Well hey good morning my name is Greg Hampton I'm one of the pastors here if
we've ever met I would love to meet you and maybe have a coffee with you or meet
with you outside of the walls of of this church building. We are just about halfway
through our series called The Church Called Tov. It's based on a book
called by the same name and the subtitle is forming a goodness culture that
resists abuses of power and promotes healing and I wanted to make sure that
we're communicating clearly about this that we aren't doing this because we
think that we are all of these things that we've achieved all of these things.
The point isn't that hey we're going through this book that that is a is
page by page describing everything about us. No the point is is that some of
these things we are in some ways our church is very told is very good in
other ways we need to keep on growing and we need to know what we think maybe
God is asking the church to be like so that we know what we're inviting people
to because it matters if they know that they're coming to a place that's safe
for them that is a place that's going to embrace them and make them a part of the
family and this is true of every church every church needs to grow in this way
and so today the element of Tov of goodness that we're going to talk about
is people first the people first culture that resists what's called
institutional creep speaking of people first how about them fast food joints
right oh yeah they're like the epitome of people first right they are the
pit the pinnacle I'm gonna give you a list of places and then I'm gonna give
you the year that they that they were founded and just so that you can kind of
see like how long these places have been around and then I'm gonna ask the
question so Arby's has been around since 1964 I don't know why everyone trashes on
Arby's I like Arby's people like give it such a hard time they I like their food
Burger King 1953 Domino's 1960 Dunkin Donuts 1950 KFC 1930 McDonald's 1940
Pizza Hut 1958 Popeyes 1972 Sonic 1953 subway 1965 Taco Bell 1954 Wendy's 1969
in White Castle the oldest of them all 1921 102 years old they they all every
single one of them started small every single one of them started with one
store and within most of them except for White Castle most of them actually
started to expand to other stores within a year within five years they were they
had many many store stores so now which one of those restaurants do you think
has the highest customer satisfaction in the country any guesses Wendy's okay and
which one of those that I listed do you think has the best employee experience
in the country trick question none of them none of those places even cracks the
top 15 McDonald's KFC Wendy's Dunkin Donuts Subway and Burger King are all
listed as the worst food chains to work for in America why do we think that the
people that founded those companies hoped that one day they would be so big
that people would consistently have a bad experience working there or going
there did they hope that the culture that had been created in those
environments might leave a bad taste in the mouth of their customers or that
those customers would start being treated like numbers if you go to the
McDonald's that's up on 30th and 18th in Rock Island their sign is so old it
says billions and billions served but it actually says aliens and aliens because
the B is like been busted out and it's just like decayed so much but that
speaks to how people in a way were treated like numbers look at how many
people that we have served we have kept track and counted them institutional
creep can be illustrated with one question how many of us feel that if we
had a negative experience at any of those restaurants that our input would
have a chance to affect change in that organization institutional creep is the
reason that almost none of us would think that us saying something would
change anything institutional creep inches us away from relationship with
those that we serve and with those that we follow turns people into customers and
customers into numbers it turns leaders into managers and pastors into presidents
and CEOs you can find this problem in just about every part of the Bible an
institutional mindset that creeps in so that God confronts kings about it and he
has prophets confront priests about it Jesus confronts religious leaders about
it we even see it happen with Jesus and his own disciples that he speaks to them
about it because with power and position and influence with numerical or
financial growth institutional creep will want to sneak in so let's open our
Bibles and see what we might have to learn today I'm gonna be in two
different sections I'm gonna be in Matthew 14 in Acts 6 if you don't have a
Bible we have Bibles on the shelf out there they're blue on your way home
today you're welcome to take one home with you and or if you'd like a digital
one you can download a lot of Bibles are just free on digital app stores Matthew
is the very first book what's called the New Testament or the Second Testament
and then it goes Matthew Mark Luke John acts see any of those you know you're in
the right neighborhood and you're welcome to turn to one or both of those
and then we have a tradition that when we read the scriptures as part of the
message we want to give it our full attention one of the ways that we can do
that is by standing together as we are able if you prefer to sit you're welcome
to do that but if you will join me in giving the scriptures your full
attention now let's go ahead and read Matthew 14 starting in verse 14 when
Jesus landed and saw a large crowd he had compassion on them and healed their
sick as evening approached the disciples came to him and said this is a remote
place and it's already getting late send the crowds away so they can go to the
villages and buy themselves some food Jesus replied they do not need to go away
you give them something to eat act six starting verse one in those days when
the number of disciples was increasing the Hellenistic Jews among them
complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being
overlooked in the daily distribution of food so the 12 gathered all the
disciples together and said it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry
of the Word of God in order to wait on tables brothers and sisters choose seven
men from among you who are known to be full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom we
will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention and
prayer to the ministry of the Word let us pray
God we thank you for the scriptures pray that we still have them I pray that
whatever you have for us to learn today I pray that it would stick that would
become a part of the framework of our faith that our faith becomes stronger
that we would become more like your son Jesus amen thanks y'all you can have a
seat all right so first thing I'm gonna say here is that Jesus wasn't gonna let
the size of his following or the popularity of his ministry let
institutional thinking creep into the way that he led or the way that his
disciples were expected to care about people I say this because Jesus those
those people ended up where they were because of Jesus they ended up where
they were because of the disciples they ended up where they were because they
wanted to be a part of what he was doing and when they were hungry Jesus took
responsibility for where he had led them fast food restaurants have expanded
globally it's not the customers fault that the company chose to expand they
are responsible for the experience their customers and employees have most
churches that grow significantly hoped that it would happen even did things on
purpose to try to get it to happen so when a church grows it is still our
responsibility to care for the people at 150 at 200 or more like we did when it
was 50 or 75 or 100 it is still our responsibility to care I think that's
the example that we see set by Jesus he doesn't just feed his disciples he just
doesn't say hey you guys are the ones that are closest to me oh you're my 12
you're my 72 I'll multiply enough bread and fish for you guys no he takes
responsibility for every man woman and child that had followed that had shown
up and he tells the leaders his disciples don't dismiss them you do
something do something you do something let's we can do something now act six is
regularly used as an example of what pastors are supposed to do hang with me
here okay because I'm about to say something that some of you probably
maybe you disagree with maybe you've never heard a pastor say before but it's
in the Bible it led to growth and so we assume that it was the best choice that
the disciples could make but all you have to do is turn back in your Bible a
few pages and you see places where Jesus was encouraging them to do something
that looked different from that turn back you'll find the time where they
didn't want the little children to come to Jesus turn back you'll find the time
where they didn't want responsibility for feeding the crowds turn back a
little bit you'll find the time where they saw someone casting out demons in
Jesus's name but they wanted to tell him to stop because he wasn't part of their
group turn back you'll find the time where they wanted to call down fire on a
town because they hadn't accepted their message immediately you turn back you
will find times where Jesus constantly drew them back to the heart of the
father to the humanity of who people were and reminded them that's not their
fault we're the ones leading let us care for them the same way we would care for
each other so I'm honestly not sure first of all not everything that is in
the Bible is prescriptive says it in my notes when we read the Bible not
everything in it is a prescription that's telling us what to do a lot of it
is describing what happened when we read certain Psalms and it says oh that I
could bash the heads of my enemies against that and the other it is not a
prescription of what we're meant to do it is describing the feelings of what
they wanted to happen there's so many things in the Bible that we read and we
go oh that's prescribing that's how I should do it that's not always true and
I think that in this encounter in Acts 6 it is something that is describing what
happened it doesn't mean that it's the way that we're always required to do
that because it pulled those disciples away from caring for people with their
own hands groups movements institutions as their power and influence grow they
have a way of changing how they treat people but Knight and Beringer remind
us in order to have a people first culture it sounds simple we have to
treat people as people it's not as simple as it sounds because as an
organization grows treating people as people becomes more difficult because it
means we have to know their names and their stories today we gave you name
tags for reason because your names matter
you do not have to go to a church of thousands to feel like no one knows your
name you can feel unknown and lonely in a room of 50 60 70 people just as easily
as a church of 700 Scott McConnell is our first impressions director and we
have agreed we think it's we're kind of into the idea we have agreed that we're
gonna have a name tag Sunday once a month why once a month why once a month
because I know some of you probably already hate the idea some of you love
it some of you hate it maybe you're an introvert maybe you're private maybe
you're new and you don't want anyone know your name yet and you just happen
to show up on a day where we said hey here's a name tag maybe you put
together the perfect outfit this morning and you this name tag just does not fit
the motif it does not fit the look you matched everything and then we gave you
a green name tag I get it but anonymity is an institutional element and the
family knows each other's names and so once a month and you ready for this part
one random Sunday a month of Scott's choosing I won't even know until he
tells me one Sunday a month we are going to hand out name tags at the door oh the
second element of being people first is to enfold others into the community
which means that we don't just learn names we learn each other's stories this
one means a lot to me because of experiences that I've had I worked at a
church in Georgia between 2007 and 2010 we were just about 45 minutes outside of
downtown Atlanta Brennan was just little and Liam it was actually born in Georgia
and because it was a church plant and because we didn't have our own building
the leadership team didn't really see each other all that often and that was
okay for them because they all already knew each other they were all from
there they had all either been led to the Lord or discipled by the senior
pastor that we were working with and for 18 months in I still felt like a
stranger I didn't feel like any of them knew me so I told my pastor we had the
idea that every staff meeting we would grill someone who'd everyone on the team
would ask one person a question so if we had 12 people in the room there would be
11 questions for that one person every time we had that all staff meeting this
would happen a different person would get grilled we did it and it went great
we got through everyone on the team I learned a ton about all of them and then
we moved on but they never grilled me I was the one that brought it up but then
I was never asked any questions
Renee Brown says connection is the energy that exists between people when
they feel seen heard and valued when they can give and receive without
judgment when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship she's
talking about feeling known guys there can be a pretty big difference between
people thinking they know you and you feeling known I'll say it again there can
be a big difference between people thinking they know you and you feeling
known those are not always the same thing and our stories have something to
do with that some of you probably literally been in a conversation with
me we're mid conversation I'll say oh hey do you know so-and-so then maybe
I'll even introduce you to them and then I'll tell you something about them and
then I'll say oh I think you guys have this in common and then I'll hang around
for like 30 seconds and be like hey I'm gonna let you guys keep talking because
caring about names knowing stories helps us and fold each other into a connected
community helps us develop a people first culture this is also how we resist
turning people into numbers right so I'm I've been a pastor for depends on what
you count I guess for 22 23 years in some way I've been a pastor and we've
had this church for coming up on it'll be ten years in January and I've been
asked many times by people so how many giving units does your church have how
many giving units does your church have what they're asking is how many
separate households in your church give money because for them it is some kind
of measurement of the health of the congregation and my answer is always
yeah I don't really know I'm not sure yeah I don't know I can tell you whether
I think that are giving is healthy right now or not but I don't yeah I don't I
don't know sometimes their reply this has happened more than once well can only
improve what you're willing to measure now I care about our budget all right I
care if people are giving I care that if God has asked you to give something that
you follow God that's important but I didn't become a pastor so I could measure
how much any of you give I did not become a pastor to improve the percentage
of giving units in a congregation I became a pastor so that people would
know how much they're loved you are not giving units we will never have a
banquet for the top givers of our congregation I'm very sorry and who I
spend time with will never be based on how much you gave to this congregation
people are people not numbers when we humanize each other when we treat people
as people when we know each other's names and stories what happens is we see
the image of God in each other we are reminded again that we are family that
we are siblings McKnight and Beringer says that if we treat someone less like
less than family we're doing it wrong because the most common word in the New
Testament for Christian believers by far is not church it is siblings or brothers
and sisters I said it last week now that doesn't mean that a family always gets
along doesn't mean that we all believe the same things it does not mean that
we agree about everything that is not the point it does mean that we love each
other actively because we believe in Jesus we can generically love anyone you
heard we can generically love anyone oh I love the people of fill in the blank
region we can love anyone generically regardless of who they are but to love
who someone is to know their name their story and to love them specifically that
is family years ago I was talking to a mother after a daughter had come out as
lesbian and the mom was accepting but she was clumsy and how she would say it
she'd say Greg I love my daughter I don't care if she's a lesbian and I told
her but she wants you to care she wants your love for her to include caring
about who she says she is that is an active love that is taking a love that
we so often in Christianity make generic and we make it specific people don't
want to be loved generically they want to be known and loved specifically none
of this comes easy and that's why just like last week we got to the end and we
said in the only way we can do this is by the Holy Spirit we need the help of
the Holy Spirit to see each other the way Jesus sees us to feel for each other
the way Jesus feels for us to embrace each other as family the way we are
embraced by him now none of this is really sounding like it's specifically
about the leadership of a church and how the leadership of a church
specifically is at fault for institutional creep so let me let me
keep going here a little bit part of the reason is because I want to be kind to
pastors as well because pastors are people too pastors and leaders are meant
to be in the community part of the community and as far away from a
pedestal as possible in order to do that the people and pastors of a congregation
they all need to treat the church like a family all of them instead of like a
business all of them all of them all of us need to treat a church like family
and not like a business so much of the last 40 years of church development in
the United States of America has focused on teaching church leaders how to act
more like business leaders and how to lead their churches like businesses
Eugene Peterson he's every every favorite every pastor's favorite pastor
but they don't they wouldn't have ever wanted to pastor his church and I'll
tell you why Eugene Pat Eugene Peterson has a ton of books about what it means
to be a pastor what it means to to lead a church to care about a community the
theology of what it means to pastor and so so many pastors lean on his books as
they're trying to do these great incredible things which often include
trying to grow as big as they possibly can but in 30 years Eugene's church was
never bigger than 300 people so many of us have been tempted into wanting
Eugene's message with a different result Eugene said I was watching both the
church and my vocation as a pastor in it being relentlessly diminished and
corrupted by being redefined in terms of running an ecclesiastical business the
ink on my ordination papers wasn't even dry before I was being told by experts
so-called in the field of church that my main task was to run a church after the
manner of my brother and sister Christians who run service stations or
grocery stores or corporations or banks hospitals and financial services many of
them wrote books and gave lectures on how to do this this is the Americanization
of congregations it means turning each congregation into a market for religious
consumers an ecclesiastical business run along the lines of advertising
techniques organizational flow charts and energized by impressive motivational
rhetoric Eugene was a pastor that pushed back against the industrialization of
church he saw church leaders being lured and drawn into a leadership culture that
was beginning to forget we are pastors
listen
for me I'll speak for myself the very sad reality is that that culture has
become dominant over the last 40 years church leaders were convinced they had
to treat their churches like businesses and after 40 years of being treated like
customers so many people that have gone to churches have learned to be consumers
to subconsciously or even not so subconsciously treat the church
community that is meant to be a family like it is a business like it is a
restaurant like it is something that can be consumed not something that is lived
but a tove church has a culture where all the people the pastors and the
people remember to treat each other as equals like people like brothers and
sisters created in the image of God that are meant to be there for each other so
here's my advice show up early stay late jump into a community table whenever you
can go to the men's morning gathering for coffee go to the women's gathering
once a month if you if you can manage be in a service together and learn each
other's names as often as possible let the Holy Spirit literally show you how
the scriptures tell us that because of Jesus we are already connected to each
other it is us that so often turns something that is a family into
something less than look around go ahead look around every person in this room
has a name every person in this story in this room has a story and everyone in
this room is loved by Jesus the exact same way you hope to feel loved by Jesus
and maybe you get to be part of them feeling loved by Jesus amen let's pray
Jesus I pray that you help us to love like you loved that we would not avoid
putting our hands to the work that causes us to have to be with each other
that in the moments where we say oh we should send them home so they can get
something to eat that we would hear you say why don't you feed them and that
instead of going well that's not possible that we would then expect for
you to do something miraculous that enables it every church got in America
in the whole world needs for you to do something miraculous so that we is so
often people that began as strangers would somehow become feeling like we are
family that seeing each other would not feel like I should do that to want to
see them let your Holy Spirit help us know the balance of that but it's never
move into an area of shaming people into any of this let your Holy Spirit help us
to see with your eyes to embrace each other as you would embrace
amen