A Church with an Inviting Culture

WELCOME
Pastor Chris Paavola:
Well, once again everybody, good morning. My name is Chris Paavola. I’m a senior pastor here and it’s exciting. This is a historic day at St. Mark. Really. We are wrapping up our series that we’ve been in called the next 50 years, where we’ve been talking about honoring the legacy of those who went before us and built this sanctuary, this room that we’re in 50 years ago. And we’re honoring that with the sacrifice of our own in the next 50 years, for the next 50 years. And it’s really exciting. We have a goal, we want to update our campus and make room to grow. And so, we’re asking everyone who’s a regular attender at St. Mark to make a three-year commitment above and beyond their normal tithes and offerings so we can achieve these goals and be able to take this step forward. It’s really exciting.

EXCEPTIONAL GENEROSITY
All week long in this or all series long though, every week we’ve been, instead of just talking about the projects per se, we’ve been talking about the vision. What is it we want to accomplish? And the vision statements we have as a church. We have six vision statements as a church, and every week we’ve kind of gone through one of them and we get right, because we’re looking into the next 50 years, what are these vision statements going to lead us to do? Where are they leading us? Where are they calling us and bringing us? And this week we’re looking at the vision statements to be a church and then inviting culture church with an inviting culture. This idea that we’re going to go out and reach people, and this is who God has called us to do. This is what Jesus gave us, his great commission.

He said, go, you go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit, go make disciples. You do this. And as a church, we are sent with this, and our God is ascending God, right? He sends his son to die for us dire death in our place that we might live his life and his place. So he sends his son, but then Jesus sends us and he sends the apostles, actually, I don’t know if he knew this, but the word apostle that you’ve heard like the apostles. The apostles creed, the word apostle in the original language just means sent ones. Apostello in Greek, the scent ones. That’s what the church is. We’re sent. And when you look at that line of, oh, we’re a church with an inviting culture, and you think about that, I think every church would be like, oh, that’s us.

PARABLE OF THE BANQUET
That’s what we would do. That’s nothing unique or distinct, but there’s more to this than what you see at first blush. There’s more to this idea of being an inviting culture. It requires something of us. It requires something of us. And actually that’s what Jesus speaks to in this parable that we just heard read. And so what I want to do is, I don’t want to rehash the entire parable that we just heard, but I want to point out two things that Jesus says at the beginning and at the end of this parable that again illustrates what’s required of us with this idea of being inviting. Now, a little bit of backstory for this, Jesus is sitting and having, it’s actually a lunch with a prominent Pharisee in the area at the time. Pharisee is like a religious ruling class and based on what that society looked like, these are like our equivalent of politicians, pretty much the who’s who.

So in this area, you can assume there’s celebrities and the who’s who and religious leaders, political leaders, the wealthy, all at this lunch with Jesus. And they’re all sitting there. And Jesus notices that when he sits down, everybody starts jockeying for positions to sit close to him. And so he sits down and everyone’s trying to get close to him, and he uses this as a moment to teach that we should fight for the seat of humility rather than the seat of honor when we go places and let the master call us up. And then right after he teaches that, he kind of looks around the room and he realizes that there’s a difference between this feast with the famous people and the feast with our father who art in heaven. There’s a difference going on. And so he kind of teaches to this difference by giving the parable and in doing so, again, cues us into what it takes to be an inviting culture as a church.

16 Jesus replied: ”A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.”
Luke 14

So, two lines that we need to look at the first line and the last line, let’s start with the first one, Luke 14, verse 16. Jesus says, this is a story, a parable, a metaphor, A certain man prepared a great banquet and invited many guests. Y’all say the word. Great,

Response: Great

Pastor Chris Paavola: Good. Now say the word invited.

Response: Invited

Pastor Chris Paavola: Okay, you’re better than all the other services. Don’t tell ’em I said that.

Great. It’s this adjective attached to a, now it’s a qualifier. There’s a banquet, and then there’s a great banquet. You’ve been to banquets. If you’ve ever had a high schooler graduate and you had to throw a graduation party, there’s just the standard fare and then there’s what it takes to make it great. He’s got the best dj, the best caterer, the best wine. It’s great. And he’s alluding to the cost our heavenly father has paid for us. Our God has spared no expense to invite us into the kingdom of heaven. He gave his son, he did not even spare his own son, but gave him up for us. Wow. It’s a great banquet.

And then we get the word invited. Have you ever had a wedding reception? You got to figure out who to invite and who not to invite, right? You’ve been there, right? You’re like, okay, what’s the clear line that we can explain to people so that we don’t offend someone for not coming? And it gets really hairy if you’re doing a wedding or if you’re thinking about doing a wedding, talk about this now, Chelsea. I’m just saying these are the kinds of things. It gets hairy really quick. Now. I just made things so awkward over there, that few, wow, how do I recover out of that? You’re a few shades of red there. What’s going on? Anyway, and this is alluding to God invites the people of Israel. He invites them and he says, people of Israel, they’re the first ones invited. They’re the chosen nation by God. And he invites them. And then the parable goes on. He finds out that some of the people who were invited aren’t really interested in coming, right? They would rather do their own thing than be a part of what the master is doing.

They would rather do their own thing than be a part of what the master is doing. And this makes him very angry. Are you serious right now? Fine. Go out

23 “Then the master told his servant. Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, until my house is full.”
Luke 14

Go out and invite. Go into the alleys and invite the cripples, the blind, the beggars, the lame. And people who don’t smell like you don’t vote. You don’t talk like you. I don’t care. Invite them. And they’re like, master, we know your heart. We know that’s what you were going to say. So we’ve already done that. We’ve invited even them. And he’s like, okay. And that brings us to the last verse of this parable. Then the master told his servant, go out to the roads and country lanes, the King James version. It says, the highways and the byways, if you grew up on that and compel them to come in until my house is full, compel them. I love that word compelling. Be convincing. I’ve spared no expense. You don’t spare any expense. Lose your dignity. Become undignified and uncouth and lose all decorum. Invite people, beg with people, implore people, plead with people. This is that importance. Be as convincing as you possibly can. If they’re unconvinced or uninterested or uninvolved, I don’t care. Be as compelling as possible.

And then he says, and they’re like, well, for how long, far should we travel? I mean, you just open it up to the ends of the earth. How far? And he goes, here’s how far until my house is full, until every seat is taken and it’s standing room only until the cops are called because it’s making such a ruckus. Then you’re done. Until my house is full. We’re not done yet. We’re not full.

WELCOMING VERSUS INVITING
And in this parable, Jesus gives us kind of like this, criteria of what it means to be an inviting culture, an inviting culture. There is a cost associated with it.

It requires much. And he doesn’t mince words about this. He asks his followers to lay down their lives for this thing. If you went up to 99.999% of churchgoers today, you could do this, poll yourself. You find it out. If you ask any church going folk, why do they go to that church? And you ask them that question. And among the things and the words they use, one of the words they will use over and over and over is welcoming. Oh, they’re just so welcoming. Our church is such a welcoming church. Well, of course that’s what they’re going to say. They went there and they felt welcome and it became their church. It’s such a welcoming church. And that only works to a certain size, but they’re a welcoming church.

WELCOMING REACHES AS MANY AS COMFORTABLE
INVITING REACHES AS MANY AS POSSIBLE

And the problem is welcoming is not the same as inviting. And God has called us to be an inviting church, not just a welcoming church. And so the difference is this. You could say to somebody, well, you’re welcome to come with no intentions of ever changing what you do to be more accommodating or inclusive. Well, you’re welcome to come. We have these weird secret hand symbols we do, and we use secret language that’s going to make you feel really uncomfortable. But you’re welcome to come. This is how we do things. You’re welcome to come and your building might be falling apart and really dirty, but you’re welcome. Come. No one around you is going to look like you, but you’re welcome to come.

But inviting says no. We have to be compelling to everyone until his house is full. That’s the standard we’re working with. Welcoming is easy. Inviting is costly. Welcoming pays attention to who’s here inviting, pays attention to who’s not here yet. Welcoming reaches as many as comfortable inviting reaches as many as possible. And our mission at this church is to lay down our lives. So as many as possible experience, Jesus. That’s why we must be a church with an inviting culture. That’s the standard. And this means in the next 50 years, because we’re a church with this culture, and we are going to keep this in front of us. We know in the next 50 years, a few things. In the next 50 years, I can promise you again and again and again, we are going to remind you, who do you know that doesn’t know Jesus yet? Invite them. Who do you know that is disconnected from the house of worship? Invite them. And we are going to keep that question in front of you because you are perfectly positioned to someone known, you know are the closest they will ever come to experiencing Jesus. You are they ticket in. And we’re going to keep that question in front of you.

A church with an inviting culture also means that we will thoroughly examine everything we do from our worship services to our programming, to my sermons, to the songs we sing to. What we do is activities and events, to always ask the question, is this accommodating? Is this convincing and compelling? Is this inclusive? Is this convinced the unconvinced and engaged the disengaged? Are we pleading and imploring and reaching and begging and compelling them to come in? And we’ll ask that question of everything we do, and we’ll ask that question of our facilities. We must, I said it before in the series. I’ll say it again, that it’s really hard to convince a young family from our world that we are a dynamic and relevant ministry when our facilities say otherwise. The time is now to update our campus. And they’ve served us well. It’s served us really well, but the time is now because your facilities can be really compelling or not.

WHAT INVITING LOOKS LIKE
And our whole campaign, we want to update our campus and make room to grow until this house is full. This the standard. And so we want to update our campus to make it as compelling as possible. Okay? All right. And so we’re going to make our campus compelling. Now, some of you’re like, well, what do you mean? Okay, let’s play a little game. Who would you rather hire as a defendant lawyer, someone who works in a building with giant pillars outside, or a lawyer who works out of their car? Who would you rather go to for your healthcare? A hospital that has a state-of-the-Art lobby, or a hospital that has flickering lights and mismatched furniture. One of those sounds like a horror movie.

Where would you rather eat a restaurant with overgrown weeds and trash outside, or one that’s clean and organized, get food poisoning. And then let’s talk facilities can be very compelling. There’s a reason why McDonald’s paid to have underground sprinklers on capital here. They believe a nice lawn will sell more burgers. And how much more valuable is what we’re doing here than something that’s not even really food. It’s like gym mat stuffing in a box. Here you go eat it. People who are like McDonald’s, and then some people are like every day, why not? What are you talking about? I’m not naming any names, names, but anyway, facilities can be very compelling.

FACILITIES
And we have an opportunity here to be compelling with our facilities that when people walk in, they go, wow, this is really important to them. And underneath that statement of this is really important, Jesus and life with him and eternities at stake and your soul.

This is of the utmost importance to us. Yes, but underneath that is the subtext. You are important to us. And that’s why this is just not even a question and just uncompromising position on this. We’ve got to become as compelling as we can. And so you’ve seen the renderings, they’re out there, the blueprints and the drawings, they’re out in the lobby on the easels out there. You got stuff mailed and you looked at it. You know what we’re trying to do? And you know what it costs. We have a goal of raising $1.5 million is our first goal. Our second goal, or a stretch goal is $1.75 million. And our faith goal is $2 million. And we know this based on the size of our church, the number of giving households we have our annual offering, like if we break this down into three year campaign, these are the numbers that we’re talking about. And we’re asking every person who is a regular attender to St. Mark to make a three-year commitment above and beyond their normal ties and offerings so we can continue our daily operation and make a three-year commitment to the next 50 years.

FIRST GOAL – $1.5 MILLION
STRETCH GOAL – $1.75 MILLION
FAITH GOAL – $2 MILLION DOLLARS

Now we have about 350, 300, is that right? 300, 350 households that give to St. Mark in a year? I think that’s right, Carl, or is that right? Yeah. Okay. That’s the number we’re talking about. Well, I’m excited to announce that we’ve already received, and this is as of last night, not today, as of last night, we’ve already received pledges from 50 households, and we have raised $1.3 million. Wow. I’m really excited you guys, and your gifts today, were this close. Your gifts today can get us there to help us reach these goals. That’s the opportunity that we have in front of us, the history that we are making today.

So thank you for laying down your lives. So as many as possible experience, Jesus, in the next 50 years at St. Mark, let me pray for you.

PRAYER
Heavenly Father, we thank you God for being an inviting God. You could have sat up there, you’re just fine with all of the heavenly hosts and the angels, and you’d be just fine. But love moved you to something else and you are an inviting God. And we thank you though we are sinners, that you’ve forgiven us by the cross of Jesus, and you’ve welcomed us into your kingdom. Thank you. God.

Make us an inviting church in all the ways that that means, but also for each individual in this room, for everyone who can hear the sound of my voice. Who is it you want us to invite? Lord, who has yet to know your grace, who is disconnected and alone? Would you put it on our hearts so that we invite them to come and compel them to come until this house is full? And God, we pray now for these offerings and these pledges we’re about to receive. Just be glorified Jesus. In our name we pray, amen.