Loving the Church
powerpoint available at coolguybri@verizon.net
There is a word that brings a lot of emotion when used. To some people it is a bad word and thoughts associated with it are pain, politics, division, hurt and disappointment.
That same word, to others brings to mind absolutely nothing emotional or inspirational. Instead it brings to mind boredom, ritual, “let’s get this over with,” purposeless and fakey.
This same word also unleashes hate in others. They hate the wordt, hate what it stands for, believes it exists to rob people and dupe people and control society. They would just as soon exterminate it and never hear the word again.
Some hear this word and think “club.” A place of a certain type of people, who do their type of thing and are reinforced with their type of thinking. They’re losers and should be separated from the real world.
To others that word brings a ray of hope, a strong sense of community, a positive element in a dark world, a place where love abounds.
Then there are those who, when they hear this word, sense mission, a conquering army, valiant heroes who lay down their lives for others, and they long for involvement.
What is that word that spawns so many different feelings? CHURCH!
And church has been all those things to me at some time in life!
I have been to liberal churches, formal churches, independent churches, charismatic churches, good churches that went bad and bad churches that went good.
I have been to churches where I was hurt, disappointed and churches that were great.
I have been to churches with organ music and churches with rock and roll bands.
Once I became a pastor I thought I would have the perfect church, only problem, I was there and I wasn’t perfect.
I grew up in a time when we were critical of the church. It was run by people who had positions based on money or influence and passed on their positions from generation to generation to their kids. I saw hypocrisy and a loss of mission. I saw a reactionary attitude toward anything new and different. I remember ladies with big hair and lots of Avon perfume that smelled strangely like maple syrup, men with powder blue suits with white belts and shoes, and glossy smiles that seemed to cover up something. What they sang, what they preached about, what they did and what they were seemed irrelevant to me.
That’s what the church looked like to me and I was a believer! A radical passionate believer!
And I am not alone!
• 66 % of our community doesn’t attend any church..
• Our culture says that the church is an inconsequential sideshow along the highway of the worlds traffic
• Sporting events and recreational events have become Sunday fare for people who once reserved this day as God’s day!
• The world looks at the church and says that we are falling way short of the supernatural lifestyle we proclaim.
I have grown up in a culture that increasingly has fallen further away from the church. The young 20 something’s go to church at a rate of about 6%!
Every church I went to the people thought that they were loving, and nice, and had a good thing going on. They enjoyed being with each other, the dinners were great, the special events seemed to meet some sort of need and the traditions brought stability and order to, peoples lives that were involved.
But right next door to the churches I went to were people who shared nothing in common with us!
- they were the indifferent
- the hostile
- the disbelieving
- the disinterested
- the demon possessed
- the defeated
- the depressed and addicted
In our eyes, the church was a safe haven. Our little fortress of people who were just like us. Those outside we called, UNBELIEVERS, PAGAN, LOST, HEATHEN. Translated that means…they scare us, they are a threat….
But I soon found out that even in the church we weren’t always safe. There were special tests that you had to pass to really prove yourself spiritual. Like:
- coming to church the Sunday night of the Super Bowl
- Being part of the ultra boring ladies group even though you didn’t want to be because you hated weaving baskets made out of old 2 liter bottles.
- Be able to say the closing prayer at any given service
- Faithful attendance to SS no matter what
- Never making waves by challenging what the church did or taught
- And never holding your ears when brother Bottomly sang out of tune that special song
- And wearing the right clothes, having the right length hair and enjoying the Gaithers!
So I wanted to be different. I wanted a church that would be different.
I wanted to do church God’s way.
Then I read this in the Bible…of what God feels toward the church and how it compared to my feelings…
Eph 5:23-30 (NLT)
For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of his body, the church; he gave his life to be her Savior. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives must submit to your husbands in everything.
25 And you husbands must love your wives with the same love Christ showed the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by baptism and God’s word. 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man is actually loving himself when he loves his wife. 29 No one hates his own body but lovingly cares for it, just as Christ cares for his body, which is the church. 30 And we are his body.
I realized how in love Jesus was with His church. He gave His life not just to save us, but to establish a church, a church that would be the physical presence of Jesus on the earth.
And not only that, but this church would be His bride to be with Him forever.
Not only that, but there is an intimate union between Christ and His church.
This special ness got lost for some us along the way. So I decided to make my own list of what I wanted the church to be all about…and leave behind the past!
1. A CHURCH THAT UNDERSTOOD THE MISSION.
The thing that is one of our great challenges is to understand the mission we are on. Let me paint the picture again…
The mission is to be a bridge between heaven and this planet. The church exists not for the sake of the church, but for the world, the church is the bridge that God built to span the great chasm between God and sinful man.
• We are doctors to the sick…Mt 9:12
• Letters that the world may read…2 Cor. 3:3…what are they reading about LSOCG?
• Fishers of men…like bait attracting the world
• Salt making people thirsty
• Light to a dark world
• Ambassadors, God’s reps on the planet
•
I wanted a church that understood the mission. The mission of not telling them to come to us, but us actually going to them. Us getting out of the safe Bible study, the friendships of people who “have it together,” and going into places where life is messy and dangerous.
A church where we stop asking stuff like…
- how many were here today?
Was the building full?
Wasn’t the singing, preaching, offering…great?
A church that would say, would this community miss us if we burnt down tomorrow?
I wanted a church that understood the mission – to penetrate the lost world with the best, most powerful message that they would ever hear.
A church that had a holy dissatisfaction with church as usual! You know what church as usual is don’t you? It is the church exists for itself and always does what is best for us…where our needs, our desires and our wants dictate the program…
…we build for us….what kind of singers do we want this month?...lets fellowship on the softball field…. Time for our group! Committee meetings are nothing more than social directors to keep the already convinced happy and attending.
That kind of church is like a basketball camp where we practice all the time and never actually play a game. I wanted church that didn’t just practice like we are doing today, but played it out tomorrow!
Our mission? To go after those people that the devil thinks he owns. To make some noise for Jesus! To let the MOV know that Jesus Christ is alive and on the throne!
I wanted a church that understood the mission.
2. A CHURCH THAT WAS REAL AND FAMILY AND A REAL FAMILY
I always had a sneaky suspicion, as I was growing up in church, that the white belts, white shoes, powder blue leisure suits, bouffant hairdos and smiley handshakes were hiding something.
It seemed to me that too many people had it all together all the time. It seemed to me that the real pain and addictions and struggles were covered under the layers what people thought a good Christian looked like. I knew there was pain because there was a gossip hotline that talked about these people!
I wanted church to be a placed where real people come to bare their souls, not cover them up! Where people could be real when things weren’t going well…where we could do Romans 12 and laugh with those who are happy and cry with those who are crying.
And why would that happen here when it seldom happens in any other church? How in the world could we be different than any other church in America? Because we would be a family, a church family. We could actually practice loving each other the same way Jesus loved us. And so in this family, where we felt loved, and safe, and accepted, we could be our real selves.
----I hope if there is anything that I exemplified it is to be real.
I thought that church should be a place that the weakest person could come in and find the structure, the love and the encouragement and friendship to change. I would hope that they would find patience and prayer support among God’s people.
I always wanted walking to an altar to NOT be the most intimidating feeling they would have, but rather a humble public confession that they needed the family of God now and the family would respond. The response would not be muttered whispers of, “I wonder what problem they are having…” but that we would applaud saying, “we are right here behind you and we know exactly what you are going through and we are praying for you!”
When you enter the front doors of the church that is where…
- -prejudice ends
- Judging ends
- Naming calling ends
- Social class or status ends
- Skin color ends
- Popularity ends
- Evaluating people based on income ends
- Evaluating people based on talent ends
- Evaluating people based on looks ends
- Evaluating people based on height or weight ends
One of the great attractions of the church, according to Jesus anyways, is that this is the one place on the planet where we are all loved and valued based on Jesus’ love for us and not on anything else.
Let’s be real. This thing is a struggle and we are all having a hard time with being everything God wants us to be all the time.
3. A CHURCH THAT WANTED TO BE GREAT, THE GREATEST IN THE COMMUNITY!
I have always felt that God created me to do something significant with my life. To leave a mark, or to succeed at something for God.
And I believe that this church was put here by God for a significant purpose; to impact this community for Jesus. To let Parkersburg know that there is a living God with a living word and that He has people alive with His power!
I wanted to have the greatest church in the community and I wanted it to be filled with great people who had the same vision!
• Great means a place where people know “God is…”
• Great means a church that loves like no other church…
• Great means a church that is blessing it’s community…
• Great means a church that Satan hates and fears and he wants to bring down but he can’t touch it!
• Great means a church with a children’s ministry staffed by passionate Christian who churn out well grounded believers in Christ filled with the HS and that this hour is the BEST hour of our kids loves each week!…
• . …and a youth ministry….and a college and career ministry…and every other type of ministry…
• Great means a church that when it begins to sing, God inhabits it’s praises because those praises raise the roof…
• Great means a church that the city takes notice of and even turns to to do the things that they are incapable of doing!
• Great means that every time we open our doors and let people out of this place Satan groans that we are coming after him and his again!
• Great means that what we have cannot be contained in this building…it is influencing and affecting other churches too!
• Great means that we don’t measure ourselves by dollars taken in or pews filled but by lives changed!
And to top it off, if that isn’t enough, great means that we realize that we are part of something so much bigger than ourselves that we better try to control it because this is God’s thing!!!!!!
Remember the quote: Try something so impossible that if God’s not in it it is doomed to fail…that’s the church I dreamed about.
All that adds up to a place that is saturated with God’s anointing. A place that has the hand of God on it. A place where God’s power is thirsted for and welcomed and where the feeling is, we can’t do anything without God’s power!
We may not be there yet, but I still strive for that!
4. ONE LAST ONE, A CHURCH THAT WOULD SERVE AND GIVE AWAY GOD’S STUFF FOR FREE!
This is called servant evangelism. I believe in being a church that gets the worlds attention not by screaming at them, but by serving them. That means that we go right out into the community and get our hands dirty by doing one of a hundred things!
We just scatter seed everywhere and ask God to bless what we do as we bless others!
- we did the give away at the football game
- we gave free hot chocolate away
- READ LETTERS! Letter to editor
I told you the story about adopt a block….
We will be known as the church that is blessing the city!
That is how we are going to get their attention and lower their resistance to the gospel, they are going to be asking the questions, not us!!!
I base all these feelings and ideas on what Jesus said in Matthew 16…
Matt 16:13-19 (NLT)
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
14 "Well," they replied, "some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets."
15 Then he asked them, "Who do you say I am?"
16 Simon Peter answered, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
17 Jesus replied, "You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. 18 Now I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. 19 And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you lock on earth will be locked in heaven, and whatever you open on earth will be opened in heaven."
Notice several things about what Jesus says about the church…and get the vision…
a. He is the owner, it is His church!
This thing belongs to Him, to build it as he pleases, to send the people he pleases, to staff or gift it as He pleases, it is His! This is not our thing…
b. The only rock (foundation) that He builds His church on is the rock of knowing Jesus.
What Peter learned that Jesus said was a rock, was that he learned who Jesus was and Peter was basing his life on that truth. The truth that Jesus is the Christ.
That is the only foundation of the church. That is the only way into the church!
- he care nothing about church membership
- he cares nothing about denominational signs
- he cares nothing about by laws or constitutions
the question is…do you know Him as the Messiah, the Son of God? If you do then you are in this thing called the church! His pride and joy!
c. He says, “I will build…”
What Jesus is doing is alive, growing, never static but dynamic. He is not like so many that I know, tearing the church down, but He is building His body up and send it forth.
d. He is building a “church.”
The word church literally means, “Called out people.” Jesus is building a church of people who have been called out of this world and into a relationship with Himself.
These called out people will be joined together for a special mission, God’s mission, to penetrate a dark world with a message that will change lives.
You think the church is weak and small in this world, think again! Listen to these huge advantages the church has over business and government:
1. The Church provides for the largest participation.
Most people have no idea how many Christians there are in the world: More than 2 billion people claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. That’s one third of the world’s population! The Church has about a billion more people than the entire nation of China.
For example, about 100 million people in the United States went to church this past weekend. That’s more people than will attend sporting events in the United States throughout this year. The Church is the largest force for good in the world. Nothing else even comes close.
2. The Church is present everywhere.
The Church is everywhere in the world. There are villages that have little else, but they do have a church. world.
Consider this: The Red Cross noted that 90 percent of the meals they served to victims of Hurricane Katrina were actually cooked by Southern Baptist churches. Many churches were able to jump into action faster than the government agencies or the Red Cross. Why? The Church is literally everywhere.
3. The Church provides the longest continuation.
The Church has been around for 2,000 years. We’re not a fly-by-night operation. The Church has a track record that spans centuries: Malicious leaders have tried to destroy it, hostile groups have persecuted it, and skeptics have scoffed at it. Nevertheless, God’s Church is bigger now than ever before in history.
4. The Church provides the fastest expansion.
Did you know that every day 60,000 new people come to believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? By the end of today, thousands of new churches will be started throughout the world, and that will happen tomorrow and the next day and the next.
5. The Church provides the highest motivation.
Why do any of us do what we do in ministry? It’s not to make money, not to make a name for ourselves and not for duty to our nation. We do it out of love. Jesus stated it as the Great Commandment: “Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself.”
We’re motivated to keep at the hard work of ministry because we love God, and our love for God compels us to love other people. It is love that never gives up; it is love that keeps moving forward despite the appearance of impossible odds; and it is love that outlasts any problem.
6. The Church provides the strongest authorization.
God authorized the Church to take on Satan.
When you know that God has authorized you to do something, you don’t worry about failure because God doesn’t sponsor flops. If God says we’re going to do it, it’s going to happen. It is inevitable. In fact, the Bible teaches that God will give us his power to complete the task. This is God’s way - ordinary people empowered by his Spirit.
7. The Church provides for God’s conclusion.
In the end, the church will be left standing!
Jesus said that the gates of hell may fight the church, but cannot, will not prevail against the church.
I ask that as you head into this new year, that you get a vision of what God has for His church. We are part of the greatest thing going! I know that this Biblical vision is challenged by our world that minimizes church, berates church subtley and out rightly. But lets think and live God’s way on this thing.
I leave you with one last challenge for this new year…this is a word
Luke 9:1-3 (NIV)
1 When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 3 He told them: "Take nothing for the journey--no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic.
Take nothing. This is a time to start fresh. Jesus asked his disciples to empty their pockets, their suitcase, the briefcase, their bank account, their ideas of how it would be, their expectations, their rights, TO JUST GO OUT AND RELY TOTALLY ON GOD TO SUPPLY WHAT IS NEEDED AT THE MOMENT.
That is what I ask of you. Take nothing with you for this next year. Take nothing for the journey, just wait for God.
