as part of a bigger mission statement
saying who they are, what they do, what they aim for
and how they will do what they do.
‘Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence.’
was the motto of a big company that dealt in billions of dollars.
It sounds good.
The problem is that that particular motto
Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence
was the motto of the discredited energy giant Enron
which went bust in 2001 and had behaved in some very dodgy ways.
It’s good to articulate from time to time
who you are, where you are going and how you will do that
but you also need to live up to that.
The General Assembly, the governing body of our church in this island
has asked that each congregation has a mission statement or plan.
We cannot simply just come to church on Sunday
and close our eyes to a situation where the statistics go in the wrong direction
and one day we all have to close.
We have to re examine basic things about ourselves.
It’s not enough to say we’ll do our best at what we do,
you have first to examine what is it at which you should be doing your best.
Have we the right aims? Are we going about them the right way?
What is good for us as a church is also good for us as individuals.
What are we making of our lives?
Are we just getting up and going with the flow or do we have a plan?
My wife is good at asking me ‘What’s the plan for the day?’
That can be irritating,
especially if it’s a bit too early in the morning and I haven’t thought of anything
but apart from those days on holiday
when your plan is deliberately that you have no plan
you’ll just see what happens
it is good to have something to aim for
even if how the day turns out is nothing like what you had planned.
In Aghada we have formulated the basis of our mission plan under 4 headings:
1 how to become more of a warm, welcoming, worshipping fellowship,
attractive to the outsider.
2 through our ‘winter bible study’
to clarify what we mean by mission/outreach/evangelism.
3 to build on existing relations with local churches
4 to develop relations with similar Presbyterian churches
(eg Fermoy, Mountmellick) to share our experiences and concerns.
In Trinity in order to meet a deadline I sent up last week an outline
of our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and concerns
Here it is in brief form.
STRENGTHS/ENCOURAGEMENTS
- Greater attendance at Sunday worship …
- a sense of welcome particularly in the cup of tea afterwards and monthly lunch.
- more involvement of people in different parts of worship.
- A good sense of harmony
- Our age profile bulges among young adults and there is a baby boom.
- We have 3 points of fellowship during the week,
home groups on Tuesday evening and Saturday afternoon
and a church based group on Wednesday lunchtime
which involve roughly a quarter of the Sunday attendance. - A considerable repair programme is proceeding and being paid for.
WEAKNESSES
- We are a gathered ‘uptown’ city centre congregation, where the majority drive to worship. This impedes our ability toengage with the surrounding community – shops, offices, bed sits, asylum seekers.
- Many of you appreciate the fellowship and ministry here
but are reluctant to commit to full membership of the Presbyterian Church
This means that our old structures of session and committee creak. - The minister carries the load of responsibility for two churches in the city and in E Cork This is manageable from day to day and week to week
but strategic development in either congregation, suffers. - There is a considerable administrative burden falling on a few people.
We are currently attempting to set up three working groups orteams to share these loads. Finance and Property, ‘Inreach’ (Fellowship, welcome, music, and other aspects of worship, home groups children’s ministry) and ‘Outreach’ (2011 celebrations, website, publicity, evangelism and service to community). - We struggle to cater for the needs of children; there are very few teenagers among us.
OPPORTUNITIES
- This for the time being does seem to be the place of God’s choosing.
No-one has yet identified another area of the city where it would be reasonable to move to. - Asylum seekers, students and other young adults are prominent in our fellowship
and we want to ‘improve our serve’
I am hoping that a volunteer may come to us through Youth & Children’s Board
for a year beginning in September 2010. This personwould be tasked to live in the area and to seek to develop outreach among students and other young adults - 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the church building and we are enthused about marking this in a way that engages with the wider community. As well as events which use the building (eg performance of Handel’s Messiah, radio broadcast of moderator’s visit) we hope to distribute free of charge in the community a calendar which will highlight the church evangelistically. This would be launched at a public event late in 2010. We are looking at holding the ‘Just 10’ series in autumn 2011 as a bible teaching ‘mission’.
- We need to steer a course between too few attempting too much which can lead to burn out and being so preoccupied with our weaknesses
that we forget that God is able to do far more than we ask or expect. - (There are some other issues such as the ongoing oversight of the church by Presbytery
and the location of the manse nearer the church building which need attention in the long term, but that’s enough for now)
This is a work in progress based on discussions over a number of years
But how do we sum all of that up in to one sentence
or one brief punchy motto
that is clearly understood and easily remembered?
Something to go on all our publicity
something for 2011 which could be stretched across our lawn
to set out to the city as well as to ourselves
who we are and what we are here for.
‘Welcome to Aghada Church ???
Trinity 150: ? ? ?
We cannot answer this today
though maybe you could come up with ideas quickly.
Let me leave you with some statements from scripture
which address the direction of each of our lives as well as our life together
Micah 6.6-7
6 With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8 He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
Justice, mercy humility all these are needed for an individual and a church.
The world needs fairness, we instinctively know when something is wrong.
Small children cry out 'That's not fair'
Justice is good but on its own it can be cold and remorseless.
We need mercy also, defined as help that we don’t deserve.
And all of that needs to be based on a humble relationship with God.
There is nothing more obnoxious than someone trying to help you
and you just know that it’s all about them and not about God.
In Edinburgh last week there was a missions conference
to celebrate the centenary of Edinburgh 1910,
a conference of mainly Western Protestant churches and mission groups.
Such a lot has happened in 100 years.
Then there was a colonial mindset:
we in the west would bring the gospel and civilisation to other countries.
Now it is the churches in S America, Africa and parts of Asia
who are vital and vibrant.
We need the lesson of a humble walk with God.
Can we construct a motto for our lives
that affirms justice, mercy and humility?
The same issue can be seen in Mark 12:28–34
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.
Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him,
"Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
29 "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: `
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
31 The second is this: `Love your neighbour as yourself.'
There is no commandment greater than these."
32 "Well said, teacher," the man replied.
"You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.
33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding
and with all your strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself
is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him,
"You are not far from the kingdom of God."
And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
‘The faithful, covenant-keeping God asks the objects of his love
to love him and other human beings too’
This commandment is addressed to Israel
to the redeemed people of God
with whom God has made an agreement of salvation.
The key thing here is, can we keep this in our strength?
all your heart, all your understanding, all your strength,
and your neighbour as yourself.
Imagine that God asks us at judgement:
‘Did you love me ..all your heart, all your understanding, all your strength, ..
To go back to the Micah passage,
unless we know the mercy of God and to walk humbly with God
we cannot hope to satisfy his justice.
I wonder what happened to that man.
There is a lot of agreement between Jesus and him:
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him,
"You are not far from the kingdom of God."
He was near but did he enter?
Did the right words on his lips become matched by right actions in his life?
Loving God and our neighbour is the heart of the matter
not clever clever talk trying to catch others out
not arguments about the second coming of Jesus
not going through a whole rigmarole of religious duties
not even a catalogue of charitable gifts.
We need a life that embraces Jesus Christ
doing justly, loving mercy, walking humbly
because without him how can we fully love God and our neighbour?
It is left hanging in the story,
did this man who was so close actually enter the kingdom?
That is the question for each of us to answer.
Will we do justly love mercy and walk humbly with our God?
Will we love the Lord our God
with all our heart and all pour soul and all our mind and all our strength
and our neighbour as ourselves?
God of love and great mercy
help us as individuals to see who we are and where we are going and how we should travel
Help us as a church to see that too
Help us to make progress in our mission plan,
not only on paper but also in practice.
Help us with a motto or one line statement
which will express to the wider community
something of who we are and what we offer
in Jesus name
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