Speaking for God

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05.18.08

Trinity Sunday

SPEAKING FOR GOD

JEREMIAH 1:1-10; MATTHEW 28:16-20

Congregational Identity

Understanding Who We Are

Why are we here? What is the purpose for our being?

These are questions we all ask ourselves personally at some point in our life, perhaps many times
But I ask these questions today not because I want us to focus on the meaning and purpose of our life as individuals
I ask these questions because I want us to reflect upon who we are as a church

Why are we here as the Cold Spring Presbyterian Church?

How do we understand ourselves?
What is our mission and ministry?
How do we fit into the larger body of the Church of Jesus Christ?
What is it that makes us unique and different from the Kiwanis Club, the Rotary Club, the Lions Club, or any other organization that seeks to serve the community?

Over the centuries, the Christian Church has defined itself and re-defined itself in many different ways, and that’s a healthy activity for us to engage in

After all, the world is not the same now as it was two thousand years ago
It’s not the same now as it was ten years ago
In order to keep the Church relevant, to keep ourselves fresh and focused, we need to—we must—return periodically to those basic questions of “Why are we here?” and “What is the purpose for our being?”

Defining Mission

When I first arrived as pastor at my last congregation, I came to a church that was fresh and vibrant, filled with newfound enthusiasm

They were pumped up and ready to go
So many things in that congregation were new

Two years prior to my arrival, that congregation lost their old historic church building to fire

As devastating as that fire was, it gave the congregation a new sense of resolve
They learned that what made them a church wasn’t the building, which they dearly loved; it was the people
They found a renewed sense of energy and purpose and mission as the people of that congregation came together and worked together to rebuild, not just a new building but a new sense of mission
They moved into their new church building four months before I came to be their pastor
In the midst of all that, they were working on a mission study and had a new mission statement in place to guide them by the time I arrived
With new energy, a new building, a new pastor and a new sense of mission, this congregation was ready to move forward

Three years later, we began a process together that I called “re-visioning”

We met together as a congregation following a potluck supper to assess where we were in the process of living into our mission
Our discussion focused on two questions
The first one was, “As a congregation, what do we do well?”
This gave us the opportunity to assess our strengths and celebrate our accomplishments, and the list of things we were doing well was quite extensive

The second question we reflected on was “What could we do differently?”

Based upon the gifts for ministry we had just generated, this question helped us focus on what we could do to broaden our ministry
Based upon the list of potential new areas of ministry, we identified five of them as priorities
Around those five priorities, members of the congregation were divided into five focus groups to develop a plan to implement each of those priorities
This process provided a way to keep us on track and check our progress at living into our mission

Five years after that, sensing that the Holy Spirit was beginning to call the congregation in a new direction, the session took the initiative to begin the process of a whole new mission study

The mission statement we had been working under for the past eight years had served its purpose, but the time had come to once again refocus our vision
The new mission study was completed by the end of 2005 with a new mission statement in place to guide us as 2006 began
By the time I left to come here the end of last year, that congregation was well on its way to living into its newly defined mission

Creating Identity

That kind of process in important because it helps a congregation keep its focus on mission and ministry, and mission and ministry is what the church is to be about

It helps to keep the congregation open to capturing the fresh wind of the Spirit, and keeps them open to new opportunities for service
Sadly, many congregations don’t do that often enough
Many congregations have no sense of identify—they don’t know who they are or why they exist
They operate from a mission statement that is twenty or thirty years old or older, it they have any mission statement at all, then they wonder why their ministry isn’t effective
They try to function today as they did in days gone by, refusing to realize that the world’s a different place
Without a clear sense of direction and the fresh breath of the Spirit of God, the church lapses from being an outpost for mission and ministry to being just another social club

While each congregation is unique and has it’s own unique function as part of the Body of Christ, every congregation shares a common purpose because we are all a part of the same Body of Christ

That purpose is that we exist to makes disciples for Jesus Christ
We each fulfill that purpose in different ways because we each approach ministry differently, yet it is a common purpose for us all

The Disciple-Making Church

Living Into the Great Commission

That this is the purpose of the Christian Church Jesus made perfectly clear in the words of the Great Commission

“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.”
Unfortunately, we are often better at making spectators for Jesus than we are at making disciples for Jesus

Somewhere we’ve gotten the notion that faith is a spectator sport

It’s something that we listen to and are entertained by, but it makes no real difference in our life
But we are not called to be spectators of the faith, we are called to participate in the faith
In this Great Commission, Jesus is transferring the mantel of his authority to his followers, and entrusting them with the responsibility of continuing the work that he began
Jesus began his ministry by taking twelve ordinary people and making them into disciples, and to them he entrusted the responsibility of making disciples out of others

The literal meaning of the word disciple is “student,” and a student is one who learns

But there is a nuance to this word we often overlook
That nuance has to do with apprenticeship
An apprentice is one who learns a trade, and that trade is taught through experience, through on-the-job training
One doesn’t learn a skill like plumbing or carpentry or playing a musical instrument simply by reading books about it, one learns skills like that by doing them

For three years, Jesus taught those twelve he called the skills necessary to be his disciples

Now that the time had come for Jesus to leave them and return to heaven, it was now time for them to put their skills to work and take over the business of disciple-making
In order to do that, they had to go out into the world, and as they went, they were to baptize and teach
They were sent out to speak for God
They were sent out to teach others how to live a life that is faithful to God, just a Jesus taught them how to be faithful to God
Had they not gone, their three years with Jesus would have been wasted time
Learning is of no value unless we put it into practice, and what we learn will eventually die if we don’t teach it to others

Doing the Work of Evangelism

One of the biggest failures of the church today in general is that we don’t do enough to teach the “how-to” of living the Christian life

We are far too concerned about gaining converts, increasing our numbers, and adding new members than we are about teaching what it means to be a disciple and training new believers in how to apply faith to living
It’s no wonder that Christianity has become a spectator sport rather than something people participate in actively
You can’t play a game unless you learn how to play it

If the Church is going to survive for another two thousand years, or even for another fifty years, we need to reclaim our purpose and get back to the business of teaching discipleship

Unless we’re willing to do that, we might as well turn off the lights, lock the door, put the building up for sale and go home
Each congregation will approach that task differently, and that’s OK
How we do it isn’t important; that we do it is
And each of us must take on our share of the responsibility and do our part to speak and live for God

That’s what evangelism is all about

It’s not just about winning converts; it’s about developing those converts into disciples who will live the faith and teach others how to live it
Too often, we try to excuse our way out of doing what God has called us to do
We’re not comfortable speaking to others about our faith because we don’t know what to say
Jeremiah tried that excuse and it didn’t work for him
The Lord reached out and touched his mouth and gave him the words to speak for God
We must believe that God will do the same for us

Each of us are called to be disciples—to speak and live for God

That is the purpose of the church, and we are part of the church
How we do that today must be different from how it was done in the past
That’s why we must constantly revisit and reassess our mission
God speaks in new and different ways through the Holy Spirit working in and through the church
Unless we are open to the movement of the Holy Spirit among us, we will fail in our task of speaking for God in a meaningful way and teaching others how to be disciples of Jesus