Connecting with Others

  • Michael Dennis
  • Jan 3, 2010
  • Series: Vision

The next two weeks we are going to talk about the direction of the church but before we go in that direction I wanted us to take a moment to thank God for what He has done over the last 3 months.  At our celebration we showed a video and it was really encouraging to look back and see all that Jesus has done.  We talked about how sometimes in the moment it is easy to get discouraged like in our marriage, our kids, our jobs, that sometimes we have moments where it can feel really difficult, but when we take a step back we see a bigger picture of what God is doing.  

 

We have seen people meet Jesus for the first time, we have seen people coming to church for the first time in a long time, we have been able to bless the community and last month I met with Austin Stone, one of the churches that supports us, and they were so encouraging because they said most people are just starting a service so they can get a lot of people to attend, but you guys are starting a church like we see in Scripture. 

 

It is just beginning and God is doing something special in our midst and this morning we are going to talk about our strategy as a church.  I know it may look like we are making this up as we go, but we actually have a plan.  For some of us talking about strategy will be fun, for others it will be torture, but hang in there with me.  When it comes to starting a church today in the United States 95% of them do so with a traditional promotional marketing strategy.  Which means they come into an area, study the demographics, and market their church accordingly, just like any business would market its self. 

 

When I speak to other new churches they tell me they spend $30-50K on marketing.  They send mailers, door hangers, billboards, radio spots, magazine ads, and they come into a community and blitz the community with marketing.  There is nothing wrong with marketing, but if our focus is a traditional marketing strategy it will create two road blocks:

 

  • Not Effective:  In North Central Austin we called all the churches in a 2-mile radius and less than 10,000 of them are connected to a local church.  Many of them have had negative experiences, many of them are jaded, have been hurt, and a door hanger isn’t able to overcome those past experiences.  There will be a few, but in our context, it typically won’t work.  We have done some traditional marketing, but less than 2K.  

 

  • Not Reproducible:  The second is that strategy isn’t reproducible for the average Christ follower. The average person isn’t going to buy door hangers nor should they.  A traditional marketing strategy removes the Christ follower from the equation.

 

So in our context most people have heard about Jesus, heard about church, but a mailer isn’t going to overcome those negative experiences, so that leads us to the question of, “What is our marketing strategy?” 

Our marketing strategy is “us” and our relationships with others.  We believe when you look at Scripture God’s plan is that we would be involved in relationships others.  We believe when we are falling in love with Jesus and Scripture that it will result in transformation and flow into the lives of others.

 

We believe the most exciting part of our week is not what happens on Sunday at 10am, but what happens throughout the week.  In our jobs, at lunches, running errands, in PTA, classes, and somehow we have reduced it to one hour on Sunday.  Sunday is important.  Sunday is a lot of fun.  We need Sunday to come together to encourage one another, remind us of the gospel, Scripture is elevated, Jesus is worshiped; but it is just one part of it. 

 

Think about it this way.  In most churches in the responsibility of connecting with Jesus, community, and others is primarily given to the pastors.  They are closer to Jesus, they are in the community, they are praying for people, and they should, it is their vocational job, and they can put a lot time into it, but in the average church there are typically 500 people and 3-5 pastors.  Somewhere in that ratio.  So instead of utilizing 500 people the focus is put all on the 3-5 pastors.  We just don’t think that is a good return on investment.  

 

Imagine 500 people being unleashed, empowered, challenged, encouraged, as they go into homes, work places, restaurants, and gyms compared to 3-5 pastors working full-time?  I know, I know, some will push back, you think of wearing sandwich boards with a bullhorn yelling at people and it makes you twitch, but imagine if 500 people spent 2 hours a week, which is a bad example, but for the analogy, imagine if they spent 2 hours being able to show a different side of Jesus, and if all 500 people did that it would result in 1,000 hours a week compared to 5 pastors putting 40 hours a week which is 200 hours.

 

The 2 hours a week is a bad analogy because we aren’t even talking about adding 2 hours of church activity on to your schedule every week.  In fact, we are trying to minimize “church activity” because we think some of the most powerful parts of our week are things we are already doing like our job, our children, grocery store, Target, the ordinary things and taking those ordinary things and asking Jesus to do something extraordinary. 

 

I know, you are thinking, Michael did you think of that all by yourself?  No, it is in Scripture.  It is what Jesus has been teaching us from the very beginning of human history and He is wanting to involve us in what He is doing.

 

Some of us have had those moments where God has involved us in the life of someone else and it is addicting!  It is addicting because it is what He has created us for.  He has created us for those moments to come along side other people and speak words of truth, listen, pray, encourage, rebuke, challenge; He has created us to be involved in the lives of other people.  Unfortunately, we have reduced that role for those who are called into the ministry, pastors, ministers, the professionals, but Scripture teaches us that we have all been given that calling to some degree and when we experience it, it’s awesome. 

 

Couple of weeks ago I heard Dave Leon share a story about how through a number of events he reached out to a friend and I wanted to ask him to come up and share his story:

 

  • What led you to start thinking about how you could help your friend

 

  • So you wanted to help, but not sure how?  

 

  • Were you nervous about how he and his wife would respond?

 

  • What happened?  

 

This morning to help us see where this is in Scripture we are going to look in the Old Testament at a book called Nehemiah.  I wanted us to look in the Old Testament to see that this is God’s plan for people.  Go ahead and open your Bibles to Nehemiah 1 and we are going to look at the first 5 verses.  Nehemiah is written at a period in Israel’s history referred to as post-exile and to help us step into the story of Nehemiah we need to know some of the background of the book. 

 

This books is written about 2500 years ago, so about 500 years before Jesus, and it is a time in Israel’s history after Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and other surrounding empires like Babylon and Assyria come in and have taken Israel over and basically takes them captive to work as slaves in foreign lands.  They are removed from their family, friends, homes, and culture and during this time, the exile, Persia becomes a world power the king of Persia allows Israel to return to their homelands, however, when they return home to Israel the land, the animals, the temple, the cities are destroyed and in ruins. 

 

When they return Hanani (vs. 2) comes to visit Nehemiah who is back in Persia and working as the cupbearer for the king of Persia.  The cupbearer was a prominent position whose main responsibility was to live in the royal palaces and tend to the king.  As a foreigner, in a foreign land, this was a prominent, plush position.  He is living the life of luxury, while his friends and family are devastated by the condition of their homeland.  We will start in verse 1 as Nehemiah is responding to the news from his friend. 

 

1 The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah Now it happened in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capitol, (the capital of Persia)  2 that Hanani, one of my brothers, and some men from Judah came; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped and had survived the captivity, and about Jerusalem.  3 They said to me, "The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire."

 

Nehemiah is not a pastor or a professional, but just a regular guy and this letter is basically his journal and in verse 3 it tells us the physical condition of Jerusalem and the people.  They are in distress, they are scared, they are in a crisis, worried, distraught, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and gates burned with fire.  What does it mean if the wall of the city is broken down?  They are vulnerable to attack.  There is a lack of safety and visually the gates are burned and it reminds them of the pain and loss they have experienced as a people.  People have either died, been taken, or ran in fear and look at how Nehemiah responds in verse 4. 

 

4 When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

 

This is how Nehemiah responds to physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of his people.  He sat down as if the information was so overwhelming that he couldn’t stand and it moved him to tears.  He wept and mourned for days.  He goes into depression because he is emotionally connected to these people and they are in pain.  If you looked in chapter 2 you would see that this happened for 3-4 months.  He is absolutely broken. 

 

He is not only physically and emotionally connected to the people, but notice that it leads to action.  He fasts and prays for his people.  I want us to connect with the passage with two quick observations to what we are doing here as a church. 

 

Our context:

We know practically we are surrounded by hurting people because we are hurting people, but scripture teaches us where this hurt comes from and it starts all the way back in Genesis 2 when sin entered into humanity and created external pain like wars and conflicts like we see in Nehemiah, but it also created internal pain like depression, eating disorders, anxiety, and sexual addictions like we see today.  Our pain is a little more difficult to see, but don’t let the cosmetics fool you.  Don’t let the big houses, titles, and cars fool you.  People are hurting and it is the pain within them that drives us to be successful to cover the pain.   

 

Sometimes we can grow up in a condition where we think our context seems healthy and over time we become numb to the brokenness, the pain, the hurt and we don’t see what Jesus sees.  How many of us drove past pain on the way here this morning but we don’t even see it because we have just become numb over time? 

 

Spiritually speaking we live in part of the city where only 8% of the people are connected to a local church.  Jesse called most of the churches and asked them how many people attend on a Sunday and out of 200,000; less than 10,000 are connected to a local church.  We live in a part of the city that when you talk about Jesus or church people get angry not because of what you say, but because they have been hurt in the past. 

 

We need to confess the numbness of our heart, seek forgiveness, and ask Jesus to open our eyes to the spiritual condition of our context so that it will result in our second observation. 

 

Our response:

Nehemiah responded in physical and emotional pain, which resulted in prayer and fasting.  Think of how Nehemiah could have responded?  Complete fatalism. Talk about how bad things are, never going to get better, just give up, nothing makes a difference and been completely distraught.  He could have responded completely cynical.  Thinking well they got what was coming to them, that’s what they get for going back, what did they expect, and lack any compassion.  He could have responded in fear.  Glad he stayed in Persia and be thankful he doesn’t have it as bad as those people.  But he responds in prayer. 

 

None of this has escaped His notice and God has determined the times and places in which we live, which means Austin, 2009 and He is looking for us to respond.  He is looking for our eyes to open and respond.  Reject cynicism, fear, fatalism, and fall to our knees because this is not what God wants.  He doesn’t want people far from Him, He doesn’t want people living in poverty, neglect, living under guilt, He doesn’t want marriages falling apart, He doesn’t want suicides, He doesn’t want alcoholism, he doesn’t want homelessness, He doesn’t want those things and when we see those things He wants us to be moved to action, but notice the first characteristic of his response, prayer.  You can read verses 5-11 and it starts with confession.  Confessing his sin, asking forgiveness, and crying out for His help.  We can’t do it without Him.  The needs this city has, this community are too great and our first response is to turn to Him.  That is why our first objective as a church is connecting with Jesus.  We have to turn to Him and then out of that it will flow into the lives of others and to help us respond as a church we have created a challenge for us for the next 6 months.  It is something that all of us can participate in some capacity.  It is something we called 3, 2, 1.  (Pass out cards)

 

If you look at the card there is a place for you to pray about and write down different names of people.  I want to start off by saying there are a lot of ways this can look so don’t feel the pressure of doing it right or wrong, but let me give you a little context as to what it means. 

 

The first number is 3 and we thought if we were all taking the initiative to pray for 3 people that would be a really powerful experience for our church.  That means you take some time this week to survey the people who are in your life and asking Jesus to bring 3 people to the surface that you are going to pray for this spring.  It can be a neighbor, it can be a co-worker, a family member, but somebody that you are going to go to battle for spiritually.  You notice it doesn’t say when or how often you are going to pray for those people, but it’s our desire that this would be something you keep in your Bible, your purse, your wallet, tape it on your steering wheel as a reminder to pray for others. 

 

The second number is 2 and we thought if we all had 2 people we were looking to serve as we go throughout the week that would be a really powerful experience for our church.  We have about 50 people that are connected to our church and imagine if all 50 were going throughout the week thinking about ways to serve 2 people?  Could be really powerful!   What does it look like to serve 2 people?  It isn’t necessarily doing random like leaving cookies or mowing someone’s yard, which is good, but more so getting to know 2 people in such a way that you find out how you can serve them specifically.  As you get to know them you might find out they need some cookies, they need their yard mowed, but we have to get to know them.  This might sound scary for some of us, but anyone can do this!  If you think you don’t know anyone, then take this week to pray about and see who Jesus brings to the surface.  Maybe it starts with learning their name, maybe they are someone you have known for a long time.  There is a lot of freedom to this. 

 

The third number is 1 and we thought if we all had 1 person that we were looking to have spiritual conversations with that would be a really powerful experience for our church.  A spiritual conversation can be something really simple, maybe it starts with saying, “God bless you.”  You are going to be the one who initiates those conversations so it goes at your pace as Jesus leads you and gives you opportunities. 

 

One part of Dave’s story that we didn’t share this morning is that the first time I heard him share that story he said, “I am one of those people who doesn’t talk to other people.”  And yet the Holy Spirit worked in Him to reach out to his friend and Dave was blessed from the experience.  We believe God is going to bless you from this experience. 

 

Notice there are 3 sections to this card.  One is for you to tear off, keep with you, and one is to give to us so that we can pray for you as you step out in this experience.  I know some of us start to twitch when we think about something like this, but we can move at your own pace and see it simply as a way to pray, serve others, and be open to talking to be about spiritual things when it is appropriate, and getting to go through the experience with other people.  It isn’t a competition, there aren’t going to be ribbons to win, but it is something that can be a tool for us as a church so that as Jesus opens our eyes we can respond. 

 

Here is what is great about this is that when we say serving others and there are 200,000 around us, 1.5 million people in the city, it is a little overwhelming, but when we talk about picking 2-3 people we can slowly start to see something really exciting. 

 

Pray.