STATE OF THE CHURCH ADDRESS, 2009

Today is the day that I do my State of the Church Address, for those of you who are new to this, I started doing this in 2002, after watching our President’s State of the Union Address. And at that time we were without a physical house of worship, the fire had taken our church building, the Church, the ecclesia, was of course still in tact. We had just broken ground in December and were in the process of moving dirt. I watched the President’s address that night and the Lord showed me that our body of believers needed to know what state we were in. It had been an unusual three months; we were meeting every week in the City auditorium, having to carry everything in and out every week. We were excited that we had finally agreed on what to build and that we were starting to do just that, build. But we were uncertain about what the future held, so the Lord showed me what to say, He said that I was to report on the past year and give plans for the new one. And so I called it the “State of the Church Address.” I continued to do these every year and then I believe it was 2006, I thought that everyone was getting tired of these so I didn’t do one. I was asked towards the end of January that year why I hadn’t done one yet, so I did. So here is this year’s “STATE OF THE CHURCH ADDRESS.”
During 2009 we saw presidential history; we saw history made when Barak Obama was sworn in as our president. We saw the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan increase as the war in Iraq decreased. We saw the economy go into the tank as the recession grew worse and as our elected officials pushed through healthcare reform that will cost the taxpayers billions and sign a stimulus package the we will never got paid off. We lived through all of the swine flu hype and fact and then watched as it wasn’t as bad as any other flu in the U.S. We listened to all of the Climategate people as they tried to tell us how doomed our planet is if we didn’t agree with them, even as they themselves ignored scientific facts that global warming is a natural cycle that the planet goes through, and as a matter of fact we will be in global cooling for the next 50 years.
We saw Edward Kennedy and Michael Jackson die, and we saw a radical Muslim gun down military personal at Fort Hood. And we also saw how a very courageous pilot of a commercial airliner hit a flock of birds and the set his plain down in the Hudson River, sparing all of his passengers and crew. We also saw how another Muslim tried to blow up a plane with explosives in his underpants, making airline travel even more stressful for law-abiding people.

Personally, 2009 was a rough year for our family, we started off driving over 500 miles a week taking Becky to have cancer treatment, and then as she went into remission, we found out that I had cancer, and then that my mom’s cancer had returned. We had our ups and downs during 2009, but we ended on a high note, Becky is still in remission, mother’s treatments are going well, my cancer has been removed and we have another grandkid on the way!!

In our church in 2009 we saw 6 Salvations, 5 Baptisms, 6 New Members and 2 rededications.
As you know I set goals, why? Because numbers are important! People who try to tell you that numbers are not important are just making excuses. Why are they are making excuses, some of them may be too lazy to go out into the hiways and byways and tell people about Jesus, or bring people to church. Or they may be comfortable with things just as they are, or maybe they are trying to cover up for whatever, or it may be many other excuses. Whatever it is, Numbers Do Matter!!

I want to share with you some concerns that are on my heart concerning our church;
1. CORPORATE PRAYER
We need to have more corporate prayer going on in the church, not only do we need to have our personal prayer time, we need to be meeting in prayer groups for the church. We need to get back into the habit of praying with each other for the life and health of this church, this body of believers. If we don’t make this church a matter of priority and concern we will lose it.
2 Chronicles 7:14
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (ESV)
This is a very power packed verse; it starts off saying if we will humble ourselves. If we will not humble our selves it means that we have a pride issue.
Proverbs 11:2
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.” (ESV)
Proverbs 16:18
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (ESV)
We cannot not let our pride get in God’s way; we must humble ourselves before Him.
And then it says that we are to pray and seek His face, but it is impossible to do that unless we humble ourselves and turn from our wicked ways. Did you know that the person who is not willing to humble himself is also not willing to turn from his wicked ways? Why? Because when pride is in the way we are not only unable to see our wicked ways, but we are unable to really pray.
If we are willing to humble ourselves, and pray, and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways, then God says that He will hear us from heaven; He will forgive us of our sins and heal our land.
But we must get ourselves out of the way. And a good way to start is with corporate prayer, praying with each other.
2. EMPTY CLASSROOMS
I look around and I see 3 empty classrooms where we used to have no empty rooms and we were looking for more space, and some of the rooms that we do have being used, some weeks no one shows up for class. Our Kidzone classes we have had to combine, going from 6 rooms to 4 because we had some teachers who had to step down and we had no one to replace them.
Acts 5:21
“At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.” (NIV)
We must be willing to teach the people, no matter if they are children or adults, and if we don’t teach, we need to make it a priority to be here.

3. EMPTY CHAIRS
Do you realize that when we fill our classrooms we will also fill our empty chairs? And when we fill our empty chairs we will also fill our empty classrooms?
Colossians 3:16
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” (NIV)

4. APATHY
A teacher asked her students one day, “What is the difference between Ignorance and Apathy?” No one answered so she asked little Johnny, little Johnny really didn’t like school, it was a wastes of his time, he never gave the right answers and was always in trouble. So the teacher says, “Johnny, what is the difference between ignorance and apathy?”
Little Johnny looked up and said, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”
And the teacher said, “Correct.” Because ignorance means that you don’t know and apathy means that you don’t care.
What is apathy; lack of interest in anything, or the absence of any wish to do anything, indifference, lack of concern, lack of interest, boredom.
The worst thing that we can do as far as our church is concerned is to not care. We need to fall in love again with Jesus, with God and with the church; we need to get excited again.
Colossians 3:17
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (NIV)

What have we grown apathetic in? What in our church do we not care as much about as we once did? Maybe it’s coming to Sunday school, or worship as we should, or in our giving or some other area. If you were here for business meeting last week, then you saw that giving was down last year

HOW DO WE CORRECT OR IMPROVE ON THESE THINGS?
Hebrews 5:7-8
“In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.” (ESV)
Let me ask you something, what have you learned from what you have suffered?
Do you know what God is most concerned about in your life? OBEDIENCE!
How do we improve the things in our church that need to be improved? OBEDIENCE!
How do we improve the things in our own life that need to be improved? OBEDIENCE!
What does OBEDIENCE mean? It is the act or practice of following instructions, complying with rules or regulations, or submitting to somebody's authority.
What does Obedience mean? Submission, respect, agreement, compliance.
2 Corinthians 10:6
“And I am fully prepared to punish every act of disobedience, when once your submission has been put beyond question.” (Montgomery NT)
We must be obedient in everything God says, we must humble ourselves before God, we must be praying. Do you know one of my favorite prayer times? On Sunday mornings before anybody gets here, that’s when I come in and walk through this church praying for you, for the message today, for this church and for the vision God has given me for this church.
Going back to 2 Chronicles 7:14; We must humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways.

Romans 16:25-27
“Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages 26 but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— 27 to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.” (ESV)
2 John 1:6
“And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.” (NIV)

So what happens when we decide to improve or to do better or to try and do better? Do you think it will be easy? Anytime that you decide to improve any area of your life, it is really easy to slip back into the way that you were doing things. But we cannot improve by doing things the way we always have, we can only improve by doing them better.
What is insanity? Doing things the way we always have and expecting different results.
We only get better things by doing things better.
When I was a kid, I would gather the ashes out of our fireplace and mix them with water and pour them into a hole. The water would go away and the ashes would be hard, so in my mind I was making concrete. I wasn’t because the ashes would break real easy. Now if I am going to build a house and I decide that I can save money by going around gathering ashes from everyone’s fireplaces, and I mix it with water for the foundation of the house, will it work? NO, because it is just ashes, not concrete.
We cannot do things with apathy and expect excellent results.
Now I want to ask you, what can you improve on? How can you be more obedient?