Patricia

Weird Desires

September 1, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Weird Desires*
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
September 1/2, 2013
1 John 2:16-17

Veruca Salt. The name is synonymous with the phrase: “I want it now.” She’s the character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who is a rich spoiled girl whose daddy gives her everything she wants. It doesn’t turn out well for her in the end.

This week we wrap up a series called Weird. There’s a weird way to live life and a normal way to live life. We’re choosing weird, because normal isn’t working.

Jesus talks about the weird and normal when he says:

Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Matthew 7:13-14

So far we’ve explored what it’s like to be normal and weird when it comes to sex and the way we spend our time. Today we look at desires: weird desires.

Here’s the problem we all wrestle with: It’s normal to give into your desires. I wrestle with this myself. Too often I give my body exactly what it wants. I let that angry word fly. I give my eyes exactly what they want. This past week, I had a couple of not so pleasant days. I went home and drowned them in a bowl of ice cream. I’m not much different than Veruca Salt. I want it now.

If you’re a little more normal when it comes to your desires than you’d like to be, you’re not alone. Moses gave in to his anger and killed the Egyptian overseer. David gave in to his lust and slept with Bathsheba and eventually had her husband killed to cover up the resulting pregnancy. People in the Bible are always getting themselves into trouble by giving their desires what they want.

John, one of Jesus’ most beloved followers says this about normal desires:

For the world offers only the lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and pride in our possessions. These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world. And this world is fading away, along with everything it craves. But if you do the will of God, you will live forever.
1 John 2:16-17 NLT

Here’s a truth that has been a foundation of this series:

If you want what normal people have, do what normal people do
If you want what few people have, do what few people do.

I want to look at what normal people do with their desires and what weird people do.

Normal People Give in to Their Desires
Normal people give in to their desires. They give their desires exactly what they want. They do this in two ways. First, normal people give their desires what they want now, not later. Normal people are addicted to instant gratification.

Jesus tells the story of a young son who wants what he wants now, not later; so, like Veruca Salt, he goes to this father to get it:

The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now, instead of waiting until you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
Luke 15:12

The younger brother gets what he wants, goes out and squanders it, and eventually finds himself eating humble pie. He goes back to his dad begging to have his basic necessities met.

Normal people want what they want now, not later. They want to “snuggle” now with their significant other and not wait for marriage. They’re hungry so they give themselves ice cream now, not for dessert. They’re angry at their boss so they send a nasty email now, rather than wait for an appropriate time to role renegotiate expectations later. Normal people want what they want now, not later.

Second, normal people trade the ultimate for the immediate. There’s a great story in the Bible about two twin brothers, Esau and Jacob. Esau is the oldest, by a couple of seconds, so he gets a lot of privileges that Jacob doesn’t get. One of those privileges is a birthright, a double portion of inheritance. But Esau has a problem with desire control. Here’s the story:

Once when Jacob was cooking a stew, Esau came in from the field, and he was famished. Esau said to Jacob, “Let me eat some of that red stuff, for I am famished!”…Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” Esau said, “I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?” Jacob said, “Swear to me first.”So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew, and he ate and drank, and rose and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.
Genesis 25:29-34 NRSV

Who would be so foolish and stupid to trade their birthright for a bowl of soup? But normal people do it every day, one bowl of stew at a time. We buy one more thing and put it on the credit card. $2. $3. $4. Pretty soon we’re $10,000 in debt on our credit card. One bowl of soup at a time. We start with a sensual video online. Then a soft-porn. Then pretty soon we’re into hard-core porn. One bowl of soup at a time. You’re dating a guy who tells you that if you love him, you’ll let him. One bowl of soup at a time. You stay at work a little longer to make a little more money and miss your kids growing up, one bowl of soup at a time. You trade relationships for accomplishments, one bowl of soup at a time. What’s your bowl of soup? Cigarettes? Drugs? Control? Food? Lust? Popularity?

Normal isn’t working.

Weird People Discipline their Desires
So we’ve looked at what normal people do, but what do weird people do? First, weird people know that later is often better than now. The book of wisdom in the Bible called Proverbs says:

It is better to be patient than powerful; it is better to have self-control than to conquer a city.
Proverbs 16:32 NLT

Consider money. Here’s a basic financial principle that weird people know: buy assets now and buy liabilities later. An asset is something that goes up in value or produces income, like a rental property. I was talking to a guy the other day who has built a small business around property management. He said that they own about a dozen homes that they rent out. The rental income is paying the mortgage on those homes. They’re not getting a lot of money right now, so they have to live in a pretty simple house themselves. But once those mortgages are paid off, later, guess what happens. All that rental income is icing on the cake! They’re not living very high on the hog right now, but later down the road, things will start hopping. That’s a weird person.

On the other hand, a liability is something that goes down in value. Almost everything you brought with you today is a liability: your phone, your car, your clothes, your shoes. Even your hairstyle is a liability. The moment you walk out of the salon it begins growing again and fading to gray again. Most of us spend most of our money on liabilities. Weird people spend less on liabilities because they know that a liability may bring pleasure now but not later.

Consider sex, perhaps one of the strongest desires there is. You can get it on now. You can twerk all you want on the dance floor (or watch others twerking), or you can save your sexual purity to build intimacy with someone that will last a lifetime. Normal people choose sex now. Weird people discipline their sexual desire and know that later is better than now.

Second, weird people seek God until his desires become their desires. The Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible. In Psalm 37 we read:

Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4 NRSV

The phrase “take delight” is really a little too soft. It should be “take exquisite delight” in the LORD. Then what will happen? If you take exquisite delight in God, then pretty soon, you’ll want the same things that God wants; your desires will be aligned with God’s desires. When that happens, you’re now wanting the same exact same thing that God wants. And what is God likely to give you if you want the same thing that God wants for you? BINGO! When your desires align with God’s desires for you, you’re likely to get what both of you want.

Paul, one of the first missionaries of the church, said:

Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.
Galatians 5:16-17

You’ve got this fleshy side of yourself, and it is usually at war with and opposed to what the Spirit wants. But this needn’t be so forever. You can discipline your body so that it begins to want what God wants. Let me give you an example from my own life. I haven’t arrived yet, but by God’s grace I’m making progress.

When I was in elementary school I remember looking at my first porn magazine in my friend’s house. By high school I was looking at porn almost every day. I was in essence cultivating the desire of lust in my body. I was giving it what it wanted. When you cultivate lust in the privacy of your own home, it’s hard to not lust when you’re out in public and beautiful women are walking around. Now, let me make a distinction here: noticing a beautiful woman is not lusting. It’s what you do with the notice. Where do you take the notice in your mind? That’s where lust comes in. So I spent a lot of time in my younger years cultivating lust at home by the porn I looked at and cultivating lust in public by the way I noticed attractive women.

Slowly over time that began to change. Here’s how it changed. I began cultivating in the privacy of my own home the spiritual practice of spending time with God: prayer, Bible study, meditation, and so on. I also began to cultivate in public the spiritual practice of spending time in Christian community: small groups, accountability, worship, and the like. Slowly but surely the time I spent cultivating lust at home diminished until eventually I was no longer looking at porn at home. This changed how I looked at women in public.

I first noticed a big change one day when I was at a birthday party in seminary. I don’t know what picture you have in your mind of people studying to be pastors, but whatever picture you have is probably wrong. This birthday party I was at was in a bar in Downtown Durham. I haven’t been to enough bars in college towns to know until that night that there is such a thing as a “beer girl.” A beer distributor showed up with free beer samples handed out by a young woman who looked like she had stepped out of a beer commercial. Of course, what she didn’t know was that every guy she was handing beer out to in that place was a guy training to be a pastor! She was dressed to catch the eye of every guy in that place. I don’t know what my friends made of that experience, but something happened to me that had never happened before. I looked at her and my first thought was, “She must be really uncomfortable in those shoes.” Somehow instead of treating her like an object for my desires to lust after, I was treating her like the human being made in God’s image that she was. That was the first time I’d had that experience of noticing the person rather than the object, but it has begun to happen more and more the more I spend time with God.

God can change instantaneously, but that’s the exception, not the rule. The general experience of Christians is that the desires are disciplined slowly over time. And the longer you lived in those desires the longer it will take to transform and discipline them.

Have you ever read or heard about the “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”? God is often referred to in the Bible in this way. Did you catch that last name? “Jacob.” What would it have been had Esau not given in to his desires? What if he had not been so normal and had instead been a little weird? Maybe we’d be talking today about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Esau. Always giving your desires what they want isn’t freedom, it’s slavery to your desires. Freedom is disciplining your desires to desire what God desires. And that’s a little weird, kind of like Charlie:

That’s weird…

God, help us to discipline our desires so that we desire what you want. Help us, like Jesus, to be so fully submitted to your will in our lives that not even the strongest desire of preserving our life would keep us from following Jesus. We ask this in his name, and in the power of your Spirit. Amen.

*This sermon is adapted from Craig Groeschel’s book and sermon series, Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: delayed gratification, desires, discipline, instant gratification

Weird Time

August 29, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Weird Time
Sycamore Creek Church
August 25, 2013
Exodus 16:21-30

Piece friends!

Today we continue in a series called Weird. We’re exploring the difference between what is normal in our world and what is weird. The problem is that normal isn’t working. So if our lives are going to work, we may need to be a little weird. That includes the way we use our time. Normal when it comes to our time is being so busy trying to live “The Life” that we’re missing enjoying our life. It’s like the classic Ferris Bueller quote: “Yep, I said it before, and I’ll say it again. Life moves pretty fast. You don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Normal = Busy
Normal = busy. That’s the badge we wear today. I struggle with this myself. I’m somewhat of a workaholic. Any workaholics among us today? I can’t sit still waiting the 30 seconds for Micah’s milk to warm up in the microwave. I have to find something to do with that 30 seconds. Or the other day I took the train to Chicago. What I really wanted to do was just sit in my seat and stare out the window taking it all in, but what I did instead was bring my computer and a book so I could be productive with my time.

There’s a joke we have in our family that I get more done in ten minutes with my pinky than Sarah gets done in an entire day with her whole body. And now we’ve got two kids: a two and a half year old and a seven-week old. Parenting is work! These days life seems like an endless cycle of child care, cleaning, and putting things away. Then repeat.

Craig Groeschel says, “If the Devil can’t make us really bad, then he’ll make us really busy.” We are motivated in our culture by production and efficiency. These two things drive us, but they have a dark side. They lead to more buying, more debt, more work, and less time with family, less rest, and less soul.

Then there’s parenting. While working on this sermon in the library a young mom came in with an infant strapped to her front, a toddler on a leash, and five-ish and six-ish year-old boys all while holding a bag full of library books! Wow! That’s some serious work.

MaryAnn McKibben-Dana, the author of the book Sabbath in the Suburbs, says that in the midst of all this we are “looking for a way to cheat time” (Sabbath in the Suburbs). She adds, “Our calendars are spiritual documents, too. To-do lists and Google Calendars are statements of faith.” What does your calendar look like? The other day I tried to have a doctors appointment at 8AM in East Lansing, meet with an incoming college student at 10AM up on Lake Lansing Rd, have a staff meeting at City Limits in Mason, meet with someone getting married back at Biggby in South Lansing, follow that with a meeting with someone new, followed by meeting with a couple getting married, then back home for a quick dinner before meeting someone in Holt who needed help with gas and topping it all off with a leadership team meeting at the end of the day in Holt. That friends, was eight meetings almost back to back in one day. I pulled it off, but came home with little energy for my family or myself. And I know I’m not the only one running a calendar like this.

Moments like this I think of the classic rock song, Cats in the Cradle:

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin’ ‘fore I knew it, and as he grew
He’d say “I’m gonna be like you, Dad
You know I’m gonna be like you”

Then fast forward in the song…

I’ve long since retired, my son’s moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, “I’d like to see you if you don’t mind”
He said, “I’d love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job’s a hassle and kids have the flu
But it’s sure nice talking to you, Dad
It’s been sure nice talking to you”
And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He’d grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

A.W. Tozer says, “When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.”

Weird = Rest
If busy = normal, then weird = rest. Many people are busy. Few people are rested. So here’s what we want to do today. We want to explore this basic idea the is the foundation of this series:

If you want what normal people have, do what normal people do.
If you want what few people have, do what few people do.

Normal people have busy. Few people have rest. Normal people are over scheduled. Few people follow God’s plan for rest called Sabbath.

The word “Sabbath” shows up in the Bible 157 times. It’s a play on the word “seventh” in Hebrew. Sabbath is a day of rest every seven days. Let’s look at one place in the Bible where people practice the Sabbath day of rest. It’s during the time when they are wandering through the wilderness on the way to the promised land, and God provided for them bread from heaven called manna (literally “What is it?”). Let’s walk through this story in the book of Exodus little by little and see what we can learn about God’s weird plan for the way we use our time:

Exodus 16:21-30
Morning by morning they gathered it, as much as each needed; but when the sun grew hot, it melted. On the sixth day they gathered twice as much food, two omers apiece.

Notice here that there was some preparation needed for the Sabbath. You had to plan ahead to make room in your calendar for rest time. It wasn’t all miraculous. They had to think intentionally about their time to make Sabbath work. I think this was especially true if you had kids. An adult might make it through a day without food, but imagine having six kids all hungry throughout the day!

When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, “This is what the LORD has commanded: ‘Tomorrow is a day of solemn rest, a holy sabbath to the LORD; bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning.'”

The phrase “solemn rest” points to the purpose of Sabbath. First, Sabbath is solemn. Sabbath is about God. It’s about remembering God. Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments: “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it” (Exodus 20:11). When we rest once every seven days, we remember that God is the creator and rested on the seventh day.

Second, Sabbath is rest. Sabbath is about God, and Sabbath is about you. Sabbath is rest for you. Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath” (Mark 2:27). Sabbath isn’t about a bunch of rules to follow. It’s about giving you space to rest and not just work through life but enjoy life.

So they put it aside until morning, as Moses commanded them; and it did not become foul, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, “Eat it today, for today is a sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is a sabbath, there will be none.”

As we continue reading this story of manna we see that there is something miraculous about Sabbath. Sabbath expands what happens in our life. Sabbath multiplies, sustains, keeps, and creates. When you think it’s almost impossible to imagine taking a day off from work, and you do it, you find that you can’t imagine not taking a day off from work. You work better the other six days of the week. You are more creative. You are more rested. Everything you used to spread out over seven days is easily accomplished in six days. Sabbath works miracles in our lives!

On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, and they found none. The LORD said to Moses, “How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions? See! The LORD has given you the sabbath, therefore on the sixth day he gives you food for two days; each of you stay where you are; do not leave your place on the seventh day.”

But then there are those times when we are tempted to work on the Sabbath. When we are tempted to neglect our limits and push through. Practicing Sabbath is hard! It takes discipline. And pretty soon we end up having our lives worn out and empty again. No bread. No creativity. No rest. No time with family. No time for ourselves. No God.

So the people rested on the seventh day.

Say it with me, “Ahhhhhh…” Rest! That’s what we need in our busy-badge normal culture: a little weird rest.

Blu Greenberg (as quoted in Sabbath in the Suburbs) puts it this way:

Six days shall you be a workaholic;
on the seventh day, shall you join the serene company of human beings.
Six days shall you take orders from your boss;
on the seventh day, shall you be master/mistress of your own life.
Six days shall you toil in the market;
on the seventh day, shall you detach from money matters.
Six days shall you create, drive, create, invent, push;
on the seventh day, shall you reflect.
Six days shall you be the perfect success;
on the seventh day, shall you remember that not everything is in your power.
Six days shall you be a miserable failure;
on the seventh day, shall you be on top of the world.
Six days shall you enjoy the blessings of work;
on the seventh day, shall you understand that being is as important as doing.

Say No To…
To practice Sabbath there are some things you need to say NO to and some things you need to say YES to.

First, say NO to “And.” Replace “and” with “or.” I can run errands and pick my kids up and do the bills and watch TV and go to the YMCA and put in an extra two hours of work and have a meaningful conversation with my spouse, or I can run errands or pick my kids up or do the bills or watch TV or go to the YMCA or put in an extra two hours of work or have a meaningful conversation with my spouse.

Second, say NO to your kids. Yes, you heard me right. Say NO to your kids. Say NO to your kids’ activities. We’re over-programming our kids. Choose one activity each season and make sure you have a season with no activities. Say NO to always spending time with your kids, and instead spend time on your marriage. In her book For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, Tara Parker-Pope summarizes the current research on marriage and parenting this way:

Studies suggest that parents in happier marriages are more effective parents than stressed-out parents in unhappy relationships…The bottom line of the research into parenting and relationships is this: The best way to take care of your children is to take care of your marriage.

Connect daily with your spouse. Have a weekly date night where you get away for at least an hour or two. Spending time on your marriage is the best gift you can give your kids.

Third, say NO to media. We spend so much of our time watching TV, surfing the internet on our tablets, looking at Facebook on our phones that we’re sucking time away from the relationships that really matter. Recently a friend of mine who has one college-age child and another high schooler told me that the biggest mistake he made as a parent was having a TV in the house. His kids aren’t fully present to him. And now that we watch more TV on our tablets and phones, TV shows (can we call them that anymore if we’re not watching them on a TV?) are becoming more and more of an individualistic event rather than a communal one. Turn off all your screens when talking to someone and be fully present to the people you’re in the same room with. One family in our church told me about how successful it’s been having a media-free night at their home. They talk with their kids and read books with them and go on walks. Give it a try. Say NO to media so you can say yes to what matters, including rest.

Say Yes To…
That brings us to saying YES! You know, you say NO to some things only so you can say YES to other more important things. Say YES to a weekly Sabbath. Take a step of faith and have a weekly unproductive restful day, even if you don’t think you can “afford” it. Make it a regular day. Don’t do any work: work work, home work, whatever, be “unproductive.” Worship & spend unhurried time with God. Spend time with friends and family. MaryAnn McKibben-Dana defined work in this way: “Any activity that changes one’s environment. So Sabbath would be a day of giving up trying to change things.” That’s an intriguing way of thinking about. So what if there really is no way to do that week? Have you tried? OK, you’ve tried and it didn’t work. Well, what about bi-weekly, monthly, daily?

Second, practice daily Sabbath. Taking care of yourself daily. When I was in grad school I was stressed out more than I had ever been trying to keep up with everything. I went to see a counselor at the student counseling center. Her name was Dr Chaudhary. This was a secular counseling center which makes her non-drug prescription for clinically proven stress & anxiety reduction especially intriguing when compared to what we’re talking about today. Here are six things that research has shown to reduce anxiety and stress:

Daily Exercise
Plenty of Sleep Each Night
Brief Journaling
Prayer (remember this was a secular counseling center)
Breathing Exercises
A Day Off (Sabbath!)

How are you doing with taking care of yourself by practicing Sabbath daily?

Third, work smart. Remember, not all of Sabbath is miraculous. It takes some preparation and advance planning to make room in your calendar for Sabbath. That means working a little smarter. Pick up a book about time management and put into practice some of what you read. I’ve read several. Here’s the gist of three:

Eat the Frog (Brian Tracy)– Do the most important/essential/hardest thing first.

Four-hour Work Week (Timothy Ferriss) – If I had one hour to work today, what would I do? Do that first.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Steven Covey) – Schedule time in your calendar for the things that are important but not necessarily urgent.

Rest Begins With…
All of this weird practicing Sabbath stuff begins first with the weird decision to follow Jesus, the weirdest guy who ever lived. He taught that normal is a really messed up life that regularly and consistently misses what God wants for us. He showed us in his own way of living what that kind of weird God-life looked like. And he not only showed it to us but he made it possible for us if we would submit our lives to him and follow him. That’s where real rest begins. That’s where real peace begins. Say NO to your own way and YES to Jesus.

Imagine what a whole community rested might look like. In the midst of a busy-badge world, there’d be an oasis of peace and rest. “If you want a normal life, do what normal people do. If you want to know God intimately, walk with him daily, and please him in every way, you’re going to have to do what few do. Absolutely nothing” (Craig Groeschel).

Take five minutes and just sit where you’re at and do nothing. Just sit. Just breathe. Just be silent. Don’t try to change yourself. Don’t try to change anyone or anything around you. Just be. Rest.

“My God, I pray better to You by breathing,
I pray better to You by walking than by talking.”
Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: busy, rest, Sabbath, weird

Weird in a God Way

August 12, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Weird in a God Way*
Sycamore Creek Church
August 11/12, 2013
Tom Arthur
Matthew 7:13-14

Peace friends!

I’ve always been a little weird. Growing up, my friends told me I was “a little off.” I hung out with the crowd in high school that was sometimes called the “holy rollers.” I led Bible studies and prayer groups before school. I had a rule, that I didn’t always follow, that I would only date Christians. I was a little weird. And yet, I always wanted to be normal. I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be athletic. I wanted to date the popular good looking girl. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to be seen as smart, but not too smart. I wanted to drive a cool car, but instead of having a 69 Camaro like my friend who picked me up for school each day, I had a two-tone blue 79 Plymouth Horizon. At times I managed to do what normal people did and live the way normal people lived, and it usually ended up hurting me or others.

Today we’re starting a new series called Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working. There are a bunch of different kinds of weird. There’s weird in a good way, like that guy with the flat-top I see always riding his bike all around Holt and S. Lansing making the rest of us look like super slackers. There’s weird in a bad way, like the overly needy friend who is always having a crisis and it’s always someone else’s fault. Then there’s weird in a God way. That’s what I want to explore today: being weird in a God way.

Jesus puts on the path to being weird when he says:

The majority of people travel the broad way. They think, “We must be OK because the majority of people are on it.” If you’re on the broad road, looking like everyone else—pretty normal—it could be that you’re on the broad road that leads to destruction.

The problem is that normal isn’t working. Take away the Bible, just ignore it for a moment, and look around yourself, and ask: is normal working? When it comes to our schedules we’re overwhelmed, stressed, driven by the urgent, and lacking in quality time with friends and family. When it comes to money, we direct our lives toward the pursuit of material things that don’t make us happy and we end up broke, in debt, fighting about money, and full of fear. When it comes to our jobs, we’re working for a paycheck, just getting by, and not doing anything that we’re called to or filled with passion about. When we look at our relationships the usual course of things is to go from bed to bed to bed to marriage, which last for seven years and then we divorce. Normal isn’t working.

If you want what normal people have, do what normal people do. But…
If you want what few people have, do what few people do.

The few have peace, security, a sense of call, a mission for their lives, and their eyes on eternity. They’re weird.

Let’s face it, the teachings of Jesus are really weird too. He teaches something different than the normal. Jesus says, don’t just avoid adultery because lust is adultery too. Weird! Jesus teaches that the first in life will be last in eternity and the last in life will be the first in eternity. Weird! Jesus teaches that if you give, it will be given to you. Weird! He teaches that when someone curses you, you should bless them. Weird! He tells us that when someone hits us on one cheek, we should give them the other one too. Weird! Jesus teaches that when someone wrongs you, you should forgive them. Weird! Jesus is weird!

Sarah and I try to follow Jesus by living a bit of weird life too. We have a group of friends from seminary that we video chat with every other month. We call ourselves “The Order of St. James.” We have three things we hold ourselves to: Simplicity, Hospitality, Evangelism. We try to live at a certain level of income and give the rest away. We seek to share our homes with people who need a place to land to get back on their feet. We want to share the good news of Jesus with others and invite them to participate in the body of Christ. We’re all pretty weird. Who video chats with people these days and shares their financial details, talks about how they’re using their homes, and whether they’re inviting people around them into Jesus’ love and community? Weird!

There are two points that I want to share with you today about being weird. They are foundational points for the rest of the series.

1. Weird people don’t think like normal people.
First, weird people don’t think like normal people. Don’t copy what weird people do. Learn to think how they think. Paul, one of the writers of the New Testament said:

Don’t live any longer the way this world lives. Let your way of thinking be completely changed.
Romans 12:2 NIrV

The Message is a paraphrase of the Bible and it paraphrases this verse in this way:

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Romans 12:2 The Message

Learn to think differently about the way you live your life, and the way you live your life will change. This series is inspired by and based upon a book by Craig Groeschel titled Weird: Because Normal Isn’t Working. I suggest you pick up a copy of the book and read through it while we’re in the series. You’ll learn how to think differently about your time, your money, your relationships, sex and the values that you have.

What you think and value has a significant influence on what you become. If you value the pursuit of money as the purpose of life, then it will suck your time away from the relationships that really matter: your family and church. If you value the pursuit of pleasure as the purpose of life, then you will seek to have as many sexual encounters (real or virtual) as possible, and it will ruin your capacity for deep intimacy in your relationships, especially your marriage. If you value being liked by the people around you, then you will spend money to make sure they like you, spend time pursuing their approval, and end up with shallow friends and short-term commitments.

Learn to think like weird people. Because how normal people think isn’t working.

2. Weird people don’t live like normal people live.
Second, weird people live entirely differently than normal people live. When you take scripture seriously, and pursue God, you will be different than this world. If you look like everyone else, then it’s hard not ask this question: do you really know the God of the Bible? Because knowing God, not just knowing about God, makes you kinda weird. Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers, said:

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge.
1 Peter 2:11-12 NRSV

They malign you as evildoers because you’re not doing what everyone else is doing. You’re abstaining from all the stuff that draws us away from God. But when they look at the end result of our lives, they see that our weird lives actually were lives that brought peace, contentment, joy, mercy, hope, and love. By our weird lifestyles, they will be eventually convicted of their own choices and turn toward God and bring God glory.

Let me tell you that there are some weird people in our church. I think about the Richards, the Hoerners, and the Kirkconnells who have all been following the principles of Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University: set a budget, don’t spend all you have, live below your means, pay off your debt, build an emergency fund, and then pay for things all in cash, even your house and your kids college. Now that’s weird, because we live in a buy-now, pain-later culture. They along with many others are living like no one else so that later they might live like no one else. Weird!

I think about Kathie Brooks who has what she calls a “prophet’s room” in her basement that she shares from time to time with people who are struggling and need a safe and affordable place to stay for a while. Weird!

Then I think about Kathie Brooks, Sue Knechtges, and Teresa Miller who all went backpacking on South Manitou Island to build deeper spiritual friendships and grow closer to God. When was the last time you heard about three middle-aged women heading out in the wilderness to grow spiritually? Weird!

I think about Rebecca Titus and Dawn Bacon who are raising their grandchildren. You know when the Tituses show up because there’s so many of them. I love that when it’s baseball season, instead of skipping church, they come dressed in their baseball uniforms to the early service, and when they can’t make Sunday morning, they come on Monday night. Weird!

Then there’s Barb Smith. Barb died a couple of years ago from Pancreatic Cancer. It was only months after her diagnosis that she died. It was so quick. One day Barb invited me over to her house to plan her funeral before she died. I was amazed at the peace she had. While she was a bit afraid of the process of dying, she wasn’t afraid of death. Who sits with their pastor and looks death right in the face by planning out their own funeral? Nobody. Weird!

Then this week there are 22 guys from our church running around in the woods acting like a CRASH, a herd of rhinos. They’re deepening their relationship with one another and God. There are several people who gave scholarships to make sure that every guy who wanted to go could go. And they’re doing all this male bonding at a Girl Scout camp. Weird! Weird! And triple weird!

Now when I say weird people don’t live like other people, I’m not telling you to copy their weird. God has a custom weird for you. You may find bits and pieces of weird in there worth copying, but seek God’s weird for you. Maybe God is calling you to work less so you can volunteer in the community more. Or maybe God’s weird for you is to leave a lucrative job to be a parent. Or perhaps to take a big job so you can give generously. Or maybe if you’re single and sexually active, to reclaim sexual purity until marriage. Or maybe God’s weird for you is to live simply so you can care more fully for creation. Or is God calling you to seek a single mom or fatherless child in the church or community to invest your time in?

Normal isn’t working. Normal is fear, shame, regret. Weird is peace, contentment, fulfillment, and purpose. You can’t be weird like this by just being a normal Christian. Normal Christianity is half-hearted, lukewarm, risks nothing, sacrifices nothing, meets my needs and makes me feel good, and worships one day a week. Weird Christianity is different. Weird Christians worship seven days, are fully submitted to Christ, are the last, serve, give their whole heart to God, and are all in. You get all in by stepping through the narrow gate of Jesus. You don’t get there by doing enough weird stuff to be accepted and loved by God, but you receive the love of God in Jesus Christ’s own weird. Jesus loved you so much that he left his comfortable place in heaven to enter into creation and live a perfect and sinless life and submitted himself to a painful death only to be raised by the power of God three days later. That’s weird! Jesus’ weird is what makes it possible for you to be weird too. Don’t wait another moment. Follow Jesus and be weird too.

*This sermon is based on the book and sermon series, Weird by Craig Groeschel.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: broad path, narrow path, normal, weird

What is a Christian – Why Follow Jesus?

July 15, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Search: What is a Christian – Why Follow Jesus?
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
July 14/15, 2013
1 Corinthians 15:3-58

Peace friends!

We’re continuing a series where we’re searching for an answer to the question: What is a Christian? The problem with the word Christian is that it only shows up in the Bible three times. And in each of those instances, it’s an outsider labeling Christians. So if the word only shows up three times, then it’s super easy to make it mean whatever you want it to mean. And herein lies the problem with the word Christian. If you can make it mean whatever you want it to mean, then you can very easily confuse secondary beliefs with primary ones. You can make being a Christian about things that it really shouldn’t be all about. You can make certain things essential that really aren’t essential.

I’ve had my share of confusing secondary things with primary things. Growing up I believed certain things were primary that I have since come to believe are secondary. I confused certain views about the Bible as primary. But the Bible always requires interpretation, so what we were really saying is that certain interpretations of the Bible are primary. I had views about who was holy and who wasn’t. If you raised your hands in worship then you were good to go. If you didn’t, then you were suspect in my mind.

I held certain views about who’s in and who’s out. Who’s going to heaven and who isn’t. Who’s part of the right church, the right belief system, the right behaviors, and who had it so messed up that they were certainly going to end up in hell. I even lost my faith for a time period over these secondary things.

I suspect I’m not alone. I came across this list of ten things Christians don’t need to believe. It’s Martin Thielen’s book, What’s the Least I Can Believe and Still Be a Christian? Martin Thielen is a pastor in Tennessee and here’s his list of ten things Christians don’t need to believe and what he thinks is the truth about each one (in italics):

God Causes Cancer, Car Wrecks, and Other Catastrophes
Although God can and does bring good results out of tragedy, God does not cause tragic events to occur.
Good Christians Don’t Doubt
Doubt is not the enemy of faith but part of authentic Christianity.
True Christians Can’t Believe in Evolution
Science and faith are fully compatible, and theistic evolution is a perfectly acceptable Christian belief.
Women Can’t Be Preachers and Must Submit to Men
Women are fully equal with men in marriage, in church, and in society.
God Cares about Saving Souls but Not about Saving Trees
God cares about personal salvation and social justice and so should God’s church.
Bad People Will Be “Left Behind” and Then Fry in Hell
Left-behind rapture theology is neither a biblical nor a historical Christian belief and should be left behind by mainline and moderate evangelical Christians.
Jews Won’t Make It to Heaven
The ultimate destiny of non-Christians is in God’s hands, and God can be trusted to do what’s right.
Everything in the Bible Should Be Taken Literally
Although we must always take the Bible seriously, we don’t always have to take it literally.
God Loves Straight People but Not Gay People
All persons, including homosexual persons, are welcome in God’s church. However, beyond that, mainline and moderate churches are not of one mind on this issue. For now, “welcoming but not affirming” best describes most mainline churches, and the discussion goes on.
It’s OK for Christians to be Judgmental and Obnoxious
True Christians leave judgment to God.

I find that churches confuse these secondary things with primary things all the time. We make this list of ten to be essentials, to be foundational, to be fundamental. We use them to decide who’s in and who’s out of Christianity.

So if the word “Christian” only shows up three times is there some other better word to describe who we are? Yes. There is a word that is so clearly defined by the Bible that you can’t ignore what it means. It’s the word “disciple.” “Disciple” shows up over two-hundred and seventy times. A disciple is a follower, apprentice, pupil, student. A disciple of Jesus learns from Jesus about how to live life. And Jesus said that we would prove we were his disciples by our love for one another.

This raises an important question which gets at, I think, what should be our primary belief: Why trust following Jesus? Why follow Jesus rather than anyone else? Why not follow Buddha or Confucius or Muhammad or any other historical or contemporary figure? Why trust Jesus? Or why is Jesus trustworthy to give your whole life over to him? That’s the primary question.

Recently daredevil Nik Wallenda crossed over a part of the Grand Canyon on a high wire. If you didn’t catch this in the news, here it is:

That’s a pretty amazing feat, but the question I have related to today’s message is: Why trust the wire? Nik Wallenda is obviously a skilled person, but he put an amazing amount of trust in the integrity of the wire that was going to see him across the canyon. The same thing is true for Jesus. Why trust Jesus with your life the way that Nik Wallenda trusts that wire with his life? That’s the primary question. That’s the primary belief. That’s what we cannot afford to confuse with any other secondary belief. Let’s search the Bible and see if we get any direction on this question.

St. Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament in the form of letters, wrote a letter to a church he helped plant in Corinth. As he struggles with them about all kinds of things that they’re messing up, he has this to say about what is primary:

1 Corinthians 15:3-58
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time…

Did you catch that? Paul is passing on to the Corinthians and to us what is primary, of first importance. This brief passage is worth some pretty intense study because it’s Paul saying here’s what’s most important of all things. Jesus died and was buried in accordance with the scriptures of the Old Testament. But death couldn’t hold him, and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures of the Old Testament. Then he appeared to all kinds of people, his closest followers first and then more and more people and eventually to Paul himself. That’s what’s most important. God had a plan laid out in the Old Testament that Jesus would die and would be raised and would appear to many people as the risen Lord. So here’s the point of today’s message. If you get nothing else out of this message today get this:

The Point
Trust Jesus with your entire life because of who he is. Jesus is the risen Lord, the risen Son of God. You can trust following Jesus, you can trust Jesus with your life because of who Jesus is.

Sarah and I had a recent addition to our family. Samuel Lewis came three weeks early. When we got to the hospital Sarah was fully dilated. They rushed us into labor and deliver and guess who was there, Teresa Miller, a member of our church. Shortly thereafter our doctor, Amanda Shoemaker, also a member of our church, showed up. Amanda and Teresa then spent the next three hours helping us deliver Sam into this world. When they told us to do something, we did it. We trusted them with the life of this precious little boy. Why did we do this? Because of who they are: a labor and delivery nurse and a doctor. We trusted them with all that was precious to us in that moment because of who they are. The same is true of Jesus. We trust following him because of who he is.

Two weeks ago we baptized or reaffirmed ten people. As they stood before you I asked them several questions. Some of those questions were from the Apostles’ Creed, a statement of faith almost as old as the Bible itself. It is split into three sections: The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit. I asked each person if they believe in the Father, in the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The word “creed” comes from the Latin word credo which implies not just intellectual assent but trust. I was asking them if they trust Jesus with their whole life. They said yes and the baptism was an outward sign of the inward reality of that trust. Will you join me in confessing the Apostles Creed with them:

Apostles’ Creed

I believe in God, the Father almighty Creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day He rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
Amen.

That’s what I want you to do today. This is what is primary. All other things are secondary. I want you to trust Jesus with everything you’ve got because of who Jesus is, the risen son of God. He is trustworthy because of who he is. He is faithful because of who he is. Follow Jesus, be Jesus’ disciple because of who Jesus is.

I recently came across a payer that sums this up well. May this be the prayer of your heart today.

Prayer
Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying, through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: Christian, disciple, Jesus, trust

Search – What Is A Christian?

July 1, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Search: What is a Christian?
Baptism Sunday
Sycamore Creek Church
June 30 & July 1, 2013
Tom Arthur
Acts 11:26

Peace Friends!

What is a Christian? That’s the question we want to search for an answer to over the next several weeks, and it’s a great question to answer on Baptism Sunday!

Growing up in a very expressive Pentecostal church, I thought I had the answer to this question all figured out. I was so sure about this, that I had made it into a rule about who I would and wouldn’t date. Here was my answer: a true Christian is someone who raises their hands when they sing in worship. I wouldn’t date anyone who didn’t raise their hands in worship.

Sometimes I also thought that a true Christian was someone who prayed the sinner’s prayer. Of course, I prayed this prayer over and over again. It was kind of like taking Tylenol for your sins. A little later in life I read a book that helped me figure this whole thing out. You didn’t have to say this prayer over and over because I was taught, “once a Christian always a Christian.” I guess the first time you took the Tylenol it fixed everything for the rest of your life.

I think I was a little confused growing up. I was missing something. And I’m guessing I’m not the only one. Some Christians say that a Christian is someone who is baptized. No baptism, no Christian. Others say, “Nope. You’ve got to be confirmed.” Some say that as long as you’re part of our church, you’re good to go. Our “brand” is the true brand. Others believe that if you’ve gone down at the alter call, then you’re a Christian. Still others say that if you’re born again, then you’re a Christian. Of course, some people are born again and again and again. Some say if you believe the right things, then you’re a Christian. Others say that if you behave the right way then you’re a Christian. It seems that if you ask ten Christians to answer this question, you’ll get eleven answers.

Of course, you could ask non-Christians what a Christian is and you might get this answer: Christians are judgmental, homophobic moralists who think they are the only ones going to heaven and secretly relish the fact that everyone else is going to hell. Yikes!

Here’s the problem about defining a Christian. The word “Christian” is only used three times in the entire Bible! Three times! Here’s one example:

When Barnabus had found Saul/Paul, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met withthe church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians.”
Acts 11:26 NRSV

Notice that “Christian” is used by outsiders describing “Followers of The Way.” In fact, this word “Christian” is often a derogatory label put on Christians by those who aren’t Christian. Let’s look outside the Bible at the word “Christian.” Tacitus was a first century Roman historian. Here’s what he said about Christians:

Consequently, to get rid of the report [that he had burned down the city], Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called ‘Christians’ by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus…

Christians were “hated for their abominations” because they didn’t worship all the Roman Gods, and they were “called ‘Christians’ by the populace.” Can you feel the derision in this label? It’s hard to define the word “Christian” because the Bible doesn’t define it. You can make it mean just about anything you want.

On the other hand, the Bible does have a word to describe those who follow Jesus: disciples. The word “disciple” is used two hundred and seventy two times. A “disciple” is clearly defined in the Bible. Let’s go back to that passage we read from Acts, a book that tells the history of the early church:

Disciple is pretty easy to understand. A disciple is a learner, pupil, apprentice, adherent, or follower. It’s someone who says to the leader, “I’m trying to decide about such and such (my marriage, my parenting, my job, my money, my life). How would you think about this? How would do this? What questions would you ask about this situation?”

There are many different ways these questions are answered in the Bible. Here’s a couple of examples:

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha…She was devoted to good works and acts of charity.
Acts 9:36 NRSV

Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.
John 13:35NRSV

A disciple is someone who loves like Jesus loves. A disciple is someone who is seeking to follow in the way of Jesus’ love for God and for others.

Jesus gives us pretty clear direction about this. Someone comes to him and asks Jesus what the most important commandment is. Here’s Jesus’ answer:

Jesus said to the lawyer, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Matthew 22:37-40 NRSV

Love God with everything you’ve got and love your neighbor as yourself. In our church we use “three simple rules” to describe what that means:

Do no harm
Do good
Stay in love with God

Love means not harming other people. Love means doing good to them. And both of these two things are made possible by staying in love with God.

Another way we describe what it means to love as a disciple is to tell God’s good news story. It can be illustrated this way:

When you look around you, you notice that the world is pretty messed up. There are so many hurting people and so many hurting places. We’re destroying our earth. Our families are falling apart. There’s brokenness in all our relationships. There’s injustice and oppression all around the world. And when we look at this broken world, we have a longing for something better. That longing points to something. Like our thirst points to water or our hunger points to food, our longing for a better world points to a world that was better. When God created this world it was designed for good. It was designed for people to live in equality to one another, mutually submitting to one another’s needs out of love. It was designed so that every person would have meaningful and purposeful work, that no one would lord it over others. It was designed so that the earth and all of creation would be in a supporting relationship with humanity, not a destructive one. But something happened. We turned inward on ourselves. Our will was bent inward and became selfish. We looked out for number one, me. And so this world was damaged by evil. God, the creator, looked at this damaged world and loved it. And so like a painter whose painting had been damaged, he didn’t throw it away, but he chose to fix it. And so God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to redeem the world and heal it and restore it for better. To create a community of people who would follow him to learn how to live anew a life of love. To fix the broken relationships between humanity and God and between humanity and one another and between humanity and all of creation. This community is called the church. And the church at its best is on a mission to heal the world. Those who claim to follow Jesus don’t just hang out in their comfortable church buildings, but they are sent together to heal the world. To break down the structures that oppress. To make just the unjust. To love the unlovable. To bind up broken families. To show God’s love to the one who feels worthless. A Christian is a disciple of Jesus who has joined a community that is following Jesus learning how to love one another and God so that we can be on a mission to help bring healing to a broken and hurting world.

You may wondering, why we can’t just skip the whole Jesus thing and go straight to healing the world. The problem is that the world’s wounds are so big, that we can’t do it without the resources of the creator God in Jesus Christ. We need the power of Jesus’ love to both sustain us from turning back inward and to show us how to love. We can’t do it alone. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. We need to follow Jesus because he’s the only one who has ever lived in this world and loved perfectly, and he’s the only one who can heal our selfish bent inward called sin.

Just think if those called “Christians” all lived this way. We probably wouldn’t have had WWI, WWII, the Civil War, slavery, or the need for the civil rights movement. The world just might look at us and say, “Look how they love one another! They confess without being prompted. They tell the truth even when it costs them. They remain faithful to their marriage even when tempted. They are generous with everyone around them. I don’t know if I want to be one, but look how they treat their wives, their husbands, their employees, their employers, their teenagers, the hungry, the poor, the widows, the children. I don’t know if I want to be one, but I wouldn’t mind working for one. I wouldn’t mind my child marrying one. I wouldn’t mind having one live next door.

What would it look like to love people the way Jesus loved you? Well, Jesus was crucified, so get ready!

Of course we don’t even live up to our own standards to love, let alone God’s. That’s why we need Jesus. And today we’re baptizing several people into this community, this family of God who is on a mission. Baptism is an outward sign of an inward reality. The inward reality is that we’re receiving all that God has for us to join in the mission of Jesus to heal a broken world. Baptism is water, and water can be a lot of things. Water is death. If I hold you under long enough, you will die. Water is cleansing. We wash our hands and our whole bodies in water. Water is life. You can only go a short time without drinking water. Water is growth. You water your plants and they grow. Water is community. Villages, towns, and cities are always formed on the banks of rivers, lakes, or springs. Baptism then is death, cleansing, life, growth, and community. Baptism is entrance into the community seeking to die to selfishness, be cleansed from the past guilt of brokenness, gain a new life of healing, grow in love by following Jesus, and join the community that is sent to heal the world together. Baptism is the water of God.

So let’s baptize some people today who are seeking to be a disciple of Jesus.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: Baptism, Christian, disciple, restoration

The Next Lansing

June 25, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Next Christians – Next Lansing
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
June 23/24, 2013
Luke 2:52 & Mark 1:28

Peace Friends!

Today we wrap up a series called Next Christians. We’ve been looking at what it’s like to faithfully follow Jesus in a post-Christian culture, a culture where we can’t assume that others share our same values or that the Christian values are “driving the bus” of the culture. This is a vision series where we take some time to look at where the church is heading. Today we’re looking at the Next Lansing. What is this community looking like that we live in?

I’ve got some access to demographic data of our Lansing region and I was surprised to find that in Lansing people generally hold some pretty historically orthodox Christian beliefs. Take these for example:

In Lansing…
63% agree that “Jesus actually rose from the dead as the Bible teaches.”
63% agree that “Jesus is both divine and human.”
56% agree that “Jesus is the only way for human salvation from sin.”
14% agree that “Jesus was just a good moral teacher and no more.”

And yet, while the general population holds a lot of the same beliefs that Christians have held over two millennia, many think that participation in a Church just isn’t that essential. Consider these beliefs:

In Lansing…
55% agree that “Jesus belief does not require participation in a church.”
45.1% consider themselves “a spiritual person.”
17.2% consider it “important to attend religious services.”

Wow! So we’re “spiritual but not religious.” The church has a lot of obstacles to overcome to reach out to these people and to share our mission that being a part of a community that follows Jesus is an essential part of being spiritual.

There has also been a big demographic shift in Lansing and the United States as of late when it comes to those who are sometimes called “nones.” On demographic data, they mark “none” as their religious affiliation. Here’s the data for Lansing:

In Lansing…
Largest percentage for religious preference in Lansing is “None/No Religious Preference” (24.4%, a 3.7% increase over the past ten years).

So almost a quarter of Lansing don’t claim to be spiritual or religious. Those are the folks I’d like to learn from today. I think it’s worth listening to them in the spirit of what the new Pope had to say:

“If we [believers and non-believers] do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good.”
~Pope Francis

Apparently the Pope thinks that some conversation and coordination with these “nones” is important for Christians. When I look to scripture to see how Jesus interacted with the broader culture I am struck by two verses relevant to today’s topic:

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years,and in divine and human favor.
Luke 2:52

At once Jesus’ fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
Mark 1:28

While Jesus’ fame grew, it seems that what’s growing today for Christians is our infamy. Consider this video that we’re using as the opening video for our upcoming series: Search – What is a Christian?

This video should convict us. We’re learning something about how we are seen from the outside. God can speak to us through those who are “nones.” John Wesley says:

“To imagine that those who are not [Christians] cannot teach you is a very great and serious mistake.”
~John Wesley

Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman did some research on what non-Christians think of Christians and what they found was that non-Christians think Christians are, well, “unchristian.” Here are their results. Non-Christians think Christians are:

Hypocritical (85%) – Christians say one thing but live something entirely different.
Uncaring (70%) – Christians are insincere and concerned only with converting.
Antihomosexual (91%) – Christians show contempt for gays and lesbians.
Sheltered (78%) – Christians are boring, unintelligent, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality.
Political (75%) – Christians are primarily motivated by a political agenda and promote right-wing politics.
Judgmental (87%) – Christians are prideful and quick to find faults in others.

So what I want to do today is listen to a non-Christian, an atheist, and see what we can learn from him about ourselves. It’s not an argument. It’s not a debate. I won’t agree with everything Bill says today, but the posture I want to take is one of listening and learning, and I hope that’s the same manner you’ll bring to today’s message.

I’d like to introduce you to Bill Vliek, a good friend of mine. Bill attends our church pretty regularly. His wife is a Christian and he and his wife are having his youngest child baptized this next week. Bill obviously is choosing to do this for some different reasons than other parents. Bill and I co-lead the agnostic pub group that our church hosts twice a month. Bill is a band teacher at Fowlerville High School, and I first met Bill four years ago at the desserts Sarah and I held to get to know people in our church. I was asking questions to get to know people, and Bill’s answers really blew me out of the water. He is a thoughtful, kind, gentle, and loving individual, and I am proud to call him my friend. So please make sure you make Bill feel welcome today.

[Audio link to sermon Q&A pending]

Make sure you thank Bill for taking the time to share with us today. He’s open to questions, but I’d suggest that today isn’t the time to argue or debate him. Just listen and learn. That’s what we’re doing today. We’re doing that so that we can live into what Jesus told his followers they’d be known by:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
John 13:34-35

I think Bill has helped us learn how to love again. Thank you God!

Filed Under: Sermons

The Next Church

June 25, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

Next Church
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
June 16/17, 2013
Matthew 28:18-20
Acts 17:16-34

Peace friends!

We’re in the middle of a series called Next Christians. It’s a vision series where we look at where the church is going. We began with the next generation on Graduation Sunday, hearing from two of our graduating seniors. Then we looked at Gabe Lyons’ book, The Next Christians. Today we’re looking at what is next for our church. I don’t have a grand plan that I’m presenting to you, but I’m presenting some pieces of information and vision that I’ve been accumulating so that together we can be in a process of discernment about where God is leading us.

I’d like to begin by looking back at the founding of Sycamore Creek Church in 2000, thirteen and a half years ago. When SCC was founded by Pastor Barb Flory, the church had a vision to reach out to a kind of person in the community that they called Stanley Sycamore. I recently asked Barb to give me a description of Stanley. Here’s what she wrote:

Stanley Sycamore (According to Barb Flory)

He was most likely married, although also very likely to have been divorced in the past. He had a couple of children and the kids were a priority in his life. Originally we aimed at the 30s for his age, but we quickly realized that the early 40s was a more likely group for us to reach. Partly because of my age, (58 yrs.) and also because of the age of the core group – mostly late 30s to late 40s. Jon Jenz, the founding worship leader, helped at that point because he was in his 20s, but still the 40s worked best for us.

Stanley had some religious beliefs. He probably believes in God but is disconnected from the church. He has quite likely had some bad experiences with the church, or he simply doesn’t connect with his “mother and dad’s” church—old music and lots of stand up/sit down. It doesn’t mean anything to him. Initially we aimed toward atheists but didn’t find that to be fruitful because the demographics clearly showed us that the number of atheists in our area was very small. Stanley Sycamore did have spiritual sensitivity and lots of questions, but nowhere to ask those questions. One of our key offerings from the beginning was that SCC would be a church where you could ask questions. You didn’t have to believe what we believe.

I said that Stanley’s children were a priority. Stanley wanted to be a good father and husband. Stanley and his wife both had a concern for building a future for their children. How to discipline them? How to love them? How to have a happy, satisfying marriage? How to use leisure time? How to handle money? These were all questions that were important to Stanley and his wife.

13 Years of Change
So if that was Stanley back in 2000, consider how much has changed in those thirteen years:

2000 – Text messaging
2001 – iPod
2002 – Camera phones
2003 – iTunes
2004 – Facebook
2005 – Youtube
2006 – Wii
2007 – iPhone
2008 – Kindle
2009 – Android takes off
2010 – iPad

Check out this video to get an even deeper sense of what has changed since the church was founded:

Stanley Sycamore & Shawn Sycamore
I had an ah-ha moment a month or two ago. When I was thinking about who we’re trying to reach as a church, I remembered that Stanley Sycamore was originally played in many skits by John Miller, a member of our church. John is still actively involved with the church, but his children have grown up and married and are having kids now. His son-in-law is named Shawn Brokenshire. Shawn recently came to know Jesus and make a commitment to follow him. It hit me that if Stanley Sycamore, as played by John Miller, was representative of who we started out trying to reach, then Shawn Sycamore, as “played” by Shawn Brokenshire, is representative of who we are trying to reach now. If you don’t know Shawn and John, let me give you a brief description of some of the differences and similarities between these two generations. The most obvious difference anyone will see is that Shawn has tattoos all over his body. John has one tattoo on his shoulder, under his sleeve, that he got to help him build some bridges with his daughter, among other things. Shawn described this to me as a younger generation’s commitment to being creative. I asked Shawn what some other differences were between his generation and that of John’s. Shawn pointed to the importance of taking care of creation. The value of living “green” and thinking about how our decisions impact the earth is more front and center in the next generation. John pointed out to me that there are many similarities. For example, both generations value their family, especially their children. This is certainly true of both John and Shawn, but the way that our church will reach Shawn Sycamore is different than the way we reached Stanley Sycamore.

The Great Commission
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20 NRSV

Jesus gave us a Great Commission to go and make disciples of all the nations. The church, if it is following Jesus, is a community that should grow. The question is how will we grow and make more disciples and ignite authentic life in Christ, especially with the Shawn Sycamores of our community? I recently read a book that helped clarify the way forward. It is a book called The Myth of the 200 Barrier.

The Myth of the 200 Barrier
The title for this book comes from the idea presented at many conferences that there is a barrier that churches bump into at the 200 mark. The author of this book, Kevin Martin, suggests that the idea of a barrier isn’t helpful for churches to grow. He suggests that you have to think about the culture of different size churches. He says, “Most important for our observations, the large church is not a small church that has doubled in size. A large church is a different kind of community, a different system, and a different culture from a small church.” Martin points out that there are some sizes around which churches tend to predictably congregate, no pun intended:

Pastoral Size Church
75-140 ASA (Average Sunday Attendance)

“These congregations are organized around the support of a full-time pastor. They tend to have 60-80 active families, primarily parents and their children.”

Small Program Size Church
225-400 ASA

“In these congregations staff have emerged as important leaders and the congregation has developed programs beyond worship and Christian education, often felt-need ministries.”

Transitional Size Churches
140-225 ASA

“Obviously, between the pastoral size and program size congregations exists an area of transition…Congregations in this gap are not part of a true culture. There is no system in this size that reinforces a congregational culture. They are simply too large to be a small church and too small to be a large church.”

So what is our church’s ASA? Good question. Here’s the answer: 197. We’re smack dab in the middle of the transitional size church. And while we’ve recently experienced some significant growth by adding a Monday night venue, we’ve been a transitional size church for a long time. Martin points out some distinctive features of a transitional size church:

Transitional churches tend to be high-stress… The expectations that the pastor’s role will be primarily relational in the smaller church, and the expectations that accompany programs in the large church, create this high stress.

They use up and burn out lay leaders.

Transitional churches tend to need new programs, staff, and facilities all at the same time.

I found that last comment particularly poignant for our church. So if we’re a transitional size church, how do we grow? Martin offers this suggestion:

When I work with the leadership of a transitional size congregation, I do not start by asking them to improve their strengths or deal with problem solving. I ask them simply, ‘How large can your church be?’ I ask them to visualize the future and see a much larger congregation. I even ask them to pick the attendance number for this future church. This vision will include changes in the facility and adding programs and staff for this large community. For example, a congregation with 175 ASA tells me that in three years they want to be at 350 ASA. I ask them to work backward from that number.

So if we want to make more disciples of Jesus so that we’ve got 350-400 people attending our worship service regularly, then we have to ask the question: what would our church need at 350-400 in terms of staff, facilities, and programs and begin to put those things together. And to answer that question, we have to also know something about the kind of person we’re trying to reach out to, the Shawn Sycamores of our community.

The Culture’s Felt-Needs
There’s a fascinating story about Paul in Athens learning about the culture and preaching to the Athenians.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols…Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it…When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Acts 17:16-34 NSRV

So Paul looks carefully around Athens and finds lots of idols, lots of things that people find important. He could be offended by all this idolatry, but he’s not. He’s provoked to engage the culture. So he references those needs as he speaks to the Athenians. He doesn’t reach everyone, but he reaches two key people: Dionysus, a member of Athens’ chief governing council who eventually becomes the first bishop of Athens, and Damaris who is perhaps a high ranking woman of Athens. Upon these two people the church of Athens begins to be built. Paul reached these two people by carefully paying attention to their culture and the needs of that culture.

Lansing Culture
I have access to some demographic software online that allows me to look at the most up-to-date data about our community. I spent a lot of time recently looking over this data to understand who the Shawn Sycamores are in our community. Here’s what I found:

Overall top category of concern:
Career and financial – 43.7%

Top five life concerns
82% – Financing the future/saving/retirement
78% – Day-to-day financial matters
73% – Losing weight/diet issues
71% – Personal health problems
68% – Stress/time to relax

Top Category of Program or Ministry Preferences:
Community Involvement and Advocacy Programs – 63%

Top five Program or Ministry Preferences
70% – Opportunities for volunteering in the community
69% – Adult social activities
67% – Traditional worship services
66% – Holiday programs/activities
63% – Tie: Family oriented activities & involvement in social causes…
59% – Contemporary worship services
53% – Christian education for children

Top Five Media Preferences
84% – Local TV news
75% – National TV news
72% – Radio (exceedingly higher than the US average – 11.5%)
62% – Facebook (higher than the US average – 57%)
60% – Online News (e.g. CNN/ABC)

Worship & Small Groups
Our church does two things and only two things: worship and small groups. We attempt to focus on these two things so we do them with excellence and creativity. When we look at the Shawn Sycamores of our community, we have to ask the question, is what we’re doing in worship and small groups connecting with the felt-needs of our community? Are we paying careful attention to what our culture needs and connecting what we’re doing with those needs? In both our worship settings and small groups setting, we seek to connect with Shawn Sycamore, help Shawn Sycamore grow, and give Shawn Sycamore opportunities to serve (the top ministry preference category!).

Worship
When it comes to connecting in worship, we attempt to do so every week but especially four times a year when we do a big invitational buzz series. The last one we did began on Easter. It was based on the felt-need that people need a place to ask their deep questions about God. It was a series called Why? Based on the above needs of our culture, I’ve begun thinking I need to do a buzz series around health and well being and another one around money and finance.

When it comes to growing in worship, we do series that are belief series, Bible series, and spiritual practice series. Each one of these is geared toward helping you grow in your faith.

When it comes to serving in worship, we seek to communicate all the opportunities that exist in our church for serving the community (the top ministry preference category!).

Small Groups
When it comes to connecting in small groups, we encourage each small group to host one or two social events a year that are open invites to everyone. Consider the top ministry preferences of in our community. #2 is social activities for adults, #4 is holiday activities, and tied for #5 is family activities. Recently I saw this connection process played out at our monthly Dad Kids Night out gathering. I posted our group on Meetup.com, and we had a new dad show up that heard about us online (notice the shift to online social networks). He told us that he was looking for a dads group in the area and hadn’t found any. Then ours popped up on Meetup.com. He’s got a two-year-old and one on the way. Shawn Brokenshire and I were the two other dads there. We both have two-year-olds and one on the way! Was that a God moment or what?!

When it comes to growing in small groups, each week our small groups study the Bible, a book, or talk about the last week’s message. These discussions help small group members live out their faith day by day.

When it comes to serving in small groups, each small group is encouraged to make a commitment to serve somewhere in our community (the top ministry preference category!).

By connecting, growing, and serving in worship and small groups, we’re seeking to meet the felt-needs of the Shawn Sycamores in our community and to create and environment where they can meet Jesus and choose to follow him.

While there are a lot of obstacles and challenges for a transitional size church to reach out to the Shawn Sycamores, I’d like to leave you with a quote from Kevin Martin that points to the excitement I see in our church:

Most transitional congregations have high energy and communicate to newcomers that something special is happening in this community…these congregations actually have great potential for growth.

Make it so, Lord. Make it so!

Filed Under: Sermons

The Next Christians

June 12, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

The Next Christians
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
June 9/10, 2013
Acts 13:36
Luke 5:37-39

Peace Friends!

Last week on graduation Sunday we heard from the next generation of Christians, two of our graduates. It was awesome to hear how they’re living out their faith in the midst of struggles and a culture that strips away motivation. Their message kicked off our series, The Next Christians.

This series is inspired by the book, The Next Christians, by Gabe Lyons. The subtitle of the book is “Following Jesus in a Post-Christian Culture.” Post-Christian Culture? What is that? Basically, we live in a culture that we can no longer assume holds Christian values. We are missionaries in a foreign culture.

Sometimes this post-Christian culture is passive. Recently I was sitting in Fleetwood Diner when someone who was doing some work on the building was talking to some of the customers. This man working on the building was obviously a Christian. He was talking about how he didn’t work on Sundays because that’s how he was raised. And he made sure to go to church. He spoke as though everyone had those same values. But the customers who he was talking to (or at?) just sat there with blank stares. We live in a post-Christian culture.

Or take for example the time that our new bishop came to our Church in a Diner. I thought the waitress waiting on her might like to know that she was waiting on a bishop. I thought she’d also be impressed that we have a female bishop. So I went up to her and said, “I don’t know if you know this or not, but a bishop is sitting at one of your tables.” She said back to me, “What’s a bishop?” We live in a post-Christian culture. Sometimes it’s passive post-Christian, but sometimes…

We live in an actively anti-post-Christian culture. Do you ever feel embarrassed to call yourself a Christian? This probably comes up when you find yourself in an actively anti-post-Christian culture. Take for example the time I was with a friend who had just gotten a job as a professor at a state school down South. He was showing me around his department and introduced me to a colleague of his. This other professor asked what I did, and I said I was studying to be a United Methodist Pastor. He replied, “That’s what the world needs, more Methodist preachers.” We live in a post-Christian culture.

Or take the spate of books that have come out recently by the new atheists: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins or God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. We live in an actively anti-post-Christian culture.

If you’re a guest here today and you’re looking in on this whole Christian thing but haven’t yet claimed Christ, then you probably know what I’m talking about. You live in this post-Christian culture every day. If you are an “insider” and you spend most of your time around Christians, you may not fully understand. It’s hard to wrap your mind around how people see you and your tribe if you don’t spend time outside that tribe.

If you’d like to get a better sense of all this, check out this video of Gabe Lyons, especially the first two minutes where he summarizes how we live in a post-Christian culture.

And yet, in his book, The Next Christians, Lyons says:

Today, I sense something different is happening. I see evidence that the Holy Spirit is working in a new way. He’s moving through people where they work and through one-on-one relationships to accomplish great things. They are demonstrating God’s love to those around them, not just with words, but in deed.

When I read Gabe Lyons I’m reminded of two passages from scripture. First, we read in the book of Acts, which tells the story of the early church, that King David…served the purpose of God in his own generation (Acts 13:36). David had a purpose for his generation. The next king would have a different purpose, and the next king a different purpose, and so on. Each generation has unique strengths and weaknesses, unique talents and wounds, unique gifts and brokenness.

Reaching out to each new generation, each new culture requires new approaches. Jesus gets at this when he says:

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, “The old is good.”
Luke 5:37-39

I was introduced to Gabe Lyons’ book by a member of our church, Kathie Brooks. Kathie told me she was reading the book to help her understand her new pastor. Kathie is a retired professor of immunology at MSU. She’s about twice my age. She didn’t quite understand the way that this next generation pastor was leading. So she did what she likes to do to help her understand: she read a book about it.

Separatist Christians
Lyons outlines three different responses that Christians tend to have toward living in a post-Christian culture. The first of those is what he calls “Separatist Christians.” They might find a verse like Romans 12:2 (NRSV) to be particularly compelling:

Do not be conformed to this world,but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Don’t be conformed to this post-Christian culture. That’s the mantra of the separatists. He describes three different kinds of separatists:

Insiders – Their “lives revolve primarily around ‘Christian’ activities and functions involving other believers.”
Culture Warriors – They are “agitated to stand up for their moral convictions.”
Evangelizers – They’re “intent solely on getting people saved.”

We all probably know someone, if not several people, who fall in each of these three categories. They want to separate from the post-Christian culture that they live in, in some way or another. Their methods may be slightly different, but their sense that we should not be conformed to this world is shared.

Cultural Christians
Lyons then describes what he calls “cultural Christians.” Cultural Christians might be inspired by a verse like this one from Mark: At once Jesus’ fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee (Mark 1:28 NRSV). Jesus’ acts and behavior made him famous. Jesus was liked by the culture around him. Lyons describes two different kinds of cultural Christians:

Blenders – They “attempt to blend with the mainstream.”
Philanthropists – They have “an emphasis on doing good works.”

You probably know Christians who are like both of these cultural Christians. The blenders don’t want to look strange at all. The philanthropists just want to do as much good as possible. They share a sense that the culture isn’t fundamentally flawed but is worth embracing.

Restorer Christians
Lyons finishes by describing what he thinks are the “Next Christians: restorers.” Restorers might be inspired by the book of Jeremiah, the prophet. Jeremiah is speaking to the Jews who have been carted of into exile in Babylon. They are in a post-Jewish culture. They find themselves surrounded by the culture of Babylon. So what should they do about it? Jeremiah gives them an answer: Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare (Jeremiah 29:7 NRSV). When restorers find themselves in a post-Christian culture, they seek to restore the culture.

Lyons outlines seven characteristics of the Next Christians. They are:

1. Provoked, not offended

Restorers “don’t run from areas that might typically offend a Separatist Christian—they run to them. They seek out brokenness and offer hope.” In our church, I think we play this out by combining small groups and missions. We ask each small group in our church to make a commitment to serve in some way in our community. We regularly serve at Open Door, Maplewood Women’s Center, Compassion Closet, Holt Senior Care, Nicaragua, and more. That’s because you’re being led by a pastor who isn’t offended by the brokenness of our culture, but is provoked to seek out that brokenness and offer hope.

2. Creators, not critics

Restorers “create something new that has a striking resemblance to the past.” Here in our church we talk about being Curious, CREATIVE, and Compassionate. When we say creative we mean that we imagine a new future, experiment, and make it happen. Take for example our Church in a Diner. This is a response to living in a post-Christian culture. In our culture, Sunday isn’t reserved for church anymore. So are we going to complain about it or adapt to it? We chose adapting to it. We’re really just tapping into something in our Methodist past. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, found that people weren’t coming to the big gothic cathedrals of the Church of England so he brought his preaching to them by preaching at the coal mines and in the fields. Hundreds and thousands flocked to hear this preacher who creatively adapted to his culture.

3. Called, not employed

Restorers let “their gifts flood the world from the place where they feel called to work.” They see legitimate ministry taking place not just in the church but in seven channels of cultural influence: media, education, arts & entertainment, business, government, social sector, and the church. You don’t have to be a pastor to be a minister. You can minister wherever you are. I see this in both Kathie and in her colleagues, Mark and Jana Aupperlee. All three work or have worked as professors or researchers at MSU, and I bet if you asked them whether what they were doing was ministry, they would tell you that they are helping bring in God’s kingdom by doing what they’re doing. I see this also in the teachers I talk to in our church. They teach children because they’re called to it. It’s a mission and ministry to influence the next generation of kids growing up.

4. Grounded, not distracted

Restorers are “immersed in Scripture (instead of entertainment)…observe the Sabbath (instead of being productive)…fast for simplicity (instead of consuming)…choose embodiment (instead of being divided)…[and are] postured by prayer (instead of power).” In other words, they practice the spiritual disciplines. Take for example our two most recent CRASH men’s retreat. They were all about spiritual disciplines. You’d think men wouldn’t be too interested in spiritual disciplines but you’d be wrong. I remember sitting with my small group of men at CRASH two summers ago when the topic of fasting came up. I thought that this was going to be way over these men’s heads, but it wasn’t. Every one of them had some experience or interest in fasting. Several of them chose fasting as the discipline they wanted to focus on the next year.

5. In community, not alone

Restorers create “a community of friends that values doing life together, not alone.” I think you can see this in our emphasis at SycamoreCreekChurch on small groups. We believe that small groups are essential to spiritual growth. And yet, this value of restorers goes deeper. It’s not just about meeting with a group of guys or gals every other week for an hour or so, but “doing life together” day in and day out. It’s about supporting, encouraging, holding accountable, praying with and more every day of the week. This isn’t a call to spend all your time with Christians, and so we need a balance between spending all your time with Christian friends and having friends outside the faith. The point is that you don’t do this whole being a Christian thing in a post-Christian culture alone. You do it with others. You do it with community. You do it with the church.

6. Civil, not divisive

Restorers “learn to have reasonable, productive conversation without resorting to name-calling or angry outbursts.” Our culture has become so polarizing that it’s a breath of fresh air to find a community where you can disagree in a loving way. I’ve been wrestling with this in terms of giving a message about homosexuality. This topic is so divisive in our culture and especially in the church that I’m not sure how to create an environment where we can disagree in a civil way but not divide about it. I’ve contemplated doing a series where I share what I think about homosexuality followed by a message from a friend of mine who disagrees with me, followed by a message where the two of us talk together about how we can both be Christians and disagree about this topic. I asked you for feedback on this idea a couple of weeks ago and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. I think we can be a church that is civil, not divisive when it comes to issues that rarely are civil and almost always are divisive.

7. Countercultural, not “relevant”

Restorers are “living in the tension of being prophetic with their lives while serving others and inviting them to a better way.” Let me share with you one way that I try to live this out myself. I am part of a small group of friends from seminary (we’re all pastors or married to pastors) who call themselves the Order of Saint James (after the book of James in the Bible), or OSJ for short. We consider ourselves a kind of new-monastic order that has three marks or disciplines: Simplicity, Hospitality, and Evangelism. We try to live simply by living at or below an agreed upon ceiling of salary. We give the rest away, whether it’s over 10% of our income or more. We seek to offer hospitality by sharing our living spaces with other people. And we seek to practice evangelism by inviting people to join the way and mission of Jesus and his community called the church. Sometimes practicing these things makes us feel like we’re not very “relevant” to our culture. In fact, sometimes we feel just down right weird. We seek to be countercultural, to swim against the flow of the culture while being immersed in it.

So for Gabe Lyons, “the bottom line is that the next Christian has a calling and a responsibility to think, work, and live in terms of how the world ought to be in contrast to reacting to how it really is.”

If we go back to Kathie Brooks and ask her what she learned about her pastor by reading The Next Christians, she’d tell you this. Kathie was part of Campus Crusade for Christ and was part of the “evangelizer” “separatist” Christians. Her main focus in Campus Crusade, now known as Cru, was to help people get to heaven. She’d tell you that she was struck by the description of the full gospel which includes restoring our culture and not just separating from it. She recognized creativity as “being made in the image of God” but would never say that restoration of our culture was an attainable goal because of the sinful nature of humanity. And yet now, she sees that Jesus called us to these things whether she thinks they’re attainable or not. That’s the direction her pastor is leading.

Perhaps it is appropriate to end this message with one last thought from Gabe Lyons:

The church has been reignited in the West. Although few significant trend lines point to it, beyond declining church attendance statistics, an entire population of Christians is rediscovering purpose in their lives. Like new wine in new wine skins, the momentum is building in ways that elude our traditional metrics for measuring church activity. Nevertheless, a surge is under way. And though it will likely take years before it manifests itself in real, quantifiable data, connections between life, faith, and work are being made. People are coming alive and the church is sitting at the nucleus of what could be the faith’s next great expansion.

Filed Under: Sermons

What About Objections?

May 21, 2013 by Patricia Leave a Comment

One Fish Two Fish: What about Objections
Sycamore Creek Church
May 19/20, 2013
Tom Arthur
1 Peter 3:15

Peace friends!

Do you ever fear that if you bring up the faith in conversation with your friends or family that you’ll be asked a question that you can’t answer? If so, you’re not alone. Today we’re continuing a series about sharing our faith. Jesus told us to fish for people, but what if those people raise objections to the faith we’re sharing? We’re asking the question today: what about objections?

Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers said, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” But many of us feel inadequate when it comes to “making your defense.” One thing we miss is the opportunity inherent in the question or objection. In his book The Art of Closing the Sale Brian Tracy points out that in sales, “objections mean interest.” I think the same thing is true about faith.

So what I want to do today is give you a framework for how to answer objections and then answer some common objections you may run into. The framework is really simple: be curious, be creative, be compassionate. Do those three words sound familiar? Well, they should be. That’s how we talk about the kind of community we’re trying to form here at SCC. We’re curious, creative, and compassionate. So should your answers to any objections you run into.

First, be curious. Ask questions. Try to ask at least three before you give an answer. Part of being curious is humbly receiving the truth in the critique. Agree with the critique as much as you are able.

Second, be creative. Respond to the objection as creatively as you can. Try not to use clichés, especially churchy clichés! For example, don’t say, “God does everything for a reason.” Or “God just needed another angel in heaven.” Or “God won’t give you anything you can’t handle.” These cliché responses are rarely helpful with someone who is raising serious objections to the faith. Also, be careful about quoting the Bible. If someone is objecting to the Bible, it probably isn’t going to get you very far to quote back at them the very thing they’re objecting to. And it’s OK to say “I don’t know” and research an answer. In fact, sometimes you need to do this to come up with a creative answer.

Third, be compassionate. Say a quick breath payer like, “God, help me answer in way that is gentle, respectful, and meaningful to this person.” Listen for the need under the objection. If someone raises the question of suffering, perhaps there is some suffering in their life right now that you could ask some questions about and provide some healing in. In other words, think like a pastor. What’s the longing behind the objection?

So let’s run a couple of common objections through this framework.

Spiritual but Not Religious
Curious: If someone says, “I’m spiritual but not religious, so I don’t need church”, then first ask some questions. What do you mean by “religious”? Do you mean “organized religion”? Then receive the critique: Sometimes it does feel like organized religion gets focused on things that don’t seem to be at the center of what it means to seek God. That frustrates me too.

Creative: Do you ever get together with friends to hang out and support one another? Church is really a community of friendships & friendship requires some organization. Where are we going to meet? What are we going to do? Why are we going to get together? How are we going to make this happen? The more people in your circle of friendship, the more organized you have to be to sustain and support those friendships. It feels like you’re saying you can do it alone, but I’ve found that I need a community of friends to do it with. A church provides me with a community of friends, many of whom I would not have chosen on my own, to help show me my blind spots and hold me accountable to something besides myself.

Compassionate: Have you been hurt by the church in the past? Would you mind sharing that with me? I’d like to hear it and do what I can to heal that hurt.

All Religions Are the Same/Equal
Curious: There are many overlapping values shared between different religions. For example, when it comes to Judaism, we both believe in one God & the Old Testament/Hebrew Scriptures. When it comes to Islam, we both believe in Jesus’ virgin birth and second coming. When it comes to Buddhism, we both believe in showing compassion. When it comes to Mormons, we both share a concern about our culture’s continued slide into license. When we find common ground with someone from another religion, it makes sense to work together toward those shared values. Unfortunately, the church hasn’t done a very good job at working with people of shared good will.

Creative: While we share many similarities, not all religions are the same. To suggest they are is to say that you see them better than they see themselves. Sometimes we’re told the story of blind men feeling an elephant. One feels the tail and says it’s a rope. Another feels the leg and says it’s a tree. And so on. But in reality, it’s all an elephant. The problem with this analogy is that it assumes a position from which the observer can see everything clearly (without bias) while everyone else is left blind and groping. There’s a kind of arrogance in that perspective at times. When you look at religious claims of different groups, there are some serious differences. Islam claims Jesus wasn’t crucified. Judaism claims that Jesus was not God’s son. Buddhism claims that the material world is ultimately not good. Mormons claim Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon as equal to or better than the Old and New Testaments. Not all religions are the same.

Compassionate: Maybe you feel like I’m going to tell you everyone (including the people you love) except Christians are going to hell? I’d be concerned too if I thought someone was telling me that based on their religious beliefs. That’s a good question and one worth spending a lot more time studying. Would you be willing to talk further and maybe even read a book together about this question?

The Bible Isn’t a Reliable Historical Record
Curious: Are there some specific historical facts you’re concerned about? There are real differences between the way different parts of the Bible tell the story. Just look at the New Testament. We have four different books that describe Jesus’ life. In Matthew, Mark, & Luke, Jesus goes to Jerusalem at the end of his life. In John, Jesus goes to Jerusalem at the beginning of his teaching. It seems like the gospels are more “portraits” of Jesus than photographs. There are definitely some genre errors that Christians have made over the years. We assume something should be taken literally when it was intended to be taken metaphorically. We have taken some books of the Bible as history when they are really some other genre such as Apocalyptic or Wisdom.

Creative: The big picture story of the Bible is often quite consistent and reliable. While there are differences between the four gospels, they all agree on some big points about Jesus:

Jesus was a Jew who claimed to be God’s son
Miraculous claims were made about him and that was part of his draw
Jesus interpreted himself in light of Israel’s prophets
He rejected violent insurrection, but he was crucified by the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for insurrection (something revolutionary about who he was and what he taught)
After his death, his followers began to proclaim his resurrection.
The church only makes sense in light of the resurrection.
The rest of the New Testament is an attempt to think about all the rest of life changes in light of the resurrection.

Compassionate: Maybe you’ve found the Bible to be confusing and unhelpful, or even boring to read? I can understand that. I do too sometimes. Can we read some of my favorite parts of it together?

God/Bible/Religion is Immoral
Curious: There is much wrong (even deep evil) that has been done in the name of God/Bible/Religion. For example, the crusades, the suppression of science (a fellow truth-seeking endeavor), and the oppression of people (slaves, women, minority groups). Is there a particular command of the Bible that you find immoral?

Creative: Many of these mistakes are due to the human tendency to make mountains out of mole hills. None of these are the central story of Christianity. We cannot ignore the great advances in good that have come because of Christianity. Many scientists were/are Theists/Christians such as Isaac Newton who developed the laws of physics, Father Georges Lemaître, who developed the Big Bang Theory, and Francis Collins, the current Director of the National Institute of Health and formerly the director of The Human Genome Project. Many justice movements have been led by Christians to reforming itself and society. William Wilberforce, an Anglican, worked on abolishing the slave trade. Dorothy Day, a Catholic, worked in the labor movement. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist, was the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. Mother Teresa, a Catholic, paid special attention to the poor. Shane Claiborne, an Anabaptist, has created a movement called New Monasticism, where Christians live together in some of the worst neighborhoods in our country to help the poor.

Compassionate: Is there something you’ve been told you were doing wrong that hurt you? I’d like to hear about that.

Christianity Is for Ultra-right-wing Conservatives
Curious: Who are some of the people you’re thinking about who are Christians and are ultra-right-wing conservative? Some of the loudest voices in the Christian community can be very right-wing in their political views. One that comes to mind is Fred Phelps, the “pastor” of Westborough Baptist Church who pickets military funerals with hideous signs about gay people.

Creative: The media seems to amplify already loud voices because it gets attention and sells whatever news they’re selling. There are some equally loud, but not necessarily as well known, more liberal Christians too. Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourners, works tirelessly for the poor and oppressed. Interestingly enough, both George Bush & Hillary Clinton call themselves United Methodists. That’s either really scary or really cool. The vast majority of Christians are probably a silent moderate inhabiting a lot of middle ground.

Compassionate: Do you have some Christian right-wing acquaintances who get under your skin? Some of my relatives are kind of like that with me.

Christians Are All Hypocrites
Curious: Are there particular examples of people who have been hypocrites that come to mind? Well, yes we are all hypocrites. We all do what we don’t want to do. Even the Bible says that’s what happens. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Romans that he does what he doesn’t want to do, and what he wants to do, he doesn’t do (Romans 7). There are some Christians who are willing to entertain this while others are not.

Creative: Everyone is a hypocrite. We all need to be saved from our own selves. Join us in a journey to be saved from our own hypocritical selves.

Compassionate: Are there ways your own life doesn’t line up with your own ideals? Are there ways we could help one another become better people? I think God gives us some resources to do that. I’d love to talk more about it if you’re willing.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: compassionate, Creative, curious, objections, religion

One Fish Two Fish Why Do I Do This?

April 29, 2013 by Patricia 1 Comment

One Fish Two Fish Why Do I Do This?
Sycamore Creek Church
April 28/29, 2013
Matthew 14:17-25
Tom Arthur

Peace Friends!

What comes to mind when you hear the word “Evangelism.” For many of you evangelism probably brings up a lot of negative associations. It does for me too. There are certain “tribes” of Christianity that I occasionally run into that make me feel like I’m taking a test. If I don’t get the test right, that probably means I’m not a Christian and need to be converted to their tribe.

I also think Sarah’s experience with a Mormon who came to our door one day. We had a sign on the door about morning and evening prayer times, and Sarah saw the Mormon evangelist look at the sign, start to walk away, and then come back to the door and knock. Sarah went to the door and the Mormon evangelist said, “Do you know why God sent a flood on the earth?” Sarah responded, “I’m a student at Duke Divinity School and married to someone who is studying to be a pastor. Are you sure you want to get into this conversation?” He said sheepishly, “No.” And then he gave her his pamphlet and left!

I recently asked my friends on Facebook this question: What negative associations come to mind when you hear the word evangelism? What bad experiences have you had with evangelism? Either sharing your faith or someone trying to evangelize you? Here are some of the answers I got [the full answers are at the bottom]:

Two guys showed up to my dorm room unannounced and started grilling me with difficult theological questions that I had no clue how to navigate.

A single narrow minded focus on ‘Christianity’ and if you do not agree completely with their beliefs you are the enemy…

A focus on altar calls and “getting saved.”

I was always afraid of having to “do evangelism.”

I also have been in situations where I’ve somewhat hidden my faith because friends/acquaintances may feel that bringing up my faith in any way is an attempt to either make them feel inferior or change them in some way.

Young men in suits knocking on my door and trying to tell me (while kids cry, dinner burns and I try to escape) why their version of Christianity is the “right” one.

Evangelists just are too pushy and long-winded. They make me feel uncomfortable.

Caring more about my soul than my health and welfare.

The people who come to my door and preach without asking if I already am a Christian, or do ask but still preach anyway.

Walking down a crowded street a guy with a bull horn waited until I was right in front of him before he lit it up yelling about hell. He’s lucky I didn’t send him there.

Earlier in life it made me think of Tammy and Jim Bakker.

Whew! That’s quite a load of negative associations with evangelism and sharing your faith. I want you to know that we do it differently here at Sycamore Creek Church. We’re a church that is curious, creative, and compassionate. And we are told quite often that people find this a place that isn’t pushy and is very welcoming, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey and what questions you’ve got. I’d like to introduce you to someone who has been recently coming to SCC and is finding this a good place to seek answers to her spiritual questions. Meet Marian Wilson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zpVU23XL-A&feature=youtu.be

Marian may be physically blind, but the eyes of her heart are seeking God and finding SCC a good place to do that. And she even plays the keyboard for us! And if you were here a couple of weeks ago when she first joined the band, you know that Marian is a real gift to us, even as she’s still seeking answers to her God questions. That’s the spirit of evangelism that we have here at SCC.

Today we begin a new series called One Fish Two Fish How Do I Do This? It’s a series about sharing the faith. Today I’m going to answer the question: Why do I do this? Why share the faith?

There are three basic motivations that Christians have for sharing the faith, and you can find all of them in the story where Jesus calls his followers to leave their fishing nets and fish for people. Let’s explore each of these three motivations for sharing the faith.

Concern for Eternity

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Matthew 4:17

For many, the weight of eternity is a significant motivator for sharing the faith. They look around at the people they come in contact with and see that they’re heading away from God for eternity. They desire for all to repent, which originally was a traveling term that simply meant “to turn around”, and head toward God for eternity.

One key tool Christians have used over the last fifty years to make this point is often times called the bridge diagram. There is actually a free app you can download to your phone that walks you and someone else through this bridge diagram. Here’s a video about that tool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tNvEBnUj15k#at=67

http://www.howtoshareyourfaith.com/images/BridgeDiagram-8.jpg

The basic storyline of this diagram goes something like this:

God created us to be in relationship, but we rebelled and sin entered the world causing a big gap to form between us and God. The result of this gap of sin is death.
We sense this distance between God and us, and we try to do good works to cross over this gap. None of our good works is good enough to get us across the chasm.
God saw the predicament we were in and sent his son, Jesus, to bridge that gap. Through his life, death, and resurrection, he conquered sin and death and created a bridge between us and God.
To cross over this bridge and be in relationship with God we ask Jesus to be our forgiver (Savior) and leader (Lord). Where do you find yourself in this diagram?

There are some key motivators for those who feel the weight of eternity. At its worst, the weight of eternity can lead to a motivation of fear, especially a fear of hell, and a desire to make sure one has the right “fire insurance” to not end up there. When those who are motivated by eternity act out of fear, it is often clear to everyone else around them. Fear as a religious motivator can be powerful, but also very dangerous and off-putting.

At its best the weight of eternity motivates because we recognize that we’re all mortal. We all will die. What’s the number one cause of death? Birth! If you were born, you will die. Our culture does a lot to tell us we’re immortal, and sometimes we need a reminder that we don’t live forever. While concern for eternity has and continues to be a big motivator for many Christian to share the faith, for me personally, this is not a big motivator. I am much more motivated by the next two.

Obedience to the Truth

A second motivator for many to share their faith is obedience to the truth. As we continue reading the story of Jesus calling fishermen to join him and fish for people we read:

As Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
Matthew 4:18-20

“Follow me.” This is a command. And it’s a command that implies that the “me” that you’re following is worthy of being followed. Jesus tells us what this means elsewhere:

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
John 8:31-32

Here Jesus is inviting us to be obedient to the truth of his word, to be obedient to him. What is the truth of who God is and who Jesus is? If we find any book in the Bible that lays that out systematically, it is the book of Romans. St. Paul doesn’t lay it out as systematically as we might sometimes like, but his letter to the Romans is the closest thing we’ve got. Christians have recognized this and created at times what is called the Romans Road. It is a path through the book of Romans that succinctly describes the truth of Jesus. What you do is write the Romans Road in the margins of your Bible and then all you have to do is remember where the first verse begins. You look up that verse and beside it is the next verse. The content is pretty self explanatory. There are several versions of the Romans Road, but here is my take:

Romans 1:20—Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.

Romans 3:23—All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6:23a—For the wages of sin is death,

Romans 6:23b—But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 5:8—But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.

Romans 10:9-10—If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.

Romans 8:1—There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:16—It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.

Romans 8:38-39—For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 12:1-2—I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world,but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.

One of my favorite ways of describing what the truth of Jesus is comes from a third and fourth century church leader named St. Athanasius. In his book, On the Incarnation, he begins by describing how we were made in God’s image so that we could have a relationship and friendship with God. But sin distorted that image and broke the friendship. Jesus came to restore that image. Here’s what St. Athanasius says this about the truth of who Jesus is:

What, then, was God to do? What else could He possibly do, being God, but renew His Image in mankind, so that through it men might once more come to know Him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very Image Himself, our Saviour Jesus Christ? Men could not have done it, for they are only made after the Image; nor could angels have done it, for they are not the images of God. The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was He alone, the Image of the Father, Who could recreate man made after the Image.

In order to effect this re-creation, however, He had first to do away with death and corruption. Therefore He assumed a human body, in order that in it death might once for all be destroyed, and that men might be renewed according to the Image. The Image of the Father only was sufficient for this need. Here is an illustration to prove it. ‘

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself, and seek out His lost sheep, even as He says in the Gospel: ” I came to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19. 10) This also explains His saying to the Jews: “Except a man be born anew …” (John 3. 3) He was not referring to a man’s natural birth from his mother, as they thought, but to the re-birth and re-creation of the soul in the Image of God.

C.S. Lewis, influenced by St. Athanasius, summed this up even more succinctly: “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” I sometimes make Lewis a little more gender inclusive by saying: In Jesus, God took on the character of flesh so that flesh might take on the character of God or In Jesus, God became friends with us so that we might become friends with God.

If all that seems too complicated, John Wesley comes to our rescue with a simple description of the truth: “Always remember the essence of Christian holiness is, simplicity and purity : one design, one desire : entire devotion to God.” Love God with everything you’ve got!

For those who desire to be obedient to the truth, there are some key motivators for sharing the faith. At the worst, this motivation can become intellectual hair-splitting. At its best one is motivated by truth, integrity, reason, honesty, and fidelity. Why share the faith? Because we are called to be obedient to the truth.

Joining an Adventure & Rescue Mission

A third reason why one might share the faith is because you’re inviting those around you to join an adventure and rescue mission.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
Matthew 4:23-25

Now that’s what I’m talking about! For me this is a huge motivator to share the faith. I want to join the adventure and rescue mission of Jesus to heal and transform the world!

One recent tool that has been developed to tap into this motivation is sometimes called the Four Circles or The Big Story or the True Story. It is somewhat of a reaction to the bridge diagram. The bridge diagram is very individualistic. As you’ll see the Four Circles diagram is very community oriented. Here’s a quick video that describes the four circles:

http://vimeo.com/24231464

To see how this works if you drew it out, here’s a more home-grown video of the Four Circles being explained by it’s creator, James Choung:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCVcSiUUMhY

http://openchurchnz.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/choung4circlestruestory.jpg

Here are the four circles:

Creation – Designed by God for good.
Fall – Damaged by evil and living self-centered.
Redemption – Jesus restores for better, and his life, death and resurrection show that sin, evil and death don’t have the last word.
Mission & Adventure of Following Jesus = We are sent together to heal to become an agent of mission to change the world. The goal is to transform you and send you to transform the world by bringing God’s kingdom now.

I have a hard time coming up with worst case motivations for this, but if I had to, I’d say that because it is a reaction to the Bridge Diagram, sometimes this motivation can be simply reactionary. But at it’s best, wanting to join the adventure and rescue mission of Jesus I am motivated by: compassion; justice; ending or reducing poverty; tearing down the walls of racism, sexism, classism, etc.; and bringing God’s Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. Now that’s what gets me up in the morning!

I like this way of thinking about evangelism and sharing the faith because it is also communal. We don’t do it alone. We are sent together to heal. We invite people to join in that adventure and rescue mission. Who doesn’t want to be involved in transforming the world for better? And a key doorway into this mission is through worship. Worship is the staging ground for this adventure and rescue mission. We attempt to make this as easy as possible for you by providing three to five Big Sundays every year. Easter was our last Big Sunday. So you know that we had almost three hundred people here on Easter? That’s amazing!

Imagine with me a community of people that were motivated to share the faith because following Jesus led to personal transformation. Addictions are broken. Marriages are healed. The lonely find community. The “worthless” find worth. The least become the greatest. The last become the first. The lost become found.

Imagine with me a community of people that were motivated to share the faith because following Jesus leads to joining an adventure and a rescue mission to the world. The homeless women and children at Maplewood find a home. Those on the edge of society find a welcoming place at Open Door. Those who are forgotten because of their age and health find friendship and love at Holt Senior Care. Those in need of basic supplies for life find them at Compassion Closet. Those who need medical assistance in Nicaragua find health and healing and hope. Do you know that these are all places where our church is already reaching out to the community and world? We do it by receiving money and giving it away. Do you know that we have over the life of our church received and given away almost $80,000 in special offerings that have gone to meet the needs of our community and world? SycamoreCreekChurch is joining the adventure of Jesus and his rescue mission to save the world. That’s why we share the faith! Will you join the adventure?

God, sometimes we’re not very motivated to share the faith. Sometimes we’re even scared and overwhelmed. Give us motivation when we don’t have any. Help us have a concern for eternity. Help us be obedient to the truth. Help us join the adventure and rescue mission of Jesus to transform the world. Amen.

Friends, I want to let you know about two things. First, there are three books that have been influential to me in working on this series. I’d like to encourage you and/or your small group to pick one up and read it. They are:

God Space by Doug Pollock

This book is a short (127 pages) easy to read book about how to get into spiritual conversations with those around you. I heard Doug speak about a year ago and was deeply moved by his approach to evangelism. His approach is really about how to listen well and ask good questions. I don’t think you can go wrong with this book. If you’re not sure about which book to pick, pick this one.

Coffee Shop Conversations: Making the Most of Spiritual Small Talk by Dale Fincher and Jonalyn Fincher
This book is a little longer (219 pages) but covers more ground than Pollock’s book. It deals with the same topic, how to start spiritual conversations, but also spends a lot more time covering what the Christian faith is and how to respond to possible “arguments” against the Christian faith. If your group wants to go deeper than just how to get into the conversations and needs some help with answers to possible questions that come up, this book would be the one to go with.

True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In by James Choung
This book is the most readable even if longest (222 pages) of the three because it is almost all a narrative (And at times is a page-turner!). It is a “fictional” conversation between a college-age Christian, a mentor professor, and his non-Christian love-interest. This book doesn’t dive at all into how to get into spiritual conversations, but shows how to talk about Christianity in a way that is compelling to our current culture. The book attempts to correct some past ways that Christians have tended to present the gospel that have caused our culture to tune out Christians.

Second, in the fourth week of this series I’m going to be doing a live Q&A with you answering the question: What about objections? I’m going to give you the opportunity to ask the kinds of questions you’re afraid will come up if you talk about your faith with others around you. I’m not preparing much for this message because I want you to see what it looks like to answer these questions unprepared and on the spot. I want to model for you how you might answer objections to the faith, and I may even have to model how to say, “I don’t know. Let me get back to you on that one.” So begin compiling your questions and bring them on week four!

Facebook Questions & Answers

Full answers from my friends on Facebook to the questions: What negative associations come to mind when you hear the word evangelism? What bad experiences have you had with evangelism? Either sharing your faith or someone trying to evangelize you? Here are all of the answers I got:

Back in college I attended a ministry on campus. Once they had my contact information, two guys showed up to my dorm room unannounced and started grilling me with difficult theological questions that I had no clue how to navigate. I was young in my faith and they knew it. After fumbling through my responses, they left. At no point did I feel they actually cared about me. They were there with an agenda. They had no intention of hearing my thoughts. It was as if they only cared about results and could care less about fostering a friendship. Needless to say, I never returned and they never wondered where I went.

A single narrow minded focus on ‘Christianity’ and if you do not agree completely with their beliefs you are the enemy…

A focus on altar calls and “getting saved.” Specifically, I think about when this big production with BMX bikes and loud music came to my high school gym one Friday night. If you didn’t attend the event, you must not have been a Christian. If you didn’t go up front at the altar call, you must not want to be saved. Shame on you! A similar pressure was present at other church events like concerts and such. It never happened at Lake Louise, Lake Michigan, or Wesley Woods… all UMC camps. I love being United Methodist!

I was always afraid of having to “do evangelism.” I saw a poster once that showed a polar bear on this empty frozen wasteland. The caption read “Now this is my kind of neighborhood for evangelism.”

What I don’t like about being evangelized to is the feeling that there is only one belief and if you don’t agree fully with every single facet then somehow you are “less than” as a person. I personally don’t like to evangelize to others because I don’t necessarily “fit” the traditional Christian mold. I also have been in situations where I’ve somewhat hidden my faith because friends/acquaintances may feel that bringing up my faith in any way is an attempt to either make them feel inferior or change them in some way. For example, I know religion is a touchy subject with most members of the LGBT community, and even though I personally feel that God is love and everyone has the right to seek personal happiness, bringing up my faith could be seen as passing judgment or even an attack.
My short answer? Evangelism is awkward for me. Religion and faith place me in a box that I personally don’t fit into.

Young men in suits knocking on my door and trying to tell my (while kids cry, dinner burns and i try to escape) why their version of Christianity is the “right” one.

When I rebelled against God I disliked Christianity, especially those who evangelized their faith. As I mature in my Christian faith I respect those that profess their faith and encourage their enthusiasm. In retrospect, I am thankful to God for those annoying evangelists who sparked contempt and fear into my heart.

Interesting you should ask that, that was the exact question my worship committee discussed this month as we gear up for a sermon series on evangelism: what is it and what it isn’t. I hope God is blessing this conversation for you and your church!

Evangelists just are too pushy and long-winded. They make me feel uncomfortable.

Caring more about my soul than my health and welfare.

The people who come to my door and preach without asking if I already am a Christian, or do ask but still preach anyway. If I believe the same thing, I shouldn’t be offended or feel uncomfortable when you talk about it. I can only imagine how much worse it is if it is a non-believer who answers the door.

Walking down a crowded street a guy with a bullhorn waited until I was right in front of him before he lit it up yelling about hell. He’s lucky I didn’t send him there.

Hmm today at sm group we watched a Nooma video called bullhorn, it’s about a bullhorn guy screaming hell fire and brimstone. I loved how he talked about how Jesus “evangelized”

I don’t think of evangelism the same way as I did when I wasn’t as far along in my faith walk. Earlier in life it made me think of Tammy and Jimmy (?) Bakker. Anyway, it was a turn off, pushy, intrusive. Now I see openly talking about faith and how I can lean on God through faith feels comforting and “looks” totally different from “The Bakers.” I don’t feel fake like the big hair and clumpy makeup or the loud pushy preaching.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: adventure, eternity, evangelism, Faith, obedience

Weird Desires

Weird Time

Weird in a God Way

What is a Christian – Why Follow Jesus?

Search – What Is A Christian?

The Next Lansing

The Next Church

The Next Christians

What About Objections?

One Fish Two Fish Why Do I Do This?

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