Scripture Ephesians 2:19-22
2nd
generation Christianity Polycarp (Slide # 8 & #7)
What was the mission of the early
church?
What was the mission of the Platt
Mission Church in 1886?
#10 # 11 What was the mission of the new Ashland
Avenue Baptist Church in 1896?
#
9 What was the mission of the
mobile Ashland church meeting in a borrowed facility?
#12 What
was the mission of the Ashland Church that purchased a former Nazarene church
across the river from its previous location?
What is the mission of Ashland
Church today?
What is the mission of every
church that has ever existed?
The mission of the church has
never changed – it has and always will be the same for every church. That
mission is to fulfill the great commandment and the great commission of Jesus
Christ. To first love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and
strength and to go in to all the world preaching and teaching the good news of
Jesus Christ.
The mission of every church is to
love God and love others by sharing the good news of salvation.
But here’s the thing, that looks
different for every church but most churches don’t take the time to figure out
what that really looks like for them. Most churches just plod through life
adding this program or that without any real thought as to how God has made
them and where He has put them.
Therefore, the wording of a
mission statement should mean essentially the same thing for every church but
to reflect who that church is uniquely.
Ashland church has spent 2 years researching, praying, discussing and
determining how we might say that so that it accurately reflects who we are as
well as give us intentionality how we work out the mission of the church in our
place in the world.
We looked at things like our
LOCAL PREDICAMENT. What does that mean? What is unique about our location,
circumstances and situation? What is it like to be located where we are? The
answer to that is different from the answer in a shared facility in Holland or
an enormous facility at the corner of Ashland and Woodruff.
We looked at our COLECTIVE
POTENTIAL. What does that mean? What are our unique gifts and resources? What
are our strengths and abilities? What do we have that can meet the needs of our
local predicament?
We looked at our APOSTOLIC
ESPRIT. What does that mean? What is our personality? Every pastor certainly
adds to the personality of a church but it is a combined personality of
everyone who participates in the life of the church.
LOCAL PREDICAMENT COLLECTIVE
POTENTIAL
Empty storefronts/ lostness Farm land
Boarded up houses / Indifference Library
House disrepair / Theft Schools
/ listeners
Fire damage / Poverty Parks
/ servants
Everything established Places
for Elder Care
No New housing development Good play areas
for kids
Traffic (280) No Oregon TARTA Hospitals /
Selflessness
Factory/Industry Walking/Riding
Bikes
Unsupervised children Church
facility
Lots of garbage on sides of road Finances /
Individual giftedness
Drugs/human
trafficking/alcoholism Solid
Families / preaching
Broken Families/Gun Violence Musically &
dramatically creative people
APOSTOLIC ESPRIT
Caring, compassionate, joy
filled, flexible, welcoming, non judgemental, prayerful, adaptable, people of
heritage, growth mindset, fun, devoted, theologically strong.
19
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with
God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation
of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.
21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a
holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built
together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Building
an inspired community
that
creatively and compassionately
connects
people to Jesus Christ
EXAMPLE OF building an inspired
community that creatively and compassionately connects people to Jesus Christ…
Tony Campolo, an
American Baptist pastor and college professor was at a speaking engagement in
Honolulu Hawaii when very early one morning as he sat in a dingy little cafe.
He was drinking coffee at the counter, when a group of prostitutes walked in
and took up the stools around him. One of the girls, Agnes, lamented the
fact that not only was it her birthday tomorrow but that she’d never had a
birthday party.
Tony thought it
would be a great idea to surprise Agnes with a birthday party. Learning from
the cafe owner, a guy named Harry, that the girls came in every morning around
3.30am Tony agreed with him to set the place up for a party. Word somehow got
out on the street, so that by 3.15 the next morning the place was packed with
prostitutes, the cafe owner and his wife, and Tony.
When Agnes
walked in she saw streamers, balloons, Harry holding a birthday cake, and
everyone screaming out “Happy Birthday!” Agnes was overwhelmed. The tears
poured down her face as the crowd sang Happy Birthday. When Harry called on her
to cut the cake she paused. She’d never had a birthday cake and wondered if she
could take it home to show her mother. When Agnes left there was a stunned silence.
Tony did what a Christian minister should. He led Harry, Harry’s wife and a
roomful of prostitutes in a prayer for Agnes.
It was a
birthday party rarely seen in Honolulu – thrown by a Christian minister for a
39 year old prostitute who had never had anyone go out of their way to do
something like this and who expected nothing in return. Indeed, so surprising
was this turn of events that the cafe owner found it hard to believe there were
churches that would do this sort of thing, but if there were, he said, then
that’s the sort of church I want to join.
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