Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.08UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.06UNLIKELY
Fear
0.09UNLIKELY
Joy
0.62LIKELY
Sadness
0.43UNLIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.61LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.19UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.75LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.89LIKELY
Extraversion
0.45UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.66LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.78LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Intro
Our Church is like a car - imigine this with me for a minute.
Our church is a car.
All the occupants are in here and we’re all heading to the same destination.
We are driven by the power of God.
He is our power-plant, the life force that moves us.
And The Lord’s power is transmitted to us via the means of grace - this is our drive line through our axles into our wheels.
God’s power takes effect in our lives through the ordinary means of discipleship like
1. Teaching of the Word
2. Baptism
3. The Lord’s Supper
4. Prayer for one another
5. Worship
6. Church discipline
7. Giving
8. Spiritual gifts
9. Fellowship
10.
Evangelism
This is the gearbox and axles where God’s spirit and power move us forward.
So our church car, and every church throughout history has been driven by that same power of God through Christ to drive toward the same destination.
We have all had these same means of grace - the same discipleship of Jesus.
So too, every church has the scripture as our GPS, telling us where we have come from, where we are going and how to get there as well as what obstacles we will face along the way.
So it’s all pre-packaged right?
So what do we do?
He’s given us everything!
It seems that all we have to do is use the power that God supplies through the transmission he has given to drive forward to our destination.
If it’s all prepackaged - if the guts are the same for every church, why is that some churches look different?
And that things in church have changed over time?
And why does one church seem to be doing better than another if we all have the same internals?
Why does one church over there succeed in one thing, but when it is copied over there it has no results?
Here’s where the rubber meets the road.
God has given us all we need to live the Christian life as a church community, and he drives it forward, but every church is in different situations - depending on
where we find ourselves in the course of history,
what culture is around us,
where our geographical location is.
and more!
No two churches are exactly alike.
The same goes for the people who make up this church and the world around us, none of use are exactly alike.
God has made us all as individual agents in an almost infinitely complex world and he gives us the responsibility to adapt to the terrain around us.
Continuing with our car/church metaphor, God says what the car is going to be like, he powers it, and transmits that power to us to drive it forward, but he lets us choose what tires we’re going to put on the car.
If we find ourselves on a smooth road we can choose slicks for speed,
Or perhaps if we’re in the snow we will need spiked winter tires,
Maybe All terrains are the best fit for the situation.
Or if it’s really mucky lets use knobbly muddies.
The Tires are the contact point with the world and tire choice will affect our journey as a church.
A Bad choice of tires can have terrible consequences - we can get stuck spinning our wheels and going nowhere if we take the road tires up the sandy trail.
Conversely we could be flying down the highway on our muddies, hooking along but having our ears assaulted by the drone and have our backside made numb by the vibrations.
The terrain that lies before us will affect the way in which we interface with the world, and we need to interface God’s unchanging Gospel with and ever changing landscape.
You can call it contextualization.
God’s truth and Christ’s saving power remain the same but the strategy, style and choices we make in taking it our to meet the world will vary.
The Apostle Paul is probably the most famous contexualiser.
He was willing to revise his style and methods (without changing the message) in order to reach people with the Gospel.
He was strategic in the cities where he went to plant churches, he would address Greek ideas and philosophy to introduce Greek people to Jesus.
He also said:
To use the car metaphor again, when he was with Jews, Paul put on his “Jewish tires”, because that was the best way to get traction in that terrain.
He changed willingly to suit the situation for the cause of Christ.
Paul might have preferred not to use this or that set of tires, but his preferences fell by the wayside as he sought to share the gospel.
So what am I getting at with us?
We’re a church who hope and desire to move forward in the Lord - to grow in maturity, to grow our effectiveness as disciples, to reach out to the surrounding community with the love of Christ and his Good News.
We want God’s power to flow though us and find traction here in Sale - here at the end of the earth.
;)
The Flooding Creek church car has God as our driving force, his means of Grace as our driveline, His Word as our map.
We’re moving forward on God’s mission for us, but we need consider what tires we’re going to use to best engage with our location in time and space.
Unfortunately unlike the tire metaphor I’ve been using (and I promise to give it up soon!), we can’t just buy a set off the shelf.
We need to tailor our contextual and strategic approach to suit the terrain in 2022.
We can’t just copy the style and strategy of Turkish churches in the first century.
We can’t just copy the model of the reformation church in 1600s Britain.
We can’t just lift what works in successful New York churches and apply that here.
There are some things about church that are going to be “standard” because that are part of that driveline that God has laid down in scripture - we gather, we sing, we hear the bible read and so on.
But the way we go about it can be different, like where we meet, or when we meet, or what music style we use.
We can learn from other contexts, we can learn from history, we can learn from the church down the road, and we can learn from our own experience.
If we’re spinning our wheels we try a different tact.
So, in the remainder of the time we have together, I wanted to do two things
Remind ourselves what we’re aiming for as a church, and,
Paint a picture of what we can do this year to move forward to that goal.
Start to put some tires on so to speak.
Hopefully this morning can be something of a reference point for us, so that as you think about your place in this church community you can join us in this trajectory.
It also means that as you see what’s going on around you in church, you can understand how we are trying to grow in faithfulness and fruitfulness.
(in church doesn’t just mean here on Sunday morning between 10-11:30, it include the life of the body).
Our Mission
When we try and break down the epic scope of salvation and the mission of Jesus church into a neat summary to help keep us on task, there are several great verses we could choose from.
There’s the classic Great Commission from Matthew 28 which so clearly lays out what we’re doing.
There are also similar commissions in John 20 and Luke 24.
However here at Flooding Creek we’ve adopted our “life verse” from what we read a few minutes ago in Colossians 1, v28.
In this passage the apostle Paul is talking about his service to God and people as a preacher and church planter.
He lays out a description of what he is doing and why he is doing it.
Look from v24:
So Paul describes himself as a servant, a minister, a deacon, of the gospel and of the church.
This was God’s design and mission for Paul to go and declare the whole counsel of God, and it would include suffering - it was not an easy ride.
Yet, Paul could rejoice in the suffering that he endured, because of what it was achieving.
The suffering that he was enduring for the church was helping them to receive the Good News of Jesus Christ, who was the suffering messiah who suffered and died in our place.
It is as if the Suffering of Christ to win Salvation, plus the suffering of Paul to take the Gospel out to the world added up to the complete package for the recipients.
HE was happy to suffer if it meant the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth!
How was he working to serve the Body of Christ?
He was presenting them the word of God - specifically the “mystery” that is now revealed:
God commissioned Paul to go out into the world and tear back the curtain.
He was able to reveal what God had been doing down through history.
There were hints and shadows across the pages of the Old Testament, but now with the coming of Jesus Christ into the world - all the pieces come together.
All was revealed.
Like watching a murder mystery movie - you see all these strange details and coincidences in the lead-up to the big reveal of whodunnit - and then you can look back and see how all the clues pointed to the mystery person.
The (non-criminal) mystery person the OT people of God were waiting for was Jesus - their savior.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9