The Mission of Seaview Church
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The Crisis of the Modern Church
The Crisis of the Modern Church
(Rubicks cube)- Friends, who can tell me what I have in my hand?
Raise your hand if you can solve one of these? I’m a bit of a sucker for puzzles and games, so this week I took on the project of solving one of these. In the past, I have fidgeted with it until my heart’s content- but to no avail.
So I decided to do some research, and I learned that in order to solve one of these, it is about learning a series of specific movements (or algorithms) in a specific order. So rather than just fidgeting about hoping for some success. Once you learn the movements, it becomes quite simple.
Yesterday as I was learning this cube, I got to thinking about the church, because there has been alot of questioning in regards to the purpose of church and its validity. As years go by, it seems like more and more people are “deconstructing” their faith, becoming put off by the various scandals that arise within the church, or just simply get bored.
Is this what we’ve come to?
As humans, we need things that keep us focused and give us a sense of meaning and purpose. The word that we are going to use for this today is mission. When we lack mission, we fidget around hoping to land on something that works, but generally, we wander, get distracted, and lose our way.
But with a sense of mission, we understand the movements that give us intentionality and like this puzzle, piece by piece we begin to catch a glimpse of what we are aiming for (I am not going to solve this in front of you because I am a novice).
All told- if we want to be a Kigdom building church, then we have to understand our purpose and make the key movements that will get us there. Today, we will identify three core movements that we are adopting as our mission and they all stem from an important question that any church should have to ask:
Does our mission align with Christ’s mission for His church?
Friends, as we begin our focus on direction for the year 2023 and beyond- we have to start here. If we are going to avoid a crisis of identity in our expression of church at Seaview Pentecostal Assembly, then we need to understand what it’s original purpose was, and in turn, allow that to be the true north on our compasses.
So- today is about the simple question: What was Jesus’ intention in creating the church?
Jesus knew that He was going to die, but His work needed to continue
Jesus didn’t say a lot about the structure and makeup of the church, but the one thing that he was certain of was the continuation of His work that went beyond His physical presence on earth. He gave His followers a glimpse of the realities that were coming. Take a momen in Matthew 16 when Jesus asks Peter a simple question “who do you say that I am?”
As he answers it- “Matthew 16:16 “Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”” Jesus gives a very pointed response- Matthew 16:17-18
Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” Then he gave the disciples orders to tell no one that he was the Messiah.
What does this show us about the church?
-It is a movement rooted in the power and authority of Christ. So right away, Jesus dispells crisis. In many other moments, he talks about coming hardship and the difficult realities that would come, but in all things- the church as the gathering of people committed to God’s will has the authority of Christ behind them which means that its work prevails over sin and darkness.
-It is a movemement that does the work of “binding and loosing” which basically means that with the heavenly authority behind it, the church will help people see and respond to Jesus. Now, we know that responses vary from acceptance to rejection, but with that comes the subsequent response of God which is either forgiveness or judgement.
As Grant Osborne summarizes:
“The church exists on earth but with a heavenly authority behind it. As the church takes the teaching of Jesus and lives it in this world both in terms of opening the dooes of the kingdom to converts and opening the truths of the kingdom to the new messianic community, it does so with the authority and guidance of God.” -Grant Osborne
So to summarize- Jesus is telling Peter that those who choose to put their faith in God will go forward with the Authority of Christ and help people encounter relationship with the Father.
But there’s another detail in this text that we have to see:
Matthew 16:18 (CSB)
And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
2. Jesus the one who builds His Church.
So- there is work to be done. The church was and still is something being built because there are people who don’t know Christ as their personal saviour. But at the end of the day, Christ is the one who is leading the efforts.
Don’t miss this.
As important as it was for Peter to recognize that he would be a key figure in the formation of the movement of Christianity as we know it- he was to always remember that Christ is the head of the church and any efforts made apart from genuine relationship with Him will be in vain.
A church built apart from the leading of Christ is not a true expression of church at all.
This reality has to be the focal point of all of our efforts. When we speak about our purpose as Seaview Pentecostal Assembly is to carry on what Christ set out. As the church, we don’t find purpose apart from Him, we find purpose from Him. And so- before we speak to any of our plans, we have to first understand that our plans come from the heart of listening and responding. Or to put that into terms that Jesus uses- following. Shortly after he had this exchange with Peter, He made another poignant statement:
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
3. Our work in the church is to learn to follow Jesus. We must not try to outrun or outperform His leading.
Have you ever been driving and had to follow someone? Here’s a confession- i’m a bit of an impatient driver, so if I ever have to follow someone and their pace is a tad.... leisurly.. Everything within me wants to pass them. However, I have to realize that in this circumstance, my arrival at the destination of choice is dependant on my ability to follow, not lead, so if I pass, my desire for pace has outlasted my desire for arrival.
Sometimes our faith as individuals and the church can be like this. We don’t feel like God is moving fast enough, or in the direction that we want- so we take matters into our own hands. We stop listening and start leading.
If you want to learn about the dangers of this, i’m going to give you some homework. Read exodus 32. A story about a community that yielded to their desires apart from God’s leading.
So at this point, we have established three core truths:
The work of Christ continues through the Church
Christ is building His church
We participate in the work by following Christ
This brings us to our Purpose as Seaview Pentecostal Assembly
Identifying Our Purpose as a Church
Before I get into this too deeply, allow me to share a bit about the process behind this. At our AGM in 2022, we comitted to making the year a time of listening to God’s heart and the heart of our church for vision.
Step 1 of this process was to compile as many responses as we could from our congregation with a Strength and opportunity survey. We asked you what you see and what you hope to see.
From there, we put together what we called the SLT- Strategic Leadership Team, and over a series of meetings, we discussed the mission, vision and values of the church considering the truth of scriptures, the leading of the Holy Spirit, and the position and feedback of our church.
I want to take a moment to recognize our SLT, because none of this would have happened without it being a collaborative effort:
Dave Philips, Barb Kent, James Caswell, Chris Morris, Keith Parks, Bryce Greenwood, Chenaya Greenwood, Tracy Lott, Vwoke Ighure, Vanessa DeGroot, Josiah DeGroot
Bringing two churches together is no joke, but this group came to every meeting with humility and a heart for the future of this church, and to that we can all be grateful for.
The first thing that came out of this was a purpose statement. This is something that we are going to adopt as a church. Something that has been derived from the contributions of multiple people, including many of you and your voice.
At the heart of this church- this statement is meant to bring us back to the realities that we have already visited today. As Seaview Church, we are partnering with God in His mission to reveal His nature to the world and be in right relationship with all people.
We carry this responsibility in the South Surrey and White Rock Communities- Our purpose will become our guiding principles in key decision making, financial management, outreach efforts, and everything else that we do. And we can summarize that in three words: Worship, Grow, Go
Seaview Church exists to Worship God the Father, Grow in Jesus Christ, and Go in the Holy Spirit.
And if you’d humour me for a moment, I’d like to briefly unpack each of these:
Folowers of Jesus are committed to living lives of worship.
The Bible makes it clear that God has poured out grace to humanity through His creation and our response to such grace and love is meant to be worship. Now- we tend to limit worship to a moment on a Sunday Morning (through the act of singing), but the Apostle Paul gave us a more expansive vision of worship.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship.
When we grasp our identity as worshippers, it means that our lives are committed to the will and ways of God as a response to Him.
The Bible tells us that naturally, as we commit our lives to Christ as worship, we become like Christ.
Followers of Jesus Grow to reflect the nature of Christ.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
Followers of Jesus Carry on the Mission of God as They Walk in the Spirit
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
You see- the Mission of God was to follow and help build followers. We are called to multiply, to reproduce- except instead of the traditional use of the terms in regards to population growth, we are inviting people to be born again into Christ’s redeeming love.
To summarize all of this- our identity as a church is not dependent on what we decide that we want it to be- it is continuing the work that Christ has begun and partnering with Him in redeeming the world and drawing people into His light. That’s the goal!
We don’t write our own mission- we join in God’s mission.
In our first week on this series, I want you to embrace a sense of corporate calling. As an individual, you choose whether or not you want to jon in to the mission of CHrist, but make no mistake, you are called.
Worship, Grow, and Go will exist to be out guide. It will keep us on the path of intentionality as we seek to honour what we have been invited to do.