Sunday, August 31, 2008: Are You Satisfied with the Status Quo?

Are You Satisfied with the Status Quo?
Acts 11: 19 – 30.

I. Introduction.

Aubrey (Minister of Education) and I are currently reading the same book. (Actually, we each have our own copy…But it is still the same book.) The title of the book tells the story of a universal struggle faced by churches all over the United States…Reaching People Under 40 while Keeping People Over 60: Being Church for All Generations (Edward H. Hammett and James R. Pierce. [St. Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press: 2007]).

The phrase found in the title of this book describes the struggle of our church and the future of our church. It describes our future, because if we want to continue to exist as a congregation 20 (even 10) years from now, we will need to “reach people under 40 while keeping people over 60.” But it also describes our struggle, because if we cannot “reach people under 40 while keeping people over 60,” our church will not be around much longer.

I suppose there are two ways we can address this issue of “reaching people under 40 while keeping people over 60.” We can keep doing everything exactly like we have always done it. We can review the history of Lufkin’s First Baptist Church in search of the programs and ministries that were most effective in reaching the lost and growing our church in the 1950’s, 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. After all, if we have programs and ministries that worked from 1950 – 1989, then surely they will work just as effectively in 2008! Sadly, we have placed our faith in this approach to church for 50 years. We work hard to maintain these programs and ministries, but they don’t seem to be as effective today as they were 50 years ago. Perhaps we should work harder at doing the same thing.

There are two fundamental problems with believing that working harder will be more effective. First, this belief is based on the assumption that the world around our church has not changed. How many of you truly believe that Lufkin, Texas is the same town it was in 1958? If we have a new world, we need a new church (Brian McLaren, The Church on the Other Side). Second, this belief is based on the false hope that we will eventually get a different response. If we keep doing what we’ve been doing, we will keep getting what we’ve been getting (Jim Herrington, Leading Congregational Change). Of course you know this is the definition of insanity—doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

The second way we can address the issue of “reaching people under 40 while keeping people over 60” is to do something completely different. We ought to assess our current reality and ask ourselves” how successful is our church at reaching people under 40?” Does our Sunday morning worship attract people under the age of 40? Does our approach to discipleship excite and engage the generations under the age of 40? Does our approach to missions—local missions and international missions—connect with the missional callings of people under 40? Then, we need to decide whether we can continue to sustain our church without reaching people under the age of 40.

These are hard questions for us to deal with. They are hard, because they force us to look at reality. They are hard, because they challenge the “status quo.”

Status quo is a Latin phrase that literally means “the state in which.” In other words, status quo means the way things are right now. I have only heard the phrase “status quo” used positively one time in my life. It caught me by surprise. I didn’t know it could be used in a positive way.

The bi-vocational music minister in the first church I served as pastor once told me that he thought that is what made that church a good church. In his words, “Other churches grow and shrink, bring in new people and lose some people, but not FBC. We are satisfied with the status quo.”

As you reflect on the challenge facing our church and every church in the 21st century, I want you also to reflect on the status quo. Is this as good as it gets? Or do you think it can get better than this? I believe it can get better. BUT, only if you are not satisfied with the status quo.

I have often joked that dissatisfaction is one of my spiritual gifts. I’m only halfway joking, because there is an element of truth in that. Think about that. Do you have a God-given, holy dissatisfaction with the status quo? The early church in the book of Acts had a holy dissatisfaction. They knew things could get better. And they followed God’s call to do something about it.

Read Acts 11: 19 – 30.

This story reads like a series of comparisons and contrasts. The first things we compare and contrast are two churches. On one hand, there is the church of Jerusalem. On the other hand, there is the church of Antioch.

For the people who have read all of the Book of Acts from chapter one through this chapter eleven, we already know a thing or two about the church of Jerusalem. We know that the city of Jerusalem is the political and religious center of the people known as the Jews. We know that the church of Jerusalem was born on the Day of Pentecost retold for us in Acts 2. Before Acts 2, the Day of Pentecost was a Jewish holiday. Jewish people from all over the world traveled to the Holy City of Jerusalem to worship God and to participate in religious celebrations. However, in Acts 2 we read the story of how the Christian church was formed in Jerusalem.

The Christian church in Jerusalem began when the twelve Apostles gathered to worship alongside one hundred other Jewish men and women who had given their lives to Jesus. Thousands of other Jews were in Jerusalem that day to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. These Jewish men and women had come from every country of the known world. And the church was born that day when the Holy Spirit led the Apostles to preach the Good News about Jesus to their Jewish brothers and sisters.

The church in Antioch had a different kind of start. It started through persecution. As more and more Jewish men and women of Jerusalem gave their lives to Jesus as their Lord, the Jewish leaders did all they could do to stamp out this Christian movement. They even went so far as to execute a man named Stephen for preaching the Gospel. This persecution and execution caused the early church to spread out. But it couldn’t stop them from preaching about Jesus.

More than likely it was Jewish proselytes who first caught the vision for evangelizing outsiders. A proselyte was a man or a woman who had converted from another pagan religion to the Jewish faith. In other words, they became Jews first, then became followers of Jesus the Messiah. It makes perfect sense to me that the proselytes would be the first ones to preach salvation to non-Jews. After all, they had heard the Gospel and responded. It would only make sense for them to give other people the same opportunity they had.

Verses 19 and 20 illustrate for us how the Gospel started to spread in the city of Antioch. The Jewish proselytes-turned Christians first preached only to Jews. Then, they took a bold step and began to preach to the Greeks as well.

Antioch was the third largest city in the Roman Empire—Rome was the largest, Alexandria was the second largest. There were at least 500,000 people living in Antioch with approximately 50,000 Jews worshipping in the local synagogues. More than likely, this is where the Gospel preaching first took place—in the synagogues. But it could not be contained there. It began to spread into the streets. Purely secular, Greek speaking people heard about Jesus and responded by giving their lives to Jesus as Lord.

This was in the days before cell phones and email, so the next part of the story might be difficult for us to understand. The church at Jerusalem heard that a new church had formed in Antioch. And here we find our second comparison and contrast of the story. The Jerusalem church represents “tradition.” The Antioch church represents “innovation.” When the tradition church learned about the innovation church, they sent Barnabas to investigate.

The reason I call the Jerusalem church the tradition church is because this is the church to which the twelve Apostles belonged. The Apostles were the last remaining link to the historical Jesus. These twelve men had lived with Jesus. They watched Jesus perform miracles. They had memorized all of Jesus’ teachings. But most importantly, these twelve men were witnesses to the resurrection. Jesus literally and physically appeared to the Apostles after the resurrection.

This is not the first time the tradition church had sent an envoy to investigate what was going on in the world outside of Jerusalem. The same thing happened in Acts 8: 14, “When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them.” A similar thing happened with the conversion of Saul in Acts 9 and the conversion of Cornelius in Acts 10. Saul presented himself to the Jerusalem church to get their “stamp of approval.” Peter explained to his peers how God had called him to preach the Gospel to Cornelius, a Gentile.

While it is safe for us to say that the tradition church needed to investigate what was taking place in the innovation church, I want you to notice what happened in all four of my examples. In all four examples, the tradition church gave their approval to what was taking place. The tradition church NEVER tried to stop the move of God. They never voted against evangelism—even evangelism among the Gentiles.

I’m sure this was a struggle for the tradition church. After all, they had never done it that way before. In their personal experience, one had to be a Jew before becoming a Christian. The men had to be circumcised, and both men and women had to commit to the Old Testament Law before they could commit their lives to Jesus. We might call this the status quo…Only Jews could become Christians.

Barnabas went out from the tradition church to the innovation church to investigate. I’m sure he was surprised with what he found. These Gentiles demonstrated “the evidence of the grace of God.” There was only one proper response for Barnabas. He encouraged them.

While I am certain Barnabas used some very encouraging words with the new Christians in Antioch, that is not all he did. He immediately traveled to Tarsus to fetch Paul. When Barnabas and Paul returned to Antioch they spent an entire year mentoring and teaching the new Christians. Barnabas knew that conversion was not all God intended for the church at Antioch. They needed proper discipleship. They needed help in understanding what Jesus had done for them as well as how they were to live in daily response to the grace God had shown them.

The story of this innovation church ends with a radical demonstration of faith. When the innovation church heard that the tradition church was facing a famine, the innovators opened their wallets and gave out of their own financial resources to help. On one hand, this is an obvious sign that they had a genuine faith. They responded to a crisis in a distinctly Christian way—a way already illustrated in earlier chapters of Acts. On the other hand, it is a sign of innovation and tradition working together. Tradition did not reject innovation. And innovation did not leave tradition behind.

II. Success Comes from God.

In Acts 13, Paul goes out on his first missionary journey. In fact, Acts 13 through the end of the book focus on Paul’s work as a missionary. Do you want to take a guess at which church sent Paul out as a missionary? Antioch! The innovation church that was born in Acts 11, is the same church that first caught the vision to send missionaries around the world.

However, none of this would have been possible if the tradition church had not approved what was taking place in the innovation church. The Jerusalem church did not stop the work of evangelism that began in Antioch. They did not stop it, but they did have to investigate.

There are dangers when we do something outside of tradition. The greatest danger is a compromise of the Gospel. When we innovate, we can never add anything to the Gospel of take anything away. We need tradition to keep us faithful to the Gospel.

There is also the danger of growing the church for the wrong reasons. We should grow the church by introducing men and women to Jesus, not by promising them a life of ease or by offering cash incentives. We need tradition to keep us focused on Jesus.

III. Success Comes whenTradition and Innovation Are United.

In Antioch, we see a picture of tradition and innovation working together. The Jerusalem church gave the new church at Antioch permission to evangelize in ways Jerusalem had never attempted. The Antioch church never forgot where they came from. They gave of their finances and responded to the needs of Jerusalem.

IV. Conclusion.

If we are going to “reach people under 40 while keeping people over 60,” we need to develop the same kind of approach we witness at Antioch. What would it look like at Lufkin’s First Baptist Church for tradition and innovation to work together?

Tradition = “Cloud of witnesses” who built this church…Dead and gone now…

Innovation = New generation of believers under the age of 40…Willing to reach their unchurched friends…

Barnabas = Over 60…Affirming…Encouraging…Mentoring… Uncompromising the traditions of our church…

Status Quo = Over 60…Barriers to growth…Hanging onto the forms and programs of the past…Vote “NO” to any and all innovations, even when God is at work.

We need some men and women willing to serve as Barnabas. Holy dissatisfaction with the status quo and willing to give permission to something new.