Sermon Tone Analysis

Opening Illustration:

Children’s sermon about the Tator family

Dick Tator

Agi Tator

Spec Tator

Sweet Tator

Participa Tator

Ima Tator

As cute as this story is, there is one thing for certain.

If we were to choose to be a member of the Tator family, we would most definitely want to be Ima Tator.

Paul’s letter the the Ephesians speaks to this.

Now before we get very far with this I want to point out something about the church at Ephesus.

It was doing many of the right things.

Ephesus was a center of commerce therefore the church at Ephesus had tremendous influence when it came to taking the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the world.

However, if we were to turn to the Book of Revelation we would discover that the Church at Ephesus was one of the the seven churches that Jesus gave a message to.

At first glance, it seems that everything is great with this church.

They are doing many wonderful things.

However, what we soon find out is that activity is not necessarily a sign of faithfulness.

Jesus said in Revelation, “Yet I have this against you.

You have forgotten your first love.”

So drastic is this condition that they are in danger of the candle being snuffed out, or, in other words, the Church is in danger of dying and going away.

What exactly can this mean.

How can a church be doing so many good things and yet lose its passion for Jesus?

I am going to make what many might regard as a very controversial statement but I ask that you just stick with me for a minute.

To help me with this I want my volunteers to come up and take their place in the chairs.

(they sit in the chairs facing the center of the circle.)

This circle represents the church.

I want you to notice some things about this circle.

(Explain the characteristics and have the first placard held up for the congregation to see.

Then have them turn their chairs around and explain the significance of the chair turning outward.

Then have the second placard held up for the congregation to see.)

Now the controversial statement: Jesus did not call us to see how busy we can be in the church.

We were not called to do Church.

You could almost go so far as to say, God did not call us to be the Church.

Now, I know that this is the point that you want to have me committed because you think that I’ve flipped my lid.

But hang with me.

You see, Jesus called us to be disciples.

He told Peter in , “On this rock I will build my church.”

You see, there’s a reason that Jesus called the disciples before he called the church into existence at Pentecost.

It was because he wanted the disciples passionate about following Christ.

That is why we started our journey a little over three years ago meeting together in cottage type meetings with over 25 different groups in the church in which I asked four questions:

What is one thing that Haymount UMC does really well?

What is one challenge or opportunity that HUMC will face in the next 5 to 10 years?

If you had a magic wand, what mid-sized miracle would you perform for this church?

What is one way in which HUMC has helped you grow spiritually?

Following that, in January of 2016, we invited almost 50 leaders from the church to an overnight retreat at Camp Rockfish in which we explored the answers given at those meetings and assessed where HUMC was.

We realized that this church had been in a decline in worship attendance for the last 20 years.

It was in that time that we discovered that HUMC needed to renew its focus for ministry so that we understood what God was calling us to be.

Out of that great the formation of a Visioning Team in which we developed an understanding of our mission which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world by living according to our CORE Values which is to put God First in all that we do, Develop Relationships with one another and our neighbors outside the church, Accept others as Christ has accepted us, demonstrate the Compassion of Christ as we reach out in the world beyond our walls and Equip ourselves and others as disciples of Jesus Christ.

We developed the strategy by which this was to take place because everyone doesn’t come to Jesus the same way or at the same place.

That is why we seek to make disciples through Worship, and that doesn’t just mean here on Sunday morning but out in the community as well.

We make disciples through invitation to worship and other ways in which we are the church in the world.

We make disciples as we grow in our faith through small groups and Bible Studies.

Finally we make disciples by serving in the name of Jesus.

In order to measure the progress we set as our measuring stick our Prayers, Presence, Gifts, Service and Witness.

Over the course of the past three years we have put into place a way to access a spiritual gifts survey on our webpage in addition to a discipleship map to gauge our progress.

Last week we harkened back to the beginning of the process as we once again met as a Church Council to set the priorities that we will seek to achieve as we seek to make disciples and bring hope to today’s families.

This is amazing but I fear that we are in danger of simply becoming the church and forgetting our first love.

I have been disappointed by the opportunities for spiritual growth we only a few people in the congregation have taken advantage of.

This past Thursday and Friday are a good example of this.

We hosted the Global Leadership Summit and we had a lot of people work really hard to pull that off.

We announced many months ago and Ben urged people to participate.

The E in our Values is for Equipping leaders and helping equip others.

This event was all about that and we didn’t have to go to another city or even another church.

Ask the people who were here if it was worth their time.

Don’t take my word for it.

You see, as long as we focus on being the church we will find ourselves frustrated because our focus too easily shifts to one another or the the preacher or to the building.

But when we focus on being a disciple who is in love with Jesus we can’t help but make other disciples and that changes the church.

Paul concludes our text today by speaking of being imitators of Christ.

(Here use the wrench)