Church on the Outside - The Middle Stuff

FOUNDATION - Basic early church conviction = everything they had was at God’s disposal to use to reach and help people.

Time, treasure, talents

Second conviction - They saw it as their DUTY to use their stuff to actively reach and help people

Beyond - God can have it. To - I need to find ways to use it for God.

Moving God’s kingdom doesn’t start with ability - it starts with availability.

We have to do something

We wait for God to do the extraordinary - we forget to contribute the ordinary

Not knocking evangelistic services or big events

We don’t see the deep threads God is tying through multiple smaller, ordinary things

Acts 2:42-47

Acts 2:42–47 NIV

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

We see the big part - apostles doing miracles. And the result - the Lord adding to the church daily.

when did we decide that we could skip the middle part?

Sharing your time, your property, and your posessions with others. Breaking bread in homes. Eating together.

It does say ‘all together’, and that’s a stinging point nowadays. But the point wasn’t the quantity of numbers they reached - it was the quality of relationship. They were all DEVOTED to teaching and fellowship, inside their larger gatherings and outside in their homes.

The “ordinary” stuff isn’t just nice - it’s necessary.

Many parachurch / missions organizations will not work in areas that have existing churches, if they can’t plug people into those existing churches.

There is a need to break new ground - but even then, they look to plant long term seeds, not just short term gains.

Seen this a lot myself. People who come to christ, and get involved in relationship and community - they stay around. People who come to christ, but either get cut off relationally or simply can’t find a place to connect - it doesn’t stick.

Haven’t heard many say ‘I can’t keep going to that church. The lights aren’t flashy enough. The smoke machine is just sub-par’. Hear a LOT ‘I can’t keep going to that church. I just don’t fit in anywhere. I don’t feel like I belong.’

So for all the people who don’t have the big gifts - you can’t LIST. But could you LIST?

This isn’t me saying ‘You’re good enough’. I’m not saying ‘God loves us all equally’, though that’s very true. I’m saying - YOu’re not just ‘good enough’, you’re indispensible.

Great book / study called ‘The Gospel Comes with a Housekey’. Radically ordinary. Conviction that our everyday commitment to including people and building relationship has a radical impact on the kingdom of God. Will link it after service.

Church on the outside challenge

We’re working out what it looks like to reopen. We need to make sure we do it safe - but we also need to make sure we do it on mission. We have to make sure that whatever we do, it’s deeply and passionately aimed towards reaching the rest of the world with the gospel.

So this is going to be step one in our plan to reopen. Start doing church together in smaller groups.

if you need an offline copy of the service, we’ll start making one available around Friday evenings - just check out parklandchurch.ca/connect

If you want to get connected to one of these communities but don’t know how, reach out to me at [e-mail] or visit parklandchurch.ca/connect and fill out the form at the bottom.

Weird thing - take 10 minutes to dialog in the comments below the video, or reach out over phone or text to a friend. Find people to do church with. Actually take that time now and reach out. Get connected. Do it together.

Church on the outside came from a simple truth - that when the government lock down happened, we didn’t close the church. We just moved it outside. Now, until we can move it together in a greater way, let’s start doing it in smaller ways. Because if there’s one thing that you take home from my sermon today, it’s this - the little ways are absolutely indispensable to seeing real and true change in people’s lives, and in the world.

PRAY

There’s a foundational thing I want to talk about first, before we get into the point of the service.

One of the most basic convictions of the early church was that everything they had - their talents, their treasures, and their time - were at God’s disposal to use to reach other people and help other people.

But there was a second conviction that I wanted to talk about - they saw it as their RESPONSIBILITY to actively use their talents, their treasures, and their time to reach and help other people.

There’s a difference here - one is saying, ‘yep, God can have this stuff whenever he asks for it.’ And we mean that, and I’m sure that God can and will often ask for it. But the other is saying, ‘I have to use this stuff to further God’s kingdom, so let’s find ways’.

I believe that moving God’s kingdom doesn’t start with ability - it starts with availability. It starts with that deep conviction that we have to do something.

Now, we can talk about God’s power to reach the lost. When it comes to power, we wait on God to do the extraordinary, and we forget to contribute the “ordinary”.

In my many years of leading in churches, God can and does make big changes through big things. I’m not knocking the evangelistic service, or the big event. But what you don’t often see watching those events is the deep threads that God is tying together through multiple, long term small and ordinary things.

I want to read from Acts 2, and I hope you can see it through a different lens as I read it here.

ACts 2:42-47

Acts 2:42–47 NIV

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Now, we see the first big bit - the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. The leaders. The ‘big people’ doing the ‘big things’. And we see the end - the lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

My question is this - when did we decide that we could skip the middle part? Getting together regularly with other believers, Sharing things and selling things so that nobody was in need, Breaking bread in their own homes with other believers.

Now, an aside - this phrase, ‘they were all together’ may strike some hard chords with the way the world is nowadays. But I want to encourage you with this - the point in that spot wasn’t that they all physically were always together in one spot. It meant that, in purpose and in care, they were united. Yes, it does mean that they spent time physically together - but the more important part wasn’t the quantity of gathering they were able to achieve, it was the quality of relationship they fought for. They did whatever they could so that nobody felt apart, and nobody was in need.

It’s my belief that THAT part is just as necessary as the big work from the leaders. In fact, in many times, I’d say it was more.

There are many parachurch organizations and short term missionary organizations that will refuse to do outreach in an area that has existing churches, if there isn’t any commitment to connect their work to something on the ground long term. Because they know the truth - the big events can bring life change, they can turn someone around in a moment. But it’s the every day things, the person to call and check up, the invitation into your home, the help and the care and the love that cement down the work God is doing.

And I’ve seen that many times even myself - people who give their lives to Christ, get connected into spiritual community, get involved into the lives of other believers, ‘break bread’ every day so to speak - and they are still around strong. And I’ve seen people who give their lives to Christ in a spectacular fashion, but miss that connection into a greater relationship and a greater community, and it just… doesn’t stick.

I haven’t heard many people say ‘I didn’t want to keep going to that church, because it just wasn’t big enough, the lights weren’t flashy. The smoke machine was just sub-par’. But man, have I ever heard people say ‘I didn’t want to keep going to that church because I just didn’t feel welcome. I didn’t fit in anywhere’. And all the flashy lights and smoke machines in the world aren’t going to make someone fit in. It’s all those relationships outside of the walls, all of the shared meals and conversations and prayers and time.

So for all those people out there who don’t think they have what it takes. You don’t have the big gifts. You’re not the public speaker, you couldn’t lead a room of children in a sunday school lesson, or you can’t sing and play an instrument to lead a church in worship.

Can you talk to somebody else? Could you open your home, or meet in someone else’s? Could you call someone and have a conversation, or offer to pray with someone? Could you give money, or time, or help, when someone needs it? Basically, do you have the ability to care about someone else?

Because if you do - this goes beyond saying ‘you’re good enough’. This is me saying, you, right where you are and who you are - you are indispensable to the kingdom. There’s a great book out there called ‘The Gospel Comes with a House Key’ (and it’s a rightnow media study too, we’ll link it after the service) that calls this being ‘Radically Ordinary’. Holding a strong conviction that our little ,everyday choices to care for people in even the smallest ways are radically impacting the world around us.

So here comes my first big challenge on this idea of church on the outside.

We are going to start this conversation in the coming weeks about what it looks like to reopen our church. We are allowed to operate at 30% capacity, with social distancing rules and a strict cleaning protocol. And believe me when I say, that is not going to be an easy thing to pull off. Because it’s not just gathering that we have to make sure we can start doing again - it’s also mission. We have to make sure that whatever we do, it’s deeply and passionately aimed towards reaching the rest of the world with the gospel.

So this is going to be step one in our plan to reopen. Start doing church together in smaller groups. We posted this idea on Friday on facebook, and I’m expanding on it now. We absolutely need to respect social distancing rules, and do things safely and responsibly. But that doesn’t eliminate the possibility of doing it.

Rather than watching the service by yourself in your home, reach out to someone else and make a plan to get together. Sit on your lawn and watch it on a laptop. If you have the 6 foot gap space, invite someone else into your house and watch it together on your TV.

And we want to resource you on this. We will start making a downloadable copy of our sunday service available prior to Sunday mornings. If you have a good idea - ‘let’s go find a patch of grass and watch it on a laptop with a few people separated!’ but you couldn’t get internet - this offline copy will make it so you can take the service wherever you need to bring it, and watch it however you need to watch it. We will share that service at parklandchurch.ca/connect at the top of the page, and it will be made available every Friday evening.

If you want to do this, but you’re not sure who you could pair up with or don’t know how to reach anyone, send me an email to [e-mail] or visit parklandchurch.ca/connect and fill the form out at the bottom. We’d love to plug you into another group.

So we committed to doing things a little differently with this idea of church on the outside, and here’s our weird thing for the week. We’re going to give you some time to contact people and figure this out. Call someone or send them a text and get the conversation going. Or if you’re watching on our online site, or on facebook, or on youtube, start a conversation there and see who you can get interested to join with you. I will start generating conversation in the comments field. I’d love to see several commitments to do church together.

Church on the outside came from a simple truth - that when the government lock down happened, we didn’t close the church. We just moved it outside. Now, until we can move it together in a greater way, let’s start doing it in smaller ways. Because if there’s one thing that you take home from my sermon today, it’s this - the little ways are absolutely indispensable to seeing real and true change in people’s lives, and in the world.

PRAY