Wordeed 2: GC2;Both/And

Feb 17

Scripture: Matthew 22:36-40; 28:18-20

- The mission of the church: is it the great commission or is it the greatest commandments? Is it word or is it deed?

- Let's start today with a little mental experiment by playing the Word/Deed game.

- I'm going to read to several pairs of words and what I want you to do is choose which word you most connect with from each pair.

- Are you ready? Let's play.

- Preaching, showing; word, deed; proclamation, presence; justice, mercy; mouth, hands; evangelism, social action.

- Where do you stand? On the word side or on the deed side?

- That was the first round of the word/deed game. I can imagine there would be a clear division among us. Many of us either clearly lean one way or obviously lean toward the other way.

- Let's play another round.

- Converting, healing; faith, works; salvation, development; believing, living; saying, doing; soul care, social care.

- Did you find the second round a little harder?  Did you find yourself still sticking with the same side you did before?

- The interesting thing is none of us are balanced between the two, words and deeds. However, all of us together as the church will bring the balance each of us needs.

- Maybe you'll want to think about playing the Wordeed game in your small groups this week only actually getting up and doing it.

- It might generate some interesting interaction and discussion.

- Wordeed: Let’s stop thinking either/or and start thinking both/and.

- Let me share a story from Terry Smith's blog about Wordeed. (http://wordeed.ca/2012/07/13/are-we-doing-integral-mission-here/)

- "On the shores of Georgian Bay (Lake Huron) you see stunning, multimillion dollar cottages, pristine yachts and other ostentatious signs of affluence.

- "But in the midst of such wealth, you don’t have to look very hard to find signs of brokenness, poor nutrition, un- and under-employment and poverty.

- "One of my colleagues, Anne Drost, travelled north this week into the heart of one of Ontario’s prettiest regions where she witnessed this odd mixture of wealth and poverty.

- "She went to visit a local church. Anne met with Rev. Marjorie Smith, pastor of the 130+ year old First Baptist Church of Parry Sound.

- "It’s a small group of very committed people who, through their church, are leading the charge in meeting the needs of the community.

- "Marjorie asked Anne a haunting question that we should all grapple with: “So, are we doing integral mission here?”

- "Marjorie had read Wordeed and shared copies of it with deacons in her church. She wanted to know if what the church is doing is integral mission.

- "Anne wandered around the town with Marjorie and a few of the parishioners of her small church.

- "She saw a clothing bank that is offering assistance to unemployed people, supported in part by the church members.

- "They visited an amazing kitchen garden plot, sponsored by the Parry Sound Community Garden and Canadore College, where church members, alongside other residents are working to promote local food security and improved nutrition, while making a sustainable environmental difference.

- "The church also has a soup kitchen.

- "Anne met people who found a new faith and commitment to the place of the church in their community, including one woman named Bev who was excited to relate how she can now feed her family, sharing and selling the surplus.

- "Others are coming into a deeper appreciation of “community” because of the living witness of the church.

- "When a church embarks on the journey of integral mission, it is usually because they have discovered a deep and compelling need in their community that is unmet and they believe they can and must do something about it.

- "The witness of the church in word and deed becomes a powerful tool of transformation and renewal, bringing new hope and direction.

- "And what about you: “So, are you doing integral mission here?”

- So, what about us, are we doing integral mission here?

- Back in January, we spent two Sundays looking at the Great Commission.

- What we learned is that the great commission is about disciple-making.  Jesus instructed his disciples to make-disciples.

- When we carefully read the great commission, then we discover that disciple making is much more than words.

- We note first that a disciple is a learner, a student of Jesus.

- Disciples of Jesus don't just know about him, they know him and are learning from him how to say and do the kinds of things he would have them say and do.

- Jesus' disciples spent all of their time with him.  They modelled themselves after him.  He preached; they preached. He healed; they healed. He fed; they fed.  He made disciples; they made disciples. They followed him in both word and deed.

- Being a disciple is about being and doing, words and deeds.

- While evangelism is important, we understand that there is much more to the great commission than evangelism alone.

- For a church to have integrity in her mission, she has to realize that the message of God's Kingdom needs to be accompanied by the works of God's Kingdom.

- The church's mission, after all, is God's mission; it's a reflection of the mission of Jesus and Jesus preached the kingdom and did the works of the kingdom.

- If all a church ever does is preach the gospel it's like being half faithful.

- What about the greatest commandments? Are they only about deeds?

- If we are to love others as well as we love ourselves and to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, then keeping the greatest commandments must take into account the whole person.

- Love is a verb.  Love proves itself through the action of meeting basic needs.

- As James says, 'You come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!” and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?' (James 2, MSG)

- Likewise, what good is it to preach at people who are hurting without first doing our best to meet their needs?

- That is what convinced Rev. Marjorie Smith and her church on Georgian Bay that they had to start doing something to meet the needs of their community.

- A clothing bank and soup kitchen for needy, under- and un-employed families, as well as a community garden plot promoting food security and sustainable development for these families, and new faith, are the kinds of things we should expect to find when Great Commission-Greatest Commandments people are doing integral mission in their community.

- So then, the question about the great commission versus the greatest commandments, is it word or is it deed, is irrelevant.

- It's inappropriate to assume that we must choose between either one or the other.

- It is not either-or, rather it is both-and.

- Wordeed: Let’s stop thinking either/or and start thinking both/and.