St. Andrew’s Pictou , NS November 13^th 2005

 

Risk Takers Wanted

 

Genesis 18:9-15

Ephesians 6:10-17

Luke 10:1-12

 

Today we will be talking about the future, specifically: the future of this church, this congregation, this family of faith; “the Kirk,” St. Andrew’s, Pictou.

 

The congregational lists that I was given when I arrived here show that the number of families connected to this church in 1987 was 245. In 2001 it was shown to be 170, a decline of 75 families representing 30% of the 1987 list. Our current list shows about 180 families, showing a modest increase of about 6% since 2001. So instead of losing 6 a year we are gaining 3 a year, which means that we have changed direction by 9 a year, which is an amazing feat in and of itself.

 

There has also been amazing events that have shown to us and others visiting that new and good things are happening at this church:

-I receive compliments about our web site, church services, tributes, fund raisers, men’s and women’s breakfasts, concerts, Sunday School Christmas Pageant, newspaper ad, and people being helped and improved because this church exists on this corner of this town.

 

The Alban Institute in Washington , DC uses attendance and weekly givings to determine the health of congregations. On the issues of attendance and weekly givings, it seems that we have experienced a decrease over the last months.

 

In the two years that I have been here there have been 24 funerals; i.e. twelve a year. Since there are about 100 people in church on Sundays, if you divide by twelve and you come out with a figure of about 8 years. Less than 10 years ago, this church was struggling to keep an even keel. Dangerous seas threatened to sink the boat, but faithfulness kept things going and several generous gifts eased the situation and on you went, and here we are today, still with many good things going on in our congregation.

 

While there is a significant decline from 1987 – 2001, it seems that we are reversing direction upwards in a positive way, by some healthy indicators. But it is foreseeable that there could be difficulty somewhere down the road: five years from now, maybe 6, maybe 7 if we don’t increase our attendance.

 

So there is no need today or even next year, for panic or alarm, but there is real need for concern and reassessment. There is real need for self examination and for prudent planning. There is a need to re-discover the power of God and the love of God more deeply, more passionately. There is a need to translate the Gospel of Jesus Christ in ways that speak to people that enrich and strengthen the fabric of our church family of faith.

 

We commonly refer to a church as a building, but it isn’t. A church is a community of people (of all ages, all races, and both genders) who share their faith in God, and God being love, share who and what they are in the journey of life: baptizing, blessing, marrying, grieving, learning about God and self in a life-long process of self improvement, celebrating, and at the end, marking people’s earthly departure to be with God in the heavenly realms.

 

Jesus was always healing people, so a church should be a safe place where people are healed. A church of Jesus Christ would be a healing place.

 

Jesus was involved with miracles in his ministry, so as follows with Jesus Christ, a church should be a place of miracles.

 

Jesus met with all kinds of people in his ministry, so a church should be a place where all kinds of people are welcome.

 

Jesus was a man of justice, so justice is part of our work, too, so follows prayer and praise: to bring us all into right relationship with God, ourselves, and each other. Harmony is a word that comes to mind.

 

What riveted the Christian church 2,000 years into human history was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. His enemies publicly arrested, tried, convicted, and murdered him on a cross with two others in front of the entire community. But then there was this “resurrection event” where he came back to life and turned the world upside down. Millions have followed his teaching and believed him to be the Lord, the Messiah of God, ever since.

 

All churches have a life of their own: some go on and expand or decline. A few weeks ago, we closed the church at Earltown in the building that they had used for 134 years. There really isn’t much of a community there to draw on anymore. But a few years ago, we closed a church in Toronto called Rogers Memorial Church ; a large gothic building that seated 700 and was close to a subway stop with tens of thousands of people within minutes of its location. Guess how many people came to the closing service? About 700! The church was full. Funny how people come to church when you invite them. Maybe they should have started inviting people sooner and it wouldn’t have needed to close.

 

I am here to tell you something important: You people are much more faithful and powerful than you could ever believe you are. The budget of this church is around $110,000 which means that over the last ten years, one way of the other, you have raised about one million dollars to keep this church afloat. Did you know that your faith in God was that powerful?

 

I’ll wager that if I had stood here in 1995 and said that you would have to raise one million dollars over the next ten years so that this church would be here in 2005, I might have been run out of town and called a lot of bad names as well as having my intelligence questioned. I am just giving you a picture of the power of the miracle that you have had; the miracle that you have accomplished.

 

Something like that happened to Sarah 3,000 years ago in the reading from Genesis. God sent messengers to their tent and told old Abraham and Sarah they were going to have a child. “Sarah laughed.” As far as I know this is the only funny laugh in the Bible, but the laugh was on them because they had their son Isaac the Jewish race went on to great numbers. Where Abraham and Sarah thought that there was death, God brought life!

 

As a church that has experienced decline, we have to just do one thing to strengthen and increase our change in direction from decline to increase. We just have to do one thing. We have to change the way we think.

 

Just as Abraham and Sarah had to change the way they thought, when God’s messengers come into their tent and good things happened, we have to change the way we think for us to strengthen our change in direction.

 

It is difficult to change the way we think because we are used to thinking the way we do.

 

We had a great success with the Soup & Desert Christmas Luncheon: sold out as a matter of fact, but maybe we need to increase the 1970 prices into the 1990’s or so.

 

When Betty Ann planned the recent auction, she was hoping to make $1,000 for the building fund and in the end, almost tripled that amount. But we only had about 50 people attending. Since some of those were not from “the Kirk,” we have to say that the great success was in spite of very low voter turn out from St. Andrew’s 200 families. How many of the 50 were us supporting ourselves? The future will not be ours if we don’t get out and support ourselves and bring neighbour and family. We have to ask ourselves why people from our own church don’t want to support our own venture? (Fear, resistance to change,  laziness.)

 

Both Paul and Jesus give us vivid indicators of what we need to move into the future:

 

This is no piece of cake. Paul asks that we walk into battle with the whole armour of God so that we may be able to face all the power of evil:

-the belt of truth around our waist,

-the breastplate of righteousness,

- we are to put on our feet what will enable us to proclaim the Gospel of peace,

-the shield of faith to protect us from the flaming arrows of evil,

-the helmet of salvation,

-the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.

 

This passage talks about purpose, power and challenge.

 

I have been reading a book, called Why Men Hate Going to Church, by David Morrow.

 

Morrow tells us that we are not following Jesus, because in today’s church we don’t ask for anything significant from people as he did. He asked his disciples to leave their jobs, skip funerals and follow him. We say come if it is convenient. Don’t feel you have to come if you are working, not feeling well, don’t come if it’s raining snowing, sunny, warm or cold, don’t come if you are busy, if you have friends or relatives visiting, if your children are swimming, playing hockey, football, basketball, soccer, t-ball or monopoly.

 

As you can see, we have eliminated risk and have been playing it so safe, we have argued ourselves out of a job and consigned ourselves into irrelevance. If we don’t believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is important, how will any one else think that it is?

 

In his book Morrow quotes an ad that Earnest Shackleton posted in 1913 for his risky expedition to Antarctica .

 

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages. Bitter cold. Long months of complete darkness. Constant danger. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.

 

Shackleton needed to fill 26 slots. How many applied? OVER 5,000 men!

 

The point is that men respond to a challenge, and that is what I am proposing today: a challenge to make this church into something that people would come from all over to visit, to find, to experience, and to stay.

 

If you responded to the ad in this week’s paper, this is your invitation and opportunity to join together in building the kingdom of God . Speak, give your name and number to one of the elders or myself.

 

In the reading from Luke we find that Jesus was as stark as Shackleton in sending out his 70 to start the church; another risky venture:

“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few…

I am sending you our as lambs into the midst of wolves.

Carry no purse no bag no sandals;”

He tells his followers to offer peace to a house when they enter, but drop them if they don’t respond and move on to the next person, town or village.

He tells them to take the wages they receive, “for the laborer deserves to be paid.”

“eat what is set before you, cure the sick,”

tell them that the Kingdom of God is at hand. And if they don’t receive you well,

“I tell you on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.”

 

People do not go to a church because it sits on a corner any more than they go to Sobey’s because it sits on the edge of town. People go to both places because it has what they need to live their lives.

 

What we have that people need for their lives is “The Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

 

Our challenge is that we have to translate the Gospel into people’s lives:

-for some that will be something to eat or drink,

-for some it will be a welcome for their loneliness,

-for some it will comfort for their grief, or hope for their despair,

-for others it will be friendship for their alienation,

-for some it will be an opportunity for their God-given gifts to be developed, expressed and shared.

 

We have just passed Remembrance Day and we honoured all those who served; those who risked body, soul, and life for us. Those men and women were “risk takers.”

 

Jesus founded a system based on servant leadership. Our challenge is that we are to serve others. If the church does not serve the people it dies.

 

When I attended Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown , (founded in 1848) the emblem of the Prince of Wales was in stone over the front door and in different places in the building. It has a crown with three feathers coming up out of the crown and the motto, ich dien, which means, “I Serve.” You have heard the Queen mention this motto many times, and when she came to Alberta on her last visit, she requested to privately meet the families of the four Mounties who were slain in Mayerthorpe. Her majesty knows that the monarchy will only survive if it serves the people. The moment it does not, it will be gone.

 

The moment the people of the USSR decided communism was not serving them that massive, powerful, repressive, country vanished over night.

 

I am not saying that we have to love people, I am saying that we have to risk enough to radically love people: (“love” is overused, weak, and hasn’t been working)

-when you see someone new in church, go and speak to them yourself, shake their hand,

-tell them your name, ask them their name, take them out to lunch,

-when there are people you know who are not in church, (don’t ask where they are) call them and ask them if they are OK, tell them you have missed them,

-if you don’t know what to say to someone, tell them “I don’t know what to say, but I am here.”

 

Be risk takers: ask people to come to church, to become a member.

Maybe even become a member yourselves. The challenge to serve is one that brings us all into the fullness of life.

 

Twenty years form now, this place will either be a church where people come to hear God’s Word, find friendship, safety, forgiveness, hope, healing, miracles, and challenge or it will be a museum to past glory.

 

2,000 years ago, Jesus asked his disciples to follow him in service and risk enough to radically love others.

 

The challenge is whether we will do the same.

 

AMEN                Rev. Alan Stewart