The New Yorker recently featured an article that explored the proliferation of school shootings. The author, Malcolm Gladwell, examined how group dynamics influence individual decisions. Gladwell looked at the work of Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. Forty years ago Granovetter published an essay that addressed the paradox of: “situations where outcomes do not seem intuitively consistent with the underlying individual preferences.” He was curious why people make decisions that are out of alignment with their preferences, beliefs, and values. In short, Granovetter concluded that our individual decisions are significantly influenced by the decisions of others. In a very deep and meaningful way we make personal decisions in response to the community in which we go about life. We have all changed our mind about what to order at a restaurant as a result of what others at our table or neighboring tables had ordered. The same factors at work in that inconsequential decision are also at work in our important decisions.

We are connected to each other through our shared life in the church. As a result, my faith and life are intimately connected to the decisions that you make in your faith. This potential is neither good not bad, but can be life-giving and transformational, or devastatingly destructive. In order to help our interconnectedness be positive and life-giving, we need structures that lead us toward healthy and positive connections. We need boundaries in our life together that protect us from negative or destructive connections. While organizational structures seem to be the least spiritual aspect of church life, they may in fact be the most important part of our spiritual life together.

I recently read that astronauts on the International Space Station are going to begin studying mounds of earth in Kazakhstan. While not readily recognizable when standing among the earthen mounds, the mounds form distinct artificial shapes and patterns when looked at from above. Being in orbit will give the astronauts an unprecedented perspective from which they can examine the patterns that are estimated at 8,000 years old.

Sometimes when we read the bible it is helpful to get some elevation and see them from a different perspective. With a little bit of elevation we can see a distinct pattern in the stories of Israel in the books of Judges, 1&2 Samuel, 1&2 Kings, and 1&2 Chronicles. Each incident has unique details, some of the accounts have more details and others are a bit vague, but with some perspective a pattern emerges in the history of Israel. What the history of Israel reveals is that Leadership matters in the life of a community. When a community has faithful, committed, selfless leaders life flourishes. There is peace among the people. Challenges are met and addressed. The people are faithful to their covenant with God. When a community has faithless, unfocused, and self-serving leaders trouble and struggle abound. Violence and strife dominate the lives of those in the community. Evil and faithlessness run rampant resulting in destroyed people and relationships.

When we look at the full scope of the story of God’s people, we see that faithful and godly leadership is essential to the thriving of the community of faith.

A few years ago there was a phone scam that received national attention. Scammers would call grandparents posing as the grandchildren of the targets. The scammers would tell a complicated story that typically involved being in jail or the hospital, and in immediate need of a significant amount of cash. The concerned grandparents, overcome with love and compassion for their grandchild, would send the money. Only after the money was gone, would it become clear that the entire thing was a ruse. Why were grandparents the targets of this scam? Grandparents have a ready willingness to act sacrificially and generously on behalf of their grandchildren.

Life in the way of Jesus calls us to a ready willingness to act sacrificially and generously on behalf of our family of faith, and our neighbor. We each have unique sets of experiences, talents, and skills that we can invest in the life of the church and put to use for the good of our neighbor. We each have material and financial resources we can leverage on behalf of the church and for the sustenance of our neighbor. As a healthy and missional church we consistently embody a culture of sacrificial and generous living and giving.

This Sunday we will participate in an ancient practice of remembering. We will remember our brothers and sisters who have died awaiting the return of Christ. On Easter we celebrate the empty tomb; we confess our faith that Jesus has defeated death and the grave. On All Saints Sunday we lament the persistent reality of death in the church.

As we gather, we will mourn those lost to us through death; we mourn because our fellowship is broken.

As we gather, we will remember our love and affection for those who rest in Christ.

As we gather, we hope in the resurrection; that the same power that raised Christ from the dead will, on that day, raise all those clothed in Christ.

On Sunday, you will be invited to take a candle as you enter the sanctuary as a symbol of remembrance of your loved ones who have passed away. There will be an invitation time during the worship service, for you to bring your candle to the front.

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39

10 Markers of a Healthy Missional Church - Marker #4

Pope Francis recently addressed the United States Congress. In his speech he referenced the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” While not explicitly Scripture, the Golden Rule resonates deeply with the life of Jesus’ followers as described by the Scriptures. Jesus affirmed that the greatest command was to love God and to love your neighbor. In fact, Jesus concluded that all of the Old Testament Law was summarized in the command. There may be no more clear and simple expression of love for our neighbors but to treat them as we would want to be treated. Pope Francis went on saying to Congress, “If you want security, give security. If you want life, give life. If you want opportunity, give opportunity.” It is a simple concept, love. Embodying love is the great challenge.

The church then is the community in which we practice embodying love. In the church we become co-conspirators in love. The church provides for us a love nursery. The church is a safe community in which we learn how to live well in the love of our neighbor. The seeds of the love of Christ in us are watered, nurtured, protected, pruned, and shaped. The church is a community where we learn how to love our neighbors as ourselves. As a community we do unto each other what we would want done unto ourselves. We learn how to meaningfully and faithfully love each other, so that we can meaningfully and faithfully love our neighbors outside the security of the church.

10 Markers of a Healthy Missional Church - Marker #3

Have you ever had someone come to your rescue?

The opening scene of the classic novel The Outsiders depicted 14 year old, Ponyboy Curtis getting jumped as he walked home alone from a movie. His assailants were “The Socs” (abbreviated from Socials); rich kids with socially respectable families. He is rescued by his own gang, The Greasers, poor kids from rough families on the wrong side of the tracks. Ponyboy was bruised, bloodied, and shaken; but he was rescued before suffering any significant harm. The scene immediately establishes our sympathy for the Greasers, and Ponyboy particularly. The scene stirs our empathy toward this sensitive boy, we need him to be protected, and we want just punishment for his assailants.

When I think about the people that I truly admire, I think about people who seek to improve the lives of others. The people who seem to be the most alive and most satisfied with their own lives, tend to be people who commit themselves to alleviating the suffering of others. True life is found through becoming a living expression of compassion, mercy, and justice; even at great personal cost. The life and vitality of our church flourishes as we participate in life giving ministries of compassion, mercy, and justice.

10 Markers of a Healthy Missional Church - Marker #2

We all have routines, habits, and patterns of behavior. Athletes are notorious for religious devotion to particular routines. There are great stories of athletes wearing the same article of clothing for months without it being washed, eating peculiar meals on game day, or following compulsive routines in practice. There is a logic to this quirky behavior. Nearly every competitive athlete trains his or her body to respond as quickly and strongly as possible to certain stimulus. The most successful athletes have trained their bodies to respond instinctively to their surroundings. The muscle memory and mental focus are so tuned in, the brain and the body work in complete unity. Physical activities that are impossible for most people seem natural and elegant when performed by well trained athletes.

Our second marker of a Healthy and Missional Church is, “Intentional Evangelism.” For most of us, talking about our faith in Jesus or the ways in which our lives have been transformed by the power of the Spirit, can feel like an awkward and impossible achievement. As a community of faith, we are responsible for devoting ourselves to routines, habits, and patterns of behavior that train us to naturally and elegantly bring people into an encounter with the love, grace, and power of Jesus Christ. Meaningful evangelism is a result of intentional training that empowers us to intuitively partner with the active Spirit of God in loving, serving, and encouraging people toward faith.

10 Markers of a Healthy Missional Church - Marker #1

Like so many other parents, I posted photos to social media of my children on their first day of school. One of my aunts made a great comment on the post about the blisters she was getting from clicking “Like” on all the wonderful pictures of smiling kids on their way back to the “salt mines.” She also mentioned the nostalgia of remembering the days when the parents of all those children were the children headed back to school themselves.

It’s seasons like this that remind us that life is a journey. We travel through time growing from children, into adults with children of our own. Our children become adults with children of their own. Those children become adults with children, and so it goes. We are each on a journey through life and time. But we also see that the journey isn’t a simple straight line. There are cycles to life. The seasons change, we celebrate and mourn anniversaries. Our walk through life is both a journey through time, and a series of cycles. Life is much like walking on a huge spring. We are traveling in a direction, but we are also circling back around to very similar circumstances. We are never back to the place we were before, but there is also familiarity to many of our experiences.

Our walk with Jesus is much the same. We spend time with Jesus and the person we are becomes more like who he is; we are changed. We rarely experience that transformation as a direct path from point “A” to point “B.” Rather, we wander through cycles of life, seasons of growth and maturing that are, in some ways familiar, but are also unique.

The people of a “Healthy and Missional Church” are continually on this journey. They are intentionally and consciously seeking to be changed by the Spirit of Jesus. These are people with a sojourning spirit. They understand that their relationship with God is not a matter of arriving at a destination, but being faithful traveling companions to the Spirit at work within them.

There are so many ways to define success. In business, success can be determined by profits, but can also be measured by customer satisfaction, employee well-being, or social impact. In parenting, success can be navigating a meltdown, or negotiating peace between siblings. In friendships, success can be keeping the relationship intact in the midst of a disagreement. Churches have often struggled with defining success. In recent decades, American churches defined success in terms of the “Three B’s,” budgets, bodies, and buildings. If a church had a growing budget, more bodies attending, and plans for building; it was successful. It has become increasingly clear that these are not meaningful ways to determine if a church is successful. A church’s success can’t be determined by financial growth or increased attendance, because a church doesn’t exist for the purpose of numeric growth or profit. A church exists for the purpose of faithfulness.

As Covenant churches and denominational leaders have wrestled with this question, “what makes a faithful church,” they have come up with a single conclusion. A faithful church is a “Healthy and Missional” church. When a church is healthy and missional it will embody 10 markers.

Each Sunday this fall, we will examine one of those 10 markers. We will explore how that marker is and can be lived out in our church. This series will call us to deeper faithfulness. Challenge us to take Jesus’ teachings more seriously. Inspire in us a divine discontent about who we are now, and a spiritual longing to become renewed and refreshed.

The 10 Healthy Missional Markers:

Centrality of the Word of God; Life Transforming Walk with Jesus; Intentional Evangelism; Transforming Communities Through Active Compassion, Mercy, and Justice Ministries; Global Perspective and Engagement; Compelling Christian Community; Heartfelt Worship; Sacrificial and Generous Living and Giving; Culture of Godly Leadership; Fruitful Organizational Structures

What's Good About the Gospel?

At our Easter service, we were encouraged and challenged by the words of Rev. Vernon Anderson from a letter of congratulations to our church upon the consecration of our former building on April 26, 1961, "You have done well in building a church of brick, now your even greater task remains, to build and foster a church of concerned hearts, so that you may reach out effectively in the spirit and mind of Christ to reclaim lives for Him." That two-fold task continues to be our calling; first, to build and foster concerned hearts, and second, through the spirit and mind of Christ to reclaim lives for Him.

This summer, our sermon series is responding to that task by asking the question, "What's Good About the Gospel?" In modern churches all too often the term “Gospel” has been used only to describe a plan of personal salvation. While individual salvation is certainly part of “The Gospel” there is much more to what Jesus and the Apostles had in mind when they proclaimed “The Gospel.” The word “Gospel” is derived in English from the words “god” meaning good, and “spel” meaning news. “Gospel” became the English translation for the Greek word “euangelion.” In the Greco-Roman world, euangelion was the formal announcement of good news. Often the birth of a son to the Emperor, or news of a Roman military victory was considered euangelion.

The early church high-jacked the term euangelion as a short-hand for their story, history, and theology of Jesus. Our task in this sermon series is to strip back the many ways the "gospel" of Jesus has been bent, twisted, and distorted. We will be attempting to get to the foundational news about Jesus and why that news is good so that we can foster concerned hearts and reclaim lives for Christ.