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20 Years Deep – Values Part II

November 15, 2010 by

20 Years Deep – Values Part II
Sycamore Creek Church
November 14, 2010
Tom Arthur

Peace Friends!

When you go on a trip there are usually many things you bring with you.  They’re the things that help you travel the way that you want to travel.  Sycamore Creek Church is on a journey of igniting authentic life in Christ by connecting, growing and serving.  Along that journey we want to bring several different values.  Last week we took a break to celebrate our ten-year anniversary, but the week before that we looked at the first three of our six core values.  They are:

  1. People need the Lord.
  2. We seek to create healthy community through biblical patterns of relating to one another.
  3. Being in a small group is essential to spiritual growth.

These three values are like bringing along a life-jacket, a yoke on a canoe that helps you carry it easier, and a partner to canoe with.

Today we continue looking at our last three core values.  The first of these is:

Our lives are to be directed by the Holy Spirit through Scripture, prayer and Christian community.  This is like bringing along navigation tools.  A compass, a GPS, and some maps.  They help you orient as you are going along so that you know that you’re not just traveling any old way but you’re going the direction that God wants you to go.

Now isn’t it just easier to look at the Bible and know where God wants us to go?  Isn’t the Bible enough?  Well, sorta.  The psalmist says, “I am counting on the LORD; yes, I am counting on him. I have put my hope in his word” (Psalm 130:5, NLT), but the problem is that the Bible always needs interpretation.  To be honest, sometimes when we all read the Bible it just isn’t so clear or obvious what we’re supposed to get out of it.  That’s where these other three tools for navigation come in handy.

The first of these is the leading of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, the Bible is best read by relying on the Holy Spirit to help “illuminate” or shine a light on it all.  When Jesus was about to leave the disciples and ascend to heaven he said to them, “John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5, NLT).  The Holy Spirit is God’s gift of love, friendship and presence with us all.  We aren’t left alone here.  God guides us and prompts us and sometimes even pushes us a little by means of the Holy Spirit.  Granted, sometimes this guiding is very subtle and reading it is more like an art than a science, but together the Bible and the Holy Spirit help us know where to go.

There are other navigation tools that are helpful too.  One is prayer.  When Jesus was ready to give himself up for crucifixion, he spent time in a garden in prayer.  We read that “he walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine’” (Luke 22:41-42, NLT).  Here we see Jesus doing what he does quite often: praying.  In prayer we talk to God and we listen to God.  We also are real about what’s on our mind.  Obviously Jesus wasn’t too keen on what was before him, but he was submitted to God’s will for his life.

A third tool that helps us interpret the scriptures and know where God is leading us is community.  We read again in Acts that the disciples after pondering a difficult decision say, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28, NLT).  They sought God’s will together and their corporate sense of God’s will was shaped and formed by the practices of reading scripture and prayer and led by the Holy Spirit to a decision about what to do.

A great class that our church offers that helps us live into this core value is Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God.  Blackaby says that our job is to find out where God is already at work and go join God.  I highly recommend taking this class.  We offer it usually once a year or so.

Our lives are to be directed by the Holy Spirit through Scripture, prayer and Christian community.

Our fifth core value is that people are joyful when called to serve through their spiritual gifts and passions. Let’s unpack this.  We seek to serve not just our church but also our community and world.  We are each given special spiritual gifts to be of benefit to others.  Paul says, “A spiritual gift is given to each of us as a means of helping the entire church” (1 Corinthians 12:7, NLT).  This spiritual gift sometimes shows itself in a passion that we have.  The prophet Jeremiah described it as a kind of fire in his bones. He says, “There is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones” (Jeremiah 20:9, NRSV).  He can’t help but be compelled to do what God has called him to do.  In this way a call is sometimes referred to as a burden.  Our heart or passion isn’t satisfied until we serve the way that God wants us to serve.

Ultimately when we serve in the way that God wants us to serve it brings a kind of joy.  Jesus talks about it this way:

When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!  I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you.  And here is how to measure it — the greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends.   You are my friends if you obey me.  John 15:10-14 (NLT)

Joy isn’t the same as happiness.  Sometimes we are gifted, called, and passionate about serving in a way that brings us quite a bit of hardship and suffering.  Consider the group that just went down to Nicaragua.  There were three things I always heard when they emailed back to tell us how it was going: first, how many people were served through their medical clinics; second, how many people made a commitment to following the Lord; and third, how hot it was!  Thankfully we can rest in this promise of God: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13, NRSV).  Even when serving isn’t fun, we can pray with Jesus that not “my will but yours be done.”

Perhaps a good way to think about this is the 80/20 rule.  There will probably be 80% of what you do in service that brings you deep joy and satisfaction.  But the other 20% may be those cleaning the toilets kind of service.  We do the thing because it has to be done.  We set up and tear down as a church because it has to be done.  It isn’t always fun showing up at church at 7AM and staying until 1:30PM, but it has to be done.  And yet if the balance tilts too far in the direction of “it has to be done” and away from passion, gift, and calling then we probably should spend some time rethinking and renegotiating how and where we will serve.

People are joyful when called to serve through their spiritual gifts and passions.

Our sixth core value is that, “We share God’s love in creative and excellent ways.”  When you go on a fishing trip you bring along with you various kinds of lures because fish don’t all bite on the same lure.  Having the right kind of lures for the right kind of fish marks a great fisherman from a mediocre one.  We too at Sycamore Creek Church seek to go along this journey by having a full creative tool box of excellent lures.

Where did we get this creative impulse from?  We got if from God, our creator.  In Genesis we read, “So God created people in his own image” (Genesis 1:27, NLT).  We are creative because God was creative.  We seek excellence because God sought excellence.  At each stage of creation God said, “It is good.”

How can you get any more creative and excellent than God becoming human?  Who would have thought of a God becoming a baby and growing up and having acne and needing to go to the bathroom?  And yet we read that “the Word [Jesus the Son of God] became human and lived here on earth among us” (John 1:14, NLT).  Jesus too was creative. He taught in all kinds of parables, short mysterious stories, and metaphors.  He looked around him and what he saw he used to teach.

Paul too sought to be creative and excellent.  He said, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:20-22, NRSV).  Paul wants to use the passions, interests, and cultures of all kinds of different people to be able to speak to them and draw them into connecting with God.

We share God’s love in creative and excellent ways.

These are our six core values:

  1. People need the Lord.
  2. We seek to create healthy community through biblical patterns of relating to one another.
  3. Being in a small group is essential to spiritual growth.
  4. Our lives are to be directed by the Holy Spirit through Scripture, prayer and Christian community.
  5. People are joyful when called to serve through their spiritual gifts and passions.
  6. We share God’s love in creative and excellent ways.

There is one more core value that seems to be emerging, but we don’t yet have the words for it.  It has to do with missions.  Maybe we could say that we are called to serve the poor and the poor in spirit.  Those who are in physical need as well as those who are in spiritual need.  In Matthew Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3, NRSV), and in Luke Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor” (Luke 6:20, NRSV).

This emerging value is compelling us as a church to look at ways that we can get everyone in our church into service in our community, and we’re looking at doing this by connecting our small groups and missions together.  We seek to be a window seat church rather than an aisle seat church.  The aisle seat is what is convenient for me, but the window seat is what’s convenient for others.

These six or seven core values are the things that we bring along with us as we journey into igniting authentic life in Christ by connecting, growing, and serving.  They guide all our decisions, and show us not only where to go but how to travel the way.  Thankfully we don’t travel alone for Jesus said, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NLT).

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20 Years Deep – Core Values Part I

November 2, 2010 by

20 Years Deep – Core Values Part I
Sycamore Creek Church
October 31, 2010
Tom Arthur


Peace, Friends!

When Jesus was first calling his disciples he saw Peter out in the boat after a long night of catching no fish.  He said to him, “Put out in the deep water and let your nets down for a catch” (Luke 5:4).  Peter followed Jesus’ instruction and brought in more fish than he had caught all night!  When Jesus calls us to follow him, he tells us to put out into the deep water.  Jesus always calls us to deeper maturity, deeper growth, deeper faith, deeper commitment.  Next week Sycamore Creek Church turns ten years old.  We’ll be ten-years “deep.”

We’re currently in the third week of a six-week campaign called 20 Years Deep, and during this campaign we’re celebrating the ten years that God has given us, and we’re also looking forward to the next ten.  We’re looking forward by seeking to raise $500,000 over the next three years to put us in a good place to own our own building so that we can accomplish our mission more fully: to ignite authentic life in Christ.

In week one, we looked at our mission: to ignite authentic life in Christ.  Last week we took a look at five points of vision that will guide us over the next ten years.  Today we’re taking a look at the first three of our core values, the values that we’ve brought along with us on these first ten years and that will continue to be the way or manner that we go about living into our vision for the next ten.

This message is part one of our core values.  There are three more, but in between the second part of this sermon, we’re going to stop and celebrate our birthday.  Next week pastor Barb Flory, the founding pastor of SCC, will be here to join me in celebrating our ten-year birthday.  I hope you’ll bring some friends with you to celebrate.

So let’s dive into the first three of our six core values here at SCC.  The first core value is:

People need the Lord.

Core values are kind of like the stuff you bring along with you on a boat ride.  This core value would be the life vest in the boat.  It’s the thing that you put on when you’re sinking, and the truth is that all of us are always sinking.  A life vest is a pretty amazing thing.  It does all the work whether you’re contributing anything or not.  You can be conked out and unconscious, and the life vest will still save your life.  The key thing, of course, is that you have to put the life vest on.

I know the importance of putting the life vest on because I was canoeing one time when we got into really big rapids.  Pretty soon there was so much water in the canoe that there was no difference between being in the canoe and being in the river.  Pretty soon the canoe was floating down the river without us.  I was swimming for my life trying to keep my head above water.  I was working incredibly hard.  Maybe harder than I’ve ever worked before.  I was working so hard because I had neglected to put the life vest on.  It was on the floor of the canoe.  What good does it do there?  None.  While a life vest will do all the work in saving you, you’ve got to put it on for it do the saving work.

Jesus is kinda like that life vest.  Jesus does all the hard work of saving you, but you’ve got to put Jesus on first.  Otherwise you’re just like me in that river floating down stream with the life vest floating down in front of me.  People need the Lord.

While none of the other core values are in a particular order, this one is placed first for a reason.  It is placed first because it flows in and through everything we do around here.  Jesus told his followers to “go and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19).  Everyone.  We might say all people need the Lord.  Every single one of us has a God-shaped hole in our heart.  It’s a deep longing that is not easy to satisfy.  We try to fill it will all kinds of things.  Money.  Entertainment.  The newest gadget.  A girlfriend or boyfriend.  A child.  A spouse.  Friends.  Food.  All kinds of stuff.  But none of that stuff fits because the hole is God-shaped.  The longing can only be satisfied by God.

There is this sense sometimes that Christians get when they look at other people.  Sometimes we look at other people and think, “They don’t really need Jesus.  They’ve got their life together and they’re happy as they are.”  But what we don’t know is that they lie awake restless at night asking the big questions in life, just like you and me.  Our hearts are restless until they find rest in the Lord.  Everyone.  We pose to one another all the time.  We make it look like our lives are together.  But they’re not.  We’re all sinking in the rapids of life, and we all need a life vest.  We all need the Lord.

The problem each of us has is that we need someone to reach out to us and offer us a life vest.  We tend to think that people already know what they need, but sometimes they don’t.  We all have a general sense of who God is.  God has generally revealed God’s nature to everyone.  We see this in Psalm 19 which says, “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork (Psalm 19:1, NRSV).  By this general revelation, as theologians call it, we know God’s power and divinity (Romans 1:20), but we don’t know a lot about God’s purposes of salvation.

It’s only in Jesus that we get the fullest view of what God desires for each of us.  Paul says, “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15, NLT).  Here in Jesus we have a special knowledge of who God is, or as theologians say, we have a special revelation of God’s will and purposes for our life.  We learn that God is loving, merciful, and full of grace, and we only know this fully because of Jesus.  That means that each of us and we together as the church need to share this good news with those around us.  People need the Lord.  We need to pass out as many life vests as we can.  People need the Lord.

Sometimes we get very focused on ourselves.  Churches tend to become like that.  The longer they are around, the more inward focused they tend to become, but we must, if we are to follow Jesus fully, focus on those who are not yet among us, those who have not yet put on the life-saving life vest.

Jesus told a parable to make this point.  He talks about a shepherd who has one hundred sheep and one of them goes missing.  He says, “Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others and go out into the hills to search for the lost one?” (Matthew 18:12, NLT).  Yes.  The shepherd is worried about the one lost one.  It’s called the ninety-nine and one principle.  We at SCC must live into this ninety-nine and one principle.  This happens by focusing not on our own needs on any given Sunday morning, but on the guest among us.  It means focusing not on our own needs when we’re out in the community, but on the needs of the one who is lost, who has not yet put on the life vest, who does not yet know they need the Lord.

This also means that here at SCC we’re not satisfied with how many people join us in this journey.  We always want more.  We always want to grow in size, because there is always one more who needs the Lord.  There is always one more who is drowning in the currents of life.  We want to grow in maturity, but we also must never neglect the one who has not yet even joined the journey.  People need the Lord.  It’s the first of our core values, because it’s our first priority.  People need the Lord.

The second core value we hold at SCC is:

We seek to create healthy community through biblical patterns of relating to one another.

What does this mean?  It means that we as a church seek to be a community who follow Jesus’ pattern and way of life.  Jesus says, “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30, NRSV).  A “yoke” is a kind of harness that you put on animals so that you can hitch up a plow to them.  Many canoes have a yoke in them so that you can easily carry the canoe.  In fact, if a canoe doesn’t have a yoke, it’s pretty hard to carry.  A yoke makes it easy.

Jesus says his yoke is easy.  His way of life may look hard at first, but when you begin to live into it you find that all kinds of dead weight that you’ve been carrying around in this life begins to drop off.  Your life becomes lighter because you’re living it Jesus’ way.

So what is Jesus’ way of life?  What’s the major thrust of it?  I think one word that describes it well is “reconciliation.”  Paul says, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).  Reconciliation means making people right with one another, creation, and God.  We are a community of reconciliation.

Now reconciliation is not always fun or easy, but it is ultimately the most joyful way of living.  When you carry a grudge around, you know who it hurts?  You.  When you don’t seek to make things right with someone who has hurt you in the church, who carries the weight of that?  You.  Actually, it’s not just you, because when you’re carrying the weight of that broken relationship in the church, you’re not able to help carry the burdens of those around you.  You’ve got less energy and passion for living into the mission of this church.  So here at SCC we seek to follow Jesus’ pattern of reconciliation by being honest and humble.  We confess to one another when we’ve done wrong.  We show each other mercy by forgiving.

So what happens if someone doesn’t want to be reconciled?  Jesus gives us some direction for that.  He says, “If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17, NRSV).  Whoa!  Are we talking about excommunication here?  No!  Why not?  Well, think about it this way.  This is being written by who?  Matthew.  Who was Matthew?  A tax collector.  And who does Jesus tell his followers to go seek at the end of Matthew’s Gospel?  The gentiles.  We’re not talking about excommunication here.  When someone doesn’t want to be reconciled, then they become the focus of our mission.  We seek to continue to help them be reconciled to God and one another.  We proactively seek one another out and we don’t hold grudges.  This is sometimes very hard, but it’s what it means to follow Jesus.

We have a model in our church that describes this process pretty well.  It’s called the Role Re-negotiation Model.  At the beginning of every relationship there is a negotiation of expectations and a commitment made to the relationship.  Somewhere along the way in every relationship one of those expectations is broken.  If it’s a small expectation that is broken we call that a “pinch.”  If it’s a big expectation or a small expectation repeatedly over time that is broken, then we call that a “crunch.”  When we experience a pinch or a crunch we have several options for how we can respond.  We can ignore it and live in apathy.  We can leave the relationship without saying anything.  We can say a quick “sorry” without making any changes.  Or we can do the healthy thing of going back to the beginning and renegotiating the expectation.  This is hard work.  It doesn’t come easy.  It takes time.  But we believe here at SCC that this is the kind of hard work that Jesus did for each of us, so we want to do it with one another.

This is our second core value: We seek to create healthy community through biblical patterns of relating to one another. Our third core value is:

Being in a small group is essential to spiritual growth.

We all need friends for the journey.  It’s awfully hard to go it alone.  Let’s think back to the canoe.  Jeremy and I went canoeing several weeks ago.  Have you ever been canoeing?  Have you ever tried to canoe in a big canoe like this alone?  It’s pretty hard.  I won’t say it’s impossible, but it’s certainly not for the novice or even the intermediate.  I put Jeremy up in front because he had all the brawn.  I got to sit in the back and just steer the canoe.  Together we could move forward swiftly and go in the right direction without capsizing.  Following Jesus is the same way, we do it better together.

Consider that Jesus didn’t even do this alone.  He picked twelve followers to walk with him.  He was always teaching them various things about God and life.  Sometimes his closest followers didn’t get it.  We read about one time “later, when Jesus was alone with the twelve disciples and with the others who were gathered around, they asked him, ‘What do your stories mean?’” (Mark 4:10, NLT).  Do you ever feel like you need someone to explain to you what Jesus’ stories mean for your life?  All of us do.  I know I do.

Then even more than understanding we need courage and grace to live into the point of the story.  We each need a community to encourage, strengthen, teach, and mentor us.  The author of Hebrews tells us, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25, NLT).  This verse is originally about meeting for worship, but worship would have originally been a small group in someone’s house, and those early Christians would have then helped one another throughout the week.

One of the key parts of this core value is that Sunday morning isn’t enough.  We need to be touching base with spiritual friends throughout the week.  Small groups make that happen intentionally.  In small groups our spiritual friends help us live into that life that Jesus lived.

I’m in two small groups.  One I lead and one I just show up and participate in.  One of the guys in the group I don’t lead is Chris Alderman.  I asked him if I could share this.  Chris has a job right now that keeps him away from Church on Sunday mornings, but he comes regularly to small group on Wednesday mornings.  Chris is an ex-Marine, and if you know him, he’s a little rough around the edges.  I love Chris.  One of the things I love about Chris is he’s so different than I am.  If you spend much time around Chris you’ll soon realize that Chris is one of the most extroverted guys you’ll meet.  We’ve met several times for lunch or in public.  Chris talks to everyone he meets.  He talks to the waiter or waitress.  He talks to the barman.  He talks to the host.  He talks to the stranger walking down the street.  He talks to the cashier.  He talks to the guy walking by the table.  Now I’m an introvert.  You know what happens when Chris and I get together?  Chris teaches me how to be friendly to strangers!  Every time I get together with Chris in my small group, I learn something about being friendly to people I don’t know.  It’s not easy for me, but because Chris is in my small group, I get the chance to learn from him.  And hopefully we all learn from one another.

Now small groups happen in all kinds of ways.  There are formal small groups and informal small groups.  There are small groups here at SCC then there are small groups that some of you have made up yourselves.  The point isn’t that you have to be in an SCC small group, but what spiritual friends are you meeting with who challenge you each week besides Sunday morning?  When are you meeting with other Christians who aren’t quite like you who push you in ways that you may not want to be pushed?

Several months ago Arlene Bachanov shared how she has become an associate with the Dominican nuns in Adrian.  For Arlene, the Dominicans are her small group.  She was telling me how they pray for her and challenge her in unique life-giving ways.  Arlene occasionally joins a small group at SCC, but her spiritual friends are primarily a group of elderly nuns.  That’s cool.  We’d all probably be a bit better off if we had some elderly nuns who were our friends!  Who are your spiritual friends?  Who is on the journey with you?  What small group are you a part of?  Being in a small group is essential to spiritual growth.

These are the first three of our six core values:

People need the Lord.

We seek to create healthy community through biblical patterns of relating to one another.

Being in a small group is essential to spiritual growth.

We live into these values not just by our own grit and determination, but God’s Spirit helps us.  By doing so we seek to ignite authentic life in Christ by connecting people to God and one another, growing in the Character of Christ, and serving our church, community and world.

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20 Years Deep – Vision

October 25, 2010 by

20 Years Deep – Vision
Sycamore Creek Church
October 24, 2010
Tom Arthur
Proverbs 29:18

Peace, Friends!

Close your eyes.  OK.  Worship is over, but keep your eyes closed.  Now drive home. Umm…Yeah, that’s right. Crazy.  Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (KJV).  If you tried to drive home without vision, you would most certainly perish.  I don’t recommend it.

I love the movie Master and Commander.  It’s the story of a British frigate, Surprise, sent to take out a French privateer, Acheron, in the early 1800s during the Napoleonic wars.  When the movie opens the midshipman thinks he sees the French vessel in the fog but is uncertain.  The crew is called to beat to quarters so as to be prepared.  As the captain of Surprise, played by Russell Crowe, takes to the bow, he looks through his eye glass and strains to see the enemy ship.  It is a matter of life or death.  All of a sudden he sees flashes in the fog and knows that cannons have just been shot.  He orders everyone to drop to the deck as shrapnel flies across the vessel wreaking havoc on the ship.  Where there is no vision, the people perish.

Today we continue in our six-week series capital campaign called 20 Years Deep.  We’re seeking to raise $500,000 over three years to put us in a good place to own our own building in several years.  Why call this campaign “20 Years Deep”?  Because on November 7th Sycamore Creek Church turns ten years old.  We will be ten-years “deep.”  So during this campaign we’ll celebrate those ten years, and we will also look forward to the next ten years.  In ten more years we’ll be twenty-years “deep.”  Jesus told Peter to put out into the deep water to catch the fish (Luke 5:4), and Jesus is always calling us to go deeper in faith, deeper in maturity, and deeper in love.

During 20 Years Deep we’ll be looking at what kind of a community we are.  Last week we took a look at our mission statement: to ignite authentic life in Christ by igniting connection (to God and others), igniting growth (in the character of Christ), and igniting service (to our church, community, and world).  That’s SCC’s mission.  That’s why we exist.

Today we look at SCC’s vision for the next ten years. In one sense you could say that what SCC envisions for the next ten years is continuing to ignite authentic life in Christ in every individual who joins this journey with us.  That’s a vision for life change by God’s Spirit working in us and through us.  But also SCC has a very particular vision that 20 Years Deep is trying to bring to about: to own a building that will help be a means to the end of igniting authentic life in Christ.

Now “vision” is a corporate buzzword.  Vision is important to the Bible too.  As I said before, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 28:19, KJV), but it is important to distinguish between the different meanings of “vision” in the business world and what the Bible means when it says “vision.”  So let’s take a closer look.  But let’s start at the end.

When the proverb we’re looking at this morning says that without vision the people perish, what does it mean to perish?  What is at stake here?  If we look at various other translations we can get a better sense of what’s at stake.  “Perish” also can be translated “cast of restraint” (NRSV), “run wild” (NLT), or “stumble all over themselves” (The Message).  I get the image of a kind of dystopia here.  It’s like an apocalyptic movie scene.  To perish means that you’re not living into God’s will.  You’re doing what is right in your own eyes.  You’re not doing the right or loving thing.  Being out of God’s will and “running wild” is what’s at stake.  So what then is vision?

The Hebrew word translated “vision” is “hazone.”  If you took the time to look up all these verses—Psalm 89:19, 1 Samuel 3:1, Lamentations 2:9, Isaiah 1:1, Jeremiah 23:16, Daniel 1:17, Hosea 12:10, Habakkuk 2:2, Habakkuk 2:3—you would learn a lot about hazone, or vision.  Hazone is prophetic in nature.  By “prophetic” I don’t necessarily mean that it has to do with predicting the future.  The Old Testament prophet wasn’t so much about predicting the future as he was about reminding the people when they were and were not living into God’s way of life.  Hazone was especially spoken to the power structures of the day.  The prophet spoke for those who were weak, broken, and oppressed by the powerful, rich, and rulers.

I have been looking for a good vision poster to put in my office.  You know those motivational posters that are often hung up in business offices.  I bought this one last week, because I love what it says explicitly and implicitly about vision.

“You can do anything you set your mind to when you have vision, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor.”  Umm…yeah.  This “demotivational” poster is a great act of biblical vision.  It reminds us of the oppressive structure of slavery it took to achieve the pyramids.  This is biblical vision at its best!  Next time you’re in my office check out this poster.

Vision is prophetic, but that’s not all.  Biblical vision is also sometimes uncommon.  It can disappear.  We can get our own vision mixed up with God’s vision.  Vision can be a special gift given to some people.  Vision can be both clear and unclear.  Sometimes vision takes time.  We see this especially in 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” (2:3, NLT).  I especially like this verse because the vision we have for owning a building here at SCC is just like this.  It will take time.  We’re not rushing out to buy a building right now.  We’re saving for one.  So this is what vision is, but how do we get vision?

I think we get vision in three ways.  First, we get vision from the past.  SCC has had a very specific vision over the past ten years that the founding pastor, Barb Flory, instilled in the culture and DNA of this community.  I would summarize that vision in this way: to bring culturally relevant messages and music to build a different kind of church that focuses on reaching those who aren’t in church.  It’s a great vision for starting a church, and it is one that will grow and change with us in time.  I love the part about focusing on those who aren’t in church.  Sometimes I’m not sure about the “different kind of church” idea.  It’s not so much that I want to be the same as every other church, but rather I’d prefer to find our identity so much in distinction from other Christians but in distinction from the world.  I’d love to hear a bit of a shift in the way we talk about SCC.  Instead of talking about how it’s different than other churches we’ve attended, I’d love someone to come to SCC and say, “You know what, this church is different than the people I work with, or go to school with, or live near.”  Someone said that to me the other day.  It was the first time I’ve heard it here at our church.  She said, “You know the people in our church are so different than the people I work with.”  I want to be the kind of church that is different from the world.  That we are known because of our love for people rather than our ambitions for getting ahead.  I think our past vision can easily be tweaked in this direction.

A second place that we get vision from is from individuals.  Like I mentioned above, vision is often a gift given to some.  Some of us are more finely tuned to hear God’s voice.  It is something that all of us can learn, but for some of us it is very natural to listen and hear God speaking.  Paul talks about this in his letter to the Corinthians.  He says, “Here is a list of some of the members that God has placed in the body of Christ: first are apostles, second are prophets…” (1 Corinthians 12:27-28, NLT).  I think that in many ways this is a role the pastor plays as an individual, but it need not necessarily be the pastor.  It is something I have been learning myself over this first year and a half as your pastor.  Thankfully I’m not learning alone, and that’s the third way we get vision.

Third, we get vision together.  We hear God’s voice through the voices of one another.  We hear God’s voice through our common shared wisdom.  In the book of Acts, we read about the beginning years of the early church.  When the early church hit a rough spot they called a counsel to seek God’s will together on how to move forward.  After spending time together in discernment through prayer, scripture reading, and conversation, the early church writes a letter summarizing what they think about the situation.  They say, “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…” (Acts 15:28, NLT).  I like the sense of agreement between God and us that is present in this moment.  They do it together.  We get vision when we seek God together.

Actually I think that biblical vision comes not in just one of these ways but in all these ways put together.  We seek vision from our past while at the same time we have individuals who have special gifts of listening to our past and our present conversation and hearing God’s leading amidst all three.  I think biblical vision comes best from a synthesis of all three, and I think that’s the kind of process of discernment we’ve gone through over the last year seeking God’s vision for the next ten years of SCC.

Together we gathered in many ways.  Many of you joined me for 40 Days of Prayer.  We spent time one-on-one talking and praying.  I had over 150 people to my house for desserts in the first six months of being your pastor.  We hired an excellent consultant, John Savage, to spend a day with us helping us articulate the issues that were before us.  Then there are the countless meetings and individual times of conversation I had with so many of you and continue to have.  These are the “together” part of seeking God’s vision.

I myself have sought God’s vision as your pastor over the past year and a half.  I’ve done this primarily through silent listening prayer.  I have been in a different kind of season for prayer lately.  I used to have a big long list of things I prayed through every morning.  I don’t think this is bad, but I began to feel like it was too much.  Then I read an interview with Mother Teresa.  The reporter asked her what she says to God when she prays.  She said, “I don’t say anything.  I just listen.”  The reporter asked, “What does God say.”  Mother Teresa responded, “He doesn’t say anything.  He just listens back.  And if you don’t understand that, then I can’t explain it.”  So lately I’ve been following Mother Teresa’s lead and just sitting and listening to God.  God mostly listens back, but one morning a thought ran through my head that was strong and clear.  It said, “Double the navigating membership.”  Then it was gone.  I hadn’t been thinking about membership at our church at all.  I was just sitting listening.  But was this just some random thought running through my head?  Was it my own vision rather than God’s?  I decided to test it out by running it by several other people and leaders.  Each time I shared that vision with someone, I got a big smile and a nod of agreement.  My own personal discernment was being confirmed by others, and so I am led to believe that it was God speaking to me while I was listening.  Not every part of our ten-year vision has come in this way.  In fact, this part about membership is the only one that has come in this way.

I have also sought God’s vision by listening to the broader Christian community.  What are other churches experiencing in Lansing, Michigan, our country, and world?  While sitting at a conference one day, all these individual and group conversations we have been having as a church came rushing into my head into a pretty clear five-point vision.  I stopped paying attention to the conference speaker and began writing the five points down.  When I got home I began sharing this experience with others.  Again, I was testing whether this was my own vision or was this God’s vision.  Pretty soon it was clear that the leadership felt this is where God was leading us.  They saw within this vision a reflection of many months of conversation in our church community.

The five points that rushed into my head that day are:

Values

Mission

Growth

Ownership

Plant.

First, we want to strengthen the execution of our current core values.  We’re going to spend two weeks in this series looking at those core values.  Second, we want to strengthen our mission and outreach to the community by connecting our small groups and missions work.  This is going to be a series and small groups initiative that will take place in January and February of 2011.  Third, we want to grow by doubling our navigating members.  In order to do that we’ll need to grow our participating members, regular attendees, and visitors too, but we’re focused especially on growing spiritual maturity which is the mark of the commitments made in navigating membership.  Because tithing is an obstacle for many to navigating membership, we’re going to help you get there by emphasizing Financial Peace University principles of debt eradication, and we’re going to hold an annual Commitment Sunday so that you can make a commitment to give generously to the ministry of the church.  Fourth, we’re seeking to own our own building by running this capital campaign. More on this in a moment.  Lastly, we want to plant a church or another campus sometime in the next many years.

Let’s get back to ownership.  Ownership of a building is a means to several ends and not an end in and of itself.  It is a means to deepen our mission of igniting authentic life in Christ in four ways.  First, by owning a building we can redirect all the inward energy we spend setting up and tearing down each week to outward energy of serving our community.  Take for example our current needs in Kids Creek.  We still looking for people who are willing to help set up and tear down each week.  Can you help with this?  When we have a building this will likely be less of an issue.  Then we can turn all that energy toward teaching and mentoring our children, which we are still in need of several teachers and assistants too.  Are you someone who can help with meeting one of these needs in Kids Creek?  Second, by owning a building we can remove obstacles for guests coming to worship with us.  Many in our community seem to be hesitant to visit a church that doesn’t have a building.  Third, owning our own building is better stewardship than the continual “debt” of paying the rent.  And fourth, owning our own building will put us in a good place for long-term growth so that we can plant a new church or campus.

So how do we do this?  How is it that we’re going to raise $500,000 over three years?  We’ve put together a gift-range chart that gives us the nitty gritty of how much each of us has to give to get us to that goal.  The good news is that we’ve already got over 50% pledged toward our goal.  The $500,000 will be used in five different ways and the first four of those are already covered.  The last one is owning a building.  Take a look at the gift range chart.

If you look on the right-hand column you’ll see that we’re about half way down in cumulative gifts.  That means that we still need several $10,000 gifts.  We also need even more $5,000, $2,500, and $1,250 gifts to reach our goal.  While we’ve come a long way, we’ve still got a good journey ahead of us.

I’d like to share with you where Sarah and I are at in this chart.  We’ve pledged to give $15,000 over the next three years to this campaign above the tithe that we already give to the church.  I don’t share that to put us on a pedestal.  I share it because I think it’s important to lead by leading, and I also share it because I think personal finance is the last taboo topic in our culture, and that’s not a biblical value.  So what does this pledge mean to us in practical terms?

Practically speaking, Sarah and I will be aiming at giving $5000 every year over the next three years.  Many who have turned in their pledge ahead of time are giving a set amount each month, but because Sarah’s income from writing is sporadic, we will be giving when the money comes in.  At this point we don’t know the specifics of how that will happen, but we trust that God will provide.  It also means for us that we’re going to be sticking with one car for the foreseeable future.  Our car currently has 193,000 miles on, and short of the engine exploding, we’re sticking with our beat-up junker so that we can give more.

We’re also putting off buying a second car which is probably the harder thing to do given that a child is on the way.  Thankfully we’re not doing this alone.  We only have one car right now and we’ve had to borrow cars from many of you to make things work already.  I’d like you to know that we even have been given by Bob and Martha Trout a set of keys to their garage and their cars.  They have an extra car, especially when their kids are away in college.  They’ve told us to come over any time even when they’re not there and use their extra car.  While Sarah and I are not sure how this whole one-car thing is going to work when our child is born, we have more courage to make this sacrifice because we know that we are part of a community that will help us make it work.  We have courage because of you!  So maybe some day you’ll get a call from me asking to borrow your car.

I’d like to make two challenges today.  First, I’d like to challenge some of you to match Sarah and my pledge by giving in the $10,000 to $15,000 range.  There are some of you who can do that.  Not everyone. But some.  Is your family someone who can meet this challenge?  Second, I’d like to challenge all of you to give in the same spirit.  It will take sacrifice by each of us to reach our goal of $500,000 to put us in a good place to own our own building.  For you a sacrifice might simply be $100, and that would be a sacrifice.  Some of you might give $1000 every year for a total of $3000, and that’s a sacrifice to you.  Or some of you might give $5000 over the three years and that’s a sacrifice.  I challenge those of you can match our amount to do so, and I challenge all of you to match our spirit of giving sacrificially.  And then let’s be the kind of community together that will help one another live into those sacrifices in the way that all of you who have lent Sarah and me a car help us live into sacrificial giving.  We can do it together with God’s help.

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20 Years Deep – SCC’s Mission

October 18, 2010 by

20 Years Deep – SCC’s Mission
Sycamore Creek Church
October 17, 2010
Psalm 1

Peace, Friends!

Today we begin a six week series called 20 Years Deep.  That’s a kind of strange name.  What does “20 Years Deep” mean?  Well, 20 Years Deep is SCC’s capital campaign to celebrate ten years and plan for ten years.  We’re going to be looking back and celebrating the work that God has done at the “Creek” over the last ten years and looking forward to the work that God will do in the next ten years.  On November 7th, SCC will celebrate our ten-year anniversary.  The Creek will be ten years deep.  How deep will the creek be in ten more years?  Today we begin this series by looking at SCC’s mission.  We’ll continue in the coming weeks by exploring SCC’s ten-year vision and our core values.  Along the way we’ll take time to celebrate our ten-year birthday and the results of our capital campaign as we seek to raise $500,000 over the next three years to put us in a good place to own a building.  So let’s begin with the mission of SCC.

Ten years ago SCC began with a theme verse.  Psalm 1:3.  I’d like to take a look again at the verse and the psalm as a whole.

Psalm 1 (NRSV)

1 Happy are those who do not take the advice of the wicked,
Or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers,

2 But their delight is in the law of the LORD,
And on his law they meditate day and night.

3 They are like trees planted by streams of water,
Which yield their fruit in its season,
And their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do they prosper.

4 The wicked are not so,
But are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
But the way of the wicked will perish.

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

Psalm 1 presents two ways of living.  The way of death and the way of authentic life in Christ.  The way of death is fairly obvious, so what I want to look at today is the way of authentic life in Christ, because that’s SCC’s mission: to ignite authentic life in Christ.  Let’s look more closely at verse three:

3 They are like trees planted by streams of water,
Which yield their fruit in its season,
And their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do they prosper.

Ignite Connection

There are three parts to this verse: planting, fruit, and leaves.  These three things lead to prosperity.  SCC begins its mission by igniting connection – by planting our roots near the streams of water.  In a conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well in which Jesus asks her for a drink of water, Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10, NRSV).  Jesus is the Living Water that we seek to plant the roots of our life near for life.

Notice that the action here is passive.  The trees are planted.  They don’t plant themselves.  The Hebrew word here is actually literally “transplanted.”  We are transplanted from the dry dusty desert of the way of death into the dark moist soil near the living water.  It is not so much, then, that we ignite connection or authentic life in Christ, but that we are ignited by God’s Spirit.  We are transplanted near the Living Water.

The Message, a paraphrase of the Bible, gets at this dynamic well in John the Baptist’s teaching.  John says, “I’m baptizing you here in the river. The main character in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will ignite the kingdom life, a fire, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out” (Luke 3:16, The Message).  Authentic life in Christ is connecting to the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us.  That power ultimately changes us from the inside out.

Here at Sycamore Creek Church we are a come-as-you-are kind of church.  We don’t want to put a lot of obstacles in your way to igniting this kind of connection.  Come in comfortable clothes.  Come with all your questions and even your doubts.  Come without having your life all together.  Come and be transparent and vulnerable.  We seek then to be part of God’s work in your life igniting and connecting you to God and other people.

One of the ways we do this is by making sure that the guests who visit us on a Sunday morning experience a warm welcome.  I’ve been to several churches lately.  In one church I wasn’t greeted by anyone more than the greeters at the door.  I even stood by myself after the service for quite a while all by myself.  I’m somewhat introverted and it was so awkward standing there by myself that I got tired of being introverted and went and talked to someone myself.

Contrast that experience with another church I visited recently.  As I walked in the door, the greeter said, “Welcome.  I’m so glad you’re here.”  The usher then said to me, “Welcome, I’m so glad you’re here.”  At the time of the service where the pastor invited us to meet the people around us so that no one went unnoticed, the middle-aged guy next to me turned to me and introduced himself.  He asked me a couple of questions and then introduced his wife.  As I sat next to him in the service, he leaned over and whispered to me, “That’s my son on the drums.”  After the service was over, he greeted me again and said he was glad I was there.  You know what made that experience feel like I was welcome?  Yeah, the door greeters and ushers were great, but it was that middle-aged guy who sat next to me that made me feel like I was welcome at that church.  He ignited in my heart a sense of connection to God and others at that church.  That’s the kind of church I want SCC to be.  Will you help me make sure this church ignites that kind of connection?

SCC exists to ignite connection between where you are and where God and others are.

Ignite Growth

So we’ve looked at the first part of this verse: the planting or connecting of our lives with the Living Water that is Jesus.  Let’s look at the second part: they “yield their fruit in its season.”  SCC doesn’t just stop at igniting connection, we seek to help ignite growth in Christ in you, to yield your fruit in the right season.  Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10, NRSV).

Abundant life.  That sounds great to me.  What does Jesus mean by abundant life?  It could also be asked, “What does prosperity mean in this psalm?”  Are we talking about the way that our culture measures prosperity?  Are we talking about the “fruit” of fame and fortune that our culture seeks?

Perhaps these questions can be answered simply by asking another question: “Was Jesus prosperous?”  By all the standards of today, Jesus wasn’t very prosperous.  He was a homeless teacher who had little to no money, no real political influence, and was deserted by his closest followers when he was sentenced to death by the Roman Empire.  You probably wouldn’t sell a lot of books if the title was How To Lose Friends and Influence Few.  Jesus wasn’t very prosperous by these kinds of standards.  So what kind of prosperity are we talking about here?

I think the kind of fruit, the kind of growth, that Psalm 1 is getting at is an internal prosperity.  It’s the prosperity of yielding the fruit of the character of Christ in your heart, mind, soul, and body.  That kind of fruit sometimes take pruning, and pruning is usually pretty painful.  Paul describes this kind of fruit.  He says, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23, NRSV).  Anyone ever find the growth of patience in your life easy?  How about self-control?  Yeah.  Pruning is painful sometimes.

How is this kind of growth, this kind of prosperity, ignited within each of us?  Psalm 1 points to certain practices of prosperity: Bible study, prayer/meditation, and community.  These are the kind of practices that will produce the growth of the prosperity of the character of Christ in each of us, and the practices that will sustain us when we share in the sufferings of Christ that are the inevitable pruning that takes place in our lives.  Authentic life in Christ is practicing the way Jesus practiced so that when life beats you down, you respond the way Jesus responded – proactive and selfless love of others.

The primary way that we ignite growth in our church is through small groups.  You all may think that because I’m the pastor I don’t need a small group to grow.  You’re wrong!  I absolutely need one.  I’m not just in a small group that I lead, I’m in one that I don’t lead too.  Our little group is an eclectic bunch.  We’ve got a wide range of ages and personalities.  I learn all kinds of stuff from this group.  A couple of weeks ago I was wrestling with a moral dilemma in my life.  I was in a car accident back in July.  The car I was in was rear ended by someone else.  I did not intend to lie to the insurance agent of the guy who hit us, but I neglected to tell her that I had some back pain before the accident.  I think this was something of a sin of omission.  She never asked so I never told.  Well, my conscience didn’t settle well with this, so I talked to my small group and we decided that it would be best for me to do the hard thing and offer that information even though she didn’t ask.  You know what, I told her about my previous back pain, and I while it was hard to do, I felt a huge sense of peace after I had.  I need my small group to help ignite within me growth in the character of Christ even when it is painful growth.

So here at SCC we’re not satisfied with just being a come-as-you-are kind of church.  We also want to be a come-as-you-are-but-not-stay-as-you-are kind of church so that the Holy Spirit can begin to ignite growth in the character of Christ in your life.  Expect to grow at SCC.  Expect it to be fun sometimes and painful sometimes.

SCC exists to ignite growth in the character of Christ in each one of us.

Ignite Service

We’ve looked at the first two parts of Psalm 1:3 – “trees planted by streams of living water that yield their fruit in its season.”  There is one more part: “Their leaves do not wither.”  What function do leaves play on a plant?  They are the part of the plant that turns sunlight into usable energy to produce more fruit to reproduce more plants.  Leaves help the tree to continue to produce more energy and more fruit!

In the same way, SCC exists to help ignite not only connection and growth but also to ignite service in each of our lives.  Service to the church, our community, and the world.  Authentic life in Christ is inviting others to bear the fruit of this new abundant life.  This mission is all over the New Testament.  Jesus’ last words to his disciples in the book of Matthew were, “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).  The most famous verse of the Bible says, “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16).  Yes, God loves you and me, but God also loves the world too.

The theme verse for our capital campaign is Luke 5:4 where Jesus says to Peter, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch” (NRSV).  He goes on to tell Peter that he will fish for people.  SCC seeks to be the kind of church where we ignite going out into the deep waters of service by using the “nets” that we have to invite people into the abundant life of Christ.

If you’ve been on a plane or fly often, what seat do you like to sit in?  I don’t fly very often, but when I do I always prefer the aisle seat.  I get more room to stretch out.  I can come and go as I want without having to negotiate around anyone else.  It’s the seat that most serves me.  But what if I took the seat that least served me and most served someone else?  What if I took the aisle seat.  It has been said that we here at SCC seek to be a window-seat kind of church rather than an aisle-seat kind of church.  We seek to be the kind of church where we want to serve others rather than ourselves.  We take the inconvenient seat so that others can take the convenient seat and be ignited to connect with God and others and be ignited to grow in the character of Christ.  In this way we ignite service in every person who joins us along this journey.

We seek to ignite service in our church, our community, and our world.  I’d like to present a very important opportunity for service in our church.  Currently Kids Creek, our children’s ministry, is in need of some significant people power.  We’re a month or so into the Fall season and we’re still seeking to fill our teaching and assistant teacher positions.  We are in need of two to three teachers or assistant teachers.  Then Kids Creek is also in need of help setting up and tearing down.  Do you know that Bob Flory, the husband of Barb Flory, SCC’s founding pastor, used to come in every Saturday and set up Kids Creek?  Wow!  What a servant!  Well, we haven’t yet found another Bob Flory.  So we’re looking for two to three people willing to be Kids Creek set-up Crew Chiefs to come in early and set-up Kids Creek.  Then we’re also looking for four to five people to be Kids Creek tear-down Crew Chiefs.  On top of this, we’re attempting to switch to a co-op kind of structure where we ask parents to sign-up to help in Kids Creek once a month.  There are some amazing people back in Kids Creek pouring their energy and lives into our children, but we are in need of more.  Do you feel an ignition in your heart to serve in this way?  If so, go right now and tell Julie Soltis.  When you serve in this way, you ignite connection and growth in the lives of our children.

But SCC doesn’t stop by igniting service in the church.  We also seek to ignite service in our community and world.  Back in 2006 pastor Barb Flory, the founding pastor of SCC, asked a question in a sermon series called Ignite.  She asked, “If SCC disappeared today, would we be missed?”  She went on to say that she meant not by one another, but by the community.  Would anyone in the Lansing/Holt area even notice?  She did not give a very positive answer to this question.  She said that she thought SCC would not be noticed.  We desire to be a window-seat church but there is a disconnect between our aspirations and our reality.  How would we answer that question today?  If SCC disappeared today, if we never gathered again as a church, would we be missed?  Not missed by one another, but missed by people outside these four walls?

Here at SCC we want to not only be a come-as-you-are-but-not-stay-as-you-are kind of church but also a come-as-you-are-but-not-stay-as-you-are-so-that-we-can-touch-people-where-they-are kind of church.  The goal of this journey is not about you.  It’s about connecting others to God and one another so that they can grow in Christ and serve even more.

SCC exists to ignite service to the church, the community, and the world!

The Way of Authentic Life in Christ

SCC exists to ignite connection with God and others, to ignite growth in the character of Christ, and to ignite service to our church, community, and world.  20 Years Deep, our capital campaign to celebrate ten and plan for ten is about going deeper into that mission, putting out into the deep waters so that our catch is even greater, about planting people by the streams of living water so that they yield their fruit in its season and their leaves do not wither.  That’s authentic life in Christ.

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