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Hello everyone and Happy New Year's Eve from us here at Trinity Streetsville.

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Here at Trinity Church Streetsville we want to share with you sermons that inspire and

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encourage you in your faith journey as together we are learning to love Jesus, live like Jesus

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and lead others to Jesus.

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Today in this special sermon as we bring in the new year we are going to be learning about

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Jesus' invitation to follow him in a new way.

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And before we begin we'd like to invite you to follow our podcast, check us out on social

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media and please visit our website at trinitystreetsville.org.

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Thanks for listening and we hope you enjoy.

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God bless.

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A reading from the Gospel of Mark chapter 8 beginning at verse 34.

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When he called himself to the crowd, to him along with his disciples and said, whoever

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wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

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For whomever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for

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me and for the Gospel will save it.

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This is the word of the Lord.

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Well I don't know if you guys remember but back on October 8th I sent you this email

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and oh you don't remember it?

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Oh you don't remember this email?

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Does anybody still check their email anymore these days?

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Yeah, well just in case you were wondering this email was actually one of the best emails

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I have ever created.

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It was, it had great pictures in it, it had great coloring, it had lots of buttons you

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could click on and the gist of this email was, well here was the thing, right?

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We had been, you know, two years since the pandemic here at Trinity, we had a whole bunch

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of new people coming to church and we said you know what it's time to do?

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It's time for us to reach out to some of those new folks and talk about membership and talk

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about becoming an Anglican and joining the Anglican church and the Anglican community.

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So we sent out this email and I was so proud of it, I was so excited.

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I couldn't wait, I couldn't wait to hear from all of you, all of you, all of you to hear

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about all your, you know, how excited you were to say yes I want to become a member

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or yes I want to be an Anglican.

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I hit send and I sat there in front of the screen and I just waited and dreamt about

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all the responses that were going to come in and I sat there and it took a little while

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I kept hitting refresh, refresh, refresh there, there is not much coming, not much coming

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and the minutes turned into hours, me sitting in front of that screen, hours dragged on

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into the evening.

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My wife called, she said, Robert are you coming home for supper?

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I said no, I'm doing something very important, I'm waiting for our church to respond to a

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very important email and I waited and I waited, I rebooted my computer to see if that was

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a problem, I plugged and unplugged the internet to see if that was a problem but you know

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what I heard?

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You know what you guys said?

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Crickets, crickets.

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Now that's not true, two of you, God bless you, this is a special place for you in heaven,

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you responded to the email very, very, very keenly but most of you, most of you did not

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and so what did I do?

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Well I just kind of, I sank into a deep state of melancholy and I went out into the night

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of Mississauga, walked down the streets, stared up at the sky and I wondered what's my purpose,

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what's wrong, why don't people like me, why don't people like Trinity and but amidst all

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those existential thoughts about my purpose, another question came to my mind and the question

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was what's going on?

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Why are people not interested in becoming members of Trinity or becoming Anglicans,

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right?

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Like this was a real question that I, eventually I got hungry though and I had to go home and

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I did eat something and I came in the next day to work and we started talking about this

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as a staff, we're like what's all that about and actually we came up with a few theories

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as to what was going on.

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The first theory was this, was that Anglicans are confusing, that's about the first theory

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and think about it, right?

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We say all these things like oh you can come and join the church through baptism, if you've

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been baptized at another church you don't need to get baptized again to join Trinity,

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you're already part of it or maybe you want to be confirmed to have the bishop lay hands

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on you and then join the Anglican communion through confirmation, maybe that's something

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you want to do, oh have you been confirmed at another church?

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That's okay, you can be received by the bishop and if you've been baptized and confirmed

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you can be received or maybe you just want to reaffirm your faith, that's another thing

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you can do to join, there's you know of course the membership, some churches have created

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like things like this is our membership covenant, this is our membership agreement, this is

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our statement of faith, sign this and you can belong, who can come to communion?

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We say everybody can come and share in communion but some churches are very clear, you have

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to kind of do this first before you can come to communion, this is another way that people

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kind of join the church, we even have an annual general meeting that we call the vestry and

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at that meeting if you want to be a voting member of the meeting you just have to have

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been coming to church for three months, given some money and sang some songs with us on

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a Sunday morning, this is so confusing, even as I was sending you guys the email I'm like

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what are we inviting people to do here, what is this all about, how are they, and so I

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think that's one of my theories is the reason that you, you people, you just hit delete

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on that email was because you thought this is just way too confusing, that's my first

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theory, my second theory though is not just that Anglicans are confusing but that culture

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is changing, right, there is, you know, back in the day things like I'm a Presbyterian

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or I'm an Anglican or I'm a Roman Catholic or whatever, those things actually seem to

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matter, right, people were proud and they really look forward to joining a denomination

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but these days people don't care so much about brand loyalty anymore, right, and they don't

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care what brand their church is either, so for example, you remember you used to see

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people walking around with shirts that said this, I'd rather drive a Chevy than push a

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Ford, and then there'd be other group of people who would rock around with shirts like this,

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I'd rather push a Ford than drive a Chevy, it was like I'm a Ford person, that's my

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brand, I'm a Chevy person, that's my brand, I'm Coke, well I'm Pepsi, errr, we hate each

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other, right, or I'm Microsoft or I'm Apple or I'm AirPods and I'm Beats or whatever,

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I'm VHS, I'm Betamax, right, there was like always this like, you know, people were very

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proud of their brands, they stuck by their brands and the brands were very very important

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but that's just not the same anymore, there's like three studies that I read this past week

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and they're saying one study said 57% of Gen Z less loyal to brands now since the pandemic

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began mostly that's because of a shift in the economy, second one said that 33% of everyone

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else are not loyal to brands anymore, that means we're happy to shop around and get whatever,

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wherever, and then the third study says that 77% of Gen Z are now willing to try any brand,

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a new brand, what, whatever, now I don't know if you guys have heard of this but I've seen

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this in my own house, have you guys ever heard of dupes, you guys know what dupes are, no

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we never, so dupes, a dupe is short for duplicate, okay, and a duplicate is a cheaper version

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of an expensive brand name product and it's increasingly popular among young shoppers,

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right, so they give you the experience of having this luxury product but it's a fake,

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it's a knockoff, it's a fake, but people don't care anymore, right, so for example, you can

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get dupes in clothing, you can get dupes in accessories, you can get dupes in electronics,

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so you could go and spend $250 to get the real AirPods but people don't really care

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so much about the brand name these days, as long as it looks the same and as long as it

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works they'll spend $30 instead, in fact these days bragging rights go to the person who's

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got the best dupes, so if you spent $400 on custom Air Force ones you got fleeced man,

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you could have got them for $50 and got deep dupes and nobody would know the difference,

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in fact this Christmas we gave my niece a sweater that she asked for for Christmas and my daughter

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walked over to me and she said, dad, that sweater is $250 and I said, not even close, not even close,

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it was a dupe, it was a fake, right, but the same is true actually when it comes to church loyalty,

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people are not loyal to a certain church or a certain denomination anymore and this article says

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good for them, so the whole I'm Anglican, I'm not Catholic, I'm Methodist, I'm Brethren,

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I'm Presbyterian, it's not so much a thing anymore, those boundaries are all evaporating,

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what people are looking for it seems is just some place where they can identify that kind of fits

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them, where they have community, they can experience this life giving, so here's a quick question,

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how many of you here today, I'm just curious, legitimately curious, grew up in the Anglican

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church, just curious, okay, how many of you did not know that you were actually sitting in an

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Anglican church this morning? Okay, I'm telling you what happened, how many of you know what this is?

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Okay, right, because if you're a die-in-the-wall hardcore Anglican you will know this is the 1959

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book of common prayer, right, so there are some, but I'm telling you, even Trinity even took the

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word Anglican out of our logo and out of our sign some years ago and I think it's because they said

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you know what, people are not coming here for the brand, they're not coming here because I want to

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be an Anglican, they're coming here for something else and I want to let you know though because in

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case the bishop's listening, yes, I think it is very important that we are part of the Anglican

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church, being part of a bigger denomination, I actually, I really do, and I'm honest, I do

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appreciate the accountability, the structure, we're not on our own, we're not on our own,

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that's great, but for most of us it just doesn't matter and so people say that now we're living in

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this different world, it's a post-denominational world, less concerned about those doctrinal

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differences and those doctrinal distinctives, what do Anglicans believe about pre-millennialism,

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are Anglicans post-trib, are they pre-trib, are they mid-trib, most of you are like what is a

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trib, right, exactly, that's my point, the emphasis is now on finding a spirituality,

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not a religious label, and these days people can find all that just actually online, you can listen

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to a great sermon from Atlanta, wonderful worship music from the UK, and be part of a Bible study

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based out of Australia, and you could do that all from the comfort of your own home all at the same

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time, so maybe that is why people like you, like you, are not into membership, being Anglicans,

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and so on and so forth, because we're just disinterested in brands these days, so then

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that doesn't solve my problem though, what do we do then, what do we do, what do we do with all the

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new folks here, what does joining a church even mean, who's in, who's out, and does it matter,

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ah, well it was at this moment I had a flashback, I had a flashback to like three years ago when I

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was sitting in Tyndale University at one of my doctoral courses, and I was listening, trying to

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listen to the professor, Morar Murray-Hays, and it was about four o'clock in the afternoon, I was

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getting very sleepy, I was kind of staring out the window, and I was kind of getting, and then

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Professor Morar Murray-Hays said, I want to talk to you guys about social set theory, and I said,

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this is my cue to go to sleep, this is my cue to take a nap, but then at that moment the Holy Spirit

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slapped me across the face and said, Rob, do not fall asleep at this moment, because this is actually

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going to be really important, and so I stayed awake, and actually it's true, it was really important.

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Here's what I learned that day when I nearly fell asleep, that there are actually a number of ways

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of understanding things like membership, and who's included and who's not included. The first model

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of social set theory is what you might call a bounded set, a bounded set, so don't fall asleep

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right now, some of you guys are falling asleep because this looks like totally boring, but Holy

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Spirit slapped you across the face and keep you awake this morning, okay. A bounded set model says,

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you know you're part of a group because you have clearly crossed some kind of boundary or some kind

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of rule that tells you you are part of the group, so a church might say, you are in because you're

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baptized, you are in because you're confirmed, or you are in because you've taken our membership

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class and you've signed our doctrine of faith statement or whatever, right, you've got these

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specific beliefs, these specific doctrines, the practices, you are in. If you align, if you align

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with the group and you cross the line, then you're included, and if you don't align, then you are

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excluded. Now churches that operate this way really value the idea that you must conform to the norm,

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and as a result, often churches that operate on a bounded set are not very diverse, they don't have

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a lot of inclusion of outsiders. Maybe actually some of you have been part of churches like this

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before or other organizations where it's very clear who is in and who is out and what you had to do

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to get in and out, but Professor Morar Murray Hayes said at about 4 30, there is another way to

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understand who's in and who's out in membership, and another set theory is what they call the

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centered set, a centered set. Now in this model, there is no hard line about who's in and who's

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out. Instead, what matters is the orientation, the orientation and the direction of movement

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of the various members of the group, right, so what it does is it says, are you pointed toward

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the center point? Okay, are you moving in the direction of the center point? Then you're part

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of the group, not because you crossed any line, there's no line to cross, but because you're

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oriented and you're moving in that direction, and so Professor Morar Murray Hayes got me thinking,

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how did Jesus understand membership? I mean, when Jesus created a community around himself, did he

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do it in a bounded set way? There's very clear lines about who's in and who's out, or did he do

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it in a centered set way that people could be part of the group, even if they were all over the place

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and in different places and different distances from the middle? I think it's very safe to say

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that for Jesus, he followed the center set approach. Jesus emphasized a central focus,

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and for Jesus, that central focus was usually the kingdom of God. He said, align yourself

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with the kingdom of God, move in the direction of the kingdom of God, move in this direction of

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love, move in the direction of forgiveness, move in the direction of peace, move in the direction

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of faith, and that makes you part of Jesus's family, right, not some external boundary or rule,

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but because you've turned, and now you were moving in his direction. That's why Jesus was able to

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welcome sinners and outcasts and those marginalized by the society, because he didn't rigidly exclude

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individuals based on their status or their background or their past. Rather, he invited all

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to transform your orientation, to transform the direction of your movement. So face a new direction,

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Jesus would say, move in a new direction. Jesus would invite, follow a new way. This model is

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beautiful because it actually assumes that everybody is somewhere in relation to Jesus.

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Now, I want to get this straight. Jesus also did speak about repentance, and he talked about faith,

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and he talked about obedience, right? There were times when Jesus did talk about these things,

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and that is important, but what mattered most was not your proximity to the middle,

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your proximity to Jesus. What mattered most was your orientation and your direction.

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After all, and we know this, you've probably even seen this in churches. You can have people

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who are very close to the center, but are actually, if you look at their life and what they're doing,

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they're actually moving and pointed in a very different direction. And on the other hand, you

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can have people who are far away from the center, but actually they are pointed toward Jesus and

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moving in his direction. So, so, so what does all this mean? This has got me thinking. What does this

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mean for our church? What does this mean for our church? Well, what is a centered set church look

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like? A centered set church knows that conformity to a set of beliefs or behaviors is less important

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than whether a person is moving towards Jesus. A centered set church, a Jesus centered church,

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is more concerned about your heart, the direction of your affection, rather than your external

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behavior or location. Because center set churches realize that discipleship is a process.

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It's a process moving from where you are to where you are headed. And center set churches

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realize that people come to Jesus from all sorts of different places and all sorts of different

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directions. And this has really got me thinking now about some of those Bible verses that I knew

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off by heart, but now I seem to understand them in a whole different way. Like when that thief on

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the cross says to Jesus, says, Hey, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus says,

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today you will be with me in paradise. Well, how is that possible? This thief, this brigand,

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how is he promised to be in Jesus's a paradisical kingdom when he didn't get baptized and he didn't

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take the membership class? Why? Because what happened in that moment was his heart reoriented

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toward Jesus. And that was all that was mattered. And now he belonged or once a Roman centurion,

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which is like a Roman soldier, right? Who was the enemy came to Jesus because his servant was sick

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and he wanted Jesus to heal the servant. And Jesus was so impressed with his faith that he says,

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I've never seen anybody in all Israel with faith like this. Well, how could that be? He didn't have

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the right religion. He didn't have the right background or pedigree, but now he belonged. Why?

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Because he had oriented his life toward this Jesus. Jesus was now at the center.

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And it's true that there were some disciples who were definitely very close to the middle,

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very close to Jesus. And there was the 12 and then even within the 12, there was the three,

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Peter, James and John were said to be even closer to Jesus, but that didn't necessarily mean

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anything because Judas was also one of the ones who was very close to the center. Yet he was clearly

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pointing and moving in a different direction. In fact, Jesus had lots of people around him. He had

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the three, he had the 12, he had crowds were told women followed him all over the place that he was

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always mixing with different communities of people. There was this constant intersection of people

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coming and going and coming nearer to the center and going further from the center. So I think in

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short, all this boils down for me is this, okay? Jesus invitation was not to convert to a new

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religion or join a new denomination, but to follow him in a new way of life.

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Jesus walks along the seashore. He says, come follow me. And so what do Simon and Andrew do?

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They point their hearts in a new direction. They move their feet one step even in that direction.

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And now they are included, right? Another time he saw this man called Levi. He is a tax collector.

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He's far from God. People detest tax collectors. Come follow me. Jesus says, and he followed him.

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His heart has been oriented. He has begun a journey and now he is included. Or how about our reading

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today? Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up the cross and follow me.

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Whenever the cross, just like in that picture, becomes the center point of your life and you're

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oriented or pointed toward that cross, then you're included. It doesn't matter what you do.

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It doesn't matter whether you're near or far. You're included and salvation has come because of the

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direction and orientation of your life. So belonging to the Jesus movement was not about

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crossing a milestone or taking a course or signing an agreement. It was about walking in a certain,

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this is an important word, way. Word ways important. Listen, when Paul was hunting down

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Christians to persecute them, he didn't call them Christians. He said they were followers of the way.

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People who were moving in a certain way, in a certain Jesusy direction. When Christians caused a riot,

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an ethicist, they weren't called Christians. They were called the way because there was this thing

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that set them apart and that was the direction and trajectory of their lives. Akilah and Priscilla

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described Jesus as the way of God. In Hebrews 10, the writer called Jesus a new and living way.

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And Paul, or Peter rather, refers to Christianity as the way of truth. So again, I want to say this

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again and pay attention. Jesus' invitation was not to convert to a new religion or join a new

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denomination, but it was to follow him in a new way of life. So that got me thinking about how we

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do things here at Trinity and especially when it comes to membership and being an Anglican and all

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that stuff. And I haven't got this quite right, but I want to end by just sharing, I think here's

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where we're going to go from here when it comes to all that stuff. Instead of a bounded set here at

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Trinity, what if we acted as a Jesus centered set? Instead of talking about doctrines and

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distinctives, what if we instead talked about desire and direction? Instead of encouraging

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people to become members, what if we encouraged and helped people become followers? And instead

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of pushing people across some line, what if we just pointed them in the direction of Jesus and

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then gave them a little nudge maybe as well? Well, today I want to introduce kind of this new approach

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that we are going to get rid of the membership language and we're going to talk about the way

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of Jesus at Trinity. Are we still Anglican? Yes. Is the bishop still coming on February 11th? Yes,

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please be here. Are we still going to do things like baptism and confirmation? Yes, but we are

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changing our approach. For those of you who are new to Trinity, whether it's you've been here a

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month or you've been here two years, we don't want to invite you to become members. And we aren't

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going to force you to become Anglicans. Instead, we want to invite you to do three things. We want

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to invite you to follow the way, to practice the way and live the way. So following the way of

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Jesus, just like Jesus invited people to follow him, we want to invite you to follow him. And just

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like Jesus offered people a way of life, we want to invite you to follow the way of Jesus with us

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here at Trinity streets. But whether you are really close to Jesus or whether you're really far, and

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this is a brand new idea, you are invited to follow. Whether you're a church person or not a

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church person, you're invited to follow. And for us here at Trinity, we've already kind of figured

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out what following Jesus looks like. For us, it means loving Jesus, spending time with Jesus,

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maybe developing a relationship with him. That's how we follow. It means learning from Jesus,

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which is about studying the scriptures, maybe on our own, but maybe also in groups. It's about

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living like Jesus. It's about modeling our spiritual life after Jesus own spiritual life.

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And it's about leading others to Jesus, which means sharing the love of God with others in your

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everyday life. So if you're here and if you're new, if you're from another church and you're used to

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things like membership classes, instead, we just want to invite you. Let's follow the way of Jesus

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together by loving him, learning from him, living like him and leading others to him. Or

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or like I said, maybe you've got no church background and you just want to turn your heart

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in this direction. Then we want you to follow with us too. There's no dividing line. It's my hope that

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actually every few months we're going to be inviting people up onto this platform, onto the stage and

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welcoming them, not into membership, welcoming them, not into Anglicanism, but welcoming people

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who have said, yes, I want to orient my life in the way of Jesus and follow him with you here at

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Trinity. So I want to share just a couple of dates with you, a couple of dates with you.

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In the last two years, if you're new, we want to invite you to discover more about how to follow

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Jesus. We're going to have a little class we're going to run on February 7th at 7 p.m. where you

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can discover more about the way of Jesus, loving Jesus, learning from him, living like him and

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leading others to him. And then on February 18th, we're going to have our very first, hopefully the

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first of many, many celebrations where we welcome those who are joining the way of Jesus with us

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here at Trinity. And especially because it's the first time we're doing it, we want to invite those

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again who are new to Trinity in the last couple years. You can register for both these events on

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our event page. And I want to say you don't need to attend the discovery workshop in order to

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participate in the celebration on February 18th. But we would like you to register for the 18th for

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sure. And I would recommend coming out on the 7th if you can to learn more and talk more about

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following the way of Jesus here at Trinity. That's the first thing. The second thing I wanted to say

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is that we're also going to be kicking off in 2024. The first of our classes that we're going to be

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calling practicing the way of Jesus. Just so you know, a spiritual practice is some kind of exercise,

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a spiritual exercise that forms our thoughts and our actions in the way of Jesus. Some examples of

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spiritual practices, things like Sabbath and prayer and reading scripture and fasting and solitude

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and all that kind of stuff. We want to throughout the years ahead really drill down deep onto some

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of these practices because we want to live like Jesus. And Jesus did these kind of things. So on

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that note, we're going to be holding our first four week course on our first practice happening

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this lent. It's going to be beginning on February 21st and running to March 13th. And it's going to

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be a beautiful four week course on the topic of Sabbath in our era of chronic exhaustion and

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emotional unhealth and spiritual stagnation. Few things are more necessary than a recovery of this

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ancient practice of Sabbath. So you can also register for that on our events page. You're going

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to hear more about that in the weeks ahead. And finally, I'm not going to say too much about this

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now, but coming in the spring and the summer of 2024, we are going to create an intentional

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community here at Trinity where people who feel called to live this way of Jesus with the support

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of others, with two or three others who can pray with you and encourage you. There's going to be

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this exciting partnership that we're going to be talking about in the weeks ahead. I won't say more

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about it now, but we're, if you put them all together, what do you got? We're going to talk

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about following the way of Jesus, practicing the way of Jesus and living the way of Jesus.

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It's all a new way of doing things for a new year at Trinity. So I'm going to take a chance this week.

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I'm going to send out a new email and I'm going to invite you in 2024, especially those of you who

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are here new in the last two years to follow the way with us, practice the way with us and to live

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the way of Jesus with us here at Trinity, whoever you are, wherever you are, you're invited and you're

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included as we orient our lives around this amazing Jesus and we move in his direction.

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Thanks be to God. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us today and we hope that whether you

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are far or near to Jesus, that you find yourself encouraged to orient and direct yourself toward

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Jesus to be the center of your life. Happy New Year's everyone and we'll see you in 2024.

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Today's sermon was taken from the December 31st, 2023 sermon at Trinity Church Streetsville in

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Mississauga, Ontario.