Intro

 

What in the world is a church?  As a small child here in this place I began asking that question.  I remember at an early age â probably 4 or 5 â being in the Meditation Garden out front with a few other children and I believe it was Edith Davison who was teaching us.  Edith taught us a fun, helpful little rubric to consider what a church is.  Iâd like to teach it to you today, though I think youâve probably already heard it once or twice.

Here's the church, and here's the steeple
Open the door and see all the people.

Itâs pretty accurate, though you are a little less wiggly! 

The poem is fun.  It is meaningful, and the imagery of learning it here in this place as a small child is powerful to me.  Yet, I need to confess something to you.  As an adult I find it quite lacking in theological strength regarding what a church is â or should be â or could be.  It is fine for a 4 year old â very appropriate.  Not so for a 14 year old, or a 24 year old, or a 74 year old.  We need a bit meatier of an understanding of what a church is.

From a sociological perspective, Iâve been trying to sort that out for the past few years.  Iâve spoken with a couple of you about my PhD work, but not many.  Part of it very much involves defining a church, though from a scientific rather than a theological perspective.  My work is rooted in the mapping of religion and is essentially a critique of some of the methods that have been used to measure and map religious adherents in North America.  My argument is that the method itself is only applicable at scales beyond county boundary levels.  Instead, I use an approach that begins with the individual adherent and works up, and I am incorporating a concept called emergence, which I would like to touch briefly on here this morning. 

Emergence is rooted in the idea that there are certain levels of reality, and that no one level can be reduced to another.  The easiest example is to think of water, which is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.  Each of the atoms has certain characteristics â they have specific powers and mechanisms that are unique.  Yet, when they come together to form H2O â water â new characteristics, mechanisms, and powers appear that, while directly stemming from the powers and mechanisms of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms, are entirely different altogether.  Something new has emerged!

Now, if you are still with me â and I hope you are â let me tell you what I am doing with this idea of emergence.  It is something no one has done before and I am very excited about it.  I am using emergence to better understand what a church is.  Iâm arguing that when a group of people join together to be a part of a church that something powerful happens â that new powers and mechanisms are present that were not present when you add up the individual characteristics of all of those people alone.   When we reduce churches to dots on a map and adherents to numbers associated with dots on a map we lose all the power and glory of what is actually represented in the statistics.  Iâm looking for ways to jump scale from adherent to church to denomination in a way that is non-reductionistic â and it isnât easyâ  Iâve been working on this PhD for 7 years!  I say all this to tell you that when I ask a question like, âWhat is a Churchâ? at the beginning of a sermon I am not just setting the scene for my message.  I am sharing about something deeply profound and for me deeply personal â something of which I have thought and prayed about long and hard and to which I have more questions than answers. 

This morningâs historic reading from the lectionary provides help in this matter of sorting out what the church is.  If youâll forgive me for the redundancy, Iâd like to read it again:

Text

 

The Fellowship of the Believers

 

 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Now, there are all kinds of directions we could take today to sort out what this text means for us here at First United Methodist Church this morning.  The first sentenceâs list of activities might be a good place to start: teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, prayer and awe.

Teaching

 

Many of you who are digging through Pomo Timmy realize how passionate I am about this subject â at least those of you who survived the Philosophy embedded in the first chapter.  I wrote the book out of a deep concern for the direction many in the Church â with a capital C â are taking toward truth and issues of morality, particularly those playing around with postmodern theory.  The book is rooted in 1 Timothy, which was essentially written by Paul to Timothy to help him teach in a climate where false teachers abounded.  The church is an appropriate setting for teaching.  Pentecost was a very emotional event â but the church isnât just about emotional experiences.  We worship God with the mind â Church, from the very inception of the term, is a place where the mind is to be sharpened.

Fellowship

 

The church is also a locus of fellowship.  One of the powerful realities of the Jerusalem Church is that this fellowship formed out of diversity â people from every nation under heaven comprised its adherents.  More so, it was a fellowship free from poverty!  Deuteronomy 15:4-5 had promised such a community â and here in this archetypical church we find it!  Every member of the community found freedom in this first fellowship of Christian believers. 

Breaking Bread

 

Profound moments of unity and revelation often took place at meal times.  Dinner time with Jesus in the gospel of Luke was a time of fellowship & revelation.  Eating together is a mark of unity, solidarity and deep friendship  In Jewish fashion when the blessing is said at the table it becomes a holy place. And eating together a sacred activity.  The disciples remembered these times with the Lord and replicated them in the Apostolic era.

Prayer

 

Prayer, also, was central to every activity.  In the midst of all the newness the believers continue to go to temple and practice the times of prayer â they do not surrender the traditions of their ancestors â at least not yet.  This is particularly true of prayer, which is done on every possible occasion.

Awe

 

This first church was also a setting that was awesome.  The power of this word has been stolen due to constant use over the past few years.  We say this is awesome, or that is awesome, but is it really â does it inspire awe?  Christina and I went to the Grand Canyon about this time last year.  It was AWESOME!  Almost 13 years ago we were married in this very sanctuary and that was awesome as well.  Leah and Brendanâs births were almost overwhelmingly AWESOME!  God has made some things to be awe-inspiring.

Churches are in this list.  Over the last few months, I have brought quite a few friends on tours of this building.  I usually start with the youth den and safe room or the gym and snake my way through the whole building, always saving this room for the last, because I know what the reaction will be.  Every time people enter this place they are captured by the presence and power of the architecture and the grandeur of the room, especially those friends who are not from a traditional church background. 

Yet, this text is not talking about architecture.  It is talking about the power inherent in the community of faith â a power which brought healing and wholeness in every dimension of human life.  This first church of Jerusalem was awesome in every sense of the word.

While we can find some principles on todayâs text that are certainly applicable to the church today, we should recognize that much of this passage is provided to demonstrate historically what was happening in the Jerusalem church immediately after Pentecost.  Believers were so blown away by what God, through the Holy Spirit, was doing in their midst that they were sharing all of their possessions.  Rest easy â Iâm not going to go that far with the text today, even though I think this might be a bit less archetypical of a text than we might imagine.  I would rather make a simple point, and then ask a series of questions related to it. 

The point is this: The Jerusalem Church was fulfilling its call to be a church in the fullest sense it was able.  Those in the church knew what their task was and were dedicated to fulfilling that task with all of their heart, mind, soul and strength.

Now the first question: What about FUMC?  Are we fulfilling our call in this community?  Do we know what our call is in this community?

Iâve been in this town most of my life serving in various capacities in various churches.  Through the years a lot of people have asked me what church I grew up in and when I tell them I get a common response.  Youâre not going to like it, but I am going to share it with you anyway, even though I believe it is true of this church only as much as it is true of every other church of which Iâve ever been a part.

I will say that I grew up in the First United Methodist Church of Clarksburg, and they will respond â Oh, thatâs the country club church!   

1)    Country Club

Country club church, hmmmmmâ.

This response might be because of our architecture, or because of the models of a few of the cars in our parking lot, or the reality that many of us here do belong to one country club or another.  Itâs easy to label other churches and other people when you view and judge them from only the outside.  There may be some components of a club mentality here, but again I tell you that there are no more than in any other church of which I am familiar.  There is much less than in some.  I share the country club observation out of reflection, not out of judgment or condemnation.  Because of our architecture and because of some of the cars in our parking lot and because of the fact that many of us are members of real country clubs we need to be conscious of this, and work against it by ensuring we are holding true to being a church.  The reality is most churches in America have club mentalities.  Clubs are fine â well not strip clubs â but country clubs are fine â I have nothing against them.  But, they are not churches!

How might we know if we are treating the church like a country club?

-         Do we give to the church like we might give to a club?

When there is a need we give so that the club can continue to exist, but otherwise we use our resources for other things. 

-         Do we have activities in the church like those in a club?

Most churches today are full of activities: basket weaving, daycare, exercise, yoga, etcâ  I was in a church in Houston once that had its own exercise gym!  Not just a gymnasium like ours â it was a full-fledged fitness club!  In the American Church, has socialization been substituted for the gospel?  Has warm-hearted busyness replaced Spirit-empowered community?

-         Do we attend a church like we might attend a club?

When it is convenient and fits the social calendar.  Or, even worse, when there is some advantage for us in our social or professional circles.  Or, we attend just enough to retain our membership, but not enough to make any kind of difference.

Folks, if the church is anything it is NOT a club!  Especially a country club!  Many of us here belong to country clubs â Iâm not slamming that, please understand.  But the church is something different.  Profoundly different.  It is full of humans so it is not a perfect organization.  Yet, it is a conduit through which the God who created the heavens and the earth â the God who searches our hearts and knows our thoughts âthe God to whom we will each ultimately give an account â it is a conduit through which God speaks to the world and through which he redeems and transforms.  

2)    Most compassionate church in town

Now, to be honest, the country club response is not the only one I get when I tell people about this congregation.  There is another one- and you will like this one.  In fact, I think you will really like it.  When I am at he mission and I mention this church I get the same response every time.  âThatâs a church that really cares about the poor,â? they say.  Iâve heard this from staff at the mission.  Iâve heard it from residents.  Iâve heard it from people who just come to eat.  They say that First United Methodist doesnât just talk about helping them â they do indeed help.  I agree, even while we can all acknowledge that we can learn to do this better.  This is a compassionate church.

I apologize for talking so much about our church in this sermon, but the text really opens the door for it, and I believe it can be healthy to be reflective on such matters.  If youâll allow, I would like to share a few more observations Iâve made about our congregation.  Just as the Jerusalem Church had a calling and a purpose â so do we.  Iâd like to âthink out loudâ? with you in a reflective â not a prescriptive way â for a few minutes about what that might be.

What is distinctive about FUMC?

 

1)    Beth / Childrenâs Ministry

First, Iâd like to talk about the childrenâs ministry.  You may have noticed that my sermon is titled, âThis, this is where children belong.â?  A more specific title could have been âWhat is the Church,â? but I believe that todayâs title encapsulates that â and I believe this church does childrenâs ministry in a phenomenally empowering way.  I would rather have my children sitting under Bethâs ministry than be in any other church in the region â and I mean that.  Those of you who are parents of children in her ministry know what I am talking about.  You see the difference in your childrenâs lives.  Thank you Beth and all of your volunteers!

While all this is true about Beth and her ministry, there is much more encapsulated in the sermon title than the appropriate Kudos Beth is worthy of receiving.  When we say âThis is where children belong,â? we are speaking to a much broader audience than 1^st through 5^th grade students.

Matthew 19

 

 Then little children were brought to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought them.

 Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

2)    Youth

This is also a place where youth belong, and you have some amazing youth who do belong here!  You also have some amazing people in your church who serve these kids out of the compassion â Rob and Susan Gifford, Carrie Whaley and Fred Spicer. 

It is has been a great year for me being back here and serving among these good people.  Yet, to be honest it has also been a little strange because from the very beginning of my role I was an Interim Director of Youth Ministries, and so from the start everyone knew I was eventually going to leave.  Itâs hard to build relationships when the exit door is in front of you from the beginning.  Iâve done OK â especially with activities, but I canât hold a candle to Beth.  Thankfully an important part of the role I agreed to with SPRC last summer was to lead the charge to find the person who would come to the church and work with students over the long haul.  Many of you already know that a subcommittee of the SPRC representing a broad range of interests in the church, including youth, has put together a comprehensive job description and that we have been receiving applications.  The job closes Tuesday and we have over thirty applicants, many of them seasoned and well-qualified youth ministers.  The committee will narrow this down to 5 to 10 for conference calls then in May we will bring in two final candidates to spend the entire weekend with us â they will speak at our coffee house, they will serve alongside youth at the mission, they will teach Sunday School.  This process will be intense, but is demonstrative of the priority youth ministry has in this place.  This, this is where children and youth belong.

3)    Social Outreach

This is also a place where the downcast belong.  The church should not have eyes that judge according to class or race.  Many have come to First United Methodist and found wholeness in the midst of poverty-stricken circumstances or mental illness.  This is an accepting and loving congregation.  This is the place the poor, the downcast, the hurting and suffering belong.

4)    Families / All ages participate

It is also a place where people of all ages find unity â a rare thing today.  One of the trends I have noticed happening in America, and another one which I write about in Pomo Timmy, is the tendency of younger Christians to get fed up with their church of origin and leave to found new communities of faith with people only their own age.  The Body of Christ is inclusive to age, and this is captured here at First United Methodist.  This, this is where children of all ages belong!

I want to be a little bold here and suggest a possible rallying point for this congregation.  Iâm not saying you need to change your mission statement or do anything rash, but having both prayed about how God wants to use this church in this community and listened to members of the congregation share their individual passions and callings I think this is sound.  Here is the rallying call:

This, this is where children belong

 

Now, I would love to be able to claim that I came with that, but as you know I did not.  Nor did you.  It is a song in our hymnal that we sing each and every week.  It is a simple song, not too unlike the nursery rhyme we started with this morning. 

Nor can I claim that I was the one who decided this would make a fantastic rallying point for the church.  That was actually Don and Elizabeth and Beth â all speaking with one voice at a staff meeting a few weeks ago.  I listened to the three of them discussing this song and applying it to the various segments of our community â to children and youth, to the homeless and those in need, to shut-ins and the elderly, to doctors and lawyers, to all of us.  I was moved and inspired. 

This, this is where children belong

 

This rallying call fits perfectly into our text as well.  William Willimon â you thought you were going to get hiatus from Willimon this week didnât you!  William Willimon writes about our passage from Acts and notes that its main focus is community.  He notes that the passage serves as a bridge between the incredible acts of Peter, and brings the focus away from one man to the broader community.  He states, âThis summary of the activity of the church focuses our attention away from preoccupation with individual actors toward the true concern of the story â the community.â?  Our rallying cry does the same.

The Consequence

 

There is a consequence to this rallying cry, however.  If this is where children belong and theyâre not here, then we have a substantial obligation to get them here.  They are not going to come unless they are invited.  They will remain uninvited unless you  - unless we -  invite them... invite them not to a club, but to an empowered and emboldened community of faith.  Such was the task of the early church â and such is own. 

This, this is where children belong

 

First United Methodist Church of Clarksburg, WV