I want to share with you my sermon manuscript from Sunday. I think the context it brings and the overall conclusion is
that important. I'd LOVE to hear from some of you that responded to the challenge at the end. revalton@knoxmidland.ca www.knoxmidland.ca
Blessings,
Alton
CRAZY LOVE 6: PROFILE OF THE OBSESSED
(chapter 8)
Luke 6:32-26
Rev.
Alton J. Ruff
Knox
Presbyterian Church, Midland
March
22, 2015
The gist: Being nice is not an
evangelism strategy. Unchurched people
are nice too. But loving a person who has hurt you, that goes against culture
and witnesses to the love of Christ.
INTRO:
skit: being nice – an evangelism strategy
I came
to faith in the early 1990’s. This was
back when we just starting to realize that Canadian culture and its attitude
towards Christianity were beginning to radically shift. The baby boomer generation was abandoning the
church in droves and Gen X’ers coming after them (my generation) just didn’t
care a flying fig about Church. Mission
donations and volunteers were both down.
Pastors had to work hard to fill their pews each Sunday. Volunteers were busy with secular events. Churches were closing.
You see
a political decision was made in the early 90’s that has lasting effects to
this day. There are some here today who
can’t remember a time when businesses were not allowed to open on Sundays. Just imagine; you would walk down Main Street
and every door of every business, with very few exceptions, would be locked –
all but the Church door, that is.
You see
Canada had this act, called the Lord’s Day Act, which prevented business owners
from opening so that people would be free to keep the Lord’s Day holy. This act went back to the Christian roots
that founded the country. But in 1985
the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that according to the newly adopted Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Lord’s Day Act was in conflict with Canadian
ideals about religious freedom.
However,
in Ontario, and other provinces, the provincial governments held their own acts
that still regulated the opening of businesses on Sundays. Many of you who are my age or older will
remember clearly that in June of 1992 Ontario’s Rae government, bowing to
strong public pressure, repealed the Retail Business Holiday Act that prevented
the majority of businesses in Ontario from opening on Sundays most of the year. Many other provinces soon followed suit.
This
was the death knell for Canadian Christianity as we had known it. Although modernity had taken its toll on the
Church in the 20th century, nevertheless before 1992 filling a
Canadian Church was sort of easy. People
had few choices. Stay at home and have
brunch, which admittedly is fairly attractive, or go to Church. After 1992 the options went from that to: 1.
Go to Church; 2. Do anything else.
You see
before 1992 not only were businesses closed on Sundays but so were many other
activities. Kid’s programs, sports,
entertainment were largely avoided on Sundays.
When people looked around and saw the mall open on the Lord’s Day they
said, well why don’t we start scheduling pee wee hockey on Sunday mornings too?
The
Church, which for the most part had become antiquated and out of touch with the
needs of many people, began to empty as people explored their newfound
freedom.
So what
did we do?
First, and
most importantly, we panicked. Second,
we realized that we needed to change in order to grow. Adapt to survive. But what to do?
Many
people looked to the mega churches in the US like Saddleback and Willow Creek
for guidance. While others were
declining, their numbers were swelling into the thousands. What was their secret?
Seeker
Sensitive Services.
That’s
it! Everybody develop a seeker sensitive
service! Well what the heck is that?
An SSS,
or Seeker Sensitive Service was a worship service geared towards the seeker (2 slides).
A seeker was one who did not go to Church, did not have a
relationship with Jesus, but turned up on your doorstep and was willing to hear
what you had to say.
I always thought the term “seeker”
was a bit optimistic. Like, they are seeking out Jesus like the monastics in
the middle ages. I always thought we
should call them “Mildly Curious
Sensitive Services” or MCSS’s for short.
Or maybe “Dragged to Church by a Friend Sensitive Services” or DCFSS’s
for short. But I digress…
In these SSS’s the gospel message
was sort of watered down, made more palatable.
The music changed and was less 18th century and more 20th
century. Clerical robes were traded in
for jeans and Hawaiian shirts. The
service was high energy and instead of preaching the lectionary, the preacher
spoke short sermons about parenting and finances, from a biblical perspective
of course.
In November 1995, Pastor Andy Stanley stood in front of a gathering of
believers at a North Atlanta convention center and cast the vision
for a new church. He said, "Atlanta
does not need another church. What Atlanta does need is a safe environment
where the unchurched can come and hear the life-changing truth that Jesus Christ cares for them and died for their
sin." So began North Point
Community Church, now the largest Church in North America with 33,000 people
attending a campus each weekend.
And
then Willow Creek and Saddleback and later, North Point all started to package
the secret to their success and we ate up like a chocolate Sundae. Just devoured
it. I
mean, many churches refused to change and to this day have been doing the
same thing for two hundred years, but a lot of us started our own seeker
sensitive services in our small towns, suburbs and cities which focused on
attracting the un-churched (our new designation for those who didn’t go to
Church – I know… clever right?).
All over North America overhead projectors complete
with transparencies were now perched at the front of our sanctuaries, organists
were being put out to pasture and praise teams were formed. We sang rousing renditions of, “Shine Jesus
Shine,” and “Shout to the Lord” as we smiled to ourselves broadly and waited
for the masses to flock unto us.
But
they didn’t.
I mean,
some places experienced growth, but not all of us. Not a lot of us. Not most of us! What happened?
You see
we had fallen for an ideal that worked in some very specific contexts but
didn’t work everywhere. It turns out
that God’s specific leading to specific people in specific places wasn’t necessarily
universal. Although the mega-churches
down south would always warn people that their methods couldn’t always
guarantee success in other demographics, they still held these huge conferences
and spoke 99% of the time like it would.
And we
believed it.
So we were heartbroken. We worked so hard and prayed so much, and
believed so deeply, for what? To alienate
the elderly who didn’t love the changes?
To spend money that yielded little in return? To mobilize a congregation for growth only to
watch it not happen and the people become disenchanted or even question their
leadership’s ability to lead?
And so
we started to realize that maybe we were missing something. Not doing it right. And then someone said, “I know what we’ve
done wrong,” we’ve forgotten to evangelize the masses. We need to let people know that we’ve
changed. We need to get them into our
buildings on Sundays so that they can see how cool we are now. We need to evangelize. But how?
You
see, we’d done a lot of overseas missions.
We knew how to convert the “heathen” in other countries, but we didn’t
know how to do that here. We never had
to before. In fact the whole idea made
us uncomfortable.
And
then somebody said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to be so stinkin’ nice to people
that they are going to look at us and say, ‘Wow! You are so stinkin’ nice! Tell me how I can be as stinkin’ nice as
you!’”
Pastors
called this “lifestyle evangelism.” Conferences were held. Training took place. So we put on our biggest smiles, we cut
out all cursing, we didn’t get drunk in front of people, and we tried our best
to be as nice as possible to our friends and coworkers, and do you know what
happened?
Nothing.
It
turns out that the “un-churched” are pretty nice too. At least a lot of them are. It also turns out that a lot of Christians
aren’t that nice. So in the end we just
kinda blended in for the most part.
So that strategy failed.
But we
probably should have seen that coming. I
mean, even Jesus talked about how this “be nice to others” strategy was doomed
from the start when He said:
"If you love those who love you, what credit
is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to
you, what credit is that to you? Even
'sinners' do that. And if you lend to
those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even
'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. Luke
6:32-34
Jesus is basically saying, being
nice isn’t going to get you very far. Even ‘sinners’ as Jesus so delicately puts
it, are often very nice people. So what are you getting at Jesus?
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to
them without expecting to get anything back.
Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most
High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is
merciful.” Luke 6:35-36
What? Love my enemies?! Do good to them?! I don’t think so! I mean, that sounds good on paper, but you
don’t know what my enemies have done to me.
You don’t know the hurt and the pain and brokenness I have received at
their hands. Jesus, you don’t know how
my back tenses and my stomach roils when I even hear the names of some of my
enemies. You don’t know.
Doesn’t He? Doesn’t He know everything?
And doesn’t He know what it is
like to have enemies of His own? Who
betrayed him and beat him, mocked him and crucified Him. And He in return repaid the favour by asking
God to forgive them.
Doesn’t He know?
It seems to me that in our day
and age when the Church isn’t the only game in town on Sunday mornings anymore,
we need to adapt. But we won’t succeed
by trying to be cool, seeker sensitive worshipers (that’s the attractional
model), and we won’t succeed by being nice and hoping that people notice and randomly
ask us why we are so nice (which is just a variation of the attractional model)
but if the Church is going to succeed we need to change our game plan. We need to learn to love.
And when I say love, I mean like
Christ loves us. Like loving the poor
who can never repay us. Or loving the emotionally
unwell who can’t love us back. Or loving
those who have hurt us, even if it is hard.
To be merciful just as our Father in Heaven is merciful.
Now do you see why we tried the
other models first? Because this way is
hard. But it is the only way.
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet
hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom
he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever
loves God must also love his brother. 1
John 4:19-21
Friends, we’ve come a long way
since 1992. And we’ve learned a
lot. I like that Knox is a cool hip place
to be, at least as far as churches go. I
like that we are sensitive to the needs of seekers who darken our door. I like
that our attendance is growing, even if just a few people at a time. And I like that you are all very nice people
(with a few notable exceptions), but let us never forget our primary directive:
to love. To really love.
There is so much more to say, so I’m going to pick this up again in a number of
weeks in a series I’m calling “Church Is.”
But for now I want you to do something for me. I want to ask you to think about one person
in your life who needs to be loved. Not
a friend who will pay you back, or a relative who will reciprocate that action. But somebody who may never return the favour,
but needs to be loved. Can you think of
one person?
Then do me a favour, ask God this
week how you might love them. And then
write me and tell me what happened if you choose to follow through with the
Spirit’s leading.
-A
You might remember that the apostle Peter boldly shared his faith in Christ on the Day
of Pentecost in the streets of Jerusalem, and 3,000 people were converted to
Christ and baptized as a result (Acts
2:41). Shortly afterwards, he and the other apostles
were taking action to meet the needs of widows (Acts
6:1-7).
