Launch
Missional, 22 August 2021
22 08 21 Filed in: Sermons | Getting to the Core (values)
Missional
Series—Getting to the Core (values)
Isaiah 43:19; Luke 5:36-39, Luke 15
Series Big Idea: Our core values guide us in our mission of family restoring God’s masterpieces for His glory.
Big Idea: We take faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors.
Why are you here? Why are we here? That’s really the question we’ve been asking for the past several weeks in our series Getting to the Core. As we reboot and prepare for a post-pandemic reality (which is taking longer than any of us expected!), what is God’s unique call for First Alliance Church?
In week one we said one of our core values is
Equipping…the next generation to fulfill the Great Commission
Pastor Donald challenged us to
Faithfulness…to prayer, the Word of God, and following Jesus
We talked about how we are a
Family…a mosaic of people loving God and doing life together
Last Sunday Pastor Donald talked about the value of
Generosity…trusting God with open hands and open hearts
We have two left. Before I introduce today’s word, I want to share a story with you.
I’m a member of Truth at Work, a group of local Christian leaders who meet once a month for roundtable discussions of personal, professional, and spiritual matters. Because First Alliance Church has been a pillar in the city for more than a century, I shared with my group what was five proposed core values when more than one person said, “You’re missing one!” I was so surprised, but I quickly discovered they were correct. Today’s core value is
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
Jesus summarized the entire Bible with two simple commands:
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?” (Mark 12:28)
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself.
One of the ways we love God is by loving our neighbors, so we can actually kill two birds with one stone (but let’s not kill birds!).
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
There are many ways we can love our neighbors, but perhaps the greatest thing we can do is introduce them to Jesus. The Great Commission, which we’ve looked at repeatedly, contains the mission.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
We are missional. We are on a mission. God’s mission has a church. The mission is to make disciples. It’s to join God in seeking and saving the lost (Luke 15; 19:10). As we focus on that, new ministries and churches will be the result. Faith is required. Faith-filled risks are required.
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
Throughout our history, we have had an entrepreneurial spirit that has produced church plants, sent international workers, trained pastors, and launched organizations such as Proclaim FM, Toledo Christian Schools, WLMB-TV, and Cherry Street Mission, just to name a few.
I hate to say it, but many churches are exclusively inward focused, seeking to make the members comfortable with little regard for what is going on outside of the four walls. Their focus may be on survival, maintaining the status quo, idolizing tradition. The future of such cultures is always the same…decline and death. There’s actually a place in our city where we preserve things from the past…a museum!
We are not called to be a museum of the past. We are called to be a hospital restoring masterpieces today and tomorrow.
That can be intimidating. It can be scary. We like what we can control. But let’s never seek to control God! He said in the book of Isaiah,
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:19)
God is always doing a new thing. Our world is changing. Our world is growing. We must always be changing our methods, but never change our message.
There are two ways to reach a changing world. One is to adapt.
My wife recently discovered she was allergic to dairy. This made me troubled as an ice cream lover. Who wants to eat alone? Fortunately, Dairy Queen and other ice cream vendors have realized others are allergic to dairy, too, and have created dairy-free ice cream (often using coconut cream). They adapted.
We must always be adapting. Today we have a parking lot, air conditioning, video projection, livestreaming, a podcast, a website, an e-newsletter, and many other things that were not present a hundred years ago. In fact, I’ve been told our use of radio was cutting-edge…in 1966!
The other way to reach a changing world is to launch something new. Sometimes it’s more effective to start from scratch than it is to remodel or adapt.
Our global family, the Christian & Missionary Alliance, has had its US headquarters in Colorado Springs since the late 1980s. Recently, they decided to relocate to Reynoldsburg, Ohio near Columbus to be more effective in their mission. They finalized a deal on property containing a closed Kmart store and have determined it would be better to demolish and build new than to retrofit the building for the new headquarters.
Sometimes we adapt. Sometimes we start fresh and launch. We plant new churches. We start new ministries. Jesus once told his followers a story
He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’ ” (Luke 5:36-39)
God is always doing a new thing. We need to adapt and also launch new endeavors, new wineskins for new wine. I’m honored to be a part of church with such a rich history of launch new churches and ministries…and I’m certain that legacy must continue. The Kingdom of God is advancing at First Alliance Church…and will soon be advancing through the church plant we will help Mykel & Jeanine Pollock launch next year. I’ve had conversations with others who are interested in planting churches or ministries or even Christ-centered businesses. The marketplace calls these pioneers entrepreneurs. The Bible refers to them as apostles.
There are actually two types of apostles. The capital-A Apostles are generally thought to be only those early church leaders who spent time with Jesus, including. Obviously, they all died two thousand years ago.
A small-a apostle, however, is an emissary, literally “one who is sent off,” a messenger.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up (Ephesians 4:11-12)
This text from Paul to the church in Ephesus is often called the five-fold ministry or APEST: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Many lump them together under the title “pastor,” but they are each unique. I like to think of apostles as the spiritual entrepreneurs launching new works.
There are few apostles greater than our church and denomination’s founder, A.B. Simpson. With such an apostle as our founder, it’s not surprising one of the core values of the alliance states
Achieving God’s purposes involves taking faithful-filled risks. This always involves change.
We borrowed liberally from this Alliance value when crafting today’s First Alliance core value:
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
We are missional. God has given us a mission…to love Him, our neighbors, and make disciples. There are plenty of churches in Toledo, but I believe most people in our city are not fully engaged in one. Why? Maybe they’re looking for something unique that has yet to be created. Research has repeatedly shown the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the unchurched, while churches more than 15 years old get 80-90% of their new members from other congregations. (https://www.acts29.com/why-church-planting/)
Every generation needs new churches, new wineskins for new wine. I’m not suggesting every church should be mono-generational, but I am saying we need fresh expressions of the gospel to reach the unchurched.
That’s why we started Dinner Church! From the beginning, we said Dinner Church was for the unchurched, not you! Dinner Church was a faith-filled risk to love our neighbors who aren’t here on Sunday morning, for whatever reason. It’s one of our primary “out” movements, serving our community. Honestly, it wasn’t a huge risk for us, but it has been remarkably fruitful, praise God!
In the coming days, we will take more faith-filled risks, not for the sake of change or simply for the fun of it, but because God’s mission requires it to love our neighbors who are not yet in a faith community, following Jesus.
Imagine Toledo without Cherry Street Mission, without the Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission, without Proclaim FM or WLMB-TV or Toledo Christians or…First Alliance Church. We were a church plant once upon a time! We were a faith-filled risk…in 1887! The book of Hebrews tells us,
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Do you love God? Do you seek to please God? Faith is required. You believe in God? Prove it! Trust Him! Take a step of faith (not necessarily a leap of faith). As a church, we’ve done that repeatedly. Some of our initiatives have lasted for generations. Others, like Claro Coffee Bar, were short-lived, yet the provided outstanding opportunities to learn, build relationships, and grow. There’s no guarantee that every Life Group, church, or ministry we launch will last for a century, but then again, they might! Everything has a life cycle, whether it’s short or long. The key is to be obedient, to be faithful, to be missional, living out God’s mission in our world.
We are a Jesus-centered family restoring God’s masterpieces in Toledo and beyond for His glory.
Why are you here? Why are we here? We’re on a mission from God! One of the things that makes us unique is we are
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
We’re all unique. Some are entrepreneurial pioneers—apostles—who God has called to launch new things. Others join later in the process, helping to build and maintain. Still others are cautious and wait until there is more certainty.
As a church, we want to be on the cutting edge of what God is doing. The Kingdom requires it. Our neighbors need it. Our world is desperate for it.
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
What faith-filled risks do YOU need to take to love your neighbors?
You can listen to this message and others at the First Alliance Church podcast here.
You can watch this video and others at the First Alliance Church Video Library here.
Series—Getting to the Core (values)
Isaiah 43:19; Luke 5:36-39, Luke 15
Series Big Idea: Our core values guide us in our mission of family restoring God’s masterpieces for His glory.
Big Idea: We take faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors.
Why are you here? Why are we here? That’s really the question we’ve been asking for the past several weeks in our series Getting to the Core. As we reboot and prepare for a post-pandemic reality (which is taking longer than any of us expected!), what is God’s unique call for First Alliance Church?
In week one we said one of our core values is
Equipping…the next generation to fulfill the Great Commission
Pastor Donald challenged us to
Faithfulness…to prayer, the Word of God, and following Jesus
We talked about how we are a
Family…a mosaic of people loving God and doing life together
Last Sunday Pastor Donald talked about the value of
Generosity…trusting God with open hands and open hearts
We have two left. Before I introduce today’s word, I want to share a story with you.
I’m a member of Truth at Work, a group of local Christian leaders who meet once a month for roundtable discussions of personal, professional, and spiritual matters. Because First Alliance Church has been a pillar in the city for more than a century, I shared with my group what was five proposed core values when more than one person said, “You’re missing one!” I was so surprised, but I quickly discovered they were correct. Today’s core value is
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
Jesus summarized the entire Bible with two simple commands:
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?” (Mark 12:28)
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself.
One of the ways we love God is by loving our neighbors, so we can actually kill two birds with one stone (but let’s not kill birds!).
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
There are many ways we can love our neighbors, but perhaps the greatest thing we can do is introduce them to Jesus. The Great Commission, which we’ve looked at repeatedly, contains the mission.
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
We are missional. We are on a mission. God’s mission has a church. The mission is to make disciples. It’s to join God in seeking and saving the lost (Luke 15; 19:10). As we focus on that, new ministries and churches will be the result. Faith is required. Faith-filled risks are required.
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
Throughout our history, we have had an entrepreneurial spirit that has produced church plants, sent international workers, trained pastors, and launched organizations such as Proclaim FM, Toledo Christian Schools, WLMB-TV, and Cherry Street Mission, just to name a few.
I hate to say it, but many churches are exclusively inward focused, seeking to make the members comfortable with little regard for what is going on outside of the four walls. Their focus may be on survival, maintaining the status quo, idolizing tradition. The future of such cultures is always the same…decline and death. There’s actually a place in our city where we preserve things from the past…a museum!
We are not called to be a museum of the past. We are called to be a hospital restoring masterpieces today and tomorrow.
That can be intimidating. It can be scary. We like what we can control. But let’s never seek to control God! He said in the book of Isaiah,
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:19)
God is always doing a new thing. Our world is changing. Our world is growing. We must always be changing our methods, but never change our message.
There are two ways to reach a changing world. One is to adapt.
My wife recently discovered she was allergic to dairy. This made me troubled as an ice cream lover. Who wants to eat alone? Fortunately, Dairy Queen and other ice cream vendors have realized others are allergic to dairy, too, and have created dairy-free ice cream (often using coconut cream). They adapted.
We must always be adapting. Today we have a parking lot, air conditioning, video projection, livestreaming, a podcast, a website, an e-newsletter, and many other things that were not present a hundred years ago. In fact, I’ve been told our use of radio was cutting-edge…in 1966!
The other way to reach a changing world is to launch something new. Sometimes it’s more effective to start from scratch than it is to remodel or adapt.
Our global family, the Christian & Missionary Alliance, has had its US headquarters in Colorado Springs since the late 1980s. Recently, they decided to relocate to Reynoldsburg, Ohio near Columbus to be more effective in their mission. They finalized a deal on property containing a closed Kmart store and have determined it would be better to demolish and build new than to retrofit the building for the new headquarters.
Sometimes we adapt. Sometimes we start fresh and launch. We plant new churches. We start new ministries. Jesus once told his followers a story
He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’ ” (Luke 5:36-39)
God is always doing a new thing. We need to adapt and also launch new endeavors, new wineskins for new wine. I’m honored to be a part of church with such a rich history of launch new churches and ministries…and I’m certain that legacy must continue. The Kingdom of God is advancing at First Alliance Church…and will soon be advancing through the church plant we will help Mykel & Jeanine Pollock launch next year. I’ve had conversations with others who are interested in planting churches or ministries or even Christ-centered businesses. The marketplace calls these pioneers entrepreneurs. The Bible refers to them as apostles.
There are actually two types of apostles. The capital-A Apostles are generally thought to be only those early church leaders who spent time with Jesus, including. Obviously, they all died two thousand years ago.
A small-a apostle, however, is an emissary, literally “one who is sent off,” a messenger.
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up (Ephesians 4:11-12)
This text from Paul to the church in Ephesus is often called the five-fold ministry or APEST: apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Many lump them together under the title “pastor,” but they are each unique. I like to think of apostles as the spiritual entrepreneurs launching new works.
There are few apostles greater than our church and denomination’s founder, A.B. Simpson. With such an apostle as our founder, it’s not surprising one of the core values of the alliance states
Achieving God’s purposes involves taking faithful-filled risks. This always involves change.
We borrowed liberally from this Alliance value when crafting today’s First Alliance core value:
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
We are missional. God has given us a mission…to love Him, our neighbors, and make disciples. There are plenty of churches in Toledo, but I believe most people in our city are not fully engaged in one. Why? Maybe they’re looking for something unique that has yet to be created. Research has repeatedly shown the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the unchurched, while churches more than 15 years old get 80-90% of their new members from other congregations. (https://www.acts29.com/why-church-planting/)
Every generation needs new churches, new wineskins for new wine. I’m not suggesting every church should be mono-generational, but I am saying we need fresh expressions of the gospel to reach the unchurched.
That’s why we started Dinner Church! From the beginning, we said Dinner Church was for the unchurched, not you! Dinner Church was a faith-filled risk to love our neighbors who aren’t here on Sunday morning, for whatever reason. It’s one of our primary “out” movements, serving our community. Honestly, it wasn’t a huge risk for us, but it has been remarkably fruitful, praise God!
In the coming days, we will take more faith-filled risks, not for the sake of change or simply for the fun of it, but because God’s mission requires it to love our neighbors who are not yet in a faith community, following Jesus.
Imagine Toledo without Cherry Street Mission, without the Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission, without Proclaim FM or WLMB-TV or Toledo Christians or…First Alliance Church. We were a church plant once upon a time! We were a faith-filled risk…in 1887! The book of Hebrews tells us,
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6)
Do you love God? Do you seek to please God? Faith is required. You believe in God? Prove it! Trust Him! Take a step of faith (not necessarily a leap of faith). As a church, we’ve done that repeatedly. Some of our initiatives have lasted for generations. Others, like Claro Coffee Bar, were short-lived, yet the provided outstanding opportunities to learn, build relationships, and grow. There’s no guarantee that every Life Group, church, or ministry we launch will last for a century, but then again, they might! Everything has a life cycle, whether it’s short or long. The key is to be obedient, to be faithful, to be missional, living out God’s mission in our world.
We are a Jesus-centered family restoring God’s masterpieces in Toledo and beyond for His glory.
Why are you here? Why are we here? We’re on a mission from God! One of the things that makes us unique is we are
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
We’re all unique. Some are entrepreneurial pioneers—apostles—who God has called to launch new things. Others join later in the process, helping to build and maintain. Still others are cautious and wait until there is more certainty.
As a church, we want to be on the cutting edge of what God is doing. The Kingdom requires it. Our neighbors need it. Our world is desperate for it.
Missional…taking faith-filled risks in launching new ministries to love our neighbors
What faith-filled risks do YOU need to take to love your neighbors?
You can listen to this message and others at the First Alliance Church podcast here.
You can watch this video and others at the First Alliance Church Video Library here.