What comes to your mind when the word “Church” is mentioned? I wonder what the answers of people outside the local Spar would be today if we were to ask them why they weren’t attending church – dull, boring, irrelevant, and hypocritical. I wonder what your answers to the question are. I am sure there is everything from frustration, cynicism and disillusionment to contentment, curiosity, dream, vision and aspiration.

Bill Hybels, Pastor of Willow Creek Church in the United States, one of the fastest growing churches in the world makes the following staggering statement: “The local church is the hope of the world.” He writes: “There is nothing like the local church when it’s working right. Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is breathtaking. Its potential is unlimited. It comforts the grieving and heals the broken in the context of community. It builds bridges to seekers and offers truth to the confused. It provides resources for those in need and opens its arms to the forgotten, the downtrodden, the disillusioned. It breaks the chains of addictions, frees the oppressed, and offers belonging to the marginalized of this world. Whatever the capacity for human suffering, the church has a greater capacity for healing and wholeness.”

At the beginning of 1 Corinthians 3 Paul reflects this very real tension between the Church as unfortunately it so often is and all that it should be. He challengers the local believers and refers to them as childish. Instead of rising to Christ’s call to live together in faith, hope and love, here they are fighting and squabbling among each other. But he also uses pictures to encapsulate everything the church should be. He describes God’s people as the temple of God’s Holy Spirit. It’s a picture of our lives reflecting the glory and goodness of God; becoming more Christ like in all our ways; and as Richard Foster puts it: “an utter transformation of our creatureliness into whole and perfect sons and daughters of God. You see, the goal of the Christian life is not simply to get us into heaven, but to get heaven into us!” We are also described as God’s building, our foundations secure in Jesus Christ and our lives being used for His glory. All the building blocks need to reflect the harvest of his spirit –love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Everything that is not of Him will be removed on the Day of Judgment. There’s another image of the church here which I feel is significant on Harvest Sunday and on which I want to concentrate for the rest of my talk: “God’s field.”

Earlier this year many of us in church were involved in a course run by Evangelical Ministries entitled “Clearing our Vision.” The course reflected the healthy tension between what we are now as a Church here in West and all that we can yet become. I am delighted to say that we weren’t starting out in a very negative way as Paul was when he addressed the Corinthians. There is so much for which to be grateful here in Bangor West. It is a church which reflects warmth and love and a place where many people have found a sense of coming home or new life in Christ. Where do we go from here, however? What dreams do we have as a congregation? The course was useful in that it gave us an opportunity to pray through different areas as we looked forward together. A small team helped collate our findings and this morning I’m going to share some of them with you, by using the word FOCUS.

As we look forward there must be the importance of “Fellowship” or “Friendship”. One of the central questions arising from “Clearing our Vision” is “How do we care for one another in such a large congregation?”

The more traditional approach in churches has been to have a large number of elders and church visitors with their own districts, making contact with members and developing friendships. Such a system has many advantages and I want to take this opportunity to say a heartfelt thank you to all our elders and church visitors. The difficulty is that such a system keeps all our people somewhere out there rather than drawing them into the centre of the church.

A more contemporary approach has been the development of small group ministry in many churches. In fact, I am absolutely convinced that one of the main reasons for churches growing in today’s world is through small groups. We would love to see many more of our members more closely connected to Church perhaps through organisations like PWA, Interflo, William Hall’s Group or the Friday Morning Men’s fellowship.

We would also love to see our small groups growing at a much faster rate than they have been. Over fifty times in the New Testament the phrase “one another” is used to describe the relationship to other believers. We are instructed to love one another, encourage and pray for one another, accept one another, bear one another’s burdens, and build up one another. We were never intended to go it alone as Christians. By being a member of a small group you will be a New Testament Christian. The book of Acts is very clear about how His people should grow. We will never be able to hire enough professional ministers to meet all our individual needs as a church family. That’s why we want to see these small groups functioning as the basic unit of pastoral care in our church.

Moving on to Outreach, as always the fields are white for harvest! During the course earlier this year one group produced a postcard imagining what life could be like here in the church in three years’ time: “Dear world, Three years on, having a great time. Come early – the place is buzzing 24/7. It’s so exciting. You’ll never believe what’s happening. God’s blessing falls like the rain here. People healed of illnesses they’ve carried all their live – and not just illnesses – families restored, marriages mended, children reconciled. But best of all thousands of people giving up everything for Jesus and becoming Christians. Coming home soon. Wish you were here. God is.”

It’s a wonderful picture of life brimming over! With the tender agreed for the next phase of our building works a wonderful challenge lies before us of developing a new ministry centre right at the heart of the community. We can envisage everything from homework to luncheon clubs, prayer ministry and counselling. A Church very much open seven days a week and drawing people in from the entire community.

Friendship! Outreach! Compassion! Our field must always have space for grace. It’s the love of Jesus Christ that conquers sin and wipes out shame and heals wounds and reconciles enemies and patches broken dreams and ultimately changes the world, one life at a time. And what grips my heart is that the knowledge that the radical message of that transforming love has been given to the church. That love must be pervasive and tangible as soon as people come into this place.

Friendship! Outreach! Compassion! This is where it really begins to become difficult. I have wrestled long and hard for an appropriate “u”, but nothing completely appropriate comes to mind. As I contemplated this “u” it occurred to me that it perhaps would be a good idea to leave it slightly open. In other words, I’m not sure if I’d like to be in a church which has all the answers to questions that can’t really be answered. I’m not sure that I’d like to be a part of a church that had everything so successfully sorted out that it had no need of God. So perhaps the closest I can get to the “u” is unexpected! By leaving it open we are saying that we need to be reliant not ultimately on manmade plans, however prayerful they are conceived, but on God! He is the one whom we want to see moving, working and acting in his own sovereign way.

“S” is for service – everyone playing his or her part. If I were to begin to thank everybody for everything done in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ in this place, the list would be endless. It is simply amazing how many people are serving the Lord, but there are many, many others whom we would love to be able to draw more towards the centre. If you love the Lord, then you have gifts of service. Have the courage to discover what those gifts are and use them for his glory. Together over this next period we want to be devising ways in which we can use greater numbers of people for God’s glory in this place.

Three times in this verse the word God comes first – “God’s fellow-workers are we; God’s field, God’s building are you.” This puts strong emphasis on the divine action. Ministers and those they serve are no more than God’s instruments. What is actually being said here is quite startling. The dignity of Christian service is being underlined. As someone has said, “Without God, we cannot; without us, he will not.”

F>O>C>U>S! God’s field for the days that lie ahead! There are many other areas on which we could concentrate, but these are our targets under God for this next period of time. And our overall focus? This statement came from “Clearing our vision”: “We exist to be a Christ-centred and Spirit-led church community radiating God’s love and reaching out to make disciple of all.”

God’s field! The local church is the hope of the world!

Rev. Charles McMullen

On Harvest Sunday in October the Rev. Charles McMullen took as his text 1 Corinthians 3:9, and used this sermon to challenge the congregation to respond to the work done during and since the “Clearing our Vision” course held earlier this year. This article is an abridged version of his remarks.

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