Unfinished Part of the Sermon and other missing comments!

Here are some missing ideas from my sermon, and one addition from Susan Kalnins.

Via Susan: (In response to my open question "Can we do this at Grace?") We will not be able to do this without the Holy Spirit. If He is not empowering us to do this, it will never happen. The reason many movments and ideas fail is because it was people driven and not Spirit driven. May we all remember that, thank you Susan.

The quote I wanted us to think about: "It is more important to change what people care about than it is to change what they believe."

From the sermon:

I wanted to very briefly expand upon one of the ideas I actually covered. When I said that the people in the new community were "willing participants" I wanted to add an idea that was in my notes, but I forgot to say it. Our churches can be so focused on rules and regulations that we almost do what we do because we have to, not because we want to. Joy is replaced with Law. Freedom is replaced by bondage.

Churches can destroy the spirit with man-made rules and regulations. We are more concerned with obeying and following the rules of our ethos than willingly following for the greater good. What made the new community in Acts so different is that they were in community together with willing devotion (vs. 42), doing things totally different because their ethos was now motivated by the Cross, and baptism and their new metaphors were the teaching of the apostles, fellowship, breaking of bread, and the prayers.

How do we begin to change the ethos here at Grace? (the last part of the sermon, did not get to this. These are just some ideas, I would love to have some other ones posted here as well)

1) Understand the power of words

The number of descriptors we have to describe a sub-metaphor (in the church this would be things that are not "the cross", "communion", etc, but words like the ones below) shows how much that ethos is informing what we do and say.

How many words (and what are they) do we use here at Grace to describe community? What about worship, fellowship, and church? I was talking with one of our sisters at Grace the other day and she commented that while she understands that Christian's need to be in community together, she could not easily define what that word meant for us as a people.

Do we use words like “risk, sacrifice, catalyze/ist, innovative, creative, fail, challenge?” These seem to be words that are used often in the business world, but don't seem to "fit" the vocabulary of church.

I would maintain that if we are to begin to change the ethos of Grace, we need to have many words which will describe our ministry. The more words are a part of our vocabulary here, the more the ethos will change.

2) Understand the power of the arts

Art moves us emotionally, spiritually (think Passion of the Christ), psychologically, etc. Unfortunately, the church, while reflecting the values of capitalism and pragmatism, has neglected the importance of aesthetics (the arts, music, the "space" we gather in, etc). If you accept my premise in the sermon that our ethos shapes our gatherings (and the many nodding heads either indicated you did or you were all dozing off!), then one way to change our ethos to better follow the Acts 2 model is to realize that we are heavy on reason and weak on romance. The image of a “biblical congregation” has been one in which the teacher taught and the people were students in the Bible school of God, but the arts were absent. Often they are downplayed or scorned as being depraved, subjective, or whatever.

Why is it that we who worship the God of creativity see so little of it when we come together? To create a new ethos, the fingerprint of God’s creative hand should be all around us. I dream of a day when local churches around the world will be known for their wellspring of creativity and the Quentin Tarrantino’s, Martin Scorcese's, and the Coldplay’s of the world will look to us as reflectors of the Creator.

3) Understand the power of Metaphor

Our whole existence should be motivated by the cross (the need to die to ourselves), baptism (raised to new life in Him), Communion, and teaching the “way of Jesus”.

This is key. If the above truths were what was motivating our gatherings, we would truly see a radical change begin to happen. I firmly believe that this is a make-or-break point for all churches (and Grace in particular). If we are to break free of our capitalisic, self-driven lifestyles and really embrace the Kingdom, then the metaphors which shape our ethos must change.