Launch: the Launch Pad

Launch:

The Launch Pad

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

Nov. 30-Dec.2, 2007

Amazing, isn’t it, that this is the last service in this building. As involved as I have been in all of this replant, I still have a hard time believing it is really happening, that it is really real. So, what do you do on your last weekend in the building you are leaving behind before you move on to the next…what do you do when you are closing one chapter and opening the next?

Today is a significant day, because we need to remind ourselves in a time of great change who we are, or in other words what is not changing. If you are new in our church, you’ve picked a great day to come because you will hear what our church is really all about, why we do what we do. If you’ve ever wondered why we are so crazy, or not crazy enough, or so different, or not as different as you might think, today is a great opportunity to figure out why. Today we will also talk about change, which all of us will face in our lives.

To help do so, I have a little friend up here that we haven’t seen for a couple of years. A few years ago now, I used this little hermit crab (actually a different one, the other one is now in hermit crab heaven, and yes, no matter what Jack says pets are in heaven) to help us understand how God was leading us forward. Hermit crabs from time to time have to move to a new shell, if they are going to continue to grow. Actually, if they refuse to move when it is time to move, then they will die. It isn’t necessarily easy or comfortable for a hermit crab to move to a new shell, but it is vital for the health of the hermit crab. Same with us. We realized a few years ago, that it was time for us to move to a new shell, that we had outgrown this one and as good as this shell has been for us, time for a new shell. We knew it wouldn’t be an easy adventure to move, but we also knew that God was leading us to take that big step.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the old shell is bad and the new one good; in fact, the success of the old shell is what made the new one necessary. That is an important thing to understand about change, and all of us will face changes. We face changes in our family as we go from one phase of parenting to another, or from singleness to marriage, or marriage to singleness, or from one job to another, one church to another, one neighborhood to another…all those are significant changes, and most often the change isn’t from completely horrible to completely wonderful. Most changes involve moving from one reality, where there were lots of good things, to another reality, where there are also lots of good things. So, to deal with change in a healthy way means that we have to understand, as we move from one shell to the next, that we have to say goodbye to the old in order to say a proper hello to the new. In other words, as we move from one reality to another, it means that we have to say goodbye to some really good things that we will miss. Change brings both grief and excitement, because in most changes we lose some things even as we gain some other things.

I remember as a little boy when we sold our station wagon. It was one of those station wagons with the wood paneling on the side and the rear-most seat faced backwards so that as you drove you could look out the rear window and make faces at the people driving behind you. Remember those? Those were awesome! Even though we were getting a car that was newer and in many ways better, I had to grieve the loss of that car. That car held my memories. In order to be excited about the new, I needed the freedom to be sad about the loss of the old.

The same is true for this building. It is just a shell, but an important shell. I’ve been in this church for a little over 18 years, many of you even more than that, and we have lots of great memories in this building. I remember the first sermon I ever heard in this building. I sat right up there in the balcony, and Gene was teaching from 1 Corinthians about unity, a sermon that has marked me to this day. I also remember the first sermon I ever preached in this church, right here on this platform. In those days, we were more formal, and I was wearing a suit. You could tell back then who was preaching because usually that person was the only one with a coat or a tie. I’ll never forget the experience, because I was nervous, and I was sitting down in that seat where I sit every week before  I speak. I was there in my suit, and as the service was just about to start, I heard one lady talking to another lady she had invited to church. She said, “Oh, no! See that kid in the suit. I bet he is preaching today instead of Gene. I am so sorry!” Ouch! That’s a real confidence-builder!

Another memory that comes into my mind when I think about this building is one of the first weddings I officiated. As I was doing the wedding sermon, the groom who was facing me and away from the audience, kept doing this with his nose, letting me know I had something hanging out of my nose or something. He is a jokester, but I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, and he kept doing it. So, for the whole wedding, I kept trying to knock whatever it was off. Turned out to be a joke.

I remember my boys running down the angled floors in hear into my arms. I remember times holding Christy’s hand, hearing Gene or someone else speak the Word. I remember when Caleb was little, sneaking away from Christy and crawling on the floor to come sit by me before I spoke. I also remember the first service as Sr. Pastor. About 2 minutes before that first service on Friday night, reality hit me. It happened all in one moment, this sense of responsibility descended on my shoulders. All those are really good memories, and I could keep walking down memory lane for a long time. Many of you could, too.

For many of you, God did some big things in your life right in this place. Maybe you found God here, or rededicated your life to Christ. You may have gotten married here, or married off your children on this platform. You dedicated your babies here. You got baptized here, or baptized a loved one. In this room right now are thousands of memories that we could all tell. The truth of course is, if you really think about it, that all those things could have happened anywhere. We’ll do all those things when we move. But they didn’t happen anywhere. They happened here.

We want to honor God for what he has done here, even as we anticipate what he will do there. We want to say goodbye to this place, even as we look forward to the next place. So, here is what we are going to do. We are going to say goodbye to this shell and honor God for what he has done in our lives here. Memory is a major theme in the Bible, and Jesus told us one of the ways to remember him was through communion, where we take time to remember what Jesus has done for us through the cross. We are going to take communion now, and as we do, I want you to pray quietly and thank God for what he has done in your life here. For those of you in Epoch, the elements are on the tables, and I invite you to get out of your seat and dip the bread into the juice. For those of you in Live, as the plates are passed, you can take the elements whenever you wish, right away or you can wait a little while. Take some time to remember and thank God for those memories, and then Ty in Live and Sean in Epoch are going to lead us in a song and we will do some more sermon; but for now, let’s remember.

Communion and Song

I’m going to ask my hermit crab friend to help me once again as we make this move to make a very important point. When a hermit crab moves from one shell to the next, guess what? It is still the same hermit crab. A different shell, and it does look different on the outside, but it is still the exact same hermit crab on the inside. I could pull him out and show you what he looks like, but that would just be mean…someone told me that they actually make this little screaming noise. So, we’ll leave him in there, but let’s remember the point. As we make this move, we have to understand that we are the same hermit crab with a new shell, not a different hermit crab…same church with a new building. In fact, the church is not the building any more than the hermit crab is the shell. We are not leaving the church behind. We are taking the church with us.

Yet, in a time of significant change, it can seem like everything is changing. The truth is, almost everything is staying the same. New shell, same crab. So, let’s talk about what is not changing as we make this move. Let’s talk about the essence of Chase Oaks Church, what makes Chase Oaks, Chase Oaks. Again, for those of you who are new, this is a great opportunity to find out what we are all about; and for those of us who have been around a while, a great opportunity to remind ourselves of who we are. As a church, we have __ core values, and let me go through these.

Slide: ______________ )

·        Teaching the Word

Our first core value is teaching the Word, which means that when we move up to Legacy and 75, we will take the Bible with us. Sound good to you?

Slide: ______________ ) 2 Timothy 4:2

says, “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.” And that’s what we will continue to do. I am not going to start getting up here and sharing Jeff’s latest opinions about life. Who cares? Maybe my mom, but that’s about it. What we will do is continue to look to God’s revelation to us, his words to us, the Bible. Hebrews says that the Bible is :

Slide: ______________ ) Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart . . . Heb 4:12.  God uses his word to change our lives, and through his Word he speaks to us.

If you notice, we have different kinds of sermon series, some on a Bible book, as in a series this spring we will do on the book of Ruth, or the one we just did in Acts, as well as topical series, such as Twisted or Heaven. Sometimes people get the mistaken idea that verse by verse preaching, or when we do book series, are the only biblical ones, but that is just wrong thinking. Approaching a topic from biblical passages is just as biblically-based as going through a book verse by verse; it all depends on how you treat the passage. In fact, in many cases people who pride themselves on always preaching verse by verse end up treating the text very badly and making huge mistakes, feeling very biblical in the process. And though we have examples of sermons in the Bible, none of them are verse by verse. They are all topical. At Chase Oaks, we do both. Whatever the series, the word describing them is expositional, meaning that we simply teach and apply what the biblical text says, whether we are doing a topical series or a Bible-book series.

So, a key value here is the Bible, the Word of God…that’s what we look to direct what we believe, how we live, and how we as leaders make decisions for the church. That is not changing. We are taking the Bible with us. And, by the way, we are also taking Jesus with us. Here’s why I say that. A number of you have noticed that there are no crosses on or in the building right now, and there are various theories about why. To put all that to rest, let me put any confusion to rest. We still love Jesus, and we don’t have some problem with crosses. There will actually be two crosses that a really great artist is making for us, one on the outside of the building facing Legacy and the other inside the worship center. They won’t be ready for our first Sunday, but they will be ready by Grand Opening in January. So, everybody clear? Chase Oaks is pro-Bible and pro-Jesus.

Slide: ______________ )

·        Freedom in Form

Another key value and unique value in our church is freedom in form, that the Bible prescribes functions such as teaching the Bible but leaves tremendous flexibility for us to choose the best forms to express that function in a given culture. This value means that we want to perform the biblical functions of the church in ways that are relevant to a changing culture.

It’s great God did that, otherwise, he would have locked us into the culture of the 1st century, and the church would have died out. He wants us to express biblical functions in culturally relevant ways—and as culture changes we have to evaluate our forms to see if we need to change them to be more effective. Here are some examples of function and form, just to make this really clear:

Slide: ______________ )

As culture changes, we need to constantly analyze our ministry forms to make sure we remain effective. However, what almost always happens in churches and what is always that natural drift is what I call hardening of the forms, or what Gene Getz called institutionalization—where we confuse form with function…we like the forms we are used to so much that we start equating them with biblical functions. That’s why most churches get stuck and most churches are effective for only one generation. Every week, dozens of churches in this country close their doors forever…not because they didn’t have a good start but because they loved their forms so much they didn’t adapt with a changing culture.

When the first Fellowship started in 1972, it was considered a very “out there” kind of church but very relevant to the culture of the sixties and early seventies. Gene sat on a stool and just talked rather than preached, he didn’t wear a suit and tie, he didn’t preach from a pulpit, the music included folk style maranatha praise songs that fit that culture, there was a sharing time where people passed around microphones and shared learnings or needs or prayer requests. Growing up in the very conservative churches I did, I heard about what Gene was out here in Dallas doing, and they presented him like a crazy guy who was compromising biblical truth and just doing entertainment rather than really teaching and worshiping. I think the idea was that if you weren’t boring people to death then you weren’t really preaching the Bible. All those forms have changed as culture has changed, but let’s not forget our roots. And if you have been in our church a long time, then lead the way for the rest of us on this. I’ve been a part of this place for 17 years, but some of you have been around since 72…Let me ask you to stretch the rest of us. Don’t let us get overly comfortable in our current ways of doing things as culture changes.

So, will things change in our church? Of course. That’s our philosophy of ministry. We will always evaluate our forms to see if there are better ways to fulfill biblical functions. What this means though is that if you are in our church over a period of years, you will be uncomfortable, because change is uncomfortable. Our core value is not making Christians comfortable, but making Christianity relevant to a changing culture. Please understand though that this is a really tough philosophy of ministry to work out. We all prefer comfort to change, and over time if you don’t have a missionary mentality you will get uncomfortable here. But when you do get uncomfortable as forms change, remember what God has called us to be as a church and say to yourself, “Cool. We get to be uncomfortable for the bigger purpose of staying relevant to a changing culture.”

Slide: ______________ )

·        Bridge Building

Our mission is to bridge people to a growing life in Christ, and that is why we exist. Therefore, that mission of building bridges of relationship to those who don’t yet know Christ and inviting them, bridges of compassion to the needs in our community, and global bridges around the world is at the very core of everything we do. We aren’t here for us. We are here to serve God’s mission of helping people connect to God. That means everything we do is in keeping with that mission and motive. So caring for our community and promoting social justice and taking care of the poor and vulnerable and sharing our story with those who don’t yet know Christ are not just slogans. They are who we are, what we are called to do and be (e.g. Jason and youth ministry?).

Slide: ______________ )

·        Character-Based Leadership

Another value is character-based leadership, which means that we take the role of leaders very seriously and select leaders based on character qualifications first. We are also a church that very much values leadership development, and as leaders we are committed to being humble and teachable and open so that we can grow in character, knowledge, and skills.

You also need to know that we believe in plurality of leadership…that the way God has designed the church is to be led primarily by a group of leaders called elders. We are not a congregational church where everyone votes but a church led by a group of elders, all of whom are very godly men who are deeply committed to this church. We are led by a very godly and strong team of elders.

Slide: ______________ )

·        Biblical Community

We value healthy relationships where believers care for one another and help one another grow. We talked about that last week. Life groups are not just another ministry for us here, but tightly linked to this value. People grow in the context of deep relationships with other believers.

Slide: ______________ )

·        Team-Based Ministry

We do ministry as team, which means that every ministry area is built around teams where individuals give their gifts and work with each other to accomplish ministry in a healthy way. We don’t start a new ministry unless there is a healthy team in place first.

Slide: ______________ )

·        Authenticity

If you’ve been around Chase Oaks for a while, I hope you’ve sensed this value. Authenticity, a what you see is what you get approach to ministry is important to us. This is not a show up here, and the people you see on the platform are the same off the platform as on. If what you want is a perfect pastor, you need to find another church fast!

Slide: ______________ )

·        Excellence

Since we are worshiping God and are responsible to fulfill his mission and represent him on this planet, we are committed to excellence in ministry—doing our very best in the way that we serve him and represent him. Because of this value, our ministry model as a church is very simple, built around three environments in the three age groups of children, youth, and adults. For all three age groups, we provide three environments to connect people to God, to people, and to need. We try to keep that very simple and not get spread too thin, because we would rather do a few things really well than a lot of things poorly. We don’t want to leave a legacy of mediocrity, but honor God with excellence.

Another significant value that is not spelled out in our core values that is important around here is the next generation. Children and youth, both in our church and those not in our church, are extremely important to this church and to the kingdom of God. They are our future, and they are also those most open to Jesus Christ.

Slide: ______________ )

Ages at which Americans say they accepted Christ

http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert

All you have to do is look at the new building to see that value. We have great kidzone space, and a killer youth building, and an interim worship space. Most churches wouldn’t make that choice. They would build a killer worship center, and then make-do in the other areas. Our elders said no way. The next generation is the biggest reason we are making this move, for the next 30 years of ministry. This is a church that cares deeply about reaching and discipling the next generation.

So, let me grab my little hermit crab friend once again, as a reminder that we are taking our church with us. The essence of who we are is not changing, though we are changing shells. What I can promise is this, the next months and years in the life of this church will not be boring! As the Holy Spirit fills our church with his power and his love for this community and world, we will get to see God work. One day we will all look back and be so thankful that God led us to be part of Chase Oaks right now, as we are taking this step. God has not led you here by accident, whether you’ve been here one day or 20 years. He has you here for a reason.

Imagine if all of us live into that reason and fulfill God’s purpose for us all here at Chase Oaks and in this community. Just dream a little about what God will do. I would like everyone to stand up please. Look around. See all those faces, all the people. That is the church. God chose each person to be a part. As a church, we are leaving this building, this shell, and we are going out into this community to be his church in a fresh way. As you look around, we are about to pray, and I want us to commit ourselves to unity, to his mission, to the purposes God has for each one of us. We are getting up, because God has called us out. So, let’s be faithful. Let’s be the church God is calling us to be.

Pray.