Creekside Church Sermon of May 9, 2004 "Fishers of People, or Keepers of the Aquarium?" Acts 11:1-18	Rev. David Bibbee
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Only one thing is worse than radio stations that play good songs over and over until you can't stand them, and that is stations that play really bad songs over and over.

Back in the mid-seventies, there was a singer named Leo Sayers. He had a mousy, irritating voice. One summer, radio stations were saturated with his recording, "I Can't Dance." The song was about a guy who, you guessed it, couldn't dance. But he went to an upper- crust party where a woman yanked him onto the dance floor, and in no time he was singing, "You know I can dance." I tried to forget it, but this remnant remains:

"Well, there was ham, and there was turkey, and there was caviar, and long, tall glasses filled with wine up to h'yar', and somebody grabbed me, and pulled me out of my chair. She said, "Boy, you can't eat, you've got to dance like Fred Astair." And I said…. "You know I can't dance, you know I can't dance…"

The song came to mind as I studied our text from Acts 11. It is the story of Peter's conversion from, "can't to can."

Leaders of the church in Jerusalem heard rumors that Peter had baptized Gentiles into the church. Until this time, all Christians were Jewish converts. Peter didn't get a warm welcome when he returned from Caesarea. "Peter-we need to talk. We were told that you had baptized Gentiles into the faith. We knew that couldn't be right. Tell us we heard wrong, Peter." Peter replied, "You heard it right." "We know Jesus gave you to keys to the kingdom and all, and we're not questioning your authority. We're questioning your judgment. Our reputation is ruined because you've become buddies with the Gentiles."

Peter responded by sharing the vision he had in Joppa. He was praying on a balcony of a house, having the same problem with prayer that we have-his concentration drifted, the aroma of lunch made his mouth water, his stomach was growling. Then came a vision. A huge tablecloth tied at the four corners with ropes was lowered from the sky to the ground.

It was filled with all kinds of creeping, crawling, flying creatures. A voice said, "Its lunch time, Peter. Pick an animal, any animal, kill it, cook it, and eat it. Bon Apetite!" Peter replied, "Lord, I can't do that! It isn't kosher. I've never so much as smelled a pork chop." "It's okay, Peter. Go ahead. Eat." Three times the voice said, "Dig in," then, the tablecloth disappeared in the clouds.

Peter tried to make sense of the vision when three men came, asking Peter to go with them to a man named Cornelius. He also had a vision. He was told to find a man in Joppa named Simon Peter, who had what Cornelius needed. Peter went with them, entered Cornelius' house, and no sooner started speaking when the Holy Spirit came upon Cornelius' household. The meaning of the vision was clear. All the animals Peter had been taught were unclean stood for people the Jews considered unclean. God was saying, "They are my children, too. Now they belong to the body of Christ."

When Peter welcomed Cornelius the door was opened for the church to tell its story, not just to the children of Israel, but to the world.

The reaction to the Jewish Christians tells us that the church had to be drug kicking and screaming to share the good news outside their community. When Jesus called the disciples, their job descriptions were clear. "We're going to fish for people." But already the church's focus was upon the fish already in the tank, and we've been doing it ever since.

The mainline church has been hemorrhaging for years, and the precipitous membership decline continues, and still the church must be drug kicking and screaming to its evangelistic mission. An estimated seventy percent of our population doesn't belong to the church. When asked what it would take to get people to go, the number one answer is --- an invitation. "We would go if someone asked us," today's Gentiles say.

Someone said, "A Messiah who does not invite is not Jesus. A church that stops inviting is not Jesus' church!" Jesus never "suggested" that we go fishing. Fishing outside the aquarium wasn't Peter's idea-it was God's. God never said, "Charity begins at home," or "You've got to look out for yourselves before you can reach out to others." God told Peter, "Go ahead and eat the and ham and cheese sandwich, then go visit Cornelius.

We have been given a job description: "Go tell." The church may be housed in a beautiful edifice, it may have uplifting, exhilarating worship, wonderful growth opportunities, and be a close, caring community, but if it doesn't "Go and tell," it doesn't have a future. "The church that does not invite is not Jesus' church."

Our church is going through a number of changes. Right now I am positive about the potential. God has given us the necessary gifts to become a great church. But, we might as well disband the Cornerstone Committee, scrap the changes, and sell the land if we are not committed to inviting people and sharing the good news entrusted to us.

Back in my band days we played for lots of high school dances. It took a while to get things warmed up in some of the county schools. When the music started, the guys lined up on one side of the gym, and the girls on the other. We played up a storm and no one was dancing. They stood like statues, staring at their feet and each other until a gutsy guy walked nervously across the gym floor with sweaty palms and a bone-dry mouth. He walked up to a girl and asked, "Would you like to dance…. with me?" The ice was broken, and it wasn't long before a dance was going on.

We know we should share our faith. The Holy Spirit plays the music and nudges us on to the dance floor, but we're afraid the one we talk to will turn us down. It doesn't occur to us that the person might be eager to listen, or hope that someone like you will talk with them, or that the encounter might actually be fun. We know we should share our faith, but we "think" about it instead, and reason that thinking is better than nothing at all.

Church growth isn't rocket science. You don't need to be a polished orator. You don't have to memorize the Bible, learn the art of rebuttal, be a theological know-it-all, or an "all-together" super Christian who isn't uncertain about anything. But there are things we need to learn if we are to be more than aquarium-keepers.

One necessity is learning to think like an outsider. The church usually decides what to do on the basis of what the members want. Churches don't grow because they don't see the church from an outsider's perspective. We are familiar with our way of doing things and aren't aware that they are barriers. Decisions are made based upon the impact the decision will have upon us, rather than upon what will be helpful to those on the outside looking in.

Elkhart City knows a thing or two about church softball. When I was pastor at Crest Manor, the church belonged to a league. League rules stated that players had to be members of, or regularly attend the church they played for. I had just moved to South Bend and didn't know where many of the churches were located. In one game I was on base, and asked the third baseman, "Where is Sunnyside Presbyterian located?" He replied, "Hell, I don't know."

My first thought was, "Sunnyside is breaking league rules. If they beat us, we going to turn them in." The interesting thing was that the softball league was supposed to be a tool for outreach. But how was it outreach if only the people already in the church could play?

Let me tell you about a church that took a different approach. Their rule was that you couldn't play unless you belonged to a Sunday school class. Then they realized they were missing an opportunity for evangelism. They scraped the old rule and made a new one. Only half the team could be members of the church. The team had to recruit players who were not involved in a church. This simple move enabled the church to think in new ways about its mission. Instead of operating solely on internal concerns, tending to the cares of their own, they developed a ministry based on external concerns. They took off their blinders and began thinking from the perspective of the outsider.

Another necessity is realizing that old methods of evangelism aren't effective in reaching contemporary people. I get turned off by the term, "winning souls for Jesus." First, people aren't just souls. Second, if you "win" them, it implies you outwitted or outlasted them. Third, conversion isn't your accomplishment. It's the work of the Holy Spirit. There's more to the Gospel than telling people to say a formula prayer so that when they die they will go to heaven. To ask, "If you died tonight, do you know where you will spend eternity?" misrepresents what the Good News of Jesus is about.

Not sharing isn't an option. So how do we do evangelism? By being ourselves-by being people who live their discipleship in the context of their normal lives.

Rosanna led devotions at the board meeting on Wednesday. She read a passage from Romans 12:1-2 in Eugene Peterson's The Message. Listen closely, because it's the point at which evangelism begins:

"So here's what I want you to do-God helping you: Take your normal, everyday life-your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life-and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you and quickly respond to it."

I found a Christian web page called, "Off the Map." In it was an email from a man who quit seminary because of the approach to evangelism the school taught. He could not in good conscience do it. The students went to an inner city Christian clinic where they were to witness to every person receiving treatment. The budding evangelists were to lead people through steps, which would hopefully culminate in conversion. The seminarian felt guilty because he thought he was the only one who had a problem with treating people as evangelistic targets.

I want you to listen to a response from a pastor named Rachelle to his concern. I'm sharing it with you because she is on target in describing a style of evangelism that fits who we are, is true to the spirit of Jesus, and responds to the needs of people.

She writes, "For many people, old school evangelism feels a lot more like a slap in the face than the outstretched, embracing hand of Christ. What if you had been "allowed" to sit at the health clinic, handed people a cup of coffee, and just listened to their stories? What if your heart welled up at a given point in the tale and you had been able to say, 'Tell me more about that.' Or, 'Wow, that's really interesting.' Or, 'I'm sorry that hurt so much.' Or, 'I'm going to be thinking/praying/ hoping that things will work out for you.' I know from experience that this brings a much longer lasting conversational relationship than saying, 'If you died tonight, would you know for sure you were going to heaven?'"

She continues: "The church I pastor evangelizes this way. We don't call it evangelism any more. We just call it…um…living, I guess. I think of it as listening to people and looking for God-active spots to breath on… When my heart responds to what they are saying, I think of that bit of their story as a little heap of embers. God is glowing there. I can almost guarantee that hardcore evangelism would be like a bucket of water on that God-active spot. How can I breath enough love on that spot and let it grow? How can I extend not "the gospel message," but the living, breathing gospel itself? There is no formula for this kind of living. It's just faith, instinct, prayer, and living normal lives as disciples of Jesus."

Paul said, "Now here's what I want you to do-Take your ordinary, everyday life and place it before God as an offering."

The only way to a hopeful, promise-filled future for our church is if we -"Go tell." Our aquarium may be a fine one with beautiful, well-fed fish. But if Jesus' love is confined to the tank, there will be little to look forward to. There is an ocean full of people who want to experience God and learn how Jesus' love can complete the story of their lives, in this lifetime, and in the life to come.

We have been recruited to do a job. We are being called to a different orientation that is just as concerned about sharing Jesus' love with those on the outside as those on the inside. An orientation that places a premium on making our ordinary lives an offering to God, which God will then use to welcome others to the faith. Evangelism doesn't have to do with targets or strategies or formulas or fear, but living in a way that lets the love of Jesus shine through us.

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