face challenges and attacks.
But thanks be to God who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ if we will but claim it.
In the interest of claiming victory,
it's important to be transparent with you
and I need to share with you something
that happened in my childhood
that I've never told publicly before.
When I was 11 years of age, I was invited to go out hunting
with a pastor, a friend of mine, and another person.
And we were quail hunting and as we were out
in the pasture hunting the quail, the quail flushed
and I turned and I shot and I peppered my pastor
with bird shot.
Now that's been 49 years ago, but I felt I needed
to be honest with you about it unless it be found out
and I be called a task in the press.
And so now it's all out in the open
and I feel so much better about it.
Thank you.
Well let's turn on our Bible's please
to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and by the way
that was a true story.
1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse four.
Where Paul says there are different kinds of gifts
but the same spirit.
There are different kinds of service but the same Lord.
There are different kinds of working
but the same God works all of them in all men.
Want you to notice the emphasis here
upon different and same, different and same,
different and same.
Don't you love those advertisements
that say one size fits all.
I have asked myself why is it that I am usually not
among the all in the advertisement.
Just as people come in different shapes and sizes
and personalities, so do churches.
There are differences among us
but we have the same Lord who oversees us.
Churches are made up of people.
Churches like Los Gatos Christian Church
are people who share a common profession
and that profession is that Jesus Christ is Lord
and that he is worthy of our devotion.
We call ourselves Jesus followers.
That is not a one time experience of following Jesus
but rather it is a lifetime journey
that leads us to spiritual maturity and fruitfulness.
It is a journey that leads eventually to heaven.
We are on a journey as a body of people and as individuals.
Unfortunately there is something else
that churches like ours share in common
especially here in the Western culture
and that is a state of stagnation
and decline really that threatens our future.
One survey says that nine out of 10 churches in America
is either in decline or plateaued.
That is true in the face of a prediction
by one church growth expert who says
that our culture is moving to large things
and he says that that has implication for churches.
For example, we go to church churches
and we go to church churches
and that has implication for churches.
For example, we go to large malls, large stores.
We're looking for larger things in our culture
at the same time that many churches
are moving in the opposite direction.
This expert says that the future of the church
in the Western culture is going to be found
in what he calls mega, mega churches.
That is churches of tens of thousands of people.
Well, maybe he's right, the future will tell.
But at the same time that that person
is predicting that kind of future,
there's another reality that is present in our culture
and that is a significant movement of professing Christians
towards alternative kinds of churches, of house churches
or what they call cyber churches.
As a matter of fact, one George Barnas
whose name is I was trying to think of,
George Barnas says that 70% of believers in America today
choose to express their faith
in a traditional local church like ours.
But he predicts in light of the trends
that are taking place away from the traditional,
institutional, program-oriented church,
by the year 2025, only 30% of professing Christians
will express their faith in a local church like ours.
Ideas like this and projections like this
threaten the future of churches
like Los Gatos Christian Church.
So what does the future look like for us?
Should we intentionally try to become a mega, mega church?
Or should we adopt the model of some church
in Southern California or maybe in Chicago, Illinois
or in some other city of our nation
and say let's imitate them,
let's become just like they are
and we too will grow maybe.
To me the real issue is in neither one of these directions.
The issue that we face is what kind of a church
does Jesus call us to be?
The bottom line is not whether we're big,
as some count big, or whether we're small.
The bottom line is not whether we use this form
or that form, but the bottom line is
being spiritually alive and healthy as the people of God.
And as a result of being healthy,
taking on the size and the form that pleases our Lord.
Survival in the future for the church of America
is not found in imitating another ministry.
It is not about finding some quick fix
for issues that we may be facing.
We're not in a reality game show
that can be solved in a few easy moves
or in 60 minutes of time or a season of broadcasting.
We're in a reality that goes from generation to generation.
Can a church that is in decline
or a church that is stagnant reverse its reality
and grow healthy and grow in size again?
I believe this, that survival is about the long-term,
fruitful, healthy future of our church.
That's what survival is about.
It's not about a quick fix,
it's about the long-term, healthy,
fruitful survival of our church.
And it involves a number of different things.
Number one, it involves re-envisioning ministry.
Someone has said that the church
is the only social group in existence
that exists for the sake of its non-members.
But too easily do our ministries
begin to be focused inward
and revolve around ourselves.
A church that allows that to happen
is a church that will inevitably stagnate and plateau
because it's unhealthy.
By design, a church exists for the sake of those
who are not a part of its membership.
We exist to reach out.
And so for a church to have a long-term,
healthy, and fruitful future,
ministries have to be re-envisioned
from time to time.
A new vision so that the arrows begin to point outward
rather than inward toward ourselves.
Secondly, a church that is going to have a long-term,
healthy, fruitful ministry,
must re-engage with lost people.
There is a tendency in churches to grow inward
and closed as social units,
and for believers to fellowship with each other,
which we ought to do,
but in the process of that,
to lose contact with the lost world around us.
Our social contact, our friendships, et cetera,
focus on one another.
When that happens, a church will inevitably plateau.
In order for a church to have a long-term future,
it must re-engage with lost people.
Third, our church in particular,
but all churches for that matter,
need to reinvest in their campus.
A church's facility naturally ages over time,
just like we do.
And if it is well used, as ours is well used,
then it is going to slowly deteriorate.
And so as congregations,
we need to reinvest in our facilities
that God has given us,
in order for them to be both practical and beautiful
in order to attract the community
and meet the needs of ministry.
A church that has a long-term,
healthy and fruitful future
must also reconnect with one another.
In other words, the infrastructure of the church
that provides for relationships
has to be solid in place
so that when people come in to that church,
they have a place to connect,
a place where they fit, a place where they belong.
If that doesn't happen intentionally,
a church will grow downward to the size
where everybody is connected.
If we don't intentionally plan for ways
to people to connect as we grow,
then the opposite will happen.
And so to have a growing, healthy, fruitful future,
we need to be involved with reconnecting with one another
and assimilating new people that come into our church
so that they simply don't come in and visit and say,
well, I can't find anybody here who is interested in me.
I don't see a place where I fit.
I'll try the church down the road.
And finally, to have a long-term, fruitful,
healthy future, a church must renew
its passion to Jesus personally.
There must be a passionate commitment to Jesus.
We must not become like the church in Ephesus
that was doing lots of good things
but had lost its passion for Jesus himself.
You say, is it possible?
Is it possible for a church to survive
from generation to generation?
Is it possible for a church to have a future
that is fruitful and healthy and long-term?
Is it possible for a church that is in decline
or in plateau to reverse its course?
Statistically speaking, it's very difficult
because three out of four attempts at this fail
for one reason or another.
But we're asking the question, is it possible?
And the answer to that is, it can happen.
And it must.
It must happen.
It must happen here at Las Gatos Christian Church.
What is it going to take?
How can we avoid being among the statistics
of that three force who may see the need to turn around
but can't pull it off?
How can we be in what is currently the minority of churches
that are plateaued or in decline
and see ourselves healthy and fruitful
and growing again long-term?
How can that happen?
Well, let me recap some of what I've already said.
It can happen, first of all, by our repenting
of the toxic values that arise from our culture.
We live in a dangerous world spiritually.
There are toxins in our culture that leak through
into our lives and our experience.
We need to repent of the poison of thinking about church
like a consumer, where we think the church exists
to meet my needs.
We need to repent of the noxious waste of expecting
to be entertained when we come to church.
Where we come because we want to have fun
and go away feeling good.
We need to repent of the contamination of seeing life
in separated cubicles as though we lived in compartments
and what we do on Sunday doesn't affect what we do
on Monday through Friday.
But rather we see life as a whole under the Lordship
of Christ.
We need to repent of the deadly virus of loving things
more than God.
In this culture, there is such a terrible
pressure to become the servant of the things that we own.
In order to get more, in order to maintain what we have
in our toys, we have to work harder.
We have to invest in doing this and that.
Things that may be good in themselves,
but which take away our focus from God.
We need a toxic cleanup through repentance.
Secondly, we need to transform our attitudes about church
and our participation in the life of the church.
The questions that are so common today among people,
well, why should I join?
Or why do I need the church?
Those kinds of questions are not the same.
Those kinds of questions need to be faced and answered.
The fact is that we all need to be part of the life of the
church in order to grow up.
We need the benefit of interaction with and interdependence
with other people.
God has made us that way.
Made us to belong, not to be peripheral in the church.
When you and I are involved in the church,
when you and I are a part of the life of a church,
it brings a certain spiritual protection to our lives.
We need that.
And so in our culture, as we hear all of these ideas about
the church and why it's unnecessary and why it's irrelevant,
we need to transform our own attitudes,
our own participation to be in the life of God's people.
Having said that, we also need to be open to change.
From the institutional, program-centered ministry of our past
to a relational model of ministry that is a part of the future.
People are looking for relationships, not programs.
We need to write that into our hearts and our minds.
Thirdly, we need to lower the age of Los Gatos Christian Church.
We talked about this very specifically one Sunday.
We must do what is necessary to intentionally welcome young
singles and family members.
We must do what is necessary to intentionally welcome young
singles and families into our church.
We need to offer the kinds of ministries that will help them
in their very real challenges in our world.
We need to listen to their heartbeat.
We need to encourage them.
And as we do this intentionally, we can lower the age of our church
from where it's at.
Fourth, we need to do our part to make our campus
an attractive and practical place once again.
How can we do that?
Well, those of us who are here this morning can treat it with respect.
We can pick up after ourselves, for example.
We can make less work for janitors.
We can treat the building, the facility itself, with respect.
In addition to that, however, we need to do something about
the appearance of our church.
We have started that in a variety of places, and thank God
for what has taken place.
But right now we have a group called the Building Renovation
Team, or committee, which is working on a plan,
a master plan for the renovation of our whole facility.
It's something that will require probably a lot of work
and will require probably several phases to accomplish.
But this is our task.
If we're going to have a long-term, fruitful and healthy ministry
here at our church, we need to understand our responsibility
to reinvest in the campus that has ministered to us and to our families
and seek with God's help to make it attractive and practical
for ministry to our community.
And I invite you to pray for this team of people.
I invite you to pray regarding a financial campaign
that will be necessary probably in the fall as we get started
on the first phase of whatever this plan is going to be.
In the meantime, we can volunteer to help with intermediate
projects that will improve the attractiveness and the efficiency
of our campus. After the first message when I talked about this
a few weeks ago, one of our life communities stepped forward
and said, tell us what we can do as a project, as a group of people
in our church before Easter, something that we can come and do
in a day to make a difference on this campus.
Fabulous! That's great, wonderful response.
And we need more of that.
If we want to have a long-term, fruitful, healthy ministry as a church
this is part of it.
And then finally let me say that if we want that kind of a ministry
in the future, if we want to see a turnaround, then we must become
vitally connected ourselves on three levels.
The worship connection, the fellowship connection, and the growth connection.
These are the three kinds of connections that we've talked about
just a couple of weeks ago.
I urge you to find your place in one of the life communities of our church.
One of the mid-sized groups of our church where you can enter into
relationship with others that will increase your sense of connectedness here.
Now I'm talking to some people who are already vitally connected.
Thank God for you.
But there are others of you that are not.
And you come on Sunday morning only.
I urge you, I urge you in the name of the Lord
to find a life community where you can invest yourself.
You can become a part and use God's gifts to you to minister to others
as they in turn minister to you.
I urge you also to become a part of a small group.
Currently we have more than 300 people in our church
who are participants in some kind of a small group doing biblical studies.
It's in the small group that spiritual growth really takes root.
And you can sign up even today for a small group.
A group of maybe two or three others or a group of seven or eight or ten others
who will meet on a regular basis to study the Word of God
and to encourage each other.
You can sign up today out of the lower foyer.
If you're not a part of that kind of ministry, I urge you to do it.
If we want to have a future as a ministry, as a church,
it's absolutely vital that we become connected on all of these levels.
God will bless that.
But now I want to shift from what I have said
to what I want to really focus on as I close this message.
And that is going to the core of things.
Because here is a reality, folks.
We can do all of the things I just talked about.
We can do all of those things that I just said and still fail to survive.
I believe all of those things are absolutely vital to us
or I wouldn't have talked about them.
But we can do all of those things and still fail to survive.
You see, we Americans are very keen at putting into place strategies
and plans and visions and action steps.
And I'm not knocking those things.
Those are part of it.
But it takes something more than that.
It's not about our strategies and action plans.
It's not about that.
It's about seeking the face of God.
You see, at the core, what is needed in any church
that is going to turn around is the manifest presence of God.
It is God moving into that congregation
and doing a new work in our hearts.
This is what is absolutely critical.
Now there is one sense, of course, in which God is omnipresent.
That's one of his attributes, is God, that he's everywhere present.
He's present here this morning,
but he's present everywhere in the world this morning too.
He's God.
What we are talking about here is what might be called the manifest presence of God.
It is a way in which God demonstrates His holy presence by powerfully working in our hearts.
God has done this in some very spectacular ways in the past.
You remember the stories out of the Pentateuch,
of the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire?
The one that was in the Bible,
the one that was in the Bible,
the one that was in the Pentateuch, of the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire,
in which God manifested His presence to His people by that physical symbol.
And it created in them this sense of awe
and reverence and fear of God.
Do you remember when the temple was dedicated in Solomon's day?
When the shekinah of God appeared?
They had this amazing ceremony that lasted days of time.
Thousands of animals were sacrificed.
This structure that was one of the marvels of the world was dedicated to God.
And then King Solomon prayed.
And God appeared to him.
Now God had appeared in his glory on the first day of that dedication.
He had caused fire to come out of heaven and lick up the sacrifice.
And then the whole building was filled with this amazing shekinah,
this cloud as it were, this sparkling effervescence that was visible.
That was the presence of God there.
And God appeared to Solomon and he said,
Solomon, if my people in the future depart from me,
and if I send upon them the judgments that I've threatened that I would,
I want you to know that there's a way back.
There's a turnaround.
I want you to know that I will hear their prayers if they do certain things.
What we need today, folks, is the medical care.
I'm not talking about this place being filled with that visible effervescence of God.
I've only heard about that happening once in my generation.
I heard about one pastor in Southern California
who was seeking the face of the Lord.
I heard about one pastor in Southern California who was seeking the face of God.
And he went into his auditorium one time during the week all by himself.
And in this auditorium there appeared this amazing manifestation of God being right there with him.
I can almost hear some Americans say, oh, cool, man, cool. I'd love to see that.
Let me tell you something.
If you saw that, you would do the same thing he did. He fell down on his face.
And he couldn't move.
Because he knew he was in the presence of the Holy God.
You see, God's manifest presence doesn't have to be visible. It can be.
But when God manifests Himself in the way that I'm thinking about,
it's always with a keen awareness of His holiness.
When God makes Himself known in this way, it creates a sense of our own humaneness and our sinfulness.
And the response inevitably, whenever this happens in scripture,
is fear and people falling on their faces and they're crying out to God for mercy and for forgiveness.
And then comes the supernatural blessing of God.
In 2 Chronicles chapter 7, we have this text that I was talking about earlier with Solomon.
God says to him, when I shut up the heavens so that there's no rain or command locusts to devour the land
or send a plague upon my people, God says, if then my people who are called by my name
will read this with me, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways,
then will I hear from heaven and will forgive them and will forgive them.
And I will be called by my name, and I will be called by my name.
I'll show you some of these tales. Then will I hear from heaven
and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
I understand the context of this verse. I understand it as a promise given to Solomon
for the people of God in the old covenant. I understand that.
But I believe that God is laying down a principle here.
reverse ourselves. A pathway for a fresh and new working of God in our midst. And I believe
that still today, if the people who are called by God's name, who say they're the followers
of Jesus Christ, that if we will humble ourselves, and if we will pray, and if we will seek
His face and then turn from our wicked ways, God will manifest Himself in a fresh and powerful
and new way, and we will experience the blessing of God like we have never known it. What we
need is to seek the face of God. That's the part of the verse I want to emphasize before
our close. That we be a people who seek the face of God. That we desire intimacy with
Jesus above all else. That we be eager to sit at His feet and worship Him before doing
His work. His work must be done. It needs to be done. But that we first sit at His feet.
That we seek His face. Survival, as I'm defining it, is about the long term, fruitful, healthy
future of our church. I'm not talking about a survival that's a quick fix. I'm not talking
about a survival that happens in 60 minutes of time. I'm not talking about a survival
that comes because of five easy things we can do. I'm talking about survival that is
a long term, fruitful, and healthy future for our church. That kind of survival can happen.
It can happen. And not only can it happen, folks, it must happen. We must hunger for this.
We must desire it so that we are willing to make some affirmations together. The affirmations
I'm thinking of are threefold this morning. The first one is simply this. We will seek
God's face. What I mean by that is that we will direct our thoughts in such a way so
that Jesus is the one constant that is there. Lots of things move into and out of our lives
and ideas and thoughts. But what we want is to have one central focus that stabilizes
everything else, and that is that we are seeking the face of God. Will you say with me this
morning that statement? We will seek the face of God. Let's say it again. We will seek
the face of God. The second affirmation follows on it. It is this. With God, we can. Can we
turn around? Can we survive? Can we see a long term future for this church that is healthy
and fruitful? With God, we can. Say that with me. With God, we can. Again, with God, we
can. That is an affirmation for our future together. And then there is one third affirmation.
One third affirmation that is critical. Whatever it takes for Christ and His church, say that
with me. Whatever it takes for Christ and His church, Jesus Christ was the atoning sacrifice
for our sins. He calls you and me now to be living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to
God, which is our spiritual act of worship. What this statement says is, Lord, I am a
living sacrifice and whatever it takes of me, I am willing to give it for you and for
your church. I am willing to say, Lord, whatever it takes, then do it. Do it in me, through
me, from me, whatever it takes, Lord, for you and for your church. Let's say it again.
Whatever it takes for Christ and His church, you see, it is those affirmations that will
provide the intention and the urgency about this. Sometimes I think that we imagine things
are just going to work out okay. Whether we are very intentional or urgent about it or
not, that somebody is going to rise to the occasion, somebody is going to take care of
it. Folks, is there a long-term future for this church? The choice is yours and mine.
It's not somebody else. It's how I choose, how you personally choose to respond to what
God has said to us during these weeks. Is there that future for us? Is there that turnaround?
Are we going to be among that minority that actually, by the grace of God, pull it off
with God we can? It depends upon the choices that you and I make. How we will follow through
with what God has spoken to our hearts in these days. I invite you to bow with me in
prayer. If you are a part of this church, I'd ask you to do something. I'm going to
ask you to look in your own hearts and ask yourself, am I willing to make these affirmations
and live them out? Is this something that I will do? Am I willing to speak the face
of God? Am I willing to say, by faith with God we can? Am I willing to be a living sacrifice
and say, Lord, whatever it takes, whatever it takes for Christ in this church, it's yours.
If that's something that you feel impressed by God to say, that's me, that's where I'm
at. I'm willing to put it on the line. I'm going to be part of the solution, not part
of the problem. Those affirmations, I'm asking God to write into my heart. I will seek Him.
I will live by faith and say with God we can do this. I will say whatever it takes for
Jesus, for a church. If you're willing to make that kind of commitment as a part of
this church, would you simply and quietly just stand to your feet right now? And don't
do it because somebody else is doing it, but do it because you sense God writing that on
your heart. Oh God bless you. Thank you for responding to God. Father, we stand on our
feet right now with intention. We do it with a little bit of fear because we know that
if we truly speak your face you're going to show up. And it's going to change us and
it's going to cause us to give up some things and add other things to our lives. It's going
to humble us. But God, we're going to speak your face. Lord, we're going to have a positive
attitude. We're going to believe you. We're going to say that with God all things are
possible. Lord, we are willing to say whatever it takes from us. Terms of service, in terms
of time, in terms of money, in terms of effort, in terms of goodwill, in terms of cooperation,
whatever it takes, Lord. We're on our feet because we want to give that. Because we believe,
we believe that you have called us to this. And we urgently and intensely hunger for you
and for a future to your work in this congregation. Until we give ourselves and we sing this final
song of dedication to you, even as a prayer from our hearts. Now let's all stand together
and sing. Let's give it a name.