Introduction
Well, today was to be our APCM, our annual meeting service where
we review the past year, celebrate what God has been doing among us, choose from
our number - and commission - new leaders, thank individuals for outstanding
service and look forward to the year ahead of us. It is a service where we share
our vision for where we believe the Lord is taking us and get on board.
Obviously, we can’t have a meeting like that when we’re all sitting
at home. It needs people gathered in one place. Because of the Covid-19
situation, the Church of England has extended the date limit for annual meetings
by five months to the end of October. We have not yet set a revised date for ours
at All Saints’ but I don’t expect it will be possible before my last Sunday here,
which is to be 7 June.
So, I wanted to put on record my thanks – on all your behalf –
to a number of important individuals.
Karen has served as Churchwarden with distinction for about 8 years
now and will step down this year. She has been such a rock. Most of you have no
idea how soon this church would grind to a halt without the Wardens.
But I do - and I want to honour both Martin and Karen for
their practical dedication, spiritual wisdom and moral support. Karen will
continue to have an important role though. She is deputy chair of the PCC and
hopes to stay in that role which is really important in a vacancy. As Karen
steps down from being Warden at the APCM, Anne has agreed to stand as her
replacement and I commend her to you very warmly.
Two other key PCC members will be standing down this summer.
John is handing on the Secretary role. John has prepared agendas, circulated
documents, typed up minutes and convened us all with unfailing competence and courtesy
also for about 8 years. Well done, good and faithful servant. Jonathan has
offered to do that job from June onwards.
Another change this summer is Kathie as Treasurer because, much
as I’m sure you’d love to keep her, she has to come with me! Kathie eagerly agreed
to become our Treasurer 4 years ago, though she had zero experience, really
because no one else felt able to take on the role at that time and her heart
was moved to say, “Well, I’ll have a go.”
Kathie is always up for Mission: Impossible which explains why
she agreed to be my wife. It’s been a learning curve – both being married to me
and managing the church’s books.
She would be the first to say she’s not a natural numbers person
and had never used a spreadsheet before, but she has handled our finances with care,
discretion and efficiency, making full use of our excellent finance team.
Richard, our Assistant Treasurer, will take over in the short
term and he will gradually hand over to our next Treasurer Kevin.
All those proposed changes are of course dependent on you voting
for them when the APCM finally takes place, but I wanted you to know that plans
are in place and that we have people willing and able to serve in these key
roles.
Finally, I want to thank on your behalf, David who, with Linda,
took on the role of Life Group Coordinator about 5 years ago. David has been
doing this on his own since Linda began to suffer with ill-health.
Under their leadership, the number of Life Groups at All Saints’
has grown appreciably and the number of people who are members of Life Groups is
the highest it has been in all my time here.
I think the lockdown has shown how valuable these groups are as living
networks of caring and spiritually connected people. Ruth and Stuart have
already taken on this role and we all wish them well in their new ministry.
The
Next Year
The
evangelist J. John once spoke about getting on a plane. The man seated next to
him got chatting with him, and it turned out he was a businessman of a
successful company.
When
the conversation turned to what J. John did for a living, he said, “Oh, I work
for a multinational concern actually. We have branches in every country in the
world. We care for our clients from birth to death. We specialise in heart
transplants. Our company manual is the world’s best-selling book. We run
hospitals, schools, banks (well, food banks), crisis pregnancy centres, publishing
houses, and nursing homes. And when you join our organisation, you get free
fire insurance thrown in.”
The
guy says, “Wow, really?”
J.
John says, “Wait, I haven’t finished yet. Our goods and services are free for
anyone who asks. Our founder knows everything, and lives everywhere. Our CEO is
amazing. He started out as a joiner, lived rough for a while, was disowned by
his family and hated by rivals with vested interests. Finally, they stitched
him up, and he ended up on death row on trumped up charges. Then they bumped him
off but he rose from the dead! And now I speak with him every day.”
That,
my friends, is the church. This is who we are. You belong to the biggest
movement in human history. Globally, it is still rapidly growing.
My
talk today is all about the direction God is taking this little corner of the
worldwide church, All Saints’ Preston on Tees, over the next year.
In
a sense, of course, who can say? We’ve seen with this current pandemic that it’s
impossible to precisely predict anything in the future. We have seen over the
past few weeks that we have nothing under our control.
The
former Formula One world champion racing driver Mario Andretti once said, “If
everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough!”
Nothing feels under control at
the moment. Who can say where everything will be in two, three months’ time? Our
future is in God’s hands and one of the good things to come out of this health
catastrophe is the realisation that we are utterly dependent on God for any
sense of what is up and what is down. So I should say, (with James chapter 4) if
the Lord wills, this talk is about how we envisage the direction of travel as
far as we can see.
Every
church has a different character, or personality, if you like, which comes with
strengths and weaknesses. All Saints’ has a very clear identity. I think we
know what we are.
But
I want to help us think about the kind of church God wants us to be. What is
God’s calling on us as a church? What is our mission and purpose going into the
next decade?
Even
in New Testament times, churches quickly developed a reputation for being one
thing or another.
Reading
the Acts of the Apostles, it seems to me that:
·
the
Jerusalem church was big but quite conservative; very ill at ease with new
ideas.
·
Corinth
was charismatic but quarrelsome and immature.
·
Philippi
was generous and supportive.
·
Rome,
as we saw last summer, was influential but a bit divided along Jew/Gentile
lines.
·
Athens
was intellectual and small.
·
Thessalonica
was fast-growing but maybe a bit hung up about the end times.
If
you were to ask me which New Testament church All Saints’ most resembles and
should aspire to resemble more – I would say the church at Antioch.
I’m
going to read two passages from the Acts of the Apostles both of which are about
this church. See if you can identify some of the characteristics of this church
from what I am about to read:
First,
Acts 11 starting at verse 19: Now those who had been scattered by the
persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed travelled as far as
Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of
them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak
to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s
hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the
Lord.
News
of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When
he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged
them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. He was a good man,
full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to
the Lord.
Then
Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him
to Antioch. So, for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and
taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at
Antioch.
During
this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named
Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would
spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of
Claudius.) The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the
brothers and sisters living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the
elders by Barnabas and Saul.
And
then Acts 13, starting at verse 1: “Now in the church at Antioch there were
prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen
(who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping
the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul
for the work to which I have called them.” So, after they had fasted and
prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”
There’s
Antioch. Was it a perfect church? No. We know that two of its main leaders, Paul
and Barnabas, had a public stand-up row at the end of Acts 15. That is not
good.
But
there are many signs of health in this local church that I think are reproduced
in All Saints’. I’ll run through five of them very briefly.
1.
It was a faith-sharing church. This was actually the first ever Christian community where people came to faith in Jesus without
knowing anything of the Old Testament beforehand.
But
that was no obstacle. They just got on with sharing their faith through
personal testimony. It says, “The Lord's hand was with them and a great number
of people believed and turned to the Lord.”
2.
It was a biblically-trained church. There were so many
non-Jews coming to faith in Christ with no knowledge of the Scriptures at all
and they needed a lot of teaching so Barnabas got Saul in to do some Bible teaching.
For a whole year, it says, Saul
and Barnabas taught great numbers of people.
Children
grow by eating and this [my Bible] is food. The number one reason that
people don’t grow in their Christian faith is because they don’t open the
Bible. Jesus said, “People cannot live on bread alone, but by every word that comes
from the mouth of God.” Show me someone with a Bible that’s falling apart and I’ll
show you a person who isn’t.
3.
It was a financially generous church. Our
reading tells us that the
Christians in Antioch each decided, according to ability, to give financially to
enable blessing to flow to other Christians elsewhere.
They
did this during a famine that was Empire-wide, (that includes Antioch) so they gave
away some of what they had, knowing that they themselves would be affected by scarcity.
A giving Christian is a joyful Christian.
And a giving church is a healthy church.
This document here says as much about the
spiritual health of All Saints’ as any other document we have. It’s the church
accounts. The Washington DC church leader Mark Batterson
says, “God will bless the [local] church in proportion to its giving to missions
and caring for the poor.” I totally agree.
4. It was a prophetically inspired church. Acts 11 says, “Some
prophets came down… to Antioch. One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through
the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman
world. This happened during the reign of Claudius.”
Some
Christians are very wary of prophecy. But 1 Thessalonians 5 tells us to “not
treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good.”
Healthy
churches eagerly desire spiritual gifts including prophecy, they encourage prophetic
words and weigh them carefully. I hope All Saints’ will continue to press in to
that.
5.
It was a culturally diverse church. The leaders mentioned chapter
13 were from different backgrounds. Barnabas was a Cypriot, Simeon was a black
African, Lucius was a Jew from North Africa, Manaen was from high places and
Saul was a Roman citizen from Tarsus, which is in Turkey today. It was a multi-ethnic
and international church.
This
is not about tokenism; it’s about appreciating a variety of different perspectives
under the Lord’s headship. The best churches have people in leadership roles who
are male and female, married and single, academic and practical, extrovert and introvert,
younger and older, well-off and of more modest means, locally brought up and hailing
from elsewhere.
Being a Resourcing Church
But what I want to draw your attention to in the
last 10 minutes or so is the sending focus of this Antioch church. Acts 13 explains that they
prayed and fasted and then sent out two valued, key leaders, 40% of their leadership
team, in one go. They gave away
the best they had.
Why
would they do that? Why would they deliberately weaken themselves to that
extent? The answer is that they wanted to bless others with the gospel. Give it
away. They had a bigger vision than just watering their patch. Healthy churches reproduce life and spread
their DNA elsewhere.
When you think of this church releasing a little
team of 5 to Long Newton 20 years ago, sending Alan and Nicky and a handful of others
to Stockton 12 years ago, Sylvia to Egglescliffe 6 years ago, and Stuart and
Nichola to Sunderland 3 years ago, you can see that this what we are about as
well.
Although we love all those people I just mentioned
and we miss them, we can also see how grace has been sent out from here to grow
and produce life in other places.
And the remarkable thing is this: in every case, the
church was not depleted by the sending. Each time we sent people out we grew. As
we give blessing away, it does not deplete us because God is no one’s debtor
and he just pours more in.
On 12 October 2019 Elihud Kipchoge ran a Marathon in
under two hours. It was the first time in history this had been achieved. It
was not an official record because he had assistance from pace-setting runners
etc.
Never mind. My point is this; what was seen as
impossible, unachievable, beyond reach, actually became reality for one fundamental
reason: Kipchoge had a team around him. If we are going to do the impossible, under
God, we really need each other and to work as a team.
This time next year, All Saints’ will send out its
biggest team yet. We plan to send 30 individuals to Newtown under Paul Arnold’s
leadership.
It’s not going to be a piece of cake. There is a lot
to do. Saint Paul’s has not seen much growth for decades. There needs to be an evangelistic reconnection with the community nearby. That will be an adventure.
At New Wine last summer, Jon Soper from Exeter
Network Church was talking about looking for a venue for his new church plant a
few years ago. He came upon a really nice café that wasn’t open on Sundays and he
arranged to meet the manager who, it’s fair to say, isn’t an authority on comparative
religion.
The
cafe owner says, “Tell me about this thing you want to do, man.” So Jon
describes his vision for this church plant (student focus, lots of community, life-related
Bible teaching, contemporary worship, outreach to the poor, signs and wonders)…
The
guy frowns as he tries to get his head round all this and says, “Is your
religion one of those that slaughters live chickens?” Jon thinks for a moment
and says, “Well no, but we do drink the blood of our leader!” The guy says, “Awww
wow, that is so cool, man! You can come.”
I
tell that story because connecting missionally with Newtown is undoubtedly
going to throw up some off the wall conversations like that. Many people outside
the church have no idea what we’re about or what the church is for. But
God is going to do a new thing. The word of the Lord never returns to him without
having achieved the purpose for which it was sent.
The church in Newtown is in need of revitalisation –
and it’s going to get it. There needs to be a renewal from the Holy Spirit in
worship, a new sense of expectancy in prayer and ministry. It’s going to happen.
Everyone on team will have a vital part to play.
There are no passengers. The good news is 24 are already signed up to go. In
addition, there will be funding from central church for new staff. These are
exciting times.
This next year will see a ramping up of prayer and
fasting until it’s at fever pitch by the time the team is sent out.
When the team goes, we’re going to suddenly be
looking at a few more empty seats. Our job is to pray, reach out and ask God to
fill them again with new people. We’re going to have to get used to sharing our
faith again and praying for the growth of the Lord’s work here.
Ending
Jesus
said, I will build my church.” He waited a long time to say those words. He
held it, and held it, and held it until the day Peter said, “I know who you
are, you’re the Messiah, you’re the Christ aren’t you?”
Then, at last, Jesus could
say it. “I will build my church.” That was the first time Jesus ever used the
word “church.” He waited until that precise moment, because you can only build
church with people who get who Jesus is and have the boldness to say it to a waiting
world.
Let’s
pray…
Sermon preached via video link at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 19 April 2020
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