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We are in week five of our journey!! We’re over halfway there. And there, of course is

our first worship service at our new home on Davenport. We are planning to worship there on

Sunday, November 2. I like sports, so let’s use some sports metaphor. We’re crossed the 50

yard line as we’re moving in for a touchdown. It’s the fifth inning on a nine inning game.

If we like movies and saw the Wizard of Oz we could say we can see the castle.

I love music too so we can use a metaphor from there. It’s past intermission and we’re

moving towards the end of the concert.

We are disciples on a journey. During our time here at Roosevelt Middle School we’ve

been examining journey stories in the Bible and seeing what they teach us about our own journey

as individuals and as a congregation.

It’s worth reviewing a bit.

We looked at the story of Adam and Eve. We learned that they didn’t get to choose their

journey, but God provided for them. The same applies to us.

We looked at the adventure of Abraham and Sarah having a baby when they were elderly.

Sarah was in her 90’s. God is an adventurous God and asks us to take adventures.

We looked at the story of the crisis of the Israelites. They were backed into a corner with

the Red Sea on one side and 600 Egyptian chariots on the other side. At that crisis point instead

of turning on God, Moses told them to trust God.

Last week we moved forward and looked at the Israelites crossing the Jordan River. It

was a defining moment on their journey. To remember it they took 12 stones and placed them as

a shring at Gilgal. The stones represented what God had done for them. I called this a symbol of

strength. We need symbols of strength on our own journey.

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In each of these sermons we’ve looked at both our individual journeys and our journey as

a congregation. In today’s sermon I’m to focus primarily on our congregation’s journey. We

call this a culture-setting sermon. We don’t try to do these culture-setting sermons too often as

our task is to help each of us on our journey. Every now and then we want to life up a Core

Value of our own congregation. If you’re relatively new to Chain of Lakes I think you’ll be

interested in what we’re trying to accomplish.

I do want to encourage you to pull out this Next Step card. During the sermon I’ll share

three next steps that can help us go deeper into the theme. You can also take notes on your Next

Step card.

I want to start out with a question. I would encourage you to write it down.

What does God want the church to do?

To find responses and even answers to our questions, the place to go is the Bible. The

best person in the Bible to respond to and answer our questions is Jesus. In today’s story Jesus

gave an answer to this question.

Let me set up the story. This is a very significant story as the movement that Jesus

started really began with this story. Up until this time Jesus was being formed to start his

ministry. We’re looking at Matthew’s version of this story today. The first two chapters of

Matthew look at the birth of Jesus. Then in chapter three Matthew fast forwards to Jesus as an

adult. Matthew wrote about John the Baptist. Jesus was baptized by John. Then Jesus was

tempted in the wilderness. These are formation stories for Jesus. Jesus had been anointed

through baptized; he had been tested through temptation. Now Jesus was ready to begin his

ministry.

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It’s not out of line to say that the seeds of the church were planted with this story. The

church really didn’t begin until after Jesus was gone. Fifty days later on the day of Pentecost the

church was started. The seeds of the community was started in this story.

Most likely Jesus was in a small fishing village of Capernaum. He was on the Sea of

Galilee. It wasn’t really a sea, we would call it a big lake. The sea of Galilee was

(larger/smaller) than Lake Milaacs.

Jesus saw two sets of brother. The first set of brothers was Peter and Andrew; the second

set of brothers was James and John. They were fishing on the sea. Jesus told them this. It’s one

of the most famous declarations in the Bible

Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.

When I was growing up my congregation used the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, the

RSV. Today we use the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible at Chain of Lakes, the

NRSV. The RSV translation said,

“Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

The idea of fishing made would have made sense to Peter, Andrew, James & John for

their livelihood was fishing. If Jesus was alive today and he was recruiting leaders from other

professions he probably would have used that profession as a metaphor, just as fishing is a

metaphor.

If he was talking to computer program he would say, Follow me and I will have you make

computer programs for people

If he was talking to lawyers he would say, Follow me and I will make you lawyers for people

If he was talking to teachers he would say, “Follow me and I will make you teachers for people.

If he was talking to someone who works for the government, say the DNR he would say,

“Follow me and I will make you serve the people.

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Underneath this exhortion of Jesus is an idea that is so simple that we might miss it. It’s

very important for us as a church not to miss it. Let me ask you this question that seems so

simple that you might wonder if I’m insulting your intelligence. I’m not trying to insult your

intelligence.

When Jesus asked the two sets of brothers to fish was he asking them to fish for themselves or

fish for others?

He was asking them to fish for others.

Remember the question, “what does God want the church to do” is driving this sermon.

Let me share one more idea before we pull together a response to this question.

When Jesus started his ministry as an adult, he could have started with anyone. When

Jesus lived there was already an established religion—Judaism. There were leaders of this

religion—the Pharisees and the Sadducees. There was a huge temple in Jerusalem that was built.

But Jesus started his ministry he didn’t talk to a Pharisee or a Sadduccee. He didn’t go the the

Temple in Jerusalem and make a speech. He didn’t even go to the local synagogue in

Capernaum, though Jesus did plenty of teaching in Capernaum.

He started at a lake and talked to two sets of fisherman.

Peter, Andrew, James, and John weren’t even wealthy fisherman. In Jesus’ day there

were three sets forms of fishing

1) A man who owned the fishing franchise, who sold the fishing rights to a local business

2) a person who owned or leased boats and employed people who fished

3) people who fished.

Of these three categories which one do you think Peter, Andrew, James & John.

Jesus spent time with people who weren’t leaders; people spent time with the low person

on the totem poll. We don’t know the faith lives of Peter, Andrew, James & John, but I think it’s

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fair to say that they weren’t active Jews. I believe it’s very fair to say that Jesus spent time with

people who were far from God.

What Jesus did in this story is consistent with what he did in other stories. Jesus was

willing to spend time with prostitutes, he was willing to heal a leper, he ……. Just as he was

willing to call his first leaders from common fisherman.

For myself I love Jesus Christ. I know you would think I would say that. I love Jesus

because he was willing to go out of his way to love people who the world didn’t love. He was

willing to share his heart with the outcasts. He was willing to call leaders from common

fisherman. He was willing to stand up to the religious leaders of the day to protect the

movement he was starting. He even was willing to die because the establishment wanted to get

rid of him. He is the greatest leader who has ever lived on this earth. I love him. I want all of us

to love him too.

What does God expect of the church. God wants the church to be the representation of

Jesus to the world. This is what I believe God expects of the church.

To share the heart or love of God with people who are far from God and people who are outcasts.

What does God expect of Chain of Lakes Church? God expects the people of Chain of

Lakes to share the heart or love of God with people who are far from God and people who are

outcasts.

I hope this expectation causes you some excitement. I know that it makes me excited. I

hope this desire of God for us is a source of inspiration.

You might ask, what does it mean to share the heart or love of God?

We are doing this all the time at Chain of Lakes. This week I received an E-mail from

____ from Lino Lakes Elementary STEM school. For the fourth year we are providing mentors

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every other Thursday to kids who need help at the school. All we do is have lunch with a kid

and play a game with them. We don’t talk about Jesus or his love, but we sure demonstrate it to

them.

Next week we are partnering with Blaine High School to provide a Box City. We are

going to sleep overnight with teens from the school to raise awareness about teen homelessness

in Anoka County. Each of us will sleep in our own box. We aren’t going to talk about Jesus

with the teens, but we sure are going to demonstrate the love of God as spending time with

teenagers and sleeping in boxes.

For the second year we’ve had a community garden on our property. We’ve opened up

our property and allowed people in the area who want to garden to have a garden plot. I don’t

know the exact numbers, but I would guess that over half of the people who have a garden plot

are outside of Chain of Lakes Church. Whenever I want to go to a sacred place, I go over to the

gardens. It is so peaceful and so beautiful.

These are ways that we share the love or heart of God. Another way to say this is we

bless people. I think Jesus is very happy with us that we are blessing people through these

ministries. We are blessing people who are outside of our congregation. We don’t know if these

people are far from God, but we sure know we are sharing the love of God. This is exciting.

To go deeper I have a question for you. This is our first next step.

On a scale of 1 to 10 with ten being the highest to what extent do you find joy in blessing people.

Let me ask you this question. I don’t know what your number is. What can we do to

help you get to a ten? What prevents you from putting a ten on your card. If you put a ten on

your card, “Yay, God!” What do you think prevents others from putting a ten on your card?

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In our community we have eight Core Values. They were aspirational values that were

put together by a group of people when our congregation was started. These values are no longer

aspirational, but they define us.

One of our Core Values is Outward Focus. We understand this value to mean this:

We will keep the needs of the broader world before us and won’t only focus on our own

congregation’s needs.

Given what God wants to church to do, what do you believe God thinks about this Core

Value?

One challenge to living out this Core Value is our natural disposition to focus on

ourselves and to focus on the people we know. It’s really fun to gather for worship at Chain of

Lakes because I can tell that people really love to spend time together. Last week at our Fun Fair

we had a group of people who were still playing Kickball at 2:00. Many of these folks had spent

Friday night together helping at Feed My Starving Children and then eating pizza. I’ve told

more than one person this week that the people of chain of Lakes love to see each other and talk

to each other. The buzz and energy is often electric.

That’s beautiful.

Imagine if you are a newcomer and you are coming to Chain of Lakes for the first time.

Imagine if you see this group of people talking to each other. You can tell they like each other

and enjoy each other. But they are so busy talking to each other that they don’t talk to you.

Someone might shake your hand when you came into worship or when we shared the love of god

with each other. But people were so excited to see each other that they didn’t talk to you.

We have a need to see each other and talk to each other and love each other. This is

terrific. But our own need for fellowship with each other can’t exclude the passion that God has

for us. That passion is to _______________________.

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I think one of the biggest obstacles to churches reaching their potential is one that we

don’t talk about a lot. Typically when we talk about churches failing we talk about the conflict a

church endures. Or we talk about how the church has become irrelevant in the way they do

ministry. Or we talk about a terrible scandal that happens at the church. Conflict, irrelevancy

and scandals do harm churches. But something that harms churches that is even bigger is when

congregations lose their passion for outward focus. The problem is we do it and we don’t even

realize it. We often do it when we don’t even realize it. We can begin to love our church and the

people at oru church and the ministries that we are doing. But we lose this fervor to bless people

who are outside of our congregation. We don’t even do it intentionally.

Next step. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being complete outward focus and one being

complete inward focus, what number would you give to Chain of Lakes.

I believe that all of us at Chain of Lakes want to have an outward focus. I believe in your

passion for growing this church and working to make it happen. I believe it because I’ve seen it.

However I also know how easy it is to lose that passion. I would give us a 7 ½. The only reason

I wouldn’t give us a ten is that we are human.

It’s just really easy to get comfortable with each other. It’s easy to become satisfied with

being a cozy church.

Let me share one way that we can keep this outward focus in front of us. Whenever we

are making decisions I want someone to ask this question.

How is this decision going to affect people in the wider community who don’t know God or who

aren’t connected to a church?

I looked through our meeting schedule for the week. Staff, Youth and Famly, Outreach

team is meeting with Robin Burge-Ross, Stewardship/Finance, Steering Committee. Our

Nominating and Personnel teams are meeting too. I want to give a challenge to everyone on

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these teams. I want to challenge someone to ask this question during the meeting. All of you are

going to make decisions. How will the decision you make affect people in the wider community

who don’t know God or who aren’t connected to a church.

The reason I’m encouraging us to lift up an outward focus is this is what God wants from

a church. God wants us to fish for people—people who are outside the normal fold of

congregations.

I know that you are touching people who are outside of the church. This last year we had

a Chinese woman connect to Chain of Lakes. Her name is Xue-Ping. She has since moved to

California. She first got connected to our congregation because of Trick or Trunk from a year

ago.

I got to know Xueping. I learned about the challenges she experienced in some

relationships that were very dear to her. And I also know that she was amazed at how the people

of Chain of Lakes loved her. She was amazed at how interested you wer ein her life. She was

amazed that we would go out of our way to buy her a Chinese-English Bible. She was amazed at

the authenticity that she experienced in the community at Chain of Lakes. She shared that she

experienced more love from the people here than she had experienced from the people who were

close to her. We didn’t even know her and we loved her.

PTL