Sermon Tone Analysis

Three Habits of Highly Contagious Christians [Part Three]

 

I want to start with a question this morning.

If you had to respond to this: What do you think is the greatest danger facing Lincoln City Church?

What would you say?

I was listening to a message recently by Andy Stanley.

It stimulated my thinking.

He was talking about his church, but it made me think about me and about us.

If you had to answer that question, what would you say when you look around at all that’s happening here, all the lives in this room that have been changed?

If we were to stumble and fall, where would it be most likely to happen?

I’ll tell you where I don’t think it would be.

I don’t the greatest danger we face is that we’ll drift from our faith.

We have a very strong doctrinal statement — if you’ve been around for a while you’ve seen it.

We have a board of elders that watches with great vigor to make sure we stay on target theologically.

I don’t think we’re going to drift away from that.

I don’t think our greatest danger is financial.

We have a very generous congregation.

The elders monitor our finances with amazing competence and integrity.

I don’t think that’s where we’re real vulnerable.

I don’t think our greatest danger is organizational at all.

We have a very clear mission.

We want irreligious people to become fully devoted followers.

And we have a real clear strategy.

We talk about the TRAKS System.

We have a very clear picture of what it means to be a participating member.

We talk about the twelve covenants of LCC, and it’s a way to help us get a sense of what it means to be fully devoted.

We have a statement that’s been kind of the informal model of this church since it got started: People matter to God.

I’ve never seen a church — I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen any organization — that works harder to articulate its basic values in memorable ways than this church does.

It’s amazing to me.

I’m not worried that any of that is going to get lost in our curriculum or our membership materials or our welcome brochures.

I think the greatest danger that we face is here in my heart and your heart.

I think the greatest danger is not organizational drift, it’s personal drift.

I think the danger is that because LCC is in many ways such an amazing place with so many programs with so much excellence, I can start thinking about it just in terms of, "What am I getting out of it?"

And then forget to say, "People matter to God.

Lost people matter to God.

Do they matter to me?"

You see, to help irreligious people become fully devoted followers is not just the church’s mission.

That’s not just an organizational purpose statement.

That’s your mission.

That’s your mission and mine.

And Jesus said it was so.

About the last thing he said to his followers after his resurrection was, "Go into all the world; proclaim the gospel; make disciples of all people; baptize them; teach them to do all things in my name."

So the question this morning is, "Are you on mission?

What’s the mission statement written in your heart personally?"

I think it’s possible that we could have a big church, wonderful programs, very impressive buildings, an orthodox statement of faith, generous giving, and still fail.

Because ultimately the mission statement that matters is not one that’s on a brochure or in a message or part of a curriculum someplace.

It’s the one in your heart.

So, are you on mission?

Do lost people matter to you like they matter to God?

I think the biggest danger we face is our danger, it’s personal drift.

And that’s why we have spent this whole series looking at what it means to be a highly contagious Christian.

We talked about the first habit, and we decided that as a community of believers we’re going to develop relationships with people who are far from God.

Then last week we looked at the second habit.

We said, "We’re going to learn how to share the gospel, how to share a verbal witness, explain how to become a Christian in the clearest, most compelling way that we can, even though that’s a stretch for a lot of us."

And I’ll tell you how important that is.

Remember last week we all walked through the bridge illustration together?

I talked to a woman after New Community last week, her name is Gwen.

And she was here last week with a friend that she has been bringing for the last few months.

And they did the deal where the two of them walked through the bridge illustration together.

Afterwards, Gwen asked Helena, her friend, "Have you ever prayed that prayer?

Have you ever accepted Christ as your Savior?"

And Helena said, "I never knew how."

And Gwen said, "Well, do you want to?"

This was last week, and Helena said, "Yes."

So after New Community, they got together and prayed.

Helena asked Christ to be the Savior of her life and forgive her of her sins and be the leader of her life.

They didn’t realize that this was just supposed to be like a training session, it wasn’t supposed to actually work.

When Christ-followers learn how to share their faith, how to explain the gospel, things happen.

It’s just predictable.

But now this morning we talk abut the third and final habit of contagious Christians.

After we work at developing relationships with people, we have spiritual conversations, and we explain about the gospel, here’s the third habit: We commit that we will invite seeking friends to a service designed to help them take the next step in their spiritual journey.

We’ll invite them to an event or a service, an experience designed with seekers in mind.

Now this is why this is so important.

Some of you, a minority of you in this room, have a very, very strong evangelism gift in your gift mix.

And it’s possible that you may be able to do the whole process of evangelism on your own from when you first meet somebody to leading them across the line of faith and helping them begin to grow.

Some of you can do the whole deal all by yourself.

The vast majority of us are not that way.

I’m not.

I need help.

I need to be part of a team where I can receive motivation when I get discouraged — which I do sometimes — and training that will make me more effective.

I need resources to help answer questions that I might not be able to, and experiences to stimulate seeking friends in their spiritual journey.

If I’m going to be on mission, I need to be part of a team.

And this is essential to our strategy at LCC, what we’ve adopted.

A long time ago we designed a seeker service — a service for seekers.

And it’s real important that we understand the distinctiveness of that event.

A seeker service is a tool created to help fully devoted followers be more effective in carrying out the mission Jesus gave them.

It’s a tool in your hands and mine.

We’ve said, "We’ll harness the Arts, we’ll try to touch the heart, we’ll have relevant teaching for seekers that informs their minds and appeals to their wills."

And we’ve said that all of us, everybody that’s a part of the committed core, will never be more than seven days away from an outreach event designed to help you achieve the mission that Jesus gave you.

One of the things that most attracted me to LCC a long time ago was its clarity about this strategy.

We have two corporate services, two kinds of services — the weekend services and New Community.

And it’s very important that all of us understand clearly that we are real intentional about the purpose of each of those services.

And they are quite distinct.

A lot of churches are not that way.

I grew up in a church where we had services every Sunday morning, and then we came back for services Sunday night.

And nobody was clear on what the difference was between the two.

Sunday night services were just like Sunday morning services only worse.

Teachers would teach on Sunday night that would never be allowed to teach on Sunday morning.

And singers would get to sing on Sunday night who would never be allowed to sing on Sunday morning.

It was like the JV service, the minor league service, people who were trying to work their way up to Sunday morning.

But if you were to ask what the clear, distinct purpose of this service was, we didn’t know.