The State of the Church
Dr. Jimmy Asbell, Jr. --- October 16, 2005

Philippians 3:12-14

Pressing For What?

Remember the God billboards. I am sure you saw them around town. They have put them up several different times. Some people love them, others can't stand them. I doubt that they will send waves of people running back to church, but to me they are not sacrilegious as some have claimed. You remember them. One by the interstate said, need a marriage counselor, I am available - God. There was one on 247 Invite me back to school. God. I enjoyed looking for them and they have been cute but two of them really did make me think. There was one that on Broadway in Macon. It said do you have any idea where you are going? - God. And driving of course you always think yeah I am going back to town or to the hospital or whatever. But then the question sinks to a deeper level. Where am I going? Today, tomorrow, next year, ten years, eternity. Are you just going? Do you have any idea where you are going? It is a good question. And then there was the one - will the road you are on get you to where you want to go? - signed God. It will get me to work. It will get me home. And then you pause to think - will it? And I hope that people do pause to think - I started to say stop to think, but I really don't want them to stop right there to think. But it is a good question. Will the road I am on get me where I want to go? Do you have any idea where you are going? Will the road you are on get you to where you want to go?

I am reminded of the two cousins - double first cousins they were. Jim Bob and Billy Ray. They were going to Atlanta. It was the first time they had ever been to the big city. Billy Ray was driving their jacked up pickem-up- truck. He was weaving in and out of traffic on I-285 doing at least 85 miles and hour. Jim Bob says to his cousin Billy Ray you drive like a pro in this here Hotlanta traffic - I thought you said you'd never been here before. Why I ain't never been here? You have to have been here, we don't drive like this back home and besides if you never been here how is it that you know where we are going? Billy Ray said I ain't got the foggiest idea where we are going, but ain't we making good time? Ain't we making good time?

You know there is a world of difference between making progress and making good time. The cousins were covering ground, but they had no idea if it was in the right direction. No idea if they were making progress just satisfied to make good time. They say if you don't care where you are going then any road will get you there. Paul wrote I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of Jesus Christ. Not just pressing on, for the sake of pressing, not just making time but aimed at a goal. With direction. With purpose. Do you have any idea where you are going? Will the road you are on get you to where you want to go?

Where are we headed? Are we as a church on the right road? Will it get us where we want to go? That is what I want us to think about this morning. It is hard to believe this, but some 121 Sunday's ago I stood here for my first sermon as your new pastor. In some ways it seems like only yesterday and in others it seems like so long ago. I thought it would serve us well to think about the road we are on and where we have been and where we are headed. To consider the State of the Church. To move into the realm of vision of Imagination. Imagine.

Do you remember last year? Last year I said I imagine a church, this church. As a church that is so engaging, so fun, so inviting, so winsome that it is it hard to go to hell from Houston County. I hope and pray for the day when the power and presence of the church is so prevalent that you can't help but know about it. I imagine a people of God so ready to love and serve their neighbors that it gets harder every year for people from Warner Robins and Houston County to remain lost. I don't think that has changed. That remains the basis of our life and mission together. And I believe that we are making progress. We have a long way to go - but we are definitely making headway.

You see I believe we are on the right road. We are not just making good time - but are in fact making good progress. One of the first things people think about is who shows up for church. The fact is for the third straight year worship attendance is rising. It is true that it has not hit the highs of the early 80's - but the downward trend has not only stopped, but been reversed. More people are making a regular habit of being in their place on Sunday mornings. And I think what is most encouraging is the number of visitors. In July of this year we surpassed the number of first time visitors we had in all of 2004. So far this year we have had 133% of last year and we still have 2 ½ months to go. More and more folk are coming and most visitors come because somebody invites them or they hear good things about us. It is a good sign - a sign of the strength of the church that more people are coming in our doors for the first time.

And the better news is that more are coming back. If more just visited once and didn't come back that wouldn't be good, but people are coming back. We are on track to break our repeat visitor record by 23%. And what is even better is that our repeat visitors are joining - expressing a desire to be anchored and connected here in a meaningful way. Numbers are not everything - but they can be a barometer and our reading right now is strong!

This is connected to visitors - but has more to do with the climate and the ethos than with the hard numbers. It thrills me to hear that people feel welcome in this place. Time and time again visitors tell me that they are warmly greeted and they feel genuinely welcome. Sadly, that is not true everywhere. I hope that we will continue to be intention in our hospitality. The newcomer should always be given first priority. There are still things we can do to help making coming to church less stressful for visitors.

One area we continue to work on is helping people move from attending to belonging. There is a point at which people move from saying your church to saying my church. Helping people to make that journey is something we can do better. The process of assimilating new people - connecting them with like minded people - deploying them in ministry according to their gifts needs some work. We need to investigate ways to nurture this process in new and innovative ways. One of the hallmarks of this church has been and I hope always will be its commitment to missions. That is how we are seen by many in this community. We are the church with the heart for missions. When you consider that 25% of all our resources are used to offer care and assistance to people who are not member of this congregation you see that this is an earned reputation. Since January of this year we have provided through the food pantry a week's worth of groceries to some 4,800 people. And in the Soup Kitchen in the last 12 months we have served over 5,400 hot meals. Think of it this way -when you combine the groceries given away and the hot meals served it means that 76,500 times since January 1st of this year individuals have sat down at a table to eat a meal that they would not have had were it not for the outreach ministries of First Methodist church.

And as amazing as that is - that is not the end of the outreach. Beyond groceries and meals there are clothes and prescriptions, there is counseling and wheel chair ramps. There have been potato drops, and apportionments. Once again we are on track to pay 100% of our Conference Askings. That is over 83,000 dollars that we send away to support of the United Methodist church in all its work. We are part of 13 seminaries educating future pastors. We support Africa University. We help fund 1,007 missionaries in 159 nations around the globe. We help provide disaster relief and hunger relief. We have been at work around the world saving lives and saving souls in Jesus name through our giving to the larger church. And then we have our own connections to missionaries. We continue to support Ari Arifas in Russia and the Sabins with Transworld Radio. We had over 400 boxes dispatched around the world with operation Christmas Child. We gave money to develop new churches and to support hurricane relief. First Methodist put over $5,000 into the 573,000 raised in South Georgia for Katrina in the first weeks after the storm.

One of the highlights of this past year for me was the 8 days we spent in Costa Rica. The 15 members of our team had an incredible time doing construction, worship and vacation Bible school with our brothers and sisters in the Methodist church of Costa Rica. One great thing about the trip -was the generosity of this church. We had budgeted 13,000 for the trip. But you gave, you gave and supported the needs of the team in such a way that not a single dollar of that was needed. This church, you believe in missions. And I believe that that is a strong indication of the strength of the church.

But it was not just about going out to the world - in the last year the world has come to us. Last July we launched our Hispanic service. Federico and Shirley now average 25 in worship at 2 every Sunday. With 2 weekly Bible Studies and regular fellowship times we truly have a multicultural and international faith community. We have participants from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica and the United States. Our own church is starting to better resemble that scene in Acts with Pathians, Medes, Persians and dwellers of Mesopotamia. Our church is growing to reflect more of God's creation and that is a good thing. A very good thing.

One area that is vitally important to me is children and youth. I am excited about what is happening in the new youth space. Last year we were just opening the building. A year later let me tell you that we could not have made a better investment. I am still amazed at the way the church rose to the occasion to make that great space come together. With gifts of labor, expertise and money - know that it is a great investment and the dividends will never stop. The number of youth continues to grow. The space makes Bible study, small groups and even recreation so much nicer. The space is inviting and useable. The great space paired with creative leadership and awesome volunteers is a combination that can not help but succeed. Our youth are spiritually engaged. Every week they show up for Roots and for Fuel asking hard question and seeking real answers. That space is not a just for entertainment - it is not about giving them something to do. I know for a fact that lives are being changed - young people are giving their lives to Christ and seeking help in what that means for day to day life.

The Scriptures say raise up a child in the way that they should go and they will not depart from it. Well, the message and the way have not changed - but the means of showing them that way has had to change as technology and children change. One place of excitement and energy today is the upstairs rotation Sunday School rooms in Carter Hall. These rooms are being updated and energized to become a place of transformation for our children. We have great kids, tremendous volunteers and we are preparing a space that reflects the quality and the commitment we want for our children.

Along with the rooms upstairs we are updating our nursery and crib room with new play things, lights and carpet. Maybe this will give you a little insight into the State of the Church today. One of our long time members stopped me in the hall to tell me about a previous time the church upgraded the nursery. Times were much harder then. They needed new cribs, so they took wooden fruit crates and made pads and blankets and bumpers to fit. That same spirit of helpfulness and ingenuity is at work. A new generation is sharing their talent and skills, but thank goodness we will not be putting our newborns in fruit crates!

I have mentioned the Sunday school rooms and the nursery - but I think I need to also mention the facilities in general. We have a great campus. Sure there are things we would love to have or to redo if we had the chance - but the fact is we have a beautiful worship space. You should have seen the pastor from Costa Rica. Demos came to visit us a couple of weeks after we returned home from Costa Rica. Before he left he wanted to see our worship space. We helped finish his sanctuary - he wanted to see ours. He came in talking and then just stopped dead in his tracks. He has silent as he looked around. He was amazed. He had a picture taken with me right there. You would have thought he was in front of the Washington Monument or something. I think we get spoiled - we take for granted what a great space we have. The fact is we have a large campus that has been very well maintained. Charles Nelson and now Gene Youmans as plant mangers have done great things. And our Trustees are to be commended for being proactive leaders. They are opening doors for ministry rather than slamming them as is the case in some places.

I am proud of our building. But there are lots of folks who have nice buildings, the great thing is we are not afraid to have it used. The Pre-school, NA, TOPS, and others are welcomed into this place every week. Some churches say no to such groups saying that they will tear things up and shorten the life of the paint job or put marks on the waxed floor. The attitude here is that it is better to risk the paint and the wax than to put the very spirit of the church on the line. I am proud that this church makes itself available to those who need space.

In case you haven't noticed I feel good about things. I am excited. I know they are not perfect - I am reminded from time to time by some of you of places where we fall short - but on the whole I feel very positive about the state of our church. I believe that we are moving from strength to strength. We have the big mo on our side. Momentum - if it is working for you, you look better than you are - if it is against you, you look worse than you are. And momentum is our friend right now. We have a lot of positive momentum. And we need to keep it that way. And to do that means that we need to work on those places that are not all they could be.

One area that remains an area of concern for me has to do with congregational care and nurture. Now don't get me wrong - our Sunday school classes, UMW circles, prayer groups, bereavement care and other ministry teams like the choir do a good job of supporting each other. There are lots of places to get anchored and attached.

But my biggest concern has to do with folk who are not in one of those groups. From time to time it happens. Somebody calls after the fact or just quits coming to church. When they do come or call it is to tell me that they have been sick and nobody called or nobody came by. And I have to say that with a membership of 850 souls you have to send up something more definitive than smoke signals to let us know what you need. But still - we still need to find a way to better see to the needs of all members. As we consider leadership for 2006 - I am recommending that we start a new nurture or congregational care and nurture team to help with this. We need a system to insure that we drop the ball as little as possible. It is a terrible feeling to have to say - I didn't know - or I knew - but there were not hours in the day to get there yet. You can help - it starts by making sure you pass on news of any need to the office. Don't assume that somebody else has called. Take a minute and let us know. We would rather be told a second or third time than to never be told in the first place. Beyond that We need to develop a system of undershepherds to help us be better at care and nurture our family of faith.

I hope we can develop some additional small groups to provide more and varying ways for people to get connected to God and to one another. The more ways we are connected the stronger the body of Christ will become and the less likely it is that anybody will slip through the cracks. Related to this is work on our Sunday School. The fact that only 55% of the worshipping members participate in Sunday school is disturbing. Everybody ought to have a Sunday School or small group that provides a place of growth, support and accountability. We need to work at this in the coming year.

At First Methodist we have some great volunteers. So many things happen because people share their talents and time with the church. This is the way it should be. By virtue of our baptism we are all ministers of the gospel of Christ. And every member ought to have a ministry. It remains to be seen who will do what in 2006 - we will be soliciting volunteers during the stewardship drive. But this is much bigger than filling some positions on committees. I remain convinced that we need to more systematically identify the gifts of members and deploy them for service to God and the community at large. We need somebody to catch a vision of what good human resourcing could do for the church.

But preacher you talked about a lot of stuff - what about the other numbers? If I omitted a financial report people might assume something was amiss. For me the budget is a means by which we accomplish ministry - it is not the ultimate measure of our success or failure - but it does provide fuel - one resource - for ministry.

At the end of September 75% of the year had passed and we had collected 71% of the pledges we were expecting. Our expenses year to date have been running a little under projection, so we had only spent 69% of the budget. That gives us a cushion of 2 whole percentage points. Now that doesn't sound huge, but the fact is there have been times when the church was in the hole, not even a little ahead. The truth is there are lots of churches that are struggling to make ends meet. In too many places ministry and programs are being reduced because of lack of support. Thank goodness that is not the case here. We owe no creditors. The new building and recent property acquisition did require more funding than we had from pledges, but we were able to borrow the money from ourselves. We are making those payments to ourselves to balance our accounts, but the fact is we had the resources within the church to make these ministries and improvements possible. That is a great thing.

I want to say a word of thanks to those who have gone before, and who have helped get and keep this church on sound financial footing. Too many churches are hamstrung by debt. The financial picture is good, but I would be remiss if I did not tell you that it could be better. The honest truth is that we probably are giving at about 50% of our potential. I will be talking about this in the very near future, so I will not get ahead of myself this morning, but just consider this one fact. If we believed in and practiced tithing and if we all lived at the poverty level - that is we lived on 18,000 per family of 4. If we were a subsistence level church that tithed, our budget for this year would be over $855,000. Our current budget is 716 not 855. And I think it would be hard to classify us as subsistence level church. I remain convinced and convicted that we have to find ways to educate, encourage, train and practice better faithfulness with regard to our giving. And over the next two weeks we will imagine what that might look like. As strong of a place as we are in - I believe we are only living into about half of what we could be.

There are so many things that contribute to the way things are, but I must mention the staff. Aside from a young whipper snapper preacher, you have a very good staff. We have had tremendous change this year and we are still feeling our way through that, but the staff is hard working, dedicated and a joy to work with. Most of the time. I hope you know that we are being very intentional at every staff meeting about developing our leadership skills and our team ministry. We know that we all need to grow. They probably don't mind telling you that I have high expectations. I believe our staff will continue to rise to meet the challenges of the day.

Some may be thinking that I have imagined too much. Let me tell you a story. There was a man who owned a Great Dane. Now this Great Dane was an extremely large and ferocious dog. One day, as the man was walking his Great Dane down the street, he saw another man across the street who was also walking his dog-a little bitty dog with short legs no tail and no hair. It was an ugly dog and, very frankly, looked sick.

Suddenly the Great Dane saw the little ugly dog across the street and decided he hated that dog. He broke free from his owner's leash and dashed across the street on the attack. The owner of the Great Dane yelled to the man, Look out! My dog is on the loose and he's liable to kill you and that dog of yours! You had better run!"

But the little ugly dog turned around, bared its teeth, and when the Great Dane attacked, that little dog proceeded to grab hold of the Great Dane at the foreleg and began to eat that big dog up. It ate it up, spit out the bones, and smacked its lips-and that was the end of the Great Dane, just like that.

Well, the owner of the Great Dane was absolutely astonished. "Man, what kind of dog is that?" the man exclaimed. "I've never in my life seen a little dog that could do something like that!" "Dog? Dog?" the other man said. "Before he got his nose run over by a truck and his tail cut off by a train, this used to be an alligator!"

Appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes we judge people by how they look, but we fail to realize that on the inside, they are quite different. You may feel like a puppy dog on the outside, but inside, you're an alligator. This church has the power of God at its disposal to do mighty things. Paul wrote "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." When you are under attack by the Great Danes of the world, you can eat 'em up with the power of Christ that lives and dwells within your heart. People may look at the size and compare us to others and write us off, but what I have always heard and found true is - it ain't the size of the dog in the fight - it is the size of the fight in the Dog. This church has a lot of fight left in it.

What happens in this place if we live believing that God wants to do something more extraordinary than ever we have imagined He would do? We do not even have to know at this point what God want us to do. What would happen if we lived convinced that these are not ordinary days, and that God is seeking to do something new and extraordinary through this church?

There is a lot going on in this place. Often I feel like it is more than I can say grace over. This is a 7 day a week, and often 13 hour a day church. Thousands of people go in and out these doors. From NA to preschool, choir to exercise, bells, Bible study, worship and fellowship, meals and meetings. This place is a hub of activity. I have to come back to Billy Ray and Jim Bob. They were racing along - you might say they were busy - but it wasn't meaningful - they were not really making progress - just covering ground. Jim Bob and Billy Ray were making time but no progress. I think this Jim Bob and all you Billy Rays are making more than time. I am convinced that we are making more than good time - we are not just busy. Lives are being transformed by the work and ministry of First Untied Methodist Church. May God help us in the places we need help. May the spirit spur us to redouble our efforts and recommit ourselves to the mission and ministry of the church. The state of the church is strong. The needs of the world are great, but the power of God is even greater. With God's help we can and will rise to the occasion. Press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of Christ Jesus.

I am excited and I hope you are. I invite you to stand and let's sing our commitment - let's sing of our vision and our hope. I am bound for the promised land - oh who will come and go with me?