Reverend Raymond Osborne, Pastor

Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

“A Changing Church for a Changing World”
St .Luke 16:19-31. St. Matthew 28:16-20

We are living in the midst of a changing world. Each new day brings with it new discoveries, new opportunities, and new challenges. I seriously doubt my Grandparents would have ever imagined a day when a human could receive a new heart, kidney, knee, or hip when the old ones wore out. I bet my Grandfather would have loved to have had an electric stove and been spared cutting all that wood just to have supper. But I also would be willing to bet that if they were living on September 11th, having lost a son in World War II, and having witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon would not have taken them by surprise.

In his novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens writes, “It was the best of times, it was the worse of times.” And so it is with us. We have within our reach all of the modern conveniences this world has to offer. I was speaking with a friend of mine this past week in the mountains of North Carolina, and she asked me if my family would ever move back to the mountains. I told her that we have discussed that as a possibility when we retire, but that we are very happy where we are for now. I mean this is the best of both worlds. We are close enough to Charlotte to have quick access to anything we could possibly need. Yet we are urban enough to not be in the midst of all the busyness of the city. However, even here in Wesley Chapel we are experiencing an influx of new developments and people moving in faster than we have been able to keep up with. Our communities are in rhythm with the rest of the world; we are changing. Some of us are happy to see those changes and others of us are angry. But no matter which side of that issue we poise ourselves; we have no choice but to come face to face with change.

In my graduate studies I designed my electives to address the issue of ministry to a new and changing generation. Past history tells us that in times of war people flooded into the churches within their communities. While there were some churches that reported Christmas and Easter crowds following the attacks on our Nation September 11th, these are far and few. The majority of the pastors I have spoken with, both within our own denomination and across denominational lines, experienced an almost unnoticeable difference in their usual Sunday morning attendance.

Beloved the Church of the 21st century in North America is in a spiritual and numerical decline. Families moving into our community, for the most part are of what I refer to as the “non-church culture.” It’s not that they don’t like our church, but more foundational is that we are seeing the results of a generation who was raised in a protected, materialistically abounding society that no longer recognized the importance of spiritual matters much less attending Church. If the Church of the 21st century doesn’t change and change NOW, it will die!

Throughout the rest of our World there is a wonderful thing happening. People are coming to learn about the saving grace of God and His salvific plan in Jesus Christ. In his book, City Reaching: On the Road to Community Transformation, Jack Dennison, the founder and president of CitiReach International says something is afoot throughout most of the world that North America is missing. Christianity is experiencing a worldwide explosion in growth, unparalleled in its history. During the final five years of the 1990s, Christianity grew 7 - 8 percent worldwide, compared to only 1 percent between 1965 and 1985. Currently, 165,000 people claim Christ for the first time every day. At the current rate, within years half of the world--that's 3.659 billion people, will be Christian.

Yet North American Christianity continues to decline in actual numbers and percentage of the population. What’s up with this? Has God passed by North America in search of faithful people? North American Christians took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. During the last half of the 1990s, North American Christianity experienced its first major drop, during the time anyone has kept records, in worship attendance. Why is much of the world experiencing such a growth in Christianity and North America isn't?

Let me quickly suggest 3 things that may have contributed to this downward trend.

First look at the Rich man in our parable this morning. Listen carefully to the words of Jesus:

22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. 24 He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27 He said, ‘Then, father, I beg you to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’

Here we obviously have a man and five brothers who chose to ignore the message of the Gospel of Grace found in the Word of God. We know this because of Abraham’s response to the Rich Man:

29 Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30 He said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

While there are all kinds of ways to present the Word of God, the centrality of that Word is His abounding grace that is free to all. If we choose to ignore His Word, the result is separation from God.

One of the possibilities we must consider this morning is that we as a Nation have chosen to ignore the Word of God, and perhaps we as a church have failed to grow in our own spirituality. Our Wesleyan theology says that we believe in the primacy of the Scriptures. That the Scriptures contain everything humankind needs to point them to the way of salvation. If we believe in the primacy of the Scriptures, then we must be active in taking the unchanging Word of God into a World that is changing every day. The proof is in the pudding so to speak. If we believe that to be so then our case will be proven by our actions. America is filled with people searching for the proverbial “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” We are a Nation that is filled with hungering and thirsting people; searching in every direction to have the hunger and thirst sated. As United Methodists and even more as believers in the Word of God, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we know, or at least we ought to know, that the only thing that will truly satisfy is an intimate relationship with God through His Son Jesus, the Christ. It is our responsibility not to simply focus our attention on our church and our own lives, but to take that Gospel out the doors of our church and into our community and the World. If we don’t change we may very well face the plight of the Rich Man.

In 1 Peter 2 we read: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, (in the KJV “milk of the word) so that by it you may grow into salvation” Each one of us must seek to grow in our own spirituality, our own relationship with Jesus, and our own understanding of the Word of Almighty God.

That brings us to Matthew 28. I fully believe that the reason is mostly because most of the population of the church in North America no longer believes in or pray for the Great Commission's actual fulfillment.

The Church of today needs understand that the call to salvation and the call to ministry are one and the same. Make no mistakes about it, we can no longer be satisfied to simply sit in pews, soak up teaching and preaching, and think we are Christians simply because we put in our one hour a week. It's time we put our finger on the problem in our churches. Pew sitters instead of Christians fill our spiritually bankrupt churches. If we become content with simplistic pew sitting, then we must recognize the plight of the Church of tomorrow - nonexistence.

Don’t misunderstand me. I don't mean to imply that people who aren't evangelists aren't Christians. What I AM saying is that church members who think only of their church's well-being and who see their church as the focus of their mission have missed the entire point of Christianity. Christians use whatever gifts they have for the advancement of the Kingdom, even if it's folding and stuffing envelopes.

Thirdly, and finally we are creatures of habit and we hold to our history and tradition. We almost become paralyzed when we hear the word “change.” We want to cry out, “But we’ve ALWAYS done it this way!” Or even, “We TRIED that once and it didn’t work!”

As we transition into the postmodern world, we must wrestle with the relative ambiguity of history. We not only learn from history, we are making history. Survival is not a matter of preservation, but of adaptation. Since God’s call is not merely to live, but to abundantly live, adaptation and change will accelerate more.

We must recognize that history and tradition are only relatively valuable. They are not worthless and cannot be discarded. Their worth, however, is measured differently. It is not the simplicity of history that is crucial, but its complexity. It is not the predictability within history that is cherished, but the chaos. It’s not the comfort we find in tradition that’s important, but are we making a difference in today’s world? Are we meeting the needs of the people where they are right now, not fifty or a hundred years ago.

We must become enthusiastic for God’s mission field and accept responsibility for making history upon ourselves. The future is in our hands. The future of not only this church, but also the universal church lies at the threshold of our doors. We must not only gather here to worship God and to be spiritually fed and equipped, but we must also feed and equip. We must become the eyes, ears, hands, mouth, and feet of Jesus.

Christians care about people -- those outside of their church who pass by it every day. When John Wesley spoke about perfection he was NOT referring to a sinless perfection. We are all subject to sin. Christian Perfection in its most simplistic understanding is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and your neighbor as yourself. If we are to be moving toward perfection then we must not only keep the greatest commandment of all, but we must also work toward fulfilling the Great Commission.

The last words of Jesus were "Go and make disciples." Now let’s go forward from this place, a church committed not only to change within itself, but also outside the walls of this church; changing a changing world into the image of Jesus, the Christ!

John Wesley use to say, “The world is my parish.” It is within that call that we share. Too much is at stake for us to continue to bury our heads. Change is happening. Change within our church can and must take place! I've seen many clubs become churches when one person says, "enough is enough" and begins a revival. The question for us today is are we doing what we believe? It's time we wake up and answer God's call to mission.

This morning I open this alter for prayer and commitment. Are you willing to commit to answering God’s call to mission in your life? Are you willing to ask God to use you in the midst of a changing world? To be the hands, feet, eyes, ears, and mouth of Jesus? If you are, will you come and join me at this alter and let’s pray together that God will change and use this church to transform this ever-changing world into the image of Jesus.

Amen

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