looking ahead

on Sunday, i challenged our congregation with some additional vision. the vision points, using overdone alliteration, came from this passage in Proverbs 24:11-12, "Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?"

1. get involved -- if we're going to Glorify God, by Touching the World for Christ, we have to continue to get involved with those in danger by serving their needs, including them in a loving fellowship, and joining with them in prayer. our congregation has done well to re-emphasize a missional heart in their support of our coming trip and involvement with the churches in Guyana. they also readily embraced and supported the Davenports and their ministry in Aukland, New Zealand. our church council affirmed my overzealous response to be a part of the volunteer labor and fund-raising for a new children's playground in the park next door to us that will be 75% handicap accesible (the national average for children with disabilities is 8%, but in Decatur it's 12%).
these are good steps, but there's more we can do -- 1 John 3:17 says, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?". we are constantly bombarded by a community in need. we are able to meet some and reference other places of help for needs we can't meet. one set of needs we continually face is housing. we continually get individuals and families that are just trying to get ahead enough to start rent at a place -- but the daily monetary needs for a family or food take away from the ability to raise deposits for rent, utilities, and first month's rent. we helped a single mom and her kids living in their minivan for months. we are currently helping a family of 6 (that became 7 Thursday morning). they've been living out of a motel room for 6 weeks. all the while we have a house behind our sanctuary. the house is vacant. the church used to rent it -- but doesn't want to be in the rental business anymore. i challenged our congregation to use it for those in need --to make it our Hope House (see yellow and blue icon). this would be an intentional ministry that would provide temporary housing, accountability to saving money, and help to finding a future, suitable home.

2. interrupt those staggering along with an invitation to something more. we have a sign out in front of our church -- it's not lighted, and at 45 mph, you can't really read it. if you are able to read it, you may learn the name of the church that meets there, but that's it. You don't know when we're meeting, why, or why in the world you'd like to come. traffic gets stacked up in front of our church in each direction each night. we could put a lighted sign on each side of our sanctuary -- but let's go one step further and add a scrolling marquee so that there are constant invitations to come and see what God is doing.
i also challenged the congregation to think bigger than our own fellowship when it comes to certain annual activities. i challenged us to make four quarterly events that we would also be sure to invited everyone in our neighborhoods to attend. the events would be around Easter (spring), a block party in the church parking lot (summer), our annual picnic in the park next door (fall), and something with Christmas (winter).

3. hold each other to integrity. this is the controversial one. since i've been pastor at Sixth Avenue, i've had difficulty during the nominating and annual business meeting times because i expect more of leadership than just showing up. i presented a leadership covenant that was approved by our Council, quickly became a sore spot, and has been waived the next two years by subsequent Councils. our by-laws hint to requirements of leadership, namely attendance, regular 'worship,' and "living in harmony with the teaching and practices of the Church of God". that last generic statement seems to be present in many of our church's by-laws. but what does that mean? the only belief many seem to care about is that salvation makes you a member of God's church. our national church recommends leadership covenants in the latest Credentials Manual. but more importantly, the Bible calls for higher standards of leadership. that belonging to a fellowship is one thing, but leading within that fellowship requires a little more care. i challenged our congregation to be willing to articulate those Biblical expectations and potential leaders should submit to accountability. without such agreement and accountability, we will be subject to immaturity. In Ephesians 4, while Paul is speaking of the Body (15), he mentions that we will be able to grow up into Christ as we "speak the truth in love".

finally
4. invest in those not yet here. we recently lost a good youth ministry team in Andy and Shannon (http://andrewdailey.typepad.com/dailey_blog/). in such a transition, there's the obvious drive to fill the void. but at this particular time in our church's life, we have just as many children as youth. what if we should look for a children's pastor and build up a large children's ministry for a larger, future youth ministry base? or, what if we partnered with the Concilio (Hispanic Church of God council) to bring in a Hispanic ministry family to help us meet and minister to our large Hispanic community around our church and city? then we would see not only an enlarged children's and youth ministry, we would also see additional workers and a larger congregational base from which to support children's and youth ministries. we could also be equipped to learn Spanish--and think about an eventual english/spanish speaking 2x2 ministry into our neighborhood on Sunday nights! 2 cultures, one family, meeting the needs of our community for His name's sake.