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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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Curious

January 6, 2015 by Leave a Comment

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Hello: My Name Is Sycamore Creek Church – Curious
Sycamore Creek Church
January 4/5, 2014
Tom Arthur

Happy New Year, Friends!

I bet you ask lots of questions about God, faith, and life.  I know I do.  I’ve always been full of questions about the faith.  I grew up in a Christian home, and prayed for Jesus to come into my heart when I was five years old.  It was a real commitment, but the commitment of a five-year-old needs to grow as that five-year-old grows.  As I got into high school I began asking lots of questions about this whole faith and Jesus thing.

When I was in high school I set up a meeting with my pastor to ask him a question that came up during my time of reading the Bible.  Why did Jesus tell people not to say who he was after he had healed them?  That was the beginning of my formal search for answers to my questions.  I remember that meeting with my pastor, whose name happened to be Tommy, a very good meeting.  I wasn’t chastised for asking questions about the Bible.  He even seemed encouraged that I was asking questions about the Bible.  There even seemed to be a pretty good answer to that particular question.  Either Jesus was still figuring out what kind “messiah” he would be or he was concerned that his healings would lead to crowds that wanted him to be a “king.”

When I got into college, some of those questions led me to leave the Christian faith for a while.  What I found out when I left Christianity was that there wasn’t any more certainty on the side of unbelief.  The only difference was that unbelief seemed to offer no ultimate hope or meaning, whereas belief offered ultimate meaning and hope.  Eventually I came back to put my trust in Jesus, in spite of the uncertainty I felt.  But the questions remained.  Here are some of the questions I’ve asked over the years:

  1. If you have to hear about Jesus to go to heaven, what happens to the Native Americans?
  2. Why should I trust the Bible?  Are there any errors in the Bible?
  3. Why are there two different stories of creation in the Bible?
  4. Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?
  5. If Cain and Able were the first children of Adam and Eve, then who did Cain marry?  His sister?
  6. Where do the dinosaurs fit in?
  7. How can evolution and faith work together?  Can they?
  8. What am I supposed to do with all these seemingly arcane rules in the Old Testament?
  9. Why does God tell the Israelites to wipe out everyone, including all the children and even the animals?
  10. Is it OK to swear?
  11. If sex outside marriage is wrong, what exactly is sex?  Does oral sex count?
  12. What does God think about people with same sex attraction?
  13. What if the Greek for “faith in Jesus” can also be translated “faith(fullness) of Jesus” as I learned in my seminary Greek classes?  What does that mean for what I believe that we are not saved by “faith in Jesus” but by the “faithfulness of Jesus?”

So while I’ve always been very curious about questions of faith, God, and life, I’ve mostly committed to following Jesus except for that short time in college.  My curiosity and my commitment have always made me just a little bit weird.

I’m not the only one asking questions.  I asked my friends on Facebook what questions they’ve asked about faith, God, and life.  Here are some of their questions:

  1. If faith is a gift from God (Eph 2:8), then does God not give some that gift so they can be saved? Does God draw everyone? (John 6:44) What is a person’s part in faith?
  2. How does God care about a little speck of dust like me when He created the universe? Why is it so hard to obtain faith when it’s so free to have it?
  3. How do I make the church relevant in my life?
  4. Why does it seem like most people who don’t believe in God, choose to come to God when they are having difficulty in life?

Here’s some good news for all the question askers at Sycamore Creek Church and in our community.  Sycamore Creek Church is curious, creative, and compassionate.  We’re starting a three-week series today called “Hello: My Name Is Sycamore Creek Church.”  We’re going to spend three-weeks introducing ourselves to the community and remembering what hasn’t changed, even if we have changed our Sunday morning venue.  While we are no longer a “Church in a School” (are we a “Church in a Church”?) we are still curious, creative, and compassionate.  But what does each of those things mean when applied to a church?

Here’s a question to begin the whole thing: where did “Curious, Creative, Compassionate” come from?  Good question.  When we started our Church in a Diner, we were looking for a tag line to describe the kind of community that we were going to be.  It had to be faithful to who we were and it had to be catchy enough to grab the attention of someone who didn’t really see church as something they were interested in.  And it had to be a quick way to describe to them what we were doing, an “elevator speech” if you will.  I believe it was Amberlee McCloud and I who came up with these three words.  Once we had them down on paper, we realized that they didn’t just describe Church in a Diner but these three words captured and described all of Sycamore Creek Church in a way that was faithful to who we have always been and who we wanted to continue to be.  So today let’s look at the first of these three words: Curious.

Merriam-Webster has two definitions of curious:

cu·ri·ous adjective \?kyu?r-?-?s\
1. having a desire to learn or know more about something or someone
2. strange, unusual, or unexpected
~Merriam-Webster

The first definition is obvious.  Sycamore Creek Church welcomes all your questions about God.  You don’t have to leave your questions at the door.  As you heard, I’ve had my fair share of questions too.  Jesus seems to be open to having questions and not being so certain about everything.  When a father brings his son to Jesus and asks if he can heal him, Jesus responds that he can heal him if he believes.  The father honestly presents his uncertainty and questions to Jesus.  We read:

The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!”
~Mark 9:24 NLT

So what does Jesus do?  I’d guess that Jesus would say, “Well, go get your questions figured out and when you can believe without any questions, then come back and see me, and we’ll see what I can do.”  But that’s not what he does.  He heals the father’s boy.  He meets him where he’s at, questions and all.

In the book of Proverbs, the wisdom book of the Bible we read:

It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them.
~Proverbs 25:2 NLT

God likes mysteries and gives us things to hunt for.  God gives us things to ask questions about so that we can discover answers.  This is a theme that various church leaders have been exploring for hundreds of years.  St. Anselm was a church leader during the 12th century and his motto was “faith seeking understanding.”  He wrote:

“I long to understand in some degree your [God’s] truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand. For this also I believe–that unless I believed, I should not understand.”
~St. Anselm (12th Century Church Leader)

Anselm believed that sometimes you have to believe first before you can understand.  He also believed that it was just fine to have faith but then to seek answers to questions you’ve got.  Apparently this meant that faith usually comes before answers.  Faith leads to curiosity.

So the first definition of “curiosity” is seeking understanding.  But there’s a second less familiar definition of curiosity.  Curiosity also means unusual or peculiar.  When we decide to make a commitment to follow Jesus even though we’ve still got questions, we become somewhat peculiar.  This isn’t really new.  Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers said:

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
~1 Peter 2:9 AKJV

Following Jesus even when we’ve got questions, even when we’re uncertain makes us weird.  In our day and age, we value certainty.  We value having everything figured out before we make commitments.  But if you wait to get everything figured out before you make any commitment, you’ll never make any commitments.  Making a commitment to follow Jesus can make you kind of odd, unusual, peculiar, or curious.

1.     Be curious about what the Bible/God says about a topic
So I’d like to offer you three practices of curiosity.  First, be curious about what the Bible says about a topic.  When Paul showed up in Berea and taught there we are told that the Bereans were a curious bunch:

And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.
~Acts 17:11 NLT

You see, the Bereans were curious if what Paul was teaching was in line with the Bible.  So they dove into the Bible to see what it said.  Now there are some things that are important to understand about being curious about the Bible.  First, the Bible is sometimes very complex.  Even the Bible says this about itself sometimes.  Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers and the author of two books in the Bible said that Paul, the first missionary of the church and author of several books of the Bible, was sometimes hard to understand:

This [teaching] is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture.
~1 Peter 3:15-16 NLT

If Peter found Paul complex to understand, then don’t get too down on yourself when you read the Bible and don’t always understand it!

Second, the Bible can sometimes seem to contradict itself, although this is rarely at a fundamental level.  Take the four books that tell the story of Jesus’ life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  All four tell the story with different details and even seem to tell it in a different order.  But they all agree on some very basic things: Jesus lived, he died, and was raised from the dead!

Third, interpret the unclear sections through the clear sections of the Bible.  If you’re not sure what to think about something in the Bible, then let the things you do know about the Bible guide your curiosity.  If you still don’t know what to do, always err toward love.  St. Augustine, a 4th and 5th century church leader said:

Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.
~St. Augustine (4th – 5th Century Church Leader), On Christian Doctrine

Fourth, reading a little sporadically is better than reading none at all.  Sometimes we really trip ourselves up on not reading every day or as consistently as we would like.  It may be helpful to know that I’m just now getting into day 300 of a yearly Bible.  Sounds pretty good right?  What if I told you I began in January of 2012?  I’ve taken over two years to read a “yearly” Bible.  Yeah.  Be patient with yourself.  Don’t beat yourself up.  Reading consistently is great.  Reading a little every once in a while is better than none at all.  Four websites that I’ve found helpful for reading the Bible include:

www.pray-as-you-go.org
www.youversion.com
www.biblegateway.com
www.blueletterbible.org.

2.     Be curious about what others say about it (especially those who disagree)
So you’re practicing curiosity by searching for what the Bible says about a topic.  A second way to practice curiosity is to be curious what others say about a topic.  It can be especially helpful to seek out differing perspectives on the issue.  Who disagrees with you?  Why do they disagree?  How do they see the issue and the answer?  What questions are they asking?

Seek out what others are saying by participating in a faith community.  Listen to a sermon each week.  Participate live or download the sermon if you missed it, or read it on my blog.  Or seek out others in a small group.  This week we begin GroupLINK for our spring semester’s small groups.  There are over 20 small groups that you can join to begin to build spiritual friendships with people who can indulge your curiosity.  Or seek out what others say about a topic through books or videos or audio online.  I continue to wrestle with the question of homosexuality.  I’ve read about ten books on the topic that cover the whole spectrum.  I’m being curious by seeking out the perspective of other people, some who might not agree with me.  Warning: reading a lot of books can leave you with a lot more question than you began.  Whenever I’m reading several books about a topic I’m reminded of this wisdom from the Bible:

Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
~Ecclesiastes 12:12

So nurture curiosity by asking others what they think about a topic.

3.     Be curious in prayer
The third way to practice curiosity is to be curious in prayer.  James, Jesus’ brother says:

If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.
~James 1:5 NLT

If you don’t know what to think about a topic or if you’ve got questions that you don’t have answers to, then ask God for answers.  Or ask God for wisdom to be able to ask the right questions or better questions.  Or ask God to give you help in seeking answers or to be able to commit while still having questions.

Over the years of being a student, I’ve compiled a bunch of prayers for study.  Here is one of my favorite prayers for praying before you begin studying something:

Most blessed Lord, send the grace of Your Holy Spirit on me to strengthen me that I may learn well the subject I am about to study and by it become a better person for Your glory, the comfort of my family and the benefit of Your Church and our world. Amen

Curious About Our Community – Demographics
So what does it look like when you take this penchant for curiosity and point it out at our community?  We as a church have just moved into a new building.  This means we’ve been curious about our new neighbors.  A couple of weeks ago we hired a demographics expert, Tom Bandy, who helped us learn about our community.  What we found out was that there’s a key group we’re reaching that demographers call “Singles and Starters.”  Experian, the credit reporting company, describes this in this way: “Young singles starting out, and some starter families, in diverse urban communities.”  SCC is currently made up of about 14% “Singles and Starters.”  Here’s the really cool thing.  The biggest group right around our new building is “Singles and Starters.”  They make up almost 28% of the population just around our new church building.  Here’s what Tom says about this group:

“These younger singles, single parents, and ‘friends with benefits’ are not just too busy for traditional church. The church is not on their radar screen. It doesn’t easily fit into any part of their lifestyle…at work, play, or background soundtrack. Music may play constantly in their minds, but spirituality may not… For many people in this group, religion is not particularly relevant now, and perhaps not in the foreseeable future, but they are remarkably open to surprise.”
~Tom Bandy

So apparently this is a group that is somewhat hard to reach.  They make up the largest group of people that we’re already reaching, and there are twice as many of them right around this building.  Wow!  Tom Bandy uses these words and phrases to describe this group:

Looking for “Heroes of Faith”, high energy, contagious enthusiasm, online, music soundtrack in the background, progressive, sociable, seeking fulfillment, high drive for affluence, high pursuit of personal growth.
~Tom Bandy

We’re going to continue to be curious about our new neighbors.  And we’re going to continue to invite them to be curious with us.  We’ll invite them to be curious about the Bible.  We’ll invite them to be curious with our community.  We’ll invite them to be curious with God in prayer.

Are you ready to be curious?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What About Objections?

May 21, 2013 by Leave a Comment

OneFishTwoFish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

Peace friends!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Curious

September 11, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Church on the Move

Church on the MOVE – Curious
Sycamore Creek Church
September 9, 2012
Tom Arthur
Mark 9:17-27 

Peace, Friends!

In March, 2009 NASA held a contest to name the rover that was going to Mars.  On May 27, 2009 the winning name was announced: Curiosity.  This name was originally submitted by Clara Ma, a sixth-grader fromKansas.  In her essay suggesting the name she said, “Curiosity is the passion that drives us through our everyday lives. We have become explorers and scientists with our need to ask questions and to wonder.”

On November 26, 2011 the Mars Science Laboratory launched fromCape Canaveralon an Atlas V rocket.  Eight months later on August 5, 2012 Curiosity Rover landed on Mars.  Here is what curiosity looks like:

 

 

Today we begin a new series called Church on the MOVE. Sycamore Creek Church isn’t a static church.  We’re on the move.  We’re going to Mars and back!  And this series will explore the culture of that move in three words: curious, creative, and compassionate.  These three words are the jet propulsion that moves us forward, reaching out to new people and growing.  Today we begin with the first word: curious. 

  1. Curious: Eager to know or learn something

When you look up the word “curious” in a dictionary you will find variations on two meanings.  The first meaning for “curious” is “eager to know or learn something.”  The NASA scientists were eager to know or learn something about Mars.  The initial proposals for Curiosity came in April 2004, eight years before Curiosity landed on Mars.  That’s a pretty intense eagerness to learn that sustained them over that time period.  And while there were certainly some answers over time, the journey of Curiosity was marked more by questions than answers.

When we think about faith, many of us tend to fall into a kind of rut: we think we must have it all figured out before we make a decision to launch on the journey of following Jesus.  But that’s rarely if ever how it works.  Rather the journey is launched because of curiosity about God.

When I was in college I went through a faith crisis, I wanted certainty about my faith, but what I found was uncertainty.  I let my faith go, and what I found was that when I no longer believed, I was no more certain.  What I had when I believed was uncertainty with hope and meaning.  What I had when I didn’t believe was uncertainty with hopelessness and meaninglessness.  So I made a conscious decision to believe even though I wasn’t certain.

Lately I’ve been talking to someone about coming to church.  This person thinks they have to get their life together and have everything figured out before they start the journey.  But if we wait for our curiosity to be satisfied, we’ll never go anywhere.  It’s the curiosity that propels us forward.  We’ll never get every question answered.  As one friend of mine recently posted on her Facebook status: “I had lots of questions I just couldn’t answer today so I found the answers in a cup of Death by Chocolate smothered in chocolate sauce!”

Here’s the good news: we don’t have to have it all figured out to follow Jesus.  One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament tells about a man who found himself in a similar situation.

Mark 9:17-27 NRSV
Someone from the crowd answered [Jesus], “Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak;  and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.”  He answered them, “You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.”  And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth.  Jesus asked the father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood.  It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.”  Jesus said to him, “If you are able!– All things can be done for the one who believes.”  Immediately the father of the child cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief!”  When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!”  After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, “He is dead.”  But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand.

Here’s the main point of this sermon: Following Jesus is a mixture of belief and unbelief.

Or as the father said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).  And here’s the greatest part of this story to me: Jesus doesn’t cast him out.  He receives this man’s honesty and curiosity and he heals his son!  Thank you, God!

We get stuck thinking that to belong we must first become the right kind of person and to become that kind of person we must first believe the right things.  But today I want to tell  you that you belong first because you are curious about Jesus, and in that belonging  you become the kind of person that Jesus calls us to become, and perhaps at the end of the day after belonging and becoming you begin to believe that Jesus is really who he says he is.

SycamoreCreekChurchis a mix of all kinds of curious people.  Do you know that on any given Sunday morning we’ve got people here who are atheists, agnostics, spiritual (but not religious), religious, and on and on and on.  I lead a small group that meets every first and third Thursday at a local pub called an Agnostic Pub Group.  We read books and ask questions and explore God together.  Usually I’m the only Christian in the group.

We are often afraid of this kind of uncertainty, asking questions, and even doubting.  But recent research done by the Fuller Youth Institute suggests that:

Suppression of doubt can sabotage a young person’s faith. Contrary to what many of us might believe, students who feel the most free to express doubt and discuss their personal problems actually exhibit more internal and external faith indicators in high school and college. Doubt in and of itself isn’t toxic. It’s unexpressed doubt that becomes toxic.

Following Jesus means trusting, but not necessarily being in total agreement of belief.  When Jesus called his disciples to follow him, they didn’t have it all figured out.  The Bible tells all kinds of stories about the disciples really getting it all wrong.  They were curious enough to follow Jesus, whether they got all their questions answered or not.

Psalm 25:4 says “Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths.”  Curiosity leads us to being eager to learn and know Jesus’ ways, and the faith and trust to follow is sometimes scary.  When I was learning to ski, I had to trust the instructor that the best way to get safely down the hill with these supper slippery boards strapped to the ends of my feet was to actually lean down the mountain rather than lean back up the mountain.  Lean down the mountain?  Isn’t that just going to make me go faster?  Well, no.  Leaning down the mountain when you ski lets the edges of your skis bite into the snow and slow down.  Leaning backwards keeps them up above the snow and speeds you up.  To learn the best path down the mountain, I had to trust the instructor over my fear of leaning down the mountain.  It makes total sense to me now, but in the beginning it was a mystery.

Maybe that’s why we call communion and baptism a sacrament.  “Sacrament” is Latin for “mystery.”  The sacraments of communion and baptism aren’t dependent upon us fully understanding what’s going on.  If participation was dependent upon us fully understanding it all, then none of us could partake.  We’d all have to simply sit in our seats, me included.  The conditions we put on participating in communion are a curiosity and desire to live at peace with God and with others.  Children are welcome to the communion table because they are often the most curious!  A couple of months ago I took Micah with me to a Saturday night worship service at another church.  They were serving communion so the two of us went up and received communion.  I told Micah that this was the body and blood of Jesus as we ate the bread dipped in the cup.  After we got back to our seats, Micah looked up at me and signed “more.”  Did he get what he was asking for?  Probably not, but perhaps deep in his spirit, in his curiosity was a desire to have more of Jesus.  A sacrament is a mystery, and Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

What questions do you have about God and following Jesus?  When you are curious about God and follow Jesus you become a little (and then a lot!) curious…  What do I mean by that?

  1. Curious: Strange; unusual

“Curious” has a second meaning: strange or unusual.  When you’re curious about God and you begin following Jesus you become a little (and sometimes a lot!) strange and unusual.  Unfortunately the church inAmericahas become too normal, dull, ordinary, and conventional.  According to George Barna, a researcher on trends in the American religious landscape, “Casual Christians represent 66% of the adult population of theU.S.”  Casual Christians are marked by “moderation in all things” vs. “extreme devotion to…God regardless of the worldly consequences.”  Let me give you an example: when it comes to divorce, those who identify as “born again” have “divorce [figures] statistically identical to that of non-born again adults: 32% versus 33%, respectively.”  Christians should be different, but in many ways we’re not.  Our curiosity or eagerness to learn and know should lead us to being curious or strange and unusual.

Here’s a surprise second main point of this message: Following Jesus is a countercultural movement that makes us odd. St.Peter says, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9 KJV).  I like that old King James language: “a peculiar people.”  When we follow Jesus we should be peculiar, countercultural, curious.  We should look and live differently than the rest of our neighbors, co-workers, family, and friends.

Who are the people you most admire?  They are most likely unique, peculiar, curious…They live their lives against the grain of culture.  They are countercultural.  Let me tell you about some of the people I want to be like when I grow up.

Jo Snedden is a woman of prayer.  Her life of prayer led her to finishing her basement so that her aging mother could live with her family.  After her mother died, her grandchildren were having a rough time so she and her husband took them in and raised them.  She would tell me that while being a grandparent she didn’t have the energy of her parenting years, she had a kind of wisdom that she didn’t have as a younger mom, especially when it came to nurturing faith in her grandchildren.  When I grow up I want to be peculiar, countercultural, and curious like Jo Snedden.

Hank Kuehl was a seventy-year-old retired shop teacher who volunteered with the youth of a church I worked at.  He would run full tilt playing capture the flag with the teenagers.  My wife was always afraid that he was going to stroke out or have a heart attack on a retreat!  Hank also was a Habitat for Humanity volunteer extraordinaire.  Some people have construction skills and some people have teaching skills, but Hank had both.  When one student, Walker, was going through confirmation, and was told he would be assigned a mentor, he asked if he could pick his mentor.  Guess who he wanted to have mentor him.  Hank!  When I am seventy I want to be the kind of peculiar, countercultural and curious kind of old geezer that fourteen-year-old boys ask for me to  be their mentor even when they weren’t told they could ask!

Dennis Myers is my mortgage broker in Petoskey who helped us buy our house (and refinance it several times) and his wife is Cindy.  Dennis has made a good living selling mortgages inNorthern Michigan.  He lives on Walloon Lake in one of the biggest and nicest houses I’ve ever been in.  There are a lot of rooms in the Myers house.  Dennis and Cindy both felt that God had given them a lot and they wanted to give back to others.  So over the course of several years they filled that house with adopted children.  They had one of their own and adopted 3 kids, one with special needs.  When I grow up I want to be peculiar, countercultural, and curious like Dennis and Cindy Myers.

Then there’s Charlie Robinson.  Charlie had a couple of kids of his own but felt compelled to be a foster parent for teenage boys.  Charlie had a rough background himself, getting into trouble as a teenager.  As he began to open his home to foster kids, he felt led to invite more.  Soon he was running out of room, so he built a “wing” on to his house.  He got a license to turn his home into an “institution” and every Sunday morning you could find him sitting in a pew with his wife, two kids, and about five teenage boys.  When I grow up I want to be the kind of person who brings hurting teenage boys to church with me so that we take up a whole row.  I want to be peculiar, countercultural, and curious like Charlie Robinson.

Let me tell you about Rachel and Juliet Serra.  Rachel and Juliet were teenagers in my youth group. When Rachel graduated from college, she wanted to spend a year with Mission Year, a missions organization that hosts college graduates to live in urban areas to minister to the needs of those in the neighborhood.  The only problem was that Rachel couldn’t afford to make it all happen.  So her younger sister, Juliet, decided to move in with her and work to help pay the bills.  When I “grow up” I want to be the kind of person who uses my time and money to support the missions work of my “family” members.  I want to be peculiar, curious, and countercultural like Rachel and Juliet Serra.

Lastly, when I grow up I want to be like David and Rebecca Arthur.  Even though we share a last name, we aren’t part of the same biological family.  Sarah and I met David and Rebecca because we were attending a historically black church while in seminary and David and Rebecca were the only other white people in the church.  They invited the church to their house one day, and we learned that they owned a very large house in the ghetto where they were building a Christian community that offered hospitality to women and children in transition.  David stayed home, raised the kids, and ran the house.  Rebecca worked ¾ time as a physical therapist.  They did this all on a ¾ time income!  They were able to be so generous because they lived simply.  When I grow up I want to live simply enough that I’m able to share what I have with others.  I want to be peculiar, countercultural, and curious like David and Rebecca.

Friend, this kind of strange, odd, countercultural, peculiar and curious living is already happening here atSycamoreCreekChurch.  We’re hospitable and we welcome anyone.  Come as you are.  We seek to live lives of spiritual discipline by seeking God daily in prayer & Bible reading.  We live a curious lifestyle by seeking to live pure and holy lives.  We’re peculiar with our money.  We live simply and give generously.  We’re curiously authentic.  We give a true account of ourselves.  We seek to be countercultural with our time.  We take time to rest and enjoy by practicing Sabbath and not just being concerned with producing, producing, producing.  And most of all we are a peculiar, countercultural, and curious community of love.  We love God with everything we’ve got, and we love our neighbors as ourselves.  Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

SycamoreCreekChurchis a curious people:

  1. We’re curious to learn more about God;
  2. We’re countercultural when we follow Jesus.

So do you want to move with us?  Do you want to get into the current of the creek and go deep in God’s curious grace?  Here’s how you begin:  Connect with God and others in worship.  Grow in the character of Christ in a small group.  Serve the church, community and world with your time, talent, treasure, and testimony. Sycamore Creek Church is curious.  Will you be curious with us?

Questions for Small Groups

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

  1. What is one (or two) question(s) you have about God?
  2. Read Mark 9:17-29.  When was a time you were filled with both belief and unbelief?
  3. How can we pray for your trust to follow Jesus?
  4. Who do you need to invite to join our small group that needs a place to be curious?

 

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