INTENTIONAL #3 INTENTIONAL: Strategy for Connecting The consistent engagements for Christ-centered relationship Pastor David Staff purpose. Everybody ends up somewhere in life, so says Andy Stanley. You can end up somewhere on Her name was Jane, and she and Pastor Andy Stanley were friends for a dozen years. Their friendship began a couple of years after they first met. Jane was a full-fledged street person. At 41, a prescription drug addict for 20 years. Our government sponsored a methadone for heroine treatment program, so her new methadone addiction was underwritten by prescriptions from clinics. But she came to church, managed to talk her way into some money from a naïve Andy. She kidded him, Andy, do you know how to tell when an addict is lying? No, Jane, how do you know when an addict is lying? His lips are moving. Andy recalls tracking Jane for 7 years in and out of every hospital and rehab program in Atlanta. Just when he thought she was making progress, she d go down again. He even got her a job at a local church; her new boss was thrilled with her performance, only to have her quit and lie to Andy why she walked away. Andy decided to resign from Jane which lasted a couple of months. But, Stanley relates, the one thing I did right with Jane was to take advantage of every opportunity I could to cast a vision of what God could do through her if she would put her addiction behind her once and for all. Jane, (I would say), one day God is going to use you to reach people who would never listen to me. Those words over and over again. In the early years, Jane would just shake her head. But as time went by, she would bring it up. Do you really believe God could use me? Do you really believe anyone would listen to me? For some reason, I believed God wanted to use Jane. So I just kept telling her. Somewhere along the way, God birthed a vision in Jane. She began to see all the filth and sin and abuse as an opportunity. Her shameful past took on new meaning. What could be blossomed into what should be. So that there came a day when she overcame her addiction and tackled the deeper issues in her heart. She attended enough support groups to earn an honorary doctorate in addiction recovery. She began leading support groups for sexually-abused women. She was a fish in water. Andy would attend some of the most life-changing meetings of his life, with Jane in charge. It was remarkable. i In his book VISIONEERING, Andy Stanley summarizes what happened to Jane: What could be had come to be, not because of any great effort on my part. Certainly not because of any skill or insight I possessed. Rather, the strategy with Jane was remarkably simple. ii Use words every chance you get to plant a seed of vision. Water it every chance you have. Let it germinate, take root, and push to the surface. Watch that person become what God intended her to be. Strategy. What is it? A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a specific goal. 1 P a g e of INTENTIONAL #3
Notice the 3 parts of that definition A plan of action designed to achieve (i.e., be successful at) A specific goal Ask yourself: Do I have any strategy going on in my life? (lose weight, save for future, get in shape) How about a strategy to protect and strengthen your marriage? For effectively discipling your children? For getting out of debt? How about a strategy to take out of your life that sinful habit that has been hamstringing your walk with God and even your relationships for years? Strategy is INTENTIONAL. It nods at the wisdom of Zig Ziglar, If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time. Here s something that may surprise you. Many times, churches claiming to be on mission for the Lord Jesus Christ have no effective strategy. Churches like to say, Well, we re making disciples, but no one actually knows what the plan of action is to achieve that specific goal. You might ask (and you should!), What about Christ Community Church? What strategy does this outfit use to connect people to life-defining relationships in Christ? Do you know what it is? And, have you bought in? This morning, I d like to set in front our strategy. It comes from the Lord. It is rooted in His word, and it is as simple as 3 words: Gather > Connect > Serve. FIRST GATHER regular celebrative worship with the Body There is little doubt that the church, from its earliest days, stepped together into a rhythm of regular celebrative worship. New disciples of Jesus Christ did this together, not because they were required to not because it was an old habit--but because it was what being a Christian in the body of Christ was all about. So, what did that regular celebrative worship look like for the 1 st 3,000 Christians? Acts 2:38 And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. 40 And with many other 2 P a g e of INTENTIONAL #3
words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation. 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. To gather with God's people in united adoration of the Father is as necessary to the Christian life as prayer. (Martin Luther, German church reformer) Worship is the strategy by which we interrupt our preoccupation with ourselves and attend to the presence of God. Eugene Peterson You know to be perfectly candid I will often hear someone say something like this: I don t feel I need to go to church to worship. I can worship at home. In fact, I worship God best when I m out walking around a lake, or hiking in the mountains, when it s just me and God. My response? That may well be. In fact, I hope that it s true. That you truly have a very genuine experience of meeting with God, just you and Him. Here we call that God making your day! But if that is all you do and you find yourself in the statistics today that people consider regular attendance in worship to be 1.4 Sundays per month the truth is you are both disobedient to Scripture and depriving yourself and others what our Lord and Savior intends. Hebrews 10 could not be clearer: Hebrews 10:24-25 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. [GATHER strategy step 1] When he played under Coach Bobby Bowden at Florida State, NFL center Kevin Long said his college coach would inspire them with parables from his own life. One went like this. Bowden was playing college baseball, and he had never hit a home run. Finally, he hit one down the right field line, into the corner. Excitedly, he rounds first and looks to the 3 rd base coach. He turned at second, was half-way to 3 rd with the coach still waving him on. Ahead of the throw, he got to home and stepped firmly on the plate. He had his 1 st home run, so excited everyone slapping him five. But then, the pitcher took the ball, threw it to the 1 st baseman, who touched first base, and the umpire called Bowden Out! Why? Because he had failed to actually touch first base when he rounded the 1 st turn. Coach Bowden put it this way, If you don t take care of first-base, it doesn t matter what you do. If you don t honor the Lord first, it doesn t matter what else you do. iii Which is why Warren Wiersbe (Moody Church, Back to the Bible) put it this way: 3 P a g e of INTENTIONAL #3
I m convinced that everything the church is supposed to do in this world is a by-product of spiritual worship, and that includes evangelism, missions, giving, works of mercy and education, and personal holiness and service. First, God calls us to worship, then He sends us out to witness and to work. God wants worship to come first, for only then will we be energized by His power and bring glory to His name. Worship puts God where He deserves to be, and keeps man where he ought to be. iv Our strategy the one given this body to connect people in life-defining relationships in Christ begins with GATHER: regular, celebrative worship with the body of Jesus Christ. 4 P a g e of INTENTIONAL #3 SECOND CONNECT regular discipleship sharpening within a group Keep reading in Acts 2-- Acts 2:43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. You can feel it when you read it; this was a dynamic group. There was a togetherness, a commonality. They sensed they needed more time with each other, not just in the public meetings in the Temple where the Apostles teaching, praise, and prayers were happening, but in their homes. In smaller groups. They ate together in homes. They celebrated communion together in homes. They discussed what the Apostles were teaching them and what it meant to them and to their city. John Stott (now with the Lord) makes this observation in his commentary on Acts: It is always healthy when the more formal and dignified services of the local church are complemented with the informality and exuberance of home meetings. There is no need to polarize between the structured and the unstructured, the traditional and the spontaneous. The church needs both. (John R.W. Stott, The Spirit, The Church, and the World: The Message of Acts, p.85) This 2 nd piece of the strategy the Lord has given this church reflects what we see in Acts 2. Getting connected in relationships that can shape, re-define, and grow your life in Christ requires a right-sized group of relationships in Christ. A long-time observer of what makes great churches tick, Ed Stetzer, offers this: I find that a lot of Christian discipleship deals with what you need to know, not who you need to be with. That is sad, because if we get the relationships right, the information will follow. I ve found 4 factors which make groups transformational in people s lives
#1 Personal discovery - happens in small groups better than large groups for a number of reasons. You can learn, ask questions, involve yourself in the lives of others, and generally make yourself vulnerable among other people who are doing the same in small groups. #2 Smaller Communities a key level of intimacy is lost when all you experience is a large group. A healthy small group cares well for its members. #3 Deeper friendships - that small groups deliver deeper friendships that double as accountability. When people know you, really know you, your life becomes far more transparent, including your sin. #4 Maximum participation - small groups deliver maximum participation. There are opportunities to discuss the issues with others in the church. Church life issues can be discussed openly among trusted friends. v There is a reason, of course, why the New Testament echoes over and over again with this truth: Every Christian is an important part of Jesus body, and every member of that body needs the other members (cf. 1 Corinthians 12). No Christian can rightly say, I don t need anyone else. The truth is that to be all that God intends for us to be in Christ, we desperately need one another. Alone, observed Chinese author Watchman Nee, I cannot serve the Lord effectively, and He will spare no pains to teach me this. He will bring things to an end, allowing doors to close and leaving me ineffectively knocking my head against a wall until I realize that I need the help of the Body as well as of the Lord. vi The energizing strategy of GATHER, the powerful, life-shaping strategy of CONNECT. Third, THIRD SERVE regular gifted investment in the mission One of my favorite stories in the gospels is found in all of them: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. You know the story by heart, I d wager. Mark 6:30-44 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while. For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. Many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things. And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, This is a desolate place, and the hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But he answered them, You give them something to eat. And they said to him, Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat? And he said to them, How many loaves do you have? Go and see. And when they had found out, they said, Five, and two fish. Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups, by hundreds and by fifties. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing 5 P a g e of INTENTIONAL #3
and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men ( not counting the women and children included in other accounts). Here s the truth. You couldn t follow Jesus for very long without serving somebody. It was simply part of the deal; an indispensable part. Jesus himself didn t hedge on this. I did not come to be served, but to serve (Mark 10:45). If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all (Mark 9:35). Jesus was always engaging those whose lives he was shaping, those whose lives were being defined by their relationships in Him, in serving the lowly, the hungry, the sick, the small, the ones the religious elite-ists had no time for. James would write to us, James1:27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit (i.e., support, care for) orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. SERVING is a key piece of the Lord Jesus strategy to make you like Him. Your/my refusal to serve is to choose to be unlike Him. Here at CCC, we ve identified 4 places 1 st place serve your family at home 2 nd place serve this body in some kind of ministry 3 rd place serve your community as if Jesus were living in your shoes, in your situation 4 th place serve at the calling of God the world. WRAPPING UP A simple, Biblical strategy for connecting people in relationships that re-define our living in Christ. GATHER CONNECT SERVE It s what we do to follow Him and together be like Him. I m inviting you in, to intentionally step into the strategy, which, if we were to do this together, and invite others in, can transform our lives and the life of our city. Copyright 2017 David A. Staff All rights reserved i Andy Stanley, Visioneering: God s Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision (Multnomah, 1999), 116-120. ii Ibid. Stanley writes, Words are powerful. They are life-shaping. We can use them for good or evil. To build or destroy. To point people in a God-honoring direction or to send them down a path of regret. p.120. iii From Christianity Today/PreachingToday.com, More Perfect Illustrations For Every Topic and Occasion (Tyndale House, 2003), 219. iv In James R. Adair, Be Quoted: From A to Z with Warren W. Wiersbe, 197-198. v Ed Stetzer, 4 Reasons Small Groups are Vital to Your Church s Health, http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2015/march/4-reasons-small-groups-are-vital-to-your-churchshealth.html vi Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, quoted in Larson and Lowry, 1001 Quotations that Connect, p. 150. 6 P a g e of INTENTIONAL #3