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Sunday, November 07, 2010
What Does the Future Hold?
By Rev. Jerry Herships
Luke 17:20 – 21
20Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; 21nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
A lot has happened since the last time I saw all of you. I was asked to preach at the annual Clergy retreat that we have up near Winter Park. I was preaching to preachers…yes it was exactly as fun as it sounds. We had a guest speaker come and talk about Missional Church. Cool stuff that is telling me that we are the future of the church.
I was, also, asked to attend a conference in Seattle last week called the New Church Leadership Institute. We experienced great presenters and speakers. When people heard what we were doing here at Afterhours, they got excited. I was asked to come and speak about AfterHours in Portland in March at an upcoming conference. We are on target gang. We are part of God’s new plan for reforming, rethinking and reimagining the church in the coming years.
We were focusing on the Missional Church in the last couple of weeks. And I think it is the kind of church that we all want to do. We want to go out into the world. We want to change the world for the better.
Somewhere along the way things got twisted. The Church turned its signs around. I think the Church has an anatomy problem. We started focusing on how to get butts in the seats rather that get feet and hands into the world, and I think God is telling us, in the future, to understand the Kingdom in a very different way.
Now I am not about to say we have this piece all figured out. There are some people who had this Missional church thing figured out years ago. People who have been going into the world and focusing on meeting people where they are….and not just to give them directions to the church.
I still believe, though, that we all want to bring the Kingdom down to earth. We all want to see God grab people. I have heard it said that the church in the United States loses 1500 people a week, NEVER TO RETURN. Somewhere we are missing the boat.
I would love to tell you we’ve done everything right at Afterhours, but the truth is, we have done a lot wrong from a traditional church model. To be completely honest, there is a lot for the first time visitor looking for a church NOT TO like. We have played Pink Floyd, U2, Frank Sinatra and Mister Rogers. We have done some weird things here. I’ve had people read the Bible…out loud…in church! That’s cutting edge. Have you ever heard such a thing? Not just the liturgist. We have broken up into groups and read out loud together. We move around, we have had discussions. We don’t ask for a collection. We just have a basket near the front door. We are not very familiar for anyone who is church shopping….and that’s just fine. Because the people we want to reach are not church shoppers. They are people who have given up on the church but haven’t given up on God.
And I think what resonates more than anything else with non church shoppers at AfterHours is brown paper bags. What people, who don’t like church, do like is that we are feeding people. There are people who come specifically to make lunches. They get and understand that serving people with less than you is something that is bigger than organized religion, but not bigger than God.
One of the overriding themes at both the conference and the retreat I attended is this idea of going beyond our church walls and going out into the community. Not just visiting the community, but rather, being a part of it. Finding out what they need and listening and helping them with it.
We feed the hungry, clothe the naked and offer Gods grace to any and all. We do mercy ministry. Jesus did it and it worked out great for him…granted you have to read ALL the way to the end of the story but in the end it worked out.
By many standards, Afterhours is not a success. We have not had explosive growth. We worship less than 60. We have moved three times in a year and a half. If we continue to measure success by rears in the seats, Afterhours is not any great success story. But if, like many of the ministries I heard about in the past two weeks, we use other measurements…I think we have something to talk about.
I want to remind you of some of those other measurements. We have now served over 7,000 of Denver’s underserved and hungry. We have put out over 4,000 pairs of socks and countless bottles of water. God is on the move.
One of the best things about what we are doing at THE TABLE in the park is giving out communion. I have heard many people over the years tell me they don’t “do” communion. It wasn’t until the park, when I asked them if they wanted communion they responded by saying, “What’s communion?” What a cool thing it is to get to tell someone for the first time what communion is.
I think a lot of you know that Afterhours joins the Wesley Foundation in the park every Friday and I have had the privilege of giving out first communion to at least three of the DU students that come down to the park to hand out sandwiches. I grew up Catholic. I did my first communion with a new suit and tie and all my family and a big party. These DU students did their first communion with the homeless and junkies and drug dealers. I think Jesus would approve. God is moving in a new way in the future in Civic Center Park.
I have also handed out the communion bread AS someone’s supper. When they look down at it and ask, “What are you going to do with that,” you KNOW they’re hungry. You realize this is not just a symbolic meal…it IS a meal. It might not be their last supper…but it’s tonight’s supper.
Some of you remember when, with the help of Christ Church and St. Andrew and St. James and a slew of other churches, we handed out over 100 sleeping bags on Christmas day this past year. It made such an impression that we got continued anonymous donations of sleeping bags for the rest of the winter. And I truly believe that by doing that we saved lives. And we are going to do it again this year. Look for an email coming up that will take you to a link where you can purchase a cheap sleeping bag for Christmas this year and quite possibly save a life.
I know this may sound like a commercial for AfterHours. We KNOW we are not the only church that is doing this work out in the world. There are OTHERS. People are doing great things for the community right outside your doors and beyond and believe me, the neighbors are watching. In this economy they are watching to see what we are doing for the community and what we are doing for ourselves. I will tell you this, doing God’s work is a great cure for doing church work. You watch as God moves in new ways as we move into the future.
The last sermon series we talked a lot about transformation. It is funny how focused we can get on transformation IN the church. If you really want to watch transformation, watch what happens to the people outside the church, the people who are offering the outreach. That is where we can watch lives get changed. See, WE think serving others changes them. Silly rabbit. When I watch a guy, who two years ago never spent any time with the homeless, walk three city blocks carrying two cases of water for people he doesn’t know, I call that transformation.
We like to think we are doing what Jesus asked us to do but the institutional maintenance of the church can take up a lot of time. That happens on a lot of levels. I don’t think God cares as much about institutional maintenance as God cares about people.
Here’s the rub though, the institutions that we are maintaining are revenue streams. They make money. The big money St. Andrew UMC brings in fuels the ministry of this community. Until there are other revenue streams, we need to thank God for St. Andrew.
Unlike churches that bring in money, people cost money. I truly believe I “do church” every week in Civic Center Park and I believe anyone who has been down there would say the same thing. But, the congregation of Civic Center Park WILL NEVER makes the church any money. It will actually cost the church money. And yet, I feel that is the work that we do when we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ. Jesus never filled his calendar with as many meeting as I do. I believe that being the hands and feet of Christ is what it takes to bring about the Kingdom of God.
I think this is the future of God and the Church. I think we have to be honest about what the outside world thinks of us. I will tell you that until we spend more time outside our church walls than inside them, the outside world will never take us seriously. I talk to A LOT of people outside the church every week. We have to change our M.O.
I think in the future of the church we will change the equation. It used to be that the equation was: get them into church, help to convince them the importance of being out in the world and then send them out. Here’s what I think is starting to happen. We are starting to turn the equation around. We are getting people out in the world first. People don’t have to be convinced that helping people is the right thing to do. They are a little shaky on church though. When they SEE our good works and when they SEE our love, that’s the deal maker. I think Jesus told us that. THAT is how they will know we are disciples.
I know two different bartenders. One served in the Peace Core helping people in third world countries. The other is saving up money so he and his wife can go to Saudi Arabia where they can teach English to the children there. People are already doing good things. They are waiting for us to lead them.
When the Bible talks about the Kingdom of God, I don’t think it was meant just for a moment in time after we die. I think God is all about the RIGHT NOW AMONG US! And God is looking to create the Kingdom of God RIGHT NOW. I think we will see more people come to this realization as the future unfolds. We have to focus on the right stuff because it’s out there right now. It’s inside us right now. We have to partner with God as God helps us bring the kingdom to earth. If we take the Missional church off the pages of a book and move it out into the streets we will be doing two things, giving the people what they want AND changing the meaning of what being the church means for today and tomorrow.
It is interesting to note, that in this passage it says that the kingdom of God is among you. There is a footnote there though. At the bottom it shows that the Greek term used for “among” in this passage is also used elsewhere in Matthew to mean “within you.” The “you” that is used is plural…meaning it is not just directed at one individual. The kingdom of God is both among all of us and inside all of us. It is about both how we each relate to God and how we relate to God through community.
It is in this way that the future of God, the church and each of us is intertwined. The future of the kingdom of God is both in us AND among us.
I don’t even think we can even imagine what church is going to look like in the future because God will co-create it with us.
While I was in seminary, I asked a clergy why he got into ministry. He told me his board of ordained ministry asked him the same question. He said he responded to them the way he saw it, the church was on life support and he either wanted to help make it healthy again or pull the plug. I realized I feel the same way.
I say we reach for the paddles, shout “clear,” and bring the church back to life in a dramatic way. The paddles can shock the church back to life. The paddles are in this room. We are those paddles. We are the ones who can either bring the church back to life or we can pull the plug. But I think, because the Church is the manifestation of God in the world, we are going to see a very different vision of what the church of tomorrow is. I believe that as we discover the kingdom of God within ourselves, we will watch the church change as well.
The world is sick right now. I do believe that we do have the cure. We can change this world, but we have to be outside our walls to do it.
God is going to change the world. God is out in the world changing lives. The church can give that meaning and context. We can show people that we are not all about ourselves and our money and our revenue streams. It will take brave leaders who are willing to look at church in a different way. We will find a different revenue stream than just the butts in the seats and when we do, we can focus even more of our energies on what happens outside our walls and in the process, as a happy benefit, the seats inside our walls will be filled with people who need to hear the good news to recharge and go back out into the world in a huge wonderful circle that has no beginning and no end…just like God.
When we do that we will be joining God in doing a really new thing. Amen.