Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen
"Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is the Father's
good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."
This is a beautiful verse, a favorite hymn is based on
it, and it’s a theme that comes up in the Bible time and time again. Fear
not.
The thing is, fear is not a choice but an emotion that
simply happens. And fear serves a pretty important role in our lives.
It helps us to respond to that which threatens us. Yet, it also can
immobilize us from responding at all.
A veteran of the Air Force once shared with me a
little tidbit about fighter pilots. It's not that fighter pilots have no
fear. In fact many a fighter pilot has returned from a dog fight with the
enemy, having shit in their pants. What sets them apart is courage, that
is, the ability to act in the face of one's fears. Courage is not the
lack of fear, but the conquering of our fears.
And faith is the foundation of all courage. It
is that complete and total trust that enables us to act with courage in the
face of our fears.
Be of good courage, little flock, and trust that it is
the Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.
The truth is that most of us have lived with fear at
some point in our lives.
The hope is that in the midst of our fears, faith
abides.
And our responsibility
is to act with courage in the face of our fears.
What are you afraid of?
A lot of things evoke a response of fear within us.
In 2002 a doctor examined me, and heard a heart murmur
that hadn’t been there before.
Subsequent tests revealed a failed mitral valve in my heart. Surgery was the only option. Fear was the reaction.
One of the things I insisted on doing was to give my
wife a brief overview of our financial status.
What would happen if I was gone?
How would she manage? What should
she do? I took a friend aside and specifically asked him to help her if
needed. He didn’t want to hear any of
it. I would be just fine. But, you see, fears are real.
Oh, I had done plenty of research on the surgery. I knew from the studies that mitral valve
repairs are successful 98% of the time.
That’s what I read anyway. But my
response was that there is always that 2%.
And I would muse that if we had a 2% chance of winning the lottery, we’d
all go out and buy tickets.
But it wasn’t just the thought of dying that made me
afraid. It was also the thought of the
recovery. The pain. The discomfort. And what would life be like for me after it
was all done.
Fears are real.
They may be nothing more than emotions, but they are real.
Thankfully, God gave me the faith that I needed at
that time.
·
Faith
to trust the doctors.
·
Faith
to believe that it would come out fine, even though I was afraid.
·
Faith
to cling to the promise that even death would not have the final say.
·
Faith
to entrust my wife and kids to the care of another, should I not be able to
care for them myself.
Fears are real, but faith conquers fear.
And then there is this matter of courage. Acting in the face of our fears.
In this instance, I can look back and affirm that I
did what I needed to do. I acted with
courage, in spite of my fears. Nothing
all that heroic. I just did the next
right thing.
For me that involved learning about my condition and
the treatment options that were available.
Choosing a doctor.
Showing up.
Kissing my wife before they took me into the surgery
suite.
And then, sitting there and watching as the
anesthesiologist took a syringe and gave me the shot that would put me under
for the surgery.
Obviously, as I stand here some fourteen years later,
the surgery came out just fine.
Fears subside.
Faith sustains.
And courage is
rewarded.
I haven’t been with you very long.
We’re just getting to know one another.
And I can hardly claim to know all that there is to
know about you as a congregation.
But this I do know, because some of you have already
shared it with me.
There is a fear.
Whether it is spoken or not, the fear is real.
It’s probably the strongest, for those who have been
here the longest.
Do you know what I’m talking about?
Is anyone willing to say it out loud?
The fear you’ve
expressed is whether this congregation will survive.
Do you have a future?
What does that future look like?
Can you afford a pastor?
Will you grow?
Or continue to decline?
How long do we have left?
What would happen to the building?
Where would you go if Peace Lutheran were no longer
here?
Is there anything that we can do?
Part of fear, is that we feel so helpless. And hopeless.
And sometimes our fears are rooted in a firm grip of
reality. They are not unfounded.
When I had open heart surgery, I was afraid.
The fact is that some people die during that
surgery. It can and does happen.
Likewise, sometimes congregations must close their
doors. It is a reality that simply
is. I can’t stand here and tell you that
it never happens, because it does happen, and it MAY happen. We simply don’t know whether it will happen.
Sometimes the writing seems to be on the wall.
And sometimes we are simply wrong.
And many times our
fears simply don’t come to pass.
When I was the pastor in Thompson Falls, MT the bishop
asked if I would be willing to serve a small congregation in Hot Springs, MT as
well. Our Savior’s in Thompson Falls was
having a hard time supporting me as their pastor, and this might help.
The congregation in Hot Springs was small. About ten people came regularly to
worship. And they were almost all
elderly. OK, not just older, elderly.
What the bishop said was that it would probably be a
short term solution. Three or four
funerals and the church would be to the point of having to close their doors.
They had very little money. An old run down building.
Two stories come to mind about Trinity Lutheran in Hot
Springs. The first has to do with a
“Norwegian Bachelor farmer” by the name of Orville in the congregation.
Orville was their every Sunday, one of two men who
attended regularly. And ever since he
was a boy, he did what his mommy taught him to do, which is to put one dollar
bill in the offering plate each Sunday.
Now Orville was a successful farmer.
He was a bit odd. Shell shocked
from the war, was the word I got.
But he had been a good successful farmer and
rancher. And, as he told me, everything
was paid for.
A number of years before, their pastor had told them
that they needed to increase the giving by 25% or the congregation would have
to close. Orville responded.
Every Sunday since then, Orville wrapped his one
dollar bill around a quarter, and that was his offering.
The other story is of Amanda. Amanda was the grandchild of one member. One Easter, her grandma asked if Amanda could
perform a song for us. Having no kids or
special music, I was delighted to say yes.
That Easter, the church filled to the brim. 60 to 70 people. I was shocked. They had come to see Amanda.
What caught me off guard was that Amanda didn’t
sing. She lip synced and acted out with
a dramatic flair Dolly Parton’s song “He’s Alive!”, complete with throwing
herself across the floor like an ice dancer at the end. I had all I could do to keep from
laughing. Something about Dolly Parton’s
voice, and this skinny little 9 year old girl, just was too much to take.
But in the end, what happened at Trinity in Hot
Springs is that those 3 or 4 people didn’t die, and the Church didn’t
close. Today they report having only 32
members, BUT, an average attendance of 40 people each week. Twenty five years after they were supposed to
die, they are better off than they’ve ever been.
Yes, they were afraid of dying.
It took faith to go on,
And the courage to do
the next right thing.
I also mentioned to you before about the congregation
that I served in Ekalaka, MT.
That congregation should never have even started, let
alone, succeeded.
Again, perhaps ten
people would be at worship when I first went there. Today, they have a membership of over a
hundred people, average worship attendance of about 40, and a new
building. I understand that their
“Cowboy Worship” is one of the highlights of their ministry today, drawing a
large crowd from the community of Ekalaka.
To be clear, it was not that I had found some
wonderful solution for either of these congregations. I was at a loss.
What I do believe is that God had a purpose for
them.
And so, they have not
only survived, but grown and thrived.
Dr. Kennon Callahan, a well know Church Growth
consultant who wrote “Twelve Keys to an Effective Church” and related
materials, says that the most important question every congregation needs to
ask itself is this:
“Do
you believe that your best days are behind you?
Or ahead of you?”
“Do
you believe that the best is yet to come?”
If we ask ourselves that question as individuals, our
answer reveals our age. You see, the
young, or young at heart, always believe the best is yet to come. They look to the future with hope.
On the other hand the old, or the old at heart,
whether they are 90 or 20, believe that their best years are behind them. That there is little left to hope for.
There is a truth about the answer that we give to this
question.
As you believe, so shall it be.
If you believe you are dying, you will die.
If you believe that God has great things in store for
your future, they will come to pass in amazing ways.
As you believe, so shall it be.
"Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is the
Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom."
Yes, our fears are real.
But God invites us to have faith, not in our own
abilities, but in his.
And then he calls us
to act with courage.
A final word on acting with courage.
This does not mean that we always have to do heroic
things in order to succeed. It means
more than not, that we simply need to do the next right thing, and sometimes it’s
simple.
·
Get
a good website.
·
An
active facebook page.
·
“Like”
the Church’s facebook page,
o
Or
the Pastor’s blog, so you friends might read.
·
Invite
a friend to worship with you.
·
Get
rid of the weeds in the parking lot, so that we make a better impression to
first time visitors.
·
And
be truly welcoming to all.
One last story about Ekalaka.
Prior to Christmas each year they used to have an
Advent Tea, open to the whole community.
They used it as an opportunity to invite people to worship on Christmas.
One year, a couple of women, known to be Wicca
adherents, asked if they could come. A
candlelight service sounded cool to them, and they even inquired whether they
should bring their own candles.
The reaction of the congregation was priceless. Yes, they were welcome. No they didn’t have to bring their own
candles.
And about these women being “witches”, well, they too
need to hear the Gospel.
There is a reason some congregations grow.
Amen.
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