One Sunday morning, early in the life of our church I asked the question, “What does the word value mean?” There were many responses that morning, but the one that I think most captured the true meaning of this word was, “Values are what make us who we are.” In other words, the things that we strongly value reveal the kind of person that we are. Our set of values is a summary of who we truly are. Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Values are those things in our heart that guide us through life; the things we consider most important, and they are revealed by the way we interact with life through our words, attitudes, and actions. We get our set of values in different ways. Your parents have probably shaped your value system. It has likely also been shaped by teachers, peers, experiences, and society in general. Hopefully, each of us has a set of values, and hopefully that set of values has been shaped through love and truth. Without a set of values, we are like ships without a rudder that are simply carried in whatever direction the wind blows; never really knowing who we are, never really being known and understood by others.
As a church, we have a set of core values; five things that we believe are of supreme importance in living the Christian life. We’ve derived this set of values from scripture; for they are the same five things that were valued by the early believers after the birth of the church. Those five values are: Worship, community, outreach, discipleship, and stewardship. We can see all five of these values being clearly embraced by the early believers in the first 10 chapters of the book of Acts...and beyond. We’re devoting the next few weeks to talking about, understanding, and hopefully embracing each of these values as a body of believers. And today I want to begin by talking with you for a few minutes about the value of community.
The dictionary defines “community” this way: A unified body of individuals with a common character, with common interests, who share joint ownership and participation in something. As a church who embraces the value of community, we feel strongly that there has to be unity between us. We should all share a common character; one that reflects the character of Christ. Our common interests are these values that we’re discussing. And we should walk through life together sharing joint ownership of and participation in the mission that Christ has called us to accomplish; proclaiming the gospel and making disciples. This is the technical definition of what community is, but it is much richer and goes much deeper than that.
When you think of community, you may picture in your mind early pioneers crossing the countryside in a wagon train to establish a new town on the frontier. You may think of a small, tightly knit hometown where everyone knows everyone else. You may think of a bar where when you walk in, everybody knows your name. I was driving down the interstate Tuesday thinking about community and how I would communicate with you about this, and as I thought about community, oddly enough, this is the picture that came to my mind. ROLL GILLIGAN VIDEO
Gilligan Trivia
As a kid, I loved this show! I would jump off of the school bus, race across the yard, bolt through the door and down the hall to dump my books off on my bed, get back to the living room just in time to plop on the floor 12 inches away from the screen (yes mom, I know I’ll hurt my eyes that way) just as Gilligan’s Island would begin at 4:00 on KPLR channel 11. What a great show! Two weeks ago I was flipping through the channels and guess what I found? It was the episode where Gilligan hurt his nose, the professor was going to do plastic surgery on him to give him a new one, but it was all a hoax to make Gilligan think he had surgery so he would leave it alone and the nose could heal naturally. And I thought to myself, “What a stupid show!” As ridiculous as the storyline of each episode was, I see in this small community of seven castaways several clear illustrations of what the idea of community means to us as a church.
First, you have seven people from all over the country, all different backgrounds, with different life stories all somehow finding their way to this one harbor to board a ship together and share a common experience. The wealthy Howell’s from New York, sweet, innocent MaryAnn from Kansas, Movie-star Ginger from Hollywood. As I look across our congregation I see people from the south, people from the north, people from right here. I see children, teenagers, college students, twenty-somethings, singles, married couples, middle-agers. I see people from catholic backgrounds, all different varieties of protestants, people who’ve been in church their whole life, people who are experiencing church life for the first time right here. I see people who have had relatively smooth peaceful lives. I see people bearing the scars of devastating trauma. And here we are, all somehow brought together at this moment in time to share a journey together.
We are much the same as that massive group of people who were gathered together on the day the church began. Acts 2:9-11 says that there were “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphilia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes.” Isn’t it interesting that God chose to birth the church in the midst of thousands of people gathered together from every corner of the known world? The church is at it’s best and strongest when it is made up of all different kinds of people with all different stories who come together and combine their individual stories into a great epic of God’s love.
In our seven castaways we see 7 very different personalities. Each episode showed us both the positive character traits and the negative character traits of each of the castaways. In most episodes we see Gilligan as bumbling idiot, always messing things up (cup of water), but we also see him as a very kind, considerate, loving person who never wants to hurt anyone’s feelings. The skipper is often a loud, obnoxious guy who demands to be in control, yet is also a brave leader who loves his little buddy Gilligan and is devoted to protecting and looking after the well-being of those who are shipwrecked with him. The professor is often an impatient know-it-all, but is indeed extremely intelligent and capable of turning coconuts and bamboo into any kind of contraption that is needed for the particular crisis they find themselves in.
Aren’t we the same way? Each of us who has been brought together into this church family brings with us a set of personality traits. All of us could probably look at each other and find character traits that annoy us to no end. But we also see character traits that are an incredible blessing to us and make the church family stronger. And it’s all good when we take the time to realize that each and every one of us is in the process of being changed for the better as we are submitted to Christ. God created, knows, and loves each of our unique personalities. The positive, life-giving traits were placed there by Him, and the negative hurtful traits that have been shaped by this world are being patiently changed by Him. Because we are all created differently, and are all in various stages of transformation, He understood and expected there to be conflict. So He gave us some instructions on how to deal with it. Through the words of Paul in Ephesians 4:2,3 we are instructed to “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
Another thing you notice about the group living on this island is that they each come with talents and abilities that are needed to help them survive. Skipper is a navy man, with all kinds of experience and knowledge about sailing and nautical navigation. Mr. Howell is wealthy; having the knowledge necessary to manage resources and make the most of every opportunity. The professor can do everything! I think he even built a bamboo car once. Several times Ginger used her acting ability to solve problems. And MaryAnn...her greatest talent was baking coconut cream pies! Anytime Gilligan was sad, it was MaryAnn to the rescue with a fresh pie.
I look across our congregation and I see people who are good at building and fixing things. I see people with incredible musical talent. Lynn and others of you are amazing at teaching children. I see people who are good with numbers, people who are good with technology. Again, the church is at our best, our community here is the strongest when we each recognize the talents God has given us, when we recognize each other’s talents, and when we bring them all together, freely offering them—using them– to make the church stronger, to enrich each other’s lives, and to carry the goodness of Christ into the world around us. Again, Ephesians 4 explains to us that all of our gifting—our talents – are given to us by God for one purpose: “It is that God’s people will be equipped to do better work for him, building up the Church, the body of Christ, to a position of strength and maturity; until finally we all believe alike about our salvation and about our Savior, God’s Son, and all become full-grown in the Lord-yes, to the point of being filled full with Christ.”
There’s one final observation I want us to make about our wacky little band of sitcom characters. They had two primary objectives in mind. One, to simply survive being stranded on this island. And two, to eventually be rescued—delivered if you will—from the island. What they clearly understood was that the only way for these two things to happen was for them to stick together as a community of people who loved one another, enjoyed being around one another, cared about one another, met one another’s needs, and worked together in harmony toward the objective of getting off the island. They realized that this island belonged to and was home to all of them. Oh, I think Mr. Howell tried to buy the island on one episode...but that didn’t work. Ultimately, they were in this thing together, and to isolate themselves or to isolate one another meant disaster.
There were very few of these episodes that you could consider emotionally touching. But I do remember one. Gilligan had gotten his feelings hurt and decided to move away to the other side of the Island to live alone in a cave. Immediately, this became a miserable existence for Gilligan—he was all alone. But also miserable for everyone else on the island—one of their own was no longer among them, in fellowship with them...and there was a terrible void. They missed him at the dinner table. They missed his jokes, his laughter, his gentleness. They even missed his clumsy screw-ups. I think at one point in the episode they were sitting around the dinner table taking turns talking about the specific things they missed about him. So what did they do? I think it began with Skipper. He decided to leave the rest and go live with Gilligan so he wouldn’t be alone. Then another person did the same. Then another. Until finally, all seven people were together again on the other side of the island in Gilligan’s cave. In true spiritual community, we either make it together, or we don’t make it...at least not in a healthy way.
Here’s a fun exercise for you to do when you have time. Use your concordance and find all of the scriptures from Acts to Revelation in which you find the word “together” and see what early Christians did “together.” Here’s a sampling: Meeting together. Praying together. Sharing material things with one another. Eating together. Consulting with and advising one another. Planning and strategizing together. Working together. Standing together when under attack. Jesus Christ never intended for any of his followers to follow him in isolation from other believers. Wherever it’s possible, Christ intends for all of us to be in this together; not just for one hour on Sunday mornings—not just during “official” church meetings, but through the day to day course of life.
So what is the degree of togetherness here at New Prairie? Decide for yourself by examining yourself as I ask a few questions. How much time did you spend last week praying specifically for specific individuals in our church? Did you have any interaction with another person in our church family, whether through e-mail, telephone, mail, or in person that was outside of official church gatherings and having nothing to do with church business? How many of you knew that Kelly was in the hospital last Sunday? What did you do when you found out? Do you ever come in late, or right at 10:30 on Sunday so you don’t have to talk to anyone? How quickly do you bolt for the door when the service ends, for the same reason? When you see guests walk through the door for the first time, do you think to yourself, “Oh, someone new. I hope someone makes them feel welcome.” Or do you get up from your table or break away from the conversation with your circle of friends and go make them feel welcome yourself? When was the last time you did something kind and thoughtful for another person in our church family for no other reason than to just let them know you care about them?
In answering these honestly, if you had to answer them in the negative, then you are living in a cave on the far side of the island. You undoubtedly sense a void, a relational emptiness, a loneliness—and so do we. We are missing out on all of the beauty that God created in you and that He intended for you to share with us. And you are missing out on a family of people who want to love you and enjoy being with you on this journey through life. Please make room in your life for us. We desperately need you. And whether you realize it or not, you desperately need us.
I’ve seen some great moments of togetherness in our church community. A couple weeks ago I did an analysis where I listed everyone affiliated with our church—50 people—and I checked everyone who was involved in one of the small groups here. Right around 50% of you are. That’s great! The other half...why don’t you come join us. I absolutely loved Monday Night Football at the McAvoy’s every week last fall. I love seeing groups of you going out to eat together after church, or after small group. I laugh more and have more fun with some of you at Denny’s than I do through most of the rest of the week. I couldn’t help but smile when I heard about the large group that spent Easter Sunday at Doug & Rochelle’s from 2:00 in the afternoon until midnight! Our men’s campout will be a great time together. I love seeing the relationships developing and growing among the musicians in our church. Several of you who are single are gathering together on Friday evenings to laugh, watch movies, play games, enjoy each other’s company...awesome!
But there have been other really neat demonstrations of love and caring among you. Some of you have given money to people who need it. Some of you have loaned vehicles to people who needed transportation. Some of you are quite good at making a call or sending a card just to say, “Hi! Thinking about you.” Some of you work hard to help find jobs for people who need work. Way to go!
But I think we’ve reached a crossroads. I see the beginning traces of the tendency to become less relational as we grow. Lately I have seen for the first time visitors walking in with no one making an effort to meet them and make them feel welcome. I have heard some say that they didn’t know who an individual was, even though that individual has been here for a couple months. I’ve seen new people come and begin attending regularly, and never be contacted by anyone but the pastor outside of Sunday mornings. I am beginning to see people facing the difficulties of life...alone. I am beginning to see people suffer...alone.
These words to you this morning are not a scolding. They are a caution—a call for a course correction. Every church will by default, because of our human nature, tend to drift into the treacherous waters of sacrificing relationships for the sake of completing tasks, putting process before people, choosing isolation over togetherness, becoming independent instead of interdependent. If we are truly going to be a safe place for people to encounter the life changing power of Jesus Christ and become devoted disciples who change the world around them by leading people out of death into life, we have no choice but to do it together, in loving community with one another. Loving community must be the very essence of who we are, not just something we do.
I want to close this morning by reading to you the words of Hebrews 10:19-25.
