Week of April 11th

Sermon Noodles

“God’s Mission of Sending (You)”

In John 20:19-23, Jesus shapes the imagination of the disciples as the “sent” people of God:

19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

#1 Remembering you are sent by God is a great elixir for whatever ails your spirit.

As we emerge, shake off the cobwebs, remember dear friends, you are sent by God into the world. You have gifts to share. You have people to encourage, people in which to share the love of God.

#2 How do we measure success as a congregation?

Many churches measure success by numbers—members, attenders, and givers.

What about the numbers of people equipped and sent out into the world? How about people served? With The Round Pantry recently serving around one thousand households every two weeks, in that sense Westview is a larger church.

#3 Resuscitation and resurrection

I have been asked to lead a men’s retreat this fall for Westside Presbyterian in New Jersey. They actually asked me a year ago to do the retreat last fall. Then moved to this May. Now this October. We had a meeting this week to discuss the retreat and the prompt for the opening of the discussion was:

            “What is the difference between resuscitation and resurrection?

            We spoke of what is being resurrected in our lives. One man said, “This past year and not being around others made me think of who I want to be around . . . and there are some people in my life I realized I don’t want to be around.

The point: God is not in the resuscitation business. God is in the resurrection business and we are a resurrection people.

Devotional Guide

The passage of John 20:19-23 is a challenge to our conventional thinking of “attracting” people to church. In verse 21 Jesus states, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” It is a very different mindset to think of being sent into the world as opposed to providing programs that attract people to the church.

Why do you think we in the church have focused more on attracting people to church more than emphasizing being “sent” into the world?