Sunday 09/10/23 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “The Culture Of The Church!” (“Why are some churches shrinking and closing?” Series: Part 2 of 6)
Old Testament Scripture: Exodus 12:1-14
New Testament Scripture: Romans 13:8-14
Gospel Lesson: Matthew 18:15-20
Last week, I started a 6-week sermon
series partially based on a great little book that was published back in 2014,
called “Autopsy of a Deceased Church” by Thom S. Rainer. I had a picture of the
cover of this book on the screen last Sunday, which has a picture of a scalpel
on the book cover. In this book Thom S. Rainer discusses why many churches in our
country are shrinking and closing.
If we were to do an autopsy on a deceased
church, like autopsies are done on deceased persons, could we discover the
cause or causes of death? An autopsy on a deceased person can tell us how the
person died, but if an autopsy was done on a closed church, would that autopsy
tell us some things? Well Thom Rainer thinks it would tell us some things.
While the Sidney UMC is doing well and
growing, I thought that this book would be informative for us, and that it
would help to further equip us to continue to grow in faith and as a church. For
all of these reasons I started a 6-week sermon series last Sunday called the (“Why
are some churches shrinking and closing?” Series. In this series I am trying tie
the book by Thom Rainer with the scripture readings for each Sunday. In doing
so, I am walking through some key things that we need to do as Christians and
as a church to avoid shrinking and beyond.
Last Sunday, I encouraged us all, myself included, to heed
Jesus words in Matthew 16:24, where Jesus tells us as I rephrased in my sermon
title for last Sunday: “Take Up Our Cross and Follow Jesus!” The depth of our
faith and our walks with Christ and how we live and share this faith, will
directly corelate to others growing in faith. If our faith and love is strong,
and if we live this both individually, and as a church, then we will continue
to have a strong church indeed.
I mean think about if you are part of something where
people’s hearts aren’t really it, then how can it really grow and flourish.
When we truly love our faith, when we truly love Christ, then the church flourishes.
Well then what else can we do to deepen our faith and to
grow an even stronger church? I will address this in my second installment of
this sermon series called “The Culture of the Church”. In this message I want
high light Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 of Thom S. Rainer’s book “Autopsy of a
Deceased Church”. Chapter 4 is titled “The Church Refused to Look Like the
Community,” and Chapter 5 is titled “The Budget Moved Inwardly”.
In discussing my sermon title “The Culture of the Church,”
I have two stories that I would like to share with you. The first, many of you have heard, and I may have told you a few times, but it is very fitting for my sermon this
morning. This story may be a little different, and this story took place in my
home state of Illinois. This story specifically is about Pastor James MacDonald
who serves a large church in the Chicago, Illinois area.
Let me read this article for you from “The Christian Post” titled: “Pastor James MacDonald Disguises Himself as Homeless Man to
See How Churches React.”
This is what the article says:
“Illinois
megachurch Pastor James MacDonald recently disguised himself as a bearded
homeless man and camped outside of two Harvest Bible Chapel campuses before
Sunday services to see how congregants would react. MacDonald, the founder of
the seven-campus Chicagoland area congregation whose "Walk in the Word"
radio and television programs are seen by millions worldwide, posted the video of the experiment on his Facebook page Monday. As
Christ calls on his followers to help the "least of these" in
society, MacDonald wanted to put Harvest Bible Chapel congregations to the test
to see how well they are living out the biblical commands to not only love God
but also "love your neighbor as yourself." The video starts off
showing MacDonald dressed in layers with a fake beard and long gray fake hair
as he rolls a shopping cart down the street toward one of the Harvest campuses.
MacDonald then takes a seat right in front of the building, putting out a cup
for change and a sign. Churchgoers in the video couldn't help but notice the
hairy homeless man sitting with his legs crossed by the entrance as they walked
by him to enter the church. The beginning scenes of the video show congregants
walking right past the homeless MacDonald without offering much in the way of
help. Another scene shows the homeless MacDonald sitting outside of another
Harvest Bible Chapel campus as churchgoers walk by him to get to their Sunday
services. "The closer a person is to us and the less common the struggle,
the easier it is to love," MacDonald says in the video. "God forbid I
find out my wife has three months to live, I would quit my job and quit
everything, right? What if it's just an acquaintance of yours and what if the
problem is recurring. ... How common is homelessness? How frequently is the
homeless person someone dear to us personally? Never."
James MacDonald, pastor of the seven-campus Harvest Bible Chapel in Illinois, pulls off a fake beard he wore when he dressed up like a homeless person. A video of MacDonald's experiment was posted to Facebook on Oct. 15, 2018. | (SCREENSHOT: FACEBOOK/JAMES MACDONALD) The video then shows the bearded homeless MacDonald walk through the church sanctuary with his shopping cart. He then walks on stage and begins to take off his beard and layers of clothes to reveal his true identity. "So I took a few moments a couple of weeks ago and camped outside of a couple of our campuses and I wanted to see how we were doing when it is hardest to love," MacDonald told the congregation. "Do you know that your father in Heaven is giving the same graces to the person that is hardest for you to love? He is giving it. He doesn't play favorites. He is giving the grace to everyone. If we are going to love like our father in Heaven loves, we don't get to play favorites. By favorites I mean, so often we love the people when there is some benefit in it for us." MacDonald used the video experiment to make a point during his sermon that Sunday that "it's hardest to love when the problem is most common and the people are least known." "So how did our church do in the video?" he asked. "I am going to tell you now — awesome." MacDonald explained that he was "crying inside that beard" because of the generosity and love shown to him by the congregants who either brought him food or took the time to pray with him. Although the first few scenes of the video showed congregants walking past the homeless MacDonald, the final minutes of the video show the numerous churchgoers who offered him prayer, food, drink, money and even "the Word of God." Others even invited the homeless man into the church to join them in worship. "I dressed up as a homeless man and sat outside our church. What I witnessed blew me away," MacDonald wrote on Facebook” (https://www.christianpost.com/news/pastor-james-macdonald-disguises-himself-as-homeless-man-to-see-how-churches-react.html).
The second
story that I want to share with you, is one that you have probably never heard
before. It’s a story from a student that I used to tutor when I was a seminary
student, and when I tutored for the Ithaca City School District. This student knew
that I was a Christian, and that I was in seminary. Yet, this student was not a
person of faith. I remember one day he told me why he thinks many churches are hypocrites.
This is what he told me:
“You know what Paul; I saw a really nice church in New York City when I was there one weekend. The church was massive and beautiful, and the people pulling up that Sunday were all well-dressed. Many of them had fancy cars, and they all walked into this really nice church. I watched carefully as they all walked in. There were a lot of them, as they went in one by one. What I then realized however, was that the neighborhoods around this church looked really run down and poor. Yet, it didn’t look like any of the people from these neighborhoods went into the church. All the people that I saw drive in and enter the church, all seemed to drive from a distance from the church. These people attended a nice church surrounded by impoverished neighborhoods and I didn’t see a single person from these neighborhoods walk into the church.”
The student then said to me, “When I saw that kind of hypocrisy Paul, I decided that the church wasn’t for me.”
I remember being stunned in that
moment. I agreed with my student, but at the same time I didn’t really have a
good response to the student, other than I agreed with the student.
When I read chapter 4 of Thom S.
Rainer’s book “Autopsy of a Deceased Church,” I immediately remembered this
story that my student told me over 10-years ago. Chapter 4 once again is a
called, “The Church Refused to Look Like the Community.” Our community has
changed a lot in recent years, and as a result our church is a church that
includes all kinds of people. We have people that drive a distance to be here,
but we also have people that walk here from right down the street, as well. Our
church is looking more and more like the community that are in. I truly believe
that my student that I tutored over 10-years ago would say that we are a church
that has all kinds of people. We a church representative of the community in
which we live. When we focus of serving and loving others, the church flourishes,
faith grows, and we see God renewing our faith community and us.
I am proud to be part of church that
has a healthy “Church Culture.” A church that seeks to love and care for each
other, a church that can’t wait to share the peace of Christ every Sunday, and
a church truly loves Jesus. If we are not growing in our faith in Christ, and
if the church does not have a healthy culture, then what are we offering the people
we encounter, or who walk through our doors? The answer is, if this were the
case, the people would not see deep faith, and would not feel welcome. I know
that these things are not as cut and dry as I am saying, but Thom Rainer has done
his homework on this book and others. When we try to live and love like Jesus,
the church grows and flourishes. This means that while budgets are tight, we
still need to realize that the mission field of the church is beyond the doors
of this church. We have a duty to serve and love, no matter what. The church
exists to serve, love, and care for all people.
In our Book of Exodus 12:1-14
scripture for this morning, we have the story of the first Passover in Egypt.
Moses had been asking the Egyptian Pharaoh incessantly to let his people go.
Moses will go on to part the Red Sea and begin the 40-year long journey of
leading the Israelite or Jewish people to the Promised Land. What makes Pharoah
finally give in to Moses though, was the first Passover.
You see, God told Moses and Aaron to
take a pure and spotless lamb, or to share one depending on the family size,
and slaughter it. Then the blood of a pure and spotless lamb must be spread on
the doorposts and lintels of the houses of the Jews. There are then other specific
instructions of the eating of the Passover dinner, including how to cook and
eat the lambs. That night death would Passover, hence the term Passover, every
house in Egypt. All the houses that had the blood of the lamb on them, would be
spared the death of their first-born son. The next day many Egyptians,
including the Pharaoh were grieved at the deaths of there first-born sons. The Jews
were then reluctantly freed from Egyptian slavery.
On the night of the Last Supper, Jesus
sat in the famous Upper Room in Jerusalem, probably the same room as the Pentecost
Story, and they shared the Passover Sedar or dinner. This had become a Jewish tradition,
and part of the Jewish religious practice since that first Passover in the Book
of Exodus. Yet at this dinner, Jesus took bread and wine, broke the bread and
offered the bread and wine as his broken body and his shed blood. In our Exodus
12:1-14 scripture for this morning, a pure spotless lamb is sacrificed and his
blood is spread on doorposts and lintels so that the first-born son would be
saved on that first Passover.
Yet, Jesus in the Last Supper story is making himself
the eternal innocent and spotless lamb for eternity. With the bread and the cup
of Holy Communion, Jesus is saying that he, whom John the Baptist called “The
Lamb of God who takes away the sins of world” will break his body and shed his
blood to save all of humanity. Further, not only to save the first-born males
for a night, but to save all people everywhere, for eternity. If we believe in Jesus,
and come to him as Lord and Savior eternal death will pass us over beyond this
life. Spiritual death will pass us over here on earth, and spiritual death will
pass us over for eternity.
As we look through the gospel lessons
on the Last Supper, I believe that we also get a great model on how “The
Culture of Church” is supposed to be. Jesus, through Holy Communion offers
himself as a living sacrifice for humanity, and Jesus asks us to live
sacrificially for others. Jesus shows us how to serve each other with the washing
of the feet, and lastly tells us to love each other. Given all of this, if a
church is going to stop declining and grow, “The Culture Of The Church” must be
loving, caring, and genuine.
The Apostle Paul speaks well of this
in our reading for this morning from Romans 13:8-14. Once again, Romans 13:8-14
says:
8 Owe no one anything, except to love one
another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments,
‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You
shall not covet’; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, ‘Love
your neighbor as yourself.’ 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore,
love is the fulfilling of the law. 11 Besides this,
you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.
For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far
gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the
armor of light; 13 let us live honorably as in the day, not in
reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in
quarrelling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make
no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires (Rom. 13:8-14, NRSV).
The
Apostle Paul tells us to not owe anyone anything, to love each other, and to
love your neighbor as yourself. We are called to lay aside darkness, put on the
armor of light, live honorably, and be like Jesus Christ.
Not
to be judgmental, but when I have in the past visited churches that were cold
and unfriendly, while I didn’t like being in those churches, I would ask myself
why the church was like that. Why didn’t they greet me? Why did not seem
friendly to another? Further, did they not realize that doing this would eventually
kill their church?
Friends,
I truly believe that if some closed churches had a church autopsy, that “The Culture
Of The Church” could be a factor in their decline and or closure. Having a
strong and loving “Church Culture” is central to a growing and flourishing
church.
In
our gospel of Matthew reading 18:15-20, it says, once again,
15 ‘If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. 16 But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector. 18 Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. 19 Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them’ (Mt. 18:15-20, NRSV).
Next Sunday September 17th,
my sermon will be called, “Forgiveness, Love, and Openness”. I am going to
touch on our gospel lesson for this morning then, but I will get more in-depth
with conflicts within the church next Sunday. I don’t mean conflicts within our
own church, but do you know that some church congregations have split in half,
formed new churches, or split for other reasons? For example, I heard of a
church about 30-years ago, where the then pastor had an affair with someone in
the church, and this caused half of the church leave.
Jesus in our Matthew 18:15-20 passage
is talking about forgiving and asking for forgiveness in the church among
people. He lays out the steps of how to do this, so that there might be harmony
in the church. I have been in churches before where there were clear factions,
as well as some clear anger and hostility. Whenever I know there is a problem
within the church, I like to tackle the problem immediately, so that everyone
feels loved, cared for, and heard.
As I said though, I will go more in-depth with this topic next Sunday on
“Forgiveness, Love, and Openness!” Today then, let’s celebrate that we have a loving
and healthy “Church Culture,” but let’s keep making it even better to glory of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
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