Scripture reading:  Hebrews 5:11- 6:12

One of the most famous speeches ever delivered was by Martin Luther King on August 28th 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. It was known as the I have a dream speech. King was a great orator and the speech deservedly caught the attention of the world- not only because of its subject matter – race discrimination – but for its eloquence and memorability.

I too have a dream, with apologies to M L King. Let me share this dream with you. I have a dream of being a grown up church. One that is referred to in Hebrews 6 – a church which moves on from the elementary teachings and goes “on to maturity” (Heb 6:1).  A church which according to verse Heb. 6:7 “drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed and receives the blessing of God.” We are a church that has had much blessing. A church that has received good teaching over the years, has an excellent worship ministry, that has benefited from having many people, many resources, many gifts and talents given to us by God which many other churches would love to have. We are a church that has received and drunk in the rains, a church that I believe has produced crops useful to others, in our church, in the community and in the world. But I still believe that we have not fully realised our potential, we have still more growing to do. And by growing I do not just mean in numbers, but in depth, in quality, in love of God and love of others. I have a dream of a church which mobilises its membership in such a way that we produce mature, fully equipped disciples who are engaged in reaching others for Jesus.

Note the great commission in Mt.28:18-20. “Go and make disciples…” (literally In going make disciples teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you).  Growing and going, gathering and scattering, equipping and evangelising are basic elements in this. How are we doing in these two fundamental tasks as a church of growing and going, up-building and outreaching?

I have been tweaking our vision and mission statement recently and have come up with this

Our Vision: Making Disciples Together.  To be a church where our members grow as disciples of Jesus Christ: loving, serving and reaching in His Name.

High Kirk seeks to move people into membership, through maturity and ministry, towards mission. In this way we encourage people to become fully devoted followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is it in a nutshell. I have a dream that we will be a disciple making church, making disciples who make disciples. Ultimately God is the one of course who calls and equips people to become disciples, but he works through us the church. We are co-labourers with Him; what an honour and privilege. We are the farmers, he sends the sun and rain but we are to work the soil. In v.7 and 8 the only difference between the land that produced a crop and the land that produced thorns and thistles was the presence or lack of farming, of cultivating, of nurturing. In v.11 and 12 the writer again contrasts those who showed diligence in the kingdom with those who become lazy. If we are to be a disciple making church that does not happen without diligence, and work, and passion, and determination and intentionality. As in the physical, natural world, so in the spiritual. The same rules apply. God blesses diligence.

I dream of a grown up church, a discipling church where every member is maturing, growing, ministering and being involved in being discipled and making disciples. This is a tall order but it is not impossible if we own the vision – indeed it should be the natural outcome of what Jesus intended in his church. The thorny field which lacks fruitfulness ought to be the exception.

So this is our vision - Making Disciples Together. To be a church where our members grow as disciples of Jesus Christ: loving, serving and reaching in His Name. What is a disciple? Someone has put it well in this way: “there are 6 marks of a disciple -A heart for Christ alone. A mind that is transformed by the Word. Arms of love. Knees for prayer. A voice to speak the good news. A spirit of servanthood and stewardship”. (Glenn Macdonald).   This is so good.

But how, I hear you ask? It is good to have big visions and pretty words, but we need to put them into practice. How do we produce these kinds of people. How do we move people intentionally through the 4M’s of membership, maturity, ministry and mission?

I have a dream of being a strategic church. Of being a church which has a clear map to follow on how we become disciples. Again someone has put it well by saying each Christian needs 4 C’s in their lives. We need:

Celebration: a daily personal and weekly corporate worship encounter.

Community: supportive, accountable relationships with other believers

Class: a structured plan for understanding and applying the word of God

Commission: an engagement with non-christian people with the intent of introducing them to Christ.

From my reading and experience it appears that we are not alone in struggling to be a grown up church with grown up Christians who can feed themselves, look after others, reach out to others and live a transformed lifestyle.  Other churches struggle with this also. Willowcreek in USA were shocked to discover that with all their seeker sensitive worship, their fancy programmes and big budgets, when they surveyed their people they found they were not living lives that were transformed or Spirit filled. They had to sit down and rethink what they did. They surveyed dozens of churches, looked especially closely at effective and healthy churches and they found four common characteristics in these healthy churches.

1.    They got their people moving early through a clear process of disciplemaking. Once people came to faith they set a clear path before them of programmes to follow and they got people alongside them. Relationships began to build and there was a clear expectation right up front of what is required of a believer – to be a disciple.

2.     The Bible is embedded in everything. Everything is based on biblical principles, the bible is taken seriously and is preached on faithfully and people engage with it individually (reading and studying personally).

3.    People in these churches had ownership of the vision. They were on board, they were willing to help, to be discipled, to get into small groups and to be held accountable. There is honesty and reality and support. People are trained to be disciples and to disciple others. There are few passengers.

4.     They pastor the local community. There is a serious concern to reach others for Christ and to bless the community through good works. There is an outward looking aspect. The church is on mission.

Now as we look at these we see remarkable commonality with the four C’s and the four M’s and so on. These same threads keep appearing although in maybe slightly different order.

We have many good people who are growing and going but we have many more I think who struggle with basic Christian knowledge and practice. How many can pray out loud, how many could disciple another person, how many regularly share their faith, how many know what their spiritual gift is, how many study the Bible for themselves, how many are involved in small groups, how many are giving sacrificially, how many memorise scripture, how many are interested in the concepts of justice, and are working against poverty? We could go on. To some this list is a description of an elite corp of Christians – this is not so, this is basic christianity.  We settle for so little, we set the bar too low and then we wonder why our churches are dying and so few are coming to know Jesus. We need to equip our people and send them out.

We need a second Reformation. The first Reformation gave the Word of God back to the people of God;  a second Reformation needs to happen – to give the Work of God back to the people of God. But two things must happen. The leadership must have a plan to do this and the people must be willing to take on the work of ministry. People must be willing to be discipled and to make other disciples.  The work is too much for one or two individuals. It is too much for the ministers and the staff, it is too much even for the elders. Note the word together in the vision – we can only do this together as teams of people. So we need to break the work down into smaller units with ordinary people willing to play their part of living out Ephesians 4:11-12 where the leaders equip the members to do the work of ministry.

I am convinced the answer lies in equipping a few people who equip some other people. When we work in little teams so much more is accomplished.

True discipleship happens when we follow the model of Jesus.  R Pope says “discipleship occurs when equipped leaders labour in the life of a few to the end of imparting not only the truth of God’s Word but also the substance of their lives”. In his book The Intentional Church he speaks about the strategy they use in his congregation to make this a reality using the first letter of the words teams.

Truth – learn the Truth through a variety of means pulpit, courses/classes, small group study, personal study (latter most effective).

Equip – someone shows them how to use the truth they have learned. Walk with them through it for a while (coach them)

Accountability – asking hard questions and challenging bad behaviour/bad habits

Mission – target a group of people you want to see come to faith.

Supplication – pray for each other regularly individually and together

The church itself needs to think of two primary movements – gathering and scattering. Everything they do must have these two elements – gathering for encouragement, equipping, teaching and scattering for engagement, mission, outreach, serving the church and local community.

We are quite good at gathering, not so good at scattering to apply what we have learnt and to coach other people.  We need to encourage people to discover and develop their spiritual gifts (to view themselves as the primary ministers of the church; coming alongside people to coach them/help them; putting their gifts to work; and being missional seeking to look out for and win the least, the lapsed and the lost).

So what does this look like? Here is the overview –

I have a dream of being a grown up church, of being a disciple making church, of being a strategic church. Finally I have a dream of being a loving church. This in many ways is the most difficult because it calls for deeper levels of honesty, vulnerability, and trust. But here is where church really makes a difference and it makes others wake up and sense something different is going on here. Jesus said in John 13:34 “a new command I give you, love one another: as I have loved you so you must love one another.”

To really love each other means getting to know each other better. In a large church we need to work hard at breaking down into smaller units of people really knowing each other and being committed to each other. I am looking forward to 40 days of Community for I think it will help in this. Team work is good – community is even better. Listen to these words of Ruth Haley Barton: “teamwork is good and satisfying. But spiritual people who come together with a spiritual purpose have a deeper calling – we are called to move beyond teamwork to spiritual community and to have our leadership emerge from that place. A team gathers around a task, and when the task is over the team disbands. Spiritual community, on the other hand is a much more permanent thing, because spiritual community gather as around a Person…as New Testament believers we gather around Christ who is present to us through the Holy Spirit.”  Are we working more on being a loving community. Community takes time. Community takes stickability. Again Haley Barton in a  conversation with a monk from a Benedictine monastery asked him how they managed to stay together as a spiritual community for fifty years. “One of the first things he talked about was their commitment to stability. With penetrating eyes and surety of speech, he told us in no uncertain terms to pick a community and stay with it; pick a path and stay on it.  We Protestant Christians do not have a context for this kind of community. We shop for community the way we shop for a new house or a new car, and picking a community and staying with it goes completely against our consumer mindset.”  (Ruth Haley Barton Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership  (IVP).

I dream of a church where groups of people are loving each other, helping each other practically in everything from lifts to meals to practical jobs to child minding to financial help in times of crisis. This is the church at work, building community and loving when it hurts. I dream of the gospel making its way deep into relationships liberating us from phoniness and hypocrisy, where hurting people can share that hurt and feel they are being listened to, where we can help each other deal with our self centredness and our greed and lust and pride and critical spirits. Where we exhort and encourage and rebuke in love and people do not resent it but are thankful for it.

I dream of a church where no-one feels on the margins, where people are committed on the essentials even where they disagree on the secondary issues. I dream of young and old worshipping together and learning from each other. I dream of people who are committed to services and who make it a priority to be here for they do not want to miss what God could be saying and what we can do to serve each other. I dream of a church where people come first of all to give before they receive. I dream of a church that is sacrificial and generous with its money and talents and time.

We have some for whom this is a reality, but there is always more. But if we are to be a church that is loving of others, serving and reaching others then the key to it all is being passionate about God, loving God first and foremost. This is what makes the difference.  As Augustine once said  - Love God and do as you please. Deceptively simple but true. A Puritan Thomas Chalmers put it another way in a sermon called – The expulsive power of a new affection. In order for a Christian not to love the world, we must love God more. Love for the world is so strong and natural in us that we can only be weaned from it by a greater affection. I have a dream where more and more of us are weaned from the world and its way of thinking for we see a better way, a better hope, a better life in Christ and we live it and we call others to live it.

I have a dream of us being a grown up church,  a disciple making church,   a strategic church,   a loving church and God permitting we will be such.

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