Sermon
of November 13, 2005
Presented by Rev. Chuck Ericson
Scripture lesson: Genesis 28:16-22; Luke
9:18-25
“The One True Way to a Bright and Promising Future"
I want to begin by saying how good it is to look out and see everybody here. I made a special plea to people, to be here either Thursday night or this Sunday, to hear a special message that I hope will bless you and bless our church, and sent out some reminders and things like that and I’ve just been overwhelmed. I realized after I made this plea that this was a long weekend, which means a lot of people go away, and yet it’s still pretty full here. And you know what? Before 10 o’clock this week, about 80 or 85 people had already worshipped here. There were about 40 people here Thursday night, and another 40 or so this morning. Whether you’re here every week, or you’re responding to what I wrote in the Signpost, I’m happy to have all of you here.
And with that said, I want to begin by expressing my concern about one of my own failures. It is based on Acts chapter 20, verse 20, which was read by a speaker at the annual meeting of the UCC that took place a couple weeks ago that Julia and I both heard named Tony Robinson. Not Tony Robbins – that guy you see on TV who’s got all kinds of programs and things. Tony Robinson is a UCC minister and a writer and he spoke at the meeting about how we sometimes are in the church, and used a phrase Paul spoke that’s in Acts 20:20, where Paul says how “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and Greeks of repentance to God, and a faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ”. And he spoke about how we sometimes shrink away from being strong in our messages. I know that’s something that I struggle with; I shrink sometimes. I shrink because I worry that if I come across too strong or too forceful, no matter how deeply I believe it, that it might bring up feelings of guilt in some people. It may not be true but I worry about that, and I don’t want anybody ever to feel guilty. So that’s understood as we begin that whatever I say, don’t feel guilty - promise? The second thing is that I sometimes worry, and this is the worst one to have to confess, that if I say something too strong or too powerful you won’t like me. And I don’t want that at all. So the deal we’re making here is that you don’t feel guilty and you’ll still like me when this is all done. Okay? And so, with that said, as Bill O’Reilly might say, we’re now entering the no-shrink zone. What I want to talk to you about this morning is important for us and it’s important for our church. And it’s kind of a one-time event, I hope.
I’m concerned about the state of churches like ours, and our church in particular; because I see and hear things that really trouble me about where mainline, mainstream Protestant churches are going. Many of you know that I teach a class to Christian educators at The Hartford Seminary. This year I have a student who’s doing a volunteer Christian Education job at a church, where one of my previous students had been paid to do the job. And when that first student left, retired, the new student came on and the church said we don’t have enough money to pay this job anymore, so you can do it and we want you to do it but you have to do it as a volunteer. I had another student contact me recently that while she was working in her Christian Education job to say the job got eliminated because of money problems and she was asking me for a reference for another job she was going to look for.
I hear of churches having other kinds of financial struggles that don’t always play themselves out in Christian education, but a lot of them do. Christian Education and Missions, believe it or not, are the places people often go in their churches when they feel like there’s a crisis and they don’t know how to get out of it, and they don’t know what else to do. And jobs like that get eliminated, churches cut back on programs on giving, and a horrible decline begins, and I don’t want that to happen to our church. But in some ways, we’re just as vulnerable as any church. Any church is vulnerable to those kinds of things.
So I want to talk today a little bit about some things that I hope will prevent that from ever happening to us, because I am actually concerned, I’m not alarmed but I am concerned. I look out and on many weeks lately worship attendance doesn’t seem like it’s what it was a year or two ago. Julia and I have both said that, we both noticed that without even counting, it just kind of seems like its a little down. And I know it’s difficult sometimes to find people to lead programs – to be Sunday school teachers, to assist with other events, to help with fairs, to help with the Christmas tea and things like that. It’s hard to get people to volunteer sometimes, or to serve on boards and committees. That’s part of what that nominating committee fair after church is all about that I hope you all will visit and consider how you can help.
It does happen in finances. The Stewardship Board for the last few months has been looking at a projected deficit for next year, and spending a lot of time in board meetings about that, and then talking about it again as they report to Church Council, and looking at a large, projected deficit. We don’t know what it’s going to be, but now it looks like it might be $22,000 at the end of the year. So, those are not alarming things, but they are deeply concerning to me. And they are concerns to me because it seems like our church is heading in the direction of the other churches I was talking about, and I don’t want us to go in that direction, and I know you don’t either. We all love this church, and we want it to be there and to be strong and vital, and to have – as the sermon is titled – a bright and promising future.
So that’s how I see things; that’s what prompted me to want to make a special message here today. Because I think we have to know what the reason is for that though, first. We have to know why that is. I thought I was coining a brand new phrase, I’ve tried this out twice now and somebody in the first service said, “I’ve already heard that phrase.” But I thought I came up with it: culture creep. That the culture is creeping in on the life of the church. The church that Jesus gave his life to create; the church that the early apostles gave every ounce of their lives to build up, and start, and get moving. The church that Martin Luther and others tried to cleanse and turn around when it had gone the wrong way.
When Jesus began his ministry his intent was to bring his faith and the faith in God, the faith in people, to impact on the culture that Christianity was supposed to be something that worked its way into the culture and changed the culture for the better. And it seems like over the past many years, within the last 100 years at least (sometime in that timeframe), that it’s gone the other way; how our culture has developed has started to shape how our faith is and how churches are. And so our commitments to work, to other leisure activities, sports, associations, our own concerns about our personal financial situation and things like that that are part of our culture and part of our lives in the world out there, affect our patterns of participation and giving within the church.
That’s what I think is going on; I think there is culture creep. It’s not something that’s happening with a boom, it’s something that’s happening slowly and we need to stop and look at it and say, “we shouldn’t let that happen to the church we love”. The church that we want to be vital and strong and to have a bright and promising future for us and those we serve. So we need to do something, because the consequences of letting it go on are pretty bad. We don’t want to be cutting positions, holding back, cutting back on missions and programs; that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re supposed to be teaching God’s love; giving God’s love to other people. All participating, every one of us, as best as we can. It’s going to be different at different times for all of us, but every one of us as best as we can.
I want to say to you today that it is important that we all try to be at worship as often as we can. That’s why the Thursday night services and the earlier 8:45 services were created, to give other options. So if you usually come to this service or another one and you’re sick or you’re out of town or you’re on business or something, there’s another option. I ask you to please consider that and keep that in your heart, and let that be part of your commitment to our church. Worship is critical and it’s important to you, I hope you get something out of it; I believe you do. But I know I also get something out of a full church. It’s a lot different looking out and seeing a full congregation. It’s a lot more encouraging to a worship leader then looking out and wondering where everybody is. So, keep that Thursday service especially in your mind. Sometimes we have 10, 12, 14 people there; there were 40 last week and I thought that was phenomenal. There was a great spirit there. Please let that be something that you know you can include in your life if Sunday isn’t going to work out for some reason.
I want to ask you to be really intentional about communication, about how you say things. If you need something to let Julia or I know, or Irene in the office, or Mary Lou or whoever (somebody on a board or a committee), let us know what you need. The grapevine doesn’t work, especially in this day and age, but let us know what you need. And share with us your ideas. And if something bothers you, talk about that too, and let’s get it out and fix it. Let’s communicate like God’s people should, not like the bickering and conflict and everything that goes on in the culture. And by the way, I’m not anti-culture; our culture is good. But there’s a difference between how our faith lives and how our culture grows as well. I want to say to you, please make sure you find a place to serve in our church, that’s significant, that makes a difference for you. The nominating committee wants you to be on a board or a committee and serve in that way, but there’s lots of other ways and I’m going to give you some options at the end of the message this morning.
And I want to ask you to be very intentional about financially supporting our church, too. That’s part of what this is, and I’m going to tell you a little bit about how you can do that in a few minutes, also. But all of those things are critical for our church not to go the way of churches that are cutting back, giving up, getting rid of things, and stopping the ministry that they should be doing. I don’t want that to happen, but it depends upon all of us being committed in worship, serving, communicating and giving. Because the real consequence is that if churches like ours decline and have no more influence in the world and are not visibly present in the world, what is left is (I’m going to give you the two examples of extremes, you can pick which one bothers you the most) either Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, who are calling for cities to be destroyed by God, or Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson because that’s who you see on TV, that’s who people watch. That’s the face of Christianity that people see if there is not something of another alternative that is out there that is strong and that is bringing the kind of face of Christ that you all enjoy here, I know. So it’s critical for that reason, that the face of Christianity has a message other than those extremes.
Another reason is that it’s good for you. If our faith is strong, if our church is strong it makes a difference. When you have a need, those things that come up – weddings, confirmations, funerals, baptisms, women’s meetings, counseling, help for a neighbor, you want to do something – our church is here for you. So there’s a personal interest each of us has, but more importantly because we’re doing God’s work. God doesn’t want us cutting back on doing the work that Jesus came into the world to start; God wants us doing that work. And the more we decline the more likely it is that people who are hungry, people who are homeless, people who have extra money for clothing who are served by the Manchester Area Conference of Churches, don’t get those things because we’re not able to help as much. Sunday school children don’t get as good of a program because we’re not supporting that as much, and the love of Christ is not being passed on.
There are all kinds of grave consequences if we don’t look at ourselves and say that we have to look for a bright and promising future. And it involves one thing – a transformation. It’s a big word, it’s a word I think we hear a lot, but it’s an important and it was at the beginning of Paul’s message today, from Romans, Chapter 12, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” I don’t know about perfect, but good and acceptable. We are called not to be conformed to the world, not to let the culture creep in and shape our activities, our participation, our giving in church. We are called to be transformed, to be different, to live the way Jesus told us to live, who said, remember, if you want to come after me, if you want to follow me (not just in his day but in any age), take up your cross daily and follow me. He wasn’t saying literally be crucified, he was saying in your life do something that gives up something of yourself, sacrifices, is generous for the sake of those in need in the world. Take up your cause. Matthew and Mark have the same passage, but they don’t have the word daily in there, so I picked this one. Every day we have a chance, choices to make a difference about how we serve and how we give of ourselves that reflects our faith and our church. So we need to be transformed, we need to be more as Christ has called us to be.
So here are a few quick thoughts to conclude with. One of them is that we have to think of ourselves more as a movement and less as an institution. Christianity began as a movement, not something static, not something just there, but as something that’s moving from place to place and bringing this good news Jesus brought into the world to everybody possible. We have a tendency to sometimes look at ourselves as an organization and institution - we have meetings, we have minutes of the meetings, we have budgets, we have all kinds of organizational type stuff, annual meeting. Those aren’t bad, but we shouldn’t forget that we’re also a movement – we’re active, alive, we should be on the go, we should be full of life and spirit.
Another is not to think of ourselves as members but as disciples. We use the word member, but Tony Robinson said at the annual meeting a couple of weeks ago, Jesus didn’t say go out into the world and make members, he said make disciples. People who are following me out in the world, doing something, giving of themselves, taking up their cross daily and following me. I don’t know about you, but my idea of membership isn’t like that. I got my third or fourth, lately, invitation to be a member of AARP. I love getting those. For 12 bucks I get all these great services. I am a member of AAA, for a few dollars more I get more services. For Sam’s Club I pay a small membership fee and I get more services. Our culture teaches us that membership is something that you put your name on, you pay as little as possible and you get as much back from it as possible. And you don’t have to give much back. Well that’s not what membership should be in a church. It’s more the reverse of that; giving as much as possible and expecting as little in return except when you need it. So we should think of ourselves not as that cultural idea of a being a member, but more as a disciple; someone who’s called to take up a cross daily and follow Jesus.
Another thing, just a simple thing, is to act of out faith, not out of fear. Sometimes when we make decisions, am I going to go to church, am I going to serve this way, commit myself, am I going to give this much money to the church, we try to figure everything out to see if we’re going to be okay, because we’re afraid we might miss out on something else if we make these commitments to our faith. I want to ask you, don’t go through that. Find out what’s right for you. Follow Christ’s principles and act out of faith. I believe God will carry you through it. Don’t analyze and figure everything out and see if it’s going to leave you safe. Taking up your cross daily and following Jesus isn’t about being safe; it’s about being faithful. And giving with gratitude; even though I said the Stewardship Board is all worried about budgets and everything, don’t give because there’s a deficit. Give because God has blessed you and you are grateful and you want to give something generously of yourself back to God through the community that serves God.
That’s what Jacob’s message was back in this passage from Genesis. Jacob said, see the awesome splendor of God; God is in this place. And if God provides for my basic needs, if I get bread and clothing, then I’ll give a tenth of what I have all back to God. He asks little of God and says he will give as much back as he can. That’s our model; that’s the Christian principle for giving. It isn’t because we’re worried about the deficit, it isn’t because we’re worried about our investments, or our legacies or anything else; it’s because we feel gratitude and out of a proportion of how we’re blessed we give back to God. I’ve said many times, many of you have heard this many times, 10% is that Biblical idea of a tithe, and that’s a good thing to strive for, but at least I’d like every member to begin at 3% (I don’t know who came up with that, but it’s a good number) and work your way up from there. You can still make a proportional gift, it’s so simple. And do it out of faith, not out of fear. And if you’re already at that place or above, I was going to say kick it up a notch, but I won’t say that, see if you can go ½% or somewhere as you feel blessed. But realize that it’s because God’s blessed you, and you’re grateful, and that’s how you give; that’s the faithful way to give.
And the last thing I think is really to not look at things as “either/or”, but “if/then”. A lot of times we look at well, either I do this thing or I don’t do this thing, or I give my money to this place but then I don’t have it left for the church. Look at it as “if/then”: if I can afford certain things, if I can afford to give my time, my talent, my treasure in a certain way in other places in my life then I can also do it for church. It’s not if I do these other things then there’s nothing left for church. It’s if I do this, I can also support my church with my life and my giving.
So here’s what I have for you. You’re going to get a little packet. We’re not sending out mailings to everybody this year. There are three things in this packet. There’s a pink sheet that says Service and Communication preference response form; how I serve God through my church (the name is on there), offering you ways you can say I’d like to serve on a board or committee. Or other things like being a snow shoveler, or a church fair worker, or a Victorian Christmas Tea member or other. Communicate with us about how you would like to find a place to serve. It doesn’t have to be regular at a Board meeting, it can be in a way that suits you, but find somewhere please. It asks for your email and cell phone information, how you want that used, because people are using those these days and it helps to know that. And I would like information, I would like to know more about these things – some questions you have or some issues you have. So that’s in here, and if you get one of these and you want one of these for somebody else in your family, there are extras on the back table. There’s a 2005 Second Mile gift card that looks like last year’s pledge card that’s asking you to help get rid of that $22,000 deficit this year. If you pledged in a shrinking way this year, or maybe not at all, or things have been good and you can help make up that difference – wouldn’t that be great to have that all gone at the end of the year? I think it can be, if all of us see it as something that’s all of our responsibility.
And then there’s a new pledge card for next year. It says 2006 and it has a picture of our church with the sun rising over the Education building. The only thing is that some of these have the label on upside down and it comes to you like this, because the person who put them together got a degree in Theology instead of Business Administration. So I apologize for that. Please look at this as a transformational year in how you give in those ways, how you can serve, how you can worship, how you communicate and how you give. And let this be the last year that we have to talk about such things. If we all really make it our goal to be transformed, to transform our church in these ways, we will not be cutting, giving back, going downhill – we will be having a bright and promising future. But it does take all of us.
Oh, one last thing, oh two last things. I know, I’ve been saying last things for 10 minutes, but this really is getting close. Please pass at least the two pledge cards back in during the next day or two to help our financial secretaries. You can do it probably today or maybe tomorrow. Maybe you have to talk to somebody else at home about it. But it doesn’t need to be analyzed. I’m asking you to act out of faith, not out of seeing if everything’s going to line up all right. That’s not going to help our church, that’s not going to be transforming; that’s the way of the culture – is there going to be enough left to do all the other things I want. To find that right place to proportionately start to give out of, what you expect your next year’s income is, and put that number down, and commit to it. And if you can’t, so you can’t sometimes – that happens sometimes. Or if you find out you can give more later on, you give more later on – that’s what proportional giving is.
I would love to come back and find out that we have most of the $22,000 deficit gone by next week, and that the income for next year is pretty well known. It can be done. And if you do that, you get a refrigerator magnet that has that picture of the church on it, and it says a bright and promising future awaits us. I was going nuts with the camera this week, and the computer. I found out you can get sheets of magnet paper. So you can take a magnet if you get yours in today, or in the next couple of days.
The good news today is if we decide to be transformed personally and as a church and to start doing things differently than we’ve ever done them before, the first thing is that we will be faithful to the ways of Christ. We will be living Christ-like as a church and as people; not culture-like but Christ-like. So we will have that integrity about us.
Secondly the church will be here when we do have needs later on. And we will feel good when we turn to the church in difficult times. One of the worst things I face is people who go through a difficult time and come to me and say I haven’t been to church, and I haven’t given, and it starts out as an apology. I don’t want anybody to ever have to apologize, I don’t like guilt, remember? But if you’ve lived all your life that way, then you don’t have to start out that way when you have a need. You just come and say, this is my church, the church that I helped to keep strong, and I have a need and I’m turning to my church now without any apologies or guilt.
Another thing is that Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, they won’t be the only face of Christianity; our face will be out there, and it will be good for people to see the face that we show of Christianity.
For those of you who don’t like to hear about money, and don’t want to hear any more about deficits, and want to know that the Church fair money and the Christmas tea money and golf tournament money all go to special causes or disaster relief or missions, and you want the legacy investments to all roll over and build up for the future, well then be transformed. Don’t be conformed to the world, be transformed by the renewal of your mind to do what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and maybe perfect. Take up your cross daily and follow Christ. Be transformed in those ways and all of that talk, all of that worry, all that anxiety, all of those things will be gone.
Let’s make this a turning moment in our church this year. And if you’re already doing those things, and you said this isn’t anything different for me – good! Be enthusiastic about it to everybody else. Help me and others, share this with others in our congregation. Let us pray…