Measures

Framing a New Vision Sermon Series

Very thankful for Tim & Christine leading worship last Sunday. This morning we’re going to finish out our sermon series on new vision for PCC.

Finish framing it out, this idea of working out the borders that frame this new vision, much like building a puzzle - the image comes together when you start building the border.

Caveat - that what I’ve been laying out is rough draft, we want to go through a lengthier process, thoughtfully and prayerfully, about unique calling God has for us as church, but I want to give us enough to get us started moving in that direction. Little bit of building the airplane while you’re flying it.

To recap, the four sides of our frame are:

Mission, which answers question, what are we doing? Our mission is to lead others into the abundant life that is available through Jesus Christ.

Second side is our Values, answers question, why are we doing this? These are core convictions, beliefs that undergird everything we do. Our four fundamental values are: Kingdom First, Lived Obedience to Jesus, Shared Life Together, and Heart Transformation.

Third side is our Strategy, answers questions, how are we doing it, how are fulfilling our mission? We talked about a three-fold strategy: Worship rooted in Acts 2:42-43 (devotion to teaching, prayer, fellowship and breaking of bread), Spiritual Formation Groups, and finally, Training and Equipping towards Discipling Others - leading others into abundant life that is available through Jesus Christ.

Today, we’re going to finish out our frame with the fourth side, our Measures. Which answers questions, when are we successful? How do we know when we’re doing what we set out to do? Lay this out in three main points:

Our first point is the importance of aiming of right things. Will Mancini says, your mission is what you measure. So, we want to measure the right things.

Second, we’re going to talk about what right things are - what we always have to aim for (big picture view)

Finally, I want to zero in on our particular measures, ones that help us aim in the right direction, those things really serve our mission of leading others into the abundant life that is available through Jesus Christ.

Prayer / Scripture - Hebrews 5:11-14, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Aiming at Right Target

At 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, Matt Emmons, an American, was odds-on favorite to win gold in 50 meter, 3 rifle position competition.

It didn’t take long for him to establish a big lead - in fact, a lead so big that all he had to do to win the gold was hit his final target - anywhere.

From standing position, he holds his breath and calmly takes his shot…another bulls-eye. Emmons waits for scoreboard to light up. Nothing. That’s strange, he figures something must be wrong with scoreboard.

Three red-jacketed officials approach and tell him shocking news - scoreboard wasn’t wrong. Emmons had fired at wrong target - he was in lane two, but had shot at target in lane three.

Though it’s rare in such competitions, firing at wrong target has name - cross firing.

In church, we don’t want to cross fire, we want to make sure we’re aiming at the right target.

As I said at the beginning, your mission is what you measure. If you measure wrong things, it’s going to impact your mission. Because your focus and attention will be on things you measure.

What many churches end up measuring (because they’re easy to measure) is what’s commonly known as the ABC’s - attendance, building, cash. When we do that, that becomes our mission, how many people attended worship or whatever the church activity is, keeping your building in good condition, making sure giving is enough to pay the bills. If you achieve those things, you’re successful church.

I had friend who years ago had seemingly successful youth ministry - he had dozens of kids showing up every week. If they held big event - church lock-in, they’d get well over 100 kids. It was the youth group to go to in that town.

But somewhere along line, he realized that having kids in building didn’t mean kids were coming to know and follow and become like Jesus.

So he intentionally scaled back his ministry to focus on discipleship, teaching kids what it looks like to follow Jesus. He had fewer kids, but was now more aligned with what he really wanted to accomplish.

He realized that he had been focusing on aiming at the wrong target - that his mission was not to have a lot of kids attending his events, his mission was to lead kids into abundant life that is available through Jesus Christ. So he adjusted his aim.

Aiming at wrong target is not new dilemma or problem for churches. We see same thing reflected in Book of Hebrews. Book of Hebrews was letter that was originally written to one of the early churches - though letter doesn’t reveal any details about who wrote it or to which particular church he wrote the letter to. But one thing is clear - writer was frustrated with that church. He doesn’t say what they were aiming at, but whatever it was, it was wrong target!

He writes: “We have a lot to say about this, but it’s hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand!” In other words, you’re not very teachable. You’re here, you’ve got good attendance records, been sitting in those pews for long time. But you’re nowhere near where you should be in terms of being built up in knowledge and love of Jesus Christ.

Going on, he says in no uncertain terms: “By this time you ought to be teachers.” You’ve been around here long enough that you should be teaching! Instead, you still need to be taught the elementary truths of the Bible, you still need to learn Bible 101. In essence, he’s telling them that they still need to be bottle fed, like baby. They’re not ready for meat, for grown-up food. How would you have liked to have received that letter?!

But here’s thing I really want you to notice: What kind of teachers they should be. Not just about being teachers of knowledge, of information. Far more than that.

Problem, he says, is that you’re not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. You’re still babies in that regard.

He says that solid food is only for those who are mature, who by constant use have - catch this - trained themselves (talked a lot about that two weeks ago, godly training, soul-training exercises, that’s what’s he’s talking about - and what this church has not been doing). They have not trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

So, here’s question - what does this all mean? What is correct measure, the thing we should be aiming for? What does it mean to be acquainted with teaching about righteousness?

If you were going to give summation of what, as church of Jesus Christ, we’re aiming for, what would it be?

What should always be our target? Target of any church?

Which brings us to our second point, question of what is the right target?

*John Ortberg’s story from “Fully Devoted”*

I think this story gets exactly at heart of issue. That we can involved in church for years, sitting faithfully every Sunday, listening to sermons, helping out at activities, putting money in offering plate (the ABC’s) - but if that’s all that’s happening, we’ve missed the mark. We’ve been aiming at wrong target.

John Ortberg nails it. He’s pointing us toward what our expectations, our measures, should be.

That day by day, month by month, decade by decade, we would be transformed into the likeness of Jesus.

That bit by bit, we would progressively become more loving, more joyful, more winsome.

We would be living more fully into the abundant life that Jesus offers us, which is a life of love and joy and winsomeness.

When writer of Hebrews talks about becoming teachers of righteousness, about being able to distinguish good from evil, he’s talking about learning to love others, having heartfelt love for all others (I hope this is sounding familiar).

Righteousness, right living, is loving others, being for their good. When we talk about love here, it’s not eros, romantic love, it’s agape. That is love for others, other directed, to will their good.

Remember our sermon series throughout the summer, we talked about Jesus’ teaching in Sermon on Mount? Jesus taught that we must have greater righteousness than that of Teachers of Law. His whole point was that whatever we do must come out of heartfelt love for all others.

Greatest Commandments are summation of all laws, when we love God above everything else, loving him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind and all of our strength, and when we love others as ourselves - that’s what righteousness is all about. That’s when we’re distinguishing good from evil.

Paul certainly believed that, he makes that absolutely clear in his letter to Corinthians, amazing chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13

Paul begins there by talking about doing and believing right things - if I can speak in tongues of men or angels, if I use gift of prophecy, if I have this incredible knowledge of Christian faith, deep theological understanding, or if I have great faith, faith to move mountains or I’m incredibly generous, give all I have to poor, make awe-inspiring sacrifices, giving my body over to hardship.

Any one of those, if one of us displayed them in our lives, rest of us would be praising them…his faith is so strong. Through hardest situations, he trusts God. She gives and gives, never stops, I don’t know how she does it.

There again, these are great things. But there’s one huge caveat, one huge if.

If I do not have love, I am only making noise. If I do not have love, I am nothing. If I do not have love, I gain nothing.

Heart of genuine love for God and for all others is right target. And that comes through life in Jesus Christ - he’s one who can teach and give us that kind of heart.

The problem with Hank was that he had no love. He attended church every Sunday. He gave regularly. He apparently was loyal to his wife and kids. But he had no love. His family and his church family didn’t have any experience of being cared for by him, delighted in, that he was seeking their good.

If we do not have love, we are missing what’s at heart of Christian faith.

Abundant life that is in Jesus Christ is life of love. Being ever more rooted in love of Jesus, knowing his love, trusting it, being enveloped by it. and becoming people who love - God above everything else, and then everyone else…our church family, our families, our friends, our neighbors, our enemies.

So however we explicitly state our expectations, our measures - if they don’t point us in direction of becoming like Jesus, becoming a person of love. If that’s not target we’re aiming at, then we are missing mark. We’re cross firing.

So, let me finish with our last point, the measures that make up our Vision Frame here at PCC. These are our targets, what we’re aiming at, for goal of becoming kind of people who have heartfelt love for God and others, who lead others into abundant life that is available through Jesus Christ.

PCC Measures

Minds Captivated by Reality of God

Are we really adapting narratives of Jesus, setting our minds on things above. This is where genuine growth as follower of Jesus Christ begins, when our minds become enthralled with who God is.

Of course, this will require regular engagement in Scriptures, study, reflection, openness to Holy Spirit.

But measure, target, is our minds, way we think - to have mind of Christ.

Life Shaped through Regular Engagement in Spiritual Disciplines

Here again, we want our behaviors changed. We want to be constantly taking off the old self (anger, malice, fear, worry, selfishness) moving into fruits of Spirit - becoming kind, generous, faithful and so on. People who love.

I was talking to friend of mine who just started ministry he’s calling “Kind Faith” - out of a conviction that for too many Christian, our faith doesn’t spur us toward love and kindness towards others, caught up in divisive culture that has captured our nation.

Recognize that these changes happen in us when we engage in soul-training exercises - that’s how we become mature (those, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil).

Authentic Loving Relationships with One Another

Measure that reflects Jesus’ command to love one another.

That becoming like Jesus happens best in community, when we share our lives together.

Actively Leading Others into the abundant life that is available through Jesus Christ

Finally, as we are transformed, we want that love for God and others to be expressed in helping them to come and know love of Jesus Christ.

Calling of church is always outside its walls, into community, proclaiming good news of Jesus Christ.

Couple things I want you to notice here

One, is that these measures don’t include what we might normally think of as being faithful Christians

Doesn’t talk about ABC’s (attendance, buildings, cash) - there’s no mark for regular attendance in worship, are you giving regularly

Not that those things aren’t important…it’s just that you can do those things without any kind of genuine transformation to becoming like Jesus Christ…you can be another Hank.

These measures are all about what we are becoming - are we being made new in Jesus? Are we living as those who have been born of the Spirit? Is our faith kind?

Honestly, that’s much more difficult to measure. It’s much easier to add numbers.

As Will Mancini writes, it’s much harder to get our “minds around something more mysterious, like the Holy Spirit giving Bob a deepening hunger for Scripture, or convincing Betty that her overeating is idolatrous.”

But as I hope we’ve made clear, if we don’t aim at right target, we will certainly miss it. We have to be able to paint a picture, an ideal, of what spiritual maturity looks like.

One way these measures become helpful is to turn them into questions: Am I thinking more like Jesus, seeing as he did? Are spiritual disciplines central part of my life? Am I growing in deeper relationships? Who am I discipling? And as a result of these things, am I becoming more loving (less angry, less judgmental, more willing to serve, more considerate, more patient)?

Of course, we could just ask the people closest to us - that’s surefire way to find out if we truly are becoming more like Jesus.

In closing, let me just say this…over the next month we’re going to be laying out specifically how we’re going to be moving into our new vision

beginning with working with ECO and our Presbytery to develop a church ReFORMation plan

Sharing plans for our Spiritual formation groups that will be starting up in new year

ECO’s National Gathering will be virtual event this year, so free and accessible to all - that will be at the end of January.

Lots of great stuff…but it really begins here. At the very beginning of this series, I described the life cycle of church, begins with birth, moves through childhood, adolescence, into adulthood, maturity, retirement, etc.

Primary point was this…churches always begin with vision. And always decline as result of a lack of vision.

Entering into new life cycle for church always requires new vision. My hope and prayer is that you’re starting to get a sense of new vision we’re laying out for our church, and it’s stirring in you that redemptive passion, that desire to join with God in what he’s doing right here in Hurricane community - and that God really will use us to lead others into the abundant life that is available through his son, Jesus Christ.