We simply cannot function at a more mature level without many more people making the determination in their life and in their family’s priorities that service is something that is scheduled in.
• ILLUSTRATION: Roy Andrukat – solid as a rock serving as a sound technician. Guess what – he has three children. He coaches little league. He works a solid work week. But I know I can count on him.
• ILLUSTRATION: Roger Kolden. Talked with him this week. He told me actually considers it a joy to find places to help out at church. I know I can count on him.
3. Immature churches are marked by people who are disconnected from each other – “It’s all about me.”
Young children and especially teenagers have the tendency to think the world revolves around them and their needs. They have a hard time seeing that their life is a part of something bigger than themselves. But when we grow up – one of the things that is expected of us is that we will begin to enlarge our focus.
These are people who come to church for what they can get out of it. They don’t want and don’t feel like they need to be connected with anyone else. They come in, sit through the service, and leave quickly after it ends. They then spend the next seven days isolated from other believers, and not investing time and energy into relationships with other believers that would be meaningful. This is not the way God designed the church to work.
Maturing churches are marked by warmth and connection among the people. – “We’re an authentic Christian community.”
Acts 2:42-47 “They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. Everyone around was in awe--all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general liked what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.”
Maturing churches are groups of people that are intertwined with each other. They are a body – with multiple parts that don’t function as well without each other. These type of churches are places where people feel welcome as soon as they walk in the door. There is something almost tangible about the love that the people have for each other.
ILLUSTRATION: In Coupeville, it is still small enough for everyone to know each other. When you walk in the door people notice you! And if you’re not there, people notice that as well, and you are missed. People in maturing churches recognize that they are part of the body of Christ – they are not there just for their own sake. These people actively look for ways to connect with other members of the body for mutual strengthening and encouragement. In this type of church you find what we are striving to become: an authentic Christian community – not a large Christian crowd!
4. Immature churches are full of people who worship God during worship services.
These are people who come to church in order to make up for the bad choices they’ve made throughout the week – to somehow get reconnected to God with a spiritual “fix”.
Maturing churches are full of people who worship God as a lifestyle.
ILLUSTRATION: Ken and Janet Mann run a daycare and preschool from their home. But their home is a sanctuary. Though it is full of activity – you can sense the peace there because they are 24/7 worshipers. They lead small groups, pray for people, and have led many people to the Lord over the past few years.
When people like Ken and Janet come to worship on the weekend, it is a celebration of all that God has done in the past seven days of their lives. When 24/7 worshipers gather, there is a joy and enthusiasm present that is infectious. The Holy Spirit is given much more freedom to move in and among those gathered. The church gains momentum and can really make a difference in the spiritual landscape of a community
CONCLUSION:
Where do you think our church rates? Remember, the church is simply a group of people. So the real question is, “What type of church are you helping us to be?”
Occasionally people grow older without growing up. When they grow mentally/emotionally but not physically we consider that abnormal. When they grown physically but not mentally/emotionally, we also consider that abnormal.
God wants us to grow up as a church – physically (that is – in numbers of people) and mentally/emotionally (that is in the depth of our commitment and relationship to Christ and to each other.)
In Isaiah, Chapter 6, the Prophet Isaiah sees a vision of the Lord in His Holy Temple, and he hears the Lord call out, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”
His reply is instructive for all of us who want to mature in our faith, and to help our church mature into all God wants for us. He said, “Here am I, Lord, send me.” What’s your response?
