Church Consolidation: Part 1

After a conversation with a fellow minister in my city (Thomasville, NC) my mind has been stirring about possibilities. Let's face it Thomasville is not a growing city. After Thomasville Furniture Company, and almost every other industry, decided it was cheaper and easier to make the furniture in China, the city has been hurting for jobs. Our unemployment rate is somewhere around 15%. It is estimated that our population is 48,000, which is 7,200 people out of work in our town.

Within this small city, or I should say zip code, there are 15 United Methodist Churches. Yes, 15. Now some are in the out beyond the city limits so we can take them out and that leaves us with 10. 10 within a 5 mile radius of each other. When I first moved here I given a reason why there were so many close together. Back in the early 1900s when many of these churches started people had to walk to the mills/factories to work. Thus churches sprang up in the neighborhood where these people lived. The church I serve has their original piece of property in rock tossing distance from two factories. (that is an actual measurement of distance, it just depends on who is throwing the rock) However we got where we are today, the truth is there are 10 churches within the city of Thomasville, but the question was raised does Thomasville need 10 United Methodist Churches?

Now this is a loaded question because what it does is automatically set up tons of questions. What churches should hang around? If you 'consolidated' some where would they be consolidated to? Would you simply shut some down and ask them to find other UM Churches to join? How many should be left open? What is the right number for our area? Then what do you do with the land/buildings/grave yards/parsonages, etc?

With these questions in my head I decided to do some research on these 10 churches within my zip code and tally up some stats. In the last five years (the stats referred to are between the years 2004-2008) there has been 58 less people worshiping in these congregations, that is -58. Some have seen growth in their average attendance, the highest being 39 additional worship attendees and the lowest being a -43. These are hard numbers to judge because my own church has seen a -8 turn in the last years but I personally know that during my time (starting mid 2007) I have kept detailed stats on worship attendance and the previous minister did not, so the 95 we averaged in 2004 is simply a guess. This may or may not be the case in other congregations and when I looked at the numbers I could tell that some where a little cushy.

These 10 churches have seen a net total of 67 new members over that same time period. The highest church received 58 more members and the lowest losing 18. The cause of this is tenuous but by looking at the stats provided it looks like death is a huge cause. One congregation lost 49 members to death and that was almost 10% of their membership. Others lost 12% of their membership and the lowest was 4%. If you are getting the sense here, many of these are aging congregations.

There is also some other interesting stats. The estimated salary for senior ministers (doesn’t include other staff or associates) in 2008 is $526,000 and the cost of healthcare and pension for 2010 (estimated off my personal amount) is $220,528. The cost of the senior ministers for these ten churches is estimated at $746,528. Three quarters of a million dollars between these ten churches go towards the senior minister and that minister’s benefits.

I do know some of the churches out there are not making it or if they are the conference apportionments are hurting because of it. In 2008 the average percentage of apportionments paid between these 10 churches is 66%. One church didn’t pay any apportionments and only two churches paid out at 100%. What this means is there are churches out there who cannot make their obligations and by looking at the stats some of them have not been doing so for years now. No wonder our conference has to make cuts every year and have people do two or three different job titles for the conference.

After looking at these numbers I am wondering if we are looking at only three different options for the churches within Thomasville. 1) Just let some churches die whether through euthanasia or by natural causes in the next 5-10 years, 2) Consolidate some churches and create a new church from these congregations, one that can and 3) Do nothing

The unwritten facts are, Thomasville doesn’t need 10 United Methodist Congregations anymore. We have cars and we can travel. The closest UMC is not even the one I serve! When you add up all the other churches too, Baptist, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Church of God, etc. there are TONS of churches all competing of the 14% of Thomasvillians that is only who wake up and attend church on a regular basis, which is less than are out of work in the city. How will the UMC survive in this town and should we? Part II to come.

Happy 100th BSA

I am a proud Eagle Scout. I cherish the things I learned in scouting and I hope someday I my son can take part in a wonderful troop as well. I was a member of Troop 49, based out of Back Creek ARP Church only a couple miles from my house. It is a stored Troop and the opportunities they allowed me to participate in were life changing.

I still remember the High Adventure trips we took to Yosemite and Philmont. The numerous camping trips and weekly lessons in preparedness for life. The lessons I learned from scouting are still in my brain and that speaks to the class and leadership in Troop 49. It is because of them I can still receite the Scout Law, can orient a map, and can start a fire (without gasoline!).

For all the memories, thank you and I wish all those Scouts and Scout Leaders the best on the 100th birthday of the Boy Scouts of America.

A Letter to Pat Robertson from the Devil

Go here to see the full story but a Minneapolis woman decided to pen the perfect letter to dear old Mr. PR. Let me know what YOU think.

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished.

Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

HT: Pastor of Disaster

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 - Sermon - Grown Up Love

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Grown Up Love
01-31-10

There are not many weddings you can attend and not hear these verses. I think out of the dozens of weddings I have done, only 2 have not used this verse. I mean they use these verses because it talks about love. Gooey, sappy, newly married love. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. That sounds all good and everything but all the married people in the congregation know that day that this love is too good to be true. It seems possible when the preacher asks you your vows but reality hits a year and a half later. Great Paul talks about love not rejoicing in wrongdoing but Paul didn’t live with a man who cannot replace the toilet paper roll when it runs out. Paul did not live with a woman who It says love bears all things but when it comes down to a long marriage did Paul really know how much love had to bear?

Yes, this piece of scripture is quoted ad nauseum at weddings but it is one of Paul’s most poetic pieces of scripture. The part we use at weddings is only half of what is said in this chapter. Take the first part for example, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. These are harsh words. Paul is calling people out as nothings if they don’t have love. Without love people are just resounding gongs and clanging cymbals. Paul reminds us what was missing from the 10 Commandments and what Jesus places as the most important in the two he tells us to focus on. The 10 Commandments tell us to ‘don’t do’. When Jesus was asked what commandments were the most important he said, LOVE God, LOVE your neighbor. But do we understand what that means and how we live that out?

The last five verses we don’t hear at weddings either. Trying to get people ready to set up live together for the rest of their lives doesn’t really work when you start to talk about where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Then Paul starts to talk about being a child and now being a man and that doesn’t really make sense to us. Jesus tells us to humble ourselves like a child to enter into the kingdom of heaven. He also tells us that the Kingdom of heaven belongs to children. So is this a place where the Bible contradicts itself? Is Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians going against what Jesus teaches?

I am sure many of you know that life with an infant is always interesting. What I truly love is watching Campbell experience something new. A couple of months ago she learned that if she took her hands and brought them together quickly they made a noise. Not only that but they were the sign for ‘more’ and Mom and Dad would give her more food when she did it. Now that she has clapping down she has realized that if she holds two objects in her hands, like blocks, and then claps they make a noise too. What is so funny though is the look she gives us when she starts to bang these blocks together. It is like she has discovered cold fusion or something. She starts to bang them and then looks up at us with wide eyes and a huge smile which says, “Look at me!!! I’m doing something amazing!!!” She is also in that very trusting stage. She will be in our arms and then all of a sudden she lets gravity pull her head towards the ground. She laughs as we catch her but she does it because she has faith that we will always catch her.

Jesus tells us to have faith like a child. We need to have this infant trust in God to always catch us as we step out in faith. We need to be perusing growth in our spiritual lives and then looking up at God with wide eyes and smiles and say “Look God, look what I can do.” God wants us to have that type of faith but I don’t think that type of love.

Living with a nine month old is fun but adding a 3 and a half year old to the mix makes it an adventure. Children at three years old are consumed with one thing and one thing only, me. All those words they knew when they are two disappear and only one comes out of their mouths, MINE. Three year olds become truly possessive and focused only on themselves. They haven’t comprehended the world around them involves other people who need other things. They only see the woman who gives them gummies at church, or Papaw who plays games on the computer with them, or Grammy who gives them anything they want.

God doesn’t want us to be like this forever but many of us love this way for a long time. We look at the people in our lives and we think, “what can they give me.” Once a relationship is used up we move to the next. Or we guard our hearts like a three year old guard her favorite toy or stuffed animal. C.S. Lewis puts it well in his book The Four Loves, To love at all is to be venerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin or your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers...of love is Hell.

As we grow up we realize that to love means we have to make ourselves vulnerable. We have to put ourselves out there before we can expect anything in return. This is what Paul is referring to when he says, When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. There comes a time when we have to start acting like adults and love like grown-ups. We have to put our childish ways behind us and grow in Christ. If we want to know God then we have to transform our hearts to look like God’s. To do that we have to be willing to love like God and although children have the faith we should desire, it takes a grown-up to understand God’s love, a love that is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.

Soon after the earthquake in Haiti I sat down and wrote a blog post about what I was feeling. God I would like to complain. I would like you to hear me for a minute because I have a problem with being your follower right now. I know it has been years, over a decade and a half, since I asked you to take my life and do with me what you want but this is pushing it.

God, I cannot stop looking at the news and having my heart break over and over again. I cannot stop looking at pictures (like this one) and not have my heart weep. God, this is all your fault.

Before taking you seriously, I would have heard the news, seen the pictures, and the videos and thought to myself, "well that is sad." But then I would have moved on with my life. I would have continued on to live in my little world and I would have been fine. I would have concentrated on other things, like the NFL Playoffs. But NO, instead I have spent time praying and wondering how I can help these people all the way up here in Thomasville, NC. I have tried to rally my congregation and to have them reach out through giving of their money and making health kits. I have seen images that are in my brain constantly because your children, my fellow brothers and sisters, are in pain and I cannot shake it.

So thank you God, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for making me care and love people I have never met. Thank you for making my life recently full of prayer and sorrow. Thank you for making Haiti and the people doing ministries and missions down there be constantly on the forefront of my mind. I have never been there and really had no desire to but it is because of YOUR love and YOUR Holy Spirit that now I am being moved to figure out how and when I or a team from my church can go. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.

Thank you God. Thank you for making me worry and grieve. Thank you for the pain and the ache. Thank you for making me realize what it would be like to be YOU. I know you made this clear and you have told us that as we become closer to you we will become closer to your children. But this may be taking it too far.

I'm going on with my day now. But I thought I should tell you thank you for ruining my self-absorbed life and making me think of, pray for, and love people I'll never meet. I blame you for this and I thought you should know!

As we grow up into a deeper relationship with God, God changes our hearts. God changes the way we love. We start to understand the love Jesus talks about when he tells us about forgiving someone 70 X 7 times, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, and that true loves means deep sacrifice. Children cannot understand that. People caught up in childish love, cannot fathom this. We have to put away childish things and man up, woman up, to the type of love we care called to show. A love that believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Without it we are nothing.

And all God’s people said…AMEN.

Are We Ignoring a Major Crisis?

We just finished week four of Financial Peace University (FPU) here at Trinity. The fourth session was Dumping Debt. This is Dave Ramsey's bread and butter. You can tell this is where his passion is and what his focus is on. He is intense about people taking whatever steps they need to to remove themselves from debt, or for the biblical reference, Proverbs 22:7 "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.

We have 15 families going through this program. One was debt free when they arrived and another became debt free last week. On week three we were asked to write down how much non-mortgage debt we have. Take away the house payment but add the car payments, credit cards, student loans, etc. The total for the 15 families was just under $650,000. That averages out to over $40,000 per family of debt and remember one family came in without any. Half of the people attending our class are from Trinity. That means that $325,000 of that debt is potentially held by the members of my church. That is triple our annual operating cost and that is only 7 families out of the 60 giving units we have in the church.

The reason we are offering FPU is because as my wife and I decided to get serious about our finances and while listening to Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, I was struck with a comment he made, "It is not that people don't want to give, they are not in a financial position to give." We wonder why we as a denomination can't make our budget and our conference has to make cuts everywhere. No wonder churches are suffering financially to pay the bills and keep the doors open. I know large churches who are just hitting their mid-20s in life, who are so desperate for financial stability that it hurts. I know small churches praying for younger families to come in because they think that will save them from going under.

As I stared at that number, $640,000, I wondered what it would be like if I passed note cards out to everyone in my congregation and asked them to write down their non-mortgage debt. I am extremely nervous about what that outcome would be. I have a feeling we would be in the millions of dollars, and we only average 90 a Sunday in worship.

Are we as a church, as ministers, missing the crisis that is right in front of us. Are our congregations truly serving the master 'money' because they don't see any other way out? We as a church have to step up our teachings and our approach to money. Many ministers hate talking about it from the pulpit. Many laity hate hearing about it and fumble around in the pews when 'that sermon' is preached each year. But is this really only the fear of the reality that we live in?

Are ministers afraid to preach about debt and money because they don't have a handle on their own. To receive a Masters of Divinity, in my neck of the woods, means you have to get a private graduate school education. That is thousands of dollars and many new pastors coming out of school are deep in debt, and are not easily embarrassed (see questions for ordination to get joke). Because of this many probably feel hypocritical about talking about money because they are slaves to the lender themselves.

The truth is we need to be offering something to our church family to provide them ways to release themselves from the debt that consumes their lives. If we as a church want to build better congregations, giving congregations, better marriages, stronger relationships then lets figure out a way to kick debt to the curb. This may be the most counter-cultural thing we preach and we need to stop ignoring it. People will not like talking about it and it will make people extremely uncomfortable but the truth is our congregation's focus is not on God, it is on their bills. I think Jesus has some stuff to say about this too. So go and PREACH IT!

Came with the Frame Update

Well, my plea was only heard by two people. Thanks Pat and Jodie. Although I could not read Jodie's picture. Here is a great picture that Pat sent me. The sad thing was I couldn't use them. I downloaded them but then the only way they could show up was to keep a flash drive in and I didn't have a spare one. So thank you Pat and Jodie for participating in my failed attempt.

Sermon Distraction #29

Okay, this is fun little game from Shockwave. You are to demolish the buildings on the different islands. Physics are fun! Plus you get to blow stuff up!

Just remember, Sunday is coming!!

ENJOY! - BOOM!!!!

I could have done without this God!

God I would like to complain. I would like you to hear me for a minute because I have a problem with being your follower right now. I know it has been years, over a decade and a half, since I asked you to take my life and do with me what you want but this is pushing it.

God, I cannot stop looking at the news and having my heart break over and over again. I cannot stop looking at pictures (like this one) and not have my heart weep. God, this is all your fault.

Before taking you seriously, I would have heard the news, seen the pictures, and the videos and thought to myself, "well that is sad." But then I would have moved on with my life. I would have continued on to live in my little world and I would have been fine. I would have concentrated on other things, like the NFL Playoffs. But NO, instead I have spent time praying and wondering how I can help these people all the way up here in Thomasville, NC. I have tried to rally my congregation and to have them reach out through giving of their money and making health kits. I have seen images that are in my brain constantly because your children, my fellow brothers and sisters, are in pain and I cannot shake it.

So thank you God, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for making me care and love people I have never met. Thank you for making my life recently full of prayer and sorrow. Thank you for making Haiti and the people doing ministries and missions down there be constantly on the forefront of my mind. I have never been there and really had no desire to but it is because of YOUR love and YOUR Holy Spirit that now I am being moved to figure out how and when I or a team from my church can go. THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT.

Thank you God. Thank you for making me worry and grieve. Thank you for the pain and the ache. Thank you for making me realize what it would be like to be YOU. I know you made this clear and you have told us that as we become closer to you we will become closer to your children. But this may be taking it too far.

I'm going on with my day now. But I thought I should tell you thank you for ruining my self-absorbed life and making me think of, pray for, and love people I'll never meet. I blame you for this and I thought you should know!

(picture from The Big Picture)

Luke 4:14-21 - Sermon - Shortest Sermon Ever

(here is a blast from the past. I preached this sermon on 1-25-04 at Hawthorne Lane UMC, enjoy (beware of typos))

Luke 4:14-21
Shortest Sermon Ever
01/25/04

I have to admit I looked at this text and I sat back and wondered what I was going to preach about. It is a hard text to get your head around for a sermon. There is no dramatic story for me to break down, no wise and confusing parable for me to explain nor is there a dramatic miracle that takes place that I can just speak about. This is a simple short story about Christ=s first sermon. The fun part of the story comes in the next verses which is next weeks scripture, so I cannot jump ahead of myself and tell the end because we will figure that out next week. All I have to work with Jesus standing up in his hometown synagogue, reading some scripture and then giving the shortest sermon ever, one line, and that was it in these seven verses. That was it. I prayed long and hard about what I should preach about using this text and God spoke to me in a way that I was not ready for.

As I pondered the text, prayed over them and then prayed for something to say about them, I looked at what the other texts in the lectionary was about. The Epistle text for this week is verses from the 12 chapter of 1 Corinthians. If you were at the leadership training last week, then you will remember it because it is the scripture that Mary John read. It is a kind of long text so instead of reading it I will give you the cliff notes version. It is a great text that simply tells us that we are all created differently but we are part of one body, the body of believers, the body of Christ. Since we are a part of that body we are suppose to do our part for that body. Paul then goes into a long stretch of saying, if the ear states that it cannot see, well of course it cannot for it is an ear, it is suppose to hear. A foot cannot do the work of a heart and a heart cannot do the work of the brain. To sum it all up, we are all created differently so we must do what we are created for we must do what we were made to do. We must fulfill the reason that we were created, we must hear our calling and do it.

Now this is not easy to do. Jesus understood his role here on earth and proclaimed it to his hometown. Jesus comes back from his baptism, full of the Spirit, and understands his purpose.
He understands for certain why he is here on earth and then he starts to tell the world.


At Duke most classes talked about theology, history and intellectual thinking. Now I like that stuff but I don=t love it, so I was really kind of looking forward to my preaching classes where we can learn the basis fundamental of ministry, the sermon. Come to find out, it was different than expected. To fully understand what it is like to take the preaching course at Duke you need to understand the preaching labs, yes that is what they are called, preaching labs. I don=t know who came up with that name but it sounded like we were going to create something in there, that students went in and then through the magic of teaching they came out preaching monsters for God. You walked in as John Doe and you walked out Martin Luther King, Jr.

Yet that was not the case. These labs are more like little studios. There are some chairs all facing a pulpit, similar to this one, the walls are all a tan khaki color and in the back corner there is a window into the booth. Above the booth there is a camera that is recording your sermon.
When you preaching in that lab you wait for the thumbs up from the booth guy and then you start into your sermon. So you can see that they really give you a sense of how preaching in a congregation really is. Then after you preach you sit back down and you are ripped to shreds by your fellow classmates who are just waiting for there turn.

I tell you this to tell you that Jesus would have failed the preaching course at Duke. His sermon fell short of the desired 15-20 minute sermons they required. There is no witty argument given.
There is no real brilliance at all with the creation of this phrase. No one really quotes it, Jesus has a ton of other much better sayings in his portfolio. I mean, Jesus=s whole sermon is really just one sentence and he does it sitting down. Now a regular service back in those days is somewhat similar to what we do here each Sunday. Usually there is just some prayers, reading of Scripture, some comments and alms for the poor. So here Jesus really just provides a comment, not even comments. Let me give you the full visual on what happened. I what you all to fully understand what happens because it does become very important especially with what happens next week


Jesus after his baptism goes home and goes to the synagogue where he usually went on the Sabbath. Jesus was a good Jew and participates in the service which was very common among men in those days. I am sure that he knew some if not a lot of the people there in the synagogue that day. This was the town he grew up in so he must have known at least a handful and they all knew him. He goes up and is given a scroll of scripture to read, it is what we know as the book of Isaiah. He opens the scroll and then looks out in the congregation and reads these lines:

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to
preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom
for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the
oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord=s favor.

He reads that scripture then sits down, looks out into the people there and says, Today these scriptures have been fulfilled in your hearing. In other words, yah that=s me. The person who is coming to do all these things that has been promised, well you are looking at him.

Have you ever said something that you knew in your heart was true but no one around you believed you? Hindsight is 20/20 so history gives us some great examples of people who have believed one thing only to have the majority of people not believe them. Christopher Columbus believed he could get to India faster if he went west. People thought he would fall off the earth because it was flat but he proved them wrong. When the Panthers started the season at 5 and 0, a friend of mine said, if the Panthers keep this up they will go to the Super Bowl. I laughed and said, are you kidding, this is the Carolina Panthers, we always find a way to lose it in the end. Yet now that we are seven days away from the Big Game in Houston, I am proven wrong.


If John Fox would have stood up in the press room in August and said, we are going to the Super Bowl on the shoulders of a young team lead by a quarterback who until this year has only started two games, he would have been the laughing stock on Sportscenter, and I would have been joining with them. Yet the Carolina Panthers are playing in the Super Bowl and my friend was exactly right, I just did not believe him. Christopher Columbus heeded the call and headed west on the Atlantic. The Panthers are full of the spirit of playing as a team and also are heading west to Houston. In this passage, Christ, full of the Spirit, hears his call loud and clear and heads home to tell people about it.

The key to this passage is that Jesus was full of the Spirit and knew in His heart that what he was doing was something He was called to do. He knew that when that scripture was read that was really about His life and what He was sent to do on this earth. He was sent to give the blind sight. He was here to release the oppressed and not just those who were socially oppressed but all of us who fall victim to that little thing called sin. He was here to proclaim the year of the Lord=s favor, to proclaim that all are set free and that there is now a path to heaven is set.
Jesus saw the path that he was to take and he started to walk it.

I know what you are thinking, that=s great Jim, but what does that have to do with us.
What it has to do with us is that we are a part of that body of believers. In the congregation there are hands, feet, hearts, lungs, eyes, ears, mouths and brains. We are all created differently, but God wants us to name what we are created for and then do it. We are to follow the example that Christ gives us and go out, full of the Spirit and do the work of God. Proclaim what you were created to do, name it, accept it and then do it.


It is not easy and we learn next week about some of the hazards that come with that territory but God gives us what we need and the power and the authority to do so. All we have to do is do it. Just like Nike says, we should Just Do It.

The one who is to come, has come. The one who will set the people free has broken the chains.
The one who ushered us into the kingdom of God is watching and waiting for you to do your part. What we can take from these scriptures is an example of how. Jesus could not do it without the Spirit and neither can we. Jesus needed assurance that this was what He was called to do and that is what the Spirit gave Him and that is what the Spirit can give us. The good news is that the role of Messiah, the supreme sacrifice has been taken. None of us have to do that.
All we have to do is the little parts, the little roles in life, the big one is taken care of. So our challenge is to find our roles, find our calling, find what we are created for, and then to proclaim it and do it.

Believe in yourself. Believe in the voice in the back of your head, the one that keeps you up at night telling you where you could find the most joy in life. Listen to the Spirit that drives your soul to step away from our comfort zones and to branch out to the needy, the hungry and the forgotten. Listen to God for why you are created, claim it and then do it.

AMEN

John 2:1-11 - Sermon - Little Abundance

John 2:1-11

Little Abundance

01-17-10

I loved my wedding. It was so much fun. Not only did I marry a trophy wife but the party was fun too. There are a few moments I can recall with clarity, not because I had too much wine but because it was too much of a blur. There was one fun event I do remember with great clarity. When it came time to remove the garter we had decided to play it up a bit. We were already having fun but as Alycia sat in a chair my best men placed rubber gloves on me and a snorkel and mask. I prepared myself and I lifted up Alycia dress and found her leg under all the tool and stuck my head under it all. The crowd was laughing and cheering and I was into the moment. I also realized I was breathing through the snorkel. This works well when you have your face under the water but not so well when it is under a wedding dress. What happens is that as you breathe in the wedding dress gets sucked into the top of the snorkel, making it impossible to breath. I started to panic a little but then realized to survive all I needed to do was take the snorkel out of my mouth. I did and I gasped for air. But we continued with the fun as I removed a rubber chicken from under her dress.

Weddings are times of celebration and fun. In Jesus’ time the wedding couple did not go on a honeymoon. Instead the groom’s family threw a seven day wedding feast at their house. A seven day, all out party and if you are going to have a good party you want to make sure the caterer doesn’t run out of food and drink. That was not the case for the wedding that Mary and Jesus were invited to in Cana. It seems that on the third day things started to run low. The wine ran out and Mary noticed this.

One of the reasons that people surround themselves with attendants at their weddings is to honor their friends and family but also to provide people who can buffer the bride and groom from the incidents that happen during the wedding. I mean let’s face it, during a wedding anything can go wrong at a moment’s notice. At the rehearsal, I tell all the attendants who are standing up there and the bride and groom to never lock their knees during the ceremony. If you do and you are hot or nervous, you will faint and that won’t be good.

After one rehearsal the groomsmen and the bride maids all tried to distract the bride and groom from an incident in the parking lot. It seems that the husband of the mother of the bride had backed into the car carrying the father of the bride, his mother, and his wife. It was a moment of pure chaos that needed to be avoided in order not to freak the couple out even more. There was another wedding issue at another wedding. The wedding was happening on an island in the middle of the Grandfather Mountain Country Club. It was picturesque except for the fact that it was unseasonably cold, almost 32 degrees out. The bride is standing there with a strapless dress, along with all the bridesmaids, shivering as I am going through the ceremony. The crowd that had gathered just wanted me to get it over with so they could warm up.

Jesus finds himself in a unique place this week. He is a guest but his mother makes him aware of the crisis that is happening in the kitchen. After hearing his mother’s plea to do something about the wine situation he goes on to provide the first sign of seven signs in the Gospel of John. The first miracle Jesus does in the Gospel of John is to keep the party going. Six stone jars are found. Usually they are used in the Jewish rite of purification. These were the rites of people who washed up before eating and also the pots and stuff used to eat. These six stone jars held all the water that was used for this process. The scripture says that each of these jars could hold 20-30 gallons of water. Jesus tells the servants to fill those jars up and then he turns it into the best tasting wine. Just to let you know a regular wine bottle holds 1 liter of wine. Six jars holding 30 gallons would be 180 gallons of wine or 681 bottles. Just think about throwing a party with 681 bottles of wine, that would be one heck of a party, and this is the second round that Jesus sends them out with.

What this miracle shows us who Jesus is. All seven of the signs in the Gospel of John all point to who Jesus is. In the 11^th verse we learn what this sign meant. It says, “This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him.” Jesus’ glory was revealed in this act and we learn that the Son of God, the Word made Flesh, brings a blessing the world has never seen. Mary had looked up at her son and said, “We don’t have enough,” and Jesus answered with abundance. Water, a simple everyday material, was transformed into the best tasting wine the master of the banquet had ever tasted.

We also learned that there was really just a private few who knew of this sign. Jesus did not stop the party, call everyone’s attention to himself and then perform the trick for all to see. He wasn’t an ancient David Blaine. The only ones who knew about this miracle were Mary, his Disciples (because it tells us that they had faith in him after this miracle), and the servants who drew the water. Jesus gives abundantly but not out in front for all to see but in the quietness of the backroom.

In 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, a woman got off work and started to trek home. She was tired after her long day. Her feet hurt and her bones ached. There was nothing more she wanted than a quiet bus ride back to her quiet house. She sat down in an empty seat and minded her own business as the bus pulled away from her stop. More people got on the bus until it started to get crowded. The woman was asked to get up and give her seat to someone else. She refused. It was a long day and this was a battle she was going to win. At 42 years old, all Rosa Parks did was refuse to get up and move to the back of the bus just because she was black and the person who wanted to sit down was white. It was small act but it changed the landscape of America. Looking back at this moment in time, Rosa Parks says, "I did not get on the bus to get arrested, I got on the bus to go home."[1]

This act started the start of the Civil Rights movement in America and led to the end of the institutionalized segregation in the South. It was because of Rosa Parks that we celebrate the work of another man this weekend, Martin Luther King, Jr. A man who through the abundance of his words changed America for the better. A man who had a dream that we are still attempting to live into even today. A Christian preacher who never stopped preaching the gospel to the American people and it changed this nation.

There is a scientific theory out there called the Chaos Theory. This theory is “namely small differences in the initial condition of a dynamic system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of a system.”[2] You can also hear this called The Butterfly Effect. You may have heard this as “if a butterfly flaps its wings in Africa, the wind generated by those wings ends up creating a hurricane in the Atlantic which then sends destruction to the other side of the world.” It is the small things that end up causing big changes in the world. If you are a fan of time travel you know what I am talking about. In the show Heroes, Hiro Nakamura is a master of time and space. He was learned that the small changes he makes when he goes back and forth in time effect everything. Small changes can lead to huge events. It was one shot but it killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and lead to the First World War It was only a seat on the bus but not getting up started the Civil Rights Movement. It was only six jars of water but the abundance of wine that came out lead to the abundance of love that was then shown on the cross.

The God we worship is a God that takes little things and makes them into big things. A baby in a basket floating down a river turns into a leader who would take his people out of slavery. A child who watched sheep would soon place a rock in a sling and slay a giant. A quiet and talented girl named Ester would show bravery that would save her race. Fisherman doing their jobs would hear the calling of a traveler and help transform a world.

The awesomeness of the God we worship is that nothing is too small. No act is too insignificant. God can use everything to show his glory. If God can use a wedding running out of wine to bring about his plan of salvation, it makes me wonder what little events in my life God is using to transform the world and the people I meet. Are we open to the moments when we can act and then lead to change in our world? Will we respond when disaster strikes a country only 100 miles away from our own? Will we help that woman on the side of the road or will we open our mouths when we feel God stirring our hearts to speak? Will we be open? Will we be ready? Will we be willing to be used by the God who can take a little and make abundance?

And all God’s people said…Amen.

---

[1] Time Magazine, Time’s 100, taken from http://www.yachtingnet.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/parks01.html

[2] Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory