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June 01, 2008

June Sermon Series: Building a Gifts-Based Church

Sermon: June 1, 2008 Building a Gift-Based Church
Romans 12:1-8
1 Corinthians 12:1-4-11, 28

The Deep Lake United Methodist Church enjoys more life and vitality today than it has known at any other time throughout its 120 year history. In a congregation of 160 members, over 100 are engaged in some form of ministry or service through the church. Dozens more report that they are ministering to others at their workplaces or homes in new, important ways. Their one traditional worship service has expanded to three different worship experiences with attendance double what it was just three years ago.

The leadership of the church is constantly active, but there are few formal meetings. The financial picture for the church is the strongest it has been in years. Deep Lake UMC is a well-known, well-respected presence in the community—emerging in the consciousness of their small town after years of virtual obscurity.

While membership has increased 10% in recent times, the number of people served by the ministries of the church has morphed from dozens to hundreds. All of these changes are happening in a community where there has been no net population growth and the economic conditions have worsened.

What accounts for the vitality of this community of faith? What lessons can be learned from their experience to help other faith communities to embrace radical change for the renewal and vitalization of their congregations?

In 1994, Deep Lake UMC decided it was time for a change. Pastor Karen and the leadership of Deep Lake UMC labored under the burden that they should be more active in evangelism, outreach, and mission. New committees had been formed to address the ministry needs in these areas, yet nothing seemed to improve. Deep Lake UMC was primarily a once-a-week, Sunday morning enterprise. Emphasis was given to a variety of Sunday school classes for both children and adults. Most of the non-Sunday activities consisted of committee meetings, work days, and occasional suppers, craft bazaars, and bake sales.

People in leadership were working hard and faithfully, but the results didn’t warrant the effort. People felt tired and even burned out. The pastor, Karen, felt her leadership was insufficient to turn the small church around. Karen believed that that church held great potential for effective ministry, but working harder at the existing system seemed a long-shot at best. When Pastor Karen asked leaders to meet and discuss a new way of evaluation and growing a healthy, vibrant church, the leaders responded with over 95% in attendance. They were willing but skeptical as they had gone down this road before.

A survey was taken to evaluate the health of the congregation. The survey results were calculated. The area where the church needed the most emphasis was their spirituality. Effective ministry flows out a passionate spirituality—a spirituality that is evident in the lives of individual members and the community of faith as a whole. While the survey also revealed strong leadership, people were not serving in areas where they were spiritually gifted thus experiencing a lack of energy, focus, and impact.

A new group of members were invited to put lead the church by putting together a plan that would enflame, develop, and bring to light the spirituality that lay dormant in the dedicated Christians at Deep Lake UMC. The team prayed and asked God to guide their work. They met once a week for four weeks and soon a plan materialized that focused on building a gift-based congregation. The plan was shared with the congregation and the extended leadership team. People were invited, encouraged to open themselves up to see what spiritual gifts God had given them. Each person was valued, supported, and invited into the process. The work of building a gifts-based ministry was begun.

Over a three-year period, Deep Lake UMC tapped into individual’s spiritual gifts and did not start ministries where God had not provided them someone gifted to serve. In addition, they kept their focus on doing ministry in their church’s areas of strength, Education and Shepherding. They developed a defining question for their ministries, “What would Deep Lake UMC look like as a seven-day-a-week learning/teaching church?”

For example, Deep Lake was located in a commuter area where young parents needed to leave for work one or two hours before day care facilities opened. Deep Lake became a drop-off center where preschoolers could receive a good breakfast and learn Bible stories and songs before going to preschool or elementary school.

Reflecting back on their experience almost five years later, Ken, the lay leader of the congregation shared these thoughts. “Even if we had never gained a member or received another dollar, it would have been worth it. Before taking the survey and identifying the area where we needed to focus, we were tired, and burned out. We were trying to be something we weren’t. But when we began to live and give out of our spiritual gifts, it was like we had energy to burn. You have never seen such passion!”

Part of this story was about a church as described in Equipped for Every Good Work by Dan R. Dick and Barbara Miller. Did you hear the similarities of our situation? Part of it is our story thus far. We don’t know where it will end.

Dan and Barbara’s book is tool and testimony for building a gifts-based church. What happened to the churches they worked with can happen to us. We can be a church that realizes we have all the gifts needed to do the ministry God wants done. We can be a church that recognizes that God has put together the plan, and God doesn’t make mistakes. God has arranged for us to have the right people…in the right places…for the right reasons…for the right time—NOW!

Building a Gifts-Based Church requires that we organize ourselves differently. Instead of putting people in positions to fill slots on the nominations calendar, we ask people to serve in areas where they are gifted. In fact, we give people permission to look for opportunities where they can serve using the spiritual gifts that God has given to them. Scripture describes 20 different spiritual gifts. We heard what some of them are from the Romans 12 passage and the 1 Corinthians passage this morning. However, I’m not going to list the specific gifts in this sermon. That will come later.

What might be helpful this morning to say what spiritual gifts are not. They are not our talents. Talents can be an indicator of your giftedness but do not necessarily equate to your spiritual gift. Yes, both natural talent and spiritual gift are God-given. In fact, your natural talents may indicate a particular spiritual gift, just as your experiences and character traits may indicate a particular gift. However the difference between a natural talent and spiritual gift makes itself clear when we evaluate it using this parameter. Does it glorify God and edify others? A spiritual gift will glorify God and edify others, while a natural talent will focus on the individual with the talent.

We have all seen the athlete who points upward when he scores a touchdown, a goal, or hits a home run as if to give the glory to God. But who really gets the glory? The athlete. That same athlete might have a passion for children and have the spiritual gift of teaching. Using their unique giftedness, an athlete could take his/her time and resources to open up a camp for youngsters. The camp could introduce young people to God and nurture their faith, First! Second, it could teach the young people how to be good at a particular sport.

If such an event took place, where God was the main event while the sport was the secondary focus, it might be an example of that athlete’s spiritual gift. However, there is one other measurement to qualify a spiritual gift. Does energy and passion flow from the one with the gift? Is the ministry energizing? This is critical. Tapping into our spiritual gift is not only doing what we are good at. Because, praise God, most of us are good at many things.

Look around this church. We have titles for the responsibilities around here. We refer to some people as “liturgist,” “greeter,” or “leader.” These titles may or may not match exactly with the individual’s spiritual gift. For example, I can think of a couple people who are in positions of service for the church but they are not tapping into their spiritual gift. They do a good job. They do it because they love God and their church, and it needs to be done. However, the position drains them more than it energizes them. And so when something comes along that they would love to do, they can’t because they’re burned out.

As a small congregation, we will struggle with this reality—people not always serving in areas where they are gifted. However, if we really want to build a gifts-based church, we will be prayerful and intentional. We not put our efforts and energies into ministries if none of us have the gift for it.

So to bring in the athlete who took his own time and resources to put together this soccer camp for young people. The question would be, “Does he love what he is doing? Is he himself energized and passionate while he is glorifying God and nurturing the faith of these young people? If lives are changed, both the camp attendees and the athlete, then, then, it would be an example of the athlete’s spiritual gift.

So what is a spiritual gift? More than natural talents and abilities we are born with. More than the skills, roles, and functions that define our ministry or daily lives. Our spiritual gifts are the foundation for who we are as the body of Christ in Christian community and in the world.

Each person has a spiritual gift. No one gift is superior to another. They are unique to us, given to us for this time in which we find ourselves to do the work that God is calling us to do—the work of building up the body of Christ, the church and the Kingdom of God in the world.

Let’s stop and think for a moment about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is often characterized as wind or fire—both powerful metaphors. On May 11, we celebrated Pentecost; the day the rush of the Holy Spirit filled the house where the first disciples were “constantly devoting themselves to prayer.” The Holy Spirit settled on them, transforming their lives and through them the world. We remember this day as the day the church was born. This power of the Holy Spirit is still present in the world. God is still in the world. And if we put ourselves in a position through constantly devoting ourselves to prayer, we might get transformed and catch fire for God.

Wouldn’t it be fun to discover what spiritual gift we have and be able to use it for the glory of God and the nurture of another person?

Wouldn’t it be exciting to serve in a way that was life-giving rather than life-draining? Wouldn’t it be exciting to see brothers and sisters deepen their faith in Jesus, to see one of our young children singing “Jesus loves me” while sitting in her room reading a book? Wouldn’t it be encouraging to hear passionate testimonies of how God has worked in people’s lives because we can’t contain the excitement?

I was at a dear friend’s birthday celebration last Sunday night. A woman’s choir performed, and one song really moved me. They built up the excitement, built it up, built it up until when the song ended, my spirit would not be contained. I yelled like, “That’s what I’m talking about” in response. A gifts-based church is full of the Spirit, people are moving and grooving, responding and receptive to God’s movement and power for the transformation of the world. It’s a happening, joy-filled, vibrant place.

I would invite you to get out your insert. Here’s your homework for this week. Read 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 and fill in the blanks on that sheet.

I encourage you to take some time this week and 1) read the entire chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians and 2) pray to God. Ask God to guide our leadership team as they lead us and ask God to reveal your spiritual gift to you. A schedule for this sermon series is on the back of the fill in the blank insert so you can see what is coming up. Building a gifts-based church begins with individuals, not programs, not slots to be filled. You are invited to join us in this journey because it is going to be exciting. You won’t want to miss it. There will be more information coming out in upcoming weeks and months on how we will be going about building this gifts-based church.

In closing, I want to remind you of the great movie, The Wizard of Oz. The lion sought courage, the tin man longed to have a heart, the scarecrow thought he really needed a brain, and Dorothy just wanted to go home. The Wizard helped each character to discover that they had the gifts they needed to fulfill their deepest desires all along. What they lacked was the awareness of their gifts or confidence in their ability.

God has selected us for this time. Let’s follow the yellow brick road, seeking God’s guidance, direction, and power together as a community of faith. With God’s help, we can build a gifts-based church. A church that focuses on their current human & material resources for life-giving, effective ministries that glorify God and nurture others.

Posted by vickie at June 1, 2008 10:00 AM