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How your giving changed the world in 2012!

January 23, 2013 By Leave a Comment

2012Dear Friend,

The other day I was sitting with someone at our Monday night Church in a Diner and he said to me, “I haven’t been in church for forty years, but I really like what’s going on here.”  Wow!  Thank you, God!  This middle-aged man was invited by a neighbor who is also new to SCC and has been attending Church in a Diner.  One new person invited another new person.  This made my night.  Another evening I sat with a young man in my office who wanted to share some good news with me.  His wife had been praying for him for many years.  He had just had a “God experience” and was ready to commit his life to Christ.  Whoa!  That news made my month!  Then I got a call from someone who has attended our church somewhat sporadically.  He was an older man who was experiencing some pretty significant bumps in life.  He didn’t see much need for Jesus before these bumps, but when the turbulence hit, he was looking for anything solid to hang on to.  He reached out to Jesus and found a firm foundation.  Amazing!  Thank you, God!

People are finding Sycamore Creek Church a place where they encounter the compassion of God and it changes their lives.  They come curious about God because of something creative we’re doing, and they meet Jesus in the life of our community together.

I want you to know that your giving makes possible environments where people encounter God.  Your giving this year has had a significant impact:

  • We received $3800 in our Christmas Eve offering for Nicaragua and $800 in our alternative gift fair.  That’s $4600 to put a dent of God’s compassion in Nicaragua through our medical missions!
  • Our capital campaign has received $268,993 in two years.  We’ve paid off the mortgage on the parsonage, finished the basement, set aside 10% for a missions tithe, and saved the rest for a building.  We’re on pace for our total pledged amount of $366,137!
  • We’ve expanded our worship opportunities by offering a Monday night Church in a Diner at Grumpy’s Diner that is averaging about fifty to sixty people a night, most of them new to SCC!
  • Since October we’ve seen total attendance growth across both venues in the 30% range!  This growth has spilled over into Sunday morning as well.  Five of the last six months have seen growth on Sunday morning!  We are reaching new people and inviting them into the adventure of following Jesus.

While there is much good news to celebrate, there are some significant obstacles still before us in 2013.  While attendance in the second half of the year is up, giving has gone down.  We received $287,554 in 2011 and $245,789 in 2012, a 14% decrease, and we are projecting receiving $228,000 in 2013.  This has forced us to act creatively with less money.  In this context ideas like Church in a Diner were born.  It isn’t impossible to reach new people with less money as our attendance figures show.  I give thanks to God for your continued generosity.  Would you consider taking a step of further generosity in 2013?

  1. If you give but not regularly, would you consider giving a regular weekly/monthly amount?
  2. If you give regularly but you’re not tithing (10%), is God calling you to step up to tithing?
  3. If you tithe, is God calling you to radical generosity by giving 15-20% or more or by giving to a designated special giving (DSG) item listed on the back of this letter?

Thank you for following Jesus with everything you’ve got, money included.  Together we’ll ignite authentic life in Christ in more and more people and fan it into an all consuming flame!

Peace,
Pastor Tom

P.S. The best way I know how to do any of the three suggestions above is to automate the process either through EFT or setting up a regular check to be mailed through your online banking. Then you give faithfully even when you can’t always make it to worship.  Included is an EFT form for your convenience.

 

Designated Special Giving (DSG)

Below are listed various opportunities to touch people’s lives.  A particular opportunity just might catch hold of your heart, imagination, or spirit, and God won’t let it get out of your mind.  Would you prayerfully look over the list below and consider whether God is calling you to give to one of these DSG opportunities?  DSG is an above-and-beyond giving opportunity, above and beyond other commitments you’ve made to the church such as your annual Commitment Sunday pledge, your 20 Years Deep Capital Campaign pledge, or your commitment to Dr. Mir in Nicaragua.  If you can’t give the total amount listed, don’t feel like you can’t contribute.  Perhaps God will speak to five other people too, and their total giving meets the need or opportunity.  Take some time to consider DSG alongside your current giving, and watch what God will do in the coming weeks and months!

  • Main Projection Screen ($1,400 – $981 already given) – Help communicate the gospel effectively and excellently.  Our current screen is showing significant age.
  • Youth Ministry Intern ($5000) – We’d like to hire a college student as a year-round youth intern to help our youth go deeper in God’s grace.
  • Nursery Gates ($100) – Keeps kids safe and helps parents worship with peace of mind.  Makes our current nursery setup easier.
  • Floor Mats for the Nursery ($40) – Makes a clean soft place for kids to play.
  • Leadership Training ($300) – Conferences, workshops and coaching help our paid and unpaid staff continue to improve their craft and reach new people for Christ.
  • Signage ($100 to $2000) – We’re working on a new office sign, street signs, signs going into Lansing Christian School, and signs inside LCS that show our new logo and improve visibility.  Signs create and communicate our identity to the community.
  • Percussion Shaker ($30) – Adds more variety to the sound of our music and creates an environment where people can go deeper in God’s grace through worship music.
  • Guitar ($1000) – The guitar the church owns has significant wear and tear over the years.  A new guitar would add excellence to the music of our church which creates an environment for people to encounter God.
  • Nicaragua Meds ($2000) – We send medical teams to Nicaragua twice a year to share God’s compassion.  A huge expense that pays significant dividends in health is medicine.  Many maladies can be simply treated with the appropriate meds.
  • Coffee Shop Appreciation Gift Cards ($5) – A small gift card to a coffee shop can go a long way in showing appreciation to and retaining volunteers.
  • Member Care Training ($8000) – We are exploring bringing in John Savage several times over the next year.  Savage is a consultant we have worked with before who specializes in member care through training in listening skills.  This would help us expand our capacity for showing compassion within our community and help retain people when they experience bumps in life and the church.

If you would like to give to one or more of these Designated Special Giving opportunities, simply drop a check in the offering bag and write “DSG” and the name of the DSG (i.e. “DSG: New Screen”).

 

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Creative

September 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Church on the Move

Church on the MOVE – Creative
Sycamore Creek Church
September 16, 2012
Guest Preacher:  Mark Aupperlee
John 1:14-18 , John 3:16-18  

Good morning!  My name is Mark, and I’m a volunteer here at Sycamore Creek Church.  I started attending at Sycamore Creek a little over six years ago, and pretty quickly I got involved with volunteering here by helping with set up in the morning.  Actually, I’m still on a set up crew.  Join me on the first Sunday of each month.  It only takes about 45 minutes.  After a while, I also got involved in a small group.  Then I became a member of our church.  Then I started leading a small group.  Then I became a leader of all the small groups and joined the leadership of the church.  Then I started giving messages on Sunday mornings!  Phew.  It’s been quite a journey.  I would love to tell you that all those things have been easy, but it hasn’t been easy and it’s still not easy.  It’s at times very hard. This summer, in the midst of a time when things were difficult, I asked myself, “Why?  Why am I doing this?  It’s hard!!”

In that moment of crisis I realized with incredible clarity that the reason I participate, volunteer, and lead in our church has to do with the type of Jesus-following community we’re trying to be.  The type of culture we’re working to create.  I’ve encountered, experienced, and grown in my relationship with God in incredible ways through Sycamore Creek Church . . . and I want to be a part of offering that to others.  I want other people to be blessed through this church, through the community we’ve created, the way I have.  I am firmly committed to the church that we are, and the church we can be: Curious, Creative, Compassionate.  I am committed to the difficult work of continuing to be part of a creative community.

I define creativity as three things: “to imagine, experiment and make things happen.”

Living this out is difficult.  Trying new things and being willing to hold loosely to the way things are is work.  We tend to want the familiar, the same, the comfortable.  You’ll notice comfortable isn’t one of the three words we think characterizes our church.  As people, we will drift toward “the way we do things” because it’s the “way we’ve always done it,” and we’ll drift toward routine and ritual.  Those things are comfortable.  Trying new things, being creative isn’t.  And in the midst of being creative, that experimenting part of creativity, some of our new things won’t work.  Being creative is a willingness to fail.  As a church, we believe we are “creative in all we do.”  We imagine, we experiment, and we make things happen.  This morning I’ll explore the basis for that and how we’re doing it.

When I was in high school I was not very creative, especially when it came to girls.  I was an awkward high schooler with no idea what I was doing with girls.  I didn’t know how to be creative.  I had imagination!  I did make some attempts to try different approaches, to experiment to “make things happen,” but it never worked out too well.  My senior year I met and started hanging out with this wonderful girl.  Her name was Jana.  I really liked Jana, but I had no idea what to do about it.  Well, then one night at a basketball game we got asked by a friend if we were dating.  Oh boy.  Here was a chance for creative thinking.  I could work this to my advantage!  Or not.  Being the wimp I was, I asked Jana afterward, “What did you think of what our friend asked about us dating?” (That was a relationship punt!) Well, thankfully Jana had more creativity than I did and more guts.  She fielded my punt and creatively gave the ball back to me.  She experimented and said, “I’m interested if you’re interested.”  On the outside, I was calm and cool in the face of that phrase and I responded, “I’m interested. Let’s date!”  On the inside I was doing a celebratory dance! (I won’t subject you to my bad dancing . . . picture good dancing in your mind.)  “I’m interested if you’re interested.” I can’t tell you how much I love that phrase!!  Jana essentially said to me, “I’m interested, are you?”  She made the first move and I just had to respond.

That story connects with me because it’s the beginning of an important relationship for me.  It’s part of the love story in my life.  My guess is that in some way it plucks at each one of you. It may make you smile.  It may bring up memories for you.  It may bring up longings.  That’s because within each of us is a desire for love.  It’s a desire that leads us into romantic relationships.  It’s a desire that draws together families.  It’s a desire that drives friendships.  And it’s a wonderful desire.  But it’s one that keeps us hunting.  We never quite get enough from those relationships.  Those relationships always are messy.  There is always this feeling that there must be something more.

That’s because there is.

The Bible tells us that in the beginning we were created to be in a relationship with God.  And in the beginning we were in that relationship.  Then Adam and Eve, the first humans, made a move away from God in disobedience and distrust and the relationship was broken.  It’s a decision that was made then and echoes still today as we make that choice ourselves.  Throughout the first part of the Bible, the Old Testament, God reaches out to people.  He cultivates a relationship with a person, Abraham, that develops into a people, Israel.  And those people continually disappoint him.  God works through judges, kings, and prophets, continually trying to woo people back to him.  The problem is, none of it really works.  There continues to be this broken relationship with God that leaves people without true life.  There continues to be something missing.

Then in the New Testament God completely changes everything.  Let’s read about it in John 1.

Two quick things before we talk more about this Scripture.  First, a quick clarification about some of the language.  John loves this “word.”  Word!  What or who is Word? . . .  Jesus!  John also loves his “light.”  What or who is light?  . . . Jesus!

Second, a lot of you may have read or heard this scripture before.  Don’t shut down on me and presume you know what I’m going to talk about.  Allow yourself to have fresh ears and a fresh mind.

The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.  Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out.

There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.

The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.

John pointed him out and called, “This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word.”

We all live off his generous bounty,
gift after gift after gift.
We got the basics from Moses,
and then this exuberant giving and receiving,
This endless knowing and understanding—
all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.
No one has ever seen God,
not so much as a glimpse.
This one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
who exists at the very heart of the Father,
has made him plain as day.
John 1:18, 14-18 (The Message) 

There are two things we learn about creativity from this story.  First, that creativity is rooted in the past, the familiar.  John starts his book the same way Genesis starts, “In the beginning.”  He uses the roots of the past, imagery that the people of his day would have been very familiar with.  They’ve heard about God as creator.  They know the story of God’s relationship with people.  John weaves in these familiar elements of creator and the relationship with God and goes on to talk about Moses and the law.  John draws on the familiar, the known, to bring out a radical new truth.

We live in an often rootless culture, in that everything is about right now.  We don’t always appreciate the past and the roots it can provide.  If you wanted to tell someone what it means to be an American, what would you do?  You can start with what’s currently happening, but at some point you’d need to build upon our past.  You’d at least go back to tell about how we got our independence.  You’d tell about how we were formed as a nation and about the threats our nation has faced, the wars we’ve fought, the disagreements and injustices we’ve endured, and then you’d build to the present and the future.  In order to talk about the new truth of what it means to be an American, you need to acknowledge our roots, our past.  John taps into this to start his book.  He uses the familiar, the roots of who the people are and the past they know, to introduce a radical new truth.

The second thing from John 1 is that we are introduced to a radical new truth.  What’s that radical new truth?  That God became one of us!!  As verse 14 says, he moved into the neighborhood!!  Wow!  This is like no other God, ever.  This should blow our minds!  This is CREATIVE!!  The God who is CREATOR, who created creativity, became one of us.  He brought His love to us.  He didn’t just wait for us to come to Him, but He made the first move on our behalf.  Look at other world religions and there is no other God like this.  This is the only God who became a person and sacrificed and humbled Himself on our behalf.

From our perspective, this seems unimaginable, doesn’t it?  To become a baby!  A tiny, needy  baby!  To live as one of us!  To DIE for us!  To offer us unconditional love and grace!  Sending Jesus to the world is sometimes called the New Testament gamble because it is so creative, so different than any other religion or God, and it seems crazy.  At times this whole concept is so crazy, so mind-blowing that we gloss over it and put it into a neat little box.  It’s so hard to get our heads wrapped around the mystery of it, that we don’t fully appreciate it.

This mystery, this incredible thing of God becoming one of us, why did He do that?  What was the reason?

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.
John 3:16-18 (The Message) 

God is essentially saying to each of us: “I’m interested, are you?”  He makes the first move on our behalf to make the relationship right, so that we might have whole and lasting life.  We’re living in brokenness and God offers us a way out.

So, there are two things or ideas we get from these passages:

  1. The new always is rooted in the past.
  2. The God of creativity loves us in unimaginable ways.

All too often, this message of God’s love for us doesn’t reach us.  We might get it up here, we might know the words, we might even be able to talk about it, but we don’t KNOW it to be true.

I’ve given you words and some thoughts that engage your mind.  We’ve heard this too many times though.  That second point is often words on a screen, a speaker talking, or words on a page.  We may be able to repeat them and know them, but we don’t really experience those words to be part of our reality.  I have a video that I hope will help us experience what unimaginable love is.  In this video there is a dad who loves his son in unimaginable ways.

Here’s an introduction to what you’re about to watch:

“A son asked his father, ‘Dad, will you take part in a marathon with me?’ The father, despite having a heart condition, said ‘Yes’.  They went on to complete the marathon together. Father and son went on to join other marathons, the father always saying ‘Yes’ to his son’s request of going through the race together.

One day, the son asked his father, ‘Dad, let’s join the Ironman together.’ To which, his father said ‘Yes’ too.

For those who don’t know, the IRONMAN is the toughest triathlon ever. It takes place in Hawaii.  The race encompasses three endurance events of a 2.4 mile ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, and ending with a 26.2 mile marathon along the coast of the Big Island.  Father and son went on to complete the race together.”

The son in that video was born with cerebral palsy.  When his dad runs and swims and bikes with him, the son feels normal.  What a gift from that father!  It should remind you of the gift you’ve been given.  The gift of Jesus Christ that allows you to be whole again and to have a restored relationship with God.  Through Jesus Christ God says to us, “I’m interested, are you?”

At SCC we know that love of God and God’s love is the foundation for who we are as a church:  Curious, creative, and compassionate.  We know God’s love and we seek to share it with the world.   We use this word creative because it not only reflects who we are and who we are trying to be, but it also reflects the God whose love we trust in ourselves and share with others.

I’ve been building toward this main point:  At Sycamore Creek Church we are creative in all we do because God was creative first.  Ultimately, God’s creativity, His creation, is about us being in a right relationship with Him.  Creativity reflects our creator.  But honestly, being creative as a church doesn’t matter at all, it’s not even worth doing, if it doesn’t point us as a church and others outside the church toward God.  We can’t separate creativity from the creator.

How are we doing that at SCC?  How are we sharing creatively God’s love?

It’s a two-part process that involves loving God and loving others through staying true to our roots, our past as a church, while undertaking that creative process of imagining, experimenting, and making it happen.

At Sycamore Creek Church we have a mission: To ignite authentic life in Christ.  We not only ignite life in Christ though, we also fan and grow the flame of life in Christ.  We do that through a three-part process: Connecting, Growing, and Serving.  We associate connecting at SCC with our worship services.  They are how most people get connected with our church and with God.  We associate growing and serving with small groups.

Looking at those two areas, worship services and small groups, you can see how we are creative in sharing God’s love.  Those two areas are rooted in who we are as a church, they have stayed true to that mission of igniting authentic life in Christ, but they also have changed.  We have taken some risks and tried some new things with worship services and small groups.  We will continue to do that.  If you want to come back here in 50 years and have everything about the way this church operates the same, you are in the wrong church!  God is unchanging, but our world, God’s creation, changes.  We will creatively change too so that we might be more effective in sharing God’s love with others.

First, small groups.  We have not that long ago made an effort to link our small groups with mission.  We imagined a community where we are outwardly focused, where we are not just sending money out to meet needs, but we are going out ourselves and involved with the community.  This is rooted in our church having a culture of mission and going out to reach new people with God’s love.  Now we are experimenting with how that might work.  Our small groups have committed to a periodic mission that they do throughout the year during their small group time.  We think that when we do this, we creatively share the message from God, “I’m interested, are you?”  Our small groups still provide accountability, encouragement, prayer, and knowledge.  But we’re imagining that we could pair them with another value and passion in our church and we’ve been working to implement that.

Second, worship services.  One way we’re being creative in our worship services is through location.  We have a huge goal in creatively sharing God’s love with others and that is to offer worship services at 7 different places on 7 different days of the week.  That’s huge!  That’s way out there.  We have the imagination for that, but for now, we’ve been experimenting by focusing on adding one new location, Monday nights at Grumpy’s Diner.  We’re making it happen one venue at a time.  This change, this risk, this new thing is both an extension of our roots as a church plant, but it also mirrors our God who creatively came from heaven and went into our neighborhood.  We are taking our worship service outside this building and bringing it to a neighborhood.  It’s both a part of who we are as a church, and it’s also a new direction.  We’ve imagined it, and now we’re experimenting to make it happen.  Through the satellites we are creatively sharing God’s love with the Lansing area!

At SCC we are a church that looks around us and we see that something is missing.  We recognize that need, that thirst for God’s love.  We see it in each other and in the people around us, and we seek to creatively share God’s love.  Jesus, the personification of love said to come to Him and never be thirsty.  We are committed to being creative because God was creative in His love of us.  We practice creativity by staying true to who we are as a church and as followers of Christ, rooted in the past, but with the flexibility and the courage to imagine and to try new things so that more people might encounter and experience and ultimately worship God.  Through our actions, we bring the message of God and His love to people: “I’m interested, are you?”

I guess the final question is: “I’m interested, are you?

 

Questions for Small Groups

Each week we provide discussion questions for small groups that meet regularly to discuss the message for the week.  Want to find a small group to join?  Email Mark Aupperlee – m_aupperlee@hotmail.com.

1.  Describe a time when trying something new worked or didn’t work.
2.  Have you ever creatively shared God’s love with someone?  How did it go?  If you haven’t, why not?
3.  Read John 3:16-18.  What do those verses tell you about God’s love?
4.  How can the small group pray for you to creatively share God’s love?

 

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Mixin It Up – Mission Sunday

March 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mixin It Up

Mixin It Up – Mission Sunday
Sycamore Creek Church
March 27, 2011
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

Over the last several months we’ve been mixin it up: putting together missions and small groups.  Each small group has been working to explore various mission opportunities in our community, and then seeking to make a commitment to one of them.  This hasn’t been an easy task, and we probably didn’t give the small groups quite enough time to complete it, so today we’ll be exploring and celebrating the mixin thus far, and come our spring Vision Meeting, we’ll be looking to make some more concrete commitments.

So we’re mixin up mission and small groups.  How can we mix it up any more than we already have?  Today I’d like to go back to our four week teaching series on the topic and mix it up backwards.  Yes.  Backwards.  We started with a basic recipe, went on to an incarnational (aka “God in the flesh in Jesus”) model, explored mission to vs. mission with, and ended with mission as justice.  Today I want to recap each of those messages but take the order backwards.  So let’s start with justice.

Justice

In the book of Amos we read about what makes God lose patience.  God shows Amos a vision:
Thus the Lord God showed me a cage of fruit,
He asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”
I said, “A cage of fruit.”
The Lord God said to me, “My people, Israel, have become fruitless;
I will not forgive them forever.”
Amos 8:2 (Tom’s Translation)

Yikes!  God will not forgive them forever!  What could possibly cause God to lose patience?  God loses patience because God’s people, the spiritual ones, the religious ones, the ones who should know better, are cheating the poor and trying to wring as much profit out of them as possible while ignoring their plight.  Thus, God shows Amos a vision of a basket (or cage) of ripe fruit because the time is ripe for judgment.

Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to this basic idea when he said, “Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”  Sycamore Creek Church, let’s not be a spiritually dying community.  Let’s make sure our personal lives and our community life together is one that brings justice to the poor.

Mission “to” vs. Mission “with”

So why show concern to the poor?  Because God calls us to be not just in mission to the poor but in mission with the poor.

We see both of these ideas in the famous passage found in Matthew chapter twenty-five.  Jesus tells a story about judgment day and what happens.  He says that when we did something to the least of these we did it to him.  Here we see both mission to and mission with.  I’ve underlined first mission to:  “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (Matthew 25:35-36, NRSV).

Now read it again and see the mission with:  “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,  I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

(Matthew 25:35-36, NRSV).  Do you see the difference?  This is perhaps the difference between “presents” and “presence.”  God isn’t just interested in out presents to people (though that is important) but also our presence with people.  Mission to is good.  But mission with is BETTER!

Jesus blazed the trail to mission with.  He came and gave us his presence, not just his presents from heaven.  John says, “So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us” (John 1:14, NLT).  And that bring us to an incarnational model of mission.

An Incarnational Model of Friendship

Incarnational?  “Carn” means flesh so “incarnational” means in the flesh.  God came in the flesh in the person of Jesus.  One paraphrase of John 1:14 says, the Word became flesh and “moved into the neighborhood.”  Or you might say, God became our friend in Jesus so that we might become friends with God.

Philippians 2:1-11 describes this well.  We don’t have time to look at this fully today, but if you read what is sometimes considered the oldest passage in the New Testament because it is a very very early church song, you will see that this incarnational model of friendship means that our friendship with the poor is other centered, proximity (close), emptying of self, risk taking, and finds its source in God’s power at work in our lives.

Maybe one of the moments I felt like I lived into this kind of incarnational model of friendship was when I volunteered at a boys club in the projects on the south side of Chicago.  Every Saturday I would go down with other Wheaton College students to take kids to the park to play.  Every Sunday I would join more students who ran a Sunday school class for these kids.  And every Wednesday I would go down with still more students for tutoring.  I developed a special relationship with two young men.  Their real names were Jeremy and Romerial but their nicknames were Squeaky and Nuke.

One Wednesday night as I sat on the floor in the hall of the school helping Squeaky and Nuke with their homework, I realized Squeaky was feeling my arm, gently rubbing it.  I looked down and he asked, “Why are some people white and some people black?”  Great question.  I paused to prepare my answer.  I was going to tell him what I thought at the time was the right answer.  That people had begun light skinned and as they migrated to warmer climates, their skin color darkened over time to be able to bear the intensity of the sun.  In other words, in my mind at the time, people had started out white and become black.

Before I had a chance to give my answer to Squeaky’s question, Nuke jumped in and said, “I know why.”  I said, “Tell us,” and he said, “Y’all lost your blackness!”  Whoa!  I realized in that moment of friendship through presence (not presents), of friendship through “moving” into a neighborhood that I most likely would never go into, that the way I saw the world was a very “white” way of seeing the world.  In that moment, Nuke helped me see something I had never seen and in that sense, come closer to Truth.

Basic Recipe

So how do we replicate this same kind of thing at SCC?  Well, in one sense SCC is itself a mission.  We exist to ignite authentic life in Christ by connecting and growing.  We are a mission to those who have spiritual needs to connect them to God and others and to grow in the character of Christ.  (Actually we all have spiritual needs don’t we!)  But in another sense SCC is on a mission.  We exist to ignite authentic life in Christ by serving, serving our church, our community, and our world.

This is a mission to both the “poor in spirit” (those who have spiritual needs) and the poor (those who are literally poor).  Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3, NRSV).  And in the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20, NRSV).

Ultimately this is all about friendship.  It’s about building friendships with those who have spiritual needs and physical needs.  It’s about following Jesus’ model of becoming friends with us so that we might become friends with God.  It’s about breaking out of our familiar friendships, the easy ones, the ones with people who are so very similar to us, and building friendships with people who are different than we are, who stretch us and draw us closer into the Truth.  Mixin It Up is about mixing our small groups and missions together so that small groups become a door into missions and missions become a door into small groups.  Why do we seek friendship with those who are in spiritual and physical need?  Because God first sought out friendship with each of us, each of us who is in spiritual and physical need.

Friends, let’s mix it up!

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Mixin It Up – Mixin in Justice

February 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mixin It Up

Mixin It Up – Mixin in Justice
Sycamore Creek Church
February 6, 2011
Tom Arthur
Amos 8:1-7

Peace, Friends!

Today we wrap up a four part sermon series called Mixin It Up. What are we mixin up?  We’re mixin up missions and small groups.  These are two things that sometimes we don’t think to put together.  Kind of like apples and cheese.  When I first saw someone put apples and cheese together to eat, I thought, “That’s disgusting.”  But then I gave it a try and was surprised at how good it tasted.  The same is often true of missions and small groups.  We keep them separate, but throughout the next two months, each small group will be meeting and doing some kind of mission project in the community.  The emphasis here is not so much on serving but on building friendships with the poor and poor in spirit.  Friendship is a give and take kind of thing.  We receive as much if not more than what we give.  And I’m not talking about just receiving the good feeling of serving.  I’m talking about the kinds of things you receive from friends.  Companionship.  Laughter.  Forgiveness.  Grace.  Salvation.

The first week we looked at a basic blueprint for how this was all going to work.  Then we looked at Jesus’ incarnation, coming in the flesh, as a model for what that friendship looks like.  Last week we looked at mission with vs. mission to.  Today we’re mixin in justice.  Missions as friendship with the poor and the poor in spirit is also about justice.  Let’s look to the book of Amos to understand how missions is an act of justice.

Amos 8:1-7 (NLT)

1 Then the Sovereign LORD showed me another vision. In it I saw a basket filled with ripe fruit. 2 “What do you see, Amos?” he asked.

I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”

Then the LORD said, “This fruit represents my people of Israel — ripe for punishment! I will not delay their punishment again. 3 In that day the riotous sounds of singing in the Temple will turn to wailing. Dead bodies will be scattered everywhere. They will be carried out of the city in silence. I, the Sovereign LORD, have spoken!”

4 Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample the needy! 5 You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless. You measure out your grain in false measures and weigh it out on dishonest scales. 6 And you mix the wheat you sell with chaff swept from the floor! Then you enslave poor people for a debt of one piece of silver or a pair of sandals.

7 Now the LORD has sworn this oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel : “I will never forget the wicked things you have done!

 

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

 

I love puns.  I hear the groans already.  Have you ever heard of the O. Henry Pun-Off?  It’s a contest between two people to see who can come up with the most puns about a topic.  Each person has three seconds to come up with a pun.  They go back and forth and back and forth until one can’t come up with a pun.  The winning round a few years ago was on the theme of dance and the winners came up with over 30 puns on dancing.  Here are my top ten (feel free to groan):

1.      You’re bouncing of the waltz on that.

2.      Do cows that are sick have moo-sick?

3.      If I was Canadian I’d be doing ball-eh?

4.      I’m a-ball-ed at that one.

5.      I don’t know if I con-go on.

6.      At the senior dance you need the right beverage.  It’s called a prom-enade.

7.      I’ve been working so hard I’d better put my ho-down.

8.      I’ve got to hip-hop off the stage.

9.      Dan’ce my best friend.

10.  All this talk about dancing makes me think, “I-rish dancing was part of this competition.”

Just in case that wasn’t enough, here’s one of my own:

These punsters gave us ten puns, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make us laugh. No pun in ten did.

Ughhhh….

Why all this talk about puns?  Because Amos tells a pun to get across his point about justice.  Did you catch it when we read Amos?  If not, here it is:

 

Amos 8:2 (NLT)

“What do you see, Amos?” [the LORD] asked.
I replied, “A basket full of ripe fruit.”
Then the LORD said, “This fruit represents my people of Israel — ripe for punishment!”

Ughhh….

It’s a little hard to translate this pun, so here’s how another translation does it:

Amos 8:2 (NIV)

“What do you see, Amos?” [the LORD] asked.
“A basket of ripe fruit,” I answered.
Then the Lord said to me, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.”

 

That’s right.  “Ughhh” because of the pun.  But even more, “Ughhh” because of the injustice.  What’s up with this?  Isn’t God slow to anger and abounding in love?  Apparently God’s patience also runs out.

If you read Amos over the next week, which I recommend (it’s only nine chapters long), you’ll come across four visions in chapters seven and eight.  The first two show God’s patience.  God shows Amos a vision of locusts that destroy the land and crops.  Then we read, “Then I said, ‘O Sovereign LORD, please forgive your people! Unless you relent, Israel will not survive, for we are only a small nation.’ So the LORD relented and did not fulfill the vision. ‘I won’t do it,’ he said” (Amos 7:2-3, NLT).  After this vision God shows Amos a vision of fire but relents on this one two.  Then we get past God’s patience.  God shows Amos a vision of a plumb line, a line that tells you whether something is straight.  It is a line of judgment.  God then says, “I will no longer ignore all their sins.”  And lastly Amos gets this vision of ripe fruit and God says, “I will not delay their punishment again.”  If the LORD is slow to anger, it does suggest that at some point God’s patience runs out.  What is it that could possibly cause God’s patience to run out?

The answer to this question is that Israel has oppressed the poor.

God says, “Listen to this, you who rob the poor and trample the needy!…Then you enslave poor people for a debt of one piece of silver or a pair of sandals. Now the LORD has sworn this oath by his own name, the Pride of Israel : “I will never forget the wicked things you have done!” (Amos 8:4-7, NLT).  In other words, they have “nickel and dimed” the poor.  This theme shows up over and over again in Amos.  God says, “They sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals—they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and push the afflicted out of the way…” (Amos 2:6-8, NRSV).  And then again, “Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on Mount Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy…” (Amos 4:1-2, NRSV).  And again, “You trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain…and push aside the needy in the gate” (Amos 5:10-12, NRSV).  Israel has neglected and even actively oppressed the poor among them.

But the wrong goes even deeper.  For it is the church people who do this!  This past week I did probably one of the most unchristian things I have done in a long time.  I went to the vigil on Monday night for the young people who died in a car accident this past Sunday.  It was a very very cold night.  I was bundled up as warmly as I could be.  It was a very moving vigil.  Somewhere over 200 youth were there to mourn and remember and pray for their fellow students.  Many of them were woefully underdressed.

After the vigil was over, I saw one of our church members, Erin Umpstead, who is a teacher at Holt High School.  As we were talking one of her students came up to her and showed her the frost bite on her hands.  She wasn’t wearing any gloves.  No hat.  She had flats on with no socks.  I was moved by Erin’s compassion for this young woman.  Erin offered her student her own coat, gloves, and hat.  She didn’t accept but she did say that she needed a ride home.  Erin had a couple of things she was still wanting to do, but she offered to give her a ride home after she had met some other teachers who were there.

The thought quickly went through my head, “I’m leaving right now.  I could give this young woman a ride home.”  The next thought that went through my head was, “Remember your training.  It’s not appropriate for a pastor to give a young woman a ride alone.  It might not look good.  It could ruin your vocation.”  You know what I did?  I didn’t even offer her a ride home.  I chose the safety of “appropriate boundaries for clergy” over the real immediate need that was there present before me, and I walked by myself to my car.  I chose purity of religious perception over love.  I kicked myself all the way home, and then I asked God to forgive me.  If I knew who the girl was, I would ask for her forgiveness too.  This is the kind of thing going on that Amos points out.  The church people, the ones who are supposed to know about God’s love, are ignoring the poor.

God says through Amos, “You can’t wait for the Sabbath day to be over and the religious festivals to end so you can get back to cheating the helpless” (Amos 8:5, NLT).  They go to “church” but then they can’t wait for it to be over so they can get back to making a buck off the poor.  God adds, “Come to Bethel — and transgress; to Gilgal — and multiply transgression; bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three days; bring a thank offering of leavened bread, and proclaim freewill offerings, publish them; for so you love to do, O people of Israel! says the Lord GOD” (Amos 4:4-5, NRSV).  And again, “Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon.  Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.  But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:22-24, NRSV).

This last one might sound familiar.  Martin Luther King, Jr. used that last line in his “I Have a Dream” speech.  MLK is perhaps one of the greatest examples in modern times of a Christian who stood up to injustice in a uniquely Christian manner – non-violently with the aim of retaining the possibility for friendship between blacks and whites and people of all colors.  As we watch the mostly peaceful demonstrators in Egypt, we are seeing the same call for justice played out even today.

When I was living in Durham, North Carolina, I would often stop and have lunch with Allen, a guy who “panhandled” at the highway exit to my street.  One day as we were sitting there eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and talking, a police car pulled up to us.  The policeman asked us if we had a panhandler license.  Yes you heard me right.  A panhandler license.  In Durham, you have to have a license to beg!  To get this license you must have a picture ID and pay a fee.  Then you have to wear this license around your neck along with a florescent vest.

Laws like this have been overturned as unconstitutional in many cities that have them, but in order for them to be overturned, someone with the resources and will to challenge the law must first be arrested.  The policeman told us that we would have to move along or we would be arrested.  (The issue here is not with the policeman.  He is merely doing his job of enforcing the law.)  Now I have tended to be one who steers clear of acts of civil disobedience like this, but for some reason, maybe it was because Allen had become my friend, a kind of righteous anger boiled in my veins.  I was very heavily leaning toward being arrested, if Allen wanted to, but he was not, and so we moved on, and an unjust law that criminalizes the poor continues in Durham.

On Facebook this past week, I asked about times that people have stood up for injustice.  Emily Vliek, a hospice social worker, wrote me this, and I think it is spot on:

Hey Tom-
I’ve been thinking about your post the other day asking if we have ever stood up against an injustice. I think I’ve learned a lot about this topic in my first years as a social worker, and I am by no means perfect or some ideal of standing up against injustice. I learn EVERYDAY! But I think that often “standing up against injustice” can sound like some grand gesture that only really strong or outspoken people can do. I automatically think of protests and sit-ins and MLK. While this is what he did, I think it can also be done on a daily basis in much smaller ways. Anybody can take a part in stopping injustice. I see this more as being an advocate role for others. Whether they are, “poor or poor in spirit” we can give a voice to people who have no voice or those who can’t seem to find their voice. Helping share another’s story can be a powerful way to stop injustice. In my work I try to make each of my patient’s and family’s struggles relatable so that we treat each patient as we would want to be treated. It struck me the other day that this is stopping injustice. Whether we are poor or poor in spirit we each have common experiences in our living, our dying, our parenting, etc. I feel that finding these commonalities and finding our common humanity is fighting injustice. When others don’t seem as drastically different from “us”…that can be a powerful change.

God might say to us through Amos, “Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!” (Amos 4:12, NRSV).

 

You might be thinking right now, “But aren’t we saved by grace through faith?” (Ephesians 2:8).  By all means, but faith does not exclude doing good.  In fact, ripe faith produces good fruit.  Consider these three ideas:

Faith without works is dead (James 2:26).

Our deeds must be consistent with repentance (Acts 26:20).

Christians bear fruit worthy of repentance (Matthew 3:8).

Israel in Amos’ time has become fruitless, and God will not forgive them forever.  My own translation of the pun in Amos chapter eight goes like this:

Thus the Lord God showed me a cage of fruit,
He asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”
I said, “A cage of fruit.”
The Lord God said to me, “My people, Israel, have become fruitless;
I will not forgive them forever.”

God has not called us to cage up our fruit.  Salvation includes bearing fruit in our own lives and in the lives of those around us.  Salvation is not just about friendship with God (justification) but also friendship with others (sanctification).  Remember Jesus’ summary of all the commandments: Love God and love your neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40).  Being saved, being a Christian means changing things here and now.  We are not just souls waiting for salvation in eternity.  We are whole people with bodies and real needs that need saving right now.

What does this kind fruit of justice look like when it is ripe?  Consider these three examples: First, in the third century plague, Christians risked their lives by ministering to those sick and dying.  If they could not cure them, they would make sure that none of them died alone.  Second, I recently read about the story of Louis Zamporini, a U.S. POW in a Japanese POW camp.  The guards in his camp treated him horrifically except one.  Kawamura, one of Louis’ Japanese guards, was also a Christian.  Kawamura gave Louis extra rations, didn’t beat him, and even protected him from the violence of other guards.  Third, Archbishop Elias Chacour, an Arab Christian, runs a school in Israel for children of any religion: Islam, Christianity, or Judaism.  In this way he helps build friendships that one day may bring peace in such a conflict ridden region.

What people with what needs need to be saved here in Lansing?  That’s what Mixin It Up is all about.  Through our small groups we’ll be forming friendships with the poor and poor in spirit.  Sometimes all that we’ll be able to give is our friendship.  That in itself is an act of justice.  Sometimes we’ll be able to do more.

Thus the Lord God showed me a cage of fruit,
He asked me, “What do you see, Amos?”
I said, “A cage of fruit.”
The Lord God said to me, “My people, Israel, have become fruitless;
I will not forgive them forever.”

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Mixin It Up – Mission Is Friendship

January 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mixin It Up

Mixin It Up – Mission Is Friendship
Sycamore Creek Church
Philippians 2:1-11
January 23, 2010
Tom Arthur

Peace, Friends!

What do these people have in common?  Ralph was a liberal pastor who didn’t believe in the virgin birth.  Tom was a fundamentalist pastor who didn’t think women should be in leadership.  Father Denny was a Catholic priest who believed in the pope.  Allen was a homeless man who panhandled on a highway exit.  Brandy was a lesbian studying theology.  Christian was a young black woman studying for ministry.  Yousha was an Indian born in Britain, raised in New Jersey, and a Muslim.

What do all these people have in common?  They are all my friends.  But what marks friendship.  In the age of being a “friend” on Facebook, “friend” means something different than it has in the past.  With all of these people I’m not talking about being a Facebook friend.  I’m talking about people I have spent significant time with.  What marks that kind of a friendship?  I think you spend time together.  You spend leisure time together.  You talk and have conversations.  You share your hopes and dreams.  These conversations often happen over food and a shared meal.  There is a proximity that exists in friendship.  It is harder to be a friend when you live far away from one another.

I also think that a mark of friendship is risk.  When you are friends with someone you risk giving of your resources.  I mean your time, your talents, your money.  You risk being in conflict with your friends, especially when you risk honesty.  You risk being inconvenienced.  You risk being humbled by being wrong.  Your even risk death.  Not necessarily your own but the pain of your friend dying.  One of the most tragic moments in my life was when my best friend from childhood, Brad Ehrlichman, died on the Value Jet crash on May 11, 1996.  If you have friends, some of them are going to die.  If you keep to yourself, you don’t risk this threat.

Of course the bigger the differences within friendship, the bigger the risks!  In that respect, the biggest risk ever taken in friendship was the risk that Jesus took to become our friend.  Paul in his letter to the Philippians describes that risk that Jesus took to become our friend.

Philippians 2:1-11 (NLT)

1 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and sympathetic? 2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one heart and purpose.

3 Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. 4 Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing.

5 Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. 6 Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. 7 He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form.   8 And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross. 9 Because of this, God raised him up to the heights of heaven and gave him a name that is above every other name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

This is God’s teaching for us today.  Thank you, God!

Throughout this series we’re talking about mission to the poor (those in physical need) and the poor in spirit (those in spiritual need).  I’d like to explore more fully this morning what that mission means.  I’d like to define mission not as “service” which is how we usually think about it, but as “friendship.”  In particular, I’d like to define it as the kind of friendship Jesus showed us.  This is an “incarnational” model of friendship.

What do I mean by “incarnational”?  Let’s break that word down.  First is the prefix, “in”, which simply means what it means: in.  Then we’ve got “carn.”  You may know this part of the word from your favorite kind of chili: chili con carne.  Chili con carne is chili with meat in it.  So if something is “in the carn” it means it is in the meat or in the flesh.  So what I mean when I say an “incarnational model of friendship” is that I want to look at what it means that Jesus came “in the flesh” to be our friend.

Paul says that our “attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had” (Philippians 2:5, NLT).  So Jesus had a particular attitude that led him to come in the flesh.  We should have that same attitude too, according to Paul.  Let’s see what that attitude was.

Friendship – Other Centered

First, an incarnational model of friendship is one that is other-centered.  Paul says, “Don’t be selfish; don’t live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing” (Philippians 2:3-4, NLT).  In other words, you use your resources (time, talent, treasure) for the benefit of others.

I had a talent in seminary for studying.  I was good at it.  (Probably because I’m such a perfectionist.)  I also had a friend who wasn’t the greatest student.  This friend also wasn’t the best at taking notes or studying.  Every semester we were given one week off classes to study for finals.  My preference would have been to simply study by myself.  I’d be more efficient that way.  But this friend really needed help.  So we’d get together, and I’d help my friend study.  I’d share my notes and my ideas.  I’d make up quizzes.  I’d ask questions.  I’d assign homework.  I ended up something like a personal tutor.  It would have been easier for me to not do this, but this was my friend.  So I shared.  Interestingly enough, the situation turned out to be a win-win for both of us.  My friend learned a lot and was better prepared for finals, and I learned that the most effective way to learn is to teach.  Students, are your studying efforts shared with others?  If we have the same attitude that Jesus had, then our focus will be other-centered.  We’ll share what we’ve got.

Friendship – Proximity

Second, an incarnational model of friendship is one that is near.  While this idea is present in the passage we read from Philippians, John may say it best in his gospel.  He says, “So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us” (John 1:14, NLT).  The Message says that the Word “moved into the neighborhood.”

Sarah and I have great neighbors in Petoskey.  They’re the Tollases.  While we lived there we became such good friends that they asked us to be the godparents of their children.  It was a real honor to be asked.  They wanted us to be involved in the lives of their kids.  So every month Addison, their son, and I would get together and hang out.  We’d go down to the Little Traverse Bay and play on the playground.  We’d walk along the trails of the Bear River.  We’d hang out and play chess.  We’d toss a Frisbee in our back yards.  We’d do the kinds of the things that friends do.

When I moved to Durham, NC, I was determined to continue to be an influence in his life.  But you know what?  It’s really hard to maintain a friendship when you’re not close by.  Fifteen hundred miles distance tends to put a damper on friendship.  I haven’t been the best godfather since we moved.  I still see him when we go back to Petoskey, but I’d like to do more.

Certainly there is a way that the internet has changed the definition and experience of being near to someone, but there is no substitute for face to face time with someone else.  It’s awfully hard to build a friendship if you’re not nearby or don’t make an effort to draw close.

We’re talking about being friends with the poor and the poor in spirit.  Where do you draw near to those who have physical needs and those who have spiritual needs?  Do you “live in the neighborhood” as Jesus did?  If we want to have the same kind of attitude that Jesus had toward being our friend, then we’ll draw near to the poor and poor in spirit.

Friendship – Emptying

Third, an incarnational model of friendship is one that empties oneself.  Paul says, “Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God.  He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form” (Philippians 2:6-7, NLT).  Jesus emptied himself of his “rights” as God in order to be near to us and be our friend.  He took on our “condition” (flesh) so that we might take on his “condition” (children of God).

When you are friends with someone, you take on their form.  You learn to like their likes and dislike their dislikes.  My friend Scott Chrostek is a pastor at The Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, MO.  He tells the story of meeting his future wife, Wendy, at a Duke basketball campout weekend.  Duke graduate students camp out over a weekend to get in a lottery to be able to buy season tickets.  They stayed up all night talking.  Scott was smitten.  Here he was talking to a beautiful woman who was also crazy enough to camp out for basketball tickets.

Over their courtship he took her to soccer games, basketball games, hockey games (she was from the south), and Durham Bulls minor league games.  One summer while he was doing an internship in a very remote rural area, she did play-by-play announcing of the Pistons games over the phone.  This was it.  Scott knew that Wendy was the woman he wanted to marry.

When they got engaged and he took her home on Thanksgiving to meet his family in Detroit, he decided that given their shared love for sports, that he would buy her the ultimate gift: Thanksgiving Day tickets to the Detroit Lions football game.  When he whipped them out and told her what they’d be doing on Thanksgiving, her reaction wasn’t what he expected.  She looked shocked, but not in a good way.  Then the truth came out.  She told him, she didn’t like sports!  What?  He didn’t understand.  She explained that she did all those things because she loved him.  She liked what he liked because she loved him.  Scott was a little shaken, but after some careful consideration, he realized that he loved her even more for taking the time to like what he liked.

When you follow Jesus’ attitude for friendship, you empty yourself of your “rights” and you take on the interests of others.

Friendship – Risk

Fourth, an incarnational model of friendship is open to risk.  Even the risk of death.  Paul tells us that “in human form [Jesus] obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8, NLT).

What kinds of things do you risk?  You risk time and energy.  You risk inconvenience.  You risk conflict and disagreement.  You risk being wrong and therefore humbled.  You even risk dying.

I asked for examples of risking in friendship of my friends on Facebook and Jenelle Wildbur told me that she risked joining a small group.  She didn’t know anyone.  She’s a bit introverted (like me), and going to share your life with people you don’t know at first is a big risk.  But then she added, “Now these women are all my best friends.”  Jenelle risked her comfort zone with new friends and ended up with best friends.

Marilyn Mannino wrote me this story about the risks that come with the friendship of a new child.  She says:

I don’t know if this qualifies but we formed a new relationship when little Joe was born. I’m talking about our relationship with Joe, the baby. He was born with pneumothorax and had to spend 9 days in RNICU at Sparrow in 1988.

It was inconvenient for us to have to learn CPR before he could be released to us (but so worth it). It was risky taking him home. He had to wear a strap all of the time to alert us if he ever stopped breathing. It was hooked up to a box that kept track of his respirations and number of times he quit breathing. That thing was a pain in the you-know-what at night when it went off (sounded like a smoke alarm) when he wiggled out of it. But so worth it. He graduated from that thankfully fine.

Then when he started on solid foods (5 months old) he developed continual ear infections. THAT was inconvenient because he wouldn’t let us sleep at night due to ear pain. We went on for over a year with different antibiotic treatments. Finally had tubes put in both of his ears. That was nice but he still wanted us to be with him all night. He would SCREAM & carry on if we didn’t. It was amazing how long he could yell (6 hours). THAT was inconvenient at night. It was a risk to let him do that but (through parent counseling) worth it because he FINALLY got over it and would sleep w/o one of us being in his room with him. That sapped our energy big-time as we were both working full-time. This went on for a couple of years. I don’t remember very much in that time span. Too tired.

After all of that he turned into a teenager & matured & SLEEPS & now we are so proud of him. It was SO worth it to go through all that. We love him!

Wow.  That’s a lot of risk.  Thank you Marilyn and Joe, Sr. for teaching us something about what it means to risk in friendship.

Jesus tells us how to measure this kind of friendship. He says, “And here is how to measure it — the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.  You are my friends if you obey me” (John 15:13-14, NLT).  Sometimes we lay our lives down literally.  Sometimes we lay our lives down in the way that Marilyn and Joe, Sr. laid their lives down for Joe, Jr.

Friendship’s Source

So an incarnational model of friendship is one that is other-centered, near in proximity, emptying of self, and willing to take risks.  How do we have the energy and stamina and love to be able to have this kind of a friendship with the poor and poor in Spirit?  Paul answers that question in the form of a question.  He says, “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and sympathetic?” (Philippians 2:1, NLT).

We gain encouragement to this kind of friendship by belonging to Christ or being friends with Christ.  There is a kind of grace that rubs off on us when we are friends first with Jesus.  That leads us to have a comfort in the love of Christ amidst the risks, emptying, nearness, and other-centeredness.

Paul also points to the fellowship of the Spirit.  The Spirit of God makes our hearts tender and sympathetic.  When we belong to Christ we are filled with the same Spirit that was in Christ Jesus, God’s Spirit, and our hearts are softened toward friendship with those who have spiritual and physical needs.

The ultimate source of all this is having “the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5, NRSV).  When we seek to follow after Jesus and practice the same way that he practiced, our minds are transformed and we are given all that we need to be friends with the poor and poor in spirit in the same way that he was friends with us.  That’s a long-term perspective.  It doesn’t all change and happen overnight.  It takes patience.  Friendship takes patience.

Friends, just as Jesus was friends with us, be friends with the poor and poor in spirit.

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Mixin It Up – A Basic Recipe

January 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

Mixin It Up

Mixin It Up – A Basic Recipe
Sycamore Creek Church
January 16, 2011
Tom Arthur
Matthew 5:3
Luke 6:20

Peace, Friends!

What things do you like to mix up?  Are there things you like to mix together that are a little unusual?  I love scrambled eggs.  There’s nothing really unusual about mixing together eggs and milk, but when it’s all mixed together, I like to put a little ketchup on top of it all!  Now that’s mixin it up!  Ketchup and eggs…

Today we begin mixin it up.  A dash of small groups and a pinch of missions.  There are a lot of different ways to mix up missions and small groups.  There’s some pretty basic ways like a hand whisk.  Then there are some pretty complex ways like a Kitchen Aid.  Some take more commitment than others, but they all do the same basic thing, mix it up.

Now on the one hand it may seem like small groups and missions go together just fine just like eggs and milk.  And that’s right.  I’ve heard a lot over the last year and a half about how each small group would really like to be doing service projects.  The only problem is that as a church, we’re not mixin it up very often if ever.  I’d like to explore a basic recipe today for mixin together missions and small groups.  Let’s begin with what missions is.

Missions is Friendship

Missions is about friendship first and foremost.  Friendship with God and with one another, and friendship is a two-way street.  Thus, missions isn’t just about us giving, but it’s also about us receiving.  We’re going to explore missions as a two-way friendship more fully next week, but today we’re going to begin looking at the giving side of missions: friendship with others, meeting people’s physical needs, and friendship with God, meeting people’s spiritual needs.

There are two key verses for today.  The first comes from what is often called The Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew chapter five through seven.  At the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus lists a series of blessings, often called the beatitudes.  He says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3, NRSV).  Then in Luke we find what is sometimes called the Sermon on the Plain.  Here Luke shares Jesus’ teaching but with a slight twist.  He says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Luke 6:20, NRSV).  Here we have the two sides of missions.  Ministering to the poor in spirit (meeting people’s spiritual needs of friendship with God) and ministering to the poor (meeting people’s physical need of friendship with one another).  Let’s begin with the spiritual needs, the poor in spirit.

Missions is Evangelism

Missions is evangelism.  Evangelism comes from the Greek work evangelion which means “good news.”  Thus, missions means sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with others.  What is the good news?  In a nutshell I would say that the good news is that God became friends with humanity so that humanity might become friends with God.

Here I think of missionaries who go to other countries to share this good news with those who have not yet heard it.  This is a classic image of the missionary going to exotic locales and meeting indigenous peoples and bringing the message of Jesus and the Word of God.

SCC is itself a mission.  We invite people to join this good news by joining our community as we seek friendship with God where our spiritual needs are met.  We seek to ignite authentic life in Christ by connecting people to God and others, growing in the character of Christ, and serving the church, community, and world.  When we invite people to join our community by worshiping with us or attending a small group, we are participating in missions.

Several years ago our church embarked on a major ad campaign to invite people to join us.  We had billboards around Lansing.  We bought commercial time on TV.  We made various invitations for you to invite your friends, neighbors, family, and co-workers to come join us.  This was missions.  We must resist the temptation to think that missions only happens separate of what we as a community do on a regular basis in worship and small groups.  SCC is itself a mission, and we continue to invite people to join in friendship with God by joining our community as we seek ever deeper friendship with God.

Missions takes place every time we make an invitation card for a message series.  Those cards are missions.  How many people have you invited to join us?  How did you come to SCC?  Did someone invite you?  All Christians, then, are missionaries.  We are missionaries to our school, our workplace, our neighborhood.  Anywhere we go is a missions field to invite people to join our community as we seek friendship with God.

Thus, when you serve the church by making our ministries happen—Kid’s Creek, StuREV, FYBY, worship, media, praise band, set-up and tear-down, small groups, and more—you are participating in missions.  We seek to help those who are poor in spirit connect in friendship with God and others and to grow in the character of Christ by serving in our church. This is the first aspect of missions: serving the poor in spirit by meeting the spiritual needs.  Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Missions is Service

The second part of missions is service to meet people’s physical needs.  Blessed are the poor.  What kind of good news is it if the good news is only after we die?  Sure, good news after we die is good news, but if that’s all we share, then we’re missing half of the good news, and the first part of missions, friendship with God, loses credibility.

Neglecting people’s physical needs has, at times, been a legitimate critique of missionaries.  But there is another image of missionaries that comes to mind that helps balance out this critique.  That is the image of the missionary who goes and builds hospitals, schools, sanitation, agriculture, and more.  Here I think of Emma Trout who recently went to Tanzania to help build wells.  Or Lori Miller who has gone to Ghana to help learn and teach about sustainable sanitation.  Or Teresa Miller and the many of you who have gone with her to Nicaragua to provide medical clinics.

A friend of mine, Amy Scott, used to work in Petoskey.  While working there she was told of a church group that came in and had a meal.  When they left, the waiter found on the table not a tip but a tract.  Yikes!  On the other hand, a friend of mine, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove who grew up Baptist, tells a story about going to Washington D.C. shortly after graduating from college to help change the world through politics.  On his way to some meeting there was a homeless guy lying on the sidewalk.  He stepped over him and went on his way.  Shortly after doing so, his conscience got him as he remembered his teaching from Sunday school about the poor being Jesus.  So he ran back to his office, grabbed a tract and wrapped it in a twenty and went back and gave it to the guy.  He realized that he had to meet both this man’s spiritual and physical needs and this was the best he could imagine at the time.  Jonathan has gone on to participate in a movement called New Monasticism in which Christians live in the city together and provide hospitality to the homeless.

You need not go to another country to meet people’s physical needs.  Every Christian is called to help meet the physical needs of his or her neighbor, the person whose locker is right beside yours, the person you sit next to in class, the co-worker in the cubicle next to yours, the single mom in the apartment across the hall from yours, the hurting family member, or your small group member who is in the hospital.  All of us are poor at some  point in our life because none of us can meet all our own physical needs by ourselves.  This is mission to those who are poor.  They are all around us and sitting right next to us right now.

Recently I was at a meeting where the book, The Externally Focused Church, was being discussed.  In this book is a list of ways to know your church is being successful. Here is that list:

  • The number of cigarette butts in the church parking lot.
  • The number of adoptions people in the church have made from local foster care.
  • The number of classes for special needs children and adults.
  • The number of former convicted felons serving in the church.
  • The number of phone calls from community leaders asking the church’s advice.
  • The number of meetings that take place somewhere besides the church building.
  • The number of days the pastor doesn’t spend time in the church office but in the community.
  • The number of dollars saved by the local schools because the church has painted the walls.
  • The number of people in new jobs thanks to the free job training center you opened.

How successful is our church?  SCC seeks to help those who are poor by serving our community and world.

Missions is Evangelism and Service

SCC is successful in some ways and in other ways we have a very long way to go.  From my own personal observations, we tend to be a church that is good at giving our money.  I have actually been blown away several times at the generosity of our church in giving to meet physical needs, but we have, I think a long way to go in giving of our friendship to those in need.  I’d like to briefly map out a plan for how we intend to improve this in the coming months.  We’re going to be mixin it up: SCC will love and serve the poor and poor in spirit in our church and community by building and sustaining diverse friendships through support groups and small groups committing to missions.

 

This plan focuses on both the poor and the poor in spirit.  It also focuses on those needs in our community and right here in our church.  There are two initiatives that go along with this plan: support groups and small groups committing to missions.

Support Groups

Support Groups provide ongoing care for those who are in need of it.  These needs are often of a nature that small groups aren’t able to meet.  We have begun first with an umbrella support group led by Pat Orme and Rick Ray.  It meets on Wednesday nights and anyone can go for any reason.  If you’re struggling with a physical ailment and need support, if you’re struggling in a failing marriage, if you’re struggling with trying to become pregnant, if you’re struggling with an addiction, and the like then this support group is for you.

Another kind of support group that we have is Financial Peace University or FPU.  FPU helps support those who are struggling with debt to find financial peace by living simply, paying off debt, and giving generously.  A new FPU class is beginning in the next several weeks and I know that many of you are in need of this kind of support.  Several of you have taken this class in the past, but you are no longer following the FPU principles.  You need to take it again and find the continued support you need to get out of debt and live not just within your means but below your means.  Make 2011 the year that you get your financial house in order.

Small Groups and Missions

The second initiative is mixing together small groups and missions.  Over the next two or three months we’re going to be turning each small group into a mission team.  Each small group will appoint a mission coordinator for that group.  Over the next two or three months each time they meet, they won’t meet to read a book or study the Bible, they’ll meet to meet the physical needs in our community.

A launch team has put together a list several pages long of local opportunities for service that happen at the exact time or close to the exact time that your small group already meets.  Each week each small group will try a different service opportunity.  Come March 27th during worship each small group will make a public commitment to serve regularly in one of the opportunities.  How often they serve will be up to each small group, but I would recommend that they serve at least once for every book they read or study they do together.  So if you read a book over six weeks, then you’d serve on the seventh week.  This commitment, of course, will have to be made in conversation with the group and the mission opportunity itself.

Each of these service commitments will then be communicated to the broader church community so that anyone can join whether they are part of that small group or not, but that small group will make up the core team that commits to being there.  In this way service and mission will be a door into small groups and small groups will be a door into service and mission.

There is one last part to this whole mixin it up series.  We’ll be joining together in a church-wide mission project: the Church of Greater Lansing’s Food Drop.  On February 26th we will join over 30 churches in the greater Lansing area for a rally and worship at Holt High School at 11AM and then will deliver food boxes to those in need in our community.  Over 2000 boxes will be delivered that day!  Jeremy Kratky, our worship leader, will be helping to lead worship that day, and I’d like to see a big showing from our church.  Can we get 50 or more people there?  I think we can!  There are also opportunities to serve that day to make the whole thing happen.  There are even opportunities to serve leading up to that day.  You can find more info here: http://trinitywired.com/food-drop.

 

Mixin it Up!

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Being on the discrimination side of segregation, MLK understood this dynamic of missions being about both spiritual and physical needs.  He wrote, “Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.”  Our faith is dying or dead if it doesn’t include meeting both spiritual and physical needs.  As we mix it up in 2011, will you join us in the kitchen?

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Mixin It Up

January 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mixin It Up

What happens when you mix up small groups and missions? You get Mixin It Up! At the beginning of 2011 we’ll be exploring this new initiative in our church that mixes small groups and missions. Then for two months our small groups will be exploring a different service opportunity each week in our community with the goal to make a commitment to serving one of them. This will mean that if you?re part of one of SCC’s small groups, you will only have to make one commitment to cover two growth areas: small groups and missions. We’re mixin it up! That’s about as easy as we can make it to both grow in the character of Christ and serve the community. The only thing you have to do is connect to a small group. Do it in 2011!

January 16th – A Basic Recipe

January 23rd – A Basic Ingredient: Friendship

January 30th – Mix with vs. Mix to

February 6th – Mixin in Justice

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Mixin it Up! Small Groups and Missions

January 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Peace, Friends!

At the beginning of every year I take some time to make personal goals and commitments for the New Year.  It’s not exactly the same as New Year’s resolutions because they tend to be positive in nature (what I want to do) rather than negative (what I want to stop doing).  What commitments will you make this year?

Of course in the midst of new commitments are some lasting commitments that I’ve made that cross over any given year.  I’ve made a life-long commitment to my wife and my son.  I’ve made a commitment to my calling as a pastor.  I’ve made a commitment to my friends.  I’ve also made some commitments to my church.

One of the commitments we all who are members of Sycamore Creek Church make is to join some kind of a small group.  Exactly what small group we join is very flexible, but the spirit of the commitment is to connect regularly (I’d say weekly or at a minimum every other week) with other Christians to grow in the character of Christ.

Some members live out that commitment by finding a community small group that is run by another church or group of Christians.  Other members live out that commitment by finding unique and creative ways to be in a small group.  But most members of SCC live out that commitment by joining one of Sycamore Creek’s small groups.

Twice a year we host a Group Link in which all people who attend SCC have an opportunity to see what small groups are available.  Group Link will be taking place THIS SUNDAY, January 16th between the two services.  For those who are members and made a commitment to be in a small group when you joined SCC, this is a great opportunity for you to live into that commitment.

Mixin It UpI am very excited about this year’s Group Link because during the first several months of 2011 we will be doing a church-wide initiative called Mixin It Up in which we’ll be “mixin” our small group and missions ministry together.  For two months our small groups will be exploring a different service opportunity each week in our community with the goal to make a commitment to serving one of them.  The exact commitment (once a year, once a month, etc.) will be up to each small group and the nature of the service opportunity.  This will mean that if you’re part of one of SCC’s small groups, you will only have to make one commitment to cover two growth areas: small groups and missions.  We’re mixin it up!  That’s about as easy as we can make it to both grow in the character of Christ and serve the community.  The only thing you have to do is connect to a small group.  Come to Group Link or email Mark Aupperlee, our small group leader, about finding a small group.  Do it in 2011!

Peace,
Tom

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Preaching to Myself

July 12, 2010 By

Peace, Friends!

On Sunday morning I’m often preachin’ to myself.  You may feel that I have you in the crosshairs of what I’m talking about, but you’re wrong.  I’ve got myself!

Back in May we were exploring the book of James.  I came across this verse from James:

“Suppose you see a brother or sister who needs food or clothing, and you say, ‘Well, good-bye and God bless you; stay warm and eat well’ — but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?”  (James 2:15-16, NLT).

The following week, Dotty Wilinksi and I were sitting and talking about this verse in relation to the women that she brings to church from the women’s shelter.  The shelter is closed during the day and doesn’t open again until 4PM.  Dotty doesn’t have the resources to provide a meal for these women every week after church, so sometimes she has to drop them off at the bus station.  We both realized that what we were essentially doing was saying, “God bless”, while they were in worship, but then ignoring their physical needs.  James doesn’t have kind words for this behavior.  Because I hadn’t done anything to fix this, I myself was making this mistake as your pastor!

I decided that things needed to change.  So Sarah and I talked about having them over for lunch after church.  The only catch to this plan was that after church on Sunday Sarah and I are both absolutely exhausted.

I’m more exhausted after church on Sunday than I ever have been doing anything else in my life.  I pour out everything I’ve got every Sunday morning.  How were we both going to have energy and strength to have a large group over to our house for lunch after church?

It was Saturday night, and we were still undecided.  As we sat down for dinner we picked up the “prayer cube” that we for meal prayers.  The prayer we randomly picked that night went something like this: “Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for this food that we have received.  Give us strength to share everything we have with those who are in hunger and need.  Amen.”

Ouch!  We had our answer.  After dinner was over, we called Dotty and made arrangements to have the women from Maplewood over for lunch the next day and once-a-month thereafter.  It was an amazing meal as our table was full of homeless women.  That Sunday afternoon, God answered the prayer we prayed the night before.  We had more than enough strength to serve these women.  Perhaps this was because they served us too.  Their friendship filled us with joy and encouragement!

Peace,
Tom

P.S. If you’d like to help Sarah and me prepare a meal in our home and join us some Sunday afternoon as we gather around our dinner table with women from Maplewood, or if you’d like to have them over to your place for a meal, drop me an email.

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Holt Food Bank

May 25, 2010 By

Holt Food Bank WarehouseThis past Sunday night my small group met at the Holt Food Bank to serve our community rather than have our regular meeting (we’re currently viewing and talking about a PBS series called The Question of God about C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud).  This was an initial attempt of our church to connect missions and small groups so that every small group would make a commitment to serve regularly (every other month, every third month, etc.) somewhere in the community during the same time that they normally meet as a small group.  This will allow people to make one commitment to a small group that will cover both growing in Christ and serving our community and world.

Our group ended up going to Holt Food Bank’s warehouse where we cleaned and sorted food.  They just received 14,000 lbs. of donations from the postal service’s food drive.  The volunteer coordinators, Denny and Caroline, were very enthusiastic about having the help.  We also had the opportunity to learn about a mission that most of us had never visited before.  It was a great success.

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