Vision Sunday - Pastor Tom Loghry
Pastor Tom lays out the vision for the church for the next season of ministry, going back to the basics of the early church as described in Acts 2.
Transcript:
This reading is from the book of Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common.
They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
I remember a simpler life when I was a kid, watching tv using a set of rabbit ear antennas, listening to music or watching movies by cassette tape. Rolling down the windows of the family Jeep by hand crank. It's funny, the little things that you remember. It's also funny, the things that I take to be simple and basic, which were once great technological innovations in their own time.
Before there were tapes, there were records. I'm sure a few of you had some good record collections. And if you go back far, far enough, you had to sit by the fire with a guy who happened to bring a drum. Things change over time. Expectations change over time. Some things don't change though. No technological advance can replace the love of a father and mother.
That's what I remember most from my childhood. There are things so basic, they are beyond replacement. You can present the Bible in a scroll, a book, or a phone. But you cannot replace the Word of God. You can do all sorts of ministry programs over the years, but you cannot replace the people, those who are the body of Christ.
You can enjoy all sorts of happiness in this world, but none of it can match, none of it can replace the happiness of knowing God. We live in a world filled with all sorts of advances, but these basic goods remain. We live in constant danger of forsaking them. And to live in the 21st century, I believe we must perpetually reclaim them from the distractions that would sweep them away.
That would take these goods away from us. This morning, we are going to consider what that might look like at Rockland Community Church. What it would look like for us to grasp onto those good things. Maintain our grasp on them in the day that we're living. To meaningfully do that, we should view the 21st century against the backdrop of the 1st century.
We look back to the early church as we look forward now. And so the biblical foundation this morning is, as was read, Acts 2 verses 42 through 47. This is at the very beginning of the life of the church. Christ has ascended to heaven. The Holy Spirit has descended upon the believers. And now starting in Jerusalem, they're beginning the work of bringing the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ to Jerusalem, to Judea, and ultimately to the ends of the earth.
But we see that the life of the early church was marked by some basic goods. It wasn't just about a message. They had a common life together, marked by certain characteristics. We see those especially identified. You have the apostles' teaching, their fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and prayer. These are the basic goods of the early church.
And as Luke continues forward in his record of the early church, he identifies some ways in which these goods manifested themselves. So we see, for instance, in verse 43, we see how there was many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. And in a manner of speaking, we could say these were answers to prayer.
The early church believed in the power of God, and his ability to reach people who seemed unreachable. Imagine how daunting it would have been to be a member of that early church, knowing that, pretty much, there's only a couple thousand of you at that point, and you were tasked with leading the whole rest of the world to come and believe in Christ.
It must have been immensely overwhelming. But they believed in the power of God. They'd witnessed the power of God in Jesus Christ who conquered death. And so they did pray and the Spirit did provide, giving signs that led people who wouldn't have ever thought about following Jesus cause to believe. So we see them engaged in prayer in verses 44 through 45, we see the nature of their fellowship. They supported each other to such a radical extent that they actually put things together in a common pot, so that they could support each other.
Now, that's pretty radical, something that would be difficult for us today, to do today. But the point of it, I think, we find really in verse 45, which was, They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. The point here is that they just, they didn't just wish people well. It's not as though they were together, they heard about the problems in the community, and they just said, well, you know, I hope that works out for you.
Hope things get better for you. No. They actually took of their own resources to meet someone else's need in their community. It was a true, sincere, deep fellowship. And then we see in verses 46 through 47, a continuation of this fellowship, also marked by teaching. Says that, every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts, presumably to hear teaching.
They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, so they spent time together over the table. Now, the thing that's interesting about the Lord's Supper at that time is because they were gathering in homes, typically, the Lord's Supper would be integrated right into the regular meal itself.
So they'd have a full meal. And they would share in communion. Which I think is a, it's a wonderful thing. It emphasizes the nature of the relationship. When you partake in this table, you're not coming here purely as an individual. You are coming here as a member of this community, as a member of the body of Christ, sharing a table in common with others.
That's what they did all the time.
They also engaged in worship. It says that they praised God.
That's another basic mark of the life of the church, is that we are gathered together to worship. That is the reason why God has reclaimed us. It's so that we would be the temple of God. So that we bring glory and praise. And as we shine, that leads others to come to Christ as well. So that we see in the early church, they enjoyed favor with all people because of who they were, the sort of community they were. Those who didn't believe in Christ up to that point said, Wow. These people are different. And it's because, it's because of Jesus Christ, it's because of the life of the spirit, it's because they were living out these basic goods. Now, as we look at their example, we can't expect to be a carbon copy in all the details.
They lived in a different time and place. We do need to wholeheartedly support and care for each other, but our present circumstances make sharing everything in a common pot sort of thing inadvisable and unfeasible. That particular phenomenon was pretty short lived in the history of the church, but the heart of caring for each other continues into the present.
It is important for us to gather together. But we can't do it in the temple. That structure no longer exists. And, if you didn't know, we live in North America. We should gather in each other's homes. But our central gathering place is here in this building that's been constructed. This has become our common home.
Living out these basics of the first century church as the church in the 21st century comes with its challenges. We have to reckon with our social reality, some challenges that prior generations have not faced, at least to the degree that we're perhaps facing it today. We have to counter very strong outside influences that are having their effect upon us.
So you think just going back 200 years ago, you could live in a small town like this. And the biggest influences in your life would have just been the family, maybe the local newspaper, a couple of books that you had in your library and certainly your church. But so much has transpired in really less than a hundred years where you had the advent of the radio, and then the television, the internet. Now you've got smartphones with you. They're bringing the internet with you everywhere so that from all sides, we're being hit with all different sorts of influences that not all the time, but very often would counter the teaching of the church, that would counter the teaching of Christ.
And that's one social reality we have to grapple with. Another is that we live in a time in which there's a great amount of social distrust between people and there's a great deal of isolation so that people are just kind of living in their own isolated bubble. We've seen the breakdown of community outside of the church, just in society as a whole.
Now part of that is because we live in a very mobile society. If you took away all of our cars, maybe we would live together in stronger community, there'd also be some real downsides to that. But that's the effect of living in a mobile society. It's also the effect of living in a society in which we have all these online tools, where we can kind of just say, well, I'm connected, I'm friends with someone on Facebook, so I'm keeping up to date with them, but you're not having conversations with those people.
And even in, when we are together with each other face to face, very often we're distracted by these devices. So we live in a very distracted, distant sort of time that is cutting against the fellowship, the communion of the church. We're all just so busy, so busy, and we're all subject to those forces. I'm subject to it.
You're subject to it. That's a reality that we're dealing with today. We also are grappling with the reality that we live in a culture that idolizes comfort and pleasure and also idolizes technical solutions. So, if you go back again, we go back a couple hundred years. We used to have this thing called camp meetings in the Advent Christian denomination. There's still some going on today. You would take a whole week out and you listen to preaching and there'd be worship. People would use their vacation time to do this. It's difficult for us to fathom people doing that today. And in many ways it's because we've come to, idolize comfort.
I can tell you sometimes going to, having been to some of those camp meeting experiences, they're not always the most comfortable, just sometimes being in an old building. It's, you know, no, no AC and stuff. And, you know, hopefully we can provide AC for those sorts of things these days. But that's just an example. On the whole, all together in terms of making decisions about how we're going to spend our time, how we're going to devote ourselves, very often the commanding thing in our life is, well, how comfortable will I be, and how much pleasure will this bring me? Now, I'm making a distinction here between pleasure and happiness, because if you follow God, if you're obedient to Jesus Christ, you will find true happiness. It won't always result, though, in immediate pleasure.
And we're a society that's obsessed with immediate, in the moment pleasure. We also idolize technical solutions to things. So that rather than looking to God for his help, we look to technology to fix our problems, medical advances to fix our problems. And those are great gifts. I'm not, and as you're gonna see as we go forward in this, this message, we're gonna be using some of those tools.
There's a difference between utilizing those tools and idolizing those tools. And the great challenge that we face in our society is that many people believe that we're past God, that we got, we can take care of things of our own by our own genius. Now it's easy enough to just denounce these developments.
Even if we know that we're all guilty of going along with these things to one degree or another. We all are. I am. You are. We're all guilty to one degree or another. It's easy to point out these problems. The difficult work is figuring out how we will overcome these challenges as a church. To do this, we first have to know who we are.
We have to know our identity. So when we think about Rockland Community Church's identity, we can look back to some things that we've covered in the past on Vision Sunday. We know that our purpose is to know God and to make God known. To be in a genuine relationship with God and to welcome others into relationship with God, which leads us to our mission of making disciples.
And we've been doing that, emphasizing, you know, really trying to lean into this discipleship process, this three tiered process where you have worship and community life, small groups, cruxial studies, cruxial studies being just kind of a umbrella term for Christian learning, Christian education. But now, what I'd like to do this morning is just take us to some even more basic characteristics of our identity.
It's important that we understand that we are the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. We are not like any other association in our town in Rhode Island. We're not like a club. We are the body of Christ. And that means that the power of Christ dwells in our presence. God is with us. And so that should alter our outlook on things.
Knowing that God is with us. We don't look at things from purely, you know, numbers perspective in terms of what's possible, because if we do that and we, if we look at everything that's going on around us, we might say, Oh, we feel like we're toast. I tell you, we're not toast. Because God is with us, because we are the body of Christ.
And God intends that we would have a presence here. So we are the body of Christ. It's important for us to always keep that in mind. We are also a local church. Now maybe you might be like, duh, of course we're a local church. But I would emphasize that idea of we are a local church. Given how mobile our society is today, sometimes we can just kind of feel like, well, we're a church for everybody, and we're kind of just like a global citizen.
And it's true that everyone is our neighbor. You know, Jesus, you know, Jesus is asked, well, who's my neighbor? And kind of the point of the parable of the Good Samaritan is to say everyone's your neighbor. But, we should also realize that the people that literally are our neighbors should take some first priority in terms of our responsibility and that God has put us alongside these people to reach them with the gospel.
Just as we would take responsibility for the people that are in our immediate families. Yes, we should love and care for all people, but we have to especially care for our spouses, for our kids, for our extended relations, etc. We are a local church. And so, we are especially devoted to serving and reaching the people here in this immediate area.
Scituate, Gloucester, Foster. That's our goal, that's our aim. We can't reach everybody. Um, it would be great if we could reach everybody. But this is the area that God has given us. We are also a small church. Now, another thing you might say, well of course, of course we can see that we are a small church, but I would say we're a small church unapologetically.
Um, now when you think of a small church, you would probably think of a church of our size. It's interesting if you read like church health literature. You know, some of these guys that give advice on how to make your church healthier and grow, they'll be talking about, oh yes, the small church, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they'll say, yeah, a church of like 200, 300 people.
So it's all a matter of perspective. To some people in different parts of the country, a church of that size is a small church. Now, we know what it is to be a small church. And I think part of the reality of why we're a small church, just in terms of the numbers is because we are living in a mission field.
You cannot compare Rhode Island to say, Texas. I have family in Texas. They go to churches that have thousands of people. It's a completely different landscape. We are in a mission field here. And so I encourage you don't get discouraged because God has a special purpose in place for putting you here for having us here.
I'd also say that I think part of our philosophy is that we do want to keep things small, not to the extent that there's not going to be any more growth, but what we'd like to ultimately see is a replication of churches, of more congregations. Because once you get to a certain size, you know, if we got past like 150 people, the nature of this church would change quite a bit.
And part of the virtues of being a smaller congregation is you actually know the people in your congregation. You can actually connect with them. So in terms of ministry philosophy, I believe that's what we should be. We should embrace being a small church, and if God blesses us so that we grow to that full extent, then hopefully we can come to the place of being able to plant more small churches because of the way that God can work through congregations of that size in some special ways. Lastly, I would say we are a family of believers. Now this could tie right into being the body of Christ, they kind of go hand in hand, but I think it's important for us to emphasize that we are a family of believers if only just to push back against the idea that we are here as a Christian entertainer.
Some people view church like that. They go to church in order to receive some Christian entertainment, some Christian content. That's not what Rockland Community Church is about. We are a family of believers. So we care for each other as brothers and sisters. If you want to extend that kind of framework to different ages, aunts, uncles, grandparents.
We are a family of faith. And we do things together. We go together. We learn together. And so, that's going to affect the way that we approach ministry. It's great when you can offer different segmented ministries for different ages and things like that. But it's not the end all, be all. We should be a place that welcomes people of all ages.
Old people, the kids, all of us together growing in Christ and making sure that we're all moving together and no one's getting left behind. So in light of this identity, our commitment to timeless basic goods, all while reckoning with the reality of the day that we're living in, I'm going to bring before you a vision that can enable us to move forward, a vision marked by particular points of emphasis.
So the first emphasis that I think we must embrace is that we would be dogmatically relational. Now, usually when we use words like dogmatic, people usually think about certain beliefs being dogmatic about some particular theological opinion or something like that. I think we need to be dogmatically relational.
We need to be committed to making every effort that we can to deepen our relationships with each other, to connect with each other, to integrate new people into the community of the church. Some of the ways that we're gonna practically try to do that here I just wanna make sure it's up there. It is.
Some of the practically, practical ways we're gonna try to do that is we're gonna increase the time for fellowship that we have after service. So, in the past we had sermon circle going from 11: 15 till noon. Moving forward, what we're going to do is instead say, Sermon Circle is going to go from 11: 30 to noon. And basically when the service ends, you know, I try to end at 11. Hopefully from 11 to 11: 30 is going to be a time for fellowship. And we're going to provide refreshments in the back, coffee, food, to encourage you to stay around, to really deeply connect with the other people that are next to you in the pew and not just, you know, go beyond just the handshake or the wave hi.
And we're going to be doing that every Sunday. We're going to be doing that every Sunday, except for the Sundays when we're going to be sharing in a common meal. We're going to be trying every month to have a common meal together downstairs, and the first one's going to come up on, I think it's September 29th.
Um, the day right after neighbor day. Um, so that'll be the first one that we have. And, you know, if it makes sense, every month we'll have a meal like that in order to try to strengthen our relationships with each other. The other things we're gonna do is adapt our small groups and classes to have stronger relational components to them.
And I'll share a little bit more about that in a bit. And on the whole, the hope is that this is gonna help cultivate our abilities just to pursue relationships in informal ways as well. Not everything has to be organized. The thing that I would love to see, and I already see it among some of you, and it's great, is that you invite each other to each other's homes.
Or you go out to a restaurant. I know a couple of you go get together at Dunkin. That's that's great. I love that, that's, that's good. Those are the sorts of things that we need to do to deepen our relationships with each other This is intrinsically good for us. It's necessary for us. I also think it could be unique strength of our church, again, you know, compared to big churches, it can be difficult for them to have that sort of meaningful fellowship because there's just so many people.
This is a strength of ours. This is something that we can do. I think it's something unique that we can also offer in the face of online culture. And this is something that we're reckoning with. The reality is that if people want Christian content, they can find it online. They can look up a sermon on YouTube.
They can do all these different things and get the information. They don't have to come here to get a Christian message, but what they cannot find online is relationship. They cannot find human connection online. They cannot be a member of the body of Christ online. They receive those inputs from other members of the body and can give to other members of the body.
And so by doing this, by pressing into relationships, I think as people come into contact with our church, they'll say, that's exactly what I've been looking for. If we do it well, if we're the sort of community that we ought to be. I think also there, you know, there's an external element to this as well, in that there are some real hard limits to advertising.
We've tried to do advertising and, uh, and that's good. It gets name recognition out there. People become familiar with us, but I have to tell you, it doesn't matter how much money we spend on advertising, if all it is is just our name appearing in places, people are not going to come to this church. Real growth is going to occur when personal invitation is begins to occur, when every single one of us begins to take the initiative and say, hey, do you want to come join me at church?
Asking your co workers, your friends, family. That's how it works. You think about a lot of the people here in this congregation. You think about the family connections and stuff. That's how it actually works out. You invite the people that you know. And my hope is that we would be a church where you're so excited, you're so passionate about who we are that you would just share with other people about our church. So that if you want to think about in terms of advertising, you have word of mouth advertising. That's what's going to make a real difference, is the real human connection. You taking the initiative and invite other people here to our church.
Now, sometimes we feel intimidated about inviting people, but the reality is we shouldn't be afraid. First, and most importantly, is because God's got this. It's not about you trying to twist someone's arm and coming. If you just simply submit yourself to God and say, God, give me the opportunities.
I will submit to you and do what I can as you put me in the place to do so. He'll connect the dots. He'll give you the opportunities and he'll open people's hearts in ways that they wouldn't otherwise be opened. Second, it's because if you're living after Christ's example and you're generally friendly with the people in your life, I think, more often than not, they're gonna take it for what it is. An honest invitation on your part to share something with them that has helped you. Now, if it seems like an unnatural leap in your relationship to be inviting someone to church, then invite them over for supper. Invite them out to grab a bite to eat.
The point really is, just be friendly. Be a friendly person. We should be a friendly church when we're here and when we're outside. We need to be friendly people. We need to live alongside people the way Jesus would. Even if they decide they won't follow him. That'll make a big impact too. If you invite someone to church, and they're like, Nah, that's not for me.
And you're still really friendly to them. That's gonna make an impression. And you don't know the end from the beginning in terms of that person's story. God might have plans for them yet.
As a church. I also believe there are things we can do to make inviting others less of a hurdle. Now, last year talked about, um, Christian hospitality. And I think we need to lean in to that. Basically having this mindset, that when new people come into this church, we should not be thinking, Oh, we're just going to let them figure it out because if you just need to put yourself in their shoes. Imagine how daunting it is walking into a new place, not understanding what everything's about, how to get connected.
So some of the things we're going to do along these lines is we're gonna offer more explainer info, I'm working with Emily. I'm putting together some written materials some like rack cards and stuff that we can give to people. It can just give them a really short, quick rundown of kind of who we are. Also the fellowship, having the fellowship upstairs every week.
I'm hoping that it will be more hospitable to those that have some issues with mobility, so that they don't have to go up and down the stairs. Also, exercising some thoughtfulness in making families comfortable when they visit. Making it so that families are comfortable in the pews. Uh, looking at things like getting lap desks for the, for the kids.
New biblical toys for the family room over there. Maybe getting booster seats for some of the really small kids so that, they can be locked in in the pew, being really little, i don't remember what it was like back then but i can imagine that sometimes the pew can get a little uncomfortable. But just taking those practical steps, you think about, you go to a restaurant, the restaurant tries to make the family comfortable, we all the more should try to make families comfortable here. This also entails offering intergenerational inclusive learning. The reality is that this, is that we can't offer a bunch of different classes for different age groups. So, what we do want to do though, is include the younger ones into what we're already doing. Kind of in the style of almost like family devotion. So in Sermon Circle, we're going to be taking steps so that we can include kids that are seven and up in Sermon Circle and have them engage, and have it be a meaningful time for them We're also going to be providing what i'm calling Children's Circle out in the family room immediately adjacent for kids that are ages two through six. And we're going to start really modestly with that for now, which is we're going to have biblically themed toys, and We're going to have a volunteer available who will read them a Bible story.
And again, this is only for 30 minutes. So the hope in having those two things available is that it might encourage people after service, your kids right over there, you know, for the younger ones, they can go over there, mom and dad, they can engage in sermon circle, some of the older kids can engage in that as well.
And we're also hoping that this time of fellowship afterward would encourage people to get involved in these things We're also going to be committing more time to prayer. When we did stay to pray every month, we limited to 15 minutes, and my experience, I'm sure those who stayed your experience would probably it felt like sometimes we were kind of cramped and trying to get all these prayers in within the 15 minutes. We're going to make more time for prayer, Um, and so both Sermon Circle and Stay to Prey are gonna be 30 minutes, but it all ends at the same time it always does, still ending at, at noon.
So hand in hand with cultivating a culture of hospitality, I also believe that we need to develop a posture of meeting people where they're at. Now, as, as a church, this means that we need to be nimble and ready to innovate to overcome the hurdles before us. We do live in a culture consumed by busyness and distraction, and there are many people inside and outside of the church who have work situations that are difficult schedules that don't align with the rhythms of our church life.
Whatever the reasons may be, good or bad, I'm not content letting these things get in the way. We'll challenge people when they need challenging, but we also meet people right where they're at. And so we need to do some adapting and innovating and the way that we're going to do that is in the area of small groups and also in the way that we do some of our teaching.
So just some changes to anticipate with the small groups, the women's morning small group on Mondays is remaining very much the same. The Women's Evening Group that Sara's leading is going to be doing some changes. The first meeting of the month is going to be a Zoom meeting, making that change because we realize that many of the women that would be involved in this group, they have responsibilities at home, they've been working all day.
We want to make it easier for them to be involved in the small group. But we also want to have that face to face component. So for the second meeting of the month, there's going to be a dinner at one of the homes of the members of the group. We're starting out in our own home, and then by volunteer, figuring out who else might want to host.
But it's going to have that pattern of online, then also some deep connection over a meal. For the men's groups, we want to give some opportunity for men to kind of, for men to deepen their relationships over some common activities. As I've engaged in small groups, I've seen some great success with the women, because the women can grow really deep just giving them a time to have conversation with each other, and it's awesome.
Um, men need some other opportunities to grow their relationship outside the time of just talking with each other. And so, the first meeting of the month is, again, is going to be very much the same, but for the second meeting, what we're going to be doing is getting together for either a service activity or a recreational activity.
So, whether that's helping someone in the community or in the group, or doing something recreationally. Going for a hike, going bowling, something like that. And what I'm hoping this is going to do is give us an opportunity to invite new people into our community, into these groups. So maybe you're not comfortable inviting someone.
Uh, that you know, to the first meeting, because it's really in depth, we're, we're digging into teaching. But you might be thinking, I could invite them on a hike. I can invite them to go work on, on, on something. Um, so that's what we're going to be doing with the men's evening group. And then for the men's morning group, pattern of meeting in person as we have, but then the second meeting we're going to be getting together at a diner.
And again, with that hope, this is another opportunity to invite people into this circle of believers. The other thing that we're going to be doing in terms of adapting is really leaning further into what we've been doing with these text studies. Um, and the way that we're going to lean further into that is by producing more of our own video content, more of our written content. The last thing that we did was through Right Now Media, but moving forward, what we're going to try to do is put out short videos of about 10 minutes in length that could be building on, on each other. So like a five video series that would, as we have in the past, culminate in a supper discussion.
Um, Now, the reason why we're making this move is because it seems as though with the monthly seminars that we've been offering, we've kind of hit a hard limit in terms of the people that we've been able to reach, and it also seems that it poses a difficulty for some people when the time just does not work, the day just does not work, and while we have been recording and live streaming them, you know, they're 90 minutes long.
I have, I don't expect you necessarily to sit down on your couch and watch the video for, for 90 minutes. My hope is that if we do this in like 10 minute installations, or as with the written commentary, and I was just sending you a little bit by little bit, you can track, you can follow, you can catch up.
Um, and so you can benefit even if you can't make it to the supper discussion, because at least you have the teaching content there. There's also the benefit here, I think, of potential outreach, because what we'll be able to do that we can't do with some of the right now media videos is we can share these videos publicly on Facebook.
You can take the link and you can send it to your friend like saying, Hey, I thought you might find this interesting. My pastor's talking about this and if it times out well, we're having a supper discussion about it. Do you want to come with me? So there's some outreach opportunities as well in making this move.
So as we think about adapting and innovating, I think it's also important for us to look beyond the wall of our church to consider how we might partner with other local churches. Our church supports Together Advance the Gospel. You've heard Ed Pichette come and share about his vision of trying to bring churches together.
We very much want to lean into that. And this is just following the the model of Jesus who offered this prayer for us in John 17. He says, my prayer is not for them alone, talking about the immediate 12 there, He says, I pray also for those who believe in me through their message, talking about us, That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us so that the world may believe You that you have sent me.
I have to say that in the past 12 months, God has been doing something incredible in bringing together the pastors in, here in Northern Rhode Island. About a year ago, I was kind of on the point of despairing, of trying to bring us together. I'd been trying to get together with some of the pastors in town.
Some of you might remember we were trying to set up a good news club in the high school. That kind of fell apart. I was like, okay, this just isn't going to work. But God made some connections in the meantime, and I won't tell you the full story now, but the short of it is that we've now, I've now connected with seven other churches in Foster, Glocester, Coventry, and Scituate, and I'm getting together with these pastors for lunch this coming Tuesday.
I just made a connection with Glad Tidings Community Church this past week. And some of our conversations have been about things that we might be able to collaborate on that would help all of us, particularly in the area of youth ministry. It's very difficult for our church to put together a church youth ministry right now.
It's not just us, it's most of the churches. The only church where that's not the case right now is Glad Tidings. And so, um, what we're trying to do is have conversations about how could we come together and kind of join forces. For the benefit of our youth and for the benefit of reaching other youth here in northern rhode island with the gospel and So it doesn't all have to hang on this individual congregation in terms of finding some solutions we should lean into opportunities to join together to collaborate, and what I would encourage you is that if some opportunities arise, say for a prayer gathering or something that brings all these churches together, I would encourage you to please go to those things if we have the opportunity.
Um, because I think God's going to do something special if the churches here in Northern Rhode Island unite. It would be an awesome witness to the people in our, in our communities. In addition to these goals, we have a unique opportunity to improve our property. Because of funds that God has providentially provided for this time from a generous donor in the sale of Camp Greene, I'm not going to get into all the details of that, we're going to have a printout of it.
But just the short of it is that the proposal is refinishing the walls here, not the ceiling just the walls, so that they're a lighter color to make this a brighter space. New pews, you can see a sample chair in the back, air conditioning, and also a new play area outside, new fencing. Um, all I would ask is that as you think about these things, is that you would consider their alignment with our goals.
Now obviously it's not going to align with all of them, like painting the walls. It's difficult to think about how that might align with the goals I was just talking about. But just think about it. Think about the various things, how they might tie in to some of our goals here. And the overall thrust of what we're trying to do is, we're trying to do everything with excellence.
My greatest concern as far as property goes and all of that has only been that it shouldn't be the case that people show up and they think like these people don't care. They're apathetic. They're just kind of cutting corners.
We should be putting forth our best. Now, the best doesn't always mean the most expensive or, it doesn't mean anything in particular. It just means that we should, as far as we're able, to try to do our best. But as we think about these things, as we consider these different proposals, I also just want to encourage you to remain united.
So some of these things we might decide we don't want to do, and that's okay, because they're not the end all be all. We've been talking about those things that are essential, those things that are basic, those things that are most important. Um, I think the proposal has a lot of really good things about it, but the proposal alone isn't going to radically transform this church.
It's all the things that I've just talked about in terms of embracing the basics that's going to make a real difference here. So, while there is nothing new under the sun, I do believe that we are living in uniquely challenging times. If success depended on us, I would despair given everything stacked against us.
But we should not despair. We should not despair because God is on our side. He is for us. In the end, our responsibility is simple. We are called to obedience, to be faithful, to the basics of the church, teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer. This is simple, but I would not say that it's easy. We are getting pulled in many directions.
And so are the people we are trying to reach. It is difficult to be creative, to adapt and innovate. We just want things to work. You can trust that as your pastor, that's how I feel. I just want things to work. It isn't easy. But we should trust that God will guide our steps. We will make mistakes and God will course correct to get us where he wants us.
So the way that you can live out the basics at our church is by supporting fellowship. And the way that looks like is, you know, stick around after service. Get to know people. Help with the preparations for providing those those refreshments and meals. And simply be friendly. Sometimes we have to work on that.
Sometimes, like, that's something God I feel like I'm a fairly friendly person, but something God decided to work on me is being more social, being more outgoing. I can be very content sometimes just sitting in an office with my book and studying. God's ready to grow and stretch us. Be more social, be more friendly.
That's a way that you can support the fellowship here in the church. Join a small group. That's a conduit for your and other's growth. Engage in the studies, get better equipped. It's an opportunity for outreach and fellowship. So you can sign up for the small groups on the back. When the studies go out, you can sign up to get those texts.
You can share the videos. The point is, is just show up. You need to show up. In all these things, show up on Sunday when the congregation gathers, we just need to show up. And most importantly, we need to pray. As I preached last week, we will not succeed if we do not pray. If we pray, I believe God will answer our prayers.
God is for us. He wants us here. He wants to bring the gospel to the people of Scituate. He wants us to be a city on a hill, shining in the darkness.
Hey there, Pastor Tom here. I hope you enjoyed this sermon I offered to Rockland Community Church. Rockland Community Church is located at 212 Rockland Road in North Scituate, Rhode Island, just around the bend from the Scituate Public High School. We invite you to join us in person or virtually this Sunday as we begin a new series entitled Israel Arises. It's our joy to welcome you into our community.
Intro/Outro Song
Title: River Meditation
Artist: Jason Shaw
Source:http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jason_Shaw/Audionautix_Acoustic/RIVER_MEDITATION___________2-58
License:(CC BY 3.0 US)