Hitting Our Stride
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Hitting Our Stride
May 8, 2011
by Rev. William “Buck” Day
Let us look at God’s word. Let’s go to a familiar passage from the 15th Chapter of John. We are going to read the first eight verses. I want to invite you to follow along as we read God’s word. (John 15:1-8)
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
God’s word of encouragement for us! So with that, let’s pray.
Mighty and holy God, thank you. Thank you that you are the God who knows what we need. So Lord we ask that you would help us to abide in you, that we might bear much fruit, both in our own lives and as a church, Faith. In you name we ask that. Amen.
Well it had been some time since Jack had seen the old man—college, girls, life in general, just got in the way. He moved across country and, in the rush to a busy life, Jack had little time to think about the past, little time to think about his son or his wife, as well. He was working toward the future. Nothing was going to stop him. Well, one evening the phone rang and it was his mom. His mom called and said, “Mr. Bessler has died. The funeral is Wednesday.” At that point lots of memories began to flood back into Jack’s mind as he remembered his childhood days. As he was thinking about it, all of a sudden his mom said, “Jack, did you hear me?” He said, “Yeah. Sorry mom, I was just thinking about all the memories, about all the time I had with Mr. Bessler. You know realistically I thought he had died many years ago. I hadn’t thought much about him lately.” She said, “Well, he thought about you a lot. Every time I saw him he asked ‘How’s Jack doing? I appreciate all the time that I was able to spend with him as he was growing up’—as he put it, ‘spending time on his side of the fence.’” Jack said, “Yes, those were good times. I love that old house he lived in.” “You know, Jack, Mr. Bessler was like a father to you after your dad died. He would spend time with you and he provided that influence that you needed in your life.” He said, “Yeah, he taught me carpentry. He taught me the things that helped me do what I am doing today. He taught me about things that were important. You know mom, I will be there for the funeral.” And despite Jack’s busy life he made plans and he got home in time for the funeral.
The funeral was a small and an uneventful event because he had no children and most of his relatives had already died. On the night before Jack was to return home, he and his mom stopped by Mr. Bessler’s house one last time. As Jack stepped up onto the doorway of the house, all of a sudden it was like he walked into a time warp. It was just like it had been when he was a child. Walking in, all the furniture was in the same place, all the memories, all the pictures—and then he stopped. His mom said, “What’s wrong?” He said, “The box! The box is gone!” She said, “What box?” He said, “Mr. Bessler had a gold box in his desk, and he said what was in that box was the thing that was of most importance to him and now it is gone!” He said, “I must have asked him a hundred times what was in that box, and that is all he would say. ‘It is the thing that is most important to me.’”
Jack thought, you know, I guess we should probably get home. I have an early flight tomorrow. So they took off and life went back to normal. A couple weeks later, in the mail, Jack gets one of those post office slips, you know, that says you have to go to the post office to sign for a package—please do it within three days. So Jack the next morning went to the post office and he picked up this box and the box looked like it had been mailed a hundred years ago. As he was looking at the box, he was looking at the handwriting and it was pretty difficult to read, but the return address jumped out at him. It said, Howard Bessler. As he got into his car he began to rip this box open; and, inside it, you know what was there. It was the gold box, along with an envelope. He was shaking as he opened that envelope and he read the note inside and it said, “Upon death, please forward the box and the contents to Jack Bennett. It is the thing that I value the most in life.” There was a key taped to the note. At that point, Jack began to unlock the box and he opened it. Inside was a beautifully engraved gold pocket watch. He pulled it out, he was holding it in his hand and he looked at it. He just kind of ran his hands over it and then he opened it up. Inside was a note that was engraved and it said, “Jack, thanks for your time. Harold Bessler.”
The thing that he valued most, was Jack’s time. Jack held that watch for a minute. He was thinking. Then he picked up his cell phone and he called his assistant in the office and he said, “Will you just cancel the rest of my appointments for the next two days?” She said, “Wow! What’s going on?” He said, “I just need to spend some time with my son. And, oh by the way, Janet (that was her name)”, he said, “thank you for all that you do, as well.”
Relationships! Relationships in our lives are the things that are going to last long after we are gone. Those relationships that we have are going to ripple through our lives and through the lives of those that we have touched, even after we die they will last and they will go on. I think that is part of our message from our Scripture today: the importance of being attached, attached to Christ. The idea of the words that Jesus uses is “abiding.” We are to be attached to Jesus. He is the vine, we are the branches, and we are to do what branches are designed to do. We are to bear fruit. The vine provides everything we need to bear that fruit as branches. I think that is the story that Jesus tells. It is ultimately about relationships. It is about the relationship between Jesus and the Father. It is about the relationship between Jesus and us. And it is about the relationship that you and I have with those around us, as well. We want to make sure that we don’t just see this story about just us and Jesus; as important as that is and as valuable and life-changing as that is, that is not the only point that Jesus is making. Jesus says that we are to be in the business of bearing fruit, and bearing fruit only comes as we abide in Jesus, as we abide in those relationships that are around us. That is what is important.
I think that is important for us to be thinking about and having in the back of our mind as we enter into this day when we think about this idea of Renewing Faith—the work that we have been about since the beginning of the year. For the last three months your Session has been working really hard and, I have to tell you that they have really engaged in this process, to discern what God would have for us—what is most appropriate, what are the next needed steps we need to begin to move Faith forward? Even in the midst of that other news that I just told you about, in terms of the reduced income and the potential staff reductions—even in the midst of that, God is at work here. God wants to move us forward.
So what has resulted from our work is not something new; it is not ground shaking; it is not like “Wow! We never thought of this before.” But what it is is the next logical step in the progression that we have been on for the last three or four years, that started with our vision and our values statement. Then it went to the Long and Short Range Planning activities and this is the next logical step, where we are today. It all leads us to this day. As I think about that, I, myself, think about Romans 8:28. That verse just kind of keeps popping up, “…that all things work for good for those who love Christ and are called according to his purpose.” Folks, we are being called. We are being called.
This process is really about a God activity in our lives, in this church. It is about focusing and allowing God to have his way with us. Yes, we have a planning part in that, but it is about God and his activity in this church, and him directing our paths so that all things work for good; because we need to be in the business of bearing fruit, don’t we? We know that. We have seen that. That is God’s mandate to us as a Church, right here, right now, is to bear fruit. I think that happens as we build those relationships, as we build those relationships with God, we build those relationships with each other, and we build those relationships with the world around us; because we are designed to be in relationships. That is how God wired us up. To that point, take your finger, touch your belly button. I was going to ask you to touch your neighbor’s belly button but I thought it might get really weird, really fast. O.K. I let you touch your belly button because your navel, that is the technical term, is a constant reminder that we started life connected to someone and our life has been from that point on about getting reconnected. That is how God has wired us up. God has created us to be in relationships.
So as we think about that, what does it look like to bear fruit at Faith? What does it look like as we go forward? Well, you received a couple things in your bulletin and I am going to reference those. The first thing that you have is a two-page piece here called the Executive Summary. This is the report, and we will talk more about it, this is the summary of the work we have done over the last four plus months with our consultant and with Session. If you are interested in the full report, we have a few of them that are out at the Information Center. After the service just grab one of those, if we run out we will make some more. O.K. So don’t worry about that, but if you want a full one they are out there; otherwise this is kind of the summary, the highlights, if you will.
Then if you take the Order of Worship and you turn it over, you will see it says “Opportunities Phase I.” These opportunities are the things that we have identified as the things we are going to focus on for the next 90 to 120 days. We have been working on them and we actually have been calling them “tactics.” They fit into a larger piece, and we will talk about that down the road, so right now these are opportunities. Hold on to this because I will reference this in terms of where we, after the service next Sunday, we are going to have the opportunity to be in a relationship and connect to these opportunities, and we will talk more about that in a moment.
Next Sunday—we were going to do it this Sunday but Mother’s day we know people have plans, there are brunch appointments waiting—next Sunday at 9:00, before the service, we will meet in the activity center and we are just going to have a question and answer time; a chance for you to ask questions and for us, hopefully, to provide some answers for you. Then after the service we will have an opportunity to do some explanation and some signing up and committing ourselves to these opportunities. So I want to let you know about that and we will talk more about that in a minute.
Bearing fruit, if we are going to do that, starts with planning, and that is one of those pieces that we have been doing in this process; that is really what this has been about. I think if you want to use the analogy of planting, it is really about soil preparation. It is a fundamental process that we have gone through that takes account of what are our resources, what kind of things do we have to work with, what are some of the things that we need to overcome in order to begin to move forward, and what are some things that we can leverage to kind of jump start our growth? And you have seen some of those things already in place—a second screen is one of those things, we have already begun to do that. In that, our planning process also has been realistic enough to understand that, you know, we can’t do everything. We can’t do everything at the same time because we simply just don’t have the resources to do everything we would like to do. We have created a long list of things that need to be done here; but what we have had to do is we have had to pare it down and prioritize it. The other things are not going away; they are just not at the first phase.
So we are going to work at this through stages. So that is going to be one of those things that is going to help us hit our stride as a church. And this is also not a one time thing. It is not one of those where we just do it and we are done. That executive summary is going to lead us into a continual process of learning and readjusting as we go along, as we learn more things about ourselves. One of the things that the consultant said is we have to give ourselves permission to get smarter along the way. And we do. We want to learn that. We want to learn how we do things better in an ever changing world, how we address the changes that come our way; so these are exciting times. These are exciting times here at Faith and I hope you are excited about it, as well.
So what does it look like? Dream with me a little bit, what would it look like when we would say “Faith is hitting its stride.”? What would that look like for you? Some of the things we have identified is that it is a church for all generations. We see that even here today. I see seniors coming in from our living centers to join us here in worship, to be involved in other activities as we go throughout the week. I see us attracting young adults from our surrounding communities and ministering to their needs, families with children and students coming and being a part of what is going on. I can see us all working together, to lift high the name of Christ. We are of multiple worship offerings, I think. I say that simply because this room will not be big enough to hold all of us. We are going to need to do that. We are going to be a center for the arts through our music and through our theater. The community will know who Faith Church is, because we serve them, we go out and we meet their needs. We have a wonderful asset in this building. Yes, it needs some work but we are working on that. But it is a wonderful asset we can use to offer to our community and all of us. Faith as a people will be known by their love, their compassion, their generosity.
And this is an unfinished dream. It is an unfinished dream, because God is not done with it yet, because he needs you. He needs every one of us here to move this forward. It is a vision for all of us. Each of us has a part to play in moving forward, making this dream a reality. I know you well enough that I know there are people in this room right now that are really good at imagining a future, what that might look like. I also know that there are people in here who are really good at filling in the details in that future. I also know that there are others who are doers, who just say, “Tell me what to do, point me in the right direction, and I’ll do it. Don’t worry about it.” And there are others I know who can pray this vision before the throne of God until it comes to fruition. And honestly, there are others in here who can help foot the bill to make that happen, as well. You see, each of us are needed, each of us, to bring our gifts, our skills to make this thing happen. It is not something that I am going to be able to do alone; I can guarantee that. It is not something that you are going to be able to do alone. It is going to require all of us. So what we have done with these opportunities is simply to put together some initial first goals of where to begin and it is going to require all of us to do that.
I was listening to a pastor from Detroit this week and he talked about a thing he uses in his church called the power of agreement. The power of agreement is this. It is not that you put aside your desires or that we all have to think alike. That is not what he is saying. Rather what he is saying is there are times in the life of a church where we all have to focus our energies and our prayers around one specific thing. We all have to be agreed with this. As we focus together as a community around one specific thing, then the power of God can be unleashed. I thought “God, you are so good.” That is a wonderful thing for us, I think, to do right now, to take a moment to have a time where we can all be together that the power of agreement might be unleashed in our midst. So I want to invite us to take a moment to pray. And what I would like you to pray and pray with me around, is this motion of God move in our hearts, tie us together so that we can work together to make this place the place that we all dream that it can be and that God sees that it can be.
So, would you pray with me right now? Let’s pray for the power of agreement, right now.
Mighty and holy God, I pray, pray that you would be about your business right here, right now. Lord, give us the energy to do what is needed, free up the resources, allow us to be committed to each other in ways that we have not done before. Break down the barriers that separate us from each other that, Lord, the vision that you see for Faith Church might begin to take root, might move together in that regard. Lord we want to be about this, we want to be focused on moving this church forward.
Take a couple of moments of silence and just put that prayer in your own words. This place might become the place that God would have it to be.
(Moment of silence)
Lord, we give this to you because it is not our work ultimately it is yours. We are simply the ones who execute it for you. So Lord, may this be yours. May this time be yours at Faith, to have your way in our hearts and in this church. Lord we pray for that. We ask that you would move mightily as we pray together around this, Lord God, for we are asking and we would ask what you would do. Thank you Lord. Amen.
Thank you. Thank you for doing that.
Well next Sunday after the service what we are going to do is we are going to ask you to commit to one of these opportunities because each one of these opportunities actually there are multiple steps under each one of these that we call action steps. Each one of these action steps, we are going to ask you to actually put your name on one of these action steps that are under one of these bullet points. Those action steps could be something as simple as praying. That is what some of them are, really. Others may be as difficult as having a conversation with me, because I am so unapproachable (laughter). There are others that are going to ask people to make some calls, maybe to think about how we might do things in new ways. I don’t know all the things that are under these opportunities. So the reason we put this in the bulletin is we want you to take this home and we want you to pray over this. We want you to pray— where is God calling you to be a part of one of these opportunities? So I invite you to do that and commit that to prayer. As you think about that, do you see the relational connections there? Do you see how it all ties together, this notion of abiding, of Christ working in us, us working with each other, all for the goal of bearing fruit for the glory of God? That is what we are about. That is what we are about.
I know we are running late, but I am going to shorten this last story and because it is a story that you can go home and watch. It is the story from the end of the old movie, Mr. Holland’s Opus. Do you remember that story? It is the story of a teacher who became a band teacher in the sixties who had this dream of becoming a great classical musician. Never got it, and ended up spending his whole career teaching band in high school. As a result he became passionately involved in caring and pouring his life into his students. In the end his job gets eliminated because of budget cuts. As he is packing up his belongings in his classroom after school was out and he was done teaching for his career, his wife and his son are with him and he has this box of stuff and he is walking down the hallway. He hears noise in the auditorium and he walks in the auditorium. The auditorium is packed with students, former students, teaching colleagues, with a big banner that says: GOOD BYE, MR. HOLLAND.
As they walk in, not only do they all stand for applause but then the band begins to play—both old members as well as new members—playing a song that they have all learned under Mr. Holland. In the process of that, as everything comes together, all of a sudden the governor of Oregon comes and is the M.C. for the show, because the governor of Oregon was also a former student of Mr. Holland’s. During his very first year she was in one of his classes and he helped her begin to have the confidence to become who she had become, the governor. So she talks about “Mr. Holland, you have had a profound effect on my life and lots of other lives, I know as well. And yet, I get the feeling that you feel a great part of you life has been misspent, and, rumor has it that you have been working on a symphony that would get you rich and make you famous. Well you are neither rich nor famous except to us in this little town.” And she asks him to look around at the people who are in the auditorium and she says “You may think of yourself as a failure but you would be wrong, because you have achieved the success far beyond riches and fame. There is not a person in this room who has not been touched by your life and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr. Holland. We are the melody; we are the notes of your opus. We are the music of your life.”
Folks, look around. We are the melody; we are the notes of God’s work in this place called Faith Church, for the glory of God. So I invite you to play your note, play your song, play your part in what God is doing here; for he will bless you richly and he will bless this place.
Let’s pray.
Lord God, thank you. Thank you that you are a God who works with us. You take what is seemingly ordinary, average, nothing special, and you make something powerful out of it. That is just how you work God and I praise you for that and I thank you for that. And Lord I ask that you would be working in this place, work in this church; because Lord we are seeking your face, we are hungering after you. We need you Lord and we want to be faithful to you. So, Lord God, we give you glory and we ask that you would work in our hearts and in our minds to bring your vision for Faith to reality. Amen.