Vision Weekend 2024
Pastor Rick Henderson September 7-8, 2024
I love John, and I love his story. I’ve looked forward to sharing it with you all for a long time. If you had a chance to sit down and talk with him, you would hear far more than a short video can capture about how God has used his willingness to pray as an intersection point between hurting people and the God who loves them.
The last thing he said was, “That’s my mission.”
Why are you here? What’s the point of it all? Let me tell you where I’m coming from. The difference between just being alive vs. truly living is knowing your purpose. I bet there are a bunch of us in this room who could tell stories of spending too much time just being alive. And if you could tell your story you’d talk about how that season of life for you was filled with things you regret because you were spinning your wheels trying to shake free from the nagging sense of emptiness and futility because your purpose was unclear or out of reach. It’s possible that I’m not describing your past. Maybe I’m talking about your present.
Wherever you rank yourself on the ladder of success and standing in society—there are people on every rung of the ladder who are just being alive, not truly living. That’s why on every rung of the ladder, up and down, you’ll find people making decisions that leave you saying to yourself, “Why did he do that? He’s too smart to ruin what he has going for him. Why did she do that, with all she has going for her?”
Let me tell you something that you already know about people. We will try anything and everything to fill the void of emptiness. But nothing or no combination of things can fill the void of a missing mission. If you’re fighting me on that right now, what comes next isn’t going to make a lot of sense. But, if you’re with me so far, I want to crank up the intensity by expanding this beyond your life or my life. Does this apply to churches, too? If a local church like ours doesn’t understand its purpose or mission, are we vulnerable to just being alive instead of truly living? Are we vulnerable to dumb and regrettable choices, too?
I think the answer is yes. I believe you are way too valuable to waste whatever time you have just being alive. I believe every local church is way too valuable to waste whatever time they have just being alive. I believe that Autumn Ridge Church is way too valuable to settle for anything less than our God-given purpose.
That’s what we’re talking about today. Who are we? What’s the point of it all? In some ways this will feel like a family conversation. If you are new or newish—this is the best weekend to attend. We are pulling back the curtain and you get to see us get vulnerable about the most important things. If you don’t consider yourself a follower of Jesus, you picked a great weekend to attend. You get a preview of what your life would be like if you were to give your allegiance to Jesus.
Grab a Bible and open it to 2 Corinthians 5. It’s in the second half of the Bible, called the New Testament. It’s the eighth book: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians.
2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-21 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors.
“Ambassadors” is a political term. Come back next week. I’m going to talk about politics. We are going to jump into the deepest, messiest end of the pool. If you’ve got a friend who thinks churches are too involved in politics—bring them. If you’ve got a friend who thinks churches don’t engage enough—bring them. That’s next week.
as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Our purpose is to be ambassadors for Jesus. Whatever he is about, that’s what we are about. We are given the ministry of what? What was the word used? Reconciliation. What does that mean? It means having a healed, thriving relationship with God, through faith in Jesus.
MISSION
MISSION: Lead people to be fully devoted followers of Jesus.
That’s our mission. It’s why we exist. The reason that Autumn Ridge Church exists is to lead people who don’t know Jesus and people who do know him to become fully devoted followers of him. This is why we exist. How do we do that? I want to introduce you to John Dickson. He’s a theologian and historian. What he has to say is will help us today.
The only tools Christ has given the church are persuasion, prayer, serving, and suffering. –John Dickson
I think that’s pretty good. If we were survey the entire New Testament, that’s the list we’d come up with. This is our toolbox.
CHURCH TOOLBOX:
- Persuasion
- Prayer
- Serving
- Suffering
The first three things are much easier to plan for and engage intentionally. That’s not exactly the case with suffering.
CHURCH TOOLBOX:
- Persuasion
- Prayer
- Serving
- Suffering
So today, we’re just going to talk about the first three.
QUESTION: What makes us persuasive?
Let’s look at some options.
ANSWER:
- Knowledge & Great Teaching
Those are good things, necessary even. We all need truth, wisdom, insight, and clarity. But according to Jesus, that’s not what makes us persuasive.
- Entertainment & Preferences
I think church and church people should be fun. It’s a sin to bore people at church—especially kids. But that’s not it either. Giving people what they want and building what we do based on preferences doesn’t result in maturity or even happiness. All that develops is consumerism. Yes, church should be joyful and interesting. But according to Jesus, that’s not what makes us persuasive.
- Power and Control
This is becoming more and more popular. Maybe it’s been that way for a long time. Believe it or not—this is anti-Jesus. We’ll talk about that more next week. This is not it.
- Love
THIS IS IT. THIS IS EVERYTHING. According to Jesus everything comes down to this, loving God and loving people in the way that he defined love. The apostle Paul wrote that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Jesus said that they way people will know we are with him is by the way we love each other.
Go read John chapter 17. Jesus prayed for our unity and went so far as to say that our unity is the way the world will know the truth about him. Jesus hung his credibility on our ability to be ONE. This is just another way of saying that when we truly love each other and that love results in us being bound together, people will take Jesus and the message of the gospel more seriously.
THIS IS IT. THIS IS EVERYTHING. Our mission states why we exist. Our vision states what we want to be like.
VISION
VISION: We want to be a church of all cultures, where curious, skeptical, and hurting people love to attend.
There are no restrictions on who we will love and won’t love. There are no questions that are off-limits. There are no people from whom we will shy away. There are no hurts that are too big or too small for our kindness and compassion. That is the way Jesus loved us, and that is how we desire to love each other and this community.
I’m a visionary. I love the big and grandiose. I want to go to the mountain top. That’s fine. And yet, it’s pointless if we don’t ever figure out how to do it. This is where are values help. Our values are our best attempt to summarize the implications of the gospel. This is how we put our mission and vision into action.
VALUES:
- Take truth seriously.
- We’ll follow it wherever it leads.
We love all the truth. We love truth that’s gained through science. We love the truth that’s gained through history. We love it all. What’s most important to us is to know Jesus. So, we happily place ourselves underneath the authority of his word. If that means we are out of step with culture—so be it. This is how he’s communicated everything we need for the life he’s called us to.
- Give grace relentlessly.
- Since it’s never earned or deserved, we never have a reason not to give it away.
Like a train, we run on the parallel rails of truth and grace. We’ll never sacrifice truth for the sake of grace or grace for the sake of truth.
- Honor guests enthusiastically.
- We care more about your experience than our own.
We think honor and hospitality are non-negotiables.
- Belong before you believe.
- You don’t have to think like we think, or act like we act, to be accepted here.
A pastor once said, “People who were nothing like Jesus, liked Jesus, and he liked them back.” That’s what we want to be like, too. There is no expiration date on this.
- Move toward the messes.
- Nobody makes a difference by staying comfortable.
The people who leave no room for doubt that they love me are people that people in my life who aren’t intimidated by messes. We want this in our relationships with each other. We want this in our relationship with this community.
- Make generosity normal.
- We invest our lives, not just our money.
We believe that joy and freedom are found in generosity.
- Take your next step.
- We want everyone to grow in their faith journey.
- Trust the process.
- God changes people; we don’t.
How many of you like it when other people try to control you? I hate that. No one likes that. We don’t believe that’s our job. Only God can change people.
MISSION
VISION
VALUES
Understanding what our mission is and how we align with it is what keeps us from spinning our wheels in futility. It’s the difference between just being alive vs. truly living. If this is what our church is like, if this is what we are like as we gather together, our church will be experienced as love. That will be your experience, my experience, and the experience of those who encounter us. That is powerful. That is persuasive.
With that in view, I want us to slow down enough to remember this.
We GIVE our best. We don’t TRUST our best.
It is an amazing thing that we are included in this mission. It’s a privilege. It’s the the thrill of a lifetime. But it is way, way too big for us. Even if all of us were always at our best, we don’t have what it takes to accomplish this ourselves.
CHURCH TOOLBOX:
- Persuasion
- Prayer
- Serving
- Suffering
That’s one of the reasons that we should be people of prayer. Remember that one of our values is take your next step. As a church we have next steps to take. Here are two ways we are doing that. The first is starting today, we have a prayer team of people who will meeting right over there [by the cross], after this serve to pray with you.
There are big hurts in our world. There are still major international conflicts. As many of us are getting back into rhythm of sending our kids back to school, yet again we saddened by another school shooting. Whatever your hurts, there are people who want to pray with you.
Maybe it’s not a hurt. Maybe it’s just a deep, wordless, desire for connection. People want to pray with you. Maybe you not even sure how to pray. Or maybe you’re ready to respond to Jesus by giving your allegiance to him. People want to pray with you.
That’s available today. That’s available next week. We’re building this team to be available every week. Maybe you want to join that prayer team. Remember John’s video. Prayer is a power expression of love.
Here’s the second thing. This weekend, we’re publishing a 12-week prayer guide for our church and inviting you to join us in a season of common, focused prayer. You can access it on our website. Please do that. If accessing it online isn’t an option, we have some printed copies available at the Connection Desk. This is what we’re praying for.
VISION: We want to be a church of all cultures, where curious, skeptical, and hurting people love to attend.
This prayer guide was written by pastors, elders, and people from our congregation. Here’s why. God’s heart so grips us for this that we want our hearts and habits to be more and more aligned with his. This is going to go fast. Here’s a quick overview of God’s heart for all peoples, coming to him, and coming together in unity.
ISAIAH 49:6 It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Just one people group coming to faith and coming together in worship is too small.
ISAIAH 56:7 My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.
GALATIANS 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
COLOSSIANS 3:11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
REVELATION 7:9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.
Our church should be a glimpse of what heaven will be like. To the extent that our community is multi-cultural, so should our church. We don’t want to be a church that’s defined by any majority ethnic group or culture. We want to be defined by Jesus and difficult to categorize because all cultures are expressed, participating, and worshipping without having to edit themselves to fit one ethnic or cultural category.
QUESTION: Why do we need a church-wide season of prayer?
This is big. It’s too big for our best efforts alone. And also this.
ANSWER: We want our hearts to be softened and shaped by the Holy Spirit.
If this is the kind of church we aim to be, we’re going to have to talk about it. The root of the tounge is found in the heart. Out of the heart the mouth speaks. So, we think it’s a big deal to slow down, immerse ourselves in prayer, and ask the Holy Spirit to soften and shape our hearts.
Will you join us in that? Let me acknowledge that talking about this produces anxiety for some of us. People who think things are broken feel anxiety. People who think things are fine feel anxiety. I get that. When we feel anxiety about something, there are some ditches that we can fall into.
- We avoid talking about it all.
That can’t be the way to go. God talks about this a lot in his word. I don’t want to put my hand over God’s mouth. Imagine if we were in smaller group, circled up talking somewhere. And whenever you tried to share something in the conversation, I looked you dead in the eye and said, “This is what you’re doing [hand motion for talking]. This is what I want you to do [hand motion for quiet].” Could you imagine?!
If we can’t talk about this, then there is a lot in the Bible that we can’t talk about. I don’t want to be the one to put my hand over God’s mouth and tell him to, “Shut it. No one wants to hear that right now.”
Another ditch we can fall into is:
- We’re too amped up or aggressive when talking about it.
Maybe it’s because we’re hurt. Maybe we feel exhausted. How you feel is how you feel. When we engage and talk about important stuff, my hope is that we bring light, not heat. There’s already enough heat. Let’s be the people who contribute light.
Latasha Morrison is a best-selling author and speaker who does a fantastic job of being light, not heat. She’s a bright-minded, big-hearted leader in the space of cultural intelligence and racial literacy.
No one here with breath in our bodies is responsible for this history. We inherited a mess. But it is our responsibility as a collective, the body of Christ, to be part of the solution. –Latasha Morrison
We’re going to pray because we want the Holy Spirit to soften and shape our hearts. We want to be open to and a part of the good he wants to do with, in, and through us.
Over the next 12 weeks, can we pray together?
CHURCH TOOLBOX:
- Persuasion
- Prayer
- Serving
- Suffering
It’s our intent to be persuasive through loving each other, loving all others the way Jesus loved us. We want to be people of prayer. And we don’t want to be passive. Jesus doesn’t want us to be passive either.
EPHESIANS 4:11-13 So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Here’s a pop quiz from week 3 of our last message series. Who is the ministry muscle of our church? It’s you. It’s an everybody, all together, no one on the sidelines endeavor.
In the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, God creates humanity in a garden to rule and reign over everything. In the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, humanity returns to a garden, and we will rule and reign with Jesus forever. God’s original plan was for us to be leaders. God’s ultimate plan is for us to be leaders. Based on what we just read, God’s current plan is for us to be leaders.
Leadership is a DESTINATION of discipleship.
My job as a pastor, and the job of every other pastor and staff member of our church, is not to keep ourselves busy doing church stuff. It’s not to keep you busy with church stuff. The responsibility is to lead you to be fully devoted followers of Jesus so that you can lead.
- The essence of leadership is not about authority.
- The essence of leadership is not about making decisions for other people.
- The essence of leadership is not holding a position. Every person can have a disposition of leadership.
- The essence of leadership is embracing responsibility and using our influence to serve the well-being of others.
I think the time is right to share something the pastors, staff, and elders have been working on for quite some time. We have a 5-Year Strategic Plan for our church.
ARC 5-YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN
Leadership Multiplication that results in Targeted Transformation
Today is not day one. We’ve actually been working on this for well over a year. We don’t want to just talk about leadership. We want to be a Christ-centered leadership factory. What does that mean?
Hub of Christ-centered Leadership Development
During his three years of public ministry, Jesus led, developed, and cared for everyone within his sphere of influence. As we seek to take our next step as a community of believers committed to being fully devoted followers of Jesus, we will be defined by and regionally known as a church that leads, develops, and cares for everyone within our spheres of influence. And our heart’s cry is that all who connect with ARC would graciously, kindly, and intentionally use their lives to transform their spheres of influence.
Rochester, Minnesota is a hub city. At a minimum, over two million people land in Rochester each year for anywhere from a few days to a few years before taking off for their return home or launching into the next part of their journey. When also considering the permanent population, Autumn Ridge is at best reaching 0.1%. God calls each local church to impact and influence their unique community. We believe that our unique calling is preparing Jesus followers to be life-long leaders.
LUKE 12:48 “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”
Over the next five years, we will faithfully, prayerfully, and humbly pursue a strategy that could have an immeasurable impact across our city, our country, and around the world. As millions upon millions of image-bearers touch down in our city, we want to be the place that is known for preparing them to be Jesus-influencers as they lead, develop, and care for all of those they encounter along the rest of their journey.
From the moment when we first say “yes” to Jesus, he daily grows us in the areas of authority, identity, and activity. In fulfilling his calling as the Good Shepherd, he leads, develops, and cares for us so that we will know how to do that for others. And our opportunity for impact increases exponentially when we answer his call together.
The starting point is not leadership principles, techniques, and strategies. There is a place for those. We need those. We are committed to developing those in each other. But that’s not where this begins. Leadership among the people of Jesus begins with Jesus. It starts with discipleship.
- Being with Jesus
- Becoming like Jesus
- Doing as Jesus did
We want to be a hub of Christ-centered leadership. So, as a church, we are going all in on being Christ-centered first. It doesn’t matter how skilled of a leader you are, or I am if we arent’ like our leader. So, we’re starting with being centered on him. To get to our 5-year goal, this is our 1-year goal.
1-YEAR GOAL: 50% of adults who attend Autumn Ridge complete the Practicing the Way class.
Leadership doesn’t necessarily lead to discipleship. Discipleship leads us to leadership. The reason that we’re going on all in on this as a church is that we want to be formed by and centered on Jesus.
If today feels like a lot—it is. We want to be a praying church. We want to be a church that’s a hub of Christ-centerd leadership. This is big. It’s bigger than me, bigger than you, bigger than all of us. And that’s OK. I so admire Pastor Crawford Loritts. He’s got some encouragement for us.
Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. ―Crawford Loritts
We can’t do this on our own. But that’s OK. We’re not on our own.