“OUR EYES ON THE STARS”

10/22/00

“OUR EYES ON THE STARS”

  Joel 2:21-29                     

(Words to Ruby Tuesday…There’s no time to lose I heard her say. Cash your dreams before they get away. Dying all the time. Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind.)

It’s so important to dream.

Now, what I’m talking about is not so much the dreams we have when we’re sleeping, although they are very important, probably more important than we imagine.

But I’m talking more about the dreams we have in the full light of day.

Dreams about what we want to do with our lives, what we want to accomplish with our lives, what we want to do with the rest of our lives. 

I’m talking about relational dreams, vocational dreams, family dreams, spiritual dreams.

Dreams energize us.

They motivate us.

They help us keep going when life gets tough and dark and bogged down, and as so many of us know, life has a way of getting tough and dark and bogged down doesn’t it?

Our dreams keep us going.

Now it’s very important that our dreams be at least some what realistic.

Illustration – My dream at age 20 – “I decided that I wanted to be a professional ballet dancer.”  Going to see the Director of a local ballet school.  Her response ????????

Individual dreams need to be at least somewhat realistic, because if they are not, they can be the sources of enormous frustration and disappointment in our lives.

And then so often, as we live our lives, our dreams need to be modified.

I knew four men in Texas who had a business dream.

They started a company back in the 60’s and did pretty well for a while.

But back then even more than now, the oil producing countries in the world began to hold back the oil supply, prices went nuts, and for a few years these four men had to radically alter their business dreams and their business goals. 

Things change in our lives and some times our dreams have to be modified.

Well one more general thing about  dreams. 

Sometimes when life forces us to modify or alter our dreams, we then come upon greater dreams, which are even more worthy of our energy and commitment.

Joanie Mitchell’s “Circle Game”

It’s the song about a little boy and how he grows up.  One of the stanzas goes like this:

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty, though his dreams have lost a lot of grandeur coming true.  There’ll be new dreams, there’ll be better dreams, and plenty, before the last revolving year is through.

Sometimes when we don’t accomplish the dreams we’ve had, it’s the best thing that can happen to us, because we then come up with those better dreams for ourselves.

How important it is for us as individuals to dream and

to go for our dreams,

at times to alter our dreams,

then to go for those new and better dreams with all that we have.

And just as it’s important, no just as it’s absolutely necessary for individuals to dream, it’s absolutely necessary that churches dream.

The minister of a church needs to be a dreamer. 

He or she needs to be a visionary.  Now he or she has to be practical, and must have their feet on the ground, but they need to be the kind of people who have their eyes on the stars.  They need to be able to give thanks and to celebrate the church they serve, but they also need to be the kind of people who are always dreaming about what the church can become. 

And ministers need to be the kind of people who can communicate their dreams and visions to the community they serve.

And speaking of the community….

If a church is going to be truly dynamic and progressive…if it’s going to have life in it…that church must be made up of lay people who are dreamers too. 

And what happens in this kind of church, is that the pastor shares his or  her dreams with the laity, and the laity share their dreams with each other and with the pastoral staff, and together, prayerfully seeking the guidance of God’s spirit, they decide which dreams to go for. And together they go for them.

The kiss of death for a church is when there are no dreamers and no dreams.  And to be sure there are many churches like this, and some of these churches just keep on going, but they lost it somewhere along the way.

There are what I call security blanket churches

These are churches which are afraid of risking anything. 

They’re very afraid of  breaking  from the doctrines and traditions of the past. 

They have a false understanding of what keeping the peace is, and they avoid taking any positions which might offend anybody either within or outside of their congregations.

These are churches which are slaves to security and keeping the status quo.

I call these churches security blanket churches

There are Us-4 and No-More churches. 

These are churches in which everyone pretty much knows each other, and the people are comfortable with each other. 

They are homogeneous. And there’s really no deep desire to reach out beyond their own communities. 

There’s no real desire to reach out to other people with the good news of God’s incomprehensible love.  

There’s no real burning desire to reach out to others who might be in great, great need.

There might be sympathy for the needy in these churches, but there’s usually little empathy, much less compassion, which is love in action. Compassion means laying it on the line for those in need.

Now in Us Four and No More churches, there’s usually a strong desire for institutional survival which means there’s usually some motivation for numerical growth.

But oft times in this kind of church when new people do come in, there’s great concern about them being the right kind of people, and there can be great fear about integrating new people into leadership. 

I call these kinds of churches Us Four and No More Churches.

Well there’s many other kinds of more negative type churches, but  there’s just one more kind of I want to mention this morning.

I call these Buddha Churches.

Now, don’t misunderstand me.  I think some of you know I have a great deal of respect for the historical person they call the Buddha.

I believe that he was one of the greatest religious/philosophical thinkers of all time.

He said that meditation and silence in a person’s life were very important.

He taught about living every moment of every day.

He taught about love and caring.

And he taught about compassion, that is reaching out to those in need.

But I believe there are those who have greatly misunderstood Buddhism. They believe that if you’re a Buddhist, you just sort of curl up and sit there. You’re sort of a blob. You have no social consciousness. You just sort of exist.

When I use the term Buddha churches, I’m talking about churches which just sort of exist. They just sort of sit there.

Now sometimes these churches have heavy endowments so they can just keep on going, and going and going sort of like the Energizer Rabbit.

These are churches in which personal spirituality usually has a very low priority.

These are churches which have little energy, much less excitement or passion unless it might be for institutional survival.

They just sit there in their obesity.

I call these Buddha churches.

Now, I’d like to make my main point with you at this time.

Each of these churches have at least on thing in common.  They either don’t know how, or they’ve forgotten how, or they simply refuse to dream.

For some reason these are churches which don’t see the stars.

Somehow, somewhere, some place along the way, that great God given gift of dreaming dreams and seeing visions was lost.

But my friends, you show me a pastor and a congregation with their feet on the ground, but with their eyes on the stars and the love of God in their hearts, and I’ll show you a dynamic, loving, serving church.

It will be a church with energy.

It will be a church which has pride about her fellowship and her ministries.

 

It will be a church with a firm grasp of her history – yet one which is continually re-evaluating and making needed changes.

It will be a church which has occasional conflict…conflict is an inevitable part of living in community…but because of the love in the community, it will work through its conflict.

It will be a church which is contagious

.

It will be a growing church. (qualitative)

In the church today we need a bunch of “old men and women who dream  dreams, and young men and women who see visions”. 

And we need dreamers and visionaries willing to do what it takes to actualize their dreams and visions.

Well, maybe some of you are thinking that I’m never going to stop this morning. But I am.

Let me wind up this sermon by leaving some questions with you.  And here are the questions-

What are my personal dreams at this point in my life?

What dreams, what goals am I going for?

Are my dreams big enough?

     What is my dream for my church?

     Is it a big Dream?

     Am I willing to listen to the dreams that others have about

my church?

Am I willing to give of myself to see that my church dreams and our church dreams are actualized?

Let us Pray…(Responsive Prayer…Insert)     Amen.