The Truth About Our Future

Scripture: Acts 2:36-47, Joshua 1:1-9, Revelation 2:1-5

Introduction

• The TRUTH is that it is time for a change.
• I have worked tirelessly for almost five years to revive and restore this great institution that is Biltmore Baptist church.
• Why? Because I believe with all my heart that God sent me here to do exactly that.
• I believe that we have now reached a turning point in our history.
• I believe we have succeeded in fulfilling this vision of reviving and restoring this church.
• God has shown us His support along numerous lines, but now He’s ready for more.
• When I came on the scene as your pastor almost 5 years ago, I had a vision for this church.
• I believe this vision was given to me by the Holy Spirit who put a real burden on me for this community.
• As a pastor, I believe that I am called by the Holy Spirit to cast a spiritual vision.
• I certainly don’t consider myself a prophet, but I do believe God has and will continue to use me to lead this church as He sees fit for as long as He sees fit to call me to do so.
• The vision we have focused on has been fulfilled in ways far beyond my expectations.
• But today I want to put forward a new spiritual vision for this church going forward.
• I’ve already discussed it Wednesday night at our quarterly business meeting.
• My previous vision consisted of four pillars, but this one has only three:

1. Scalability
2. Responsiveness
3. Retention

1. Scalability

• What is scalaility? Anybody have an idea?
• Scalability is how efficiently we can handle growth.
• We dedicated the ValPak mailing, that is happening this week, earlier this morning.
• It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around 30,000 people suddenly reading about us.
• We don’t know what God will do with this, but if it only attracts 1/10^th of 1 percent, that is 30 people and will literally double our attendance.
• How do we handle this sudden expansion? We can only do so much.
• And what if 1 percent suddenly shows up at our doors? That’s 300 new people!!
• We must at least be ready to grow, or scale, our processes to handle things.
• If we believe that God is ready to grow this church – and I believe He is – we need to start now and be ready to grow and scale up our processes and programs.
• Think about a meal where we plan for 45 people to show up because that is typical.
• Then what do you do when three times as many people suddenly show up like what happened at our last outdoor meal and concert.
• You must either overestimate all the time or risk running out and disappointing folks.
• A lot of things will be impacted: from parking to number of bulletins to Sunday school classes to children’s church and the list goes on and on.
• We read about the first Christian church in Acts.
• In our passage this morning we are seeing what happened when Peter preached the truth.
• People were convicted and 3000 became believers based on this one event.
• So, believe me when I tell you that God could use this ValPak event to similarly bless us.
• It won’t be the first time He’s done it. I’ve been watching it happen for five years now.
• The people of the first church took steps to continuously scale their operations.
• They did it by sticking together and pooling their resources.
• They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.
• Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.
• They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.
• So, you might say that their key to managing rapid growth was by working together.
• This will now be a key focus of my ministry here and I will continue to emphasize it.
• We can get away with some things because of our current size.
• In order to scale up our church, we need people to stop wearing 3, 4, 5 hats.
• We need to guard against single points of failure; the work needs to be spread out amongst more people.
• We need to avoid burnout as we grow.
• We need a full-time Pastor role – either with me or someone else, but we need full time.
• We need office administration support to handle calls, emails, and information requests.
• Expectations have been set, but aren’t sustainable and commitment from the church needs to be there.
• We don’t know what is coming, but I believe God will continue to bless us.

 

2. Responsiveness

• Responsiveness – is how quickly we can adapt and respond to growth – maybe even rapid growth.
• We must overcome any fear of change because change is inevitable.
• Think of our story from Joshua. Moses has died and its time for the Hebrews to enter the Promised Land.
• My friends I believe it is time for Biltmore to enter the promised land.
• I believe God is telling us – through me – like He told Joshua:

Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them.

• People, get ready to cross the Jordan River, He is going to give us more than just clothes.
• When we are concerned about the new people and change that God will bring us, remember what He told Joshua:

No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

• We need to let go of any attitude of “this is how we’ve always done things.”
• I will get back to that in a minute. Hold that thought …
• We need to change our infrastructure to be more responsive.
• We need to enhance our front office with an administrative assistant and a full-time Pastor role.
• Our Constitution and By-Laws are too outdated and cumbersome.
• When we redo them, we need to make them more dynamic and flexible.
• But as God told Joshua we need to stay absolutely true to God’s Word:

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

• We need current job descriptions and policies and procedures. Too much is left to interpretation which is creating more conflict than it is fixing.
• We need to be ready to react quickly and effectively to changing conditions:
• Children’s church needs to be ready to restart if we get children.
• Additional Sunday School classes need to be started up as we grow.
• If we get youth, we need to restart our youth program.
• We may need to start up small Groups: young adults, young marrieds, etc.
• We should look at a men’s group, women’s group, senior’s group.
• Most of these have been done here before as this was once one of the largest churches in the area.
• It’s hard to imagine that this church was once larger than Mount Vernon or Hunton.

 

3. Retention

• Retention – is how well we retain what we already have.
• We must hang on to the things that we hold dear; the things that define us:

1. Our People – we don’t want change to drive anyone away; everyone is precious. This needs to be actively and carefully managed.
2. Our Values – we need to hold tightly to our values and what is important.

• • We are Bible-based – we don’t water down the Word
  • We love people and are very welcoming.
  • We embrace diversity and respect each other.
  • We have a true heart for missions.
  • We believe in working hard for the Lord.

3. Our Traditions – I said I would get back to this. We can’t cling to a “this is how we’ve always done it” mentality, but we need to find ways to honor and remember our traditions.

• I made in-reach an important part of my first year here because I was aware that we had lost a lot of people for all kinds of reasons: some beyond our control and some we could have controlled if we had the things in place that we need.
• Everyone needs to feel important and heard and EVERYONE here is important.
• I believe that Revelation 2:2 really describes this church:

I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them false.

• We have done really well here from what I have observed over five years.
• Again, I say, I believe we are at a turning point; a crossroads; where we can rise or fall.
• We can do what is necessary or not, but it carries a risk if we don’t act.
• God gives a harsh warning to this great Ephesian church that He loves and admires:

You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

• We have done these things before. We need to dig deep and do the things we did at first.