Boom-Oooh-Ya-Ta-Ta-Ta

[0:00] Thank you very much. Good morning again. And welcome to Whitby Christian Fellowship, as I said earlier, the first of our family services through this summer.!

[0:11] So, the question is, are you, am I, a boomer, an ua, or a yata-tata-tata?

[0:29] Next slide, please. Ephesians 4, verses 11 to 13, and verse 16 says, It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare God's 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.

[1:02] From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

[1:13] Next slide, please, Josh. So, the question is, do we have a ministry? Are we a boomer, an ua, or a yata-tata-tata?

[1:23] Do we have a ministry? From him, the whole body builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

[1:33] Each part does its work. And in Mark's Gospel, it says, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

[1:46] He came to minister. He didn't come to be served, he came to serve. And ministry, through service, is what makes us like Jesus. We want to be like Jesus.

[1:58] We say this in our church. It's written on the walls. As followers of Jesus, we direct our lives around three objectives. We seek to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, do what Jesus did.

[2:11] Ministry through service is what makes us like Jesus. And every ministry is vitally important. Next slide, please. So, is it important to know our ministry?

[2:27] The world is about individuality and independence, isn't it? You know, I'll do my own thing. I'll do what I want to do. I'll put myself first.

[2:38] I'll do things independently. I won't rely on anybody else. I'll do it my way. We're back to Frank Sinatra. Poor Frank Sinatra gets a bad press in this church, doesn't he? I'll do it my way.

[2:50] It's about independence and individuality. But, the word says, from him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love.

[3:08] Every supporting ligament in the body. That's us. We're a body. We're interdependent. That's what the church is about. It's about interdependence. I can't do what I'm doing here without other people doing what they do.

[3:23] There and there and there and there. We're interdependent. We rely on each other. We're not independent. We're not about individuals. We're about the interdependence of the Christian church.

[3:38] Church is like a jigsaw. During lockdown, I don't know about you, but one of the things I did was a jigsaw. We got delivered. Dag, that I work for, the disability charity in the town, delivered jigsaws to people during lockdown so people could do jigsaws.

[3:55] And it went down really well. I mean, I hadn't done a jigsaw for years. But I was doing a jigsaw during lockdown. And it's the missing piece you notice first, isn't it? If you get the jigsaw done, if you take one of your old jigsaws out of the toy cupboard and you do it, the first piece you notice is the missing piece, if you've got the missing piece.

[4:17] So don't be the missing piece. Don't be the missing piece in this church. Don't be the missing piece in your home church. And I'm talking to me as much as to anybody else.

[4:28] Find your ministry. Don't be the missing piece. Don't be the piece that people notice or that anybody notices. Don't be the missing piece.

[4:39] Find your ministry in your church. Next slide, please. Now it also says in Acts, So if you're sitting here and thinking, those of the Aramaic speaking community, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.

[4:56] So the twelve gathered all the disciples together. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.

[5:11] This proposal pleased the whole group. So if you're sitting here and thinking, well, I can't be a pastor. I can't be a teacher. I can't be an evangelist.

[5:22] I can't be a speaker. Well, read this text again. Because there's a ministry for you. It was very important, just as important, to have those disciples, and Stephen was one of them, and we'll talk about Stephen in a moment, just as important to have Stephen and those other disciples doing those tasks, the daily distribution of food, because the people, the other people were being distracted from their tasks.

[5:54] There it is. All the ligaments joined together in the early church. One couldn't do without the other. So you can't get away and say, well, I'm not a pastor.

[6:04] I'm not a preacher. I'm not an evangelist. I'm not a teacher. Because you could be on the door, welcoming people. You could have a ministry in welcoming people. You could have a ministry encouraging people.

[6:16] Just a quiet word to encourage people when they're not feeling quite up to speed. Just a quiet word of encouragement to people. It means such a lot to people.

[6:28] You could have a ministry of prayer. Standing up here today, I'm aware that many people have prayed, perhaps through the week, perhaps this morning, perhaps right now, are praying while I'm here.

[6:39] And others of us who stand at the front know that. People in the worship group and other people who stand and preach on a Sunday. Prayer ministry is so important. Ministry in the kitchen.

[6:52] Doing the teas and coffees. There we are. The daily distribution of food. It's so important. If we didn't have those people, the interdependence would fall apart.

[7:03] The ministry behind me here, the ministry of the musicians. You know, you can name ministry after ministry in the church. There's no excuse why you can't be involved and should not be involved in one or other of the ministries in the church.

[7:19] And maybe you think, I could do that and that, or that and that and that. That's great. But find your ministry. Next slide, please, Josh.

[7:30] So how can we find our ministry? Well, action. Give it a try. Go to the leaders. If you feel you have a particular ministry, go and speak to the leaders of the church and talk to them about it.

[7:45] You know, maybe you're a new Christian. Maybe you're a Christian who's been a Christian for many, many years. But you just feel God is laying something on you and saying, yeah, I have a ministry here.

[7:56] I need to be doing something. Speak to the leaders. They will encourage you and talk to you and speak to you and help you to fulfill that ministry. But do something about it.

[8:08] Don't sit on it. Don't sit on your hands. Get up and speak to somebody. Passion. Do you have a passion for something? Do you have a passion for talking to people?

[8:18] Do you have a passion for preparing coffee and food? Do you have a passion for singing or for playing an instrument? Who else here plays an instrument? That may be your passion. Well, bring your passion.

[8:29] Bring your passion to the Lord and say, yes, I want to put this into action. I want this to be my ministry. Abilities. What abilities do you have? It might be musical abilities.

[8:40] It might be abilities of administration. It might be abilities counting cash. You know, Luke and Maria, I'm sure, would be glad to have somebody else to count the cash on a Sunday at the end of the service.

[8:53] That may be your thing. Administration. You know, it can sound just, oh, administration. We need administrators. Administrators are needed. You know, if that's your ability, that's your ability.

[9:06] Bring it to the Lord. Give it to the Lord. Put it into ministry. Your personality. Are you an extrovert? Are you an introvert? If you're an introvert, it's maybe no good being on the door welcoming people.

[9:19] But maybe a quiet prayer ministry or a word of encouragement, that might be something that you can do as an introvert. Just quietly getting alongside somebody. There'll be many, many people here, me included, who have felt the benefit of somebody just coming alongside them to pray for them.

[9:36] Just a simple one-line prayer. Doesn't have to be anything fancy. Just a one-line prayer. And sometimes you're led to that. Sometimes your heart tells you, I need to talk to somebody.

[9:47] I need to talk to that person. I need to talk to that person. And just bring them a word of comfort, a word of prayer at this time. If that's your ministry, then look at your personality.

[9:59] See what it is that makes it easier for you to do one ministry rather than another. Life experience. You may have particular life experience.

[10:09] Don't ignore your life experience. The work you do. The other things that you're involved in. They still may be something that you can put into ministry for Jesus.

[10:20] All of your life experience, whatever your work is. That may be something that you can think, yes, I can see how that might be used in the church. Time. Make time to do it.

[10:32] You know, we all feel at times that we're pushed for time. And it's about how do we create time?

[10:42] How do we make ourselves time to do that ministry? Because if we don't make ourselves the time to do the ministry, then forget all the others. We can forget about action and passion and abilities and personality and life experience if we can't create the time to do the ministry.

[10:59] And then the spiritual gifts. We're all given gifts when we become Christians. God gives us gifts to use, whatever they may be. And then there are some other spiritual gifts that we're told to earnestly desire.

[11:14] Wisdom, knowledge, faith. You say, faith? Well, if I'm a Christian, I've got faith. Yes, this might be. This is faith for a particular moment that seems impossible.

[11:25] But God might give you faith for that very moment. Faith above faith. If you like. Healing. Miracles. Prophecy. Discernment.

[11:37] Speaking in tongues. Interpretation of tongues. Now, I haven't got the time this morning to go into all of those. If you need to know more about some of those, then speak to the elders.

[11:48] I've gone off, I think, have I? Then speak to the elders. Speak to me about those. But God gives us gifts and then we're told to earnestly desire, earnestly seek the spiritual gifts because they're additional gifts that God wants to give us.

[12:05] He wants us to seek them and he wants to give us for our ministry. Next slide, please. So, booming, oohing, excuse me, yatatatai, they're all important.

[12:20] our ministry, large or small, seen or unseen, at the age of 90 or at the age of 9, so don't think anybody of any age can get out of this, is important to the church.

[12:38] We need to find our ministry, sometimes with the help of others. We need to talk to the leaders, to other people we trust, to other people, other Christians we know, and explore with them.

[12:49] What might my ministry be? What might it be that I can do here in my church, in this church, in your home church, that can be part of the ministry of this church?

[13:04] If we're a boomer, we're not an ooher or a yatatata. And we should not be coerced into ministry. I was coercing people into the booming and the oohing and the yatatata.

[13:17] But we shouldn't feel coerced into a particular ministry. If somebody says to us, oh, I think it should be this or I think it should be that, go and pray about it. Make sure that you're comfortable with it.

[13:28] Don't feel coerced and pushed into a ministry that you're not comfortable with. It's got to be something. If you're not comfortable with it, you're not going to fulfill that ministry, are you?

[13:40] It's like anything. If you're not comfortable in that, you're not going to fulfill it to your God-given potential. So don't be coerced. Make sure it is something comfortable, your ministry to you.

[13:53] Not to get comfortable in it and take comfort, but to be comfortable in doing the ministry that God has given you to do. Next slide, please. And a final message.

[14:04] Don't be a singer and a boomer and an ooher and a yatatata. Don't do it all.

[14:17] And anyone, I think, in here who's been a minister or pastor will know that sometimes they can be pushed or they can take on doing it all.

[14:30] God didn't mean us to do it all. Some to be evangelists, some to be prophets, some to be teachers. not to be all. Don't be a boomer.

[14:40] Don't be a nooher. Don't be a yatatata. Don't be a singer. Don't do it all. The church is a body. And the body works together when it's working to its best.

[14:54] Now you are the body of Christ and each one of you, each one of you is a part of it. And I'm just going to finish with a quote on the next, last slide, please, from Ralph Chalice, who's a U.S. missionary and Christian teacher, did a lot of work in North Africa and France.

[15:14] And he said, you are a unique being whom God is integrating into the body of Christ according to his unfathomable wisdom.

[15:27] He is designing a job for you, a function that will enable you to serve and glorify him in the most effective way possible.

[15:41] Find your ministry and minister for Jesus in your church. Thank you.