Dr. Dale Miller, July 16, 2006

Build A Church

Genesis 12:1-6

Upon graduation from seminary, Susan and I packed up our '67 Pontiac LeMans with a few belongings, our newborn son, Walker, our dog, Itty-Bitty, and journeyed across I-94 from Chicago to Plymouth, Michigan. Although both of us have stories to tell about some brief encounters with Michigan, neither one of us knew much about where we were going. We simply pointed the car into a new direction into a new appointment into a new ministry, trusting that God and some good people were already there to greet us. We were young and what we did was easy compared to what happened to Abram.

At the age of 75 Abram was approached by God to leave his home, journey to a foreign land, and start a new family. Surprisingly, Abram gathered all his possession and with his wife, Sarai and his brother's son, Lot and several other people they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. He followed what God had set before him. Twenty-four years later, at the age of 99, God was so pleased with Abram and Sarai that he renamed them Abraham and Sarah and blessed them with children, twelve children. The beginning of Israel started with these two people who were willing to follow God's call.

Any finished project starts with an unknown beginning. I've heard people say, "If I knew how much work it was going to take, I would have never started doing this." Usually this refers to something that takes a few hours or days or weeks to complete. This morning I would offer this could also be applied to the building of a church. I'm not talking about a building, but I am referring to the group of people who gather in the building, the congregation, that group of people whom we call the church.

I think we are probably not aware of the end results when we are developing something. I would find it hard to imagine someone seeing Jesus as a teenager, walking around Nazareth, coming up to him and saying, "I want to be with you because you are going to be famous some day." That is not how it is. When things are beginning or unfolding or developing we do not know what the end result will be. From time to time we can stop and see where we are, but we still do not know where we will be ten years from now, as a person or as a church.

What we do know is our growing awareness of what is taking place now. Abraham went out, not knowing where he was going. When God first approached him I doubt that Abraham felt like he was going to become the father of a great nation. He was probably like us: he struggled, living his life day by day. Abraham committed himself to living his life in God daily and allowed God to use him to build a nation. We, as a church, can do no less.

As a church there are certain attitudes, certain ways of approaching the journey that can help us travel this faith adventure so that God can be pleased with us, blessing us, and creating us as the family God wants us to be. How do we grab hold of those attitudes? How do we build that church?

I want to start with the idea that we want a group of people that helps to bring us love, joy, hope, laughter and comfort. We cannot give until we receive. Sometimes we demand too much of people. They are not quite ready for heavy challenges. A good sports coach knows how far to take their players. A teacher knows that you can stretch a student as far as you can, but not so far as to break. It is the tug, the resistance that makes progress happen. Yes, we want a church that will serve people, but in order for that to happen we need a church that brings us love, joy, hope, laughter and comfort. We need to receive before we can give.

In several of the churches that I have served we had a food closet, a pantry stocked with canned goods and non-perishable items that we could give to people in need. A church doesn't really need to advertise this ministry because word of this kind of support gets around very quickly. On one hot, sunny afternoon in August a woman came into the church office and requested food assistance. The secretary collected her information and then took her to the food closet to gather about three or four bags of food items. The woman thanked the secretary and then took her packages out to her old beat-up car.

She started the motor, but then turned the car engine off. She came back into the building and asked for the pastor. The secretary buzzed my office and told me what was happening. I immediately thought that she was now going to ask for money in addition to the food. The secretary escorted the lady down the hallway to my office but the woman stopped in the doorway. She said to me, "The ladies down the hall helped give me some food. It's in the car. I didn't want to leave before I told you they were nice to me." And with that comment she turned and walked back to her car.

The way we do something may be as important as what we do. If we are gracious to someone and give him or her something, they can appreciate what we gave them, but they also appreciate us for being kind. "They were nice to me" spoke volumes about the faith of the church. We want a church that helps you to have love, joy, hope, laughter and comfort.

We also want a church that encourages us to serve. You do that in this church. You meet; you work; you look after each other; you visit when someone gets sick. Individuals and members of organizations in this church do this time and again. You are a viable and caring community. We need that.

I ran across this true story that happened several years ago and if it offends anyone I apologize. I think it is funny, but then I've been known to have a strange sense of humor at times. There was a woman in a church who, to say it very mildly, was eccentric. She loved her dog, which we can certainly understand. A lot of us are dog lovers, but this woman truly loved her dog. When her dog died, she loved it so much that she put her dog in the freezer. She froze the dog in order to keep it with her.

That is also where she kept the cookies that she brought to the church receptions. We know where this is going, right? So when the church had a reception and this lady came with her cookies, someone was assigned to the door to take her cookies and put them somewhere else. As someone said, "That woman has destroyed more potluck dinners in this church than you can count." We want people to serve, but we want them to do it so that people they serve can enjoy love, joy, hope, laughter and comfort.

We also want a church that inspires us to give of ourselves. I want to be a part of something meaningful that requires my time, my money and my talent. I give of myself because I know that what I am giving to makes a difference in the lives of people. I give of myself because God gave out of his own being in Jesus Christ to me.

An exotic restaurant serving a wealthy clientele was named Eddie and the Dragon. A beggar came to the back door one day and said to the woman who appeared to be in charge, "I haven't eaten in days. Could you spare me some food?"

"Get out of here," yelled the woman. "We don't feed beggars." The man left, but a few minutes later he was back. "What now?" the irritated woman asked. The beggar, looking up at the sign over the door, Eddie and the Dragon, said, "I wonder if I can talk with Eddie this time?"

Too many times the way we talk about giving is "dragon" the church down. When we are excited about what is going on in the life of the church, we celebrate life, give thanks to God for life, and we contribute in life-giving ways. We give joyfully and generously. We give of ourselves, not because the church asks us to, but because we want to express our faith through the giving of our energy, our ability, our time and our financial support.

We also want an environment where we can worship. I love the words of the hymn we sang: "I love thy church, O God; her walls before Thee stand." The church is sacred. It is sacred because of you and everybody who has come before you and everybody who will come after you. God is not confined here, but this is the place where we can feel close to God. And maybe feeling close to God in one place can help us feel close to God in a lot of places.

People want to worship. When we worship, our lives are enriched. We are better able to deal with the twists and turns and the tragedies and difficulties of life. We are healthier, more confident, and more assured. Worship is the breath of God. It is where we discover the grace of that breath and draw in a full breath for a full life.

When we worship, and I don't mean some kind of gathering that is dull, trivial, irrelevant, or full of doom, gloom and guilt, we find that our worship with God gives power to our lives, builds community in our lives, gives meaning to our lives, and gives hope to our lives. We can see beyond the tragic and the terrible, the sadness and the sickness, as we discover anew the resurrection of Christ and new life in his way.

We are no longer held prisoner by memory or sadness or sin. We are reborn into new life in Christ. We become the Easter people. We become the people of hope and confidence.

We want a church that will grow in community building, reaching out to people in the neighborhoods with a message of love, building up the body of Christ. We do not want to be a church like the one Henry Ford encountered years ago. Mr. Ford was in Ireland. Three priests asked him to make a contribution to a hospital. He visited with them and told them he would give $15,000. The next day it came out in the newspaper that Henry Ford was giving $50,000 to the project.

The priests came back to Mr. Ford and apologized. They said, "We apologize. The article said you gave $50,000, but we are going to retract it tomorrow and say it is $15,000. We are sorry." Mr. Ford said, "No, no, I'll give the other $35,000, making it $50,000. But I'll do this provided you put an inscription over one of the doors of the hospital." They said they would and they did. Henry Ford said, "The inscription must be this: 'I was a stranger and you took me in.'"

We don't want anyone to be taken in or manipulated. We don't want anyone to think that their world will be all right if they simply pay God off. Rather, we want a confused humanity to know there is a good God and a good Jesus who loves them. There is a church, the Nardin Park UMC, where they can find meaning for their lives. It is the church where little children can grow up in and with the love of God.

Whatever else our children have from this church, twenty or thirty years from now, whatever they learn, I hope they have learned that God is good, that God is with them, and that God loves them no matter what happens in their lives. If they learn that, they can hang everything else in their lives on it, all the rest of their lives. And so can we.

We also want a church that is home. Over the last month Susan and I have attended a number of small group gatherings. I have heard many people say, "It feels so good when I enter through the doors of the church and see the people. It feels like home." We are here. We fit; we belong.

In the hymn, "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," there is a marvelous statement. No, it is not that line that says, "Here I Raise mine Ebenezer" and nobody remembers what Ebenezer refers to. (Hint: you will find it in 1 Samuel 7. It is a stone celebrating a victory over the Philistines. Literally it means "Rock of Help"). Rather, the lines I cherish are, "Prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love." We need a church that allows such honesty. We shouldn't kid ourselves. We are prone to wander; we are prone to leave the God we love at times. We are prone to protect ourselves from being hurt. We need a church that allows us to be honest with who we are.

Honesty, however, is not enough. Please do not leave me with only honesty. I also need hope and direction. We need a church that can focus us on God. The third verse of the same hymn says, "Here's my life, O take and seal it; seal it for Thy courts above." We want and need both of those verses. Sometimes we can encounter a church that will not allow us to be who we are. Sometimes we can find a church that does not lead us to an encounter with God. We must have both verses.

There are a lot of wants and needs for a church to be a church. Thank heaven we don't have to start with a finished project. We begin by responding to God and taking the first step. It is a lifelong journey that can never be finished. But it is a lifelong journey to be enjoyed.

We serve a God who awes us and astonishes us. We worship a God who gives us a life teeming with possibilities. We are inspired and challenged to trust God's way among us so that we might make our way through life. This is great! Let's be the church! Amen? Amen!