Sunday, February 8, 2009 
Scripture readings: John 21:16; Matthew 28:18-20
16A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’
18And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’
Sermon Title: "ROTARY DIALS AND TOUCH SCREENS" Sunday, February 8, 2009
PASTOR HUDSON: The sermon title is
rotary dials and touch screens, and I know probably
most people here in the sanctuary will have no
difficulty with that imagery.
My granddaughter comes from a totally different
generation. Her parents have blackberries, you know,
these touch screen things they use as a telephone.
They are among the families that increasingly don't
have a fixed line in their house and rely on their
cell phones for everything.
In my house, we have a very old desk phone we
bought at one of those specialty places. It weighs
about 10 pounds. You pick it up, dial the number and
you talk to a person. My wife had to show our
granddaughter how to use it. Our granddaughter was
delighted when she was able to call her house and talk
to her mom and dad on this archaic piece of equipment
she had never seen before in her life. It's just a
different world.
A few years ago I was talking to some children in
a confirmation class. They were approximately 5th and
6th graders. I asked them what kind of worship they
liked. I kept hoping what I'd hear is they really
liked what we were doing in that particular church.
They didn't. They told me they liked hip-hop. I
found myself thinking I'm not going to be up there
doing a hip-hop worship.
What if we were to say, wait a minute, what's
really important? Where is the common ground? What
might it look like for us? In the days to come when
our consultant is here the weekend of March 7th, we're
going to be sharing some of that information, but
we're going to try to share images of that information
in ways that gives everyone a similar sense of what
we're seeing. We need every member to plan on
attending that weekend as we make this journey
together to learn God's will for the future of our
church.
Now the question that I have is simply this: Is
there a tendency within the life of the church to
focus on one thing or the other? I really think we
tend to limit things, and that may not be the
healthiest thing for us to do to grow as a church. My
point is as we reach people for Christ in ways which
are relevant to today's culture there is a need for
the touch screen approach.
As we do that, I hope you will be in prayer we
will draw out from this consultant's recommendations
some of that stuff which brings us to the place where
we've got the richest and the best of both worlds
powerfully shaping us as a church.