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What a great day for St. John church! Forty years of mission and ministry in the name of Christ in south Anchorage. In the presence of many distinguished former pastors of St. John I want to speak to you about what it’s like to be a pastor. Most pastors I know were called into ministry, not because we wanted to manage a church organization, but because we wanted to be a visionary leader to change the world! In football language, we wanted to be the quarterback, center, or perhaps the coach. Speaking to a group of pastors one man asked, "If a congregation were a football team, what position would the minister play?" The speaker was expecting "quarterback", "linebacker", "free safety", "coach", even "waterboy (waterperson)", or maybe "trainer." What came, from the back of the room, surprised everyone: "How about the football!" Every pastor can attest to feeling a bit like a football, getting kicked around and carried all over the field. One time you’re heading towards this goal line. The next you’re moving towards the other! Every pastor has dreamed of playing a vital role in building God’s team for playing the game of life and faith. Much of the conflict between pastors and churches has something to do with different ways to live out this vision of who God is calling us to be. A Lutheran newsletter had some tongue-in-cheek suggestions for church members unhappy with their pastor: "Simply send a copy of this letter to six other churches who are tired of their ministers. Then bundle up your pastor and send him to the church at the top of the list. Add your name to the bottom of the list. In one week you will receive 300 ministers, and one of them should be a dandy. Have faith in this letter. One man broke the chain and got his old minister back." After worship pastors hear some interesting comments as we greet people after a service. Here’s a sample. "Pastor, you always manage to find something to fill up the time." "I don't care what they say, I like your sermons." "Did you know there are 243 panes of glass in the windows?" "If I'd known you were going to be good today I'd have brought a neighbor." Of course, none of the pastors here today have ever heard such comments! All kidding aside one thing most pastors understand is their place in history. There were pastors who preceded us, and there will be pastors to follow us. One pastor helps to start a new ministry. Another one will see it grow. Paul wrote about this when addressing a conflict in the Corinthian church. Members were split on which minister they liked best. But Paul wrote these words to them, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." Some of us plant seeds of new ministries. Others are called to nurture and grow those seeds. And still others are around when those plants bear fruit. A modern parable is told about a woman who went to a mall and picked a store at random. She walked in and was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She knew it was Jesus because he looked just like the pictures she'd seen on holy cards and devotional pictures. She finally got up her nerve and asked, "Excuse me, are you Jesus?" "I am." "Do you work here?" "No, I own the store." Oh, what do you sell here?" "Just about everything," Jesus said. "Feel free to walk up and down the aisles, make a list, see what it is you want and then come back and we'll see what we can do for you." She asked, "What are these?" "Seed packets", Jesus said. "This is a catalog store." She said, "You mean I don't get the finished product?" "No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. You plant the seeds. You go home and nurture them and help them to grow and someone else reaps the benefits." "Oh," she said. And she left the store without buying anything. I have been talking about pastors but a key ingredient in any church’s success is visionary lay leaders. Church growth experts say that new people to a church expect a call or visit from a pastor. But it is the care and concern of lay people that makes new folks feel truly welcomed. I have served several churches who all said they wanted to grow. It even said so on the sign in the front lawn. Everyone welcome. But they all lacked a very important component: a long term vision by the laity! One of the reasons St. John is able to reach out to so many new people in this community is because of lay leaders like Bob Smay who have always had a long term vision for what God can do with this church. A few years ago at New College, Oxford, England, the beautiful old oak beams in the dining hall were found to be infested with the deathwatch beetle. There was no alternative but to replace all the huge fine old beams. Finding oak large enough to rebuild the ceiling appeared to be a physical and financial impossibility. Yet one of the junior fellows suggested that the extensive grounds of the college itself might provide the necessary timbers. When the college forester was asked if such a possibility existed, he calmly replied, "Well, sir, we was wonderin' when you'd be askin'." At the time of the college's founding in 1379 a grove of oak seedlings had been planted….. for the express purpose of replacing the oak beams in the event of a deathwatch beetle infestation. The founders knew from experience that eventually such infestations would likely occur. For hundreds of years each succeeding generation of college foresters was instructed with the information of the oak stand's place and purpose so that when the time came, the college community's needs could be met. Last month we held a block party in my neighborhood with about 40 in attendance. One family had lived there for 8 years. The rest of us had lived in that neighborhood for three years or less! One more statistic that shocked me. I was the oldest person at the party! I say this because this is exactly the reality our church is facing in Anchorage. We’re young and don’t have the financial base of many lower 48 churches. And many of us are aware that we won’t be here for a long period of time. Military and business transfers will take us to new places in a matter of a few years. This makes it difficult for us to raise the funding needed for our new addition. People aren’t sure about their future here. And then there is the economic climate which I will not go into. Somehow we need a vision of a future that transcends geography. What we do here to strengthen this church will have a tremendous impact on future generations. Our mission to make disciples of Christ and to welcome others will continue only if more of us catch the vision. It’s not just about us! It’s about God and what God wants to do in the world today and tomorrow. In a talk to clergy, Larry Rasmussen said that if we are to plan for the future of the church, it has both short- and very long-term implications. He calls us to be 'planters of both pumpkin and date seeds.' Pumpkin seeds will produce a rapid and fruitful crop. If you plant date seeds, it is unlikely that you will live to see fruit from a tree that takes so many years to mature before it begins its useful life. But its fruit will serve another generation. We are called to plan for both short- and long-term fruitfulness. Those of us here today are enjoying the fruit from seeds planted more than 40 years ago. Shouldn’t we commit ourselves to planting ‘date seeds’ for those who are yet to come? Carol Getzinger wrote these reflections on a decaying, sagging old home she saw in the Appalachian Mountains. There is a haunted house in the woods, my friends had said. Do you want to see it? The small house stands, falling slowly in time, in a clearing whose edges lay piled with a loose fence of stones, perhaps three feet high, grubbed out by hand from their abundance in the earth. Why is it haunted? I ask. A woman lived here with nine children. It is a forlorn house now. The handhewn logs, with the cracks chinked, show in places where the facing wood has fallen off. There had been two stories, a room above and a room below. Now the doorways sag, the window lists and the roof is partially caved in. The clearing holds evidence of how hard the life must have been - enormous numbers of rocks moved to make a garden, water carried to grow enough to eat, wood cut and chopped for heating and cooking, weeds pulled, racoons and deer chased away. Carol ends her essay with this prayer. May it be our prayer as well. Dear God: How easy to forget that other generations share the same gifts you offer us. Let us remember that the body of Christ, of which we are a part, encompasses others far beyond our touch. Yet from those distant places they still reach out to us with their courage and love. Amen. Happy birthday, St. John! Today we thank God for the dream that continues to change the future of so many of God’s children here in south Anchorage. May the next 40 years be filled with growth and faithful discipleship in Jesus Christ. |
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09.15.02 - Dreams That Change the Future (1 Corinthians 3:1-9)
