One of my favorite movies is Apollo 13. I don’t know about you but I think Ron Howard did a masterful job of putting that true story on the screen. Perhaps the reason I like the movie so much is because I’m old enough to remember when the events this film chronicles actually happened. When I was a kid I watched all the NASA launches and I remember when the SPECIAL REPORT screen came on TV and we were told about the explosion that crippled the spacecraft. I stayed glued to the tube for that entire week praying for Jim Lovell and his crew. We all did. It was just as the film showed it. The explosion left those three men with almost no electrical power which meant they had no heat. For a time we worried about their having enough air. Plus they were forced to use the little engine of the lunar lander because the main engine in the command module no longer functioned. And as time went by they kept having problems. The carbon dioxide level in the ship got too high so they had to design and build a scrubber using parts from their space suits. One of the men got very sick. They were low on fuel so the only way they could figure how to get home was to use the gravity of the moon as a sling shot to hurl them back toward earth. That worked but as they drew near Earth again, thinking they had finally solved every possible problem, Houston told them they had to make a course correction in order to have any hope of a safe splash down in the Pacific. Here’s a clip from the movie that picks up at that point.
CLIP FROM APOLLO 13 starting with “Day 6”
Now-do you understand what happened? They didn’t have enough electricity to use the computer to steer as they made this critical 39 second burn so Lovell came up with the idea of using the planet earth-their goal destination-as their point of reference. He knew that as long as they were able to keep it in view through the window they’d be okay. And it worked. It was probably the most stressful 39 seconds of their lives but it worked. Lovell and his crew kept their goal in sight and were able to steer to a safe re-entry. By not losing sight of that reference point, those three astronauts avoided disaster.
Sermon:
Now, I have shared this brief little clip this morning because I think it illustrates a very important principle of church growth. You see, WE can avoid disaster as long as we keep our focus fixed on OUR destination. I mean, if we have clear goals to steer towards-if we know where we’re going as a church family and keep headed in that direction-we can accomplish great things for the Kingdom of God. But without this sense of direction-without a clear vision, as Solomon reminds us in Proverbs 29:18, “we perish.”
And, unfortunately the sad truth is many churches perish instead of prosper. They cease to grow because they don’t have a clear vision to steer towards. I mean, they don’t know why they are where they are-they don’t know what they are supposed to be doing. They’ve never sought God’s will when it comes to the unique contribution they are supposed to bring to His Kingdom and so they just sort of go through the motions of being a church. If nothing happens to change this, they eventually become just an empty shell. Outside they LOOK like a church but nothing significant happens inside. I served in a church like that once-and it was a very sad, frustrating experience. I can understand why J. B. Phillips would warn,
“The real danger to professing Christians lies not in the more glaring and grosser temptations and sins but rather in a slow deterioration of vision.”
Now, one thing that has always impressed me about Redland is that this is a church that believes in having a clear purpose or vision. Sue and I noticed this about you the moment I first came on staff here 13 years ago. We learned very quickly that Redland has never “played” at being a church. It’s members never just go through the motions. Don’t get me wrong. We’re far from perfect. But it seems to me that the pillars of this church-the main core of this body of believers-has always sought God’s will as to what He wants them to do and that’s one of the reasons it is so fulfilling to attend here.
Perhaps we are this way because due to the pace of life around here and the fact that most of our members only live here a few years-we don’t have time to mess around but I sincerely believe if this church had one voice, we could look back over its history and hear it say again and again, “Tell us what to do God and we’ll do it.” In fact, every fall that’s exactly what we have said to God. Our church council and staff have gone away for a weekend retreat to ask for God’s guidance in the coming year and then to work and plan to accomplish it. Our special music this morning reminds me of these retreats because over the years we have indeed, “…prayed and prayed concerning God’s will, looking for guidance to see…” And, as is my custom at the beginning of a new year, this morning I want to take my sermon time to explain our VISION-those specific missions and ministries that we SEE God is leading us to accomplish in the coming months.
Now before we go any farther let me remind you exactly what VISION is. According to Bill Hybels-and I like his definition-a vision is,”…a picture of the future that produces passion.”
Well, my hope and prayer is that in the next 30 minutes or so I’ll be able to give you at least a mental picture of our future as a church that will ignite YOUR passion a reference point for us to all excitedly steer toward as a local body of believers.
Now to IGNITE our passion one thing I think we must remember is the fact that what we do as a local church MATTERS in our world. What we do as CHRISTIANS makes a real difference. In fact no other human organization even comes close to having the positive impact on humanity that we do. In his book Courageous Leadership, Bill Hybels talks about this. Referring to Washington, D.C. where most of us work he said,
“What I discovered was not how powerful those people are, but how limited their power really is. All they can do is rearrange the yard markers on the field of life. They can’t change a human heart. They can’t heal a wounded soul. They can’t turn hatred into love. They can’t bring about repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, peace. They can’t get to the core problem! Businessmen can provide sorely needed jobs. Wise educators can teach useful knowledge of the world. Self-help programs can offer effective methods of behavior modification. Advanced psychological techniques can aid self-understanding. And all this is good, but can any of it truly transform the human heart? I believe that only one power exists on this sorry planet that can do that. It’s the power of the love of Jesus Christ-the love that conquers sin and wipes out shame and heals wounds and reconciles enemies and patches broken dreams and ultimately changes the world one life at a time. And what grips my heart every day is the knowledge that the radical message of that transforming love has been given to the church.
This means the future of the world rests in the hands of local congregations like yours and mine. It’s the church or it’s lights out. Without churches so filled with the power of God that they can’t help but spill goodness and peace and love and joy into the world, depravity will win the day; evil will flood the world. But it doesn’t have to happen that way. Strong, growing communities of faith can turn the tide of history.”
Do you understand what Hybels is saying here? He’s saying that we are on the front lines people, because we are the body of Christ-we the flesh He is using to accomplish His eternal purposes.
With Him as our head what we do always makes a difference-a difference that no other human organization even comes close to making. Does that basic fact ignite your passion? It does mine!
The truth is there is nothing you can do in this life that will have more significance than serving in a local church!
You know, back when I was an “immature minister,” fresh out of seminary, just starting in my first church-well, back then I used to think that I’d serve in local churches for a few years but then I’d get a job in the “upper” levels of our denomination. I mean, I mistakenly assumed that was where the important earth-shaking stuff happened. I thought that was where the action was. Well, I was wrong! In fact, today you couldn’t pay me enough to work in the convention office in Columbia or even in Nashville. Those guys do some good stuff but they’re way behind the “front lines.” They’re just the support system. They just supply us with the things we need. We-right here-we are where the action is! And I know this is prideful, I think Redland is at the FRONT of the front lines! And since I feel this way, this is where I want to be until God calls me home! I mean, every day that I serve here I feel like I’m in the 82nd Airborne parachuting behind enemy lines on D-Day. Due to our location we have opportunities as a church to do things of incredible significance! I hope and pray you realize this fact-I hope this thought gives you goose-bumps-that it makes you want to jump out of bed every morning and get to it! What we do here MATTERS!
Now before we “get to it”-when it comes to this next year, let me remind you once again WHY we do what we do here at Redland…why we worship, why we study God’s Word, why we minister to physical needs and spiritual needs, what it is that makes our fellowship here so sweet-AND HERE IT IS…here’s your reminder! It is our mutual experience of the unmerited GRACE of God! You see, in this church we know that Jesus died for us-and so there isn’t anything-ANYTHING-we wouldn’t do for Him! We are literally DRIVEN by the Grace of God. It’s the WHY behind every WHAT that we do. It’s the rocket engine that propels us forward as we steer ourselves to the center of God’s will. We understand the lyrics from the old hymn, “Love so amazing-so divine-DEMANDS my heart, my life, my all!” We are a GRACE-DRIVEN church for a GRACE-NEEDING world. We must never forget that. Our THEME VERSE is 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 where Paul writes,”For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died. And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him Who died for them and was raised again.” Let’s say it together.
Okay, what is Grace propelling us to do in the coming year? To help you remember the answers to this question, I’ve organized everything according to our GRACE acronym. I’ve even printed them in the bulletin and I want you to put it in your Bibles or on your refrigerators so you can easily find it and SEE where we are headed this year. Take your copy now and follow along with me.
1. First, this year God’s amazing grace is driving us to continue to strive to GROW in the love of the Christ-which as you know is another word for DISCIPLESHIP.
You see, understanding what Jesus did for us, inspires us to want to learn to be more and more like Him and the way we teach ourselves to do this is by studying His written Word. As David reminds us in Psalm 119:9 “How shall a young man keep his way pure? By living according to Your Word.” And as Paul says in 2nd Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” I believe that the success of our church stems from how well we do this first task. I mean, the more each of us grow as disciples of Jesus-the more mature and empowered we will become-the greater things we will be able to do for the Kingdom of God.
Now, the good news is wonderful things are already happening when it comes to discipleship at Redland. Last fall’s Purpose Driven Life campaign was a great success. We’re still talking about all the things God taught us during those special 40 days. And-Sunday School attendance is up across the board. You may remember that this was one of last year’s Vision Sunday goals and we’re reaching it thanks to the hard work of Al Uy and our teachers. Men’s ministry is back again thanks to the leadership of Matt Starost. We’ve already had our first monthly prayer breakfast and have made plans to go to a Promise Keepers rally this spring. Plus we’re starting a men’s small group study each Thursday at Matt’s house.
And speaking of Small Groups-this new ministry that came out of the 40 days is already beginning to grow. Our Ladies are continuing to set the example for us in this with five groups studying the Bible together each Tuesday. And, other small groups have formed including a group of 12 men who are meeting Saturday mornings to study Hybels’ book on leadership that I quoted from a moment ago. I think we’ll see small groups continue to pop up thanks to the experienced experts in Small Group ministry that God has given us in the form of Ken and Deb Vaughn. So, discipleship looks good-but there are more things I believe God is calling us to do this year.
- First, I think He wants us to figure out how to offer special undated discipleship classes during the Sunday School hour without hindering the regular classes.
- Second, I believe He wants us to be more intentional when it comes to tracking how our people are progressing spiritually.
I mean, we need to be able to see if we are making progress in growing disciples.
- Third, I think God wants us to offer an annual church-wide campaign similar to the 40 days, where we study a book together as a church and compliment that study with daily devotions and worship services geared to the topic.
Now, the problem is all these new discipleship opportunities require leadership. Thankfully, Bill Wehunt has agreed to come back on as chair of our Christian Ed committee to fill that need. But this is a temporary fix. I believe in order for us to do all God has called us to do in this area we will have to add another full-time minister to our staff. And to that end our finance committee has included three months of salary and benefits in this year’s budget. Our church council is formulating a job description and title but I hope to have this person here by the fall. Okay-let’s move on and look at what I believe God’s grace is driving us to do when it comes to…
2. …REACHING in the name of Christ-which is another word for EVANGELISM.
You see, as Christians here at Redland-as people who have experienced the grace of God-we know that without a personal relationship with Jesus people are separated from Him now and destined to be separated from Him for all eternity in Hell. This knowledge compels us to do everything we can to get the good news of the gospel to more and more people so that they can have an opportunity to respond. I mean our experience of God’s grace leads us to say with the Apostle Paul,”I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Corinthians 9:22) Grace makes us take seriously our Lord’s command to be “His witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the utter most parts of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)
Now, I think we are doing a great job when it comes to getting the gospel to the “utter most parts of the earth.” I mean we give to cooperative missions and special missions offerings; we provide funds for missionaries like the Machlans and the Loveladys and the Youngs, and the Lengles, etc. We provide a house where missionaries can live free of charge when they are home on furlough. We go on mission trips every summer-and we’re going to keep on doing those things.
We’re sending a team to work with a little church in Oriental, Mexico July 24-31. This will be the third of a three year partnership commitment we have with this church. Bob Michael will lead this team again-and he and I are praying-seeking God’s will as to whether or not we should continue our partnership with this church in future years. We’ll also be sending a team back up to New Hampshire which Bill Wehunt will once again lead. By the way, we continue to hear reports from their new pastor, Bob Hunt, as to all the ways our time with them has born fruit for the kingdom in that resort community. Pastor Hunt has commented several times that he frequently looks out on his congregation each Sunday and sees entire families that have joined as a direct result of our mission trip work with them last year. And, that little church is really growing! In fact, they have now sponsored their own church start an hour north of Conway.
This year we will also continue our partnership with the new church start in Milford, Delaware, where Patrick Lengel serves as pastor. We have included them in our budget and will be looking for several weekend opportunities for us to go and work with them spreading the gospel, through car washes, prayer walks, canvasing, etc. And then we will once again send a mission trip team either to Romania or Kenya August 6-17. Jack Murray will head the team and at this point we’re trying to decide where we should go since we have invitations to both places. But, when we finalize our mission trip plans in a couple weeks we’ll set aside a Sunday for you to commit to join one of these teams.
So-as you can see we’ve got a lot to be proud of when it comes to sharing the gospel beyond our “borders.”
But the truth is we have a long way to go when it comes to sharing the Gospel effectively WITHIN THEM-here in Montgomery County. And one tool that I think will help us to improve in this is RECREATION. I mean, it seems to me that families in our county are very open to being involved in sports. You see, with their hectic lifestyle sports allows them to kill two birds with one stone-provide wholesome fun for their kids and be with them at the same time. In fact I would like us to consider hiring an intern to work for three months a year supervising this type of evangelistic ministry. Perhaps we could find a school teacher who has the summer off who would want to do this.
And the first thing I would like them to do is help us start an UPWARDS BASKET BALL program. Sue and I heard about this when we attended a conference in Nashville earlier this year and it really excited us because it is geared to sharing the plan of salvation in every practice and game. In fact, our new Rec Committee chair, S. L. Bradley and I are taking a crew of potential leaders to the Upwards Basketball clinic that will be held in Greensboro, North Carolina May 14, 15. If you’d like to go, let us know. Here’s a CLIP OF UPWARDS BASKETBALL 00:00-04:28
I think you can begin to see how things like Upwards will give us opportunities to share our faith with the people of our county.
But to help you be READY for these opportunities I think we need further training.
You see, the sad truth is too many of us never reproduce ourselves spiritually. We don’t take advantage of the divine appointments that God gives us usually because we don’t know HOW. And this year I want us to change that-I want us to educate ourselves as to how to share our faith whenever we are given the opportunity to do so. Charlie Brinkman, the chair of our Outreach and Evangelism committee has agreed to be the point person in this. To equip himself for this task he is attending the “How To Become a Contagious Church” seminar in San Jose, California this weekend. When he returns he intends on taking a group of Redlanders to this same conference March 26-27 when it is held in Richmond. Charlie will also be teaching an “RBC401 class” that will be offered several times each year and will train people how be relational evangelists.
As I told you last week, one God-given opportunity we will have very soon to share our faith is through the upcoming Mel Gibson movie, The Passion. Here’s a clip.
CLIP – THE PASSION – 8.5 minutes or so…
Now this movie has already gotten a lot of press. In fact there’s a lot of “tension” about this film.
Many people say it blames the Jews for Jesus’ crucifixion or that it encourages intolerance of other faiths. Well that’s good, because whenever you have TENSION, you automatically have ATTENTION. This spring-thanks to the tension surrounding this film People will be focusing their attention on the cross-they’re going to come out of this movie with questions. And like Philip approaching that Ethiopian eunuch who was reading from Isaiah, we need to be ready to come up to them and say things like, “Do you understand what you’ve just seen?”
Then to help them understand what they’ve seen-to help them find the answers to their questions I want you to invite them to a sermon series that I’m doing that is based on the film. The series is called: “True or False.” It begins March 21 and here’s the topics we’ll deal with:
TRUE or FALSE: Was Jesus the Son of God? Is He the Only Way to Heaven? Did He Die for Our Sins? Did He Rise From the Dead? I challenge you to make plans NOW to invite non-Christian friends to go with you to the movie. Then urge them to join us for this series. Go home and get on Fandango and order your tickets! By the way we’re also sending out 10,000 invitations to people in our community so many of them will know about this film and the sermon series! Okay-this brings us to the “A” in our GRACE acronym which stands for…
3. …AFFIRM in the Body of Christ – or FELLOWSHIP.
Now, we do have a wonderful fellowship don’t we! People who come to my RBC101 class always comment on how friendly this place is and I think that too is because of our understanding of grace. I mean people who know they have experienced the grace of God always have a sweet fellowship because they know they are equally dependent on it. Grace makes us gracious-humble people. But, as I said earlier, we’re doing new things like SMALL GROUPS this year to help our fellowship grow even stronger.
And another “fellowship grower” that I’m excited about is our new SHOPP-“Sweet Hour Of Prayer Power” ministry. 68 of you have committed to pray one hour a week for our church’s ministry and mission. Frank Coffman is heading this up-and I know it will not only help our ministry and mission but also our fellowship because people who pray for the same things enjoy a special bond-a unique closeness. If you haven’t joined this ministry I urge you to do so.
And then the “biggie” this year when it comes to fellowship is going to be our new building-as we make plans as to how to improve this structure where we meet to enjoy fellowship. One of our goals last year was to hire an architect to give us a master building plan for our property and we’ve done that. In fact I want to show you his preliminary drawings.
SLIDES-WALK THROUGH OF NEW BUILDING PLANS.
Bill Wehunt is chairing our futuring committee and they are working with the Steve Newton, the architect from LifeWay. Soon we will bring more complete drawings to you for your input and approval. Then we’ll have to start talking about how to raise the funds for our first phase, which I hope we are able to start within three years.
Now, I want you to note that, with the new 800 seat sanctuary, this plan calls for us to adopt a new philosophy of church growth. I say this because years ago we said that we would grow to 800 or 1000 and just use our current sanctuary multiple times…any larger and we would start a new church. But I for one have changed my thinking on that. You see Montgomery County-ites don’t look favorably on new church starts. They aren’t interested in meeting in a garage or store front for church. They come here-usually for only a few years and they want a church that can meet their needs a church with youth ministry and children’s ministry and music ministry. They’ll drive vast distances to attend a church like that. So I feel to “be all things to all people” means we need to be that kind of church. Any new church starts we do should be outside our area-in places like Milford, New Hampshire, etc. But it’s going to take us a while to build this new sanctuary that is part of phase 3, so that means we may have to consider adding a third worship service, which means a second Sunday School of some form-another reason for a new staff member.
I know that sounds like a lot of work and like a lot of money-and it will be-but I believe if we are to reach the people God has called us to reach, we need to be willing to do this. Okay let’s move on to talk briefly about a fourth type of work God’s grace drives us to do, namely…
4. Care in the Nature of Christ (Ministry)
And there are several ministries we will be involved in. One Saturday each month we’ll continue our responsibilities of preparing the meals at the St. Martin’s soup kitchen. Bill and Roberta will head that up again. Another Saturday we’ll be at the new Habitat for Humanity House in Poolesville that we helped fund. And we’ll continue our partnership with Baptist Family and Children’s Services as one of their anchor churches. By the way their director, Bob Gerstmeyer tells me that our church is the second highest giver to his ministry of all the churches in our two state convention. Our youth will once again be going to World Changers July 10-17 in Greenville, South Carolina. For you who don’t know, World Changers is a program through which hundreds of teens and adults work to build or repair homes for those who can’t afford to do so themselves. We are also going to be doing “BABY BOTTLE CAMPAIGNS” this year for the crisis pregnancy centers in our area. The idea is you fill plastic baby bottles with spare change and cash and these funds go to help these centers fight to preserve the Sanctity of Human life. We are doing this twice-right now for the Shady Grove center and in the fall for the Rockville center.
One NEW ministry opportunity we have this year is to work with our own Jessica Marshall in preparing special Easter baskets for the residents of one of the local mental health facilities. In coming weeks Jessica will be providing us with lists of the kinds of things to go into these baskets and then around Easter we’ll deliver them!
Okay, the last part of this VISION-this goal to steer towards in the coming year-concerns WORSHIP…
5. or…Exalting in the Name of Christ.
Now, I’ve already mentioned several things that will affect worship in the coming year such as our willingness to start a new service if need be but another thing I want to announce is that-to help us be the church God has called us to be I’m going to be doing a sermon study series of the book of Acts. It will begin next week-and I’m doing this because I think the best place to learn to do great things for the Kingdom of God is to study the way the very first church did. So bring your Bibles next week ready to get to work! This is going to be a long study-it may take most of this year but I feel led to do so.
One other aspect of worship that I need to mention is STEWARDSHIP. And I want to begin by telling you how proud I am at the way you give. For several years now we have not had to limit ministry because of your faithful giving. In fact this past year you OVER-subscribed the budget by nearly $10K! We had a surplus of nearly $60K! But I want you to note that this year’s budget is a large increase over last year-nearly $2,000 per week more. So to meet it-to do all God has called us to do-to fulfill His vision for this church-we will have to increase our giving.
I’ve mentioned a lot of things this morning and it may be a bit overwhelming but I truly believe we can do all this as long as we rely on the power of Jesus and all get involved. You see, the sad fact is the minority of the people in any church-even in awesome churches like ours do the majority of the work. So, if you’re part of the majority, switch sides! In fact I challenge those of you who aren’t really involved. You’re just on the bench, I challenge you to just DO ONE THING-be involved in one mission and one ministry. I guess that’s TWO things. But pick one ministry-Working in the nursery or teaching SS, working at the Habitat House, Easter baskets and one mission…lead a small group Bible study or go on a mission trip. If everyone did ONE of each of these types of things, we’d have to have waiting lists for each of them!
Invitation:
Now, I can think of no better Sunday for a Christian who is looking for a church home to attend because today you have heard exactly what kind of church God is calling us to be. If after hearing all this, you feel God leading you to join us in fulfilling this vision, then we invite you to walk forward during our closing hymn and ask to move your membership here. Others of you attending this morning may not be Christians and you are seeking purpose and meaning in life. That is only found in a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. We invite you to make that decision this morning and to share it with us. Won’t you come as we sing? And then I also want to invite any of you who so desire to just come to the altar and pray this morning-pray and ask God how He wants you to be involved. Let’s all respond right now as God leads.