1. The of God is to get me something and to get me somewhere a. Get b. Get c. Go

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1 Report from the Senior Pastor Word Tabernacle Church On The Edge of Greatness Numbers A Sermon modified from the church business meeting on Saturday, October 19, 2013 P a g e 1 1. The of God is to get me something and to get me somewhere a. Get b. Get c. Go 2. I refuse to be in a story called Average 3. Don t allow the doubters or the difficulties to 4. The giants cannot be 5. The giant of a fake Identity can be tough to nail down. As an eight year-old, bi-racial boy growing up in a poor North Philadelphia community, my true sense of identity was being developed, but had not yet fully formed. The challenge becomes that the longer it takes to form identity the more we attract who and what is potentially inconsistent with that identity. In the same regard our church identity is still forming. If it appears it is getting more complicated, it is because it is. There once was one guy establishing that identity. Then thirteen more people weighed in on the process. Now, simply take the highest number in the membership database and you get to see very quickly the game has changed and our identity is still forming as a lot of people are working really hard to get their genetic makeup added to the DNA code. Unlike an eight year-old child, our church doesn t have the luxury of figuring it out as we go. Our identity must be clearly established so we can fully function as God intended for us. You may already be thinking that this is not a germane idea to the life of the church, but nothing could be further from the truth. Awareness of ourselves and our relationship with God are intricately related. In fact, the challenge to shed our old man in order to live authentically with the new man is at the core of true spirituality. Augustine wrote in Confessions in A.D. 400, How can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self? St. Teresa of Avila wrote in The Way of Perfection, Almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self-knowledge. John Calvin in 1530 wrote in his opening of his Institutes of Christian Religion, Our wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two parts precedes and gives birth to the other. The vast majority of us go to

2 P a g e 2 our graves without knowing who we are and the vast majority of churches simply fill in the blanks of a template of some denominational system or the latest trends and fads and never do the work of authentically living out their unique assignment in the kingdom of God. I do not want this to happen at Word Tabernacle. Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote a poem, We wear the mask We wear the mask that grins and lies. It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask! 6. The giant of that suffocate or steal our identity We wear the mask of the complex issues that place demands on us in this world system. We become an issue or our issue. We become the latest fight or injustices that we are taking on and in doing so we lose our true identity in Christ. What are these issues? Faith and spirituality Human Rights Education and employment Culture Global Issues Peace and nonviolence Racial and social justice Diversity Faith and politics Economic Justice Immigration Environmental Stewardship If we are not careful any one of these issues can steal our identity. But, we are not a single issue nor are we a single division. We are not the corporate, communication, congregation, care, community, celebration, cultivation, campus or counseling division. We can never and must never become more passionate or emotional about what we do or where we do it than about the Christ who gave his life and died on a tree outside the city for your sins and my sins. Too many members are working too hard to impose a false identity upon us. There is a movement afoot to equate Word-ite-ism to popularity, possessions, or performance and we cannot afford to be that church nor will we ever be.

3 P a g e 3 We cannot relax our belief that what a person does is more important than who a person is. Doctrine must always precede duties. On a personal note, I am more convinced now than ever our identity cannot be a result of anything other than Christ because all other ground is sinking sand. As I prepared for this meeting and this worship service I was astonished to learn that in the same quarter that we learned we were one of the 100 fastest growing churches in the entire United States is also the same quarter with the lowest financial giving in nearly three years as a church. So which number becomes our identity? The answer is neither. As your Pastor, what I am most concerned about is growing faithful followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. 7. The giant of emotionalism us To further complicate matters, these issues that I have referenced tend to be emotionally charged issues for us. In other words, we get emotional about race, emotional about money, and emotional about our choices. And we should. The problem becomes having people sent by God (the church) being so emotional about an issue that we are passionate about that we can t hear God much less obey God in our choices. This is at the heart of our identity war at Word Tabernacle Church and my responsibility as your Pastor is to guide us through this wave of emotions so that we can discover God s will. Ignatius of Loyala, the founder of the Jesuits wrote extensively on the importance of maintaining a balance between our reason (intellect) and our feelings (heart). His development of a set of guidelines that respected the importance of our emotions in discerning God s will has served believers for nearly 500 years. He rightly emphasized the foundation of a complete commitment to God s will, follow scripture, and seek wise counsel. Yet, in addition, he provided excellent guidelines for sorting out how God speaks to us through the raw material of our emotions. The issue is not, by any means, to blindly follow our feelings, but to acknowledge them as part of the way God communicates to us. Igantius explored the difference between consolations (those feelings that bring joy, peace, and the fruit of the Spirit) and desolations (that which brings us death, turmoil and spiritual turbulence). Armed with this understanding, Ignatius echoed the sentiments of the apostle John, who said do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God 1 John 4:1. Sometimes they are fleshly desires and sometimes it is God prodding us to a better choice. Whichever, we must mature as a church and as a people in learning how to recognize how he speaks and guides us through our feelings. We cannot afford to allow our emotions to dictate our identity but rather they are one tool God uses to help clarify our identity. It is only our relationship with Jesus Christ that can carry the full weight of our identity.

4 P a g e 4 This one simple yet profound reality is what separates Word Tabernacle Church and Word-ites from many other churches and certainly almost every civic and social agency. It is also what opens our back door wide and closes the pocketbooks and wallets of our members and what causes potential collaborators to rescind support. However, I am convinced we must never abandon our identity as followers of Jesus Christ. It is this identity and this identity alone that will enable us to be a place where lives are changed. I am a follower of Jesus Christ before I am black, white, old, young, Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, male, female, married, single, car driver, bike rider, singer, dancer, musician, preacher, Elder, Pastor, student, company owner, volunteer, or employee. 8. The giant of Christ and culture Most people within our church are familiar with the Micah Declaration, Integral mission or holistic transformation is the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel. It is not simply that evangelism and social involvement are to be done alongside each other. Rather, in integral mission our proclamation has social consequences as we call people to love and repentance in all areas of life. And our social involvement has evangelistic consequences as we bear witness to the transforming grace of Jesus Christ. If we ignore the world, we betray the word of God which sends us out to serve the world. If we ignore the word of God, we have nothing to bring to the world. Justice and justification by faith, worship and political action, the spiritual and the material, personal change, and structural change belong together. As in the life of Jesus, being, doing, and saying are at the heart of our integral task. As a side note, every member of every church is either developed or destroyed by the personal theology of their Pastor. This one reality is sobering for me as a Christian. I will be deeply impacted by the theology of my Pastor. What this means for Word-ites is with regularity we are challenged regarding our responsibility to influence our society and culture. On a personal note, this greatly complicates the call to ministry as it requires the Pastoral role to be both to the faithful within the church and to the larger community around us. This integrated role produces a tension between the incarnation of Jesus and the necessary localisms of ministry in Jesus name. Theologically, Jesus was both fully divine and fully human or to view it another way was equally tied to heaven as He was to earth. A student of church history would testify that it took church fathers and scholars over 125 years from Nicea to Chalcedon to explain how these two natures of Christ co-exist. Well, if we are followers of Jesus Christ (which is in essence what it means to be a disciple) then we too are multidimensional people. We are in Christ while we are also in Rocky Mount or Eastern North Carolina. Augustine said, I affirm the past as a present memory and the future as a present possibility. In other words, we are never completely at home anyplace or anytime while we are on earth.

5 We cannot influence our culture without the indwelling power of Christ in our lives. So without the disciplines that develop and harness that indwelling power, we are faking our identity. We must begin to think and to live transformationally and not merely within the limited contexts of our own disciplines, divisions, and desires. P a g e 5 To be a Word-ite does not mean to sing in the choir, greet at the door, serve in disaster relief, count the money, tutor children, or participate in an activity. To be a Word-ite is about living in community and working in partnerships just as God does. The concept of the Trinity suggests that God in three persons is an eternal set of relationships, working on cooperative projects. Before the world was formed, God the Father chose us for salvation; God the Son sacrificed His life for our salvation, and God the Holy Spirit seals our salvation like an engagement ring until the day of redemption. We are most like God, not while in our ministry silos, but rather we are most like God when we are living in relationships with God s people and working in partnership for re-creation and redemption of God s world. As Christians, we are called to integrate place and people. Christianity is not limited to a shout and dance on a Sunday, but a life style all week. Our identity has become jaded. Christians are the only ones that can discuss the salvation of souls and the rebuilding of sewer cities in the same sentence. 9. The giant of missions becoming more This is a missiological issue. Unsaved and unchurched people are no longer in some distant place. They are in the pew with us. Missions are no longer about crossing the oceans, jungles, or deserts, but about crossing the street. More and more at WTC it is simply about crossing the center isle of the church. This shift means our ministry must be relevant to a more pluralistic and diverse group of people socioeconomically. To accomplish this, we must think and live missionally. This means we don t claim Christ only when I am in trouble or only when the Hammond organ is playing or when I am doing my ministry, but I am living out and walking out my faith in all areas of my life. 10. The giant of church structure being This is an ecclesiological issue. Although we have a clear divisional structure in our church, we must take on forms than enable us to adapt to a very different culture. Church structure cannot fall into the trap of self-preservation. Finding a way to be relevant while also realistic will be an increasing struggle for us, but one we must commit to working through. There are three types of churches in America: Churches. The pastor hoops and hollers. The congregation dances and shouts. The church makes no impact in the community or in individual lives.

6 P a g e 6 Churches. The church is open on Sundays and maybe once midweek. There are no office hours. No community programs. Churches. These churches are open five to seven days a week. They have multiple generations attending. They preach and teach. The have multiple ministries. They commit to themselves and other people getting better. 10. The giant of distribution This is a financial issue. There are very limited resources in Eastern North Carolina and we continue to attract those in need of help at a considerably greater rate than those in a position or with a heart to help. All of the conventional anecdotes around giving do not seem to hold true at WTC. Generally, giving increases with membership, it does not for us. Giving also generally increases with the length of the Pastor, it has not for us. Giving generally increases with proof of success in ministry. It has not for us. Finally, giving increases with clear vision for the future and it has not for us. Currently, we could place all our faithful givers in a single worship service and only lose fifteen percent of our income. In other words, if all those that give faithfully to the church came to one worship service, there would in essence be no substantive change in the level of ministry we offer the community or the membership. We literally worship three additional times every Sunday for free. We place the emotional, physical, and family demands on volunteers, leaders, musicians, staff, and the Pastor to minister to over an additional 1,000 people every week who give the church nothing in return financially. To further complicate this, we are trending on a per capita rate downward. In other words, what the average person gives to the church is less now than at any point in the past three years. This is particularly discouraging considering our ministry is better than ever before. Our community programs are further reaching and helping more people; our Bible studies and Sunday Sermons are more impactful than ever before; our counseling division is ministering to more people than ever before; we have a solid and stable ministry to men; we offer a Bible Institute; there is an annual audit of our financials; and the list could go on and on. Yet, with all of the improvements our membership is paying less for the product. I don t know if we as a church realize how threatening this is. Allow me to explain it from the vantage point of economics. My novice definition of economics is the study of the choices we make under conditions of scarcity. More importantly, microeconomics is the branch of economics that deals with how those choices effect social outcomes. To put it in preacher terminology, there is only so much money and there are only so many products and services. The quality of our lives is a direct result of how we choose to spend what we have. There are only two ways for a company to increase revenue. The first is to charge more for their product. So, occasionally we go to a store and see a price increase for a product. In our church, people are coming in and what they used to pay X for they are now paying X minus some amount. This is another reason God established the tithe, so that we could resist the temptation of paying less than what a product is worth. None of us go to Walmart or Red Lobster and see the price on an item or on the menu and then tell the establishment I am only

7 P a g e 7 going to pay what I want for this and then still expect to complete a transaction. Yet, in our church people will be fed with a great word and worship and arbitrarily give nothing or give less than they have previously. With this attitude from so many people, we cannot reasonably expect to continue offering the services we do. The second way to increase revenue is to increase the volume of your consumers. In other words, increase the number of people buying your product or service. The problem with this solution for us is we have no more space. In church terms, a church is filled at 80% capacity and this is always the case in our worship service. This will mean we must either find temporary space to worship more people or build our new sanctuary. The latter is not a feasible option given the state of our giving. To round out this conversation, we have this same economic problem regarding pastoral support. The best way to view it is like a tip. Every Sunday our members arrive to church with full stomachs, clean cars, fresh cuts, and nice hair styles. We spent the entire week tipping people that provided what we deemed as meaningful service the waiter, the hairdresser, the barber, the guy at the car wash. We will tip for a service that is temporary, but not for a word from God that is eternal. This simply makes no sense to me. The current economic state of our church is a sad commentary for people who claim they love God. I am grateful for those that give and especially for the faithfulness of those who give biblically, but this one issue is perhaps our greatest challenge. This issue also speaks to the outstanding leadership of our corporate division that ensure compliance and proper checks and balances so that we can maintain high levels of ministry while striving to fix what in my opinion is the single biggest challenge in our ministry. Our vision will only be realized upon the provision from our membership. 11. The giant of speaking to Human need is escalating, government is failing, and other human institutions are becoming increasingly detached. Additionally, there is little priority on education as a means of a solution and the lack of proper priorities means people have a much lower discretionary income and much less time than ever before. We are also seeing the consequences of years of sins and rebellion. The chickens are coming home to roost. The biggest change, however, is in the growth of a church and a Pastor who wants more for people than we want from people. The expectations we place upon people lead to a lack of commitment as this newly found environment of standards and accountability is not the norm in our area. These dark areas of our lives have become strongholds that can only be corrected by the light of the word of God. Only light can drive out darkness so the biggest need in my life is always getting a clear word from God. So, where does all of this leave us? God s kingdom agenda seeks the salvation of all persons and the social transformation of all places. Genesis 18 clearly teaches us that a few good people (actually 10) can save a city. Imagine what an entire church could do if we were all serious about this assignment. Family, this is a big assignment so if you are looking for small or easy this is not the church for you. We are about to begin walking

8 P a g e 8 down a hard street. How does a church move its people from one end to the other? What are the primary catalysts for such a dynamic transition? It is not an easy process. The distance between the places of personal agenda and kingdom causes is far and wide. I can place it on an overhead or incorporate it as words in a state of the church report but this requires a life of faith and love. This is deeper than a vision statement. It can t be found in a slogan. It can only be translated by real life change. Moving from preoccupied self absorption to radical and sacred self giving is when ministry and church gets messy. What we do does not occur on some sterile assembly line. People are not lifeless products rolling passively through some neat and tidy church division requiring a spiritual tweak here and a minor emotional adjustment there. No, we are dealing with thousands of people in our church and in our city with an endless variety of emotional, social, and spiritual makeups. They have wills, needs, agenda, fears, and dreams of their own. To care for them and to help them live as Christians is by itself a daunting task. But to add to that the challenge of finding ways to transition them into areas of effective service can seem overwhelming, especially when they balk at the idea of sacrifice, discipline, and giving. None-the-less, this is our assignment from God. No wonder many churches so often settle for much less than what God has called them to do. I am asking that we make a reversal of critical perspective. We must move from being served to serving; from finding community in the church to impacting the community as the church; from retreating to influencing; from isolation to engagement; from the church of my needs to the church of good deeds. 12. It s time to begin using our Imagination is a wonderful asset. It allows us to see realities as they could be and should be. It relentlessly challenges us to go beyond our experience of what is, to a place that others are convinced are improbable. It was Robert Kennedy who said, Some men see things as they are and say, why? I dream of things that are not, and say, why not? So as I begin to close my report to you, I ask you to use your imagination for just a moment. Imagine a community that is genuinely thankful for our church Imagine city leaders and politicians that value the work and people of our church and request our help and support Imagine people in every district talking behind your back about how good it is to have your church in this area Imagine a large number of Word-ites actively engaged in and passionate about our community, service, and using their gifts and abilities in ways and levels they never thought possible Imagine Eastern North Carolina actually changing because of the impact of our influence Imagine a group of people doing their part Imagine what you would be doing if you were convinced you could not fail

9 P a g e 9 Most people would call these thoughts Impossible. I prefer to call them by another name Word Tabernacle Church. This is our identity in Christ. 13. It s time to with Jesus Christ It is only by losing ourselves that we find ourselves our identity. We must Passionately commit ourselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ Allow the Bible to be the measurement by which we determine success in ministry Live morally pure Be centered and focused on family Be bold in our evangelistic encounters Be active, responsible, and engaged socially Be equipped to influentially serve those in our community and region

10 P a g e 10 Word-ite Growth Plan On a scale of 1 10, rate yourself in each category. Goal: 60+ Growth Area Description Score Salvation Sunday Worship Bible Study Spiritual Disciplines Am I saved? I attend worship on a weekly basis I attend Bible Study on a weekly basis I pray, fast, have devotion, and meditate on daily basis Sharing I have shared my faith and led others to Christ and I share my finances by tithing Serving Small Groups I serve in one ministry and I have participated on one missions experience I attend a men s or women s group, Sunday School, or other accountable group My Total