Mark 1:21-28
Today, we wrap up our series titled, “Are you connected?” We’ve been focusing on the importance of getting and staying connected to God. The first of our five P’s was Priorities, that God needs to be the number one priority in our lives; then we talked about Purpose—finding what God’s purpose is for your life. Then we saw how God puts us in relationship with People, making us a community of faith, helping each other along the journey of life. And then last week, we acknowledged that we need God’s Power in order to get through the tough times and to be and do what God calls us to. Today we’re going to put all of that together and talk about God’s Plan for St. Paul’s in 2012, and how each one of us fits into that plan.
So, you can open up your Bible to Mark chapter one. And if you didn’t pick up your GPS outline on the way in and if you’d like one to take sermon notes or for the deeper study in Mark, just raise your hand and an usher will bring one to you.
Okay, now in our reading from Mark, we find Jesus in church. You see there in verse 22 that the people were “amazed” because Jesus was teaching with “authority.” Jesus had a goal, that people would get to know God on a deeper level, and his plan was not to sit around and wait for it to just happen, because I’m sure that he could have performed some sort of miracle and “poof”, everyone would be perfect followers.
But no, his plan was to give us the example of being proactive and intentional in working towards his goal. Of course, in the middle of everything Jesus has to deal with evil spirits screaming at him. It’s kind of like here! And I love the reaction of the other people there—Hey wow, this must be some new kind of teaching, and with authority, because even the evil spirits obey him!” Maybe it’s just me, but if I’m there and this whole exorcism takes place in front of me, I’d be a bit more freaked out than that. But maybe it’s just me.
But regardless, the point is that because of Jesus’ intentional plan and focus, verse twenty eight tells us that “News about [Jesus] spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.” In a couple of week’s I’ll be able to give you a first-hand description of just how large that region is! However, Jesus was accomplishing his goal of having people develop a renewed interest in God. Jesus knew where his ministry would eventually take him, to the cross, but he was focused and committed, and never looked back. He was the plan, there was no Plan B.
As we move into this new year, we as a church need to look at where we are going, to define what our goals are, and to plan on how we are going to achieve these goals. We could come up with all kinds of wonderful sounding goals, but if we don’t have a plan, if we don’t work that plan, then we’ll just be wandering aimlessly, thinking that we will somehow just arrive at our destination.
I heard the story of the woman driving through a snowstorm just outside of Denver. She was completely lost and struggling under the hazardous weather conditions. She was relieved when she happened upon a snowplow. Since she was lost she decided to follow the truck and kept as close to the machine as she could.
After some time, the snowplow stopped and the driver got out and came back to her car. "Lady, where are you going?" he asked. "I’m on my way to Denver." she replied. The truck driver replied, "Well, you’ll never get there following me! I’m plowing a parking lot!"
We need to have goals, a plan, and a leadership team who can guide us along the way. Now, many of you probably don’t know who many of the leaders in the church are, and we are working on updating the board in the fellowship hall with the pictures of many of the leaders of the church; we are also putting together a leadership directory, with names of persons on various ministry teams and descriptions of what those teams do. This would be a great benefit to everyone.
But let me say this, that we are truly blessed here at St. Paul’s to have had throughout the years, people who have been willing to give of their time and talents to bring St. Paul’s through prosperous times and through challenging times, but all the while remaining focused on God and God’s plan for the ministry of this church.
And at this time, I’d just like to acknowledge and publicly thank leaders who have served terms and have rotated off of leadership at the end of 2011. Pete Shutt, our Church Council Chairperson; Tom Lewis, Trustees Chair; Bill Clauser, Staff-Parish Relations Chair; and due to illness, Barb and Sal Marino, Christian Education and Guest Follow-up. [Read names of other persons who have rotated off of ministry teams].
Thank you to all of you—you have been faithful in your service to the Lord, and so this year you can take a well-deserved rest. You’ll need it for what God’s going to call you to do next year! But you have helped to bring St. Paul’s to where we are now, and we pray that the current leadership, myself included, will be able to continue your legacy.
So just what is God’s plan and vision for St. Paul’s for 2012? I’m glad you asked! Because where we are going has been prayed about and discussed at Council meetings, staff meetings, over coffee at Dunkin Donuts or Rockin Joe’s, and at the Leadership Gathering earlier this month. And it all comes down to our purpose and primary goal, which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. In a nutshell, folks, that’s what we’re all about. That should be the underlying reason for everything we do here- making disciples. That’s St. Paul’s purpose for existing; and we are people with a purpose.
In fact, people with a purpose is kind of our tag line that we’ve been using on our web site and in our advertising over the past couple of years, and that will be our theme for the year as we continue on in 2012. You see it there on the front of your bulletin and on the banner over the altar: St. Paul’s United Methodist Church. We are people with a purpose, and our purpose is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. That’s our purpose. You’ll be hearing that quite a bit this year, to the point where you’ll be saying it in your sleep!
Now our mission, our overarching plan for accomplishing our purpose, you’ll also see there on the front of your bulletin. It is our Share, Care, Prepare statement. Let’s read it together (read from bulletin). Now, notice the first line: St. Paul’s exists for the purpose of making disciples of Jesus Christ and all that we do needs to lead us to that end. Friends, we don’t have the time or the resources to do things which do not further our goals and our purpose. Especially in this economy, and the budget is tight and your Finance Team is looking at places to cut expenditures, everything we do, every dime we spend, has to be moving us forward.
Speaking of budget, as you may have read in our weekly email newsletter, the iBeacon, that our Ministry Investment Budget for 2012 is a little over $210,000, which is almost $20,000 less than last year’s budget. Your Finance Team and Church Council have done a lot of hard work to put this together, and I’d like to thank them.
One note on the budget is that it’s underfunded by about $20,000. That means that we totaled up all of the expenses, then against that put what you-all pledged to give this year, along with other regular sources of income such as building use for weddings and outside groups, as well as regular fundraising events, and we come up with around $190,000. So your Finance Team was tasked with coming up with ideas for raising the additional $20,000 and they were very creative.
An example is the business directory, a sample of which is in your bulletins. If we could have just ten businesses commit to this for a year, that will net the church close to $5,000. Imagine if we found twenty businesses, that would cut our deficit in half! There are also three or four other events being planned throughout the year to raise the remaining funds. However, while the planning is great, the events need people to run them, and that’s you.
This is your church, and if everyone would commit to working on just one event per year, we would be in great shape. Unfortunately, our habit has been to let a small group of motivated people run every event, to the point of getting burned out. We all need to pitch in. Remember TEAM- together everyone achieves more! Don’t wait for the perfect time or for when you feel “ready,” just jump in there and lend a hand! Even Solomon said, “Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.” (Ecclesiastes 11:4 NLT)
It’s necessary, but magine how great it would be if we didn’t have to waste time talking about money, and we could focus on doing ministry instead! There’s an insert, which is not exhaustive, but which gives you an idea of opportunities for you to serve Christ here at St. Paul’s. Something to pray about, perhaps.
One of our goals for 2012 is to increase our average worship attendance by 10%. We currently average, between the two services, around 105 people in worship on any given week. We’d like that number to move up to 115 this year, which is around ten more people in worship between the two services. Now what that means, is that all of us are going to have to get better and be more intentional about inviting people to church. But more than that, helping them to get involved in a small group in the church so that they stick around. Statistically, a new person who attends a church will usually leave in four to six months if they do not get involved in a small group at the church. Which leads us to another goal for 2012.
In 2012 we want to have a more focused attention on small group ministry and Bible study. We currently have four different groups meeting each week which focuses on relationships and Bible study, with about, let’s say 30 people in attendance, or roughly 30% of our weekly church attendance. We’d like to move that up to 50% this year, to have at least 50 people attending a small group Bible study each week. Joan Jacobsen is our new Small Group Resource person, and we’re looking at ways to have Bible studies which meet your needs and schedules. In the next couple of weeks you’ll have the opportunity to let us know your preferences and see about perhaps adding another group or two.
One of the other major changes for 2012 to move us forward toward our goal is in the area of staffing. Your Staff-Parish Committee, Church Council and myself re-examined what the church’s ministry needs are in the area of staff. We work with a limited and finite staffing budget, and when we looked at the direction the church needs to go in, we had to make some changes.
The church’s paid sexton position was eliminated, and the Trustees have done a wonderful job in picking up the slack; the job description for our organist, Joann Roy, has been re-written as well. However, we added a new position of Housekeeping to keep the church looking presentable, but we will still be relying on all of you to help with that. Treat this building as if it were your home, and if you see something on the floor or something which needs attention, don’t just walk by it. Pick it up or let someone know.
Another new position we have created is that of a Youth and Young Adult Ministry person. Five or six years ago, we agreed that we need to be intentional about attracting and ministering to families with young children. We had been through times of 3 or 4 children in Sunday school, and we wanted to build that program up. Over time we have done so, and now we have 12 or 14 children upstairs. However, in a couple of years, these kids will be in a different life stage, and we need to begin to develop a program now so we are ready for them.
The new staff person would work with the existing Sunday school, but would primarily be seeking to attract our missing demographic, older youth and young adults. And we would also like to establish annual mission trips and projects, whether they are around the block or around the world. Those are some of our goals and changes for 2012.
Allow me to take a brief minute to introduce you to some of the new leaders of your church and implementers of the plan: [Amy Bellis, Kristy Gerdes and Sue Glass, Rob Marion, Amy Bellis and Michele Scraggs, Joan Jacobsen, Celeste Leonard and Melissa Bickert]. And others who are new on ministry teams, please stand.
So, in a very large nutshell, that’s our goal and vision for 2012. That’s our plan. But the challenge to any vision or plan is involving the people. We all need to get on board and be committed to making disciples for Jesus Christ here at St. Paul’s. We all need to be people with a purpose, and commit to Share, Care and Prepare to serve Christ in this place.
In the 1500’s there was a commander named Cortes who was trying to conquer the Yucatan Peninsula for its gold. It was going to be tough, and so Cortes ordered his ships to be sent to sea and scuttled so they could not retreat. How where they to get home? They weren’t--they would either win or perish!
Friends, when it comes to life—real life—both now and in the life to come, there is no Plan B. It’s up to us. Making disciples doesn’t just happen, it’s up to us, and if we don’t move forward, we will perish. Sometimes when you make a decision to move forward you need to burn all ships of retreat. I am calling upon all of you today to burn your ships—no retreat, no surrender! We need to join together in priority, purpose, people, power and plan and glorify Jesus Christ, and when we do, just watch what God will do! 
