Address to the Living Stones Banquet, 10.22.11

If you’re like me, you grew up saying things like, “What church do you go to?” And answering something like, “I go to the Episcopal Church of the Nativity.” Or maybe, "I don't go to church." Which makes perfect sense if a church is a building, a place you go once a week to worship.

But I want to challenge all of us to start thinking of our church differently. Because a church is not a building; a church is a community of faith, built of living stones like you and me, on the one foundation that will never crumble: the sure, solid, unshakeable foundation of Jesus Christ. A church is a center for life transformation. It is a community that empowers you, that nourishes your spirit, that inspires you to go out into the world and do what God is calling you to do.

So a church is not a place you go; it is a place you come from.

I dream of a Church of the Nativity where all of us come out, empowered and nourished to be God’s ministers, God’s holy priesthood in the world. You and I are the Living Stones that God uses to form that church. You and I are God’s church.

So why are we building a new home for Church of the Nativity? There are some good solid practical reasons:

• · Our lease on our current facility, provided to us by the generosity of a member of our congregation for a five-year period, expires at the end of next year – and we won’t have a place to worship after that, unless we build.
• The space we're in now is hard to find; from the outside you can't even see our sign because it's covered by landscaping. I've had people tell me that they had to drive around for three Sundays before they could find us, even though they knew we were here.
• · Our three tiny classrooms are not big enough for the number of kids we have; we don’t have a place for adult education at all, and our adults meet on Sundays in an alcove in the upstairs office building hallway.
• · We spill out into the office building lobby for hospitality and fellowship.
• · Our sanctuary seats about 125-140. We average about 165 on Sundays with two services – the only reason we can fit all our folks is that we have two services during the prime 9 a.m.-noon Sunday morning slot – but there’s no time during that time slot to add another service.
• · Even though we now have two services, our 9:30 service now is almost as full as our 10:00 service was back in 2008, when we decided to go to two Sunday morning services.
• · Studies show churches stop growing when the sanctuary gets 70 – 80% full.
• · At about 90 on average at 9:30, our sanctuary is about 70% full at that service already.
• · There’s a little more room to grow in the 11:00 service, with an average of 72 in that service – but we’re growing – our attendance this year is up 15% from last year, which means we’re on pace to top out in both services by this time next year.
• · And we don’t want to grow to the point where there’s no room for new folks – we want to welcome all.
• And there are great things to say about our new location - it's in a neighborhood near where many of our folks live, on a main street, close to a school, a library, a retirement home, a hospital, etc.
• But those good reasons aren't enough - we want to share what we have with more people.
• · Because we have something good to welcome them to, at Nativity.

So let me tell you about that – let me tell you how I see God working here. In the Gospel of Matthew, there is a story: John the Baptist is in prison, he knows that the end of his life and his ministry is coming, and he wonders if it has all been worth it; he wonders if his cousin Jesus is truly the Messiah he has been pointing to all this time. So he sends some of his followers to ask Jesus: are you the one we’ve been waiting for, or should we keep on waiting? Jesus doesn’t do what I would do and just say clearly, yes, I’m the Messiah. He tells John’s followers, Go and tell John what you see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

When the Messiah is present, you can see it. So I’m going to draw you pictures, with words, so you can see what I see.

The first picture is this: last Sunday evening, I came to youth group to help Klayton teach teen Confirmation class (we have 12 teenagers being confirmed in 3 weeks, in addition to the 11 we had confirmed last May). And here’s what I saw. In our tiny youth room, roughly 15 x 13, the one right off the narthex with a couch in it, I saw 27 teenagers, 3 youth leaders and a puppy.

That’s 27 teenagers who come together on Sunday evenings to eat, talk, laugh, pray, share stories of their week, read the Bible, and talk about where God is in their lives. 27 teenagers who will grow up thinking deeply about God, experiencing Christ’s presence in worship, knowing that Jesus loves them. 27 teenagers who will have the support of a community of faith, and the love of their Savior, as they grow up into high school and college and young adulthood, and begin to make the most important decisions of their lives. This is life transformation; these young people come from Nativity each week strengthened with God’s love. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

Here’s the second picture I want to draw for you. At worship last Sunday, at both services we did the once-a-month prayers, laying on of hands and anointing for healing. At the 9:30 service, 22 people came up for healing; almost that many came forward at 11:00. You can’t see their faces as they come forward, but I can. I see the tears in many eyes. I see faces filled with hope. I see how through the ancient sacrament of anointing, people are filled with the Holy Spirit, and become conscious of Christ’s constant presence and strength in their struggles. They find themselves healed, not going to Nativity, but coming from Nativity. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

Here’s the third picture I want you to see in your mind’s eye. It’s a group of people heading off to Navajoland to rebuild houses, bring donations and build relationships with our Navajo Episcopal brothers and sisters. These are people who have labored hard all year to raise funds and physical donations for the Navajo, who have poured their hearts into improving the lives of other Americans, who are working in partnership and making new friends in Navajoland, as they are transforming lives. That’s not the only remarkable, life-transforming mission work I see going on at Nativity: I see a group of folks who are passionate about the work being done to educate children and lift them out of poverty in our sister church in Veracruz, Mexico; I see a parish that is the #1 contributor to the Episcopal Coalition for Habitat for Humanity here in the Valley; I see youth who do mission work each summer; I see a faith community that works to make sandwiches for homeless people, give Christmas presents to children who otherwise wouldn’t have any, and other outreach ministries too numerous to count. These are ministers, not who go to Nativity, but who come from Nativity to transform lives with the love of Jesus Christ. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

A fourth picture: a recent Wednesday evening at Nativity. At 4:30 p.m., if you came there, you would see two people in each of two classrooms – adults being mentored for Confirmation, two of our 7 adults who will be confirmed in a few weeks (in addition to all the teenagers). At 5:30 p.m., you would see a group of 12 or 15 people studying the Gospel of Matthew and coming to amazing insights about where Jesus is in their lives. At 7:00 p.m., the choir would arrive to practice to lead our beautiful worship, at the same time the Healing Ministries team arrives to talk about the many ministries of healing we have through Nativity. Standing there in the midst of all this, you would see your pastor, amazed, smiling at all the activity, giving thanks for the ministries that people are being empowered to lead and participate in, in this community of faith, marveling at how the Holy Spirit is working with our people. These people don’t just go to Nativity, they come from Nativity to transform lives. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

One last picture: a picture of people whose lives have been changed by being part of Nativity. People who never knew Christ before, or who have even spent their lives avoiding Jesus. You may not know their stories, but I know them. They are people who have made new decisions, who have become followers of Christ in this church. People whose lives have been transformed by this community of faith. Here is what one of them wrote to me recently – someone who has been through a lot of life transformation, and has become a part of Nativity and decided to become a follower of Christ through our ministries (I have this person’s permission to share this, anonymously). Here’s what he wrote: “I [have come to an] understanding that what I have gained in life is all a gift and that I should be extremely grateful. Every moment is an opportunity to realize Grace in the world - in my life, in others' lives, in the beauty of creation. I think we can even learn to see Grace in places where it seems entire[ly] missing at first glance.” People like him don’t just go to Nativity, they come from Nativity, transformed and emboldened and renewed as agents of God’s love in this world and the next. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.

This is why we’re building a church. Not just because we’re running out of room, though we are. And not just because our lease is expiring, though it is. And not just because our leadership (the whole Bishop’s Committee and Tom and myself, also, and several other parish leaders) is 100% committed to this project, through verbal support and also through our own financial commitments, though we are. Not just because we need a holy and transformative space for our worship, education, prayer, healing, fellowship and evangelism – though we do. Not just because we need room for the people we believe God is calling us to touch and transform in the future – though we do.

Those are all good reasons, but they’re not why we’re building a church.

We’re building a church because a church is not a place you go. A church is a place you come from.

A church is a place where we are healed and transformed, where we grow into our vocation to be followers of Christ in all we say and do. I hope that as all of us grow in our faith, as all of us live into God’s vision for our church, as all of us fulfill the ministries God has called us to do, that we will always remember to say: NOT, I go to Church of the Nativity. But, I come from Church of the Nativity.

Because as we let God build us into Living Stones in this holy community of faith, we find: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.