Fruitful Congregations: First Things First
Matthew 6:24-34
The mission of a church is not to fill the
pews, sign up new members, raise a balanced budget or keep its property
maintained. Those are all good things for
an institution, to be sure, but that is not why a church exists. A church exists "to make disciples of
Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world"; at least that's how we
United Methodists understand it.
Believing that the love and message of the Christian gospel is
contagious, if we are good at "making disciples" then we will see the
fruits of that effort in our pews, membership, buildings and money. But those are secondary goals.
There have been churches excellent at those
institutional benchmarks by means other than "disciple making";
churches organized around the adoration of a charismatic preacher; churches
with an ideology insisting that they alone have a patent on the truth of God;
or churches promoting a compelling social cause that becomes their sole reason
for existence.
But in the Biblical tradition the community to
which Jesus invites us is about discipleship.
I am aware that for some the terminology of
“making disciples” conjures images of the forced conversions that have happened
all-too-often in Christian history or ‘Elmer-Gantry-like-snake-oil-preachers’
who manipulate the innocent selling salvation for donations. We don’t have any shortage of these today.
One of the consistent admonitions we are
hearing from church experts is that traditional church terminology and culture
is a "turn off" to those not experienced in church life, especially
those under 50 years old that are rarely familiar with church culture. Clergy robes, traditional hymns, whether we
call it the "Narthex" or a "Lobby" can be confusing for
those not used to church life. Even the
terminology "disciple/discipleship" may throw up a road block for the
"spiritual not religious" folk?
[Would you be willing to ask some, like your kids, like your co-workers
or neighbors and let me know?]
The dilemma is that we could so "dumb
down" our Christian experience by homogenizing our language and traditions
that we appear no different than the Rotary Club or YMCA (not that there is
anything wrong with either, we just have a different reason for
existence!) Or, we could become so
insistent that the newcomer assimilate to our insider language and rituals that
they have no interest in making the effort.
United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase's book The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations
(Abingdon 2008) blesses us with a challenging vision of the church. He describes five practices at the heart of
discipleship and the fulfillment of our membership vows as United Methodists:
Bold Mission and
Social Justice
Passionate
Worship
Deepening Faith
Extravagant
Generosity
Radical
Hospitality
What if we…individually and corporately…were to
dedicate the next year committed to these five practices of fruitful living? The next five sermons in this series will
touch on the five practices and challenge us to consider them as benchmarks of
our faith.
In our scripture lesson this morning from the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches one of the most significant challenges to
the spiritual life. It is as relevant
for us today as it was for those who heard it 2,000 years ago.
-You can't serve
God and money.
-All the worry
in the world won't add a thing to your life it will only deplete your spirit.
-Don't worry
about tomorrow, today has enough worries of its own.
-Seek first the
kingdom of God and all else will be provided.
Let's be honest. For self-sufficient, multi-tasking,
consumers such as you and me these are hard words to comprehend, let alone
follow. We actually believe that
material wealth can guarantee our security.
We are convinced that we have the ability to control our lives and get
what we want. We insist that we can have
life on our terms and we want God to bless it.
And then the cancer returns. Or the spouse leaves. Or the job is shipped overseas. Or the kids end up rejecting everything we
believed in.
Jesus is preaching to people investing their
spiritual energy in that which has yet to occur. Brilliant and quick they can project multi-possibilities
for every contingency days, weeks or months ahead. As a result they can't sleep. They need medication to maintain. The priorities of their lives are upside
down. [Sound familiar?]
Anxiety drives us to isolation. Faith drives us together with common purpose
and meaning. And to these people...to
people just like you and me...Jesus invites us to follow.
I make no apology for our passion to invite
people into discipleship to Jesus Christ convinced that such will contribute to
the transformation of their lives...my
life...and the transformation of the world. To be a disciple doesn't mean that you have
achieved spiritual enlightenment and superiority over others. It simply means that you and I have committed
ourselves to the journey. To practice
sharing, loving, growing, giving and service to others. And doing so together.
In a few weeks, I will be privileged to
participate in the memorial of a dear friend.
Lily lived 94 years devoted to the five practices of fruitful living, as
Bishop Schnase outlines them. As a
young woman and Roman Catholic in Belgium she was a decorated member of the
resistance movement against the Nazi occupation during World War II. She and her husband immigrated to the USA and
ended up contributing to the electronic industry of the Silicon Valley. They raised a beautiful family, became United
Methodists, taught Sunday school, volunteered for church suppers and projects
and was the Communion Steward of our church in Los Altos for decades. She was often one of the first to greet the
new comer to church on a Sunday morning and I would hear again and again how
that greeting and her humble faith would become the reason so many would
join. Lily was a disciple of Jesus. It was her first priority in life and it was
reflected in everything she did, who she was as a person. People like Lily are why we have churches in
the first place. They aren’t places
where we can hide from God’s claim in our lives rather they are launching pads
from which to go out into the world with the grace which inspires and sustains
us.
Churches thrive when their members and friends
radiate the love of God in their lives.
You can see it in their five practices of fruitful living. The French author of The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, once wrote:
“If you want to
build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give
orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
I ran across this slogan on the church-internet
sources I frequent the other day, which kind of sums up my point this morning:
THE MARK OF AN EFFECTIVE CHURCH IS NOT HOW MANY
PEOPLE COME BUT HOW MANY PEOPLE LIVE DIFFERENTLY AS A RESULT OF HAVING BEEN
THERE.
Do we, members and friends of Church of the
Wayfarer, live differently as a result of having been here? Do others in the community see the fruits of
discipleship in our lives? For if they
do they will want to check out this place for themselves.
Bold Mission and
Social Justice
Passionate
Worship
Deepening Faith
Extravagant
Generosity
Radical
Hospitality
We all want to see our church grow and prosper
as an institution. Church of the
Wayfarer has an exciting future ahead of it.
An essential first step toward that future is to put first things first.
Amen.
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