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“The Word of God for the people of God.”  Is it possible that these words I have announced every week for the past 8 years have grown so familiar that they have lost their effect?  Could it be that there are times when the Word of God somehow misses the people of God?  I want us to do something a little different today.  Instead of merely hearing the Word of God, I invite you to experience it.  In our Home Small Groups, of which I am a huge fan, we have a weekly exercise entitled, “Experiencing the Word Of God.”  The way it works is that we clear our laps of all encumbrances: no books, purses, notebooks, pens or worship guides.  We take a deep cleansing breath and prepare ourselves to hear the scripture as if it were the very first time we ever heard it.  I have asked Ed Kane, our resident musician, to assist me in this effort.  Today’s scripture is brief, only three verses in Matthew 4.  I invite you not only to hear it, but to experience it.  Go to the lakeshore where Jesus will find two fishermen and feel the breeze, hear the gentle waves, see the net, the boat and the water, listen for his voice.  Experience the Word of God.

18As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen.

19And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people.”

20Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

The Word of God for the people of God.  Thanks be to God. 

Did you experience it?  Did you feel the breeze, see the fishermen, hear the call?  If you did, perhaps you caught the preposterous proposition of this passage.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, chooses two fishermen to be his first followers.  This violated the social protocol on two counts.  First, students took the initiative to sit under rabbis.  A highly regarded professor across the street does not invite students - they seek the professor out.  Second, rabbis would screen their students for aptitude.  I have a friend who is a gymnastics coach.  He is very good at what he does.  So good, in fact, that he screens the gymnasts that he will coach.  Jesus seems to see a couple of guys fishing and recruits them for a task that I would call, “Fishin’ Impossible.”  How are these guys going to be the key to the kingdom of God?  However, if God could use them, maybe he could use me, use us.

Do you remember that show and the movies, “Mission Impossible”?  Agents of IMF (Impossible Mission Force) were recruited by a reel-to-reel tape player in the old days to do impossible missions.  The recruitment message would always begin, “Good morning, Jim.  Your mission should you chose to accept it is…” This morning I want us to consider the mission of A&M United Methodist Church, which is founded in the scripture that you have experienced today.

Good morning church, your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to invite and equip followers of Jesus Christ.  Allow me to take the time to explain the mission to you by addressing the typical questions of what, why and how.

What exactly is the mission of this church? 

It is found in two verbs. Invite and equip.

Invite.  Jesus began this mission with a simple invitation, “Follow me.” Sometimes we can make church work so complicated.  Sometimes we can make the Christian life so chaotic.  For Jesus, it all began with two simple words, “Follow Me”.

The new merchants in our neighborhood here by the church have learned the power of invitation.  They too have used only two words, “Free food.”  Two weeks ago the manager of Potbelly’s came by right after church to the few of us that were still standing around and said, “We are training our staff today and everything is free if you want to stop by.”  Can you guess how long it took the preachers to make our way to free food?  I’m only glad that no one got hurt.  Later that week Starbucks opened and word got to us that free coffee was being offered on that Wednesday night.  I am almost ashamed to admit that I was on the other side of town that afternoon and drove back to the church at 5:00 for free food.  It was a simple invitation, but quite effective.

I hope you realize that we have something in here far more valuable than our neighboring merchants have.  They had free food.  We have Jesus Christ, who invites us to invite others to follow him.

Equip.  The second part of the “what” of our mission is to equip.  Jesus promised the fishermen that he would show them how to catch people.  Howard Vos, a professor at King’s College in New York noted in his commentary on Matthew, “They had caught fish and had brought them to shore for human use, now by means of the gospel net, they were to bring men to Christ for his use.”  The thing I noticed is the commitment of Christ to show them how to do this or to transform them from fishermen to fishers of men and women.

When I was in seminary I had many mentors who told me how to do things: how to preach, how to teach, how to listen, how to diagram sentences in Greek, etc.  However, the most memorable mentor I had in those days was not Dr. anyone, but rather Jim.  Jim was my shop foreman at R-O Manufacturing, where I worked afternoons for four years during seminary.  While I actually knew a little about preaching, teaching, counseling and diagramming sentences, I knew absolutely nothing about running a Horizontal Press Brake, Sheet Metal Notchers, Hydraulic Shears, Spot Welding Machines or Angle Grinders.  Within four years, I became quite adept at using all of these tools.  In fact, I took some pride in my ability to grind a weld so smooth that one could not tell which end of a box or bracket was bent and which end was welded.  Jim taught me everything I know.  He had a method of teaching that put all my professors to shame.  First, he did it as I watched.  The he told me what he did and how he did it.  Then he did it again.  Then he encouraged me to do it.  He would correct my mistakes and take credit for my accomplishments.  Well, he wasn’t perfect – but he was a great mentor.

Jesus seemed to take the same approach when teaching fishermen how to fish for people.  He showed them kindness and compassion.  He told them about the vital importance of love.  He showed them again and then told them to do it.

Invite and equip.  These are the “what” of the mission of the church.  Good morning church, your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to invite and equip followers of Jesus Christ. 
 

The “why” of the mission of this church is found in two statements

First, we are not doing so well on our own.  Why are we being challenged to invite and equip followers of Jesus Christ?  People need him.  Without Christ we lose a sense of God’s grace and concern for others.  We become self-centered, calloused, closed.  We hate other people because they were not born in the same place as us; we blame other people for our shortcomings because we cannot face that much shame on our own.  The brothers by the sea saw something in Jesus that their lives needed.  So they dropped their net and followed him.  I hope you had the chance while the music was playing and the scripture was being read to see him there by the water’s edge.  I hope you heard his invitation.  You might not be doing so well on your own, but there is one that has the power and desire to make a profound difference.  Follow him. Why?  Because we don’t do so well on our own.

The second reason why we should invite and equip followers of Jesus Christ is that God invested everything in this plan.  The Son of God became like us so that we could become like him.  He did for us what we could not do for ourselves.  Bill Hybels described this last week as Substitutionary Atonement.  He announced that this is the church’s central message about which we must be quite clear.  Christ died for us and Christ lives for us. 

Wednesday night the girls of our Youth Group went to U-Paint-It to make ceramic crosses for the youth area in the new Christian Life Center.  One of the crosses had the words, “John 3:16” painted on it.  One of the customers in the store asked my daughter, Chelsea, “John 3:16, what’s that?”  Chelsea laughed thinking that the person was joking.  The person did not laugh back.  She said, “Well, I don’t really know that much about the Bible.  What verse is that?”

Chelsea told me she felt terrible about this and then began quoting the verse for the woman.  A little ways into the verse, the woman acknowledged, “Yes, I now I know it, ‘For God so loved the world that he sent his only forgotten Son.”  Funny at first, but not so funny when I think of what it costs God to carry out this plan.  It must be important.

Good morning church, your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to invite and equip followers of Jesus Christ.       

What? Invite and equip.  Why? Because people don’t do so well on their own and because God invested everything in this plan.


The “how” of the mission of this church is found in our 6 I’s

Invest in lives through authentic relationships.  You are an ambassador of Christ and this church wherever you go.  Last week I shared with you the painful sting of the church being accused of indifference toward human suffering and being judgmental toward the symptoms of brokenness.  I hope that you have been considering ways in which you can invest in the lives of others through authentic relationships.

Invite others to hear your faith story and experience your faith community.  Jesus could have just talked to Simon and Andrew about their day and their catch.  He could have asked them, “Do you think it’s going to rain?” and other superficial questions, but he took the next step and invited them to follow him.  Why are you following him? Last Sunday night I asked the leaders of this church at Church Council to write on a piece of paper their experience of life without Christ and then to flip the page over and write in one to five words about life with Christ.  Hears what some of them wrote:

What an amazing testimony to the reason that we invite others.  You have a faith story to share with others.  Invite them to hear it and to experience your faith community.

Include in worship all those who come to A&M United Methodist Church.  Worship puts us in touch with God who cares deeply for us.  I hope that you have already sensed God’s presence in this place and God’s interest in your life.  Don’t try to follow Jesus without corporate worship.  It just doesn’t work.  Even though every church has some cracks in it, some flaws in our ministries and our personalities, God still shows up in some special ways when we worship together.

Involve in small groups those who seek to grow in Christ.  As inspiring as a worship service can be, you still spend about an hour looking at the backs of people’s heads and being quiet.  If you do take the initiative to communicate with someone by writing notes on the bulletin, your neighbors cast disparaging glares your way.  No, you’ll really need to sit in a group where you can see everyone’s face and exchange ideas, share concerns and join in efforts to act on your faith.

Implement Spiritual and Financial Gifts for the benefit of the Kingdom of God.  I think many of you have picked up on the fact that I was surprised by how affected I was by Bono’s session last weekend at the Leadership Summit sponsored by Willow Creek Association.  I just never expected an international rock star to be so spiritual.  He talked about the absurdity of celebrity status and confessed, “Why should I be more important to anyone than a school teacher, a fireman, a nurse?  It’s crazy the way people treat celebrities, absolutely nuts.”  Then he paused and said, “I realize though that this is the way it is.  I can’t change that, but I can use it.  My status as a celebrity,” he said, “has afforded me opportunities to gain an audience with world leaders and people of wealth.  It is currency that I have and I can choose to use it for something good (such as the World’s AIDS crisis) or waste it.”  What if each of us used our currency of time, talent and treasures for good, for God?

Invest in lives through authentic relationships.  The sixth ‘I’ is the same as the first.  The “how” of our mission is that those in whom someone invested through an authentic relationship will complete the circle and invest in the life of someone else through an authentic relationship and invite someone else to hear their faith story and experience their faith community.  This is the “how” of our mission – the six I’s.

Good morning church, your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to invite and equip followers of Jesus Christ.

What? Invite and equip.  Why? Because people don’t do so well on their own and because God invested everything in this plan.  How? The Six I’s.

 It can be a lot to think about - this mission of the church. I have watched throughout the summer as people trip over this new mission statement, vision statement, core values, core beliefs, strategy, structure and goals.  It can become quite foreign, so let me take you back to our beginning.  Can you see him there by the lakeshore?  There is more love in that one glance than you may have felt in your entire life.  There is more acceptance in those first two words, “Follow me”, than you may have experienced to date.  Follow him and let him show you how to fish for people.

 Good morning church, your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to invite and equip followers of Jesus Christ. And I pray that this message will never self-destruct.  Amen.