Sunday, May 18, 2008
Scripture reading: Acts 8:1-8
1And Saul approved of their killing him. That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. 2Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. 3But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison. 4 Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word. 5Philip went down to the city* of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah* to them. 6The crowds with one accord listened eagerly to what was said by Philip, hearing and seeing the signs that he did, 7for unclean spirits, crying with loud shrieks, came out of many who were possessed; and many others who were paralysed or lame were cured. 8So there was great joy in that city.
Sermon Title: "RAGING, INEXORABLE THUNDER LIZARDS" Sunday, May 18, 2008
PASTOR HUDSON: Just a few days ago I
visited with someone, and they just dropped in a
random comment that started my mind churning on
thinking about the nature of the church.
The statement the person made was simply this,
you know, I would like for our church, Wesley, to be
the very best church in Shawnee. Now they were quick
to point out they understood very clearly that that
didn't necessarily equate to the idea there should be
10,000 people in the sanctuary, so to speak.
Their thoughts seem to have more to do with the
kind of exciting move of God's mission and ministry
and evangelism. In their fondest dream for Wesley,
they would like to think that this would be the church
that truly is the epicenter of what God is doing in
Shawnee.
I understand that because I want to be a part of
that kind of thing, too. I think there is maybe a
couple things we could say that would challenge us as
a church to think about that. First, the church has
to have something worth growing around. I have
2
learned over the years that some of the obstacles
churches across our country in many denominations are
struggling with is attrition, including the United
Methodist denomination.
Here recently the news about Southern Baptists is
that for the first time in maybe a decade they
actually have declined in the number of baptisms.
Since 1970, the United Methodist Church's profile has
been we've lost the equivalent of a 1,000-member
church every week.
We're living in a generation where for the first
time I'm reading literature from evangelical scholars
that are willing to speculate concerning the deity of
Jesus Christ. In an earlier generation I would have
never seen that as even being possible.
We're living in a window of time where our
boundaries related to Christ and Lordship issues are
as fuzzy as probably any of us could remember in our
lifetimes. Perhaps, we really need a new commitment to the
teachings of the apostles.
We need fellowship. Fellowship in the New
Testament was more than just the potluck dinner,
the type of fellowship that only touches the
surface. The "What did you
think about the game last week?" kind of fellowship.
That's not the kind
of fellowship the New Testament has in mind. New Testament
fellowship is
prayerful fellowship. It is spiritual ministry
fellowship. It's the networking thing , but deep within.
We have some powerful prayer people in this
church, but it's no secret that for many of us, prayer
is like the last resort. You know, after we have looked
at our checkbook, and we've contacted our attorney,
we've gone all the way down the line and when nothing
else works, we say, "Okay, let's try the God thing.
I'm not too sure about it, but it couldn't hurt at
this point."
In the New Testament that's not the way they
understood it. They immediately prayed before they
did anything else. The church came together and
sought God.
Here's what I think is the litmus test for our
worship: Number one, do you anticipate with eager
expectation the approaching Sunday morning? Do you
live with the feeling that somehow or another what
transpires in this place on any given Sunday morning
is going to be so powerful and so life-transforming
that you can't wait for it to get here?
Secondly, when you leave on Sunday morning, are
you authentically and genuinely lifted up in your own
experience of having encountered and worshipped God
4
and offered to God sacrifices of praise? To me, that
is the heartbeat of what worship should be.
What is the quality of our church community in
relationship to these kinds of images? Maybe we can
say it this way: What is the quality of our
community? What are we building our community around
as a church? Maybe we should go a step further and
ask this question: Who is so switched on, so
impassioned about what God is doing that they are just
itching to be turned loose?
These are questions to just ponder and pray about
because I really do believe in my heart of hearts that
the way to a best church is not through big campuses,
not through huge numbers -- though, I will caution
you, one of the liabilities to having a powerful and
life-transforming ministry is we might end up having
to deal with a whole lot more people than we've had to
deal with in the past because people kind of like that
stuff, and they want to be a part of it.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit, amen.