21st Century Reformation" July 20, 2014

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Nigel Porter
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1 21st Century Reformation" July 20, 2014 REFORMATION Today s message is based on Jeff s newsletter offerings over the last few months that initially came from a talk that Rodger Nishioka gave at a conference in Montreat last year. Rodger began by talking about a book written by Phyllis Tickle in 2012 called The Great Emergence where she claimed that every 500 years or so, the church goes through a rummage sale; getting rid of things that are no longer effective and adding new things that are relevant to today s culture. Both she and Rodger believe that we are in the midst of a rummage sale; a reformation of the church. And I, for 1, look forward to this reformation SCRIPTURE Let s take a brief look at what God s Word tells us about reformation. We ll focus on Romans 12: 1-2 (that Tom read earlier). The Apostle Paul wrote this material to introduce himself to the Romans prior to his trip there around 57AD. Paul s letter was also intended to give folks a sample of what they d hear when he arrived. He planned to visit Rome on his way to Spain after first bringing a financial contribution to Jerusalem for poor Christians there. The Roman church was mostly Jewish at the time but also contained a substantial number of Gentiles. After an introduction in the beginning of this book, Paul presents the facts of the Gospel: that salvation is available to all regardless of identity, sin or heritage. Paul states that we are indeed saved by grace through faith in Christ. In Romans, Paul clearly sets forth the foundations of the Christian faith: We all make mistakes in judgement and put ourselves before God (this is what many of us consider to be the traditional definition of sin ); but Christ died to forgive sin; we re made right with God through faith; this act of being forgiven begins a new life and a new relationship with God. I love what my study Bible says: Like a sports team that constantly reviews the basics, we will be greatly helped in our faith by keeping close to these foundations.

2 Listen for God s Word as I read Romans 12: 1-2 from The Message. So here s what I want you to do, God helping you: take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without ever thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You ll be challenged from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops wellformed maturity in you. SO WHAT? If one were reading the Bible from cover to cover, by the time you reached Romans (the 45th book in the Bible), you would have seen the exact same message a zillion times. Today s text is all about identifying what s important; what is it that God wants us to do? Then, what do we do after we ve identified that? Don t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God: what is good and acceptable and perfect. In Rodger Nishioka s 21st Century Reformation presentation, he identifies eight different areas where we need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Let s take a quick look at these eight. 1) We need to move from tribal to immigrant education. It s interesting that (statistically) most visitors to our churches today are not other Presbyterians. Actually, most Presbyterians aren t life-long Presbyterians. Most started out as Roman Catholic or Baptist or something other than Presbyterian. Most of our visitors are people coming from other religions or they are NONES. These are folks who don t know who the quick and the dead are when we say The Apostles Creed. They don t know how (or why) to take communion. And as I ve seen first hand, they may not even know how to put money in the collection plate. As someone who is relatively new to Providence, I ve see several things happen during worship that I didn t understand. It s not that these things are wrong.

3 They were just new and different to me. If you ve been around for any length of time, you get it. You re part of the club. You re a member of the tribe But we can t forget those who aren t. 2) We should move from mission OUT THERE to mission RIGHT HERE. Years ago, when the church used the term mission, it usually meant that someone would be packing up and going to a third-world country to help people who didn t have food or clothing or clean water. We ve finally figured out that tremendous needs exist in our state, our city, our community and some time right within our own congregation. By the way, mission activities are such a great way to involve new folks in the life of the church and in Christian faith - especially in reasonable doses. 3) We must move from reasoned spirituality to mystery-filled spirituality. I know, we re Presbyterian. We do everything decently and in order. However, for younger folks, the Order of Worship template that we use in our churches is anything but engaging. A little Holy Spirit movement could go a long way toward maintaining the attention and interest of the younger generation. 4) We ve got to change from credentialed leadership to gifted leadership. This is one of my favorites because it affects me I have to be honest, for my seminary certification, I never had to take Hebrew. Thanks be to God Just because someone has a seminary education doesn t mean that they re more qualified to be involved in ministry than someone who has never attended seminary. To me, it s more valuable for God s Kingdom that it s served by folks who are called and have a heart for a ministry rather than someone who completed all of the required classes and has the certificate to prove it. 5) We should change from long-term planning to short-term planning. The world is changing at a break-neck pace Remember that lunatic who said that every household in America would someday have a microwave oven? How crazy was that? What worked in 1990, isn t necessarily going to be effective today. Doing a church program just because we ve always done it, just doesn t make sense any more As a long range planning type, the fact that we should be ready to change at a moment s notice is a tough one for me But ministry in Christ s church is not about making me happy or comfortable

4 6) We need to move from mass-evangelism to one-on-one evangelism. Do you remember when Billy Graham Crusades were the way that God s kingdom grew most quickly? Those days are gone. In fact, Reverend Graham s organization no longer offers support for the large scale crusades of yesterday. They will, however, send someone out to our church to help us improve the way that we share the gospel with folks, on a one-on-one basis. There s a reality that in today s world, it helps to know someone personally and gaining their trust before sharing the Gospel with them. 7) Our ministry should be high touch - not necessarily high tech. Churches are always seeking the silver bullet that ll help them grow. Over the last decade, we saw the push to higher technology, contemporary worship with large audio and video systems. That was going to be the way to get young people into church. While that may have improved growth in some churches, it worked more so with middle-aged folks than twenty-somethings. When the smoke cleared, we found that the churches that grew were the ones who were simply focused on being the church (offering great hospitality, good kid s ministry, excellent foundational focus on Christianity - not the church with the biggest video screen or sound system.) 8) We must become apostles, not just disciples. I don t believe for a moment that Rodger was saying that churches should stop trying to become or grow disciples. I think that his point was that we ve got to be more apostolic. We ve got to go out (which is what apostles do) and make a difference in the world - not stay in the church and wait for folks to come in and ask questions about Jesus. This really goes back to point number 1: moving from a Tribal to an Immigrant focus. Bottom line I love what Rodger has to say about our current culture: While we have more ways to communicate than ever before, more people (especially young people) feel that they are all alone in their lives. People are yearning for the Good News of Jesus Christ and there s no one better qualified to share it than Christ s church. We were designed for this exact purpose

5 NOW WHAT? I ve got two index cards hanging on the bulletin board in my office. The blue one has the word Authentic written on it. The yellow one says Relevant. To me, if the church of Jesus Christ is to grow - including Providence Presbyterian Church - we must first be perceived as authentic. While some of us who are older may find fault with the younger generation, one of the gifts that they come pre-wired with from the factory, is a baloney meter. If a church acts all warm and fuzzy but is judgmental, hypocritical or superficial, their baloney meter s are going to ring loudly, clearly and often. Young people (whether they re 6 or 26) can spot a lack of authenticity a mile away. This is tough because the church isn t full of perfect people, is it? I ve always said that if you removed the imperfect people from any church, all you d have left is a big empty building Friends, we re not perfect. We don t have all of the answers and we sure as heck are not qualified to judge others based on the way folks look or talk or dress. We forget that the only judgement in the church should come from the God who created the earth and everything in it, not judgement from God s imperfect people. It s my prayer that in September, we ll see some new faces based on our study of The Story. These folks may not be from our tribe. They may not know how we receive communion. They may even inadvertently sit in our spot, in our pew. But that s o.k. They are God s children, in God s church. It s our responsibility to see Christ s face in each of them, even if we ve never seen them before or if we don t like the way they look or what they re wearing. The second card hanging in my office is the yellow one that says relevant. I think that being relevant is a much tougher issue for the church. First of all, there s this possibility that what s relevant and very important to me could be totally irrelevant and unimportant to you. The opposite is also true You may think that something is the greatest thing since sliced bread and I may see it as a total waste of time. But that s o.k. Today s scripture tells us that if we re really focused on discerning God s will (and not our own), then we ll see and move on what is good and acceptable and perfect (in God s view).

6 The final thing that I love about Rodger s 21st Century Reformation is that for the church to react positively, there s essentially no cost to doing it. The church doesn t need to do a capital campaign. We don t need to collect a special offering. Actually, it doesn t really cost a penny for the church to be transformed or for us to be a part of the 21st century reformation. We simply have to begin to pray for God s will to be clear and then start being the church that Christ calls us to be. Isn t it ironic that we ll give our kids or our grandkids ANYTHING that they need. We ll let them (including their kids, pets and significant others) move back into our homes when they hit a rough spot in their lives. We ll loan them money with no intention of ever being repaid. We ll walk through a walk of fire to help them but we d never dream of giving them our church. That s a non-negotiable Many churches can t or won t change Sunday School or the Wednesday night model and definitely not worship. We won t budge an inch to make their faith more accessible or engaging But (honestly) what could be more important? As Providence moves toward the future, it s my prayer that our community of faith will be even more intentional about hospitality than we already are. Let s embrace this 21st Century Reformation and do everything that we possibly can to become the church we ve been called to be. It all starts by just paying attention to others Thanks be to God for all that we ve been given and all that we can become.

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