Dr. Rodney Plunket

Please open your worship handout to the mission, vision, and values on page two.  From that page you can see that Broadway’s new mission statement is “Discovering Jesus.”  Last week we saw how that statement covered the whole of our personal walks with the Lord and the whole of our journey together as a people of God.  From 2 Corinthians 3:18 we learned from the apostle Paul that Jesus is like a mirror; Jesus perfectly reflects the glory of God.  And Paul makes very clear that, as we stay focused upon Jesus, we are transformed by God’s glory from one degree of glory to another.  And Jesus, in John 10:14-15, makes equally clear that the relationship that He wants with His followers is to be like the relationship that Jesus has with God the Father.  So the goal of our new mission statement is to cause us each one of us to have a deep and transforming relationship with Jesus––a relationship that causes us to think, feel, obey, live, pray, worship, and serve the way that Jesus did.

That mission statement, “Discovering Jesus,” is the big, broad statement.  It covers the whole of what God is calling Broadway to be.  Those phrases that express our vision and our values are different.  They give some of the specifics of our shared effort to discover Jesus.

We plan to look at Broadway’s values next week through a sermon entitled
“A Heritage Embraced.”  Please look for just a moment at those values with me:

Campus Ministry
Commitment to Children
Compassion
Foreign Missions
Generosity
In-depth Bible Study
Prayer

If you do not see it already, I believe you will next Sunday.  These are attributes that have been central to the Broadway church for a long time.  These items convey our heritage, and we not only want to take these along with us through the twenty-first century; we want to expand our enthusiasm for and participation in everyone of these areas.  We have been called to advance our goal of “Discovering Jesus” by continuing and building upon our past dedication to these items for which Broadway has long been known.

Now please look at our vision statements:

Developing Authentic Community
Equipping for Life and Service
Glorifying God with Spirit-Filled Worship
Telling the Story

These statements focus us more on the future.  These are areas in which God is calling us to grow.  In just a few years we want these items to move from vision to values.  We want these to become a part of the heritage that we pass on.  But we are not there yet. 

Two Sundays ago, we focused on our theme for 2003.  We focused on the theme of “Broadway, An Irresistible Community.”  That theme flows out of this first vision statement, so we will especially focus on it in 2003.  Since I talked about it just two weeks and since Dean Barham will be doing the same on the last Sunday in February, I will only make one point about it this morning.  Look back at our Scripture reading.  In Acts 4:31ff, we hear of a people who “were of one heart and soul,” a group without “a needy person among them” because they had such a radical spirit of sharing.  In the ancient world a person’s extended family was by far the most important safety net that he or she had.  People did not have insurance companies to turn to; they did not have any of the modern government programs like Social Security or Welfare to rely on.  When a person became a Christian, he or she usually lost his or her connection to that safety net because of the family’s absolute rejection of their decision.  Jesus prepared for that; He knew it would happen.  He very purposefully taught His disciples to create a new and stronger family in which people loved one another the way Jesus loves.  Jesus’ teachings and the Holy Spirit which Jesus sent created a community that showed the world the great power of Christian love.  Our vision is to recreate that same kind of tightly connected community of faith, hope, and love.

Look at the second vision statement; and by the way, these statements are listed in alphabetical order as are our values.  No one phrase is anymore important than another.  That second statement is “Equipping for Life and Service.”  Notice how the community of Acts 4 lived and served.  God is calling Broadway to be a church that prepares people for real lives out in the real world.  God is calling Broadway to be a church that prepares people to serve in the Name of Jesus to the glory of our God.  In Ephesians 4:11-16 the apostle Paul writes,

The gifts [Jesus] gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.  We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

That is the foundation passage for our second vision statement.  Notice that this passage makes clear that the leaders of the church are to equip all of the other persons in the church family.  They are to equip them “for the work of ministry.”  God is calling Broadway to fulfill that responsibility.  God is calling our individual leaders to take hold of that role and fulfill it.  And may each person who calls Broadway “home” be hungry to be used in Christian ministry to the glory of our God.  May that dream drive us!

The third vision statement is “Glorifying God through Spirit-Filled Worship.”  That vision connects us to Acts 4 and the powerful worship that was described there, a worship that was so connected to the Spirit that when they finished the “the place in which they were gathered together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit . . .” (Acts 4:31).  It also connects us to John (Jn) 4:21-24 where Jesus says to a Samaritan woman,

Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The term “spirit” in John’s Gospel is most often used to refer to the Holy Spirit.  And “truth” in John’s Gospel is connected to the Spirit; the Holy Spirit is referred to as the “Spirit of truth” in Jn 14:17; 15:26; 16:13.  And “truth” in John is also connected to Jesus; you can see that connection in Jn 1:14, 17 and many of us will remember that Jesus, in Jn 14:6 says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  John’s usage, therefore, indicates that what Jesus is saying here is that the true worshipper’s concern will no longer be with where believers worship geographically.  The true worshipper’s concern will be where we worship spiritually, relationally.  And the spiritual “place” where we are to worship is “in” the Holy Spirit and “in” Jesus; that is, we are to worship while tightly connected to and in a genuine relationship with the Holy Spirit and with Jesus.  So what we mean by “Glorifying God with Spirit-Filled Worship” is we want to be filled with the Spirit of God when we worship and, as happened in Ax 4, we want to filled even fuller as a result of our worship.  We want to go out of here so full of the Spirit that we speak the word of God with boldness.

The final vision statement is “Telling the Story.”  Just four chapters after the events reported in Acts 4, the Jerusalem church begins to experience great persecution spearheaded by a radical Pharisees named Saul.  Please look with me at Acts 8:1b-4:

That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.  Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.  But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.

Now those who were scattered went from place to place, proclaiming the word.

These early Christians were so excited about the message of Jesus that even when forced from their homes they went everywhere telling the story of Jesus.  That story had become so embedded in their story, so much a part of their lives that they went everywhere spreading it.  Broadway has been a great church for supporting evangelism performed by others for a very long time.  But we must honestly admit that we have not been very fruitful with regard to personal sharing of the message of Jesus.  Take hold of this dream.  May it drive us.  Let’s seek God’s transforming power so that we will tell the story of Jesus with joy and passion.

My greatest fear for our mission, vision, and values is that they will be nothing but words that will, in time, be completely forgotten.  I believe that God has given them to us to become dreams, exciting dreams that focus our energies and open our souls to the power of the living God.  May these dreams drive us.  May they drive us both individually and congregationally to never cease “Discovering Jesus.”

If all of your dreams have gone dark, then you need to receive God’s dream for your life.  God wants you to be in a life-transforming relationship with God, the Son of God, and the Holy Spirit.  If you are being called to come to the Lord, please come now as we stand and sing.

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