Sermons

« September 16, 2007 - September 22, 2007 | Go Back to the Main Index of Sermons | September 30, 2007 - October 06, 2007 »

September 23, 2007

Fulfilling A Purpose

Sermon: Fulfilling A Purpose
1 Corinthians 3:9-17
Ephesians 2:11-22

Here we are in week three of the four part series on Radical Christianity. This week we’re looking at how the church is structured. How an organization is structured often dictates its ability to adapt to changing times and to fulfill its purpose. Structures built on lies and deception will eventually collapse as we witnessed in the Enron scandal.

Ineffective structures can do more harm than good as we saw in the FEMA debacle during Katrina and as we continue to witness now. FEMA has recently come under fire for providing trailers to the victims of Katrina that caused thousands of people to get seriously sick with respiratory problems. Testing done on numerous trailers was finally released because of congressional investigation into the situation. The tests revealed that 94 percent of trailers tested had indoor levels of formaldehyde above EPA safety guidelines. It was determined that FEMA knew about this situation for over 6 months and chose to do nothing about it.

Unfortunately, there are still racist structures in place throughout our country. The Jena six situation in Louisiana is an example of racist’s structures both in the school and legal system. Unfortunately, these young African American men and their families are victims of these racist structures.

There are some good structures out there. Baseball has a multi-layered structure that feeds into the major league team. Many people ascribe to the notion that the best teams are the ones who have what they call good farm systems—single A, double A, and finally triple A ball. In other words, they grow their own talent.

The managers, trainers, coaches, and scouts all do their part to find and prepare players to reach the next level and help them be the best they can be. Players move through the ranks depending on how well they play the game. Maybe they make it into “the Big Dance” and maybe like the catcher Kevin Costner played in “Bull Durham” some never see the bright lights of major league ball.

Alcoholics Anonymous has a very straight forward and simple structure. They have 12 steps and 12 traditions. Each group can set up how they like as long as they stay within the 12 steps and traditions. They know what their objective is and they focus on it. Their primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety. Everything they do revolve around these goals. People are welcome to be there if they want to get help with their addiction to alcohol.

What we observe in these various structures is that the structure exists to support the goals of the organization. The goal for the racist system it is to keep those in positions of power in power and to keep the minority in check. For the Enron system the goal was to make as much money as possible for the top executives. For the baseball teams the ultimate goal is to win a world series, which we know the CUBS haven’t done for 99 years. For Alcoholics Anonymous it is to help people stay sober.

What is the goal of the church? For our UM denomination our goal is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. And we have a structure in place that is there to help us reach our goal. However, we often get sidetracked. Especially those local churches like us who have been around for awhile. We’ve become institutionalized.

Organizations and institutions are often known to miss the mark and become so preoccupied with details that they miss the larger picture—why they exist. As you know, it takes a balancing act. We need money to keep the doors open and the church running. We need to keep the building in good shape so we have a place to meet. But if we forget why we are doing all these things, then we’ve missed the point.

And that was what happened to the early churches we read about in this morning scripture reading.

The church in Ephesus and the church in Corinth were having struggles with division among their ranks. In Corinth, different pastors/leaders had come over the years starting new programs or ministries. With that new pastor came new people who felt connected to a particular pastor, as did the folks who had been there awhile. As tensions arose, each contingency broke along pastoral lines with some calling themselves Apollo’s’ people and other calling themselves Paul’s people.

To counteract their divisiveness, Paul argued that God called the community together and helped it grow. It is because of their shared belief in Jesus that they come together, not the person who happened to be leading at that time. Jesus is the foundation upon which the church community is built.

In Ephesus, the struggle of division was more around the background of the believer. Where you a Jew or a Gentile? Where you foreign born or a native? Where you wealthy or poor? Each group focused on themselves. They became preoccupied with their differences rather than their shared commitment to follow Jesus. Paul reminded them that Jesus came to break down the barriers that separate us from one another and alienate us from God. Jesus leveled the playing field which was focused on Jews as the chosen people. Because of the Jewish Jesus, time as member, heritage, ethnicity, mistakes made--none of this matters. What matters is a belief in Jesus and a life of devotion to God.

Paul’s message to the early church—you exist to share the love of Christ with the world and you come together under the common bond as followers of Jesus. Fulfill your purpose of sharing the love of God in Christ.

The structure of an organization should be the framework within which the people move and work. It should not be so cumbersome that the organization spends all their time working to keep the structure in place.

We know we are not focused on fulfilling our purpose when we hear things like, “We’ve always done it this way”, any references or decisions made with an US verses THEM mentality, when one person is allowed to disrupt the system, when we are often operating in crisis mode, or when the church is not growing.

The church is similar to other organizations in that our structure is made up of people and it will not be imperfect. But where the church differs from other organizations is that we invite and seek God’s guidance as we gather together. We believe that we are called to do God’s will in the world and in order to do that we need to discern God’s will for our lives through prayer, scripture, and holy conferencing. Holy conferencing is a United Methodist phrase that means to join together in conversation and listen for God’s call through one another.
You might recall that we call our annual meeting an annual conference. We are intentional in the words we use so that we don’t forget that as the church our purpose and reason for existing should be God’s purpose for us.

This same idea of holy conferencing, seeking God’s will for our church when we come together should also happen when we meet as committees or teams to do the work of our church. This means that we spend some time at the beginning of our time together opening ourselves to God’s spirit and direction for our time together. That might mean we sing a couple songs, read and reflect on a scripture text, share intimately with others, or pray. Maybe we do all of it! At first is it hard to give up time from the meeting. I mean there’s so much to do! But after we get past the notion of task oriented meetings, we’ll realize that we want and need God guidance and direction if we are going to be a community of faith.

Inserting this dimension also takes time for the team leader. You’ve got to open your Bible and find a scripture passage or prayer that you want to share with the group. Being a spiritual leader is different from being a committee chairperson. We bring God into the picture. And when do that, we remind ourselves why we have gathered. Our focus shifts from ourselves and the tasks at hand to God’s will for our time together. We ask ourselves how the decisions we make reflect the purpose that we use to guide our common life.

Some churches flourish where others do not. Churches that do flourish are intentional about keeping their purpose out front. It informs everything they do. Their structure serves their purpose rather than their purpose serving to keep the structure going. And they make their mission specific for the context and the people they want to reach.

For example, Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City Missouri has the following purpose statement:

Resurrection's Purpose: To build a Christian community where non-religious and nominally religious people are becoming deeply committed Christians. I notice that it is not just about reaching out to new people. Their purpose is to help everyone who comes in contact with their church to become deeply committed Christians. This is their idea of what it means to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

As we move forward in our life together, we will discern how God is asking us to make disciples of Jesus Christ. We will embrace our own version of what it means to make disciples of Jesus Christ. In the meantime, when we meet to put together our budget, negotiate with our space sharers, work on the building, read “Bad Girls of the Bible,” worship, plan mission and ministry, let us invite God to guide and direct us as we remember our purpose—to develop Christian disciples in all stripes and sizes.

Posted by vickie at 10:00 AM