THE RISE AND FALL

KEEPING THE VISION

Matthew 28:16-20=

Where are we? Where are we going? How will we get there?<= /span>

A sermon pr= eached by

Rev. Willia= m O. (Bud) Reeves

First Unite= d Methodist Church

Hot Springs, Arkansas

January 20,= 2008

There i= s a delightful story about an old couple who were sitting in their rockers on t= he front porch of their house. I= t was a hot, humid summer day, and the old folks were rocking away, trying to get= a little air, when suddenly the woman had an idea. “You know what would be good, George?” she said. “Some ice cream. Some ice cream with chocolate sauce. That would sure cool us off and taste good, wouldn’t it?”= ;

George = agreed, and said, “I’ll go down to the store and get some.”

His wif= e said, “Now George, you know how forgetful you have been lately. You’d better write down a list—ice cream and chocolate sauce.”

George = was a little irritated at that. He = said, “Woman, I can remember two little things, for goodness sake. Ice cream and chocolate sauce!R= 21; He sort of huffed away to the gara= ge and got in the car and drove off to the store.

George = was gone a while—15, 30, 45 minutes. Finally he pulled back into the driveway and came up on the porch. He handed his wife a small sack and said, “Here you go.”

She loo= ked in the sack, and there were two cans of sardines. She exclaimed, “George, you = old fool! You forgot the crackers!”

Did you= ever feel like you were sent for something, but you’re not sure what for?<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> I find myself thinking all the tim= e, “What did I get up and come in here for? What was my mission?” Do you ever get the feeling that t= here is some purpose for your life, but you haven’t quite gotten a hold of= it yet? Let me share some good n= ews with you today. Jesus has cal= led us and sent us to do a job. Ulti= mately it is the most meaningful task we can undertake. If we respond to the call, it will provide a purpose, a reason for existence, a driving force in our lives, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. That’s good news, but itR= 17;s also a challenge. Jesus calls= us to use every opportunity we have to make disciples, to share a witness, and to serve his Kingdom in this world.

All four Gospels give some picture of Jesus commissioning his disciples. Matthew’s version is called = the Great Commission. After the resurrection, Jesus sent the disciples back to Galil= ee, where he promised to appear again to them.= Some worshipped when they saw the risen Christ, but some doubted—you can understand that.&nbs= p; But Jesus said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of= all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”= = [1]

This wa= s the mission Jesus left with his disciples, and it is still our mission today. He sent the Holy Spirit at Penteco= st to empower the disciples to be his witnesses in Jerusale= m, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. That same Holy Spirit empowers our witness and ministry today. So today, I want to do a different= type of sermon. I want to talk abo= ut our mission. I want to recall who= we are and what we are called and sent to do.= I want to recast the vision today.&= nbsp; I want us to understand where we are, where we are going, and how we= are going to get there.

First o= f all, we are in a great place as a church. We are blessed to be a large, strong, growing, downtown United Methodist Church. There are not many places in America= today that can string all those adjectives together and still tell the truth. We can. We had a great year in 2007. I think the most long-r= anging thing we did was to undergo an intentional and intensive time of prayer and study and revisioning our future. We were led to formulate a new statement of our vision as a church: “We are a community of faith, connecting people to God, to each other, and to the world.” We a= re a faith-based organization, acting as an agent to help people get in touch wi= th God in a relationship of salvation, to get connected with people in a supportive, nurturing fellowship, and to reach out in meaningful mission to= the community and world around us. That’s who we are.

We want= to pursue the vision by acting to close the gap between the reality of who we = are and the ideal of the vision. = This is our mission, and we have three main ways to accomplish our mission throu= gh the church. One is hospitality—welcoming people into the church, making information available to our guests, being friendly and open to people, and doing whate= ver we can to make folks feel valued in our presence.

Then we= want to concentrate on the proclamation of the Good News of Christ. We want to share our faith through worship, music, communication beyond our church—any way we can get the word out about Jesus.

The thi= rd part of the mission is discipleship, which is learning and growing as Christians. There are many opportunities for education and mission and ministry that will help you bec= ome a better disciple of Jesus, and that’s what the journey is all about.=

We have= already begun to see the results of our new vision and mission. Of course, it was not a radical departure from the self-understanding we already had. In a sense, it was like we were ju= mping on a train that was already moving. We didn’t just start doing great ministry after the vision and mission were adopted last May. But since then our membership has grown to 2,148, a net increase of 63 over the previous year. Our worship attendance, with the start of the new service, hit an all-time high of 851 = in 2007. Our financial year was = great; we had strong support and ended the year with over $100,000 to continue our ministry into the new year. O= ur outreach ministries are phenomenal—the Caring Place, mission trips, commun= ity missions, support of United Methodist causes—all great!

The most noticeable change, of course, was adding a third worship service, the ConneXion, to our Sunday morning schedule.= I believe it has been a tremendous success, averaging over 230 per Sunday for the first four months. Since November, counting today, we will take in more new members in = that service than the other two combined. We are making disciples in ConneXion.

In the = year ahead, my plan is to work the plan. I believe God revealed it to us through prayer and study, so I plan = to just keep on keeping on, doing what God calls us to do as a “communit= y of faith, connecting people to God, to each other, and to the world through hospitality, proclamation, and discipleship.” There is plenty in the plan to kee= p us busy.

In 2008= , we also have four “extra-curricular” events in the schedule. We are already doing one of them.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> We are producing a new pictorial directory so we can see all the new faces and how the rest of us have impro= ved with age. This will be a help= ful tool to put faces and names together, and I understand the number of famili= es photographed has been very good.

The nex= t event coming up is a capital funds campaign that will last through April. It’s incredible to me that t= he last campaign was for the construction of the Christian Life Center in 1997, yet= in the intervening years, the church has raised over $7.5 million dollars for capital improvements: the CLC itself, the elevator, remodeling projects, Rotation Sunday School, the ConneXion, the Caring Place. In the new campaign, we are just continuing the process we have already started of becoming the best church = we can be in this place. The vis= ion of our leaders in years past shows in the improvements we have made.

The thr= ust of this campaign is to consolidate the strength of our campus right here. It will involve eliminating the cu= rrent debt we have on the CLC and other items, re-claiming Harrison Hall as usable ministry space for the youth, re-working the heating and air in the educati= on building, and finishing the roof on the sanctuary. Then we want to have some capital = funds available to purchase property around us, pave adequate parking for our gro= wing church, and provide space for future growth. You will be hearing over and over = about the campaign and what it is for. The main strategy, however, will be prayer. We will not be doing any kind of uncomfortable or aggressive fund-raising.&= nbsp; We will simply be asking each family in the church to pray about what God wants them to do in light of this campaign. And if we all answer God the way he wants us to, we will have success.

The thi= rd extra event of the year will be our annual conference coming up in June. The Arkansas Annual Conference of = the United Methodist Church will be back in Hot Springs at the Convention Center in June. Th= ough we don’t host it at our church any more, there will still be lots to = do, and we will play a part in welcoming our brothers and sisters from across t= he state to our wonderful city.

Then ne= xt fall, we have something really fun planned. My friend Rev. Wesley Putnam from Texas is coming to do an event called a Dayspring Crusade. He is a musician, dramatist, and preacher who specializes in portrayals of Biblical characters and stories.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> His presentations and songs are hu= morous and touching, and he will be here in October to lift our spirits and draw us closer to God.[2]

2008 is= going to be a great year to be a part of First United Methodist Church of Hot Springs. Let me share with you three additional inspirational ideas. We have a great church, great plans, great facilities, strong numbers, but in the end, it’s still all about making the connections: “connecting people to God, to each other, and to the world.” We are called t= o make disciples of Jesus Christ. We= are sent to share his love with a lost, broken, hurting world. Our job is to make the connection.<= /p>

Dr John Killinger tells about a friend of his who got the urge one Sunday afternoon= to make a strawberry pie. Her hu= sband asked what she was making the pie for, since they didn’t have anything special going on. But this la= dy had a keen sense about spiritual things, and she said, “The Lord will giv= e us somebody to help us eat this pie.”&n= bsp; When she got the pie in the oven, she telephoned some friends to come over and share the pie. But t= hey were all busy and could not come, so the pie went uneaten. That evening, the couple went to c= hurch. After the service, the wife saw a = woman standing alone. She had joine= d the church just the week before, and she looked lonely. So the woman went over and invited= the new lady home to have a piece of strawberry pie. Then she gathered up a few other f= riends to go along. As they were enj= oying the pie in the couple’s home, the new lady suddenly burst into tears. The hostess went over = and hugged her. The woman said, “I’m so happy! I = prayed all day that God would give me some new friends, and here you are.” As it turned out, her husband had deserted her and four small children. Her life had been hard, and she felt bereft and lonely. But that night, she was surrounded= by a circle of love and support. A= fter the guests had gone, the piemaker told her husband, “See, it was the Lord’s strawberry pie after all.”

It̵= 7;s all about making connections; it’s all about making disciples. When you help someone make the connection, or when you make it yourself, then you find purpose for living. Then you know what yo= u were sent here to do.

Second inspirational thought: our ministr= y will be as big as our dreams. = Nothing is impossible for God—the Bible says so. The only thing that limits the development of our ministry is the vision we have for it, the dreams we dar= e to dream about God’s plans for our church.

I learn= ed an interesting thing recently about sharks.&n= bsp; Did you know that sharks are one of the most popular fish that people buy for exotic aquariums? If = you put a small shark in an aquarium, it will only grow to the size the aquarium will allow for comfortable swimming. A shark can be six inches long, yet fully mature, because its size is going to be proportionate to its boundaries. But if you take that six-inch shar= k and put him in the ocean, he will grow to full size, even if he had stopped gro= wing in the aquarium.[3]

We don&= #8217;t want to put artificial boundaries on a God who is infinite. We don’t want to do everythi= ng humanly possible with our ministry, because if we only do what is humanly possible, we don’t even need God.&nb= sp; We don’t want to be a six-inch shark swimming on somebody̵= 7;s countertop; we want to swim free and grow big in the ocean of God’s possibility. That’s what Christ commissions us to do, and then he promises to be with us to help us forever.

Finally, despite our difficulties and obstacles that we have to overcome to achieve = the vision God has given us, we are a = people of hope. We never give up= . We believe our best days are still= ahead of us.

Tomorr= ow we will celebrate the birthday of a great American, a visionary leader named Martin Luther King, Jr. Facing death threats and hostility, he went in April of 1968 to Memphis to encourage people seeking justice. On the evening befor= e he was assassinated, King spoke at the Mason Temple Church of God in Christ, a= nd he ended his speech that night with these prophetic words:

“I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead= . But it doesn't matter with me now. = Because I've been to the mountainto= p. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live = a long life. Longevity has its place= . But I'm not concerned about that no= w. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked ove= r. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, tha= t we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”[4]

I want= you to know that we can be happy today. We don’t have to be worried. We don’t have to be afraid. We are bound for the promised land. We have a mountaintop church. We have a vision and a missio= n from God. We are making disciples = and creating connections. We have= big dreams. We have a big hope, b= ecause we have a big God. If we are faithful to the vision, we will see his glory! Amen!

&n= bsp;

&= nbsp;