Grace Methodist
40 Days of Purpose Kickoff September 2005
Small vial of very expensive cologne…sells for something like $80 an ounce. Given as a sample on the Champs Ellyses in Paris… It’s lasted me almost 20 years… a reminder.
Smoked oysters…bought on a trip between Moscow and Leningrad. It was the only good thing about the trip… A Thanksgiving feast that we made it alive.
Often ask students to name a smell..maybe not pleasant to others… but remind you of a wonderful moment… diesel fumes, gasoline, pipe tobacco, manure.
I’ve seen the Forty Days of Purpose happen in two churches…two completely different churches. One: a church across the state, approached it great deal like they were rehearsing the Book of Job. They approached it with fasting and mournful faces and the weight of sin on their shoulders. Then I saw another church approach it…our church in Arenzville. If you were here to listen to Gilbert Joehl speak here (last week?), you know that we were a congregation of outrageous loonies.
The first church finished their 40 Days of Purpose with their burdens even more firmly entrenched, and the second church served ice cream and cake with every session. When they went to their small groups afterwards, they had to move them further apart. The noise of laughter and joy was too much to allow the other groups to concentrate.
Let me be clear: This is not a period of sorrow and sackcloth. It’s one of the most successful programs ever designed for a church and it’s because it isn’t about the church…it’s about you.
I urge you to approach it as a time of joy. You will learn practically nothing new. But what you have always known may become a permanent part of you.
Purpose…it comes down to this: Without purpose, life isn’t much fun. Don’t believe me? Take a walk through a nursing home. Knollwood Tales… retirement home.. “Thank you for making me feel important.”
I have the outline for the program and I’ve been through the program, but the program isn’t what I want to talk about. It’s your preparation. This is not a church meeting. It’s a not committee. It’s not a bake sale or a car wash or a fundraiser or sewing costumes for A Walk Through Bethlehem. It’s intensely personal, it’s meaningful, and …depending on your preparation… it’s life changing.
Treat yourself special for those 40 days. During ours, I high-jacked the Schwan’s truck and their chicken terioke every morning for breakfast. Break your routine. Get up at a different time. Take a different route to work. Go through County Market the opposite direction. What’s wrong with buying your bread first?
Back through McDonnald’s. When they tell you to have a nice day, ask them why. Get a conversation started. Wear your underwear backwards.
But do something totally out of the ordinary…like French perfume or smoked oysters… to savor and be able to remind yourself at some future time, just how sweet it was.
Turn off the car radio for 40 days and let God talk to you.
But….you may ask…. Are we, as a church, ready for it?
Lily Endowment…Diana Butler Bass..senior research fellow and director of The Project on Congregations ot Intentional Purpose. . research on vital mainline Protestant Churches. In other words, she’s studied successful mainline churches. Found 50 congregations…spread out geographically and denominationally. The thing they had in common amazed her. 90 % of them had recently gone through a tremendous conflict. They had declined so badly that most had considered closing in the last 10-20 years. Conflicts: all the way from Trinity in Santa Barbara that had fistfights in their board meetings, to clergy misconduct, and in one case lightening struck the church and burnt it down. They all basically said, “Hey, we’ve got to get serious here or we’re going to die in this hole.” She said, “Once that sense of urgency, the need to change, really hit the congregation’s heart, then I think that’s the pathway they’ve opened up for the Holy Spirit to be able to move in and really make a change.”
Interesting, in each case, there became more of a shared ministry in the churches. The “father knows best” church was gone. Interesting.
LWM in another Methodist church. Not a large church but one day they had millions dropped on them. It nearly killed the church. Split up the congregation as to how to spend it. And they no longer have to work to meet their budget. They are a dead congregation, not because of struggle, but because of the lack or it.
NHS sponsor… Wanted to have a quilt made with Triopia shirts..needed 16. We didn’t even have enough money to buy sixteen shirts. Instead, we’re using 16 used shirts…it will be the most precious shirt ever.
Struggle is good. Two messages for you today. 1) Struggle is good. That’s the only way we can grow. 2) 40 Days of Purpose is for you, not for Grace Methodist. Approach it with Joy. Make it your own private party.
Close with a song to begin your party: Sing Don’t Nobody
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