Talks about how a church can drift from its mission

<p>Talks about how a church can drift from its mission</p>

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Campion Seventh Day Adventist Church

Church Drift

Micheal Goetz

Church Drift: Go

Oh Lord, now that we're done with that, talking about your children, we're gonna jump into your word for a few moments here.

May it be that you speak in the name of Jesus, amen.

Early in April, we did a series called Drift, Family Drift.

Just a couple of parts about the organization and the biblical organization specifically of the family, the roles that were meant to be played and served in a family.

I got what I would consider it some, consider it feedback, consider it amount of feedback, and many that agreed.

Thank you, well said, we need to talk about that more, etc.

But what I've found is that, and maybe you've found this in your life as well, the people that send me a note of appreciation for a message are the people that agree with me.

Hey, thank you for having a differing opinion.

I don't know if that appreciation will exist in this second part of the series, which is called Church Drift.

It sounds like it's better, ah, it's not gonna be as personal, but this is gonna be personal.

The church is not some third-party remote institution like we've made it out to be.

I want to introduce today though with a with an account, a personal account.

Every once in a while these hard-working these hard-working staff over at the academy need a break.

Well, these hardworking staff need a break.

Well, so then they have things in the calendar that say break on them.

But the way the academy works, the way that school works, is that they, during the breaks, have to mobilize vans and buses in almost every direction to take students to drop-off locations where parents can then gather and retrieve their students.

And so we came up with this broad idea as pastors, hey, why don't we help give our teachers a break and volunteer for 1 of those breaks to drive 1 of the vans so that the teachers can really have a break instead of having to drive and on their time off.

Well, a couple of years ago we came up with this idea and we got, it was accepted.

The idea was accepted by the academy and I got assigned the trip to Durango.

We'd go down through Colorado Springs and down through Pueblo and across.

I did it and so when it came time to volunteer again, I said, well, that's a drive I know, you can do it again.

So just a couple of months ago, I load up the van, we head off for a break with a group of students, we're headed down to Durango, we've got all these drop-off points along the way.

And we get down to Durango, and everybody heads home with their families, it's great.

What you do as the driver, you hop a flight back and just fly into Denver, and then you get to spend a couple of days before flying back to Durango to pick up the van and the students and driving back.

Well, I'm in this airport, and if you've been to the Durango airport, you can appreciate just the beauty of that airport.

It's a little bit of a, just a little establishment, kind of on a rise above Durango, and you go into the airport, and it's not too complicated.

It's kind of a go in and go out the gate.

That's kind of what constitutes the airport.

But between the gate and the entrance is a gift shop on the right and a little restaurant, a little mom-and-pop place on the left, a little restaurant that you can order something.

And I'm flying out early in the morning, so I'm gonna get a bagel and I go into this restaurant.

They're the same person that takes your orders, the 1 that goes back and makes the food.

Well, there must have been a shift change or some sort of a change, because there's 2 women in there this time, and 1 is saying, yes, I'm getting off now, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go, and the other said, okay, I'll take over.

And then they start talking about a burden that 1 of them had on their hearts and saying, we need, I wanna pray for you and I'm gonna be praying for you.

And I'm standing there waiting for service.

They're not in any sort of hurry and I'm not too much of a hurry either, so I just kind of listen to their conversation.

And God shows up as they're talking about prayer for this burden on their heart.

God shows up and says, Michael, why don't you just take a step forward and ask if you can pray with them?

Well, I said, God, I don't want to interrupt.

That'd be rude, you know, and Christians aren't rude.

And so I'm wrestling with myself, because I know what God's saying back to me.

And there's this little back and forth, right?

The good and the bad angel sitting on my shoulder.

And eventually the second woman leaves and I order my bagel.

When that second woman leaves and walks out of the restaurant, I just, I hear God almost audibly in my head sigh.

And then the thought comes, it wasn't that I didn't want to interrupt them, it's that I didn't want to be interrupted.

I'm here at church, and our friend and church member here, Stephanie Carlson, comes up to me and hands me a book.

She said, this is a great book, you've gotta read it.

And she hands it to me and I have to ask the question.

I say, Stephanie, what do I do when I'm done with this book?

And she says, read it and keep it or pass it on.

That's all she says, read it, keep it or pass it on.

So then Sunday comes, I grab the plane, fly to Durango in preparation for a Monday morning return.

I'm sitting on the plane Sunday night, and it's a short flight, But it's a two-seater and a one-seater.

We're right next to the flight attendant.

And there's a woman sitting next to me, and I'm just reading this book, Wild Encounters, or Encountering a Wild God, by Kim Meeder.

She's built an organized, directed a ranch, a horse ranch out in Oregon for troubled situations.

And she's got a great Christian ministry out there.

Church Drift: Grow

Father in heaven, I want to jump into today's teaching knowing that we don't have to wait for somewhere, something to be shipped by someone.

And on this Sabbath, you've invited us into your house for a special appointment, and we don't have to come wondering if you'll be here on time.

You have a moment that you want to spend with us.

Do the miracle of miracles by making us available to your word.

You kind of a tough group of people, a motley, you might say.

So I don't want to assume that you don't know as much as you might know about the subject of gangs.

There are about 20, 000 gangs in the United States, about 1 million members, of which about 40, 000 are here in Colorado.

But of the 1000000 members, gangs and their members exist in every state of the 50.

Now I suppose the gangs in Wyoming don't quite look like what we think they might look like, but that might be unfair to say.

Of the gangs, of the 1 million members, 10% of those gang members are women and 2% of gangs of the 20, 000 gangs 2% of those gangs are strictly female gangs That is you can't be a part of unless you're just girls on this gang 2% of gangs are just women and then 10% of gang members overall.

While they have been destructive in many cases, they do have a knack for names.

You know, they come up with some pretty good names.

The Trey Trey's, the West Side Ballers, with a Z, Ballers.

The Bloods and the Crips both have members here in the state of Colorado.

Definition of a gang, according to the Google, is an organized group of criminals.

That's their definition, that's Google's definition.

On the screen in front of you is my definition.

An organized community of people that are family and fiercely loyal in having a collective agenda and a turf they protect.

That's kind of a little bit softer definition than Google's organized group of criminals, Google would say.

But no, I'm saying an organized community of people that are family, they become family, and fiercely loyal and having a collective agenda, they have an agenda and a turf they protect.

Interestingly enough, that agenda, or that description, that definition, could apply to the church.

A community of people, an organized community of people.

Hey, there's organization, there's elections, there's positions, there's processes, there's a board, an organized community of people that are family, they become family.

We just have a few new members of the family this morning.

Oof, if to God that would be completely true.

But they are fiercely loyal in having a collective agenda and a turf they protect.

I got that from Matthew chapter 16, verse 18, when Jesus said, hey, Peter, I'm gonna take that agenda, that idea of sharing the gospel of Jesus, declaring that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, I'm gonna take that as a collective agenda for a community of people, and I'm gonna establish it, and it will be so strong, so fiercely loyal, that even the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

What we can compare to the church to a gang, it works, but there's also a contrast.

Have you ever noticed how the difference maybe between how we would say or speak of a gang or speak of a church.

Why, you wouldn't say in a church, in a church community, you wouldn't say, or in a gang community, rather, you wouldn't say like you would of a church, Hey, are you going to gang tomorrow?

Because a gang is an organized community of people.

It's a family fiercely loyal and a collective agenda and a turf they protect.

But instead, we've relegated it and turned it into a weekend program or maybe a weeknight program.

Oh gang was great, you should have been there.

We did some gang-like stuff and we really grew together.

I'm good until next week when I'll go back to gang.

You understand the contrast that's created.

However, what the gangs have done is exactly what the church was supposed to do.

Be a fiercely loyal community, a family with a collective mission, a collective agenda, and a turf that they were to protect.

But we've turned it into a program, an event.

You experience and then you isolate again yourself.

You don't plug in and then remove yourself.

I told you about the book last weekend from which this mini-series comes, Mission Drift, written by Peter Greer and Chris Horst, Shared with me by the administration down there to Vista Hospital They're saying wait a minute Let's talk about drifting from a mission every faith-based organization Drifts from that or at least has the potential to drift from their mission without careful attention I'll read their words now faith-based organizations like schools and churches will inevitably, operative word, inevitably, drift from their founding mission.

They were birthed, the school, this campus, this church was birthed with a mission.

And what Peter Greer and Chris Horst are saying is that unless there is intentional carefulness, unless there's some intentionality, they will inevitably drift from that mission.

To assume that the schools on this campus or the church on this campus are immune to this, or that the believers in this community are somehow at odds with this trend is foolishness, Narcissistic foolishness to think that we don't have to play by the same rules.

Unless we are intentionally careful, the mission of the institutions we are a part of will drift.

Well, let's go back to the book of Acts and ask the question, what was church then?

Sat in a lovely Sabbath school discussion this morning, Bible University, where they're covering these same chapters.

Now Acts chapter 1 talks about the ascension and then sets it up for Acts chapter 2, which is then the kind of the establishment of the church.

Acts chapter 2 and verse 1 begins with this just clarion statement.

When the day of Pentecost, put it on the screen, when the day of Pentecost came, this is the Pentecost, this is the moment in which the Holy Spirit came, this is the big moment of empowering and sending.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in 1 place.

Luke writes it this way, He introduces the concept of church with the Holy Spirit working through a community of people that were all together in 1 place.

When the community comes together, when they are fiercely loyal, when they become family, when they are together for the mission, for the agenda, the Holy Spirit can work.

The first chapters of Acts speak to the important.

I know, I know how counterculture this conversation is because we are in individualistic as ever Right now.

Church Drift: Know

Father, this is your world, and we want to declare praise and thanks to you.

In all of its fallenness, with all of our foibles and all of our faults, you are still the maker of all things.

It doesn't matter what's going on in the world or in our hearts today.

And so speak, speak Lord, and we will listen.

Got reading some stories this week about what people have found in their houses after they've purchased them.

These are, I don't know what you call a house, it's a used house, a secondhand house, a house that you did not build yourself.

You bought it from somebody, they've lived in it, right?

And so people are telling stories, crazy cool stories in some cases.

1 couple tells, after 2 years of living in their home, they're finally cleaning the little dust bunnies, the little star dust that lands up on the top of the kitchen cabinet.

They're cleaning those kitchen cabinets and they find a wedding ring.

So they contact the realtor from 2 years ago and she puts them in touch with the previous owners and they are just overjoyed, crying their eyes out that the ring that they had lost years ago had been found.

It was a family that was experiencing some floorboard creaks in a house that was just creaky when you stepped in that place, and so they decided to pull the floorboards up, and underneath the floorboards, they found, they didn't know what they saw at first, but they called in the experts, they found a World War II explosive.

I tell you, I'd walk a little softer in the house after that.

Just everywhere I go, don't stomp your feet.

Another couple was frustrated after they moved into their the house they purchased and found that the previous owners had left the old piano.

Who wants to be responsible for someone else's old piano?

Well they thought, let's just dust this thing off, call in the piano guys and see how much they'll charge us to haul this thing out of our house.

So they dusted it off and called the piano guys.

Guys show up and The question is, how much is it gonna cost us to haul this out of our house?

Oh, the piano guy said, it's not gonna cost you anything.

In fact, we'll pay you $10, 000 if you'll let us take this piano.

Apparently it was more than just an old piano.

Another couple frustrated after they moved into their new home and the back, the plumbing in the back of the toilet began to leak.

Well who, come on, we just bought this place.

So they begin to take apart the plumbing in the back of the, behind the toilet, rather, to find where the problem is, and they discover that the previous owner had not believed in banks and had stored $14, 000 in cash behind the toilet.

What you find when you buy a house, right?

It makes you wanna go home and kind of poke around a little bit.

If somebody were to poke around our lives, what would they find?

If they were to dissect us, but not dissect us in the high school biology way where they got the frog on the little poke pin thing and you're pulling its guts out, but like dissect us in emotional and spiritual ways where they see everything hidden in our lives would they find an unexpected treasure Would they find something valuable and beautiful?

Leave that question hanging on your mind as we jump into the teaching today.

We have titled this series Church Drift, but it's titled after the book Mission Drift by Peter Greer and Chris Horse, who wrote about mission drift.

And here's what they put on their, here's how they lead into their research and into their work.

I'll put their words on the screen for you.

Without careful attention, faith-based organizations like schools and churches and charity organizations will inevitably drift from their founding mission.

That is, anything that was founded with a faith-based concept will inevitably drift unless there's careful attention.

That goes for schools and churches and charity organizations, hospitals that are faith-based.

They're saying it will happen to every 1 of us unless we give it careful attention.

If we continue, they said, to apologize for our faith through these organizations, through churches and schools, if we continue to apologize for our faith, conceal its importance or dumb it down.

We don't conceal, ah, come on, we don't conceal it in our schools or our churches or our organizations.

We don't conceal it, we just dumb it down a little bit.

They're saying if we conceal its importance and drift from our core, we will lose the very uniqueness our world so desperately needs.

What the world needs is a church, a school, a faith-based organization, a faith-based charity organization that says, we are unique in what we're going to offer, and we know why we were founded.

We recognize that Jesus Christ makes a difference, and we will serve with that.

Matter of fact, I quoted him with this exact line.

He's the VP of Advancement at Taylor University.

He's sharing with Peter Greer and Chris Horst, he says, hey, if there is ever a time, our challenge going forward in any organization, in any faith-based organization, is to be more true to who we are than we've ever been before.

Not to look back at the last leader, the last generation of who led our movement, or what were the seniors last year?

No, no, no, it's not about what happened last year.

It's going back to our core and saying, we wanna be more faithful and more diligent, more radical for why we were established than ever before.

So who are we as faith-based organizations?

And by the way, I'm not just talking in the corporate sense.

You and I as Christians, we say we have a different worldview.

I'm just gonna sling some real quick by, y'all throw them on the screen and we'll just sling them by, like eating an apple fritter.

You just gotta salivate on it, just salivate on these passages.

Now this is early, early, this is like the church just starting, this isn't generations later, this is the beginning of the beginning.

Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did among you through him.

This Jesus of Nazareth, he's the big deal.

Not everybody there was even searching for Jesus, But the early church said, we've got 1 thing to say to the world.

Acts chapter 2, verse 29, just a few verses later.

Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David, he talks about, Patriarch David is asleep in the tomb.

But he, he believed in the resurrection of the Messiah.

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Series

Church Drift

Church Drift: Grow

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

Church Drift: Go

46m

Church Drift: Grow

47m

Church Drift: Know

39m

Sound Doctrine