To Proclaim and Serve

A lot of people have asked about our vacation. I just wanna mention that. Of course, we were on vacation for a couple of weeks. We went to Canada, Lisa and I. And, I wanna thank you all for a lot of folks said I prayed for you while you were gone.

We received some cards and things like that, very nice messages of encouragement, for our work and so on and so forth. We wanna thank everyone who's done that. Think of us. And, for fear of not having to repeat this too many more times, yes, we had a wonderful time, one of our best vacations ever, and we did spend time with our folks, with our parents, and had lots of time to just be with them, and it was a very refreshing time, Beautiful weather, Canadian summer is very lovely. About 55 at night, 75 to 80 in the daytime, so that was, yeah.

Ain't that great? No air conditioning. Just open them windows. Get 2 windows opened up in the house there and and enjoy the cool evenings. But it was very wonderful and we're happy to be back and, and back to work.

I was anxious to come back and, just keep on going with the wonderful things that are happening here in, in Choctaw. While we were on vacation, Lise and I, as we do when we're on holidays, visited different congregations, you know. We go worship with different congregations, see how different people do things, listen it's good to sit and listen to somebody else preach. And one particular Sunday, we were at the Memorial Road Congregation, it's actually in Oklahoma City, but you know that that congregation that's just right next to the college there, Oklahoma Christian College, and that morning, James Waugh, who is responsible for outreach, he's the outreach minister, he was the one who was preaching. And before his lesson began, he, he showed a video of, of a video that he had produced that week before before that particular Sunday.

Now this video was the result of, man on the street interviews. They went to do man on the street interviews, at the gas station right at the corner of where the church is located. So one block away from the Memorial Street, or Memorial Road congregation, there is like a gas and go or something there and they went there and they did some interviews. Now you have to understand something about the Memorial Road Congregation. It has about 2,000 members.

It's the largest congregations in the in the State of Oklahoma. It has an enormous building complex that also houses a fully accredited Christian, school that goes from, I think, the early grades all the way up to high school. It sits on the same property as Oklahoma Christian University, so it's quite visible and it has been there in the Edmond community for almost 50 years. Now, James showed the interview of about 10 regular customers of that gas station down the street and he asked them the question, what is your opinion of the Memorial Road Church of Christ? Now all of the people that he interviewed were long time members and excuse me, they were long time residents of the Edmond community.

They had been there for a long time. And he showed us about 10 10 interviews. Now of the 10 interviews, 5 people answered that they knew absolutely nothing about this church and they weren't even sure of the name. They didn't even know what the name of it was, 5 out of the 10. 2 people said that they thought it was connected to the college somehow.

You know, they said, wasn't that the church that's connected to that school there? That's about the amount of knowledge that they had. One person said that he read the Marquis as he drove by from time to time. One person said that he knew someone that went there. Oh, yeah.

I know that church. I know somebody that goes there and they're very nice. And one person admitted that he thought it was a church for wealthy people since everyone that went there was nicely dressed and they had big cars. When that interview played, I mean, there was a there was a gasp in the there was a literal gasp in the audience when when when that interview played. I remember that it was very, very quiet in the auditorium after James finished showing this particular video.

I mean, think about it, after 50 years and all of their efforts, it seemed that except for their own members, nobody knew or had been impacted by their congregation in that community, certainly not the sampling that they took. Now after this particular video, James went on to talk about image, church image, and how the community perceived their congregation. Now I don't have a video to show you, but I'll tell you, when I go about my business here in Choctaw, you know, I go have my car serviced over at Harrington's and I go do a little shopping here and I eat at the subway, you know, like you, I do my business around town, and I mentioned that I'm the minister at the, at the congregation here, there are 3 types of comments that I invariably receive about the Choctaw Church of Christ. The first one is this, somebody will say, oh, I know somebody that goes there as as the first oh, I know somebody that goes to that church. And since we've been here a long time, you know, people usually make the connection with somebody that they know.

After all, it's a small community. Many times, however, and I have to say, a lot of times, the person they know is either dead or their faith is dead. Somebody's name they mentioned that, you know, yeah, used to go here, but doesn't go here anymore. Now I have to say, however, on a positive side, the winner among the living and the faithful is Judy Roberts. Since everybody knows missus Roberts, you know, I think she's taught everybody in this community at one time or another.

So she wins the trophy for the most recognizable name, you know, miss Judy. But that's one comment. They they say, oh, yeah. I know somebody goes to that church. Another comment is this, they say, oh, yeah.

You're the church that has that different sign up every week. You know the titles up on our marquee? People remember our sign because it changes every single week and it has 2 different sermon titles on it. You might not think that's a lot, but you drive around and you look at the church signs around here and boy, if they change once a month, you know, if it changes once a month, I mean, they're doing pretty good. It doesn't make people come in the doors, but at least they notice.

And then the one that I get the most, and especially in recent times, is this, oh, yeah. Are you guys finished your construction project yet? At that point, I give him Dave's number and I just tell him to call. Now these people have never been inside our church building, but a long term construction project of this size usually gets people's attention. At least they don't confuse us with the Baptist church across the street.

They know who we are. I'm happy that our community has some awareness of our existence, but I'm not satisfied with the image that they have of us at this time. Once the actual building is done, I believe that we have to begin constructing a healthy church image in our community. I mean, it's okay. We gotta finish this building project.

That's fine. But once that's done, we really have to start building our our image. That's the important thing. Now when I say image, I mean the concept of us in the minds of our neighbors and in our, in the minds of our neighbors and our friends. You know, we are more than a building.

We're more than just a sign out front. We're more than just one person that someone knows. We are the body of Christ. We are the called out. We're the saved.

We're the children of God and somehow, we need to convey that image to our community. When they imagine us, when they drive by this building, when they see the sign or speak to one of our individual members, it's important that they have a healthy image of of who we are. And it's important that they have a healthy image of who we are for specific reasons. First of all, they have to, know who we are because our image is our witness. Our image is our witness.

In Acts chapter 2 verse 44 to 47, Luke describes the actions and the image that the early church had with their community. In Acts chapter 2 beginning in verse 44, Luke writes the following. He says, and all those who had believed were together and had all things in common, and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need. And day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising god and having favor with all of the people. Now listen to this part.

And the lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. Notice that they were having favor with all of the people. Notice that their common love and their great fellowship and their generous attitude created a favorable impression on those who witnessed their Christianity in action. Even the people who didn't believe in Jesus, even the people who were afraid to join them knew and respected how they lived and what they did. There's an there's image for you.

What people see and perceive us doing will form their image of us and that image will be a witness for Christ. Even if we can't speak to others personally, our image will do the talking for us. That's why it's important that we convey the right image to our community. Secondly, our image affects our ability to win souls. I mean, everything we have done with this building renovation, from the lights to the colors to the entrances and so on and so forth, everything was designed with a single purpose.

We wanted to say to everyone who passed by or who drew near, we wanted to say, You are welcome here. We wanted to say, we are happy to be here. We wanted to say, there is room for you here. That's why, you know, the parking is important. That's why we need to make, you know, when somebody gets up and says, Brethren, please don't park in the visitor's spot.

Why do we do that? Because we're trying to make your life difficult? No. Because we want to say to visitors, we have room for you here. If a guy can't even find a parking spot, you think he's gonna think we have room for his kids, room for his problems?

See what I'm saying? Image. Image. You walk into somebody's house and they invite you to their house and you walk in, the dishes aren't washed, nothing's cooking, it's dirty, do you feel very welcome? Of course not.

You feel welcome if they have perhaps done a little made a little effort, you know, in the house to kinda make you feel welcome. It's the same thing in the meeting place where the church meets. We're we're going through this effort right now to be able to say to people on the outside, you are welcome. We've made a great effort to make this place convenient and bright and cheerful and welcoming because we want you here. You know, some people say that buildings are not important, but buildings are important because they reflect how we feel about other people and how we feel about ourselves.

Are we closed in on ourselves or are we open for others to come on in? If people sense that we are open and genuinely interested in them for their good, if the building in our programs and our teaching, our attitude, our worship, if all of these things say, we love you, we want to share Christ with you, people will be more disposed to be here and listen and allow us to preach the gospel to them. Our image will either work to draw people to Christ or it will push them away, and we're the ones who are responsible for this. So a healthy image is important because our image helps us to win souls. And then a healthy image is also important because our image affects our future.

Do you know that? I've met so many angry and disillusioned Christians who were brought up in congregations was where where everything was negative. Everything was negative. What you can't do, you know, the preachers and the elders and the teachers, boy, they spent a lot of time telling you what you couldn't do. Can't do this and you can't do that.

Where everyone else was wrong. You grow up in a church like that where everybody else was wrong. You know, half the preaching, half the preaching was to describe how everybody else was wrong and we were right. Or churches where strangers were suspect. They're suspicious of strangers.

Imagine that. Did you grow up in a church like that? Or change, any change was like World War 3. You understand what I'm saying? You've either grown up in a congregation like that, maybe visited 1.

You know, people that come and visit here, because there's so much movement going on in this part of town, you know, with the with the Tinker exchanges going on and and, you know, developments being built. There's so many families. Every Sunday, a new family or 2 coming in saying, well, we're just visiting around. We're just visiting East Side, Ridge Credit. You know, we're visiting around and And what do you think they're looking for?

They're looking for an open, loving, enthusiastic family of God. That's what they're they can't maybe write it down on a piece of paper. It's not color scheme that they're looking for. It's people whose hearts and arms are open to them. That's what they're looking for.

That environment, the negative one I was talking about, that environment produces sad, angry and unproductive spiritual lives because a negative self image cannot create joy and hopeful experiences. No way. I've always wanted my children to love the church. I don't know how many times Lise and I have talked about that. We want our kids to love the church.

We want our children to see the church as the loving center of our family lives. Always, that's what we've wanted for our children. And, you know, being a preacher is not always, it's not always the easiest thing to succeed at that because you're kinda on the inside, you know what I'm saying? And sometimes you're you see a lot of negative things and sometimes, you know, because you have to deal with people's problems all the time, your children think that that's all there is in church, problems. So, you know, preachers' kids don't always get the balanced view.

So we've worked especially hard to make sure that our children love the church and love the, the congregation and I'm happy to say that even though Paul and Julia are far away, they still make a great effort to attend, worship because they love the church and we've never had a fight in our house about going to services. There's never been an issue. It's never been an issue because William and Emily and Julia and Paul love the church. They love the lord's church. Now my point here is that the image that we project about the church to our children will be what they bring with them into adulthood.

If church is just to be attended once in a while for you, the parents, then it'll be just a once in a while attendance for your children as well. If church is a place where there is trouble or the elders don't care or the preacher doesn't mind his own business, then children will bring this image with them when they leave home. If, on the other hand, the church is family, the church is help in time of need, the church is supported, the church sends us into ministry, the church is a blessing for us, then this image will continue into the next generation. So image is important because it impacts our community for Christ, it impacts our ability to win souls, and it impacts the future generation of church leadership. Alright.

Now that we've talked about the importance of a good image, let's just spend the last few minutes of my lesson on what each of us can do to project that image that I'm talking about. You know, we've already begun by building a meeting place that is bright and welcoming and functional. That's important. Now that we've done that or we've nearly finished doing that, let's let's look at a couple of other things we can do to build a healthy church image. Number 1, we need to focus on the strengths and the potentials of our congregation, not the problems.

Paul said in Philippians chapter 4 verse 8 that Christians need to concentrate on good things. He said, Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Of course, there are problems. Of course, there are problem people in the church, but if this is all we talk about among ourselves or worse still, or worse still, if this is we, if this is what we talk about to others outside the church, man, it's bad enough to complain about the elders to a brother in Christ, but to complain about the elders to somebody who's not even a member, that's bad, bad form. How can that help create a healthy image?

Here's a good rule of thumb. Okay? A good rule of thumb, promote the good things, pray about the problems. A lot of times what we do is the reverse. We just promote the problems and we neglect to pray and give thanks.

No. If if we've got 10 things and only 3 things are good, promote those 3 things, pray about the other 7. Boy, if each of us did that, what a healthy, invigorating church image we would have. People know, people on the outside, they know we're not perfect. We don't have to convince them beyond a shadow of a doubt by promoting our problems instead of our successes.

And so if we wanna build a healthy church image and project a healthy church image, let us promote what is good. Let's pray about the things that still need some work. Can we do that? Can I hear an amen? Amen.

Please, brethren. Please. And I I I didn't get, you know, I didn't get this idea by looking just in a book. If I'm saying if I'm saying it's because we're doing it. Let's stop promoting our problems.

Let's pray about our problems. If you have a problem with something, pray to God about it. If you have a problem with a person, please go to that person. That's the most frustrating thing. It it makes me crazy that so many of us have not learned that basic lesson.

You have a problem with a person? Go to that person. Don't create a posse. It's what we do, you know. We round up a posse.

Don't do that. Go to the person. Number 2, we want to build a healthy image. We need to work towards the positive image we desire for ourselves. This is called projection.

Projection. Sports people use this, you know, focus, focus, focus. We need to do that too. We need to project. We want to be a church that reaches out to the lost.

We wanna be a church that teaches God's word accurately. We wanna be a church that enjoys a peaceful and loving fellowship. We wanna be a church that experiences meaningful and biblical worship. We wanna be a church that's busy serving the needs of the saints in the community. This is the image of our best selves.

This is the image of of of a Christ centered church. This is the ideal. This is the optimum image we want others to see. Well, brothers and sisters, if that's what we want, we need to work towards this image a step at a time. And the way that you do that is that you eliminate those things that hinder your progress, individually or collectively.

If you have something that hinders you from growing in Christ very simple, get rid of it. Get rid of it. Well, I can't share my faith with people because I swear like a sailor, you know. I mean, people won't take me seriously. So what do I do?

Duh. You know, I could go on and on about vices here, but you you know what I'm saying. Get rid of it and add those things to your life that will bring you closer and closer to the desired image. Do you want your child to read his or her bible and have a respect for it? Well, how many times does your child see you turn off the TV and pick up your Bible and read it for yourselves?

See what I'm saying? That's how it works. Whether we are new or old saints, preachers, elders, deacons, teachers, ministry leaders, each of us needs to work towards this collective whole to produce the image that we wanna project. It's okay. We're not there yet, but are we working towards it?

Each one of us has a contribution to make. I mean, the community only sees me once in a while, but they see all of us most of the time. Number 3, to create a healthy image, we need to create meaningful experiences that will reinforce our image with our community and ourselves. That's a big, that's a mouthful, right? I'll repeat it.

We want to build a healthy image, We need to create meaningful experiences that will reinforce our image with our community and ourselves. You see, Jesus ate with sinners because he wanted to reach sinners. He he healed the lepers because he wanted to show the power of God and the mercy of God. He went to each village, 1 by 1, to preach and to teach because he had to bring the message of the kingdom. Well, he didn't just send the 12 and send the 72, he went himself first.

People do not internalize our message and our image simply by seeing a building or receiving, something in the mail. They have to have meaningful contact with the image that they see in order to be affected and included in it. This is why we have VBS. You know, believe it or not, we're not having VBS to aggravate everybody, although it may seem that way. Every year is the same thing.

A week before VBS, everybody's aggravated. Not enough time to prepare, oh, it's coming. Oh, I forgot to do this. Oh, oh, oh, you know. And then after it's all over, you know, they go, oh, isn't that wonderful?

It's like having a baby, you know. You have that, oh, okay. I'll wait to have the baby, then you have the baby and it's, don't talk to me, don't touch me, I never wanna see you ever again. And then a year and a half later, oh, it would be nice to have a little brother, wouldn't it? Something like that for VBS.

Something like that for v first time mothers are laughing there. We won't make any comment. The same thing for VBS. It's not just VBS. That's why we have family day.

You know, is family day convenient? Of course not. You gotta bring a change of clothes, you gotta get the kids to the you gotta bring the food, you gotta drive out to the it's not convenient. It's not about convenience. If you want convenience, stay home, order out.

Watch TV, you know, watch a worship service on TV if you want convenience. That's why we have bring a friend day, seminars, small groups, support groups, benevolent program. Why do we do this? Because the image is not real until it comes into human contact with someone in a meaningful way. That's why we do it.

VBS is the most inconvenient thing you can imagine. You gotta go to work, then you gotta come here for another couple of hours and chase kids throughout the building. But how many children have come to know Christ because somebody cared enough to give up 1 or 2 nights of their summer to teach them the simple stories of Jesus and the apostles? Meaningful. You know, religious education teachers tell us that children, babies all the way to about 12 years old, it isn't the memory of the story, it isn't the memory of the doctrine that impacts them.

You know what it is? It's the smell of the teacher's perfume. It's the warmth of the room. It's the feeling and the the the tone of the voice of the of the teacher. It's the hand on the shoulder.

It's the hug. It's that's the thing that they remember. That's the thing that impresses them about church when they're little. Not the doctrines. They learn that for sure.

But it's all those intangibles that create an impact on them. See, the image isn't real until somehow we we connect. At VBS or at the park having a hot dog, 2 people finally sit down, get to know each other. That that that's the reason for all of this. So we wanna be a caring and loving church.

Right? That that we wanna be care so next week, I'm gonna be teaching a series of lessons from Monday to Wednesday night about families that are blended, you know, second marriages, 3rd marriages, single mom, single dad, that type of thing, lessons to help these people adjust to having children brought together to form a new family. Now we only look like a caring group if all we do is advertise the series, but we become our image if someone brings a friend or a relative and the series and the warm fellowship does them some good. Try to remember that each activity and each time we encourage you to bring a guest, you are helping not only to build our image, you're also helping to turn our image into a reality for someone, for someone that god loves. The time for renovating our meeting place is nearly over.

Amen? Amen. The time for renovating our image is now at hand. Now is the time. I don't I don't want us to be just a sign or a construction site.

I want us to be the living, breathing body of Christ in the Choctaw community and in the greater community. I mean, if somebody else isn't doing it, we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. I I don't feel bad if somebody visits 6 6 congregations and finally ends up here. I don't feel bad about that because we are doing everything we know how to do to bring them to us and consequently bring them closer to Jesus Christ.

I want the Lord Jesus to use our hands and our hearts to really impact our community for the, for the, for the, kingdom of God. A little while back, Harold Weaver and I talked about having a slogan or a model that would summarize everything that we're about here in Choctaw, pretty tall order. We couldn't think of 1. I talked with Kenneth and boy, we couldn't come up with anything. Something that would incorporate our image and purpose as a church or as the church in this place.

I thought about it for a while and one day, I saw a police seal with the motto that many police departments use, to protect and serve. Right? A lot of police departments use that motto. Well, this noble ideal made me think of a good motto for ourselves and that would be to proclaim and serve, to proclaim and serve. That's what we're about, to proclaim the gospel and to proclaim the, the, and celebrate the greatness of God and to serve our community and to serve our brethren, to proclaim and serve.

There's a good motto that we could use. I hope that if we ever make a video or ask people in Choctaw what they think about us, I hope that if I ever make that and now we have the equipment and the space to do it, if ever we do that, I hope that their answer will be one of the following. Yes, I've been invited to visit that place. Oh, yeah, the Church of Christ and they brought me food when I needed it. Oh, the church on the corner of Choctaw and Reno, man, I know about them.

Those are people who love others and love the Lord. Choctaw and Reno? Church of Christ? Yeah. I have a friend and I admire her faith and her hard work in the name of Jesus Christ.

But the very best answer would be this one, the Choctaw Church of Christ? I'm a Christian today because of them. That's the answer I wanna hear. Brothers and sisters, let's work in such a way that others will say this about us one day. The Bible says that we should let others give us praise.

We shouldn't praise ourselves, let others give us praise. For now, I hope that all of you have already obeyed the gospel and I hope that all of you have your physical and spiritual needs met. However, on the chance that you may be among us and you've not obeyed Christ in repentance and baptism, and perhaps you have needs that we willingly and hopefully, can, can can offer to you, we've set aside this time, this this invitation moment where we sing a song and we reflect, please, not about where your car is parked or if the restaurant is full, but during this particular song, we reflect, do I need to come to Christ for one reason or another? Most of the times, the answer will be no and that's fine. But if the answer is yes in your heart, I need to come to the Lord for whatever reason, then please, we're a family here.

We love you. The elders are here ready to help. We encourage you to respond to that invitation as we stand and as we sing this song.