Sermon
Membership 101 Series - Our Church And Its Mission
February 12-13, 2000
Pastor Leighton Sheley

I'm going to invite you to take from your bulletin our Discovering Church Membership C.L.A.S.S. 101 outline there, and there are places for you to fill in. We're in, it's entitled session four, but this is the fifth and the final week. And it's been a series that has been more of a lesson series rather than a preaching series. Our pastor is away this weekend celebrating with his wife 45 years of marriage and so, yes we can clap, we can clap (congregation claps). So we thought we'd give him the weekend off. And he is so excited, he's going to be back the next week and he is so excited. He has been preparing his notes to bring you a series on the Gospel of John. So I thought I'd let you know so you can this week, at a convenient time, pull out your Bible and read through the Gospel of John and get all prepared for what Pastor is going to be bringing to us starting next Sunday. You know as a staff we periodically analyze the needs of our congregation, in fact we're doing it all the time, we thought that it was appropriate that after five years we should go ahead and bring this course out and present it to our entire congregation. Normally this course is provided in a Sunday School electives program, and thank you Dave and Sonya for your faithfulness in that. But we as a church want to make sure that we're all on the same page, and we're all going the same direction and we all understand what this church is all about. And so it's been five years, but it's time for us to once again go through this, and so that's what we've been doing.

This is the last week, and so in any event, let's go ahead and start with the notes Session Four: The Highlands Structure. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace...Everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. God is not a God of disorder. You know we start reading the Scriptures Genesis chapter 1 the first two verses it talks about there just being chaos and then God, and God created order out of chaos. God is a God of order. When Jesus Christ, who is God manifest in the flesh, was here on earth there was an occasion when He had several thousand people to feed, and so what He did is He told His disciples to go out and put order to this group. I want you to separate them into groups of 150 and so forth, and then He blessed the fish and He blessed the loaves, and then He sent the disciples out. He said now Peter, I want you to take care of that group, and John, I want you to take care of that group, and so forth. So Jesus exemplified order in the way that He fed those thousands of people, and then what's more, is after they were done eating He said now you go out and make sure everybody is well fed. Everybody's well fed, bring back what remains and they brought back 12 baskets full; and that's not an insignificant number because that's the exact number of lunch baskets that the disciples had. And so what we learn from that is that we have a God that's also very frugal and not a God that wastes, because there was just enough leftover after everybody was satisfied to their capacity to feed the disciples that day. God is a God of order. When we look at our solar system we see how incredible the engineering, it's the brilliance that went into engineering our solar system and how it all works together and functions together. Then we turn our attention to the atom and to the molecule, we look at that and we realize that there is a similarity between the two and it makes us wonder if our universe is an atom and somebody else's universe. Isn't that incredible? To think that we, our whole universe, might be nothing more than an atom in somebody else's universe, and God is God overall. But you know what's more awesome than trying to comprehend the awesomeness of God, which is impossible for us to do, and that is to realize that that God who created everything is concerned about each and every one of us. I mean you think we're not even a speck on a little piece of dust in this universe, and we're only here for not even that long in the scope of eternity, and yet God cares for each and every one of us and has revealed Himself to us in His Word. Isn't that great? We serve a great God. Hello? I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure we're. You know sometimes I get myself into trouble. Things just fall out of my mouth and.

The structure of the church should not be determined by culture, business practices, or even denominational traditions. You know there are some churches that have put together their church organizations based on business models, and it's excellent as a business, but it's not the model that was given to us in the Bible for the church. There are some churches across the nation that have model it after the political system in America, and you know what, as far as I'm concerned we've got the best political system that's been enjoyed by people, you know, in any century in the history of the world. But that's not the model that was given to us in the scriptures for the church. And there are some denominations that are so entrenched in their traditions that their traditions actually become bondage. We've had people that have gone back to visit family members in other parts of the states, and they've been back there and they visited their churches, and they go to pastor and they say, you know Pastor, our church what we do is we gather around the communion table every Sunday. And the response was well, we don't do it that way. And by extension, we're not going to, we have a tradition here. We don't do that. And so there's the right way, the wrong way, and the army way. You know some traditions are very entrenched and it doesn't matter whether or not it's biblical or not; the tradition takes precedence. But we at Church of the Highlands have endeavored with everything in us to put our church constitution, the way we construct our church, together based on the New Testament model.

The nature of the church determines its structure. Number one, the church is a fellowship. They continued steadily learning the teaching of the apostles, and joined in the fellowship; joined in the fellowship. Now that's the way that this early church was described. Now what is a fellowship? I looked it up in the American Heritage Dictionary and this is what the dictionary said, a fellowship is the condition of sharing similar interests, ideals, or experiences as by reason of profession, religion, or nationality. A condition of sharing similar interests, ideals, and experiences. That's what we have. We have a similar interest. What's our interest? It's in learning about God. It's in developing our relationship with God. Ideals? Living the life that pleases God. Experiences? You know you read through the Scriptures there is story after story of believers who were sharing their experience with God. They say well, you know I ran into this problem, and so I called out to God for help and He told me to do this. It didn't make any sense, but I did it and look what happened. God got, and so they share their experiences. When we get together as a church, what are we doing? We're sharing our experiences. You wouldn't believe what God did for me this week, or this month, or whatever the case might be. And by sharing our experiences we are encouraging others you know to take that step of faith. Somebody might be sitting on the, you know I think God wants me to do this but I'm not sure. I hope I can trust Him. And somebody will say you know I was in a similar position and I did what God told me to do, and it worked. You know you need to do what God says, and so we encourage each other. Sharing similar interests, ideals, and experiences by reason of profession, religion, or nationality. Another one is the companionship of individuals in a congenial atmosphere and on equal terms, equal terms. So that's the definition, American Heritage Dictionary, of fellowship. The church is a fellowship. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. So let us concentrate on the things that make for harmony and the growth of our fellowship together. A top priority in fellowship is unity and harmony. A top priority in a fellowship is unity and harmony.

Now what is unity? I looked it up in the American Heritage Dictionary. The state or quality of being one or being in one accord. And I really liked this definition. Listen to this definition. The combination or arrangements of parts into a whole. The combination or arrangements of parts into a whole. When you think that the New Testament describes the church has being a body. A body is an arrangement of parts and it is an arrangement of parts that's put together in such a way that we have a whole body. Isn't that neat? The combination or arrangements of parts into a whole. That's unity. And we talked about harmony a couple of weeks back, about working together towards a common goal and contrasting that with noise. Any attitude that causes disunity is sin. Now there is a list of passages there that address that issue of disunity. Let me read one that is very clear. It's found in Proverbs chapter 6 versus 16 and following. It says these six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination to Him. Now what are these seven things that God hates? Number one, a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and the seventh thing that is an abomination to God, is on the list that God hates, the seventh thing, and he that soweth discord among the brethren. He that soweth discord. You know sowing discord among the brethren is not a trivial matter. That is something that God hates and so we endeavor, not just the pastors but everyone of us in this church, to be on guard for those who are not really of us, who've come in for the expressed purpose of sowing disunity among the brethren, discord among the brethren. Any attitude that causes disunity is sin.

Now the implication is that a good structure promotes unity and downplays differences, downplays differences. Now I need to point out that differences are not bad. They are not bad. In fact God is a God who created differences. I mean each and every one of us is different than any other person who has ever existed or who ever will exist. God has made each and every one of us different. We're unique. God is a God that's created us with differences. Now what kind of differences are represented here at Church of the Highlands? We have so many people from so many different situations and backgrounds, so many differences that all come and contribute to the family here. We have some that come from backgrounds that were happy families. They grew up and they were in an atmosphere of encouragement, and love, and so forth. And then we have some people who came from very dysfunctional families. I used to think there were dysfunctional families and happy families, and I have sense come to their realization that every family is dysfunctional just in different areas and to different degrees. Okay? But some of us have come from some really dysfunctional situations. Their father perhaps was an alcoholic and he became someone entirely different when he was on the spirits, and so it was an abusive situation, or perhaps the father wasn't even there. And so we have people from these backgrounds that carry the scars, and those scars affect them. It affects the way they perceive the world. It affects the way they perceive others. It affects the way they perceive relationships. You know it affects everything about them. So there are people that come from different kinds of family backgrounds.

We have people that come from different kinds of educational backgrounds. We've got some people here who have studied hard and long and they've got their doctorate degrees or their master degrees. Some of them have been in education for 20 years and they don't have a degree. They just like education you know. I spend seven years of my life in junior high, something like that you know. Some people they have not graduated from high school, but you know we don't elevate people because of education. I mean someone who has higher education isn't more important in this church body than someone that didn't graduate from high school, because all of us come all of us can contribute to the family.

What about the differences in finances? We have some people in our congregation that are really scraping by. It's very difficult. They have a rich experience with the Lord because they depend on the Lord every single day to be able to get through that day. They're just scraping by. Some of them are single parents. And we also have in our fellowship we have people that have been given abundance, and you know they don't use it for their own glorification, their own comfort, their own edification. They use it for the glory of God. And you know some of the greatest people that we read about in the Scriptures were exceedingly wealthy, wealthy people. Talk about Moses, Joseph, Esther, and so forth. These were exceedingly wealthy people but they weren't trapped by their wealth. They use to their wealth for glorifying God. And so we have people that have come from different economic backgrounds, and all of us can contribute to the family here.

We have people from different cultural backgrounds, or ethnic backgrounds, or color backgrounds. You know? And there was a number of years back we had some people that were doing research in churches across the nation. They heard about Church of the Highlands. They surprised us. We didn't know they were coming. They came in and they made an appointment with pastor. They went in and they said you know Pastor, your church is really one of the unique churches in the nation. We don't understand. How did you accomplish a multicultural church? And he looked around, ah so we are. You see he was colorblind. It doesn't matter. You know when you look at a person we don't look at the color or whatever. We have a song in our hymnal that I grew up singing, (starts singing) red and yellow black and white they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world. God made us different and we all contribute to the family here. Now I have to point out there is a danger because sometimes there's a lack of sensitivity for the nuances of culture. Okay? Let me give you an example. And a rather embarrassing one at that because it's me. A number of months back we had changed the lineup a little bit and I thought that the ushers had been informed of the change because it was important. And what happened is I was standing in back and the ushers hadn't been informed, and so they were following our standard service schedule. And so what I started doing is I started gesturing to one of the ushers, you know like stop, you've got to stop and cease and desist, and all that kind of stuff. And Pastor Rick came up to me afterwards and said, Stop That! I said what? What did I do? And Pastor Rick said you may not realize this, but in that culture, but culture of the usher, the gesture that I was giving was a very rude and offensive gesture. I didn't know that. I was you know kind of insensitive. And bless his soul the usher knew that there was no malicious intention on my part, and that you know love covers a multitude of sins, and that's the way it needs to be with all of us. Sometimes we're just not sensitive to some of the nuances of other people's situations, and sometimes we're offended because of our cultural background, and we just need to be aware that other people are not, they're not out to intentionally offend us. It's just they may not be sensitive or aware. So there is a danger there because of a lack of sensitivity. You know God made us different. I don't believe that cloning was really God's idea. I think it's kind of a humanistic concept there. They're going to try to find some model of perfection, whatever that might be, and they're going to try to cloning it, replicate it. But you know God made each and every one of us unique, an individual. And He is working in us to make us perfect. Now when we're perfect does that mean we're all going to come out like cookie cutters? I don't think so. We're all going to better reflect the image of Jesus Christ, but God is a God of differences.

Now there is a major distinction between differences and division. There's a major distinction between differences and division. One of the names of Satan means divider. And it's Satan's purpose to come in and divide. He comes in and he divides family. He comes in and he divides friendships. He comes in and divides countries. He comes in and divides people. He comes in and divides, I mean he is a divider. Whereas God is seeking for unity. So there is a significant difference, a distinction between differences and divisions. This passage found in 1 Corinthians, (Often)... your meetings do more harm than good because I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions, it doesn't say differences does it, it says divisions among you. There are divisions among you. Now that passage preceded the passage about giving us instructions on the Lord's Table, and what the writer, Paul, was writing to us, he was saying you've got to fix these divisions in the church before you can come to the Lord's Table. There cannot be, there should not be, there ought not be divisions in the church.

Top of page 28. Voting tends to create divisions. Voting tends to create divisions. A couple of weeks back I had the honor of being invited to provide special music at the prayer breakfast for the California Republican Convention which was here in Burlingame. Now let me point out that I'm an equal opportunity music minister. If I get an invitation to do the special music that glorifies God at the prayer breakfast for the Democratic Party, and I can be there, I'll be there. Okay? I just happened to be there and when I walked and in I saw you had one party, one political party, but you had divisions within this party. And they were really clear to see. You had some people with Bush stamps on their hats, and some with McCain, and some with other names and stuff. And there were divisions within the party. Voting tends to create divisions. Now you know what else it creates? It creates losers after the voting, right? Because there are some people who are going to win and there are going to be some people that lose, and nobody likes to lose. In fact sometimes you can get a little upset when you lose. Okay? I can still remember when I was in the fifth or sixth grade. I can still remember this now. The candidates for the you know student body president? Johnny Wong was intelligent, articulate, and had vision. Obviously I was for him. He was running against Craig, I can't remember his name. I did not like the way Craig ran his campaign. Smear tactics, all that kind of stuff, you know? And so Craig, I think, ended up getting the victory, and I decided I wanted to have a little discussion with him, as fifth and sixth graders do after school. And I found out that Craig had a bigger brother that walked him home. (Congregation laughs) It was a very enlightening experience actually. In any event voting creates divisions and it creates losers, and it can create atmospheres of contention.

At Highlands we only vote on calling the senior pastor (40 years ago good decision), changes in the church constitution. I think it has only happened once or twice in all of the 40 years. We got some excellent, excellent input from some very wonderful, godly men with a lot of personal experience in church ministry and organization. In fact, most of them have gone on to the Lord I think, not all of them. And they gave us instructions regarding how to put together our church constitution, and so we put our church constitution together without the voting process, and the committees, and the commissions, and all of that that you can find other churches across the nation. There are over 100 churches across the nation that have used our constitution, either as it is or modified it according to the need, as their model for their constitution. And what we have found is that our constitution has protected us against some of the things that other churches are exposed to. You may not be aware that there are anti-God, anti-Christ organizations that will go in. They will read through the constitution of churches. They will find out what it takes to take over the church voting. They will put in systematically their agents into a position, and when they have got a sufficient number they will vote out godly leadership and they will vote in godless leadership. And they are systematically going through churches in our community, year after year, taking over the churches. And that's why so many churches in our community are not preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ these days. Our church constitution has protected us from that kind of activity.

Now is there any kind of voting that we do recommend here? Yes, we do recommend that you take every opportunity to vote in the civic arena. And we also encourage you, we don't tell you who to vote for or anything like that, but we do encourage you when you step into that voting booth to represent Christ and Christ's kingdom not your own pocketbook or circumstances. Because that's really what we've been called to do, right? We've been called to be Christ's ambassadors, ambassadors of Christ's kingdom here on earth, and we have an opportunity to represent Him in the civic arena.

Okay, number two on page 28, the church is a family. The church is a family. You should be like one big happy family, full of sympathy toward each other, loving one another with tender hearts and humble minds. Now I've underlined the word happy because I think that that is a crucial word. If it didn't say happy family then it would just say any family in which case we would probably use whatever family situation we came from has a model for this, and it may not be the best model. It says here we should be like one big happy family, not just any family, but a happy family. Well what is a happy family? You know I don't watch much television, but I don't know of any happy families on television these days. Most of the families are constantly having some kind of contention and so forth. There might be one that's close. The one that comes to my mind actually it's been a while since it was on, remember the Waltons? You know I wasn't a regular watcher, but I caught a few, and the Walton family seemed like to me to be such a happy family. I mean yes they had problems that they'd work through, they had difficulties with each other and so forth, but they'd work through those together. And then you know how the show always ended? Goodnight Peter, goodnight Mary, goodnight... you know you come to the end of the day and everything is sound. They still love each other. The relationships are sound even if they had disagreement that day they work through it as a family. And the church should be like one big happy family, and so we operate on the basis of respect and relationship, not rules and regulations; respect and relationship not rules and regulations.

When you come into a club they will hand you a sheet of paper, and they say now these are your dues, that means you know your fees, these are your fees, this is your list of do's, this is your list of don'ts, you have to attend so many meetings and you're part of the club. And there are some churches that our set up sort of like a club, but this is not a club this is a family. So we operate on the basis of respect and relationship not rules and regulations. You know it's much better to do what we do out of love rather than duty. You know, I'm going to get into trouble, but some of the men here they really express their love towards their wife because they just get out there and they can't wait to open the door for the wife and usher her in and so forth, and it's not anything like; O man, I've got to open the door for her again. That's a duty, that's an expression of love. And so we want to operate on the basis of respect and relationship, love, not rules and regulations, duty.

Don't reprimand a senior member of the church, appeal to him as a father. Treat the young men as brothers, and the older women as mothers. Treat the younger women as sisters. You know what's missing there? Look at it and you won't find any description saying treat somebody like a child or treat somebody like a servant. What it does it is it tells us that we need to treat each other as an equal and with respect noting that there is a relationship here. We're family. We're brothers, we're sisters in Christ. (A Pastor) must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. If anyone does not know how to manage his family, how can you take care of God's church? A number of years back I was in Bible college. I went to Bethany Bible College and I noticed that many children of ministers were not in the ministry, and in fact, they weren't even in the church. And in my studies there I realized that when God had called the priesthood He had given that assignment to, not an organization, but a family to be passed from generation to generation. And so I began to wonder now why are so many children of ministers not in the ministry? In fact out of the church? Pasteur has said, and I don't know where he got this statistic, he says that 80 percent of children of ministers aren't even in the church. And when I started asking questions I found out that basically the two reasons that came back most were in one of two categories. No. 1, number one reason was that their father, the pastor, was a hypocrite. That he preached one thing and that he lived something else. You know our senior pastor, what you see is what you get. He sleeps in his suit. (Congregation laughs) Well actually, we broke him of that habit about two years ago. What you see is what you get with our senior pastor. Now the second reason that came up was that their father had so devoted himself to the ministry and been so abused and maligned by the churches that he was trying to serve, that these kids, knowing the agony of their father, they grew up and they said if this is Christianity, no thank you and so they left the ministry. Now because of our church environment here, because we don't have voting, because we don't have divisions, because we don't have back fighting, because we've enjoyed such a wonderful relationship here, we have been blessed as a family in serving you. And not just one but all of pastor's sons have continued in the ministry, and as a church congregation you are to be commended on that.

Number three, Page 28, the church is a body. The church is a body. We're a body not a business. Were an organism, not an organization. Now there are some aspects to the church that require business and there are some aspects to the organism that requires organization, but the emphasis on being a body not a business, and an organism not an organization. Now what's the difference between organism and an organization? I think the picture that comes to mind is to the one that pastor was visiting London a few years back and he always wanted to go into these great cathedrals. You know some of those things have been around for hundreds of years, a thousand years. Just gorgeous, beautiful churches with great acoustics and all of that. And so he went in and he started talking with the vicar and he built up a relationship, and he started talking about ministry and how we do it here, and they talked about how they were doing it there. And what he found out, the vicar said you know Pastor, you don't know how fortunate you are. He said you know our responsibilities are to be here that a certain time and open the door of the church. And then if somebody comes in we're to greet them and direct them to a pew or whatever the case, and then at a certain time we're to close the door of the church. That's all we do. We don't do services. We don't find opportunities for ministry. We don't proclaim the gospel. We're doormen is what it comes down to. Now that's an organization, and it's a well-run organization. They open the door. They close the door. They have a greeter, but that's not an organism. An organism is something that has life and vitality and purpose. And our purpose at Church of the Highlands is to reach our community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so there's a difference between an organism and an organization, and therefore we function on the basis of spiritual gifts not elected officers. We function on the basis of the spiritual gifts not elected officers.

You know I have some wonderful friendships with some of the local pastors here and I've been meeting with them for about seven years, and a number of years back I was talking with one of them and I was describing, I said you know I can't believe, I've heard that there are some churches that put together committees and they sit around and they discuss how many rolls of toilet paper they have to buy this month, and how many Styrofoam cups, and how many canisters of coffee, and all of this kind of stuff. And he said you know Leighton, I got to tell you because of the traditions of our church my church does that. We have a committee that goes through and discusses those kind of issues. And you know what? He said by the time we've gotten through all that mundane stuff there's no time, there is no energy, and there's no vision left for ministering into our community. That's a shame. That's where you're an organization where the maintenance is the focus, just maintaining and making sure the bathrooms are properly equipped and the kitchen is properly equipped, instead of being an organism where ministry is the focus. At Church of the Highlands we have staff members that take care of the mundane so that our members can do the ministry.

Just as each one of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We each have different gifts according to the grace given us. I've underlined we each have different gifts. It tells us to things. Number one, each of us has at least one gift. There's something that God has giving you you're a 10 in it. You're as good as they come. Now you may not know what that is. Part of your journey might be finding out what the gift is that God has giving you that can minister to the rest of the church, the body of Christ, and build up the body of Christ. But somewhere God has giving you gift. But He hasn't given everybody the same gift. Can you imagine what this church would be like it everybody had the gift of preaching? It wouldn't be much fun, would it? But He's given us all kinds of the gifts. He gave us preaching, teaching, administration, helps, all kinds of gifts and we all complement each other. Now it tells us something else, there are no unimportant parts to this body, and there are no parts that are more important than others. The preaching pastor is not more important than the Sunday School teacher, or the Sunday School helper who is preparing the snacks for the children. All of us are equally important in the body of Christ.

In an organization "maintenance" becomes the focus. But in an organism "ministry" is the focus. I put a little arrow and I put the word living. In a living organism ministry is the focus. At Highlands we have a simple structure so that we can maximize ministry, maximize ministry, and minimize maintenance. Maximize ministry and minimize maintenance. God gave...some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of ministry, so that the body of Christ may be built up. Now I've underlined to prepare God's people because to you know in some churches the people think, they have a mentality, that that's our ministry staff and it's their job to do the ministry. That's not true here at Church of the Highlands. You see it's the people at Church of the Highlands, the members of Church of the Highlands, that are the ministers. The pastors are the administrators. The people are the ministers. The pastors are the administrators. It says here that pastors and teachers are there to prepare God's people for works. It's the people who do the works. It's the pastors and teachers who prepare the people to do the works so that the body of Christ might be built up. Now there's a line there, currently there are and so many different ministries in our church begun and operated by members. We used to put a number in there that the number keeps changing. It goes up, and it comes down, and it goes up, and it keeps going up. So I just put the word many in there. There are many different ministries to in our church begun and operated by members. We did an inventory, I think it was last month, and I think we were able to identify over 100 ministries that are begun and operated by members. You know what are some examples? Well one of the examples we have is next month instead of the men meeting next door on the third Saturday of the month for breakfast; we're going to meet at a fishing hole. And the purpose of going out to the fishing hole is so that some of the guys that are on the periphery of the church who have not come into the church because they don't have friendships they don't have relationships, will have an opportunity to do something that they're comfortable doing. They love fishing and they're going to come in, they're going to talk about fishing. And hopefully we will be able to build a relationship, and in that relationship there'll be a trust built, and in that trust we'll be able to expand beyond the trivial things, the fishing, and get to the more important things which are our eternal destiny, our relationship with God. So that's an outreach opportunity and we had it a number of years back, it was called the Sportsman's ministry and it was very, very successful in bringing hundreds of men to the church, and then the man that had that as his burden was transferred, had to move. And there was not another man and so what happened to the ministry? It went into a dormant state for a period of time, and now the man has come. One of the members of our congregation says, I have a burden for this. Okay. What can we do as pastors to help you accomplish this vision? I got any e-mail this last week from somebody saying you know I see that we need to have a businessman's fellowship. We have men that are businessmen and you get them together and they can talk about business, something they're comfortable with, and then you broadened the relationship and go into things that are really important like eternal destiny and their relationship with God. So you see currently there are many different ministries in our church begun and operated by members. I got a report a couple of weeks ago that our prison ministry which is overseen by Herman Reese, one of our members here, just recently on a Friday night I think it was, they had seven professions of faith by prisoners. Isn't that great? Let's give the Lord a clap offering for that. Thank you Lord, (congregation claps) thank you Lord, thank you Lord. Now that's a ministry from one of the people in our church, and it's something that God has put on, and the pastoral staff are here to support Herman in his vision.

Number four, the church is a flock. Jesus' favorite description of the church. A flock of what? A flock of sheep, and by the way that's not a complement. When Jesus refers to us as sheep it's not a complement. You see you'll never hear about a wild sheep because they can't run, they can't fight, and if they fall over they can't even get themselves upright. There's no such thing as a wild sheep. They don't last in the wild. They have to be protected by a shepherded, and so therefore it is cared for and led by shepherds. Jesus asked Simon Peter, 'Do you really love me?' 'Yes, Lord,' said Peter. 'Then take care of my sheep.' There are three different terms in the New Testament that referred to the same church leaders; poimen, presbuteros, and episcopos. To the elders I say...Be shepherds of God's flock, serving as overseers. Now this is the interesting thing because at the very same time our shepherds are also sheep. We are both sheep and shepherds at the very same time. Now what does that mean? That means we need to be watching out and protecting each other. That's what it means. We need to be watching out and protecting each other. We need to be shepherding each other. We need to be protecting each other. The Scriptures don't tell us that we are going to be known by our organization as disciples of Jesus Christ. The Scriptures don't tell us that we're going to be known as disciples of Jesus Christ because of our busyness, although some people think that the busier they are in various ministries somehow the more points they're going to get in heaven. The Word doesn't tell us that we're going to be known as His believers because of our theological orthodoxy, and it doesn't say because of our biblical knowledge. What it does say is we're going to be known because of our love for one another, and so when we are protecting and even correcting we do so in love and we follow Scriptural directions in order to do so. A family of love.

Now there's a place there for you to fill out information. I want to tell you that the information that you provide us is not given to any other organization. It's not sold or anything like that. It's used exclusively for the purpose of ministering to you the ministries of the church, and we protect that information. And so we would love to have you fill that information about at your convenience, and then get it to our church office. If you want, if it's already filled out, you can give it to an usher as you leave today. In any event, we just look forward to seeing what God has for us in the weeks and months to come. Amen?

Let's pray. Lord we thank you for our time together today and we thank you for Your Word, and we thank you for the instructions and guidelines You give to us individually and corporately as a church body. Lord we thank you for the opportunity that we have to work together, and for the opportunity to minister and be representatives of You in whatever place it is that You have placed us, whatever line of work. And Lord as we go forth from this place today we just ask Your spirit to give us guidance and direction and protection, and prepare the way that we might minister effectively for You and for Your kingdom. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, and together we say, amen. God bless you.