Justin Moffatt: Beyond the Predictable Church & Sermon Talk 2

I'm almost-live blogging again. Here's Justin's second talk, on "beyond the predictable church".
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I get preaching, but church is different. Churches are messy places. They’re about people, histories, emotions & all sorts of complications. The more I prepared this talk, the more I got convicted, and I want to share that conviction with you.
I was doing ministry in an Anglican church in New York City, in the shadow of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. We were trying to work out what to do with our church, there in Manhattan. We would work together to try and form a functioning vision that would enthuse people and shape our programs and ministries.
Then a young student asked “why are we always seeking distinctives? We’re one with all Christ’s church across the world. Christ sets our vision; Christ captures our hearts. Surely we must be majoring on what unifies us, not what distinguishes us.”

The case for unity
We’re building gone building for God. We want our church to be predictably about our unity in Christ.

With God:
Eph 2:11-12 we draw near to God too quickly, forgetting we once we could not draw near
We don’t realise how significant it is to be let into God’s presence. Once it was as if we’d been buried alive. Once we couldn’t even come into God’s presence. The Old Testament temple said both “come close”, for God is present here; and “stay away”, for you are not worthy to be in God’s presence. We can’t just barge into the presence of the Prime Minister; why should we expect to barge into God’s presence? We can be presumptuous, casual, even arrogant before God. We must approach God with reverence.

Eph 2:13 we stay away from God
We are now sons & daughters, not Gentiles. The new temple in Christ’s body gives us total access to God.
We don’t have to spice this up; it already is interesting, we just need to make it clear.

With each other:
Eph 2:14-18: we build barriers
Through Christ we – both Jew & Gentile – have peace (shalom), that is, access to God.
We have peace with God and, in Christ, with each other. So why do we keep building barriers? We must be committed to each other’s well being. This was the cry of my young student friend: why do we major on distinctives when we’re actually unified?
Our commonality is not in our age, personality, ethnicity, voting preferences, dress sense etc. Our peace is Jesus, in whom we have access to the Father through the Spirit.

Eph 2:19-22 we tear down what God builds up
Paul uses the metaphor of body and building.
We long for physical expressions of our belief. We don’t have to go to a bricks & mortar temple; we have each other. We are the physical reality God gives us to express our faith. We have to deal with each other, look each other in the eye and love each other.

Beyond sameness
The way we can form something powerfully unpredictable is to recapture the wonder of that unity. We need to recapture the wonder of the gospel – we need to understand the privilege that we have in having access to God. We’re not excited about this gospel, we’ll look for other, tricky ways to be heard.

Eph ch 3: the church in God’s cosmic purposes
The local church is the cosmic one; letting the heavenly powers know God’s plan. We need to recapture the wonder of the impact of the gospel in communities.
We need to rise above the pattern of this world, so we can be light.
The gospel brings formerly unfriendly people together. Because of the gospel, people who couldn’t eat together now can eat together. That’s why Paul needs to pray God to strengthen the Ephesians to put this into practice. It’s not normal; we can’t do it through our own strength. We need love, power, the Spirit in our inner being, to actually do this.

How do we do this?
1. Be thoroughly Christ’s. The community belongs to Christ.
2. Keep the vision statement simple and gospel-focused.
3. Get people doing stuff with a kingdom vision. Enable people to do what their passion is, and channel their energy into what’s good for the gospel.
4. Hospitality transforms the world. Hospitality requires organisation. To evangelise, all we need to do is have people round for dinner.
5. If liturgical, don’t battle the liturgy; use its strengths, make it fresh. If free, we have the responsibility to formulate our meeting together in a way that has value in expressing the gospel and encouraging people to connect with God.
6. Find space for creative people to humbly use their gifts.