WEBVTT

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 Good morning to you. Yet again, welcome. We're really glad that you're here. For those

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 keeping score at home, you may notice that we are not reading the lectionary readings this Sunday.

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 It's normative in our church now to follow the Sunday lectionary in the Book of Common Prayer,

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 but we're going to take a break from that for the next three weeks because we want to take

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 some time to share with you our vision for congregational care at Church of the Advent.

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 Care is something that we take very seriously. It's very close to the heart of not only the church,

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 but this church, and it's one of our priorities. So we've been working on and plan to share with you

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 a care plan. This is actually a written plan that will be distributed for everybody to see that we'll

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 make available in a couple of weeks. But before we do that, we wanted to take some time to share

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 with you our philosophy of care. How do we think about what it means to be a loving and caring

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 congregation? Whether you've been a part of our church for years or this is your first Sunday,

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 whether you are here as a longtime Christian or whether you're here as somebody who's not sure

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 what you believe, we are committed to ensuring that every single member and regular attender at

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 Church of the Advent is known, is loved, and is able to get care and support when needed.

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 And as our church grows, this is something that we have to be more and more and more intentional about

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 if it's actually going to happen. And this isn't our idea. It's not unique to Church of the Advent.

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 This is the way we believe God actually designed the church to function. The gospel isn't limited

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 to personal salvation and getting right with God. It includes the truth that God has established

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 His church as a community of people who love one another and who serve one another. And we believe

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 that the church is actually, and by the church I mean the church community, a gathering like this one,

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 a community like this one, that the church is God's primary means of caring for and providing for His people.

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 That when we pray and bring our needs to God, that very often God intends to meet those needs

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 and answer those prayers through the community around us. And so we're going to be looking at these

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 passages that we heard read from Matthew and Galatians, and we're going to see first the overarching

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 truth, the kind of guiding idea that sits behind this entire way of thinking, and then we're going to

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 look at a few implications of that. So let's pray and then we'll open God's Word together.

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 Lord, we thank You for Your Word, and we thank You for this work that You're doing in the world,

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 this community that You're building through the power of Your Spirit and the presence of Your Son.

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 We pray that You would use Your Word to illuminate for us a path forward where this vision might be

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 reality, where everyone here would be able to experience being loved, known, that they would feel

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 that they belong, that even if they've just crossed the threshold for the first time this morning,

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 Lord, that they would have a sense that this is a place where they can belong. And that's not just

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 something that can be engineered. It has to happen through the power of Your Spirit. So that's what we

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 ask this morning in Jesus' name. Amen. So first of all, the overarching truth that is guiding this

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 conviction for us as a church, and that is this, that the church is a spiritual family. The church is a

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 spiritual family. During Jesus' earthly ministry at one point, when He is teaching a group of people,

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 His mother and brothers come to see Him. We read about this. We heard Lisa read this in Matthew

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 chapter 12. Someone comes to tell Jesus that His mother and brothers are outside, and they're waiting

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 to speak with Him, but they can't get in because of the crowd. We would think that Jesus would respond

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 by saying, oh, hold on one second. I'll be right back. I got to go talk to my mom. But that's not what He says.

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 Jesus spreads His hands out like this, and He says, who is my mother? And who are my brothers?

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 And we realize that He's using this as a teaching moment. And then He stretches out His hands towards

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 His disciples, and He says, here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father

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 in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. Now, we need to understand that this is a culture where

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 family was everything. Family was your entire identity. The greatest hope in life was to get

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 married and to have a big family with lots of kids and to one day be able to pass all of your possessions

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 down to the next generation. To not have a family was a death sentence. It meant you are nobody.

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 So when Jesus says this, He's giving us a preview of a radical idea and a radical plan. And that is

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 that He intends to recenter the locus of our identity away from the nuclear family. Doesn't mean the nuclear

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 family is not important. It's very important. But He intends to recenter the locus of our identity

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 away from the nuclear family and toward a new kind of family that God is establishing in the world,

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 which is a spiritual family. It's a reorientation of identity and community. And unlike earthly families,

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 which are intentionally and by design exclusive, this family that God is building in the world is

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 radically inclusive. Anyone who puts their faith in Jesus, anyone who desires to have God as their

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 father is welcomed into this family. You know, Rodney Stark, the historical sociologist, says that one of

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 the main reasons the early church grew so quickly in Rome is because they took this very seriously.

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 They took in and cared for people who did not have a traditional nuclear family. People like widows,

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 orphans, eunuchs, slaves, people who proper society would look at as outcasts, as people who were in some

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 cases doomed because they didn't have a family. The Christians said, we will be your family.

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 That's why many of the debates, and you see some of this in places like the book of Acts or in Paul's

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 instructions to Timothy, many of the issues they dealt with concerned, how do we make sure that we

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 are providing equally and providing well for all of these people who are now looking to us to be

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 family for them? Right? So it was a very practical reality. We will be your family.

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 So in our reading from Galatians, in Paul's letter to the Galatians, when Paul refers to Christians

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 here as brothers and sisters, this is not just rhetoric. He's not just waxing poetic.

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 This is essential for understanding how relationships in the church are meant to function. When he says that,

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 it's instructive. When you look at the person to your right and your left, that is your brother,

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 that is your sister. So implications for Advent are manifold. We're going to be looking at this

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 over the next couple of weeks. The question that we're going to be asking is, how do we live this

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 out in practical terms? And that's really what this next three-week series is really about.

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 This morning, we're just going to touch on kind of one major idea that's connected to being a spiritual

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 family. And that is this, that being a spiritual family means we share the responsibility for living

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 this out together. We share the responsibility for living this out together. Now, this is something

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 that we talk about a lot with our kids. We say this to them from time to time. We all have

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 responsibilities in the home. Right? We all have responsibilities. Not only do they do things

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 for themselves, like clean up their room or make their bed or, you know, help pack their lunches for

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 school, but they're also expected to do things that serve the whole family. They take out the trash.

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 They take out the recycling. They feed and care for the pets. They empty the dishwasher. And when they

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 grumble about having to do these things, right, I didn't make that mess. You know, that's not my stuff.

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 Why do I have to help clean it up? We come back to the same point again and again and again.

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 This is simply a part of what it means to be in a family. Or another way to put it would be this.

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 We share the responsibility for building the kind of home we all want to live in.

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 We share the responsibility for building the kind of home that we all want to live in.

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 We don't want to live in a home that's always messed up and trashed. That means we all have to work to

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 clean it up together, right? And it's the same principle that you see in operation in the spiritual

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 family of the church. We share the responsibility for building the kind of church that we all want to live in.

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 So what are some of the shared responsibilities in our spiritual family when it comes to the idea of

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 congregational care? I want to share three with you. The first is this. We share a responsibility

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 to ensure that everyone belongs in the family. We share a responsibility to ensure that everyone

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 feels like they belong here in this spiritual family. Part of being in this church family is

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 being intentional about building relationships with people outside of your demographic.

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 Could be people who are in a different life stage. It could be people who are a different age or

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 a different race or a different even political orientation. When people become a part of our

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 community, we should always be asking the question together, do they feel like they can belong here?

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 I'll give you one example of how this plays out. In the early years of our church, we were mostly

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 made up of single people. And there were very few families who had kids. If you came into our church and

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 you were young and single, you immediately fit right in. But when a few of us started having kids,

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 we kind of felt like oddballs, you know. I remember going to parties and walking around and being the

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 only one with a baby strapped to my chest. And I remember people would want to stay up late, you know,

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 well past midnight and hang out and all that. And I just remember being tired all the time. I was always

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 tired. I still feel that way, but this is when I began to feel that way. I was tired all the time.

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 And I remember just thinking, well, you know, if we want to fit in, we're just going to have to make

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 it work. Because this is the primary demographic and this is when people hang out. And obviously,

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 things have changed a bit, right? And now, I don't know if you've noticed, but we have a few more kids

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 in our church family. And in this season of life, we happen to have a lot of families with young kids.

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 And that's a massive blessing. You know, eight years ago, it really wasn't like this. Probably

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 eight years from now, there'll be a different array of demographics, right? But because of where we are,

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 people who don't fit that demographic, people who aren't married, people who are married, but they

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 don't have kids, maybe people who are struggling with infertility, people who are maybe empty nesters,

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 people who don't fit that demographic are going to be far more likely to feel like they don't belong.

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 They're going to come in and they're going to look around and they're going to immediately think,

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 I'm not sure this is a community where I'm going to be able to fit in. They're going to be far more

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 likely to feel like they are unseen, that their needs don't matter or don't matter as much.

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 That in order to be in a community like this, they're going to have to get comfortable living on the margin.

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 And no one should feel that way in their own family.

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 Right? Nobody should feel that way in their own family. Now, I don't think that anybody wants

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 anyone else to feel this way. Right? Nobody wants that to be the case. But the point is this,

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 unless we are all actively working against that, this will be the way some people experience this community.

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 So the path of least resistance is that this will be the case. And unless we are all actively

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 committed to making it not the case, it will be the case. Families with kids, in other words,

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 don't just hang out with other families with kids. Right? I know that you probably feel like

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 you have zero margin. And it's probably for the most part true. But we do make time for things that

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 we prioritize. You know, we make time for play dates. You know, we make time for soccer and baseball.

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 We make time for music lessons. We can make time, sometime a little bit of time,

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 to prioritize building relationships with people outside of our demographic.

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 We can do that if it's a high enough priority. Now, it does not have to be inviting people over for a

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 fancy weeknight dinner. If you can pull that off, that's fantastic. But at our house, weeknights

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 these days are absolute insanity. So it doesn't have to be that. Have brunch on Saturday while the

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 kids watch cartoons. Have a picnic near a playground where your kids can play on the playground if the

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 weather's nice. You know, arrange a grabbing lunch after church because we're all here already anyway.

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 You know, as Jeff Simpson said last year at a members meeting, be willing to invite people into

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 the chaos. You know, it's okay to sit on the floor and eat takeout. It's not about the recipe,

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 it's about the relationships, right, that you're building. Now, maybe you wouldn't do that with a

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 coworker. Maybe you wouldn't do that with your boss. But we're talking about family. And that's

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 the kind of thing that you would do with your family. And it's okay to be creative. You know,

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 I love, you know, Jeff and Molly came to our kids' soccer game yesterday. That was so cool that they

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 just, we got to hang out, watch our kids play soccer. That was amazing. Maybe you're wondering,

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 wait, who's Molly? That's a great question. So, the point I want to make is,

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 the point I want to make is this, it doesn't have to be fancy. To people who are not married,

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 to people who don't have kids, nobody's hearing a word I'm saying right now.

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 It's also perfectly fine for you to initiate. Okay, it's perfectly fine for you to initiate.

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 Okay, if people, and let's get serious for a minute. If people have not reached out to you

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 and invited you over, I know it's tempting to take that personally. Please don't take it personally.

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 I know for a fact that there are a lot of people who, in their hearts, would love to have you over.

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 But the kind of zero margin, overwhelming nature of life with young kids means you have a lot of

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 things that you intend to do, but it's so easy to forget to do them. And so, it's okay for you to

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 say, hey, I would love to come over and hang out with you guys sometime. I don't know anybody who

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 wouldn't want to hear that. Now, it may take a little while to get it on the calendar,

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 but it's okay to initiate. I want you to know, if you're here and you don't fit that kind of primary

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 demographic, you're, you know, and you feel like you're on the margins, I want you to know this.

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 We love you. We need you as a church. And this is your family too. And you belong here. Okay,

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 this is the first thing. We share a responsibility to ensure everyone belongs. Number two, we share a

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 responsibility to care for other members of the family. We share a responsibility for care. It has

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 to be something that we all do together. You know, when it comes to providing care, our society has

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 become increasingly reliant on experts. I think we tend to want to outsource the responsibility of

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 caregiving to professionals such as doctors and nurses, counselors, spiritual directors, life coaches,

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 and, you know, of course, clergy. Now, this is not to downplay the role of professional caregivers.

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 For those of us who are here who are in some professional caregiving capacity, chances are you

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 do what you do because you love to help people and you love to serve people. I can speak for everybody

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 on our pastoral team. We do what we do because we love to care for and serve and shepherd God's people.

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 This is what we feel called to do in our lives. It becomes a problem, though, when a church begins to

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 think that care can only be found if you go to a professional. That's where it becomes an issue.

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 And there are two main reasons why this is a problem. The first reason is theological, and the

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 second reason is practical. The theological reason why this is problematic is that we believe that God

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 has given spiritual gifts to every single person in this room. And because you are in relationship with

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 Jesus, He's fulfilled His promise to fill you with His Holy Spirit, and with that comes spiritual gifts.

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 And we believe that God provides for His people through the gifts that He has given to people

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 around them. If care is only seen as the work of professionals like counselors or clergy,

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 we are actually missing a huge opportunity to put God's gifts into action.

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 We do believe in the priesthood of all believers, and we believe that part of what that means is that we are

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 spiritually equipped to care for one another. Right? So that's the theological reason. There's also a practical

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 reason why this becomes problematic. You may be familiar with Dunbar's rule of 150. Robin Dunbar is a British

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 anthropologist. Dunbar and colleagues discovered that human beings are only really capable of having

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 roughly 150 meaningful relationships within their social network. There's sort of a neurological ceiling

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 to the amount of meaningful...you can have a lot of casual acquaintances, but in terms of meaningful

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 relationships, it seems to sort of cap out around 150. And you see this across lots of different

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 organizations. You see it in the average size of medieval European villages. You see it in the military.

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 You see it in communes. And of course, we see this play out in the church. And this has major implications,

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 actually, for the church. In a church of less than 150 people, everyone is going to know most everyone

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 else. You know, I went to a little storefront church for a while when I lived up in New England, and it was

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 a church of about 30 people on any given Sunday. And you knew everybody. You knew everybody's business.

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 Everybody knew everything about everybody. It was like being in a, you know, just everybody was in

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 everybody's business all the time. That's what it's like. Everyone in a church like that is going to know the

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 pastor personally. And pastors are going to be able to provide direct care in most situations. And that's going to

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 work. As a church grows, though, that's no longer the case, because you will still only be able to have meaningful

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 relationships with up to about 150 people. And you're not always going to be able to have a close, meaningful

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 relationship with all of the clergy. And, you know, research, interestingly, shows this to be true regardless of the

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 church, regardless of the denomination, regardless of the quality of the programming, regardless of

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 whether we might want this to be different. So, in a church like our church, Church of the Advent,

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 you're simply not going to be able to have a meaningful relationship with everyone in this church.

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 You know, roughly two-thirds of the congregation, you're probably not going to be able to have a

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 meaningful relationship with. And that's something to be aware of, and it's totally okay.

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 Despite our best efforts, you're not going to probably be able to have a meaningful relationship with all of the

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 members of our pastoral team. But that's why we generally try to add a new clergy person roughly around, you know,

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 every 150 or so people. Every 120 to 150 members and regular attenders that we gain, we try to make sure

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 we're adding a new member of the clergy for this very reason. Now, what does this mean for us? I mean,

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 how should we think about this? You know, some would hear this and say, well, this means that obviously

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 we just need to all go to a small church of less than 150, and that would solve the problem. And, you know,

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 listen, there are a lot of great advantages to being a smaller church. And yet, when we look,

00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:03.100
 there are actually a lot of pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses to every size of church, right?

00:22:03.340 --> 00:22:08.940
 You just swap out one set of challenges for another set of challenges. There are also advantages to being

00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:13.840
 a kind of mid-sized church or a larger church. And here's the thing with going to a smaller church.

00:22:13.920 --> 00:22:19.460
 If you are going to a smaller church, and it's healthy, and it's reaching people, and there's gospel

00:22:19.460 --> 00:22:30.200
 ministry happening, it's probably going to grow. And so, as the church grows, the important thing is to

00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:37.519
 not live in denial of this reality, but rather to anticipate it and then to be willing to shift

00:22:37.519 --> 00:22:43.759
 accordingly. So, as a church grows, the role of both the congregation and clergy have to adjust

00:22:43.759 --> 00:22:50.619
 accordingly. All right, so as a church grows beyond that threshold, the clergy, that priests and deacons,

00:22:51.579 --> 00:22:58.140
 begin to focus more and more on identifying and training lay leaders and shepherds to share in the

00:22:58.140 --> 00:23:04.440
 work of care and ministry. And this is exactly in line with what we see in Scripture. Ephesians chapter 4

00:23:04.440 --> 00:23:10.940
 verses 11 to 16, 11 to 16 teaches that God has given the church, pastors and other leaders,

00:23:10.940 --> 00:23:17.140
 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, which is the building up of the body of Christ.

00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:28.420
 So, this becomes the focus, identifying and, as we call it, shoulder-tapping potential leaders,

00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:33.500
 and then positioning them in places where they can begin to provide care for other people. So,

00:23:33.500 --> 00:23:43.059
 likewise, the role of the congregation increasingly becomes sharing in the work of direct caregiving.

00:23:43.900 --> 00:23:48.980
 So, we begin to rely on leaders. We begin to, in some cases, if there's a particular situation,

00:23:49.380 --> 00:23:55.740
 we will form a care team around that person or around that couple. And a lot of the direct care

00:23:55.740 --> 00:24:02.319
 happens through that care team. So, this includes core groups. This includes discipleship groups and

00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:08.720
 discipleship leaders. This includes our catechists and our Sunday school teachers. This includes all of

00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:14.599
 our ministry heads. This includes our Eucharistic prayer ministry, our intercessory prayer team,

00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:20.720
 our healing prayer ministry. In all of these cases, you see us trying to identify and equip

00:24:20.720 --> 00:24:27.700
 other people in the congregation to provide some of that direct care. And so, in a church our size,

00:24:27.700 --> 00:24:35.759
 the majority of direct care should be provided by lay leaders and shepherds if we're operating the way

00:24:35.759 --> 00:24:40.580
 we should be operating. So, this is why it is absolutely crucial if you're a part of our church,

00:24:40.580 --> 00:24:44.840
 and if you're here for the first time, I'm really glad that you're here to hear this. It's incredibly

00:24:44.840 --> 00:24:51.080
 important that you find ways to get involved outside of the Sunday service. We all need to be here. This is

00:24:51.080 --> 00:24:55.700
 the center of our spiritual life together. But you really need to find other ways. Serve on a volunteer team.

00:24:55.700 --> 00:25:01.860
 Join the greeting team. Help downstairs with the kids. Find ways, avenues in. Come to Sunday school.

00:25:01.960 --> 00:25:06.880
 Take foundations. Join a small group, right? Figure out a way to serve. Figure out a way to a group that

00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:12.220
 you could be a part of where you could begin to build relationships where some of that care can start

00:25:12.220 --> 00:25:18.680
 to happen. Again, I just want to reiterate, pastors do what we do because we love to shepherd people.

00:25:18.960 --> 00:25:25.519
 And there are plenty of situations where a pastor or a counselor or a psychiatrist or other professionals

00:25:25.519 --> 00:25:31.420
 should absolutely be involved. The expectation is not that you all go out and become clinical counselors.

00:25:32.839 --> 00:25:37.680
 But don't overlook the ways that God might provide for people through you.

00:25:38.339 --> 00:25:45.160
 And don't overlook the ways that God might provide for you through other people. So, before you go to a

00:25:45.160 --> 00:25:52.619
 professional, have you let your small group know what's going on? Have you had a conversation with your

00:25:52.619 --> 00:25:58.299
 small group leader or your ministry head and let them know what's going on and ask them to pray for you?

00:25:58.739 --> 00:26:03.979
 Have you reached out to our prayer ministry? Because anybody who wants to, you can reach out to our

00:26:03.979 --> 00:26:10.339
 healing prayer ministry. And you can ask. And they would love to, a couple of them will come and they

00:26:10.339 --> 00:26:16.079
 will meet with you and they will pray with you. And they will enter into that journey with you of

00:26:16.079 --> 00:26:23.879
 intercession and seeking the Spirit. And that's, I think, should be that kind of, you know, have you

00:26:23.879 --> 00:26:30.379
 spent time in prayer about this with other people in this community? Right? So, we all share in the

00:26:30.379 --> 00:26:35.879
 responsibility of caring for one another. That's the second shared responsibility. Number three, the last

00:26:35.879 --> 00:26:42.799
 one, last point for today. We share a responsibility to build healthy relationships within the family.

00:26:42.799 --> 00:26:47.579
 So, we share a relationship to ensure everyone belongs, a responsibility to ensure everyone

00:26:47.579 --> 00:26:52.659
 belongs. We share a responsibility to care for one another. And we finally, we share in the

00:26:52.659 --> 00:26:57.819
 responsibility to build healthy relationships within the family. Now, what's this all about? Well,

00:26:58.319 --> 00:27:04.279
 everyone who comes into the spiritual family, guess what? They're coming from a nuclear family.

00:27:05.379 --> 00:27:10.539
 Right? We all have our family of origin. And what happens in a family of origin? Well,

00:27:10.539 --> 00:27:20.139
 we tend to import things from that family system into this family system. Right? And you might think

00:27:20.139 --> 00:27:27.559
 that you're too enlightened to do that. But let me just pull back that veil. You're not. We all do it.

00:27:27.659 --> 00:27:34.220
 It's unconscious. We bring our habits. We bring our assumptions. We bring our communication styles. We bring

00:27:34.220 --> 00:27:40.059
 our conflict styles. We bring our unmet needs. We bring our fears. We bring our childhood wounds. We bring

00:27:40.059 --> 00:27:46.179
 all of that into…from our family of origin into the church family. So, what does this mean? Well,

00:27:46.200 --> 00:27:52.359
 it means that, you know, some people come from families that are highly enmeshed, where everybody's

00:27:52.359 --> 00:27:57.000
 in everybody's business all the time, and everybody's responsible for everybody else's emotional well-being.

00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:02.159
 And they think that's normal. And they come into a church, and they expect that a loving church

00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:05.580
 church is going to look like that. A loving church is going to look like that. A loving church