Going Out to Speak

Ezekiel 2:1-5; Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-13

We all wish for a time when Christianity would be the overarching religion of our country and the world. We feel that it is slipping away from us, that something important is being lost, that our religion is disappearing. Some institutions are disappearing, some are dying. Some of those are associated with Christianity in America – and some of the things that are dying are things which should die. Does anyone remember those shiny aluminum Christmas trees with Styrofoam ornaments?

We should always remember that the “good old days” were often good mainly because we were too young to notice the problems. We need to be aware of the weaknesses in our church and country that have led to their decline, or as we rebuild, we will rebuild with exactly the same problems in their structure that led to their decline in the first place. Don’t rebuild a falling down house with the same plans you built it with in the first place, or it will fall down again!

The more important reason that we see the loss of the church’s influence in our society is that we built our churches the same way we built our great companies of the 1950’s – top down from management..

In the 1950’s, the greatest companies were based upon the idea that a couple of smart engineers and a handful of great managers could employ thousands of unthinking people and hundreds of cycling machines to make great profits and provide a living for everyone associated with the company. All the thinking and creativity was done in the front office – the average person was supposed to shut up and work. But in the new companies of the last twenty years, everyone is encouraged to be creative and given the chance to try out new ideas. Google actually asks everyone to spend 4 hours a week working on their own new ideas for the company.

In the 1950’s, in the church, the greatest churches were based upon the idea that a couple of smart pastors and a couple of great staff could employ hundreds of unthinking people and their donations to do great things for the community and provide good programs and care for everyone associated with the church. All the thinking and creativity was done up front – the average person was supposed to sit down in the pews, shut up and donate. In the new churches, everyone participates. Every single person is looked upon as a wonderful image of God, with ideas and creative energy, with a desire to do good and, possibly with training, to start and operate ministries which bring more people to the saving grace of Jesus Christ.

And gradually those older companies died, as competition came along who had learned to better use their capital – recognizing that everyone that works in a company has a brain and ideas and creativity and wants to make the company a better place. And so Kodak’s film cameras have been replaced by Canon’s digital cameras, Western Electric, who made the basic black telephone that was on everyone’s end table in 1955 has been replaced by Apple and LG, and Zenith console televisions have been replaced by Sony and Visio and Panasonic flat panel televisions. Even taxi companies are being replaced today by Uber, an online company that lets anyone become a taxi driver and earn some money on the side.

And you know, the big churches died also as church choirs were replaced by a desire for praise bands, as Sunday evening worship was replaced by a desire for Saturday evening worship, and an outreach committee was replaced by ministry teams. I know of a local church that has seating for over 500 people and is down to about 75 people on an average Sunday – but they still operate the same way they did in 1950, while Horizon’s church in Lost Creek has many hundreds in worship because they have dozens of ministry teams, interesting worship, and young people in leadership positions. But most of all, the older churches stopped listening to the Holy Spirit.

Unlike what you may think – the Christian church is not dying. It is growing faster than it has in centuries. Christianity is growing rapidly in China, in India, in South America, and in Africa. Since 1900, it has gone from almost zero believers in Korea to claiming about half the population of South Korea. Christianity is growing in Russia and the states formerly controlled by the Soviet Union. It is only in Iraq and Egypt under severe persecution, in parts of Western Europe, and in Canada under ridicule that Christianity is dying.

And what about America?

Since the days of the Pilgrims, the highest weekly percentage of church attendance in America occurred around the year 2000. Attendance has increased steadily over the last four hundred years. That attendance has dropped some in the last ten to fifteen years, but is actually still increasing in many parts of the country. But attendance at older, well-entrenched mainline churches is slipping. Instead, attendance is growing in those denominations and independent churches known as “evangelical”. Our United Methodist Church has many churches that are older mainline churches, and many churches that are evangelical. What are the differences between the older churches and the evangelicals?

First, evangelicals consider the Bible to the inspired Word of God, written by men who listened to the Holy Spirit as they were writing. The Holy Spirit guided their writing - not as dictation, but with a gentle guidance about what points to make. The older denominations mostly like to point out that the Bible was written by men - men alone - and this helps them justify picking and choosing what they will believe.

Second, evangelicals consider that the most important thing a Christian can do to help another is to help that other person become a Christian believer, for unlike everything else, this has eternal consequences. The older denominations mostly are focused upon providing social services and social activism – activities that government organizations and political groups are very good at doing, probably better than churches can for most recipients.

Evangelicals believe that equipping people for ministry will change our society for the better and then they go ahead and do the ministry with God’s help. – the older churches believe that the churches themselves must work through the government and government programs to accomplish anything truly important.

Third, evangelicals are willing to do what it takes – each one of them – to spread the Gospel because they each understand that this is every believer’s duty. The older denominations are mostly concerned that their churches are shrinking, and do things to keep their churches from shrinking. Evangelical churches are generally doing well because they have an important eternal mission and that mission breeds passion.

Finally, evangelicals are always looking forward toward what is the best new way to spread the Gospel to people. Older mainline churches are always looking backward to what they used to do, to a time of glory in the past for their church instead of looking forward to a new and upcoming time of glory. To an evangelical church, the time of glory is three or five years in the future.

Our United Methodists are on the border. We have some churches that act like churches of the 1950’s – and we have other churches that act like modern evangelical churches. As you may have guessed, I consider myself an evangelical, as do many of our West Virginia United Methodists. What about yourself? Which are you?

I have mentioned a couple of times before our friends Bill and Pat Risley, who are missionaries in Northern Mexico. Almost twenty years ago, Bill and Pat were assigned to a church in northwestern Ohio, and did not feel like they were accomplishing much, if anything for the Lord. So they and their five children began to pray for 24 hours a day, taking turns, for an entire month about what they should do. At the end of the month, they held a family meeting and the consensus was that God’s Holy Spirit was speaking to them to “go to Mexico”. So they gave their home to a friend, grandma and grandpa promised to send them some money as they could, and they loaded into their camper with about a hundred boxes of macaroni and cheese and drove into Mexico. And because no one in the family knew any better, they also took along a course on “How to speak Spanish”. They became missionaries in Mexico and none of them spoke Spanish. Folks, this was truly faith in action!

Today, their children are married and all work in missions. God led one daughter to become a doctor and found a regional clinic, another is a nurse, and a son works for a missionary support air company. Still another founded and operates a hospital house similar to a Ronald McDonald House. All of them have experienced God’s care and provision many times.

And then there is Grady. Grady teaches about Christianity in Mexican prisons, and also does door-to-door evangelism. But his evangelism is not the Jehovah Witness style of evangelism. You see, in his part of Mexico, the Witnesses do much as they do here: They go in pairs, wearing white shirts, ties, and wingtip shoes. And they talk to people who are cowboys and field workers.

Grady is a big guy. He lifts weights and is about the size of an NFL offensive lineman. He is bald and has a beard. As he wrote recently, “When I go up to somebody’s door dressed in combat boots, jeans, a tee shirt, and looking like a cross between Grizzly Adams and his bear, people come out and talk to me. Even though I’m carrying a Bible…they know I am not a Jehovah’s Witness.”

Grady makes an appointment with people to talk with them the next day or two about what it means to be a Christian. He says that gives the Holy Spirit a chance to work on the people for a day and a night as Grady prays for them. And in the month of April, Grady led forty people in town to the Lord, and has started two Bible Study classes in the town. Brady never waits to form a team or a fancy plan – Grady just talks to people about the Gospel.

So what is Grady’s Gospel? Stop trying to be good enough for God and trust Jesus to make you acceptable to God. He uses 1 Peter 2:24, Romans 3:10, and John 3:18 as key verses for most of the people he meets.

And when Grady leaves their home, as with Ezekiel, “they know that a prophet has been among them”.

When you have been talking to someone, do your new friends “know that a prophet has been among them”? Or have they just met another person, bland and dull much like everyone else in this world?

One of the lessons of the Gospel is that we must speak to new and different people if we are to be effective at promoting the Gospel. In our Gospel story, even Jesus cannot make much headway among the people he has known for years and years. And so Jesus decides that the time has come to make a difference – and He doesn’t do it Himself. He had already done this in front of His disciples. So He teaches and the disciples do. Years later, they would repeat that part of the process – they would teach and others do. And this pattern has been repeated down through the ages.

Jesus talks to his disciples, the men who were most advanced, who understood what Jesus was talking about and who were beginning to understand His message that God was for everyone.

Jesus sends His disciples out two by two to go meet people. They are to meet people and tell them that people should repent – notice that Jesus did not send his disciples to the mayors and governors and the king, but to the average people. He didn’t try to change the government, but tried to change the average person, for the average person is just as much a special image of God as the powerful man in government is. The average person is to look at himself, recognize his own sin, repent – which means to re-think what he has been doing – and ask for forgiveness from God. And this was Jesus’ plan for beginning to change the world. You see, after thousands of average people changed, the governments began to change.

It still works today. This is what Grady is doing in Mexico. This is what countless numbers of men and women are doing in India, in China, in Africa south of the Sahara desert. This is what is happening in Brazil and the other countries of South and Central America. This is what is happening in Russia. And this is what is happening in places where evangelicals are strong – Georgia, Texas, Southern California, Colorado – and in places where you would be surprised – the apartment buildings of New York City, the suburbs of Chicago, the villas of southern France, the booming desert city of Dubai, the historic city of London, the atomic town of Hiroshima, and Starbuck’s city of Seattle.

Let’s do the same in the green hills of Harrison County and other parts of West Virginia.

Get a friend and visit a neighbor. Just like the disciples, don’t take any props with you. Talk with your neighbor and see what develops. Afterwards, talk with your friend and figure out what worked and what didn’t work. Try another neighbor. Repeat the process.

If they ask you to leave, remember that Jesus said to kick the dust off your feet. There will always be people who will not want to talk to you. We are concerned about the people who do want to talk to you. Don’t fret about the ones who got away – praise God for the one who listened.

We have been losing America because of one simple reason. We have not talked to people in loving, kind ways about the Gospel. Instead, we have complained to ourselves about non-Christians, yelled at and about those who do not come to church, and generally made the most sinful mistake possible in today’s world – we have become boring people. Too often, church services - and our personalities - are seen by the casual visitor – or the outsider – as the equivalent of plain rice cakes – no flavor, no sweetness, no taste. In our quest for stability in the world, we have become as dull as cardboard.

My friends, we have in our possession the answers to the deepest questions in the Universe. Why am I here? Who made me? What is my purpose? We speak daily to the Creator of the Universe and go “Ho Hum – that’s just prayer.” As if it was something everyone had the ability to do, like making a phone call!

We have managed to make God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit - the three most fascinating People in the Universe – boring! We have taken the Being that created the scintillating rainbow, the Man who actually walked on stormy water, the Holy Spirit that allowed Samson to kill a thousand strong men in a day with nothing more than a donkey’s jawbone – and we have turned them into gray cardboard.

We need to recapture the wonder that happened the day you first heard that Jesus walked on water. We need to recapture the excitement that happened when you first heard that Jesus really died and came back from the dead. We need to remember the emotion that we had when we first realized that if everybody else in the world was ok, Jesus would have died on the cross just for you – and did that.

Today, I'm asking each of you to write a sentence or two about what God and Christ mean to you in the comments section. Let everyone here know what God means to you – it may be profound, it may make us cry, It may make us laugh. You may really not know today. But I’m going to give you the chance – and I promise you, I know you folks - it won’t be boring...

After you make your comment, consider this paraphrase of the call of Ezekiel:

“Sons and daughters of men, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.

3 God says: “Sons and daughters of men, I am sending you to the Americans, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have been in revolt against me to this very day. 4 The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says.’ 5 And whether they listen or fail to listen—for they are a rebellious people—they will know that a prophet has been among them."

Go now and tell the people what God’s Son has done for them.