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A Part, Not Apart*

March 31, 2015 by Leave a Comment

come&see

A Part, Not Apart*
Sycamore Creek Church
March 29/30, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Everyone wants to feel needed.  The alternative is feeling unneeded . . . dispensable.  There is nothing super about being superfluous.  We go to college, learn new skills, attend leadership conferences, and take on additional projects in order to become indispensable. Becoming truly indispensable is hard.  Most of us carry insecurities that we aren’t really needed.  Not needed in our job.  Not needed by our friends.  Not needed in our family.

Here’s some good news: Jesus started a movement called the church. You have a role to play in that movement. Your role is indispensable. The church is one place where you can’t be replaced.

Today we wrap up a series called Come & See.  We’ve spent four weeks looking at how people come to follow Jesus.  It all happens through a simple invitation: Come and see.  Jesus followers had a simple goal: The goal was not to explain something, but to experience someone.  Today I want to prove to you that you are an indispensable part of people experiencing Jesus.

There is a big upside to feeling indispensable.  You’ve got job security, a raise is in your future, maybe even a bonus.  When it comes to relationships, being indispensable means feeling like others need us.

On the other hand, there are a lot of downsides to feeling dispensable.  When you feel dispensable you feel superfluous, nonessential, expendable, unnecessary, discretionary, especially when the economy turns.  And it gets even worse when you feel dispensable in your relationships.  Anxiety.  Depression.  Anger.  Loneliness.  Some might even feel suicidal.  These are pretty bad so we work hard to keep from feeling dispensable.

It’s really hard to be indispensable.  Where are you truly indispensable in this world?  The closest thing I could come up with is that as a parent, you’re pretty indispensable.  No one else can really be the parent of your child.  But then there comes this period of time called the empty nest.  So when you’re a parent you’re always saying the long goodbye.  You are indispensable for a season.

But there is one opportunity and one place where you are truly indispensable: the church.  I’m guessing that none of you woke up thinking “I’m indispensable to my church.” Even the leaders didn’t wake up thinking this.  If you’re a leader and you don’t show up for worship, we’d scramble but we’d work it out.  If Jeremy wasn’t here to lead worship, we could throw up some worship videos.  Even if I wasn’t here, you could find some better preacher online and show that video.  But the truth is that each one of you is indispensable.  Let me show you why.

Jesus’ followers were on a wild upward ride.  It was a serious adventure!  Traveling around the countryside healing people, preaching the good news, confronting the powerful religious leaders of the day.  But then their adventure took a downward turn at the cross.  Jesus died.  He was executed.  The adventure came to an immediate halt.  What happened?!  But then a few days later and he’s back!  They’ve got to be thinking, what will Jesus do next?  And what he would do next is almost as unthinkable as the cross.  He left.

Jesus knew that this would be crazy and it was his plan all along so he told his followers:

I have told you these things before they happen so that when they do happen, you will believe.
~John 14:29 NLT

His followers have got to be saying, “Jesus, how is this a good plan?  You’re the one who leads, we keep messing it up.”  But Jesus says, “I’m leaving because I’ve got a better plan, a better plan than me. My plan is y’all.” 

But you [y’all] will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
~Acts 1:8 NLT

The “you” in the Greek, the original language this was written in, is a plural you as in “y’all.”  Jesus’ plan was not any one of you, but you all.  All y’all.

After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him.
~Acts 1:9 NLT

I’m sure the disciples were stunned.  They’re thinking, “Don’t go, we’ve got questions!”  But here’s what happened next.  From a dozen followers, come a couple dozen to a hundred to several hundred to thousands and by 100AD there were 1,000,000 (1 million) followers of Jesus when the population of the world was 181 million.  That means that 0.6% of the population was following Jesus.  From 12 to 1,000,000 followers.  But the story gets even better. Today there are about 2,200,000,000 (2.2 billion) followers of Jesus and the population of the world is 6,900,000,000 (6.9 billion) or 31.6%.  Wow!  Jesus’ plan worked: Y’all.

Paul, one of Jesus’ followers and the first missionary of the church thought deeply about the indispensability of each person in the church and he came up with a metaphor to describe it.  Paul said you were an indispensable part of a body:

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.

Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body?
~1 Corinthians 12:12-16 NLT

Regardless of what part, each part is a part of the body.  Each part contributes to the overall purpose and value of the body.  That’s what the church looks like.  Paul goes even further into this metaphor:

If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?
But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it.  How strange a body would be if it had only one part!  Yes, there are many parts, but only one body.
~1 Corinthians 12:17-20 NLT

For the body to be the body, no part can be apart.  In fact, it’s gross if a part of the body is apart from the body.  Jeremy’s brother-in-law found a foot on the beach in the Puget Sound near Seattle.  Something had gone terribly wrong!

 The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”  In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary…All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.
~1 Corinthians 12:21-22, 27 NLT

You are indispensable.  The body isn’t the body when your part is apart.

Jesus said: I’m leaving this to you.  Paul said: You are a part of the body.  So at SCC we want you to be part of the body.  Here are three ways you can be part of the body:

1.      Connect in a Group
You’ve got to get out of rows on Sunday and into circles the rest of the week.  You don’t really get connected to the body when you’re looking at the back of the heads of the people in front of you.  Worship is a place where we connect with God but it isn’t a place where we connect deeply with others.

We run our small groups at SCC on a semester based system.  We’re currently in the spring semester.  Then in May we host what we call GroupLINK to sign up for the summer semester.  Then in September we host another GroupLINK for the fall semester.   You are a part of the body when you connect in a small group.

2.      Volunteer on a Team
Everybody can serve.  You’ve all got some talent you can share with others.  In fact, there is one team that we are all on: the hospitality team.  All of us are on the hospitality team because a guest is going to experience this as a welcoming place less based on whether the pastor greeted them and more based on whether the person they sit next to greets them.  So we’re all on the hospitality team.  But there are also some key hospitality roles where you can volunteer.  You can be a greeter and greet people at the door.  You can be an usher and ush people.  You can be a parking lot attendant and play traffic cop one day out of the week.  We’ll even give you a special vest.  You can help set up the Connection Café before worship each week and live out your inner desire to be an event planner.  You can help clean the building each week so that it sparkles when a guest shows up.  You can be an opener/closer/setup/teardown volunteer that helps get the building ready to welcome guests.  After you’ve been here for six months and gone through a background check, you can volunteer with our children in the nursery or Kids Creek or you can help with our youth in StuREV.  You are a part of the body when you volunteer on a team.

3.      Invite a Friend
When you invite someone you connect to all the other parts.  When you invite a friend to come and see, you’re giving all the other parts a reason to play their part.  This Easter we’ve been encouraging you to fill out an Invest Invite Card.  This card challenges you to invest time in three friends and pray for God to open a door to invite them to church.  You’re not trying to throw a crow bar into the door and force an invitation, you’re investing time and energy in the friendship and you’re asking God to make the opportunity to invite natural.  You are a part of the body when you invite someone to come and see.

When we’re a part of the body of Christ, people experience Jesus.  Jesus needs to be experienced, not explained.  People experience Jesus when each part decides to be a part of the body, not apart from the body.  When you invite someone to come and see, you’re playing a part with every other person.  When you invite someone, you’re giving them the opportunity to experience Jesus.

What happens when we all are a part of the Body?  I recently came across a church named Sagebrush Church that followed how one invite had an impact on so many people.  Watch and see:

 

 

Prayer
God, as we prayerfully ponder who we might invite to come and see at Easter, open the doors for the invitation to be natural.  Gives us eyes to see that opportunity, that cue for the time to extend the invitation.  Use our invites to give people an opportunity to experience your son, Jesus.  In his name we ask these things, amen.

 

*Based on a sermon first preached by Joel Thomas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Sermons

The Cue to Who*

March 25, 2015 by Leave a Comment

come&see

Come and See: The Cue to Who*
Sycamore Creek Church
March 22/23, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today we continue in this series Come and See.  We’ve learned so far that Jesus is someone who has to be experienced, not something to be explained.  And when our lives show Jesus, people are more open to what we tell them.  Most of us began following Jesus and joining a faith community because we were invited by someone.  All of Jesus’ followers came through a simple invitation: come and see.  The goal was not to explain something, but to experience someone. Jesus needs to be experienced, not explained.

There are two metaphors for how Jesus wants us to interact in the world: Salt and Light.  Salt protects and light directs.  Our actions are to protect and direct.  People will then see your good works and glorify God.  People are more compelled by what we do, not what we believe.  A living example is better than a lengthy explanation.  Our witness to other people hinges on what they witness us doing.

So today we’re going to dive into who you should invite to come and see.  Sometimes it’s hard for us to invite.  We feel awkward.  Our culture says that faith is private, not to be put on public display.  As a pastor, I tend to have the opposite problem at times.  People find out I’m a pastor and they feel guilty. They expect me to invite them.  They think I’m all about the money.  Or they dive into a free counseling session (and I’m not even a very good counselor!).  So while I have a unique set of obstacles that is a little different than your set of obstacles, we all struggle in some way with inviting.  So today we’re going to look at the Who, When, and Why of inviting as Jesus models it for us with a Samaritan woman.

 

One day after baptizing some people in Judea (southern Israel), Jesus decides it’s time to go to Galilee (northern Israel).  In between Judea and Galilee is Samaria.  Usually Jews walked way out of the distance to not go through Samaria.  For a modern example, think about a modern Israeli walking around Palestine so that they don’t have to go through Palestine.  They come to Jacob’s Well and Jesus’ disciples head into town to buy some food while Jesus takes a break from the long trek. Here’s where we pick up the story:

Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water…
~John 4:6-7 NLT

Notice that it’s noontime.  That’s an unusual time to be drawing water from the well.  Usually you draw water when it’s cool in the morning or evening.  But at noon it would be hot.  Why would this woman be drawing water at the hottest time of the day?  Maybe she’s trying to get away from everyone?  Maybe she’s ashamed to be there when others are there.  Maybe she’s just introverted and doesn’t want to talk to many people.  I know the feeling.  I’m introverted and would rather just go about my business and not talk to any strangers.  So this interaction with someone is not a planned moment.  Jesus is tired.  This woman is likely trying to avoid people and gossip.  Yet Jesus notices something and enters into the conversation.  Where will it go?

Lately I know something of what this feels like.  I’ve been trying to pull myself out of my introversion a bit by carrying two pennies in my right pocket.  These two pennies represent two conversations I try to have each day with someone I don’t know.  They remind me to enter into unplanned conversations.  I’m always a bit ambivalent about entering into these conversations.  Where will they lead?  Sometimes they’re short and polite.  But one time I ended up in an unplanned marital counseling session.  Not what I had planned for the day!

Back to Jesus and the woman, there is no reason to have any interaction.  Jesus didn’t have to do anything.  Jewish men are not expected to interact with a Samaritan woman.  So he could have just remained quiet, but he didn’t:

Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.”
~John 4:7 NLT

That’s it.  That’s how he got into the conversation.  Then what happened?

The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”
~John 4:9 NLT

The woman is surprised because Jewish men weren’t supposed to interact with Samaritan women.  It made them ceremonially unclean.  She was shocked.  What’s this all about, she asks.  They have a conversation about water and how Jesus is Living Water.  Then Jesus says:

“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.
~John 4:16 NLT

Now if you know the rest of the story, you’re thinking to yourself, “Don’t bring up the part about the husband.”  This conversation is quickly going into stormy waters.  This is the moment when you kick your kids under the table which means, “Shut up.  Don’t talk any more about THAT!”  I somehow stumble into these kinds of conversations all the time.  Over Christmas we went up north to Boyne City.  We gave Micah a special gift: a ride in a Snow Cat Groomer at Boyne Mountain.  He loved it!  We rode up and down the mountain in this amazing machine grooming the ski hills with our driver named Steve.  Micah was kind of entranced by the whole thing and was pretty quiet.  So I struck up a conversation with Steve.  I asked him if he had any kids.  He had two.  He went on to tell me about the younger one.  Then I asked, “What about the older one?”  This is when I needed my wife to kick me under the table and say, “Don’t ask about the older ONE!”  Turns out his older son moved with his mom to North Carolina when she left Steve to marry another man.  Doh!  How did I end up in this place, this place where Jesus is about to end up bringing up the Samaritan woman’s husband.  She says:

“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!”
~John 4:17-18

Ok, Jesus.  Don’t you know that you just don’t go there?  Come on!  I wouldn’t suggest taking this exact approach unless you’re the Son of God.  But there is a principle that we can learn from here: Jesus saw a cue and he engaged her.  It was the perfect opportunity to not say anything.  But Jesus decided to engage in the topic that was off the table.  Jesus seemed to have cues about who he was going to engage, and there are cues for who we engage in our world and invite to experience Jesus at church.  So who do we invite?  We know the “WHOs” by paying attention to the “CUEs.”  I want to talk about three cues to invite.

#1 – Not Going Well
When you see that something is not going well in someone’s life, that might be a cue to invest and invite.  Someone’s marriage is falling apart.  Their spouse had an affair.  They had an affair.  Their family is in conflict.  A teenager is in trouble.  A family member is estranged.  Things aren’t going well in their career or job.  Their boss is a jerk and they’re about to quit.  These are all cues that something isn’t going well and it might be the time to invite them to church.

An objection may be raised: What does church have to do with my boss being a jerk?  My boss needs church, not me.  Here’s the answer: “I don’t know, but I’ve been in a spot before when things weren’t going well, and I’m just telling you, my faith in Jesus has helped me. And I don’t know exactly what it has to do with your situation, but you should come and see. I can’t explain it to you.  I don’t have all the answers.”

This is not about you being the savior of the world.  You just know the savior of the world.  Your invitation in a season of things not going well, might be the thing that God uses to bring them into a relationship with Jesus.  What if the situation doesn’t turn around? There may be a moment later when the realization hits that this was the thing that brought them to God.  The first cue to who is that things are not going well.

#2 – Not prepared for
The second cue to who to invest and invite is that you see that something is happening they’re not prepared for.  They got engaged, but don’t know how to be a spouse.  They’re not prepared for kids, but they’ve got one.  I know this well myself.  Sarah and I were married for thirteen years before we had kids.  Being married for thirteen years doesn’t give you much practice for being prepared to have a child.  I experienced a male form of postpartum depression after my first son was born.  So not only was I not prepared but it was not going well either!  Or maybe a parent is not prepared for their kid going to school.  Or a kid is not quite prepared for going off to college.  Or parents aren’t prepared for an empty nest.  Or you’re not prepared for caring for your aging parents.

An objection may be raised: What does the church have to do with my situation?  Here’s the answer: “I don’t know.  I don’t have all the answers.  But when I wasn’t prepared for something in the past, I found my faith in Jesus helped me.”

So if you’re a guest here today you may be thinking: which one am I?  What project am I for the person who invited me?  Well, you’re not necessarily a project.  Because there’s the third cue.

#3 – Not in church
If you’re not connected to a church then know that we created this faith community with you in mind.  We wanted Sycamore Creek to be a church, a faith community for people who were not church people.  We even adapt.  Sunday morning doesn’t work?  No problem.  Get your Sunday on Monday.  We work really hard to create a “come and see” culture here at SCC.

Maybe you’re thinking, “I can’t imagine wasting my time every Sunday morning.  It’s one of my two days off.”  Coming to a worship service competes with every other enjoyable use of time on the weekend: golf, swimming at the pool, shopping, doing projects around the house, sports.  Some of us were in the same place.  We couldn’t imagine giving up time every week.  But we came because someone invited us to come and see, and we experienced someone.  Now we can’t imagine not being here.

You invite someone because you value someone and you want to share what you value.  Watch for the cues: something is not going well, something happens they’re not prepared for, or someone is not in church.  These are cues to who to invest and invite.  But what about when?

When?
So when is the right time to invite someone?  There are some big invite days like Easter or any of the big days we do around SCC but, the best time to invite someone to church is next Sunday or Monday.  I know that we all want it to be a perfect day: beginning a new great series, the perfect topic (not money!), not a guest speaker, and with all your favorite music.  But don’t forget that God uses the small things: a smile, a kind word (to your child), a lyric in a song, the casual dress, they felt at home, they just enjoyed sitting and listening while their kids were taken care of in Kids Creek.  So when is the best time to invite?  This week.

So what might happen?  Let’s go back to Jesus and see what happens with the Samaritan woman:

Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, “What do you want with her?” or “Why are you talking to her?”
~John 4:27

Jesus is working off a different cue sheet than his disciples.  They still have so much to learn.  Because here’s what happens:

The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone…
~John 4:28

So how do you think she told that story?

“I was at the water hole and I met a guy…”

“Yeah, we’ve heard that one before!”

“Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?”
~John 4:29

Come and see.  Come and see this person.  I can’t explain it all.  You’ve just got to experience him yourself.  And so…

Many Samaritans from the village believed in Jesus because the woman had said, “He told me everything I ever did!
~John 4:39

She just shared her experience.  No big long explanation.  People can debate your explanation.  But nobody can debate your experience.

When they came out to see him, they begged him to stay in their village. So he stayed for two days, long enough for many more to hear his message and believe. Then they said to the woman, “Now we believe, not just because of what you told us, but because we have heard him ourselves. Now we know that he is indeed the Savior of the world.”
~John 4:40-42

An experience of Jesus changes everything, not an explanation.  What changed them was not her experience, but their experience.  They experienced Jesus for themselves.  And the experience changed what they believed.  That’s the order of things most often.  So next week: why the local church is the best place to experience Jesus.

As we’ve been talking, someone came to mind for you.  Who is that?  Someone you know that things are not going well.  Someone you know that things are happening they’re not prepared for.  Someone you know who is not connected to a church.  Take some time, write down those names.  Pray for them.  Pray that God would open doors for you.  Invest time in them.  Then watch for God to open the door to invite them to church.

God, thank you for the example of your Son Jesus who showed us how to pay attention to the cues in the people’s lives around us.  Give us the courage of his Spirit to invest and invite when we see those cues.  In his name we ask these things.  Amen.

 

*This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Joel Thomas.

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Launch Pad 2015 Capital Campaign

March 18, 2015 by Leave a Comment

come&see

 

Come and See: Launch Pad 2015 Capital Campaign
Sycamore Creek Church
March 15/16, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today is a very special day in the life of Sycamore Creek Church.  We’re launching a capital campaign today called Launch Pad 2015.  The theme verse for this campaign is found in the book of Acts just before Jesus “launches” into heaven:

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
~Jesus (Acts 1:8 NLT)

Launch Pad 2015 is about Remodeling our “new old” S Penn Venue to be a Hub or Launch Pad from which we can launch seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week to reach out into the Lansing region and the entire world.

If you are a guest here today, then you get a very special look at the commitments that our partners are making with us to launch into the future.  We’re not asking you to make any financial commitments today.  So no pressure.  For those of us who are committed partners in the mission of SCC we’re asking you to make three commitments today:

  1. A Miracle Cash Offering – If we receive $50,000 in the offering today, the West Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church will give us a $10,000 matching grant.  This will also help us start remodeling without taking out any more debt than we already have in the mortgage of this building.
  2. Two-year Pledge – We’re asking our partners to make a two-year pledge to continue remodeling this venue.
  3. Annual Tithe Pledge – Lastly we’re inviting our partners to make their regular pledge to give to the church’s mission and ministry.  This is the money we use on a regular basis to touch and change lives, to ignite authentic life in Christ and fan it into an all-consuming flame.

We’re also in the middle of a series called Come and See.  Come and see what Jesus is doing at SCC.  Today we’re going to take a little walk back through our history and into the future.  Come and see what has happened.  Come and see what is happening.  Come and see what will happen.  So let’s dive in.

1. Come and See What Has Happened

SCC was founded by Barb Flory, a rebel grandma who had a vision to start a church for people who don’t like church.  Barb likes to say she’s the only grandma who ever launched a church, and I think she just might be right.  Let’s go all the way back to the very first service that SCC ever held.  On June 25, 2000 Pastor Barb Flory gathered a launch team around her backyard pool to begin to live into that vision.  Here’s a little taste of what that moment was like:

A key theme verse at that time in the life of Sycamore Creek Church was Psalm 1:3:

They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
    bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
    and they prosper in all they do.
~Psalm 1:3 NLT

Sycamore Creek Church wanted to be like a tree planted along the banks of the living water of Jesus so that it would bear the fruit of transformed lives.  It sought to break the odds of church planting and not wither.  The vast majority of new churches don’t make it.  SCC sought to not only survive but also to prosper and thrive in fulfilling its mission to ignite authentic life in Christ.

If you want to get to know Pastor Barb a little better and the history of SCC, check out the sermon she preached on our thirteenth birthday.  You can find it here.

Come and see what has happened at SCC and you’ll see a church that has met the natural ups and downs of ministry with a consistent dependence upon God to fulfill its mission.

2. Come and See What Is Happening

In July 2009 Pastor Barb Flory retired from SCC and I was appointed by the bishop as the second pastor of SCC.  SCC was my first appointment right out of seminary.  When I showed up at SCC it became very clear to me that SCC needed to begin to get ready for the future by beginning to save money the day it would own its own building.  In November 2009 SCC ran its first building capital campaign with the very unsexy goals of paying off debt from the parsonage (pastor’s house), saving for a new building, and tithing to local and global missions.  That campaign was called 20 Years Deep because we were  imagining how deep the “Sycamore Creek” would be in twenty years.  The theme verse from this campaign was from Jesus’ statement while talking to his followers who were fishermen:

Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.
~Jesus (Luke 5:4 NIV)

We did put out into deep water and $370,000 was raised over the four years of the 20 Years Deep campaign which allowed us to pay off the parsonage mortgage in three years (yes we bought and paid for a house in three years!) and put a significant amount of money into savings to buy a building.  We’ve also been able to do some amazing things to meet both local and global needs with the tithe from that campaign.

After putting out into the deep waters of that first capital campaign, the leadership of the church was given a new vision.  We weren’t content just waiting for a building to reach new people.  We wanted to go out and reach people where they were at.  A vision was given to us to launch seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week.  This vision came from several sources.  First, I attended a conference at the largest United Methodist Church in America, Church of the Resurrection (CoR), in Kansas City.  CoR was reaching new people by launching satellites in surrounding communities.  It was impressive but it also required a lot of resources we didn’t have.  Around the same time I met John Ball, a pastor in Brighton who was creating a faith community in a pub.  They met for FREE in this space.  Free is compelling.  It was a win win for John’s faith community and for the pub.  Add to these two experiences a conversation I had with an MSU student.  She asked me if we had services on some other day than Sunday.  She worked on Sunday.  I began to notice that many people worked on the weekend, or traveled, or participated in sports or some other extracurricular activity.  Out of these experiences came the idea to hold a worship service somewhere in the community on a day other than Sunday and Church in a Diner was born:

What a ride Church in a Diner has been.  We have met more and more new people just by offering a faith community in a place other than a church building and at a time other than Sunday morning.  Church in a Diner has been a huge success with other churches around the nation launching their own Church in a Diner.  But that’s just the beginning of our vision, because we want to turn this South Penn Venue into a hub and a launch pad for launching seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week.

3. Come and See What Will Happen

Are you ready to see what will happen in SCC’s future?  Well, this building is part of it.  SCC was a nomadic church for fourteen years setting up and tearing down every Sunday at Lansing Christian School.  It was tiring and it used up a lot of energy that we really wanted to focus outward.  I liken it to car camping in the same campground every Sunday morning for six hours for fourteen years.  Set up.  Tear down.   Set up.  Tear down.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.

In March of 2013 I felt like God was calling me to preach a sermon series through the not so popular book of Numbers.  “Numbers” is the Latin name for the book, but “In the Wilderness” is the Hebrew name for the book.  Numbers is the story of God’s people, the Israelites, wandering through the wilderness setting up and tearing down camp for forty years!  They followed God’s lead through a cloud by day and pillar of fire by night:

Sometimes the cloud would stay over the Tabernacle for only a few days, so the people would stay for only a few days. Then at the LORD’s command they would break camp.  Sometimes the cloud stayed only overnight and moved on the next morning. But day or night, when the cloud lifted, the people broke camp and followed.
~Numbers 9:20-21 NLT

Forty years they did this!  That makes fourteen years seem pretty short.  As we began to accumulate savings in our 20 Years Deep Capital Campaign Fund we began to feel that God was leading us to look for a building.  While we had saved over $100,000, we began to realize how little that was in relation to the needs our church had for a building.  Some estimates for buying and remodeling non-church buildings to house a church ran over $1,000,000!  Sometime around this time we were informed that the old Calvary UMC building at S Penn and Mt Hope was going on the market.  We had looked at this building before but concluded it was too traditional for our church’s culture.  So we passed on it.  But then I attended a conference at New Life Church in Chicago that began to reshape my vision.  New Life Church was adopting and relaunching old dying churches in the Chicago area.  They now have 21 satellites on Sunday morning.  You can see what they’re up to here.

I saw seven of those satellites during that conference and saw new young thriving churches in old buildings, sometimes remodeled and sometimes not yet remodeled.  My vision for what was possible began to shift and change.  I came back from that conference, showed some videos and pictures of my experience to the leaders and suggested that we take another look at the Calvary UMC building.  When we looked at it again, we could begin to see ourselves inhabiting his building.  We could see some remodeling that would accommodate our culture.  We could see our mission thriving in this location.  The money we had saved from 20 Years Deep was not only enough for a down payment but also to begin remodeling.  And so in November 2014 we closed on the building and on Thanksgiving weekend we had our last worship service at Lansing Christian School and on Dec 7, 2014 we had our first worship service at our “new old” building.

We kicked off our time in this building with a Christmas series that led up to Christmas Eve where we were 1 Church, in 2 Locations, on 3 Days, with 4 Services.  This past Christmas Eve we broke a SCC all-time record with 410 people attending one of our four services.  It was exciting to see a glimpse of what God was going to do in our future.

As we moved into this new building we began to wonder, who lives around here.  And so in December we hired a demographics expert named Tom Bandy to help us learn about our new community.  We found out two very important things.  First, the current largest group we currently reach is a group that demographers call Singles and Starters.  They make up about 14% of our attendance.  Here’s the really fun second thing we learned: the largest group immediately surrounding our building is that same group!  They make up 28% of the population right around our S Penn Venue.  Thank you God!  We couldn’t have planned it any better.

From Tom Bandy we learned some things about the Singles and Starters.  When it comes to hospitality they expect multiple choices and takeout.  When it comes to worship they’re looking for a missional, educational, and coaching experience.  When it comes to outreach they’re dealing with health and quality of life issues.  When it comes to facilities, they prefer utilitarian over churchy.  And when it comes to leadership, they’re looking for pilgrims and mentors.  These expectations of the Singles and Starters right around our building have guided our decisions about how to remodel the building and what to remodel first: the Connection Café.  It’s our sense that this group is looking for people and a place where they can build significant relationships with people who can mentor them and be a pilgrim in the journey of faith alongside of them.

Over the last several months I’ve been networking in these neighborhoods to see if the reality on the ground meets the demographic stats.  Over and over again I’ve met community leaders who are  excited to have our church in the neighborhood and excited about vision for remodeling this building and making it an asset to meet the needs of the community.  And that brings us to today: Launch Pad 2015.

So what are we asking you to do today?  Here it is:

Launch Pad 2015 isn’t the end.  It is a beginning.  It is the beginning of fulfilling a vision.  This vision won’t happen overnight.  It won’t even all happen with this capital campaign.  But if it is God’s vision, and I believe it is, then it will happen even if we have to wait forty years for it.  I leave you with this word from the prophet Habakkuk:

But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed.
~ Habakkuk 2:3 NLT

 

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Experience Required *

March 4, 2015 by Leave a Comment

come&see

Come and See – Experience Required *
Sycamore Creek Church
March 1/2, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Have you ever experienced something new and had to tell people about it?  There are a lot of new things going on here at Sycamore Creek Church, and I know a lot of you are telling all kinds of people about it.  It’s an exciting time at Sycamore Creek Church.  And how did all this get started?  Let’s go back even behind that question and ask the question: How did The Church get started?  Why do people all over the world gather together every week to worship God?  From the earliest days of the church until today, people become followers of Jesus in the exact same way: through an invitation.

Most of us got here because someone invited us.  Is anyone harboring bitterness toward the person who invited you?  OK, don’t answer that.  But while a few of you have been attracted to our church as new things are happening and you got a flyer or saw the new sign outside, or wondered what was going on in this building, or heard about the amazingly awesome pastor and his amazingly awesome preaching, most of you first came simply because someone invited you.  That’s not to say that buildings and marketing and staff are unimportant.  But they are secondary.  Relationships are key.

The secret to the church growing is simple: someone who is following Jesus invests time in someone else and invites them.  The goal of the church has never been to become big, although that may happen when the goal of the church is accomplished.  The goal of the church is to share our experience with Jesus with someone else.  In fact, maybe “experience” isn’t even quite strong enough.  We share our encounter with Jesus, and we invite others to have that same experience and encounter.  Jesus’ followers became followers because of an invitation.

Today we’re going to go all the way back to the beginning of the story of the church and the first invitation.  The story of invitation begins before Jesus with John, Jesus’ cousin, who is often called “John the Baptist.”  John was a weirdo.  He was preaching out in the desert dressed in uncomfortable clothes and eating unappetizing food.  But he had a message that the people of his day wanted to hear: The messiah is coming.  John seemed to be the first real prophet to come along in a long time.  And he’s attracting quite a following.  Then Jesus shows up:

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
~John 1:29 NLT

John recognizes and announces that Jesus is who he has been preaching about, and something happens in that moment:

The following day John was again standing with two of his disciples. As Jesus walked by, John looked at him and declared, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” When John’s two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus.
~John 1:35-37 NLT

John starts out with two disciples and Jesus has zero.  But then when John announces again who Jesus is, those two disciples begin to follow Jesus.  John 2 : Jesus 0.  John 0 : Jesus 2.  These are Jesus’ first two followers.

Jesus looked around and saw them following. “What do you want?” he asked them.
They replied, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
“Come and see,” he said.
~John 1:38-39a NLT

“Come and See.”  The first followers of Jesus were responding to an invitation to “come and see.”  So they did.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when they went with him to the place where he was staying, and they remained with him the rest of the day.
~John 1:39b NLT

So they spend the day with Jesus.  Do you think if they had a bad experience we would have heard about it?  Their experience that day with Jesus was good, really good.  And they passed that experience on.  It was written down and now we’re reading about it 2000 years later because it didn’t just stop with those first two disciples.

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of these men who heard what John said and then followed Jesus. Andrew went to find his brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means “Christ”).  Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus.
~John 1:40-42a NLT

Andrew, one of Jesus’ first two followers, goes first thing to his brother, Simon, and tells him about their experience.  First thing.  He calls him on his cell phone (OK, maybe not) and says, “You’re never going to believe who I saw.”  Have you ever done that?  Call someone immediately after you had an experience and tell them, “You’re never going to believe this.  I don’t have time to talk about it.  You’ve just got to come and see.”  Then Simon comes to experience and encounter Jesus himself.

First Jesus invites two of John’s followers to “come and see” and then one of those followers invites his brother to “come and see.”  But it doesn’t stop there.  Jesus keeps inviting.

The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Come, follow me.” Philip was from Bethsaida, Andrew and Peter’s hometown.
~John 1:43-44 NLT

Here’s another invitation.  This one from Jesus to Philip.  There’s an interesting point here about who Philip was.  He was from the same town that two of Jesus’ other three followers were from.  This probably means that Philip saw people he knew and trusted.  He had an affinity with those who were already following Jesus.  Invitation always flows easiest when it is along lines of affinity.  People who are like you are more likely to trust your invitation.  That’s not to say that you shouldn’t invite people who are different than you, but that Jesus begins with the low hanging fruit.  It gets tougher from there.

Jesus is currently in Bethany and decides to go to Galilee.  Galilee is about 60-70 miles from where they’re at.  This means  that they would be walking about the same distance it would be for us to walk from Lansing to Grand Rapids or Ann Arbor.  It would take them about 20-25 hours to cover this distance.  They were about to spend some really significant time together.  Philip is on board because he trusts Andrew and Simon who are from his own home town. But Philip reaches out to someone who is at first a bit skeptical.

Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.”
“Nazareth!” exclaimed Nathanael. “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
~John 1:45-46a NLT

Nathanael isn’t quite as open as the other four have been thus far.  He’s skeptical about Nazareth and anyone born there.  It would be like me coming up to you and saying, “Hey do you want to walk to Ann Arbor with this guy I just met from Dansville.”  It would be a little different if I said he was from LA, Hollywood, New York, or Miami.  Maybe he’d have some interesting stories to tell.  But Dansville?  I drove through there once when I was lost.  But Philip is thinking, “I had this great experience with Jesus this one day, but I can’t really explain it.  I don’t have time or words.”  So…

“Come and see for yourself,” Philip replied.
~John 1:46b NLT

Phillip basically says, “Don’t take my word for it, just come and see, check it out for yourself.”  So let’s see where we’re at.  The first followers of Jesus began when Andrew invited Peter.  Philip invited Nathanael.  And Jesus invited them all.

There’s a really simple strategy ingrained in the culture of the church from the very beginning: come and see.  This strategy results in at first a few individuals, then a few dozen, then a few hundred, to several thousands, millions, and even billions.  The early followers of Jesus didn’t try to explain.  They just said, “Come and see.”  They invited saying, “I think I’ve found what I’m looking for.  I’ve found grace, mercy, acceptance, hope, new life, and a fresh start.”

There’s a big churchy word for what’s going on here.  It’s called “evangelism.”  Ouch.  It’s the word we love to hate.  But evangelism simply means “spreading the good news.”  Over time we’ve complicated things.  Most of us have a negative connotation with this word because we’ve had a bad experience with an evangelist.  When we think of evangelism we think of somebody like Billy Sunday, a White Sox player turned preacher:

 

 

Or we think of a bad experience being an evangelist like this awkward invite:

 

 

But evangelism isn’t any of those things.  It’s just sharing the experience you’ve had with those around you.  “I can’t explain it, you’ve just got to experience it.”  Think about it this way.  There’s all kinds of things around us that you already do this with.  Have you been to the Hawk Island Tubing Park?  Our Dad Kid Night Out group has gone twice now.  I can’t explain how much fun it is to ride down an icy hill bumping back and forth between ice walls.  You’ve just got to try it out, especially with your kids.  Or have you tried the chocolate cheese at the MSU Dairy Store?  I know.  It sounds weird, right?  Chocolate and cheese?  Chocolate cheese?  You’ve just got to go check it out and try some for yourself.  It’s better than you can imagine.  Speaking of cheese, have you bought cheese at Hills Cheese at the Lansing City Market?  I know it sounds kind of old fashioned to go buy cheese from a cheese store.  But you get to try any cheese they’ve got before you buy it.  You’ve just got to go try it out.  Or have you ever been to the Dickens Pub? It’s in the basement of The English Inn.  It’s Sarah and my favorite pub in the entire Lansing region.  There’s maybe twelve seats in the whole place.  There’s just something about it.  I can’t explain it.  You’ve just got to come and see it some time.

It’s that simple.  You have a new experience that others haven’t had.  You start with “listen to me…come and see.”  Or let me give you one more.  Have you been to Tom and Chee downtown?  I tried this grilled cheese donut.  Yeah.  Grilled cheese donut.  It has mascarpone and lemon all grilled inside a donut.  Sounds weird right?  Forget it.  I can’t explain it.  You’ve just got to experience it for yourself.   Just come and see.

The goal of the first followers of Jesus was not to explain something.  The goal was to experience someone.  Jesus needs to be experienced & encountered, not explained.

I know what you’re thinking, “But you’re talking about coming to church, not experiencing Jesus.”  Jesus thought of this.  He was very intentional about creating a community of followers.  It was never just about one person and Jesus. It was always about one person and Jesus in a community of people.  Jesus instructed people to invite others.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the books of the Bible, understood this community as “the body of Christ.”  This community is the body of Christ that when it is at its best allows you to experience and encounter Jesus in a way that you never could just on your own.  I can’t fully explain it, but when you experience it, it’s something amazing.  The church at its best is a community where people can come and experience Jesus in a healthy way.

Lisa Pender, a partner in our church has a daughter named Colleen.  Lisa and Colleen are some of the biggest inviters in our church.  And it’s not because Lisa has all her questions answered and this life completely figured out.  It’s because Lisa listens to sermons at work and that starts conversations.  It’s because when her daughter invites a friend and that friend comes, they put the name tags on the inside roof of her car and that starts conversations.  She’s simply seeking to follow Jesus and in the process inviting others to seek with her where she’s found some of what she’s looking for.

So the goal of Sycamore Creek isn’t to be big.  The goal is to help others experience what we experience, Jesus.  But when we do that, it’s likely that we will get bigger and bigger.  Because how many people in our area don’t belong to a church?  Lots and lots and lots.  You have the opportunity to do for someone else what someone did for you: invite them to come and see.

If you’re here for the first time, you may skeptical, but if you’ll keep coming, over time you’ll see as you experience Jesus.  Jesus is someone hard to explain, you just have to come and see.

* Based on a sermon originally by Joel Thomas

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#struggles #rest *

February 24, 2015 by Leave a Comment

#struggles

#struggles #rest *
Sycamore Creek Church
February 22/23, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today we wrap up our series #struggles with what may be the most important message of the five weeks.  Throughout this series we’ve been learning how to follow Jesus in a selfie-centered world, and today we’re looking at how we #rest.  Rest is so important in a world where we are tethered to our devices.  How do we find rest for our soul in the midst of our tech tethers?

I have a love-hate relationship with technology.  I love sharing bits of life with others.  I love the creativity of social media.  But I also hate social media and tech.  Sometimes I feel like I’m a slave to it.  I feel like I don’t own the tech.  I feel like it owns me.  Carey Nieuwhof, a Canadian pastor, says, “Like money, social media is a great servant but a horrible master.”

Paul, the first missionary of the church and the author of many of the books of the Bible, says:

You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.
~Paul (1 Corinthians 6:12 NLT)

Some of us are slaves to food.  Some of us are slaves to images.  Some of us are slaves to tech and social media.  Some of us don’t have a problem with this.  We’re still back in the “dumb phone” era.  So you can just sit back and relax, and smirk at the person fidgeting with their phone.  But you may really need this message if you’re addicted to social media.  Here’s how to know:

Top 7 Ways to Know You Might be Addicted to Social Media
7. You plan your #tbt’s weeks in advance.
6. Your cat has its own Instagram page.
5. You look forward to going to the bathroom so you can get to level 7 of your favorite game.
4. You change your Facebook profile more than your twelve-year-old daughter.
3. You sleep with your phone like a teddy bear.
2. You say “sorrynotsorry” in real life.
1. You come onto your spouse by texting #areyouinthemood.

I’m not sure I’m totally that bad, but I realized just how dependent I had become on my phone last February when we took a long weekend vacation to Chicago.  Sarah dropped Micah, my three-year-old at the time, and I off at the train station in the suburbs.  A couple of minutes after she drove off, I went to look at what time it was.  I don’t wear a watch, so I reached for my cell phone.  I didn’t feel it in my normal pocket.  So I checked my other pockets.  Slowly it dawned on me that I had left my cell phone in the car.  The train was about to arrive at any moment.  To make matters worse, Sarah had just gotten a new cell phone and I didn’t have her phone number memorized.  In that moment I felt the anxiety begin to build.  I was about to take a three-year-old into one of the biggest cities in the world with no cell phone.  We were planning on going to the zoo.  I had planned to use Google Maps to navigate the public transportation system to get us to the zoo.   How would I find the zoo?  How would we find anything?  As I stood there feeling my blood pressure rise, I pushed my fear down and told myself, “You went to college in the suburbs of Chicago.  You’ve ridden this train without a cell phone dozens of times.  You don’t need your phone.”  And so as the train pulled up and the doors opened, Micah and I walked hand in hand into a technology free day.  It turned out to be one of the best and most memorable days of my life.  I’m not exaggerating.  But that’s a longer story for another day.  The point for now is that in that moment I realized just how close to being a slave to my phone I had become.  Lord have mercy!

Here’s how dependent we’ve become as a culture:

58% of people don’t go one waking hour without checking their phone.
59% of people check email as it comes in and 89% check it daily on vacation.
80% of teenagers sleep with their phones.
84% of people believe they couldn’t go one day without their phones.

So are you one of those people who checks your phone first thing in the morning and last thing at night?  If so, this message is for you.  I’ve been paying attention to my own habits as I’ve been preparing for this message.  I’ve noticed something about myself.  My default is to check my phone when I have some down time.  I’m standing in line and instead of starting a conversation with the person next to me, I check my phone.  I’m waiting for someone and instead of waiting quietly, I check my phone.  I’ve got a couple of free minutes before we have to get in the car and leave, I check my phone.  I don’t think I’m alone.  Our minds are not shutting down.  We don’t work with long stretches with great productivity.

There are costs to our addiction with our phones.  National Public Radio recently explored the effect of social media and our phones on our creativity.  Here’s what they found:

“If you’ve ever felt like your smartphone was getting in the way of a breakthrough thought, you may not be off base. Research suggests that our brains need downtime and that people have some of their most creative ideas when they’re bored. The constant distraction of our phones can get in the way of that.”
~National Public Radio

Our RPMs are always running.  You feel overwhelmed and you don’t know why.  You’re short with kids and don’t know why.  You’re spiritually dead and don’t know why.  Maybe it’s because your brain is always on.  Our bodies need rest, and our souls need to rest.  Our souls need to be disconnected from bing bing bing bing bing…

Let’s go back and remember what Paul said:

You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything.
~Paul (1 Corinthians 6:12 NLT)

I refuse to be mastered by anything.  Christ in me and you is bigger than any addiction we’ve got.  And we’re missing out on so much.  God has a special rest for you in Christ.

So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest.~Hebrews 4:9-11 NLT

God didn’t plan for you to run run run run run run.  God planned for you to rest, to rest in  God.  St. Augustine, a 4th and 5th century church leader, said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our soul is restless until it finds rest in you.”  And Jesus said:

 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
~Jesus (Matthew 11:28-29 NLT)

So now you’ve got a choice.  You apply this and do what God wants you to do, or you go on living as you always have.  Here are two ways to apply it, or two hashtags for #rest.

1.     #bestill
We’ve got to learn how to slow down and be still.  The Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible.  We read in several places about being still:

Be still, and know that I am God.
~Psalm 46:10 NLT

Sometimes you tell a little kid to SIT DOWN!  Some times you’ve got to talk to your soul like a little kid and say SIT DOWN!  Sit down and be quiet.

Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself,
like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk.
Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me.
~Psalm 131:2 NLT

I’ve had to learn to be still for my own mental health.  I’ve shared with you before that I struggle at times with anxiety.  When it’s at its worst my brain starts repeating unpleasant things like it’s a skipping broken record and there’s no off switch.  I’ve gone to several different counselors over the years to help me with strategies for dealing with this anxiety.  The best suggestion and most effective tip I’ve ever been given was to practice breathing exercises each morning.  I know, it sounds hokey.  Basically you sit for five or ten minutes and quietly breathe.  There’s a website that I use called Pray as You Go that has a breathing exercise MP3.  I spend five minutes simply doing nothing but breathing.  I just sit in the presence of God.

“But what about the kids?” you ask.  Good question.  Finding time to sit still for five minutes requires much more creativity if you’ve got kids, especially little ones.  I have three suggestions:

  1. Get up before they do (that means you have to go to bed earlier).
  2. Find a little time after they go to bed.
  3. Set up a babysitting swap with a friend.  We’ve got so many people with little kids in our church.  They will understand.  You watch my kids today and I’ll watch your kids tomorrow.

If we’re going to receive the #rest that God wants for us, we’re going to have learn to be still.

2.     #makeaplan
Beyond learning to be still, if we’re really addicted to social media and technology, we need to #makeaplan to break the addiction.  The wisdom of the Proverbs says

Wise people think before they act;
fools don’t—and even brag about their foolishness.
~Proverbs 13:16 NLT

So how are you thinking about how you’ll act?  Your plan should have two parts: defense and offense.  Let’s start with the defensive plan.  Make your struggle public.  Let your spouse, friends, family, and small group know that you’re seeking to really free yourself from the slavery of social media and your phone.  Then set some basic boundaries: no phone during dinner and no phone during small group.  Set a time limit: no phone after a certain time of night.  Let’s say that after 10PM, your phone is in some other room off and charging.  You are going to still use your phone but you’re not going to be mastered by it.  Let’s not forget about notifications.  Turn them off.  All of them!  I know it’s hard.  Gretchen Williams, our youth coordinator, got a new phone and posted this about it:

GWilliams

Those notifications are fun.  They play with your brain chemistry.  They train you to respond like Pavlov’s Dog.  I had this notification pop up the other day:

TArthurInstagram

Guess what I clicked.  NOT NOW.  If there was a “Not Never” button, I’d click that.  Turn off your notifications.  If you really need to be available for an emergency of some sort, then leave your phone with someone trusted (an assistant, a secretary, a spouse, etc.).  Consider going off the grid totally from time to time.  Take a once-a-week break on a day of rest, or sabbath.  I don’t look at social media on Fridays, my sabbath day off.  When you’re on vacation, give up email.  I’ve downloaded an autoresponder app I can use on vacation for text messages.  If you text me on vacation, I won’t look at it.  You’ll get an auto response text telling you to call the church office.  Consider fasting from social media during Lent, the forty days that lead up to Easter that begins this Wednesday, February 18.  That’s your defensive plan.

Let’s talk about your offensive plan.   Download an app that monitors your usage like Break Free (Android) or Moment (ios).  Use tech as the primary tool for relating to God.  Check out Pray As You Go or use your phone regularly to share about Sycamore Creek Church.  Use your phone for the Bible.  The best app is probably You Version.  But then make sure you’ve also got daily consistent prayer time.  Go outside and don’t take a picture (or post it online).  You don’t need likes for something God wanted you to love.  Consider really getting away on a spiritual retreat.  The women of our church have a retreat coming up May 1-3 at Miracle Camp.  I’m leading a one-day spiritual retreat on Thursday, March 26th at St. Francis Center in Dewitt.  When you go on this retreat, turn your phone off.  Give your family the retreat phone number for emergencies.  Then you can rest knowing that if a real emergency happens, your family can still contact you through the camp or retreat center.

So now you’re at that point of decision.  Are you going to continue as it is, or are you going to change your life?  Let’s remember where we’ve been in this series

#relationships – Nurture my friends face to face not thumbs to thumbs because God did not shout from heaven.
#contentment – The more we compare, the more discontent we become so be satisfied in Christ alone.
#authenticity – The more filtered we are the more difficult it is to be authentic so be authentic in Christ.
#compassion – The more suffering you see the less you care so let the world know we are Christians by our love for others.
#rest – Our RPMs are going and won’t shut down so don’t be mastered by social media and tech.

The prophet Jeremiah had wise words for us from God:

Thus says the Lord:
Stand at the crossroads, and look,
and ask for the ancient paths,
where the good way lies; and walk in it,
and find rest for your souls.
~Jeremiah 6:16 NRSV

It’s not the newest tech that is going to bring rest, it’s the ancient paths well traveled that lead us to God.  Take the ancient path and find rest.

* This sermon is based on a sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel.

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#struggles #compassion

February 16, 2015 by Leave a Comment

#struggles

#struggles #compassion
Sycamore Creek Church
February 15/16, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

Today we continue this series: #struggles.  We’re learning how to follow Jesus in a selfie-centered world.  We’ve looked at #relationships, #contentment, and #authenticity. Next week we wrap it up with #rest, which may just be the most important sermon of this series.  Today we’re looking at #compassion.  We’re resurrecting compassion. How does social media and tech compel or hinder compassion?  Social media can do a lot of good.

We can raise money, bring awareness, and get everyone talking about something.  But overnight it can all disappear.  Remember the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge?  That did raise a lot of money and that money will do a lot of good, but it came and went.

With the many benefits of social media, there are also some downsides.  The University of Michigan did research on changes in empathy.  They studied 14,000 college students from 1979 to 2009.  They found a drastic decline in empathy.  They figured that we care about 40% less than people did in the 1980s.  40% less!  And you’re reading this right now and don’t even care that there’s a 40% drop.  You’re thinking, “I’m hungry.  Maybe I should go get a snack.”

So why are we caring less?  One of the top causes might be the rise in social media.  Why and how?  There are three ways that social media might cause you to care less.

1.     We are more obsessed with ourselves

Think about the rise of the “selfie” picture.  It’s only been recently that we’ve had technology with cameras that pointed back at ourselves.  This technological change (dare we call it advance?) has produced a whole series of different kinds of selfies.  Check out some examples.  There’s the famous people selfie like Ellen at the Oscars.  There’s famous people with politicians selfie.  There’s the queen of England Photobomb selfie.  The running from bulls selfie.  And on and on.

Most social media relates us back to ourselves.  In fact, the brain likes this focus on the self.  The brain gets a dopamine dump when you focus on yourself.  The body is training us to be more self-centered.

2.     Overwhelming exposure to suffering desensitizes us

Remember those starving-kids-from-Africa-commercials?  Remember how disturbing those were? But are they disturbing now?  No.  We’ve gotten used to those images. On social media we see everything on a timeline.  The brain doesn’t know how to differentiate what’s important.  There’s the new pie recipe.  Then an article about a football player who beats up his girlfriend.  Then another cat picture.  Next is a reporter who was kidnapped and beheaded.  Then a cute baby picture.   Our brain doesn’t know how to pick out the important stuff from the unimportant stuff.  It gets all jumbled together.

3.     Lack of personal interaction makes it easier not to care

When we interact on social media it puts our interactions at a distance.  It’s easier to ignore what’s going on.  But when you see someone face to face it’s hard to ignore them.  The other day I saw someone walking down the side of the road in the cold.  Usually I just drive by someone like this.  But I knew this guy.  It was hard to ignore him.  I stopped and offered him a ride because I knew him, and there he was.  But if I see on Facebook that you lost your job, I might only pray or comment.  Whereas if we’re  meeting for lunch sitting across a table from each other and you tell me you just lost your job, I might pray but then actually help you too.  I might even offer to pay for lunch or pick up a utility bill for you.  As followers of Jesus, God calls us to so much more.

What I want to look at today is four hashtags for #compassion.  These four hashtags will help us continue to nurture compassion as followers of Jesus.

1.     #compassionacts

Half of the Bible was written in Greek, and the Greek word for compassion is “splagchnizomai”, which literally means the “bowels yearn.”  Compassion is a very deep thing in the Bible.  It goes into your bowels.  It goes so deep into you that it comes out of you in the things you do.  To say that you care or have compassion but not act is to not care at all.  Likewise, clicking “like” is not acting.

When Jesus shows compassion, his “yearning in the bowels” is always paired with an action.  He felt something so he did something.  Jesus’ compassion is always paired with action, often healing.  Take these three examples:

Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!”
~Jesus (Mark 1:41 NLT)

Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
~Jesus (Matthew 14:14 NLT)

Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes. Immediately they regained their sight and followed him.
~Jesus (Matthew 20:34 NRSV)

Here’s a temptation when it comes to social media: the more I obsess about social media, the more I care about me and less about others.  Whereas, the more I obsess about Jesus, the less I care about me and the more I care about others.  So let me ask you some questions about how your compassion is congruent or incongruent with your action:

  • When was the last time you gave a whole day or weekend to serve someone else?
  • When was the last time you gave significant financially to make a difference in someone else’s life?
  • When was the last time you gave up something you really wanted to do to help someone else?

If we’re going to have the compassion of Jesus, we must not just experience emotion, but we must act.

2.     #compassioninterrupts

I’m not a fan of this next hashtag, but I’ve got to say it.  I’m preaching to myself here.  Compassion interrupts.  It doesn’t easily fit in your calendar or your to do list or your agenda.  We see Jesus interrupted by his compassion over and over again.  Here’s one example:

The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
~Jesus (Mark 6:30-34 NLT)

For those of us who live our lives with a schedule, it’s a hard truth to swallow that God often works through divine interruptions.  We’re too busy doing our own thing with our own agenda.  One day I went to the Lansing Mall Barnes and Noble Starbucks to work.  I had a big chunk of time and was really looking forward to the time to myself.  I was planning on walking around the mall and getting some exercise in and then diving into my sermon.  I was actually going to get ahead of schedule!  It was wonderful to have a big open spot on my calendar for such a leisurely afternoon.  When I walked into Starbucks I saw someone there I often bumped into at another coffee shop in the area.  My introverted side said, “Pretend you didn’t see her and go get a seat.”  My pastoral side said, “At least say hi.  It can’t hurt.”  So I went with my pastoral side.  I said Hi.  What happened next was totally unexpected.  A torrent of emotion came at me.  Anger about marriage.  Anger about health.  Anger about God.  Anger about the world.  Anger about money.  This person was in serious emotional, psychological, and spiritual pain.  I stood at the table gripping the back of the chair white knuckled waiting for it to stop so I could get on with my to do list.  I was simultaneously listening and arguing with God.  “God, I had this time set aside for important things.  A sermon is important isn’t it?  Getting exercise is important isn’t it?  Having some down time for me is important isn’t it?”  After fifteen minutes of listening and arguing with God, I said, “Can I sit down?”  After listening for about ninety minutes this person had what they needed, and we ended with some prayer.  I still follow up with this person from time to time to see how they are doing.  They are always appreciative.  I don’t know what God is doing in this person’s life, but I believe that day part of what God was doing was interrupting my open afternoon to show compassion.  Compassion interrupts.

3.     #compassioncosts

Jesus tells a story about a hated ethnic minority that we have come to refer to as the “Good Samaritan.”  After two religious people walk by, the Good Samaritan walks by and stops and helps.  He takes the man to a place where he can heal and we read:

The next day he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, ‘Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.’
~Jesus (Luke 10:35 NLT)

We want to do social media “drive by” compassion: click, retweet, like, share.  But none of these things cost us anything.  When I was in grad school and had the least amount of money I’ve had as an adult, I was driving down a busy road when I saw a guy walking with his son on the side of the road.  He was carrying a gas can in his hand.  I pulled over and asked if he needed a ride.  He was going to fill it up and then get groceries.  As we talked on the way to the gas station, it became clear to me that he needed more than gas. I offered to shop with him for some groceries.  We walked through the Target up and down the aisles together.  As we walked he asked me, “How much can you buy?”  I didn’t hear it audibly, but I did hear God say, “As much as he needs.”  So I said, “Get what you need.”  As we walked up and down the aisles of the grocery store, he got a cart full of basics.  I was right there with him.  He wasn’t buying alcohol or cigarettes or junk food. He bought bread, cereal, milk, lunch meat, cheese, eggs, etc.  The cart kept getting fuller and fuller.  I had a brief conversation with God, “You remember I’m a grad student, right?”  When we had finished shopping and went up to the register, the bill was $200.  Now I’m no longer a grad student, and a $200 grocery bill is a lot for me now, but I paid it.  I prayed for him as we parted ways.  I don’t know what happened to that father and son and their finances, but I do know what happened to Sarah and me financially.  We graduated from Duke University with two masters degrees and only $7000 in debt which we paid off in two years after graduating.  We were never in want.

I have noticed that several in our church are also practicing the spiritual discipline of hospitality, or sharing your home with someone.   This may be sharing it with someone in your family in need, or a close friend who is in need, or someone in our church in need, or someone you hardly know.  This kind of compassion does have its costs, and they are not primarily financial.  Sarah and I have practiced hospitality for most of our married life.  We’re able to do that now because Jay Horner and Rick Ray paid the cost to remodel the basement of the parsonage (pastor’s house) along with many others who pitched in to help.  There are some costs when it comes to hospitality.  It costs you some privacy and some free time (you have another person to talk to and listen to in the house).  It costs you thinking of your house as your “castle.”  But there are some benefits as well.  Some big ones that we’ve experienced: another person to help with the chores.  Another person to help with child care.  Sarah and I have a free babysitter every week for date night because we offer hospitality. What’s that worth?  I’ve found over the years that guests who stay with us give me the benefit of laughter.  I’m a bit too serious sometimes and those who live with us help balance me out.  Then there’s the benefit of feeling like you’re doing something significant with your home and your life.  Compassion has its costs and its benefits too.  And speaking of doing something significant:

4.     #compassionchangeslives

Compassion changes lives.  I asked my friends on Facebook when they experienced compassion that changed their life.  One friend talked about the moment she met her boy friend’s parents after an unexpected pregnancy.  His parents welcomed her and showed her compassion.  It meant all the world to her.  They’re now married.  Another friend shared about walking into SCC and experiencing compassionate welcome to her and her husband and their special needs.  That welcome was completely unexpected.  Now she’s following Jesus.  Another friend told of a time of significant trial when someone provided a listening ear.  Two friends talked about needing a place to live during a period of uncertainty and being given a home by friends.  Another friend told of struggling in high school when a counselor met with her and helped her reorganize her studies and outlook on life.  She graduated with a 3.8 GPA and went on to college.  Without that counselor’s compassion, she’s not sure she would have even graduated from high school.  Compassion changes lives.

Friends, for those who follow Jesus, compassion doesn’t just comment on Facebook.  Compassion acts.  Compassion interrupts.  Compassion costs.   And compassion changes lives.  Imagine 200 people every week showing that kind of compassion in their community.  That’s what I imagine when I see Sycamore Creek Church.  We wouldn’t just change lives, we’d change an entire city.

Prayer
God help us show the kind of compassion that Jesus showed.  Thank you for the ultimate act of compassion that Jesus showed us when he took death upon himself and conquered it so that we might be free from our brokenness, our woundedness, and our sin.  In the name of Jesus and the power of his Spirit,  may it be true in our lives today.

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With:

#struggles #contentment *

February 3, 2015 by Leave a Comment

#struggles

#struggles #contentment*
Sycamore Creek Church
February 1/2, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace, friends!

That’s a funny thing to say to open up this message today.  We’re in week two of a five week series looking at five struggles we have because of social media that interfere with Biblical values.  Last week we began with #relationships.  Next week we’ll look at #authenticity, followed by #compassion the next week, and #rest the last week.  But today we look at #contentment.  So let me say it again:

Peace, friends!

Social media has a lot of benefits.  It makes a big world smaller.  I have been able to keep up with friends spread all around the world.  We’re able to promote important things and causes and keep attention focused on them.  But there are some unintended negative consequences too.  Today I want to wrestle with this problem:

Comparison kills contentment.  Social media spawns comparisons.

When we compare, we become dissatisfied with our own lives.  Discontentment has never been a bigger problem than today.  Never before have so many people had so much and yet want so much more.  Social media is a leading driver of discontentment.  As one friend of mine on Facebook said, Facebook is “the constant comparison of my life to the ‘highlight reels’ of every one else.”  We see the best of their best, and we know the worst of our worst.

The working mom sees the stay at home mom post on Facebook and says to herself, “I hate you because you’re this perfect stay at home mom doing crafts from Pinterest and cooking all your meals from scratch.”  Meanwhile the stay at home mom sees the working mom post on Facebook and says to herself, “I hate you because you’re always getting out and about and dressing up, and I’m wearing a pigtail for the last week and yoga pants and haven’t seen an adult in three days.”

Or you are sitting at home and over dinner checking out what your friends are doing.  One of your friends is in Maine eating fresh lobster caught from the Atlantic sixty minutes ago while you’re eating Lean Cuisine from the freezer.  Or later that night you check Facebook again and your friend is at the gym building his guns and buns while you’re sitting on your couch in the dark single handedly keeping Hostess in business.

Never before have we been able to so clearly measure popularity.  When I was growing up we had to guess popularity.  But now we can measure it.  We know exactly how many followers and likes we’ve got.  Do you know who the most popular person is on Facebook?  Shakira.  Over 100,000,000 likes!  Or as one Tweet said:

tweet
I guess if you don’t get three digit likes, you’re just a loser in today’s connected world.  And you’re certainly not content if you don’t get three digit likes.  There are, I think, three categories of discontentment: Material, Relational, Circumstantial.  Let’s talk about each.

Surfing through my timeline I see that I’ve got these neighbors who seem to always be going on vacation to exotic places in warm locales:

 

vacation

I’m sitting in cold Michigan while they’re basking in the sun at Disney.  I don’t have the money to take my family to Disney.  Then there’s Rob and Marea taking a vacation in the Virgin Isles:

 

VirginIslands

 

Thanks Rob and Marea for making my vacation not seem so stellar.  I don’t have the money to go there.  Then there’s university envy:

K

 

Oh wait, that is my alma mater.  Sorry about that.  I hope that didn’t make you discontent with your unranked team.  Maybe you suffer from material discontent.

Or maybe you suffer from relational discontent.  Stalking…I mean surfing Facebook I see Rob and Marea again having a great time on New Years Eve with lots of fun looking friends:

friends

 

I wasn’t invited to this New Year party.  In fact, on New Years Eve I was sitting in my in-laws basement working on sermons for 2015.  What a way to bring in the year, right?

Or maybe you’re not married and everyone you know on Facebook is getting engaged or showing off how great their marriage is.  Or you see people posting pictures of time with their kids and you’re working two full time jobs just to pay the bills.  You see relational intimacy all over your news feed, and you don’t have it in your own life.  Maybe you suffer from relational discontent.

Or perhaps you suffer from circumstantial discontent.  Back to my newsfeed.  Noelle cooked up a great looking dinner for her family:

dinner

 

I’m cooking my family hotdogs tonight.  Thanks Noelle for cutting through the lie I was telling myself that hotdogs were good for my family tonight.  Or maybe you’ve been trying to get pregnant, and it’s not happening, and you’re sick of seeing the fourteenth reveal party event posted on Facebook this month.  Or you wish your life and job had more significance.  Personally, I work a lot all weekend long and I see y’all posting all the fun you’re having on weekends, and I’m working on another sermon.  Sure, you go have your fun while I’m busy saving the world for Jesus.  Life is 10% of what happens and 90% of how we respond, but most of us live as though it is 90% of what happens to us.  Paul, the first missionary of the church, was the master of responding.  He’s writing to the church at Philllipi while he’s in prison chained 24/7 and he says this:

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through Christ who gives me strength.”
~Paul (Philippians 4:12-13 NLT)

The secret of contentment is not found in what I have or don’t have but in Christ alone.  The power of contentment comes when we let everything be stripped away and cling to Christ alone.  Until you experience the goodness of Christ, you will always be dissatisfied, always discontent.  There is a God-shaped hole in your heart, and it can’t be filled with a trip to the Virgin Islands.  It can’t be filled with an awesome home cooked dinner.  It can’t be filled with a fabulous New Years Eve party.  It can only be filled with Jesus.  So I want to talk about two Christ #contentment hashtags we all need.

1.     #killcomparisons
There are ten commandments.  As a speaker I’m always aware that you will remember most fully the first thing I say and the last thing I say.  So given that philosophy, the tenth commandment is pretty important.  It says:

You must not covet your neighbor’s trophy wife or buns and guns husband, or kitchen aid, cuisine art, Cutco knives and Kirby vacuum, drawer washing machine (you know who you are), man cave with 70” 4K Ultra HD flat-screen TV, swagger wagon with automatic opening doors and built-in entertainment system and rearview camera to spy on your neighbors, perfect dandelion-free lush no-bare-spot yard, 4-foot-wide one-pass snowblower (while you’re using your little hand-trowel snow shovel), or anything else that belongs to your neighbor
Exodus 20:17 MSV (Modern Suburban Version)

Ok, that’s not really what it says, but it might as well.  Here’s what it really says:

You must not covet your neighbor’s house. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.
~Exodus 20:17 NLT

When I was in high school I coveted my friend, David’s 69 Camaro.  It was black, jacked up in the back, big racing tires, two white pin stripes down the hood, and a Pioneer CD player inside.  He picked me up every day for school.  It was his first car.  Then I got my first car: a two-tone 79 Plymouth Horizon that idled so low that I had to keep one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake when I was sitting at a stop sign.  I coveted that car.  In fact, I still covet it.  I always wanted to be like John Cusack in Better Off Dead.  He had the great car, the cute French girlfriend, and he played sax.  Well, I learned to play sax in eighth and ninth grade band, and I got the cute girl.  But I still don’t have the Camaro.

James, Jesus’ brother says:

But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom.  Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.
~James 3:14-16 NLT

Demonic?  Wow!  Kill comparisons because they’re demonic.  There are two ways to kill comparisons.  First, just go for it.  You want more?  Get all you can.  Try it.  You’ll find that there are not enough things on this earth to fill your heart.  That’s because your heart can only be filled with God.

The second way to kill comparisons is to remove the bait.  Take a break from social media.  Maybe you need to unfollow or hide a feed.  Or maybe you need to cancel subscriptions to catalogues.  Or get rid of some shopping apps on your phone.  Or quit watching kitchen TV.  Or don’t go to the boat show and car show.  Then ask Christ to give you the strength to #killcomparisons.

2.     #cultivategratitude
So you’ve killed comparisons, but you still need to replace it with something positive.  Fill the gap of comparisons with the balm of gratitude.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
~Psalm 118:24 NRSV

God made the day you’re living in.  So be grateful for it.  Craig Groeschel says that “envy is resenting God’s goodness in other people’s lives, and ignoring God’s goodness in your own life.”  Maybe you need to celebrate the successes of others.  Thank God for those successes.  Someone gets the job you wanted…thank God.  Someone gets the thing you’ve had your eye on but can’t afford…thank God.  A friend is going on your dream vacation or maybe you just want any vacation…thank God that your friend gets what you want.

I struggle a bit as a pastor mixing this whole comparison thing with the gratitude thing.  The first three years I was at SCC were not particularly fun years.  In fact, it’s pretty hard to be a second pastor who follows the founding pastor.  Things didn’t go horribly my first three years, but they also didn’t go like I wanted.  In the mean time, my friends at Cornerstone Church in Grand Rapids are building a brand new huge facility.  I also went to several conferences at big thriving and successful churches.  These kinds of conferences are kind of like pastor porn.  Meanwhile, we’re shrinking.  I’m looking with envy upon these churches, and becoming very discontent with my own.  Meanwhile I’m neglecting to thank God that these churches are reaching new people for Jesus.  My lack of gratitude is making it all about me.

We need to learn how to celebrate life:

For the despondent, every day brings trouble; for the happy heart, life is a continual feast.
~Proverbs 15:15 NLT

If you think it’s going to be a horrible day, it will be.  If you think the weather will be horrible, it will.  If you hate your job, it will be a bad job.  If you think your kids are going to drive you crazy, they will.  If you think school is horrible, it will be horrible.  If you want to look for bad in the world, you’ll find it.  If you want to look for the good in the world, you’ll find it.  It’s all about perspective:

Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless—like chasing the wind.
~Ecclesiastes 6:9 NLT

Instead of saying, “I hate my car,” say, “Thank God I have a car.”  Instead of saying, “I wish I had a better house,” say, “Thank God for a roof and indoor plumbing.”  Instead of saying, “I’m so busy. Life is so crazy,” say, “I’m so thankful I’ve got a family and kids involved in my community doing significant things.”  Instead of complaining about what your church is or is not, say, “Thank you God for my church.”

And if you can’t #killcomparisons and #cultivategratitude on your own, then begin by asking Christ for help:

Dear Jesus, I confess that I compare myself too often to those around me.  I especially do it on social media.  Help me cultivate gratitude in my life for what I have.  Help me to approach every day as if it is a day worth rejoicing about.  And when I don’t have the strength within me, may your Spirit give me strength.  Amen.

 

* This sermon was adapted from a sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel

Filed Under: Sermons Tagged With: , , ,

#struggles #relationships*

January 29, 2015 by Leave a Comment

#struggles

MP3thumb

#struggles #relationships*
Sycamore Creek Church
January 25/26, 2015
Tom Arthur

#peace #friends!

What the heck is a hashtag anyway?  If you follow me on Facebook then you may notice that I often post things my oldest son says that capture my imagination.  I include with those sayings a hashtag: #micahsayings.  That way I group all those posts together with that hashtag.  Or here at SCC we encourage to add the hashtag #sccmi to your posts on social media so people can see all the things that are going on around here.  Hashtags allow a very diverse group of people to have a mostly shallow, but occasionally deep and meaningful conversation about a shared topic.  To get a better sense of what hashtags are all about, I turn to Late Night Hashtags with Jimmy Fallon:

 

 

So we’re entering into this series called #struggles.  We’re trying to learn how to follow Jesus in a selfie-centered world.  Selfies are pictures taken of oneself usually with one’s phone.  I came across this great set of pictures in The Atlantic that get the point across.

So we’re going to spend five weeks exploring the effects of social media and technology on all kinds of aspects of our lives.  Let me be clear up front.  SCC embraces social media.  We like technology.  Tech and social media are our friends.  I personally enjoy  using social media.  I regularly post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  But lately Sarah and I have both decided to scale back.  We’ve noticed some negative influences on us and our relationships.  Maybe I should have noticed it some time ago when I was hiking with Micah on my back and taking a video of him singing in the backpack.  When he got done he said, “Daddy, are you going to post this on Facebook?”  Social media can be very good, but if you do too much of it and are consumed with it, it can hurt your relationships and rob you of that which God values most.

So here’s how this series is going to unfold.  Next week we’re going to look at #contentment.  The third week we’ll look at social media’s effect on #authenticity.  Then we’ll explore social media and #compassion.  And wrap it up with maybe the most important topic of all, #rest.  Today we’re beginning with #relationships.

Love One Another
Here’s where I want to begin this message today:

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.
~Jesus (John 13:34-35 NLT)

Jesus didn’t say, they’ll know you follow me by your perfect theology, you’re always at church, or the fish you put on your car (some of you drive so bad you need to take that fish off your car).  I want you to listen to the message through this lens of Jesus’ teaching to love one another.

How Technology Is Changing Relationships
Technology and social media help relationships.  I told you I embrace them.  But there are some unintentional negative consequences.  Here are three big issues:

1.  The term friend is evolving

“Friend” used to mean “together doing life.”  Now it means “someone you have never met in person but follows you on FB.”  The average Facebook user has 328 friends, but the average American only has two close friends.  That’s down from six close friends two decades ago.  And an amazing 25% have zero close friends.  We have lots of online interaction and fewer to no intimate friends.  We are more connected and more lonely than ever before.

2.  Addicted to immediate affirmation

Take a selfie right now.  Seriously.  Do it right now.  How long before you expect someone to like it.  I just posted a #library #selfie on Facebook.  Let’s see how long it takes to get a like…It’s been over four minutes and I’m beginning to sweat…Five minutes now.  Come on.  Somebody put me out of my misery and like my selfie.  Maybe I don’t look very good in it.  Let me go check to see if someone liked it.  Nope.  Not yet…Six minutes…Nine minutes and still no likes…L…I give up.

When we get the “like” our brains release a chemical called dopamine.  Dopamine is the brain’s version of crack.  It makes us feel good.  We get rewarded with dopamine and we want to do it again.  Our phones and computers have become Skinner Boxes.  Don’t know what a Skinner Box is?  Check this out:

 

Yep, you’re a rat getting trained to press a lever, or in this case, push a button.  We end up meeting a short-term need but deferring a long-term deeper need.  Sociologists call this “deferred loneliness.”  We are deferring a longing for intimacy into the future.  We are living for likes while longing for love.

3.  We have the power to do friendship on our own terms.

I can read a text, respond to it, not respond, or respond later.  Is the picture on instagram worthy of my “like”?  I see that friend who posted another cat picture.  One more and I’m unfollowing him.  One person said, “The more I use social media the more I crave social interaction.”  Another said, “I feel more connected than ever before and feel more alone.”  We end up not having the discipline to stop scrolling and clicking.

The author of Hebrews said:

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect [liking one another’s posts] our meeting together, as some people do, but [comment on one another’s posts] encourage one another…
~Hebrews 10:24-25 NLT

What we need to begin doing is to practice the power of presence.  Jesus said:

For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.
~Matthew 18:20 NLT

We can experience Jesus’ presence alone, but there is something special and powerful together with other believers.  When we pray together, study together, join in small group together.  There’s power in presence.   God didn’t shout his love from heaven, but showed his love on earth.

So let’s make two hashtags for #relationships:

1.     #bepresent

Let’s recite this Mantra: “I will love people face to face, not just thumbs to thumbs”  And if you’re married you can add: “belly button to belly button.”  Paul, the first missionary of the church, said:

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them…Love each other with genuine affection…When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them…
~Paul (Romans 12:9-10 & 13 NLT)

So let’s pretend someone gets bad news or ends up in the hospital.  How do you show love?  One very acceptable way right now is to text them or send them a message: “Thinking and praying.”  That’s nice.  But let’s take it up a notch.  You know there’s something else you can do with your phone besides text.  You can actually use it to call.  When you call you can actually hear tone of voice and go places in conversation where you wouldn’t imagine going.  Or let’s take it up another notch: visit that person.  Go visit them face to face over a cup of coffee.  Listen.  Put a hand on a shoulder.  Give an appropriate hug.  Pray together.

I experienced the power of presence when I first became a pastor at SCC.  I quickly met Ken and Mary Ziegler.  Ken had M.S. and was in a wheel chair but his faith was evident.  Over my first year or so of being a pastor he was in and out of the hospital quite often, and in my second year his health deteriorated quickly.  Toward the end of his life he was moved to home and given palliative care.  I visited Ken and Mary several times.  I was a new pastor and didn’t really feel very competent visiting with someone who was nearing death, but I was present nonetheless doing what I could.  I don’t really remember doing much at all besides listening and occasionally praying or reading some of Ken and Mary’s favorite scripture, but after Ken died, Mary told me how much it meant to them that I spent time with them during Ken’s last weeks and days on earth.  It wasn’t what I said, it was taking the time to be present.

I have also been the recipient of this kind of presence.  I remember one day when Bill Chu, a fellow pastor and friend of mine, and I were planning on getting together to discuss some strategy about our mission and ministry.  We had some very specific things we wanted to talk about, but something happened that day.  I don’t even remember what it was, but I called Bill in tears.  I told him I wasn’t in any shape to talk about ministry, but that I still wanted to meet, because I just needed someone to talk to.  Again, I don’t even remember what all the emotion was about, but I do remember sitting with Bill and talking.  He was present to me and prayed with me and encouraged me in my time of struggle.

Friends, do life together because life is better together.  In fact, one of the women’s small groups, led by SCC’s founding pastor, Barb Flory, is reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s classic book titled Life Together.  Be present together in this or any of the other twenty-three small groups this semester.

2.     #beengaged

So it’s actually not quite enough to just be present.  You also need to be emotionally and completely engaged.  Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers said:

Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.
~1 Peter 4:8 NLT

Sometimes we miss the fact that the person in the room is the most important person.  Have you ever been at a restaurant and seen a family or a group of friends all sitting around a table, but they’re all looking at their phones?  Maybe that’s even been your  family.  They are alone together.  Moms and dads, your kids are begging for your attention but you’re on Pinterest changing the world by collecting recipes and pictures of dogs.

What if we were in the middle of conversation over coffee you pulled out a book and read two pages?  Then you kept talking a bit.  Then you pulled out your to do list and did something on it.  Then you talked a little bit.  Then you walked off and talked to someone else.  Then came back and talked.  What kind of friendship is that?  Not any kind that I want.  I want my friends to be focused on me when we’re together.

There’s a new fear that is developing in our culture.  It’s called FOMO or the fear of missing out.  Everytime the phone beeps, vibrates, or blinks you think, “What am I missing?”  Here’s what you’re missing: a cat picture, a like on your picture, a comment: “girl you look gorg”, which is not to say that you gorged yourself but that you look gorgeous.  It’s not about how many likes you get but about how you show love.  Parents, don’t let your kids lead you on this.  Lead them.  Here’s what your FOMO should be: fear missing out on your children growing up while you’ve got your nose buried in your tablet checking out your old high school girlfriend.  Husbands, here’s what you’re missing out on: the beautiful wife sitting across from you.  Wives, here’s what you’re missing out on: the amazing and mysterious man sitting on the other side of the table.  You know you’re really missing out when you are both in bed with your cell phone and you text your wife to ask her if she’s in the mood and she responds with #headache.

Rules of Engagement
So let me suggest four simple rules of engagement.  First, turn the notifications off on your phone.  Become a #notificationnazi.  “No notifications for you!”  Second, your phone face down during dinner.  No phones during meals.  Third, turn off your phone during your small group.  Fourth, make this a rule in your house: at 10PM phones are off and charging.  (On a side note: I recently read a very disturbing article in The Atlantic and learned that sexting is extremely prevalent among teens of all kinds and happens mostly late at night.  Most teenagers sleep with their phones.  So one simple solution to sexting: no sleeping with your phones!)

So let’s get back to the theme of love.  John, Jesus’ “beloved” follower wrote this:

Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.
~1 John 3:18 NLT

When I read that, I’m reminded of Meghan Trainor’s song, “Lips are Moving:”

If your lips are moving, if your lips are moving
If your lips are moving, then you’re lyin’, lyin’, lyin’, baby

Too many of us are talking love but not acting love.  We’re talking love on social media.  We’re talking love in our texts.  But we’re not loving.  Our lips are moving but we’re lying.  Don’t just text them, pray for them.  Don’t just pray for them, pray with them.  Don’t just like their post, like them.  Don’t just comment on a post, comment to them.  They’ll know you follow Jesus not because of what you say, but because of how you love.  They’ll know you follow Jesus not because of how many likes you get, but because of how well you love your real friends.  A skeptical world may say, “I’m not sure I believe this whole Jesus thing, but I want what they’ve got.”  And when a skeptical world asks, “Why do you love?” You can say, “I’m on a mission from a God who sent his son on a rescue mission to save this broken messed up world.  That’s why I show you my love.”  God didn’t just shout his love from heaven, he showed it in Jesus.

Prayer
God, you loved us so much that you came to be present with us here on this earth.  Help us follow Jesus by loving those around us by being present and being engaged.  May a skeptical world know you because of the way we love one another.  Amen.

 

* This sermon is based on sermon first preached by Craig Groeschel.

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Compassionate

January 19, 2015 by Leave a Comment

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Hello: My Name Is Sycamore Creek Church – Compassionate
 January 18/19, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

You never know who will show up for worship.  What would happen if Lady Gaga showed up for worship?  Grandview United Methodist Church in Lancaster, PA recently had that experience.  One of Lady Gaga’s family members was being baptized and she was there to participate.  So what would happen if she showed up here?  What if coach Izzo walked in the door?  And coach Beilein?  Let’s amp it up a bit.  What if Barak Obama walked in the door?  What about George W. Bush?

Here’s what I hope would happen: No matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or where we encounter you, we’re going to do our best to show you God’s compassion.  Hello: My Name Is Sycamore Creek Church and I’m compassionate.

OK, those scenarios were a little off the wall, right?  But here are some that are more likely to happen.

  1. You’re driving down the street and someone is standing on the corner asking for help.
  2. Your child moved out of the house to live on his/her own, but made some not-so-wise choices and now wants to move back in.
  3. You’ve just attended worship and are enjoying hanging out in the Connection Café catching up with a good friend when you notice just over their shoulder, someone you haven’t seen before at SCC who is standing by themselves.
  4. You show up for worship one day and realize that there are all kinds of people who attend worship that you would never naturally choose to hang out with.

What do these situations have in common?  They all have to deal with a basic question: How do we show God’s compassion to those around us?

Here’s a basic problem I want to deal with today.  Christians have been following a lie.  The lie is that my faith is about me and Jesus.  Here’s how the church has traditionally described what its mission is about:
MeandJesus

We are stuck in our sin and this leads to death.  When we ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior we cross over a bridge that gets us to a Holy God and eternal life.  Life is now good.  Me and Jesus.  Thus, the mission of the church is to get people to walk over the bridge of Jesus so that they have eternal life with God.

Now there isn’t anything particularly wrong with this, except that it is woefully incomplete.  It doesn’t go far enough.  It neglects everyone else around you.

 

 

Here’s a better illustration of what the church is all about:

Jesus&World

I think we all agree that the world isn’t as it should be.  All kinds of things are wrong with this world.  Things aren’t as they should be.  Christians believe that’s because God created and designed the world for good, but it was damaged by evil.  We focused on our own needs to neglect the needs of others.  The good news is that God didn’t throw us out and start again.  He sent his son, Jesus, into the world to restore it for better.  He showed us how to live and gave us his power to live that way.  He did this in large part by creating a community of people who are seeking to follow his way.  Now it would be really nice to just stay in that bubble of a community, but Jesus sent us out into the world together to heal.  So it’s not just about Jesus and me.  It’s about Jesus and us and all the world.  Thus, the mission of the church is to invite people to be restored for better and then sent out together into the world to bring healing, to be part of the solution rather than the problem.  We can’t do this on our own.  That’s what got us into trouble in the first place.  We need the resources of God in Jesus.

So here at SCC we seek to be compassionate, to bring healing together to the world through Jesus.  No matter who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve done, or where we encounter you, we’re going to do our best to show you God’s compassion.  But it’s not always clear how to show God’s compassion.  Here are three hooks of compassion here at SCC.


1. Fiercely Focused on the Guest

In the book of Hebrews, we read:

Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it!
~Hebrews 13:2 NLT

The guests who show up at our events just might be angels!  So you better make sure they don’t go unnoticed.  The Rule of St. Benedict, the basic instructions for Benedictine Monasteries tells monks and nuns to “Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ.”  SCC treats our guests like we would treat an angel or Christ if they showed up.

There are some important ways we think and talk about this focus.  First, we talk about guests, not visitors.  Guests are people you plan for and expect.  You’re excited when they show up.  We were recent guests at Sarah’s parents for Christmas.  When we showed up they were prepared.  They had all of their grandkids’ favorite toys out. They had their rooms all prepared.  The ornaments on the tree were up out of reach.  They had gone shopping and had enough food to cover the visit and not only enough but favorite food.  They were glad we came and they prepared for it.  A visitor is someone who comes to the door unexpected and unwanted.  The Kirby salesman is a visitor.  You’re polite (most of the time) but you want to get rid of them as fast as possible.  At SCC, new people are guests, not visitors.  We plan for them.  We learn what they like and want and we prepare for it.  We are glad they showed up.  We do everything we can to make sure they experience an environment where they can encounter God.  We are fiercely focused on the guest.

Second, we practice the 5-10-Link rule.  Five minutes before the service and five minutes after the service pay attention to the people within ten feet of you that you don’t know.  Then link with them and link them to someone else.  If you find out that they are a computer programmer, introduce them to another computer programmer in the room.  If you find out they like comic books, introduce them to someone else who likes comic books.  If you find out they’re hungry, introduce them to someone else who is hungry.

Third, be careful to protect my time as the pastor with guests.  Sometimes I get swamped right after worship with a lot of people who want to talk to me.  Can you wait five or ten minutes?  I’m not going anywhere.   If I happen to be talking to you and a guest walks by, I will stop our conversation to greet the guest.  Sometimes I can do that gently.  But sometimes it’s abrupt.  I was talking with a regular attender the other day when a first-time guest was walking by. I ditched him so hard and it was so abrupt, that I called him up the next day to apologize.  He understood.  I was practicing the 5-10-Link rule myself.

We practice compassion at SCC by being fiercely focused on the guest.

2.     Diverse friendships

Paul, the first missionary of the church, wrote a letter to the church at Colose that we now have in our Bibles as the book of Colossians.  Here’s what he said:

Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.
~Colossians 3:9-12 The Message

It tends to be easiest to show compassion to those who are like us with the same labels.  But Paul believes that in Christ we build diverse friendships.  White with black and Hispanic.  Rich with poor.  Educated with the uneducated.  Employed with the unemployed.  Gay with straight.  You see, it’s easy to stereotype people who are different than we are when we don’t know them.  But when they are our friends, we are more likely to be compassionate.  We “put on” compassion when we build friendships with people who are different than we are.

I was talking with someone in our church the other day who is not by American standards rich, but they have a good job that takes care of their basics and leaves money to have fun with.  This person was telling me how when they first came to SCC they really wrestled with those folks here who are homeless or near homeless.  They wrestled with building friendships with the working poor.  But over time this person has realized how special and unique it is to voluntarily be in a community where you’re building friendships with people who are different than you are.  Diverse friendships at SCC helped this person put on compassion.

3.     Compassion Service

So far we’ve looked at two hooks that SCC hangs their compassionate hat on.  The third hook is compassionate service.  Matthew, one of Jesus’ followers, tells the story of a moment when Jesus encountered a crowd. He says:

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
~Matthew 9:36 NLT

I think there are two ways that Jesus understands people as helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.  At one point he says, “Blessed are the poor” (Luke 6:20), or those who have physical needs.  At another time he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), or those who have spiritual needs.  At SCC we seek to show compassion by meeting the physical needs of those around us as well as the spiritual needs.

We meet physical needs in our church primarily through our small groups.  Each of our small groups is encouraged to do one service project each semester.  They choose what they do and we advertise it to the rest of the church.  We don’t have just one mission team.  We have twenty-plus missions teams!

But we seek to show God’s compassion no matter where we encounter it, and we often don’t get to schedule opportunities for compassion.  They just happen.  We’re walking down the sidewalk and someone asks for help.  I’ve been asked many times for tips on how to respond to people who ask for help on the street corner or elsewhere.  Here’s my approach.  First, be non-judgmental.  There’s a lot of judgment going around about whether someone asking for help on the street corner is legit or not.  I don’t know, and you don’t either.  What would it take in your life for you to stand on the street corner and ask for help?  A lot.  So let’s not be judgmental.  Second, I have a hard time responding to people who I’m driving by, but when I drive by someone over and over again and see the same person over and over, I’m inclined to stop and offer to buy them a meal.  I ask them what they’d like, and then I go buy it and come back and sit and talk with them.  I begin building a diverse friendship.  If someone asks me for help as I’m walking down the sidewalk, I offer to go with them right then and buy them what they asked for.  They often will decline only wanting money.  I tell them that I can’t give them money, but I will buy them what they asked for.  Sometimes they take me up on the offer, sometimes they don’t.  Either way, I seek to not be judgmental.  I seek to show compassion by meeting physical needs.

But we also seek to meet spiritual needs.  I’ve told you that we hired a demographic expert named Tom Bandy.  About a month ago he helped us get to know our neighborhood.  We found out that the largest group we are currently reaching is a group called “Singles and Starters.”  Experian, the credit rating company, describes them as “young singles starting out, and some starter families, in diverse urban communities.”  SCC is currently made up of about 14% Singles and Starters, but just around our new Sunday venue is about 28% Singles and Starters.  When it comes to worship they are looking for missional connection, educational, and coaching worship styles.  Then it comes to our “Christian Education” they are looking for topical and peer group options.  When it comes to small groups they want rotated leaders rather than designated leaders.  They have a lot of questions about health and quality of life.  These are some of their spiritual needs.  We seek to be compassionate by meeting the needs not just of those within the walls of SCC but also those in our community.  Singles and Starters aren’t necessarily aware of their own spiritual needs, but they are open to surprises.  One example of this came when Joanna began attending our Church in a Diner with her mom.  Listen to how she describes being surprised by having a spiritual need met.

 

 

Hello: My name is Sycamore Creek Church.  I’m curious, creative, and compassionate.  What’s your name?

Prayer
God, help us put on compassion by being fiercely focused on the guest, by building diverse friendships, and by meeting the physical and spiritual needs of our community.  Let us show your compassion to whoever walks through our doors or whoever we meet whenever we meet them.  May this be true of us in the name of your son, Jesus.  Amen.

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Creative

January 12, 2015 by Leave a Comment

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Hello: My Name Is Sycamore Creek Church – Creative
January 11/12, 2015
Tom Arthur

Peace friends!

How creative are you?  How creative are those around you?  How creative is your family?  How creative is the company you work for?  How creative is your neighborhood?  Your town?  Today we’re continuing this series called Hello: My Name is Sycamore Creek Church.  Throughout this series we’re looking at three core values that define Sycamore Creek Church.  We’ve had a lot of change lately with the move to a new Sunday morning venue, but these three core values remain the same.  Sycamore Creek Church is Curious, Creative, and Compassionate.  Today I want to look at what it means that we are creative.

Here’s a problem I want to wrestle with today: Living things tend to die.  This is true of plants, animals, and humans.  But it’s also true of any group of people.  All thriving communities, movements, organizations tend toward becoming dead institutions, and dead traditions with dead histories irrelevant to those who are still alive.

The story is told of a new pastor who shows up to lead worship for the first time.  This church has a tradition of reciting the Apostles’ Creed each week in worship: “I believe in God the Father Almighty…”  As they got to that part of worship, everyone turned around and faced the back of the room.  The pastor was caught off guard at this but in the midst of all the new things, he neglected to ask about it.  The next week when they got to the Apostles’ Creed the next week, everyone did the same thing. They all turned around and faced the back of the room.  After worship, the pastor asked the choir director why they all turned around and faced the back when reciting the Apostles’ Creed.  “Oh, that,” she said.  “There used to be a cross we would all face but when the sanctuary was painted five years ago, it was taken down and never put back up.  But we keep turning around to face the cross.”

As one well known church historian said: “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living” (Jaroslav Pelikan, Yale Professor of Church History).  I’m afraid too many churches are practicing the dead faith of the living.  Mission becomes survival; paying the bills.  Outreach becomes inreach; neglectful narcissism.  Buildings become tombs; saving memories enshrined in mortar.  Or as the founding pastor of Sycamore Creek Church liked to say, we don’t want to be a church with “tight shoes and hard pews.”  People begin to ask as a friend of mine on Facebook recently asked, “How do I make the church relevant to my life?”  I find in his question a kind of humility because he assumes it is his work to make the church relevant rather than the church’s work to make the church relevant.

Creative
Against this tendency for thriving communities to become dead institutions, Sycamore Creek Church seeks to be curious, creative, and compassionate, and in particular, we want to be creative.  We don’t want to get stuck in old ruts.  We want to imagine, experiment, and get things done.

Why are we driven to create?  I think we are driven to be creative because we are made in the “image” of God, our creator.  We read in the beginning of the Bible:

So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
~Genesis 1:27 NLT

The word “image” is the same word that is translated elsewhere as “idol.”  Genesis tells the story of God creating his own temple.  What’s the last thing you put in a temple?  The idol of the God.  Humans are the living and breathing idols of God in the temple of creation.  We are the image of God.  (Maybe that’s why we are so quick to turn one another into idols and worship celebrities and fame more than God.)  God creates.  We are God’s image.  We create.

There’s one big difference.  God created from nothing (scholars say God created “ex nihlo”).  But all our creations are derivatives.  All our creations are mash-ups of previous things created.  We are always “playing jazz” on something that came before us.  The problem comes, the death comes, when we stop playing jazz, when we stop mashing up, when we stop creating the old into something new.

SCC’s Creative Style – Ministry & Mission
There are three ways that SCC seeks to be creative.  We want to be creative in our ministry and mission, our outreach, and our building.  Let’s begin with the first one: ministry and mission.

There are 150 psalms in the Bible. The psalms are the prayer book of the Bible.  150 psalms seems like enough for most situations in life, right?  Wrong.  We read:

I will sing a new song to you, O God!
~Psalm 144:9 NLT

A new song is needed.  New situations need new ministries.  Old ones don’t always work.  I’m not saying throw out the old.  I’m saying that if we don’t allow ourselves the freedom to sing new songs when it comes to how we live out our ministry and mission, our living faith of the dead (the old songs) will become the dead faith of the living.

This does mean that things will regularly change around here.  We experiment with something new.  If it’s an experiment, then that means it might not work.  Or if we experiment it means it might work for a time but no longer work at another time.  Churches often accumulate ministries like the tax code.  We all know the tax code could be smaller and simpler, but instead of cutting codes out, we just keep adding taxes in.

On a very practical level this means that if you’re involved in a ministry, and maybe even your heart is in it and you’ve dedicated a lot of time to it, it may not last forever.  In fact, there are really only two things we do at SCC: worship and small groups.  We fit everything into those two categories.  We try to run a lean mean ship around here.  We experiment and are creative within that framework.

Sycamore Creek Church seeks to be the kind of church where we don’t accumulate old dead weight, but we remain creative, ready to meet the needs of present and future generations.

SCC’s Creative Style – Outreach
Paul was the first Jewish missionary to the Gentiles (the non-Jews), and he wrote many letters that became books of the Bible.  In his first letter to the church at Corinth he said:

I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.
~1 Corinthians 9:22 NRSV

Paul is regularly attempting to change his approach depending on his context.  He’s attempting to reach out to new people groups in new ways.  When he’s with Jews, he pays attention to the kosher laws.  When he’s with non-Jews, he doesn’t worry about things that might offend his fellow Jews.  When he was with the Greeks, he used their poetry and philosophy to make his point and build bridges.  He was unwilling to sin, but otherwise, he was willing to do whatever it took to creatively reach out to new people.

Our church has been attempting to do the same thing for some time now.  It was originally founded to be a church that was for those who didn’t have a church or didn’t like church.  We tried new things to reach new people.  Then two years ago we did something new, we started holding worship services in a diner on Monday nights.  It seemed like a bit of a crazy idea at the time, but over two years into it, and we see that we’re reaching all kinds of new people by adapting what we do to where our culture is currently at.  People are busy on Sundays.  They work, sleep in, play sports, or travel.  A lot of churches just complain that our culture doesn’t save Sundays any more for worship.  We figured that complaining wasn’t going to help anyone follow Jesus, so we decided to adapt.  Jonathan Doll and his wife Laura Harlow among many others found out about us because of our Church in a Diner.  Jonathan was taking his Toyota to get fixed across the street from Grumpy’s, and stopped into the diner for lunch.  He saw the table tent on the page and was curious about this church doing Church in a Diner.  The rest of the story is downhill.  Monday night is just the beginning.  We envision seven satellites in seven venues on seven days of the week.

 

A video was made about us and several other creative outreach experiments going on in Michigan.  Watch and see:

 

 

Our own creative outreach has been having a broader influence than just within our own church.  You saw Crosswind in that video.  They’re doing a church in a bar because they saw us doing Church in a Diner.  Locally, Crossroad church, downtown has begun doing a church in the Loft because of our Church in a Diner.  In Potterville, Potterville UMC is working on Church in Joe’s Gizzard City because they saw us being creative in our own outreach.  SCC, our creative culture and style is influencing other churches to be creative in reaching new people too!  Thank you God!

Here’s some more good news about our creativity.  We recently hired a demographics expert, Tom Bandy, to help us learn about our community and the Lansing region.  We found out about who we’re currently reaching and who is right around us.  One thing really stuck out to me.  The largest group we’re reaching is a group called “Singles and Starters.”  Experian, the credit reporting agency, defines this group as “Young singles starting out, and some starter families, in diverse urban communities.”  Singles and Starters currently make up 13.8% of our attendance.  Tom Bandy told us this group is notoriously hard to reach.  But here’s where it gets really interesting.  Right around our new Sunday venue, there’s a pocket of Singles and Starters that make up 27.6% of the population.  Here’s what that means, whatever we’re doing to be creative in outreach is resulting in us reaching a group that is very hard to reach, and our new building is right in the middle of twice as many of these kinds of people!

SCC’s Creative Style –Building
I keep hearing this one fear over and over not only from within our church but also from those who are watching us from the outside.  We got a building.  It’s been a long time in coming.  But often buildings become a tomb for churches.  The church begins to focus more on the building than on the mission field.  Even though Jesus was a carpenter, he was not very impressed with buildings.  When he looked at the most magnificent building in all of Israel, the Temple, he had this to say:

Jesus replied, “Yes, look at these great buildings. But they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”
~Mark 13:2 NLT

Jesus points to a reality.  Buildings don’t last, but souls do.  Buildings are only a tool, a tool to support people.  Once the people begin to live to support the building, the game is over.  But we’re seeking to use this building as a tool to creatively reach new people in our community.  We’re stained glass on the outside, but party on the inside! 

So how do we not devolve into becoming a church that exists to support the building?  Here’s how: we remain fiercely focused on those who we are trying to reach.  Let me remind you: over a quarter of the people who live right around this building are “Singles and Starters.”  Our largest group that we are currently reaching are Singles and Starters. Do you think God has some plans for us to reach more Singles and Starters?  I do.  So what kind of a building and ministries will reach Singles and Starters?  Tom Bandy gave us some tips.

First, Singles and Starters don’t like “ecclesiastical” or churchy buildings.  They prefer “utilitarian” buildings.  Here’s a big problem, right?  We just bought a pretty ecclesiastical churchy building.  So we’ll be working to de-eccelsialize this building.  We’ll be working to make it less churchy.  We won’t be getting rid of all the churchiness of it, but we’ll do what we can.  Some of you have come to me and told me you like the pews.  Here’s the deal: pews are churchy.  You may like them but they represent one of many obstacles to reaching Singles and Starters.

Tom Bandy told us that Singles and Starters like both traditional and modern religious symbols.  They like crosses.  They like stained glass windows.  They like these kind of old symbols.  But they also like new modern symbols: photographs, projection media, abstract art, and the like.  So we’ll be mixing it up in our building.

We learned that Singles and Starters like multiple choices and takeout when it comes to hospitality.  They want many options for food and drink served at multiple serving stations.  They want the option to be able to take what they want out of the building so we need to make sure we provide lids for the cups, and maybe even something you can walk out with.  This really isn’t all that odd.  Think about when you go to a fast food joint.  What’s the last thing you do before you walk out the door?  You fill up your pop to take it with you.

When it comes to leadership, Singles and Starters are attracted to pilgrim and mentor leaders.  They want to be coached about how to live this life.  They want to know that their leaders have been in unique situations.  They are looking for “heroes of the faith” that they can sit and talk to over a cup of coffee.  Their dream conversation is with Nelson Mandela over coffee.  Thus, the Connection Café is a key part of the way we use our building to reach new people.  We need to create an environment where fellow pilgrims can sit and mentor and learn together over a good drink.  We’re beginning to experiment providing “go deeper” questions at the end of worship to help facilitate these kinds of conversations.

Singles and Starters prefer postmodern forms of communication over modern forms.  They like images, screens, and interactive media right on their phones over static print on a page.  They want to be able to text questions in right now.  They expect to interact with the teaching for the day, not just absorb it.  So we need to have a building that makes these kinds of postmodern technologies accessible.

Sycamore Creek Church is seeking to use our building in creative ways.  We want the building to support reaching new people, not reaching new people to support the building.

All of this talk of creativity doesn’t mean we are ignoring the old.  Tradition is good.  It’s good when it is alive.  It’s good when it’s reinterpreted in creative ways that build bridges with today’s people.  Churches need to have deep roots, solid trunks, and flexible branches.  What we’re doing here is still seeking to reach new people for Jesus Christ.  He is the trunk of all we do.  But our branches reach out flexibly and creatively into the community.

Hello: My name is Sycamore Creek Church and I’m curious, creative, and compassionate.  What’s your name?

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