John 4: 19 - 24 

November 19^th is going to be a very special day at 1^st UMC! (But maybe not in the way you are thinking!) That is the weekend before Thanksgiving, and if you’ve been with this congregation for awhile, you know that for as long as most of us can remember (and likely before that, too), that weekend has been the time for our yearly Stewardship Campaign.  We’ve called it by many names – Consecration Sunday, Stewardship Sunday, First Fruits Celebration, and some others. But the idea has been that for a brief window in the church year we would ‘pull back the curtain’ and take a look at the financial needs of this congregation. 

Leading up to that weekend we would have people come to our various services and talk about what giving means to them, and we would try and communicate in some creative ways the message that good things are happening here, and we need your financial support to keep it all going. And on that weekend, the last one before Thanksgiving, we would provide an opportunity for you to estimate the amount of your financial giving to this church for the coming year, and we would build our budget from that amount.

Now, there is nothing wrong with that process, I don’t think. But I have to be honest with you to say that while I certainly supported that process, and don’t apologize for speaking to you about giving – we don’t do that very often… (much less than Jesus did, actually!); nevertheless, somewhere in my spirit, I’ve always had this sense that somehow we’ve been a little off target in our approach to this whole subject.  But I just couldn’t quite put my finger on what we were missing.

A couple of years ago a new Bishop was appointed to the Greater NJ Annual Conference.  Bishop (Sudarshana) Devadhar is a humble, godly man who has been preaching one very focused message since his arrival – sharing this message with Lay people and clergy at every opportunity.  His message is this: we (i.e., the church) are in the business of making disciples for Jesus Christ.  That’s why we’re here.

Jesus’ last message to the church was his Great Commission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”  You can’t spend any time with our Bishop without being reminded (in not very subtle ways!) that it is the function of the church to make disciples for Jesus. 

So, I’ve been hearing that for a couple of years.  In addition, as we have been getting more and more (here) into the theory of Natural Church Development, again, we’re getting the message that only God can make a Church grow, and it is our job to do what we can to make our church healthy.  And we’re finding that the characteristics of Church health (surprise!)  are all about … being disciples of Jesus Christ.  Learning about and doing what he told us to do. 

Well, these things and some reading that I’ve been doing, particularly writings of Dallas Willard and Bill Hull all came together in my mind last Spring, and I suddenly realized what it was that was stirring up my unrest about our various Stewardship ‘Campaigns’.  And I can sum it up like this:  Pledging is all about membership in an institution… but we have been called to something much greater than simply maintaining an institution.  We’ve been called to be disciples of Jesus. We’ve been commissioned to make disciples.  

So I shared a different vision of that special weekend with our Finance Committee last Spring and again in the Fall.  I give great credit to Scott McGough and that committee for their forward-looking vision… as well as the leaders of our Administrative Council who also heard this in September. These are not groups that say, “But, we’ve never done that before!” 

What I shared was this: Instead of simply lifting up the finances of this church, what if we set aside a weekend to the dedication or re-dedication of ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ?  Let’s lift up four pillars of discipleship, and give an invitation to our congregation- members, supporters, regular attenders, all of us – to affirm together that we are here to make and to be disciples of Jesus. 

So on November 18/ 19 we are going to have cards available… but they are not going to be ‘estimates of giving’ cards.  They will have four statements on them. In the year 2007 -

• With God’s help I will make a plan for my Spiritual Growth that includes regular interaction with at least one other person.
• With God’s help I will make public worship a priority in my weekly schedule.
• With God’s help I will find a place to serve as a volunteer utilizing my Spiritual Gifts.
• With God’s help I will work towards the Biblical standard of a tithe of my income for the work of God’s Kingdom through this congregation.

You will get two of these cards – one to sign and bring to the altar as a symbol of your commitment to these important things. The other you can sign and put in your Bible or some other place where you will be reminded of this day throughout the year. 

You’ll notice that we are not asking you to name an amount for your giving, this is truly about much more than how much money we can raise.  We’re going to trust that God will provide for our financial needs, because we are disciples of Christ … and I’m confident that some wonderful things are going to happen here as we dedicate ourselves to hearing the call of Jesus Christ and responding in faith.

So, this is going to be an exciting weekend. And, because we’re Methodists, we’re going to Celebrate all this with food.  We’re going to have a catered brunch after the 9:30 and 11:00 services.  There will be a lot of joy here – so please pray for this weekend, and do your best to get the word around, and try and arrange your schedules to be here for all the fun! This is a significant day in our church. We hope you’ll be part of it.

*****

Last Sunday Pastor HeyYoung did a wonderful job in introducing the first of these Four ‘Pillars of Discipleship, which is having a plan for our Spiritual Growth that includes regular interaction with at least one other person.  (I’m thrilled with the job that our Web team did in the redesign of our Website, by the way.  One feature of our new site is that you can download the audio of each week’s message. Go to ‘resources’. So, even though I wasn’t here last Sunday, I got to listen to HY’s message.)

This morning, for just a few minutes, I’d like to take up the second of these pillars of discipleship, which is “Corporate Worship.”  Why is it important to come here, and do ‘this’ week after week?  To try and answer that question, I’d like to tell you a little story about my past…

I became a follower of Christ when I was a sophomore in High School.  And right from the start, while not always being consistent about this, I made an attempt to live out my faith among my peers.  They knew that I was a believer. Well, time went by, and as typically it happens in High School, I started thinking about … girls.  And I thought a lot about them, actually.  But one in particular.

She was this cute little Italian girl named Dianna. She wore these really geeky black plastic framed glasses, but I saw great potential there! She was a good student, she was very talented musically, she was confident (did I say she was cute?) she was all that… but one thing that not only caught my eye but held it, was that she was one of the very few people in my circle of friends who was right ‘out front’ with her faith in Christ.  She was bold as a believer, and I was impressed.

I was also intimidated, so this was a slow process!  Now, I’d like to say that we snapped together like a magnet to steel, but it didn’t really work like that.  From Dianna’s perspective I had an issue or two of my own, to be honest, and you had to look really deep to see any potential in me!  Just imagine this face as an adolescent, and hair down to here.  I played in rock bands that performed in some unsavory places, and I was a Methodist… I just wasn’t the guy that her pastor told her to look for.

But through sheer persistence we got together.  And, I remember those days.  Dianna was all that I could think about.  I met her in the morning. I walked her to every class. I did her homework occasionally (we can admit it now!  Shakespeare for chocolate chip cookies!)  Eventually I moved in with her… to her locker! Come on! 

I remember those phone conversations at night… you know, this was the dark ages of communications – no email, no instant messenger, no cell phones – at home we had one phone, and it was in my parent’s bedroom, so I’d sit there on the floor and call…

“Hi”

“Hey”

“What ‘cha doin’?”

“Nothing”  “What ‘cho doin?”

“Nothing.”

“How was your day?”

“OK”

Now, I had just left her house like, 20 minutes ago!  You know, I was hooked! Smitten! Hopeless!  And this looked like the real thing.  Well, the first Fall after High School Graduation came, and I will probably always remember the night before I left for college – 750 miles away… a long and torturous drive. It was really hard to leave. The first few weeks of classes, people would say, “Man look at that guy. He is really homesick!”

But I wasn’t homesick. I was Dianna sick!  Well, when I went back after Christmas break, Dianna went with me. She transferred to Asbury College, where she spent two quarters as a vocal major. But it just didn’t work out.  The school, the program wasn’t for her, and she left after the Spring quarter, got a job.

I went back (alone again) the next year. We wrote to each other every day for two years, we called when we could – but that was a very expensive proposition back then, something like $10 –12 / call.  And I was making $1.75 an hour mopping floors in the college dining room, so calling wasn’t a frequent thing.  And we soon decided that three more years of this was going to be unbearable, and so we were going to get married after my junior year (which we did.) Here’s where we get to the point of this illustration – there really is one!

I played lead tenor saxophone in the college jazz ensemble, and that group was invited over the Christmas break of my junior year, to be the house band at the International Wesleyan Youth Convention, held at the University of Illinois, in Urbana.  It was a great opportunity to play in front of 8,000 people, and we got to open up for Andre Crouch, and some other big names at the time.  I left for that gig either Christmas night or the day after Christmas, which was tough.

Add to that, during Spring Break that year, the same band took a 10 - day tour out West.  We went as far as the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and played in many High Schools, colleges, and churches between KY and CO.  So, as it happened, Dianna and I were separated from part of December, to January, February, March, April, and May. 

Now, you all know the expression, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”, right?  There’s probably some truth in that. We grew very close through letter writing, and every relationship needs to strike a balance between together time and alone time.  But after a certain point, absence makes the heart forget.  High School romances very seldom survive separate colleges! It’s a fact! And I know why – it was hard work to keep this thing going.

When I came home that May, after nearly six months of no face-to-face contact I can remember how awkward I felt at first, around Dianna.  I’m sure she felt the same way. There were dimensions of interacting, and talking, stuff that had been unexplored through mere letter writing, and had to be relearned.  It was almost as if we had to become re-acquainted.  Well, fortunately, that worked out OK, and last August we celebrated our 30^th Wedding Anniversary. And I’m really glad that Dianna didn’t give up on me, or me her.

Here’s my very simple point… if it is that difficult to maintain a strong, healthy relationship between two highly motivated people without face to face interaction; if it’s that hard to do in a relationship between equals, how much more difficult is it to maintain a passionate relationship between ‘unequals’? 

Think about this – we are human beings.  We are finite in every way – in the length of our days, in the extent of our knowledge, in the scope of our power. Limited.  And while God invites us to come boldly before his heavenly throne, and provides everything we need through the Grace of Jesus Christ to do that, the fact is that this is always a relationship between unequals.  Jesus tells us that God is Spirit.  Nevertheless, he tells the Samaritan woman at the well that God is seeking people to worship him.  

So God is the pursuer in this relationship, and God’s passion, his love for us never wanes or fades.  But our passion, being the limited and flawed beings that we are, does that all the time! And does it easily, even when we don’t want it to.  I’ve heard so many people who have drifted away from the church, and can’t explain how that happened, who have come back saying, “ I can’t believe I let this go!  I need it so much, there was something missing in my life, which I’ve rediscovered.”   Without discipline, we drift.  Without constantly re-establishing our relationship with God, our passion can fade.  And it likely will.

So, we read of people in the Scriptures like those in the church of Ephesus (Rev. 2) who have

‘left their first love’.  And the Lord is saying to them – “Turn back, there is no time to waste!”  Or the church of Laodecia (Revelation 3) to whom the Lord says, “You are lukewarm, I wish you were either cold or hot.” 

What is the easiest way to wound a relationship, (apart from some kind of blatant betrayal, etc.)?  I think it just might be a lack of personal communion with that person. In a relationship with God, who the theologians describe as “Wholly other” , God who is Spirit and invisible to our eyes, the highest form of  personal communion takes place in true worship.  There is something that happens in corporate worship that is unlike any other way that we commune with God.

Jesus made that point in Matthew chapter 18:

“For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.”

Jesus promises to be with us always, the scriptures assure us that there is nowhere that we can go where we will be separate from the Spirit of God. But here, Jesus makes a wonderful further promise: that in some way that is different than our approaching God alone; when we come together in his name Jesus is here with us. 

That ‘face to face’ contact is what we need to keep our focus on him steady. That face to face contact is what we all need to keep us from drifting back into an approach to life that is self centered, and all about us.  That kind of face to face encounter with the living God is one of the pillars of true discipleship – something that we discipline ourselves to do, not based on our schedules, or our whims, or the weather, or our moods, or anything like that.  But based on our desire to be strong in the Lord, we come to worship.

Hebrews 10:24 - 25

Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

Amen