The State of the Church

Annual Meeting, April 30, 1989

John 15:16 "You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you." [NASB]

The "State of our Church" is a thing that only God knows in any complete and objective way. Even though I am pastor, my perspective is limited, and may well differ from yours.

But I would share with you where I believe we, as a congregation, are, and something of what we are doing. And I would also share with you some of the burden or desire that I have for this fellowship that means so very much to me and I trust to us all.

First, where do I see our church in spiritual development?

I. THE 'STATE OF THE CHURCH' AS "STAGES" OF DEVELOPMENT

Stages of growth are perfectly normal. [Both people and churches go through stages of development.]
[Stages:] There is nothing as lovely as A BABY. There is nothing more winsome than A CHILD: [a little girl with a tea-set, as Brian Farmer portrayed with word-pictures last Sunday, or a little boy with a fishing pole.] And there is nothing more loving and loveable (even if sometimes they are exasperating!) than AN ADOLESCENT: a child one moment, and a philosopher the next. But all these are totally in character; and each in its place, wonderful beautiful. At each consecutive stage of development there is perfection and beauty.
[Growth, progression essential:] But what a sadness to see a grown man acting like a baby, pouting because he cannot have his toy. What a sad thing to know a beautiful and intelligent woman fighting teen-age battles, who can never quite escape the instability of adolescence. For the goal of life is full maturity and achievement of that which goes beyond amusement and selfishness and personal enhancement and development.
CHURCHES as well as individuals are called to maturity.
In Ephesians 4:14-15 Paul says: "... we are to be no more children, tossed here and there by every wind .. we are to grow up in all aspects into (Jesus Christ)."
Individuals/ denominations/ and all in between go through stages of development; all are good, even beautiful: but all 'go stale' unless those 'lower stages' are left behind for the best of all: accepting the challenges of maturity, and entering into God's work in partnership with Him! WOLLASTON IS CALLED TO FULL MATURITY.
YOU may be a "baby" in Christ; YOU may be 50 years an earnest Christian— but you have not yet "arrived!" There is new territory to take for Christ! And by the same measure, Wollaston is NOT a baby church; not adolescent, either. But Wollaston HAS NOT "ARRIVED!" We must press on in holiness into full maturity.

[ But another way to profile our church is by looking at what it is doing:]

II. THE 'STATE OF THE CHURCH' AS "MINISTRY" For...

Doing reflects being.
What we ARE is more important than what we do, but the two things cannot be separated. We DO what we really want to do! What we DO reflects what we believe is important.
Wollaston DOES more, sometimes, than it tells about.
That is good. It doesn't keep score. That is good. But records are helpful if they help keep us on course.
No church is called upon to do everything.
And we must not accept feelings of guilt because we do not attempt every worthwhile ministry project. Churches as well as people can get "God-complexes" and assume that the success or failure of everything God does depends on our involvement.
But we must be sensitive to do ALL that God asks.
I deeply appreciate all that has been done this year. I know of ministry by God's people through the church, or directly because of the challenge of the church, that I cannot share publicly.
1. One area of concern is ministry to college students: I am mindful of an Ad Hoc committee that convened eleven months ago. It said, specifically, we would like to see progress in these four areas: (and I quote their report:)
  1. a comprehensive effort on the part of the church to develop an environment of ACCEPTANCE of college students,
  2. a broad-based program of discipleship and leadership training,
  3. opportunities for fellowship sponsored by the church, and
  4. the need for effective adult and student leadership in order to provide consistency and a public face to the ministry."
  All of these areas have been addressed, and I fully recognize that some of them remain to be covered, at least in the specific way the committee recommended. I bring them to your attention for two reasons: one, for your sincere and continued prayer, with a willingness to be part of the answer to your own prayers; and two, to share with you the kind of challenge and choice the leadership of your church faces in regards to setting the basic goals and values and guidelines and parameters for ministry, the very purpose of being for God's church here on this corner.
2. Other areas of concern and possible ministry include "Men's Fellowship," the availability of small group and/or accountability fellowship for all who desire it, as well as a ministry of resource and support for the people who do not now belong to any special age or interest congregations within our larger body.
3. But this is not a pessimistic, negative report! Any time we take inventory we tend to look more critically at the areas where we would like to do better. But in all fairness, this has been an excellent year.

We have dedicated, earnest, gifted people in leadership on our board, and on the church staff. We have received 20 (27 after this morning?) new members this year, and have several more immediately ready to join, and many others I trust will soon make their way into membership. We have baptized 36 in the new baptistry. We have had retreats, conventions, small prayer groups, larger fellowship groups, celebrations of worship in music, worship in praise and prayer, revival services with Dr. William McCumber and Dr. Jerry Lambert, and on and on in a list that is almost impossible to detail in a few words.

The obvious highlight of the year has been the completion of our new facilities for fellowship, administration, and education. Already we wonder how we ever got along without them.

That is the "state of the church as ministry," as I see it. But I also see the "state of the church" as a launching pad!

III. THE "STATE OF THE CHURCH" AS READINESS TO MOVE AHEAD

A year of spiritual growth
Even more exciting to me than the building of our new facilities this year has been the spiritual growth of our people. The church board has changed in character; not that it was "bad" before. But it has become more and more sensitive to God's leading, to spiritual need.
Such maturity can never be "completed" like a phase of a building program, and certainly we all have a long way to go and to grow. But the spiritual diet of our church includes meat as well as milk. While we are not the men and women we might one day wish to become, we are not the children we once were, either.
We are seeking to be a healing place.
Maturity bears the load of community. Maturity cares. Maturity reaches out.
We stand ready to do serious business for Jesus Christ
Not just discovering who we are, or finding our gifts, or settling our experience in God, or "being well adjusted," but realizing that Jesus Christ has chosen us, and appointed us that we might go and bring forth fruit and that our fruit might remain!

[Text:] The assurance and joy of bearing fruit comes from being CHOSEN! "YE HAVE NOT CHOSEN ME, BUT I HAVE CHOSEN YOU!" We did not simply set out to "do good." We have not taken on ourselves the task of reforming the world, or even reforming our little corner of the world.

And Christian maturity soon discovers that not only have we have been chosen, but that the Chooser will also enable us! "WHATEVER YOU ASK THE FATHER IN MY NAME, HE WILL GIVE YOU!"

IV. UNLOCKING GOD'S PROMISES

The final part of my annual meeting day sermon is in the form of a challenge, or a vision for this wonderful church:

A CHALLENGE TO PRAYER
Prayer is not a separate task, but is central to the assignment.
In closing, the challenge of full maturity and the joy of bearing fruit is closely tied to God's promises to answer prayer. We tend to isolate prayer, and make it a very important entity all by itself. We talk of the power of prayer, and the secrets of prayer.
We have the idea that prayer gets us into the proper attitude, and shows us how to manage, and then we can manage on our own.
But God's great promises regarding prayer come in direct connection with His good and perfect will for our lives. And prayer is the heart of the work we do for God; we exist by prayer, we produce by prayer, we receive and give by prayer. Here the promise is: "I have chosen you to bear lasting fruit that whatever ye ask of the Father in My name He will give to you!
A CHALLENGE TO FOCUS OUR PRAYING
Some challenges to your prayer life and mine:
1. If I could be certain that God would answer my prayer by doing exactly as I asked Him, what would I pray for?
2. Excluding family salvation AND immediately pressing church/family problems, what would you ask God to grant to you if you knew that He would?
3. What would you do if you had no financial limitations?
4. What would you attempt for God if you knew that you could not fail?
5. Are the last two "dreams" the same?
  God is not limited in the matter of carrying forward His will! If our personal concerns are mixed in with our kingdom commitment in a way that dominates, we will have mixed signals in our inner prayer life. Sometimes that takes a lot of sorting out.
THE CHALLENGE OF TWO WORDS
And those two words are "sanctification" and "maturity." I would like to take the best part of the new church year, starting in September, to explore what it means to fully accept the challenge to sanctification. This means, to me, sorting out all the mixed signals, making sure that our lives are in harmony with God's perfect plan at whatever stage we personally find ourselves.

I want to ask ourselves two questions: What does it mean to be wholly God's? What does it mean to be "sanctified?" and What does it mean to come to full maturity?

FINALLY: The quality of your spiritual life and mine contribute to the quality of the spiritual life of our church. The state of our church will reflect that condition of each of our lives before God.

We will always have all the various stages of spiritual maturity represented in our fellowship; and that is good!

But before God, I believe that the state of our church reflects a readiness to move as a church into increasing maturity, with all its responsibilities and joys.

In the coming year I challenge each one of us, each individual, us to accept the increasing responsibilities of spiritual maturity. Deliberately we must covenant to remain one in spirit even as we develop widely differing individual gifts and even widely differing ministries.

We must rejoice in Christ's authority, and submit to the best interests of Christ's church, even as we dare to exercise leadership in areas where we "break trail."

These are the "good old days!" In the spirit of Christ, and in obedience to His commission, let us be His Body as He builds His church.

Exalt Him #48 Go Forth and Tell! O Church of God, Awake!