Prosper the City

WELCOME

Pastor Chris Paavola:

Yeah, it’s so, so exciting, man. What you just saw are just quick pictures and videos of the projects that you guys have done this week for Prosper of the City. We decided our schedules aren’t busy enough with graduation and end of year things. Let’s go ahead and also throw in a service project in there as well. And man, St. Mark, you guys rocked it out. And today that’s what we are going to be talking about is just what it is that you guys did through Prosper of the City, what God accomplished through you, and that’s why we’re going to take time to celebrate it and that’s why we’re doing this series. Actually, celebrate just for a few weeks here, we’re going to, is that like the word of the day thing? I missed that at the beginning. So, I say it and then you Woohoo.

Is that it? Okay. That was a weak Woohoo, guys. All right. I’m going to say that word a lot. So I don’t think we can do that game during my sermon, so you’ll just tire out. Okay, here, let’s get it out. Just get it out real quick. Celebrate. All right. Now no more. No, don’t do that. No more of that because I’ll be saying a lot. Yeah. So the series Celebrate. What we’re going to be doing is we’re taking just the time to celebrate what God is doing, right? Because I think we can go from event to event, task to task, thing to thing, and our calendars and our schedules get so full that if we don’t actually make time to celebrate and carve that out and to appreciate, then we don’t miss the depth of what’s happened. We miss everything that’s gone on and we don’t fully appreciate what God has done.

And so, we’re saying, Nope, we’re going to do that. We’re going to stop. We’re going to take the time to celebrate what God has done in our midst. And so today we’re talking about celebrating what God has done in our city through you guys, St. Mark and our Prosper the City Project.

PROSPER THE CITY

Now, if you’re newer to St. Mark or you don’t know what prosper the city is and all these people in blue shirts that say Prosper the city, this is from Jeremiah 29. It’s an Old Testament book where God tells the people of Israel to prosper the city to which I am sending you. And we go, Hey, that’s kind of good marching orders. We should do that too. And so, what we do is all of our small groups and so 16 small groups, they all took the last three weeks to plan a service project on the fourth week that makes an immediate impact in their community.

So, they took three weeks to plan a service project on the fourth week that makes an immediate impact in their community to be the church rather than just playing church or going to church to actually be the church. And one of the secret sauces of Prosper the City, one of the reasons we’ve been doing this for three years now is that you guys plan the project and instead of us saying, Hey we’re doing this, sign up is in the back, you guys plan the project. But then the secret ingredient to prosper the city is we don’t give you a lot time. We don’t give you a lot of time to come up with a big project and to come up with a program and create committees. We keep it short on purpose so that we force you to think nimble, to think small, because so often the reason we put off serving others is it feels like this big thing we have to do.

We have to create a food-pantry, we have to build sustainable wells in Africa and sell clothing at Fair Trade. And it just feels like these big things to address the big issues that we see. And in doing so, we miss that service can be done quickly and there’s great power and small things done with great love. And so that’s the secret of Prosper the City is we don’t give you enough time to plan a big project. We make you do it quick. And a lot of you guys are like, man, I wish we had more time. And that’s why Prosperous City is just such a wonderful program. It shows you actually what you can accomplish by doing something small in a short period of time. And so, what we’re going to do is we’re going to talk through each of these projects. You saw the video there, and we’re going to post that on social media on Facebook later on today.

And so, if you’re on there, go ahead and share it with your friends, just again to show people what God is doing through St. Mark and how we prospered the city. But what I want to do is as we talk through these different projects, I don’t want this to be like your friend goes on vacation and then shows you a slideshow of their trip and you act like you’re interested, like oh, and then you went to that pool. Oh, okay, it’s miserable. That’s not enjoyable to anyone. So, what we’re going to do is I want to show this to you guys, but in doing so, I wanted to change the way you think about service sometimes I think when it comes to serving and serving the people in your life, in your home, in your friend group or your network, there’s this feeling of what are we measuring?

We’re measuring impact versus cost, and there’s a different measurement for the people of God that Jesus gives to us. And we’re going to be talking about that a little bit later on. So, look at these projects and it’s going to start to illustrate and highlight this idea of there’s something different that we weigh as the people of God when we serve something different that we measure. And that changes not only the projects that we do, but the way you serve the people in your life. So, we’re going to start. So, all of our small groups, we gave them the marching orders this year of love your neighborhood, so love your neighbor is this command that Jesus gives to his followers. Even if you’re not really familiar with Jesus, you’ve heard that Christians should love your neighbor. That seems like this thing Christians should be doing.

37 Jesus replied: “Love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all   your mind.  38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang these two commandments.”    Matthew 22

But we wanted to actually make that the literal word this year. And so, we said, we challenged all of our small groups when they’re creating these projects to love your neighborhood. Think about the person who’s in close proximity to you, the person that you see or that you drive by every day, how can you serve them? And so that’s really how was the germ and the impetus behind all of these projects.

OTT

And so, the first group, the Ott Small Group, they looked out their actual window, their house is on the right, and the house they looked at, or I’m sorry, on the left, and the house they looked at was on the right there. They looked out their window and they realized there’s an elderly neighbor in their nineties who’s no longer able to take care of their home. And so, they said, you know what?

We could do something about that instead of overlooking the eyesore, why don’t we go ahead and do something about that? So, they got some rakes and shovels and all those kinds of tools, and they just went to town one afternoon and completely transformed that person’s yard. And their neighbor was so touched like, oh my goodness, thank you guys. I wish I could do that myself, but I can’t. So, thank you for doing that. And instantly the neighbor was blessed and touched.

DAVIDSON

Then there’s the Davidson Group. They have somebody that lives close to them in the post Franklin neighborhood who is an elderly lady and wants to move into assisted living and their house is, or her house. She’s just not able to take care of it anymore. And there’s a lot of equipment there that water heaters and old couches and TVs, and she’s like, I don’t have any way to get these out of the house to sell the house.

I got to hire people and I don’t have the money to hire a company to come in. And they said, well, we could do something about that. And so, they got together in an afternoon and they hauled off a whole bunch of debris, took it to the junkyard and just in a simple way. And she was so absolutely touched, like, who are you people? Thank you so much. Wow. And again, small things done with great love, and it was easy for the group, but for her man, the impact was huge.

GIESE

Then you got the Giese Small Group. By the way, when I say these names, the Giese Group, you’re like, what is that? That’s the name of all the hosts of these small groups. So, the Giese Group hosted by Sam Avy, Giese, no of a neighbor who was a single mom and her son was in a horrible car accident and had all sorts of troubles and difficulties in recovery.

And because she was so caught up and swept up and taking care of her son, she was unable to take care of her home and her yard. And so. they called her up and said, Hey, what can we do? And she was like my yard is out of control. My home is out of control. So, they took an afternoon doing a bunch of stuff in the home, and then in the yard they had access to a bunch of bobcats and heavy equipment and stuff, and they ripped out trees and shrubs planted new grass for her, and you put yourself in the shoes of a single mom with a son who was in a horrible car accident. And then you look out your window and you see this group of people who you have no connection with other than they’re your neighbor who are pouring out there and giving freely of their afternoon to take care of your yard.

It blessed her so, so deeply. I mean, how do you measure that kind of impact?

GODFREY

Then we’ve got the Godfrey Group. They reached out and they actually, John is a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity. And so, they were like, hey, that’s kind of our neighbor, and we could do that. And so, they reached out to Habitat, is there a house we can help with? And there was a house. This is a Korean War veteran. He’s got shrapnel in his leg and he’s just getting old and is getting really hard to get around. And Habitat found out that he doesn’t have a ramp at his house. So he has cinder blocks with just pieces of wood on top of it, not even nailed down. And he was getting out of his house, walking across cinder blocks with a cane. Come on, people. They were like, well, we could build a ramp in one afternoon.

This group of people got together and built a ramp for this person at their house, put yourself in the shoes of a Korean War veteran who you’ve given your life for your country, and all of a sudden, here’s these people giving their lives for you. How do you measure that kind of impact? Then the GL Key group, this is one of our young adult groups and most of our young adults are in this group, and they got together and they were like, okay, the command, the marching orders are Love your neighborhood. And they’re like, you know what really bothers me about our neighborhood is all of this trash and debris on the bridge right over here on Capitol Avenue. You know what I’m talking about where it gets low there and then it crosses over the creek. You guys drive by it all the time and you see the trash and debris and you’re like, what an eyesore.

GLUBKE

Someone should do something about that. And well, the Glubke Group said, well, we’re going to do something about that. And so, they got, was it 30 bags of 30 bags? Yeah, 30 bags of debris and trash that they collected and put into these trash bags. And as people were driving by, they’re like yelling, thank you out the window. And it was just so awesome. And then we give all of our small groups seed money for their projects. And so, we gave the group this money and they’re like, well, this was easy. It just took elbow grease. It didn’t take sweat-equity, it didn’t take any kind of money. So, they took that money and they reached out to Alternatives, which is a center here in Battle Creek that helps new and expectant mothers. And they said, is there a mom we can help out? And they were like, absolutely.

There’s this mom who is just really, she’s in tough times. She needs groceries, she needs supplies. And they were like, awesome. So, they contacted the grocery store and then they got donations and then they used their own money and they loaded up a whole, I think a couple shopping carts actually for this mom and gave it to this mom. And she started crying, instantly, crying like out of nowhere, here’s this blessing out of nowhere. And you find yourself in this desperate situation, and then God just shows up with groceries at your front door. Come on people. This is awesome. So that’s the Glubke Group.

BOMBA

The Bomba Group. They reached out, they had a friend, a connection with the Prairie Review Elementary School who, she was a teacher there, and Prairie View is kind of an under-resourced school in our community. And so they said, Hey, how can we help?

And they’re like, we just need supplies. So, they took the seed money, they got donations as well, and they collected supplies for the teachers. The teachers were super excited, but then they said, you know what? Also, we’ve got this landscaping around our sign there that is just, it’s overgrown and it needs some love. And they’re like, we can do that. So, they got some donated and purchased some plants for that area, and they cleaned up and they did some edging, planted a bunch of plants, and they kind of a self-sustaining perennials there and bless the school.

LAWSON

Now, what’s funny about that is another one of our groups reached out and they wanted to build, this is the Lawson group. They wanted to build the little libraries like the outdoor free libraries. Maybe you’ve seen those where you take a book, give a book kind of thing, and they wanted to do that, but they didn’t just want to do it in a neighborhood where no one’s going to take care of it.

So, they contacted schools and said, Hey, do you want one of these libraries? And Prairie View was one of the schools that said, yeah, we would love one. So, Prairie View got two projects actually from Prosperous City, and so they got this outdoor free library kind of thing, and they put that there. And by the way, if you have kids and kids’ ministry this morning, all of the kids are painting landscaping rocks, and they’re going to take those rocks and put them around that little library as well. So that’s kind of this ongoing project, and it’s a way for our kids to be a part of Prosperous City as well. And then they had all of this money though, still left over, and one of the group members has a friend who is a single mom again, and they’re in a tough situation and just, they need clothes, they need food, they need basic necessities.

They did a collection and made a bunch of purchases, dropped it off, instant tears, just instant tears from the mom saying, thank you so much. I can’t believe you guys would do this for me. Right? Come on St. Mark. It’s so fantastic. And how do you measure the impact of that?

PORTER

Then we have the Porter Group. The Porter Group actually, yeah. So, the Porter and Robins group. Robins when they’re snowbirds, the porters. Anyway, so Porters and Robins group, they have a family member who’s a teacher at OWC. They have a heart for OWC, and they’re like, speaking of teachers, we should just love our teachers at OWC. They’re so underappreciated, right? And so as tries, we may to appreciate our teachers, they just give so much. And so, they said, can we do a day to just bless our teachers? And they’re like, sure. They planned a pizza party and they gave them goodie bags with gift cards in them, and all the teachers were super surprised by it, and then a fire alarm accidentally went off during that meeting.

So that was fun. And then they did the fire alarm and they came back. So, it was fun. It was a fun party. Anyway, so yeah, they bless the teachers and who just are so much of a blessing to so many and it’s nice to thank them.

DEMLOW / ENGLISH

Then we have two groups that combined for another project, the Demlow and the English group. They combined and they have allotted as they did in a self-assessment inventory. They have a lot of different groups that they’re all associated with in different ways. Isaiah one 17 House, DHHS, the Department of Health and Human Services, and then also CityLink, which is an organization that helps with kids in crisis. And then Isaiah one 17 House offers a comfortable place for children who are entering into foster care, and they said, you know what? We should just do collections for them, and they have a lot of young kids in their group, and there was a way for the kids to be a part of it.

So, they did a collection for these groups and then donated these supplies.

L SMITH

Then you have the Smith Group. They have a connection to the Doris Clawson. Oh, the other Smith Group. If you don’t mind, go to that one. I got to flip these two on that list. There you go. They have a connection at Doris Clawson, which is a school for children with special needs. And they were like, Hey, can we help out? And they’re like, you should plan an activity day. So, they planned this activity day game kind of fun time with the kids, and the kids had an absolute blast. All they did was just give of an afternoon, play a bunch of games with kids and leave, and they blessed the teachers. It just changed the environment in the hallways.

T SMITH / INGRAM

Then the other Smith slash Ingram Group, they had a connection with the Calhoun County Animal Shelter, and they said, Hey, we want to help.

What can we do? And they’re like, oh my goodness, are you kidding? We have so much to do. And they came in and they just put in elbow grease, they washed, they cleaned, they scrubbed, they sanitized, they wiped down. They organized and had just an afternoon where they blessed the animal shelter there in Calhoun County. And just imagine being a volunteer and you’re like, oh, there’s so much to do. There’s so much to do, and so little time to do it. And then this group of people calls up and says, what can we do to help? And it’s just the best ability is availability, right?

SLEPER

Then you’ve got the Sleper Goup. They have a friend who has a connection with a group called Silenced, which is a group that helps victims of human trafficking. And actually, one of the Unsilenced people is here today. I saw her earlier, I don’t know where she went there.

She’s so Robin from Mary from Unsilenced and Robin as well was here last week. But yeah, they do work with victims of human trafficking. So, they said, Hey, what do they need? They were like, well, here’s an inventory list. So they took all of our seed money and bought all of these supplies, ended up making 85 bags for victims of human trafficking. And then they were like, what else we should do is we should write encouraging notes to them that they’re seen and they’re not forgotten. And then they wrote down scripture and they packed them in these little care kits for these people. Now imagine this. The next victim of human trafficking that comes into their care is going to receive a package from you, Saint Mark. Come on. How do you measure the impact of something like that? It’s awesome.

We focus on efforts so much, but what we should be measuring is the impact.

JONES

Then there’s the Jones Group, Daniel Jones. I didn’t see him here this morning, but the Jones Group, they got together and they knew of a community garden at the Post Franklin neighborhood that had been overgrown, and they were like, can we help with that? They contacted the Post Franklin Community Garden, the people who were in charge of it, they were like, please, are you kidding me? So, this group showed up and they spent an afternoon, morning or afternoon? Afternoon, okay. Spent an afternoon cleaning that out, and by the time they were done, there were neighbors looking on and ready to take advantage of now usable garden beds, like raised beds that they could finally use.

BLOCH & ASHER

Then there’s the Block group and the Asher Group. They are two groups that have projects coming up.

They couldn’t fit them in the timeframe that we had. The block group is going to be doing some renovations at the Haven, and the Asher Group is going to be doing an activity day at the Kaly Center, which is an adult, is the center assisted living center for adults with special needs, and they’re going to do an ice cream party there. They did it last year and they were like, I know this isn’t technically our neighborhood, Chris, but can we please do this? It was such a hit last year and we had so much fun. I’m like, okay, fine. So they did this project and they’re going to do be doing this next week. But you guys, that is the projects from Prosper 2025. Can we just take a moment to thank everybody who served and made it possible?

LIGHT SHINE

It’s awesome. It is. It’s awesome. And it’s worth celebrating. And there’s so many principles that you could talk about, and this is why we do it every year because it’s just so much to unpack from this, measuring the power of doing small things with great love, and when they all come together, the idea of just seeing the need of others and doing what you can while you wait for what you want, what you need, and doing what you can while you wait for legislation or some kind of program to be put in place and doing for one, what you wish you could do for all and just these incredible concepts. But as I was looking at these projects and thinking specifically about this idea of celebration and what it is we celebrate and thinking about how we could apply this to our lives, I started thinking about this verse from Matthew five in Matthew’s account of the life of Jesus, and he records this thing that’s called the Sermon and the Mount, very famous sermon, somewhat.

14 “You are the light of the world-like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is put on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that everyone will see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. Matthew 5

You could read it in five minutes or whatever, but there’s little snippets throughout the sermon, and they’re all very famous little snippets. But in verse 14, Jesus says this, you are the light of the world like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. So why would you have this light and hide it? Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where it gives light to everyone in the house in the same way, in the same way as this city on a hill. It’s the same way as a light on a lampstand. And the same way let your lights shine the light of Christ that is within you. Let your light shine for all to see so that everyone will see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Now, that word glorify when we’re in church, it conjures up a certain definition and there’s a sense of reverence to it. We’re glorifying the Lord. There’s awe and there’s worship. But if I would read the synonyms and the definition of that word, and we weren’t in church, and I asked you what word would you use to describe it, the words that circle the wagon around the meaning are words like boisterous, festive, loud, elation.

CELEBRATE

Celebrate. Celebrate. And I started to realize that there’s a principle of service that Jesus is getting to. It’s not just thinking about what we do, and it’s not just thinking about the need. It is weighing and measuring something else. It has to do with this idea of celebrating because the person celebrating in that circumstance is the person who received the service.

KEEP SHINING YOUR LIGHTS UNTIL THE CITY CELEBRATES GOD

And it’s like Jesus is kind of giving us this really simple formula. Who do you serve? When do you serve? How much do you serve? When do you stop serving? You keep shining your light until the city celebrates God. Next slide. Please keep shining your light until the city celebrates God. When are you done? Words of Kobe Bryant. Job’s not done. You keep shining your light until the city celebrates God.

Keep shining your light. And it’s not like whether you think you’ve done something good, whether you think that you’ve served God, there’s this end result that they celebrate what God is doing through you. And you might think that the projects we did were just small. They were easy. But you ask that Korean War veteran as he walks out into the ramp today, you ask that victim of human trafficking as they read that encouraging note, you ask that single mom as she feeds her kids this morning, whether they were small and insignificant, of course not. And what they’re doing is celebrating.

God got an email from one of the recipients, and I changed the names to kind of make this general, this could apply to any of the projects, but they just sought me out. I don’t know who this person is, but they were a recipient of this project and it blessed them and they wrote,

Hello, pastor Chris.

I just wanted to share my gratitude for your small group and the work they did. You don’t know me, but their donation was such a blessing when I initially spoke with the small group leader, they simply stated they wanted to prosper the city by serving their neighbor. And I know this group doesn’t desire notoriety, but I felt compelled to reach out to you and tell you how impressed I am by the humility and generosity this group and how impactful their gift was. Praise God.

And you did it. You shined your light and that person praised God. You let your light shine before others so they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven, celebrate him. And that’s kind of the formula Jesus lays out for us. Keep doing it. Job’s not done. Keep doing it until they celebrate Him, until they go, I thank God for you and begin to draw closer to Jesus. See Jesus in you, and come to a place of faith because you decided to surf. And that’s the kind of mindset like keep shining until they celebrate.

IMAGINE

That mindset changes marriages, that mindset changes families. That mindset changes a workplace. It changes your friend group. Keep shining. Job’s not done. Keep shining until they celebrate God. Lemme pray for you.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to just celebrate what you’ve done through us. We celebrate God. First of all. You first loved us. You gave your son to die, our death in our place for our sins, that we might live his life and his place. And we thank you for that, Lord. And in response, we just love others. God, thank you for these projects. We pray that their impact would continue to go on and grow your kingdom, but that it would lead to people celebrating you, Lord celebrating you. And so this concept from Prosper the city, these projects help us incorporate that into our lives.

Help us be a people who keep on shining until those around us celebrate God, celebrate you. We ask this in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray our Father, who arts in heaven, Hollywood, be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.