St. Mark

WELCOME

Pastor Chris Paavola: Will you pray with me?

Memorial Day Prayer

Heavenly Father, we sang those words. We pray for the hearts and the faith to believe those words and to live them out to just trust in you in all circumstances. God, we thank you this day for Memorial Day and we thank you for those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom. Thank you for them. Thank you, God for this incredible country with so many freedoms and so many opportunities, but also God, the freedom we have to gather together and worship like this to be in your house. So, we honor those who gave their lives, but God, we also, we praise you for them. So thank you God, for this day. Open our hearts to hear what you have to say in this message. And yeah, just bless us, bless us, God, in this time that we have together, in Jesus’ name, all God’s people said amen.

Response: Amen.

Pastor Chris Paavola: You guys can go ahead and have a seat. Good to be with you guys today. Happy Memorial Day to you and Memorial Weekend and for all of you guys watching online, happy Memorial weekend to you guys too. Thank you so much for tuning in and just making us a part of your celebration. Stay safe on the lake or wherever you are. The weekend around Easter, we gave you guys yard signs and we gave you invite cards. I dunno if you remember all of this and we just had a really big this matters. Let’s invite one another and let’s be invitational and just make sure that we are an inviting church, especially around Easter. And there was just this ethos going on at that time of just invite, invite, invite.

THE BEST CHURCH

And a 7-year-old in our church decided that we needed better signage. And so, she made this sign and then taped it to the front door of the church. I know if you’re listening right now, it just says this is the best church. I don’t know if we’re the best church, but that little girl thought we were a church worth celebrating.

SERIES

And that’s what we’re doing in this series. Celebrate is we are just stopping to take a few moments to just celebrate what God has done. We know if we go from event, to event. task to task. thing to thing, that we never actually stop if we don’t actually stop and take an inventory of how much has happened. We miss some of the celebration. We miss just how much has really taken place. And this is why we have birthdays. This is why we have anniversaries and stuff. This is why we have Memorial Day or President’s Day or National Donut Day, whatever it is, we stop and take an inventory of everything that has happened and we pause and reflect because we know we’ll miss something unless we carve out that time. And actually, this really, there’s a biblical precedent to this.

COMMANDS TO CELEBRATE

This is something God wants. You can read in the Old Testament this really fun book called Leviticus. There’s a chapter called 23 right there, and it just lays out all of these commands to observe and celebrate so you don’t forget. So, God says, hey have a festival every year to remember the Passover, how I rescued you from the hand of Egypt. And then He commands have a festival every year to remember when I gave you the 10 Commandments, have a festival every year to remember you’re wandering in the deserts. Have a festival every year to remember during the harvest to remember that God has provided for you and even actually Sundays or that time, Saturdays, the Sabbath day, carve out a day once a week to pause and reflect on everything that God has done in your week and then recharge for the week ahead.

And this morning you are doing that. You are taking time to remember the Sabbath day and to follow God’s very clear directive to stop and take an inventory of how much has happened and just really reflect on how good God is and how much he has done for you. And so that’s what we’re doing in this series is we’re stopping and considering how much God has done. And so last week we talked about celebrating prosper of the city and we talked about these 16 amazing small groups that all engaged in these projects. Everything from building wheelchair ramps to painting and landscaping at homes or cleaning up trash on the highway, the road over here. Awesome. And we took a few moments to just celebrate everything that God did. And then today what we’re going to do is we’re going to celebrate what God is doing in the church.

LAST WEEK

So last week we celebrated what God is doing in the city through St. Mark. Today we’re going to celebrate what God is doing in the church. And my goodness, there is a lot to celebrate you guys.

CELEBRATE ST. MARK

And every time people, especially when pastors get together, they talk about church, we go down to the bare metrics and these are things we can measure. These are things we can gauge. How has growth happened or where is there a sign of health? This is taking your blood pressure or your oxygen levels, you’re trying to measure health. And so, these numbers are the common numbers that churches use to just measure health. And the first one is attendance. And memorial weekend’s not a very good weekend to measure attendance, but actually you guys did a good job today, you’re here and the room feels good, but we’re averaging really close to 375, 400 people a weekend here at St.

Mark. And that’s an awesome number. I think in 2025 our average will be over 400 people and we praise God for that. To kind of put that in perspective though. So, here’s the last three years. You can see in 22 to 23 we had a remarkable growth. We actually, I came in May of 22 and a little side note, St. Mark was the fastest growing church in the state of Michigan between 22 and 23. Yeah, praise God. So awesome. So awesome. And then in 23 to 24, we were like the third or the fourth fastest growing. I can’t quite remember the number there, but God’s blessing. You can see there’s just the steady slow growth. And what I rejoice in that chart is not just that there’s growth over year, over year. It is that there’s not this rocket growth and we plateau. You see there’s just kind of a steady, slow churning burning growth that I think is a sign of a healthy church because that tells me it’s not like this one insulin shot or adrenaline shot getting in there and making us feel good.

It’s like we’re doing right things and we’re keeping at it. We’re being faithful. So I rejoice in that chart and then you can see that April was ridiculous. I don’t know why other than you guys had yard signs, honestly. So, we’re really, we’re just excited about everything that God did in April and May is proving to be kind of the same of just this kind of steady growth. And we praise God for that. And then those numbers translate into different things. For instance, we had a tie dye party last week for our middle school and high school. There is the move up day. And so fourth graders moving into fifth grade and they get assigned like a big brother, big sister, and then they make a tie dye shirt. And so we had 50 kids last week. You guys look at that picture. We had 50 kids last week, right?

All getting together and having a great time. And the volunteers who volunteer with middle schoolers and high schoolers are a special breed. If you see ’em, thank them because that is just a special giftedness to hang out with those kids. And that was 50 kids. But that number of 400 and worship translates into some other numbers that we see. So for instance, we had 50 kids at this party, but then also we had over 200 people at our next slide, please. There you go. Over 300 people. We had over 200 people at our breakfast, I’m sorry, 300 people at our breakfast with Santa, over 500 people at our Easter egg extravaganza. We had 90 ladies at our Mother’s Day event and we had over 750 people here on Easter Sunday. You guys, I mean, come on. And those numbers, these are numbers worth celebrating. God is good.

Somebody say amen, right? God is good. And so then the other numbers that really matters that everyone will ask about is giving, right? How is giving doing? And so, if you take our annual budget, we said this year was around $675 or $670, well that’d be a small budget, $675,000. And if you do the math, we have around 375 people on a Sunday. You divide it by that, that means that the average giving per person is about $150. So that’s from an infant, the way to elder about $150 per month or $1,800 per year per person. That’s a good healthy metric. We’re excited about that. We praise God for that. That translates into a budget of about $675,000 a year. Now this year, you know that we had our capital campaign in October and we talked to you guys about how God has grown the church and we need to make space for growth, but also to modernize and make relevant this space that is feeling a little dated.

You guys were like, yes, and you made these pledges, you dug deep, you sacrificed, and we raised 2.1 million in pledges. Praise God for that. But then, yeah, right, right. We should clap. That’s old news. You guys are like, yeah, we heard that before. But those pledges come out in one time, annual or monthly gifts and you guys are giving above and beyond our regular offering, right? Because we can’t compromise that or it starts to affect how we’re able to do ministry. So all the pledges were above and beyond your regular offering for that $2.1 million. And we have one time annual and monthly gifts that are in those pledges. Every month we are receiving and you guys are being so faithful, praise God for you. Every month we’re receiving somewhere around 25 to $30,000 a month towards your pledges. So you guys are fulfilling your pledges.

Praise God for that. That means that that number 675 is not reflection of our giving. We are giving at record levels because three $30,000 times a month times 12 months means that you guys are giving over 1 million every year for the next three years. You guys, that is awesome. And that is a number worth celebrating. Amen. Awesome, awesome, awesome. And then the other number that you can track. You can track things like enrollments and different things. Like every Sunday we’ve had Sundays with 80 kids down the hallway on Sunday mornings, or you can track small groups. We have 16 small groups meeting and gathering in homes and doing life together. Or you can measure the number of people that come to a prayer night or prayer walks. Those are good indicators of health. But the big one for us is because our mission is to lay down our lives so as many as possible experience, Jesus, I say it over and over so that you guys echo it and repeat it yourselves.

We lay down our lives to as many as possible, experienced Jesus and they experienced Jesus. One of the primary ways we do that is in the waters of baptism where we believe God confers his promises to his people when they touch him here at the font or when we have the baptismal tub. And so, one of the things we can measure health with is baptisms. Last year y’all, we had 33 baptisms here at St. Mark. I mean, come on. That is a number worth celebrating and a record number of adults being baptized, kids being baptized, infants being baptized, an awesome, awesome number.

EVERY STORY

Now here’s what I know is happening as I’m talking or as you’re watching online and you’re hearing what I’m saying. I know there are some people going See. See, the church just cares about numbers. All they care about is numbers. They don’t.

And listen, okay, I understand the sentiment, but we have to measure numbers If we’re going to be good stewards, we have to. God does not just measure our faithfulness. He also measures our fruitfulness. When you read the parable of the wise manager, he rewards the one who is faithful and fruitful and he condemns the one who is only faithful. God absolutely wants us to grow the kingdom. Numbers matter to God. They do. Here’s how I can say it. In the early church, somebody was saying like, hey, did you hear that Jesus multiplied bread and fish and fed a crowd? Oh, well, how big was the crowd? 5,000 people. Hey, did you hear that? A bunch of people were baptized on Pentecost? Oh, how many? 3000. Somebody was counting. Somebody was counting. And then Jesus tells parables about our heavenly Father that he counts how much money he has and when a coin is missing, he goes searching for that one lost coin. He counts his flock and he goes searching When one sheep is missing, he’s like a wealthy owner who holds a banquet and he notices and counts the empty seats and he sends his servants out into the highways and byways and pathways until every seat is full in his house, God is burdened by the empty seat next to you.

EVERY NUMBER HAS A NAME AND EVERY NAME HAS A STORY AND EVERY STORY MATTERS TO GOD

He counts because he cares. He counts because you count and the people out there are yet to know Jesus counts. Every number has a name, every name has a story, and every story matters to God. Did you guys say that with me? Every number has a name. Every name has a story. Every story matters to God. It’s true, it’s true. Now I can tell you the numbers, I can tell you the numbers of what has happened, but it’s hard for me to tell the stories. They’re not my story to tell. And then even if I did tell them it’s secondhand, it’s different to hear it from the people who are living the story. And so this week we were like, Hey, let’s get some people to just tell their story of what God has done in their life and how God has used St. Mark in their life.

And so, we were just brainstorming some names from people, young and old, different services, 8, 9 30 and 11 and just said, hey, can you come in and tell us what God’s doing in your life? And we were thinking, this is going to be like a quick video, whatever. And the more these people were talking, I’m like, there’s not a part of any of these stories that should be on the cutting room floor. And I was like, all right, Chris, swallow your pride. You don’t need to preach. You get to preach 52 Sundays a year. You got other Sundays you can preach. I just thought I’d, I’d give my time to these incredible people with their incredible stories so that you can hear what God has done through St. Mark. So, take a look.

VIDEO

Speaker 1: We started coming to St. Mark in probably the summer of 2023, and the reason we came was actually for the Bible giveaway. I just thought that was a special opportunity. I love free stuff and why not? Why not give it a try? And this is a home for our kids already as they’ve been coming here since they were infants. And so I was like, oh, we don’t have any Bibles at home, so let’s see what this thing’s all about.

Speaker 2: At Ella’s Christmas program, we were invited by Pastor Chris to come back for Christmas, and we had never had a church together as a couple or as a family that was our own. And so we felt like that was the perfect time to go back as a family.

Speaker 3: We started coming to St. Mark because my daughter and her family moved here and started going here at St. Mark’s.

Speaker 4: The first time I came to St. Mark, I absolutely felt welcome. The fact that a volunteer met me in the parking lot to shake my hand and introduce themselves, and it was a very, very warm experience.

Speaker 5: We’ve been coming to St. Mark almost three years now. We had some friends that were lifelong members and we were looking for a new church and they invited us and we felt like when we walked in the door,

Speaker 6: We fit right in. We started coming. When my mom started working at the daycare, everybody was telling her to come check out the church and she was like, okay, I will. And she brought me with her.

Speaker 7: The people and the  way that we have experienced community and inclusion and everything has just been wonderful.

Speaker 1:My husband and I, we didn’t either of us grow up in a regular church environment. We bounced around. When we got together, we tried a few churches in the area, but nothing really stuck. And so, I think what made us keep coming back was a feeling of safety. We felt safe at St. Mark in the community. We felt like we could show up and be ourselves, be where we were in our journey with Jesus and God. And I had never felt that in another church environment. What brought us back was I was

Speaker 8: Comfortable because I’m socially awkward and I don’t like going where I’m not comfortable. And the people, they didn’t force themselves on you, they were very welcoming without being overburdening.

Speaker 2: Our life has changed a lot since we started coming to St. Mark’s. I feel like we’re closer as a family. We pray together. We read the Bible. We’re thankful for the message that we’ve heard. We’re thankful for being together. We’re thankful for growing in our faith together. It’s been a huge blessing. It’s changed our perspective from being pessimistic and going through a tough time to seeing the beauty and the miracles that we have every day. So we’re really thankful for that.

Speaker 1: Since coming to St. Mark, our lives have changed, I think drastically in so many ways. There’s almost like a before St. Mark and an after St. Mark. I just think the impact in my personal relationships and in the work that I do and having less anxiety or enforcing my will upon how I want things to go, it’s just totally different. Before and

Speaker 3: After St. Mark, my faith has changed coming to State Mark because of the people that I have met that are so welcoming and the ministry, the new growth in the church has just made me so excited because of the young people, the young families, the youth group. I’m so excited about that.

Speaker 5: What’s important to me is the last two years have been involved in the small group. We’ve made so many new friends, people that we knew and others that we didn’t know that now are our dear friends. And those small groups brought us closer together with some other members. And then the small groups, we’ve done service projects with the small groups that prosper the city, and those have been just very fulfilling.

Speaker 4: When I come to St. Mark on Sundays, I definitely, I feel better. I feel like I have more of a personal connection with God and with Jesus. And then on the other hand, when I don’t make it like this past Sunday when I had to do my breaks, I also feel it. I’m like, man, I have to go another seven days before I can go to church. I don’t know if I like that. I do watch online, but it’s kind of not the same. When I’m sitting here and I feel the presence of God and I feel everybody else feel the presence of God, it’s such a good, powerful energy that I fully understand why recovery programs ask you to do this. It’s part of the 10 steps. It’s a reminder that there’s something more than myself and it humbles me.

Speaker 1: Since coming to St. Mark, my faith is generally unrecognizable from what it was my entire life. I did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead. It just was sort of unfathomable to me. And now I do believe that, and it’s really astonishing to me how if God has the space to work in your life and in a safe and comfortable environment, what he can

Speaker 5: Do. We were looking for a vibrant dynamic place for our kids. We were so blessed that they were touched enough and all four of ’em were baptized about a year ago. And that’s I think, the greatest thing that we’ve been blessed with. Coming to St. Mark,

Speaker 6: My life changed because of St. Mark. It made my life so much better. That kind of got me out of my shell. I used to be a really shy kid, didn’t talk much. And just being here, meeting everybody, it really opened up my just personality and it made me realize how much God has impacted my life.

Speaker 8: Life is hard, and every week it makes a difference in our lives because it allows us to think and take that time to recharge. And so it has made a difference in our lives every single week just by taking that time to listen, to recharge and to listen to the word.

Speaker 7: Since coming to St. Mark’s, I’ve just been astonished at the number of times that the message on Sunday has been so relevant to what was happening at that moment in my life. I think that’s the thing that just comes to mind the most, is how relevant every single week, some part of that message feels like Pastor Chris is talking to me and I get choked up thinking about it just because I didn’t realize how pessimistic I was about almost everything. And that’s changed dramatically for me.

Speaker 1: And so what I’d like to say to the people that lay down their lives so that so many can experience Jesus at St. Mark, including myself, is thank you. I have seen you. I see you each week and what you do. And for me, the data of seeing Jesus through people who serve and people who create the space here at St. Mark was the entire difference in my

Speaker 3: Belief since coming to St. Mark. I’m grateful for all the wonderful people that have welcomed me from the very beginning, and I feel blessed

Speaker 2: For all the teachers that make it possible. When you teach children about Jesus and you teach them about love, you’re doing miraculous things. And sometimes when you show that part of yourself and your faith to a child, you’re bringing their whole family.

Speaker 4: Well to the people who work at St. Mark, the volunteers, the pastors, even the music performers. I just want to say thank you for having this place for doing what you do for Prosper the city. It’s such an inspirational thing, and it does remind us that we are, that there is something more, especially with volunteers, the people that don’t have to do this, they’re the biggest blessing I feel because they’re giving up their time and they’re doing it out of love and out of encouragement. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a St. Mark is a beautiful thing.

Speaker 6: Just thank you for everything. All the time that you’ve put in, all the smiles you’ve shown people, it impacts this community greatly. And it really makes St. Mark welcoming. And people walk in, they see your smiles and you greet them and they’re like, wow, these people actually care about me. They really are interested in how I’m doing and why I came to St. Mark. I just say thank you for everything that you guys have done.

Speaker 8: I want to say thank you to all the people who serve and to especially those who work with our children and our youth. Without everyone putting their time, effort, and love into this ministry, it wouldn’t survive

Speaker 7: To the people that made our experience and our story possible. It doesn’t seem enough to say thank you, but that’s the deepest feeling I have. Because for everything, whether it’s physically or financially given resources are required to do anything in this world. But the outreach to the community, I’ve lived in Battle Creek my whole life, and the action that I see this church doing is just, it’s astonishing to me. And so, I just have to say a deep appreciation and a deep gratitude for everything that made it possible.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Anyone else want to clap? Right? Every number has a name. Every name has a story, and every story matters to God. I know those people just said thank you, but I mean, honestly, just, I am so grateful for you in the ways that you have made all of this possible. So, thank you St. Mark. You guys are fantastic. And whether it’s being a greeter and welcoming somebody on a sidewalk, to playing with kids, to counting numbers, to, actually, yesterday at 8:45 PM I was in my office getting ready for today, and I heard mowing, it’s a Michigan summer, so it’s like daylight still, but somebody was mowing. And then I look and there’s somebody with a weed whacker, if you know who is on the mowing team. You know who this person was, but they had this weed whacker and they were just trimming up the grass. And I thought to myself, no one’s going to see that corner. I’m looking out my office and it’s this corner, the obscure corner on the campus. No one’s going to see if they cut the grass and trim the grass in that corner, but one will.

It’s an audience of one, right? And I was like that’s St. Mark right there. So, thank you guys for the ways that you serve. It’s fantastic. As I was watching that video again and getting ready for today, there’s three verses that kind of came through my mind and it’s kind of a closing thought I’d like to have for you guys. The first one is this verse from one Peter, or I’m sorry, Ephesians four where he says, so Christ gave himself the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers too. So, this is basically describing that God set up the church and he sets up the church and then he sets leadership in place to do these things, the work of the ministry. And I think if you took a poll of American Christianity, they’d be like, oh, well, the leaders, the pastors, the teachers, those are the guys who are there to do church. Those are the guys and the leaders who pray for us because I’m not very good at prayer. And they read the Bible for us and tell it what it means because I’m not very good at that. And I think that’s how most people would respond. And it would be a very, a passive, you, you’re an audience. You’re observing church. You’re watching church being done while the professionals are up here playing church.

But that’s not the design that God has because he sets up the leadership in order to do what? And that’s the rest of the verse. To equip, to outfit you, to do works of service, to do the work of the ministry. You are the church. You be the church. So, our role as leaders is to mobilize you, to play with kids, to mobilize you, to count numbers, to mobilize you, to mow the lawn, to mobilize you, to serve the city and build wheelchair ramps and clean up litter. That’s our job is to equip you. And I say this a few times, but we are a board governed, staff led, volunteer driven ministry, board, governed, staff led, volunteer driven. It’s you who made these stories possible you. And then the other two verses that I thought of while watching this is kind of Paul reiterating this point.

10 Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 1 Peter 4

Peter reiterates this point in first Peter. He says, “each of you should use whatever gift you past tense have received to serve others as faithful stewards of” God’s gifts in his various forms, “God’s grace in his various forms”, meaning every one of you has been gifted by God for his purposes. Ensure you can use God’s gifts that he’s given you to build your 401k. You can use God’s gifts that he’s given you to buy a boat and have a nice weekend. Christian life is not without its benefits, I fully admit that. But God has gifted you to grow his kingdom to bear fruit for his glory. He’s calling you into service because the time is short. There’re still thousands in this community who do not know Jesus yet it’s not about you. And then Paul reiterates the point that Peter makes there to each one, the manifestation, the demonstration, the obvious sign of the spirit is given for the common good, for the good of the church to each one. No one is exempt. You are supremely gifted you.

And so, I think to the volunteers who have been serving and are serving, I hope you feel just a deep, deep sense of gratitude and just hear just a resounding thank you from me and from the rest of the church today. Thank you. But for those of you who have yet to serve, have yet to respond to the call, today’s an invitation and maybe even sitting on the sidelines or sitting in the stands because you’re new to church and that’s fine and you’ve still got things to explore, that’s fine. I think one of the best ways to discover who God is to serve with his people, first of all, and I think some of us are maybe just busy, and I think some of us, maybe you serve for a long season and you need to heal and recover and that’s fine. And maybe some of us, you just have never been asked. I remember I was talking to a friend about some things that we have coming up and I was like, hey man, I was looking, I didn’t see your name sign up. And we had a signup for him. And he goes, well, I figured if you need me, you call me. I look around you.

There’s a lot of people to call and consider today your invitation. In my annual review last year, one of the council members wrote that I’m a very driven person, not naming any names or calling anyone out specifically. And at first, I was like, okay. But then I started, think about it. I’m not driven. I’m led. I’m just answering the call. It’s the same call that you have. And so today is an invitation to get off the stands, get off the sidelines, and come play with us. Get in the game. There is so much to do and so much at stake. And so, in your bulletins, there’s a QR code. There is every week, and this week it’ll take you to the hub where it always takes you. But then on the hub, you’ll see an opportunity to serve at St. Mark. It’s a simple form

Click on it, just check. Where are you interested in serving? You are supremely gifted. You have been gifted by God, by his Holy Spirit to build up the church, to grow his kingdom, to reach the lost. And so just tell us where am I interested in serving? We will figure it out. I don’t know. Just click on it. Say, I’m interested in serving here. We’ll make it happen. And that’s just one way that you can experience Jesus here at St. Mark is to serve with us. Like you heard in the video, we believe Jesus is seen through service. You see Jesus and those you serve and they see Jesus in you. So scan that, click it, fill it out, and let’s see what happens. I know this. I know this. Today’s stories that you just heard were written by today’s volunteers, tomorrow’s stories, stories yet to be told.

The stories that are out there, tomorrow’s stories will be told by tomorrow’s volunteers and had love for you to be a part of those stories. Lemme pray for us.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, we thank you for making this such an incredible church. We thank you for the way that you’ve worked in and through your people to write such incredible stories. We pray for more life change, for more baptisms, not for our name, not for our sake, but for yours, not for our renno, but for yours, for Jesus’ sake. And so God, I pray that you would let every person in this room or every person watching online to know that they are supremely gifted and that God, they would hear clearly where it is you’re calling them to serve. And Jesus’ name, we pray all of this, and we pray now the prayer your Son taught us to pray. And yeah, let thy kingdom come as we join together. 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.