Last Sunday was “Vision Day” at
Below is a gently modified version of my talk. “Modified” because what you read below isn’t a word-for-word transcript of what I said, but instead large portions of my notes (as such, there will be typos, grammar and punctuation inaccuracies). It also doesn’t include the live interviews I did with Julie Paz from Esther
But I think you’ll get the gist of it…
VISION DAY 2008
If you’ve listened to radio, or watched TV or surfed the web or read a newspaper or magazine this week, I suspect you have heard the name “Barack Obama” or “John McCain” or “Joe Biden” or “Sarah Palin.”
After all, we are in a hotly contested election season.
And so I’d like to start with a question.
Imagine that we elected all the right people to all the right offices—President, Congress, state government, local government, school boards, city councils, etc.
And imagine they instituted all the right policies and legislation—zoning laws, tax structures, immigration policy, health care policy, energy policy, education policy—everything just exactly right. Imagine stocks on Wall Street never had violent fluctuations. And imagine the Georgia DOT only had to fix roads 1 time. And lanes were never shut down on weekends.
Here’s the question: If we got all that right, would that lead to perfection in our society? Would all parents now demonstrate great patience and wisdom toward their children? Would every marriage now be an example of faithfulness and love? Would corporate greed and personal pride be legislated out of existence? Would workplaces become pictures of unity and joy? Would fitness centers and grocery store lines and rush hour on GA 400 now become a place of kindness and generosity? Would human beings at last be able to control their impulses around sexuality and anger and appetite? Would you finally be the man or woman that God created you to be?
Now, to be clear, as we talked during the last two weeks, we should be involved in the political process. And we ought to do it in a way that is respectful and graceful.
But, here’s the point. No human system, no human structure, no human kingdom has the ability to change the human heart—so that pride becomes humility, judgementalism becomes grace, hate turns to love, anger to forgiveness, selfishness turns to selflessness.
No human kingdom has the ability to do that.
We need another kind of administration, one that deals with the transformation of my heart and yours.
Well…
Once there was a carpenter, a young rabbi named Jesus, and He had a single, central message. No one in history to that point had ever had a message like it. And when people heard it they left everything for it…and then they found it—a life filled with love, joy, purpose, passion and an inner peace that would allow them to willingly give up their lives for the sake of it.
It’s summarized in Mark chapter one:
Jesus went into
Jesus offers a new administration—not earthly power structures, but the
And people wanted to know, “what’s the
WHAT IS THIS KINGDOM LIKE? (congregation opens bags with mustard seeds in them.)
People wanted to know. So Jesus talked a lot about it.
“What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it?...It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when sown in the ground, grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants, and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its branches.” (Luke 13:18-19)
A mustard seed. It’s pretty small. But it grows up to maturity and becomes a source of nutrients, life and joy to others.
I did a little research on the mustard plant and discovered that it’s also pervasive…like kudzu….great resilience, great power, great ability to spread and grow and thrive. It was actually known, in the
It’s small and yet has great effect.
Eugene Peterson wrote, “The metaphors Jesus used for life with God are frequently images of the single, the small and the quiet, which have effects far in excess of their appearance: salt, leaven and seed.” (Contemplative Pastor: p 25)
Jesus said once…
Well, Jesus’ disciples had this seed, too. And they said, “We know what we are gonna do with it!”
We’re gonna come together and plant it in the kingdom of God…. ….and so they did….a politically right wing disciple, and a politically left wing disciple, a disciple who wanted to overthrow government structures and a disciple who wanted to rise within it. Richer disciples and some poor ones. A tax collectors, fisherman, and a carpenter.
They all came together, planted their seed in the
Later, Paul, a divorced man with a handicap, said “here’s my seed” and people from
And throughout history ordinary people have said, “it’s small, but here’s my seed, here’s my seed.”
In this room, if you look around, we have republicans and democrats, those financially well-off and financially in debt, those who love the church and those who aren’t sure, people in great pain and people experiencing great joy.
And 2,000 years ago Jesus took a group like us and galvanized them behind a single vision—to spread the good news that the
And he says to you and me what he said to those disciples years ago…. “If you give your mustard seed to me, I will grow you and bless you and your life will be an incredible blessing.”
And now I want to talk about the vision I believe God has for our collective seeds. How he is already using them and how he would like to use them in the next 12 months and beyond in our church community.
And there are THREE VERY UNIQUE WAYS God has been moving and wants to continue moving in us in the next season of our lives….
GIVE
God has given us a vision here at New Community—a vision to give of our time and resources to those outside our immediate church community…into our greater
And God has uniquely blessed us with the ability and passion to make a significant difference in two spheres that matter deeply to God.
1st sphere is Esther Jackson…
Almost three years ago, now, I had the privilege of going with to Esther Jackson Elementary as well as three or four other schools in our immediate area to see if and how we might be able to serve them. We went in response to promptings we felt to engage, love and serve our community. And we went with no agendas. No strings-attached. And for whatever reasons, of the several schools we approached, only one, Esther Jackson, responded.
They said, well, we have a gardens/gazebo area that needs weeds pulled, old bushes removed and new mulch laid down. And so we served.
Later that year we volunteered at a school-wide field day. Later we learned that teachers would love a greater sense that the community is loving and supporting them. So we made and delivered teacher packets (food, gum, school supplies, Starbucks gift cards). Later we learned that some families were barely able to put food on their tables, so we gave Kroger gift cards to twenty-five families. Later we learned that kids needed tutoring. So we tutored over thirty kids last year.
These were all needs that came to our attention and that we simply responded to. YOU responded with amazing hearts and generosity. And as you know we never had an agenda to “preach” or talk about Jesus to them. We never had secret hopes that we could get more people in our seats on Sunday morning. We simply wanted to be neighbors that loved and served our community….no strings attached.
And as last year ended it was clear that God had and was using us in unexpected and in significant ways to bless Esther Jackson.
And it's in this context that I want to invite Julie Paz forward. Julie is our primary contact and—from a human standpoint— the primary reason that we are able to bless all the students and teachers there.
Julie—thank you!
Tell us how things are going this year at Esther Jackson? What are your greatest excitements and greatest needs this year? Talk about how our tutoring last year impacted the school? What are your tutoring needs this year?
The second thing God is uniquely doing in and through us under this category of “GIVE” is our TRIVIA FOR WATER. This October we fund our 4th well!!
And now I’d like to invite Ken Dowdy forward. Ken works with World Vision and is partnering with us for our Trivia for Water event.
Take us from a check we write to the well being dug
Take us from the well being dug to the impact of the well on a village…
As we look into the next year of life and beyond, these two God-visions (Esther Jackson and digging wells in
This doesn’t mean I don’t help you wash your car or load up your Uhaul or serve a neighbor or volunteer with Make-a-Wish or Breast Cancer walks or MS bike rides, or Project Open Hand or Roswell Firehouse or Holcomb woods parkway clean-up.
NO…..God has called some of us to do these things, too.
It means we have a unique calling to Esther Jackson and to digging wells, and together we can make a difference…one mustard seed at a time.
So I’m asking, the elders are asking, I believe God is asking everyone to do something—faithfully and consistently—to bless Esther Jackson and to dig wells.
PRAY
The second piece of vision for the coming 12-months and beyond centers on this word…PRAY.
In the next 12 months and beyond we’re gonna raise the value and vision for prayer.
So we’re gonna ask each of you to make prayer a more significant part of your life.
Cindy Gambon, an amazing member of the elder board, is going to lead us in this….
But our goal isn’t to get good at praying. It isn’t to set new records in amounts of time in prayer. It is to learn to consistently bring the real us before the real God.
So we’re gonna pray the real us…
Jesus, in fact, said, when you pray, don’t pray like hypocrites….pray the real you…
The quickest way to kill a prayer life is to pretend to care about what you don’t really care about.
So we’re gonna pray real. And that means we’re gonna pray everywhere.
Pray doesn’t need to happen only in one specific chair in your house, in front of a window that over-looks a bird feeder….although that might be a good place for daily devotions and reflection.
We’re gonna pray real and pray everywhere—every room of the house, car, work, at play, etc…— and we’re gonna pray with…real us before real God.
And I believe some of us will connect with God in the next 12 months in ways we’ve never connected with him before.
Praying is also going to allow us to connecting with each other.
It’s great that we eat together and we’re gonna keep doing that.
It’s great that we play together and we’re gonna keep doing that….
It’s very good to watch football together…and we’re gonna keep doing that!
But we can go deeper and find deeper and truer and more satisfying and lasting relationships when we begin to pray for each other.
Examples of how praying for another connects us with them….
So I’m asking, the elders are asking, I believe God is asking everyone to do something—faithfully and consistently—to make prayer—connecting with God and each other—a priority during the next 12 months and beyond.
SHARE
Finally…the word…SHARE.
This is a short point, but straight from the Bible…
You read the NT and there no sense that I keep kingdom life—love, joy, peace, purpose—to myself….there is always a sense of invitations, conversations and sharing and joining.
So in the next 12 months and beyond we are gonna commit to increasingly share our lives with others…engaging in conversations and invitations for others to join us on this journey.
This doesn’t only happen, this doesn’t primarily happen, through invitations to a Sunday morning service….this means that when I serve the poor I invite another to join me. When I go camping or hiking, I invite another to join me. When I watch a football game or go to a movie, I invite another to join me.
This means when I read a book that stretches my thinking and grows my faith, I ask another read it and then we get together over coffee or dinner to talk about it together.
This means that instead of making the focus of my conversations all about politics, sports, technology, I begin to share with people the story of my walk with God.
So I’m asking, the elders are asking, I believe God is asking everyone to do something—faithfully and consistently—to extend your life with God to others.
This is the vision we’ve seen God leading us in and the vision he wants to increasingly lead us in during the next 12 months and beyond.
WHO IS RESPONSILBE FOR SEEING TO IT THAT WE MEET OUR OBJECTIVES? GOD
WHAT DO I DO? GIVE WHAT I HAVE….Some time, some money, some priorities…. It may involve rearranging your schedule, rearranging your finances, rearranging your priorities…. We can do that!!
What do I have? My mustard seed
When you give it to God an amazing thing happens.
I GIVE, but I find myself RECEIVING
I PRAY, but I find myself experience less worry and more PEACE.
I SHARE, but discover true JOY.
There is something about a seed. It’s pretty much dead here, isn’t it? But you plant it in the soil of God....and the seed that died comes to life…
One day Jesus came to this earth and was born as a baby…he was a seed from the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Mary, his mother. But he was no ordinary seed. He launched this
And people joined and for a while there’s excitement and hope for this little community of Jesus followers. But then the seed is crucified. He’s dead. And they all thought that the kingdom was gone.
But they were all wrong. The seed was laid (planted) in a grave and the grave couldn’t keep him down.
And on the third day Jesus was raised again. And it turns out that it was actually your sin and mine, death and pain and despair, that was defeated on the cross, not Jesus.
Jesus is still alive and well. And what He said then He says to you and me now.
“Come to Me. The
The
- It will take place over conversations at Starbucks, Sweet Tomatoes, Taco Mac and in our homes.
- It will take place on mountain tops in
- The revolution will be in classrooms at Esther Jackson, helping a kid read simple words and multiply 3x3.
- The revolution will not be talking about poverty in chairs on Sunday morning. It will be in helping to eradicate pockets of poverty in our world. It will take place around Trivia tables and around newly dug wells in African villages.
- The revolution will take place in Kids Community.
- The revolution will be downsizing my life so I can bring my finances to bear in the greater causes of life.
- The revolution will take place on our knees.
So get ready friends, God is preparing us for something really, really—small. About the size of a mustard seed.
Cause after all the
And if you want to be a part of that kind of Kingdom, you can do that today. It’s available to all of us.
So let’s pray now….then we’ll eat….
the mustard seed revolution
During the next twelve months, and beyond, we believe God would love to move through us
in the following three “mustard seed” ways:
GIVE
1. Be a tutor at
2. Pray regularly for
3. Donate money (beyond my regular giving to the church), when asked, to causes at Esther Jackson.
4. Volunteer for periodic events at Esther Jackson (clean-up days; field days, landscaping projects)
5. Attend our trivia nights for water (October 18, 2008 and January 31, 2009)
6. Donate money (beyond my regular giving to the church) for the digging of wells in
7. Donate money towards the sending of church leadership on a mission trip to
8. Alongside others in the church, read a book or attend a conference or concert that will stir my heart and mind toward issues of injustice and poverty in the world.
The revolution: Everyone doing something
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PRAY
1. Pray regularly and specifically for my church community, my neighborhood and those I work with.
2. Pray regularly with another member of our community (over the phone or in person).
3. Pray for and with my child(ren) on a daily basis.
4. Pray for and with my spouse on a daily basis.
5. Participate in a special weekend of fasting and prayer.
6. Participate in our once-a-month “People at Prayer” from 5-6am on Thursdays.
7. Alongside others in the church, read a book or attend a conference or concert that will engage my heart and life more deeply into a life of prayer.
The revolution: Everyone doing something
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SHARE
- Invite a friend to participate in at least two social gatherings of our church (for example our 4th of July party; a Braves baseball game; the Super Bowl party, ice cream nights, game nights, our Sweet Tomatoes gatherings).
- Invite someone to serve with you as you serve our community and world.
- Invite at least one friend to our Easter service, our Christmas service, and our trivia night for water.
- Attend one
- Share aspects of my spiritual journey at the weekend service.
- With a friend, read a book about some aspect of the life the Jesus and talk about it together over coffee.
- Join a community group and/or invite someone to join a community group.
- Invite a friend to join me in a life-renewing activity like camping or hiking or a mission trip or a weekend of renewal at the beach.
The revolution: Everyone doing something.
