When John the Baptist –
during a discouraging time while he was in prison – sent a message to Jesus
asking, “Are you the one who was to come,
or should we expect someone else?”, here is the message that Jesus sent
back to John:
“Go back and report to John what you hear and
see: The blind receive sight, the lame
walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and
the good news is preached to the poor…”
The proof of Jesus’ messiahship was actual changed
lives!
This is quite different
from the annual reports of many churches today.
I compiled those annual reports for over forty years. Sometimes I had to be creative to try to show
that we’d made any impact at all on our community.
[They often sounded
something like this:]
We averaged
78 in Morning Worship which was a slight increase over last year. We had an average attendance of 39 in Sunday
School. We had a weekly prayer meeting
that was attended by 7-12 people. We
held a Vacation Bible School for a week in the summer with 25 children
attending. We published a monthly
newsletter and mailed it to our constituency.
We had several men’s gatherings. We
participated in the community Thanksgiving service. We took our turn serving the community food
bank twice during the year. We had one
conversion, no new members and no baptisms.
Do you hear the difference
between that report and the one Jesus sent to John?
How can we make the kind
of difference that Jesus made? After
all, we ARE His representatives – as though He was making His appeal through
us! (II Corinthians 5:20)
I mentioned that this
wake-up call changed the way I led the church.
I was determined to challenge the church to be relevant and to make a
difference in our community. By God’s
grace – and with His help – I believe we made some significant strides in that
direction!
We must believe that we
are here for a purpose! We are in the
precise location where He can use us for His purposes. We must also understand that our impact will
sometimes be united and sometimes individual.
Listen to Luke’s report
from Acts 9:36-43,
In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek
her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. About
that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an
upstairs room. Lydda was near Joppa; so when the
disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged
him, “Please come at once!”
Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken
upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him
the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with
them.
Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down
on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get
up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He
took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the
believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the
Lord…
Now the first thing we
notice is that Tabitha had a ministry all her own! She made clothes for the poor! This wasn’t apparently a ministry of her
church. She simply had a gift of sewing
and dedicated it to the Lord! She came
up with this idea on her own – possibly under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit!
We also notice that Peter
was clearly moved by Tabitha’s death.
But he didn’t join the mourners, he spoke to her and raised her up to
added years of service! Peter exercised
the apostolic gifts that God had bestowed on him. Like His Master, Jesus, Peter spoke with
authority and Tabitha came back to life!
And finally we
notice that the community was impacted! This became known all
over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord…
Because this incident is
recorded for us in the book of Acts, it is clearly a picture of what Christ
expects of His people and His church!
It seems to me that a much
larger portion of our time and energy should be directed toward those around us
who are facing trials, challenges, fears, need, desperation and despair. We should be seeking them out! We should be applying our creativity toward
finding them, helping them and serving them!
If we did this, perhaps our annual reports would be a bit more exciting…
Children’s television
personality Fred Rogers said that when he was a little boy and heard about an
accident or natural disaster, his mother would tell him, “Look for the
helpers, Fred. Whenever something
terrible happens there are always people who hurry to help.”
Here is the challenge for
the church in laymen’s terms! As a
community of believers in Christ, we must ask ourselves if we are among those
“helpers” who rush in at times of crisis.
Listen, every community
faces crises from time to time! People
are displaced by fires or floods. Storms
damage homes and people’s lives are disrupted.
Acts of violence occur and families are plunged into grief. Plants shut down causing massive unemployment
and families are forced to redefine themselves and even caused to relocate to
continue their lives. These kinds of
dilemmas are unending. They’re happening
frequently to varying degrees in most of our communities. And when they happen, we – the church, the
people of God – need to be among those who are running in with assistance!
It seems to me that we
should be far more willing to cooperate with other churches, other helping
agencies, and even local government to address these kinds of critical
times.
If this were more true,
then our churches would be considered an invaluable asset to our
communities. People would see us as
valuable contributors to the general well-being of our community!
I read a book that analyzed the responses to several major crises, including the 2012 Sandy
Hook Elementary School shooting and the 2011 tsunami that hit Tohoku, Japan on
March 11, 2011.
These two tragedies –
though greatly different in type and circumference – reveal incredible pictures
of those that Fred Roger’s Mom referred to!
On that horrible day in
2011, a 9.0 earthquake shook the east coast of Japan for three to five
minutes. Roads buckled, bridges cracked,
bookcases toppled and some buildings collapsed.
The earthquake had such force that it jolted Japan’s largest island
eight feet closer to North America. The
earthquake hit with such force that it caused the earth to shift on its axis,
reducing daylight by a few microseconds, upsetting GPS monitoring stations
around the world, and releasing six hundred million times the energy of the
atomic bombs that fell on Japan in 1945.
After that violent five
minutes, all was still for forty-five minutes as residents picked themselves up
and surveyed the damage. Then came the
wave.
A wall of water, first
taking shape out in the ocean by the quake’s epicenter, accelerated to 500 mph
as it sped toward land. The coastal
region of Tohoku had subsided two feet during the quake, opening wide the gate
for the onrushing wave, so that the tsunami crashed over protective sea walls
like a giant stepping over a curb.
Videos shot on iphones by eyewitnesses (some retrieved from corpses)
resemble the special effects scenes from a horror movie: ships, houses, and trucks tossed around like
toys; a modern airport suddenly
submerged under water; a nuclear reactor
tower exploding in a thick black cloud.
When people in the region
began to realize their peril, they began rushing to upper levels in buildings
or trying to run up mountains to safety.
Over the next hours the water rolled in and washed back out seventeen
times! All the while, frantic cries for
help could be heard.
When it finally ended, a
dense forest was gone. Over twenty
thousand were dead – many washed out to sea and never recovered. 150,000 evacuees
lost their homes; 50,000 of them are still living in temporary housing. More
than 120,000 buildings were destroyed, 278,000 were half-destroyed and 726,000
were partially destroyed. Please
understand that the devastation is truly indescribable!
A Christian author visited Tohoku exactly a
year later. As he toured the area he
couldn’t help but notice the many cars among the debris. He wondered out loud: “I wonder how many automobiles were
destroyed…” Immediately, a Japanese
colleague pulled out his smart phone and googled the answer: 410,000.
During the same visit he saw a huge ocean
freighter – nearly the size of a football field – sitting in a residential
area. No one has any idea how to get it
back to the ocean a half-mile away.
But then, the “helpers” began to rush in! Teams arrived quickly from the Philippines,
Germany, Singapore, and the United States.
Organizations such as Habitat for Humanity and Samaritan’s Purse
mobilized immediately after the earthquake and were still sending crews a year
later!
Samaritan’s Purse crews were living in cramped
communal housing and working long hours without pay. One such worker said:
“We don’t
proselytize. We don’t need to – the
people know why we’re here. We’re simply
followers of Jesus trying to live out His commands. Just before handing owners the key to their
new homes, we ask if we can pray a blessing on the house. So far, no one has turned us down.”
Although the church in Japan represents only
one per cent of the population, Christian organizations took a lead in
rebuilding efforts, and some Japanese churches became distribution centers for
food and supplies. One church sheltered
more than a thousand evacuees the first few months after the tsunami.
What wonderful models of Christian love these
examples were and are.
John Marks, a producer for television’s 60 Minutes, went on a two-year quest to
investigate evangelicals, a group he had grown up in and later rejected. He wrote a book about his quest called Reasons to Believe: One Man’s Journey Among the Evangelicals and
the Faith He Left Behind. The
church’s response to Hurricane Katrina turned the corner for him and became a
key reason to believe. One Baptist
church in Baton Rouge fed 16,000 people a day for weeks; another housed 700 homeless evacuees. Years after the hurricane, and long after
federal assistance had dried up, a network of churches in surrounding states
was still sending regular teams to help rebuild houses.
Most impressively to Marks, all these church
efforts crossed racial lines and barriers in the Deep South. One worker told him, “We had whites, blacks,
Hispanics, Vietnamese, and a good old Cajun (working together)…we just tried to
say, ‘Hey, let’s help people. This is
our state. We’ll let everybody else sort
out that other stuff. We’ve got to cook
some rice.’”
In other words, people are desperate and have
massive needs – let’s get her done! In
most cases, these people and agencies didn’t clamor for attention or pimp for
the cameras. As a matter of fact, much
of what I’m sharing with you today – you have never heard before! The news covers a story for a few days and
then moves on. The onrush of “helpers”
rarely catches any camera time. Besides,
they don’t do it for public recognition.
They do it out of obedience to their Master!
In my humble opinion, every church needs to
continually ask itself,
· “Why
does God have us here in this precise location?”
· “What
does He want us doing to impact hurting people in our area?”
· “How
can we use the resources and connections within our congregation to make a
difference in our community?”
As a church leader for four decades, I can
tell you that you have to be intentional about asking these questions over and
over and over… There is a strong,
natural tendency for us to drift back to services and programs that serve
ourselves. It takes intention to
maintain an outward focus! After all, we’re
not in this for what we can get out of it;
we’re in this for what we can give through it!
We must push
ourselves to get past the good intentions phase. Good intentions salve our consciences and
relieve our guilt without actually doing anything. I recently contacted Samaritan’s Purse to
inquire about being part of one of their clean-up teams. I have talked with nearly a dozen people
since who told me they’ve always wanted to do that – but I know of no one who
actually has.
All of us are
moved with compassion! People want to
make a difference. They need
examples! They need leaders who will sign
them up and organize the work. If
churches would be better organized to be first-responders, I think they’d see
two results:
1. They’d be surprised to see how many people
would be willing to help; and
2. They’d
soon find that their sanctuary didn’t have enough seating capacity!
People expect us
to help! It’s what Jesus would do!
At the Sandy Hook
shooting - which was not a natural disaster but one of human making – the
stories of response are amazingly encouraging (although most of us have never
heard them).
· The
state patrol assigned an officer to each family to protect them from intrusion.
· Freezers
full of food were delivered within days.
· There
are lots of Italians in the northeast, and one family with a full freezer
begged, “Please – no more pasta!”
· Christmas
presents beyond counting arrived from around the country and world.
· 60,000
teddy bears and stuffed animals were given; it took months to deliver them to homeless shelters.
· People
came from all across our country with their juggling acts, free pies, pets, and
counseling booths.
One touching
gesture came from other school children.
At the suggestion of a Sandy Hook parent, the president of Connecticut’s
PTA sent out an email asking them to cut out snowflakes to help decorate the
new school where Sandy Hook students would attend. The request went viral. Within two days the snowflakes started to
arrive on UPS trucks and even semi-trailers.
Thousands and thousands of snowflakes arrived from every state and fifty
foreign countries. It was an avalanche
of snow! Many included handwritten notes
by children. And the underlying message was clear: YOU
ARE NOT ALONE!
Let
me return to John Marks one more time.
“I
would argue that [Hurricane Katrina] was a watershed moment in the history of
American Christianity…nothing spoke more eloquently to believers, and to
unbelievers who were paying attention, than the success of a population of
believing volunteers measured against the massive and near-collapse of secular
government efforts. The storm laid bare an unmistakable truth. More and more Christians have decided that
the only way to reconquer America is through service. The
faith no longer travels by the word. It
moves by the deed.”
Would you like to be part
of this movement to reclaim America for Christ?
Would you like to be part
of a church that truly desires and plans to make a difference in its community?
Would you like to turn
your faith into action?
Remember Tabitha! It’s not always a church-driven
momentum. Sometimes it simply means
assessing our own skills, resources, interests and connections to discover a
way that we can personally make a difference.
Remember too, that your church has only one Head
– and that’s Jesus Christ! Continually
evaluate your potential as His Body and then seek to please Him!
