Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis January 13, 2008

Ephesians 4:1-13 (New Living Translation)

“Outlines of a Dream”

Everyone who comes through our doors is looking for something. Maybe they’re feeling some kind of spiritual emptiness that aches for a connection with something bigger than themselves. Maybe they’re looking for community with people that are real, honest, caring, and who care about the world. Maybe they’re wanting their children to develop spiritual values like honesty, tolerance, fairness, and compassion, and they know they need reinforcement. Maybe they’re looking for a place where their own searching questions and nagging doubts can help carry them deeper than the faith of their childhood. Maybe they’re looking for a way to worship where God might actually touch them, lift them, renew them, and guide them.

How many of you see yourself in any of these descriptions? I do too. I’m sure God loves what we have created here for everyone who comes –a place where souls can open, unfold, explore, connect, find direction, find meaning, serve, and grow in faith, hope, love, and joy. It is our need for God that has brought each of us here– which is a way of understanding God’s calling us back to God and back to our true selves. Some of you have answered that call and come through our doors thousands of times, and some for the first time today. And yet, even though we don’t all know each other, we still experience the mystery of what Paul said in our scripture lesson. When we are seeking God and turned toward God together,

We are all one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future. There is only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and there is only one God and Father, who is over us all and in us all and living through us all (Ephesians 4:4-6).

We are like the spokes of the wheel the early Christians talked about. The closer the spokes get to the hub, the center of them all, the closer they get to each other. And the closer they get to each other, the closer they get to the hub. That’s us, right here at Henrietta UCC, drawing closer to the center together.

Now we’ve noticed that God has been sending us more and more “spokes-men” and “spokes-women” and lots of “spokes-children” to be in this wheel we call HUCC. It feels wonderful to have a sanctuary full of people singing heartily and praying together, and lots of children eagerly running up for the Children’s Times and out to their Sunday School classes, and a big choir singing out on all the parts, and new people willing to step forward and help with our various ministries and activities. But it’s gotten almost impossible to keep track of who’s a member and who’s a visitor. That feels very different from a church where everybody used to at least recognize most everyone. And I can no longer keep tabs personally on everyone while managing and coordinating a very active congregation.

So Pastor Martha and I began reading and talking to other pastors of growing churches, and we found out that an average attendance of 150 is considered the tipping point from what is called a “pastor-centered church” to a “program church.” We’re now at 155 and growing. Scientific studies show that the normal human brain can only personally know the members of a group of up to 150 people. And all the books say that after 150 or so, the pastor will burn out if he or she tries to be the primary source of the congregation’s pastoral care and spiritual nurture, while also being the main overseer of the church’s program–even with one full-time and one half-time pastor, which is what the books say is the minimum just to maintain a church of this size these days.

So how we experience our church community and how we relate to each other as pastor and congregation are both changing at the same time. All the books say we’re in a challenging transition.

So if we liked it the way it was, why not just stay that way and stop growing? Believe me, I know that temptation. But I’ve come to see that’s a lot like having a toddler and saying, “Erin’s so cute and cuddly. If she keeps growing, she’ll outgrow the clothes we’ve bought for her, she’ll start pulling away from us, she’ll probably become one of those adolescents, and some day she’s likely to want to go off on her own. I don’t think we’re ready to handle all this. We’d better stop feeding her now!” Well, most parents don’t do that, but most parents know the temptation to keep their child dependent and tied to them so they don’t lose what feels close and familiar.

So here’s the good news. Just as God dreams of something bigger and better for Erin than being a cuddly toddler, so God dreams of something bigger and better for us as a church than what we have experienced so far. I can already see the outlines of this dream, and I’m getting excited. Interestingly, Paul was seeing the same dream for the church in today’s scripture lesson when he said that the evangelists and pastors and teachers are “to equip God's people to do God’s work and build up the church, the body of Christ, until we come to...be mature and full grown in the Lord, measuring up to the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13).

So God’s dream is for Pastor Martha and me not to be the “real Christians” who are doing God’s work, but God wants us to equip and empower you to do God’s work of bringing love, hope, wisdom, and peace into our midst and into our world. And God wants Pastor Martha and me to help your relationship with God grow strong and vibrant that we all grow into full maturity as the people God created us to be, and that we even grow towards the spiritual stature of Christ–embodying Christ’s compassion, courage, forgiveness, and vision of God’s kingdom. Now that’s a pretty big dream, isn’t it?

But I’ll tell you something awesome. As I catch glimpses of God’s dream for us, I also catch glimpses of how this dream is already beginning to come true. As Paul said, Christ “gave gifts to his people” (vs. 8) and he gave gifts to his church (vs. 11). Helping God’s dream for us come true means continuing to develop those gifts so they can bless us, bless all the people God sends us, and, through us, bless the world.

For example, one of our gifts as a church is to really care for each other. I see the potential for this gift to keep growing. I believe that God dreams of some of you being equipped to do God’s work of visiting shut-ins, visiting people in the hospital, praying for people facing surgery, and supporting people who are going through tough times. I personally can’t be with everyone who needs to be reminded of God’s presence when they go through a rough spot. But I can teach you how to do that, and then we’d have a congregation that really knows how to minister to each other. Wouldn’t that be even better than everyone depending on one or two pastors to do it all?

Another is our gift of genuine hospitality and welcome. Last week John Loughner just trained ten or twelve people to be on our Welcoming Team, helping us grow this gift bigger. I can see God dreaming of us finding ways to make sure that each new person finds their way into the church family, makes friends with some folks, and finds meaningful ways to learn, grow and serve.

What would it look like for our gift of a strong spiritual community to grow? Maybe God would want us to make sure we’re spiritually fed at our boards and committees, guilds and gatherings so that Christ’s spirit permeates all that we do. Instead of trying to know everybody superficially, what if we got to know a group of people deeply, perhaps through spiritual growth groups that are led by spiritual explorers like you for other seekers of wisdom, guidance, encouragement, and support?

What would it look like if our gift of compassion for the world moved us not only to support other organizations’ missions, but also to do more personal, hands-on ministries that make a real difference to real people in the mission fields right around us? What would happen if folks felt called to start new missions from this church?

These are some of God’s dreams for us that I am seeing outlines of as our wheel gets more and more spokes. We’ll still be the same wheel. But we will feel a growing richness, vitality and unity as long as we all continue moving toward the Center of the wheel together. If we start looking at ourselves and each other separately, and see how different that person way over on the other side of the wheel is from us, and start arguing over our own personal opinions, and begin moving away from each other, the wheel will start to come apart. But if we all turn toward the center together and listen, not to what we want or even a majority of the spokes wants but listen together for what God wants for us, we will be a very strong wheel indeed.

It’s going to take each one of us taking our faith seriously and our church seriously to help make God’s dreams for us come to fruition. We will all have to dream, discern, and do the work together. To help us do that, we are going to create a volunteer “Dream Team” during our Annual Meeting next Sunday. Members of the Dream Team will do some reading and field trips to find out what other growing churches are doing, to help stimulate us as a church to dream and discern what God is calling us to do, and to help us develop plans for the various parts of the dream. Listen to whether you feel God calling you to become part of this visionary, creative, high energy kind of group.

The words that Paul began today’s reading with are good ones to help us begin this new venture of faith together. Listen to them as though Paul is speaking to you.

Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. Always keep yourselves united in the Holy Spirit, and bind yourselves together with peace. We are all one body, we have the same Spirit, and we have all been called to the same glorious future.

Amen!