We've all been to the mall. Somehow we seem to always find ourselves at the foodcourt. Depending on the day and how busy it is, you will find one or two resteraunts with an employee standing out in the busy walkway handing out samples of some sort. Why?
They want you to taste their food, they want you taste and see that it is good.
Then they hope you'll want it all, to become totally satisfied.
You know what we don't see those with the samples doing?
We don't see them walking around the tables of the foodcourt handing out samples to people already eating, to those who are already feed.
You know, “ that’s the challenge of the church,
“That is where so many churches are in our culture today!”
“We are feeding the already fed. We’re handing out samples to the already fed.
And all we have to do is walk about 15 or 20 feet out into the hungry crowds and hand the bread, the chicken, the samples to all the humans who are filing by. And we could invite them to the ultimate table, which happens to be the church, and, they could find and dine on the bread of life.”
The church is a table where people come to get fed.
Jesus said in John 6:35, “I am the bread of life.”
We talk a lot about protein these days. But in God’s economy, complex carbohydrates are king. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”
The ultimate bread, the ultimate food, I think, demands the ultimate presentation.
And the challenge that we have as local churches in this culture, and also around the world, is to feed people.
It’s to build believers and serve seekers.
That’s a part of the purpose of the church. Say it with me.
It’s to build believers and serve seekers.
We have a hunk of people right now who are listening to my voice and you are Christ followers. You’ve stepped over the line. You’re in the family of God. One of the goals of FOCUS* - A Foursquare Church is to feed you; to feed you the bread of life.
I’m the chef. I’m the dude with the food. Food is the word.
Now, we also have a hunk of people here at FOCUS* who are seekers. And it’s our mandate, not only to build believers, but also to serve seekers.
What’s a seeker? A seeker is someone with no Biblical pre-knowledge.
A seeker is someone who has not stepped over the line.
A seeker is someone who could have grown up in church,
yet you’ve never, ever established a personal connection with God
through Jesus Christ.
At FOCUS* we are set up to reach both. We want to build believers and serve seekers. So to do that, we have the opportunity week in and week out to serve the bread of life. And the ultimate food deserves the ultimate presentation.
I’m not talking about paper napkins or plastic forks or Styrofoam cups or a weenie roast here. I’m talking about serving, in a creative and compelling way, the food, the bread of life.
Do you like to have people over to your house to eat? Do you like to? Cathleen and I do. We have people over all the time. It’s fun. It’s kind of sad, though, that entertaining is a lost art these days. A lot of people don’t want to do it.
THE INVITATION
When we invite people over to our home, what do we do? Well, we first of all ask them to come over. Call them up and say, “Hey, would you like to come over? Does your schedule fit?” And then we will ask them, “Okay, what kind of food do you like? What kind of food don’t you like?” And then, if they say yes, we set a time and a night.
Then what do we do? We work. Our family does the work. The guests don’t do the work. We do the work and clean the house-not that the house is not clean, but we clean it more. And we think about the food and we think about the ambiance. We’ll light some candles, turn on some soft music and serve the food in a compelling and imaginative way.
Now, when our family eats, when it’s just us, we don’t always do that. We oftentimes eat on paper plates and we use paper cups and napkins and all that. Sometimes the kids will burp now and then, throw some food. But before guests come over, man! We give our kids a pep talk. “Hey kids, no burping. No food fighting. Put your napkin in your lap.” It’s about the guests. It’s about other people.
Question: Are we compromising when we do that? Are we kind of watering down the food? Are we going soft when guests come over? No! We’re just being strategic. We’re being smart. We’re being, hopefully, good hosts and hostesses.
We [the church] have the opportunity to serve the bread of life, the cosmic carbohydrate, to a hungry world that’s filing by. What is the church to do?
Do we go over to the tables and feed the already fed, feed the already full?
Or do we step out into the crowds, into the elements, and serve the bread of life to all those people filing by in your life and mine?
When you entertain people, do you think about guests? Yes, you do. Well, every weekend we entertain people at FOCUS*. And we think about the family. Our church family does some incredible serving-all the servants here that help put this thing on-to help put this meal on. But also, we think about the guests. We think about the people who are outside the family of God.
We think about the people whose lives are falling apart. We think about the couple whose marriage is hanging in the balance. We think about the single adult who thinks there’s no direction, who is dealing with large levels of loneliness. We think about the student who has to deal w/ other kids. We think about all those people. We think about the table, because the church is the table. We think about the bread, because the bread is the word. We think about the dude with the food. And we think about who’s in the chairs. Who’s in the chairs?
This invitation is pretty important. John 4:34, Jesus said, “My food…is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.” Jesus said, “My food … is to do the will of Him (that’s God) who sent me and to finish His work.” Entertaining takes work, doesn’t it? And I figured out that’s why a lot of people don’t do it, because it takes so much work. It’s like, “Man, let’s just go out to a restaurant!” And that’s cool. But to entertain, to think about the guests, to defer to them, and to serve the food in an imaginative and creative, compelling way? It takes a lot of work. You’ve got to get outside yourself to do that, don’t you? You’ve got to think about other people. You’ve got to think about the cuisine. You’ve got to think about the conversation. You’ve got to think about the context of the conversation and the cuisine, because you want the best meal possible. You want the best experience possible.
A strategy we've employed from the very beginning is to:
INVEST AND INVITE
We partner together - the people of the church, including leadership, invest into a relationship with a seeker, someone who hasn't crossed over that line yet.
We develop a trust and we invite them to church.
We partner together - as the people invite, the church leadership will do their part and we make a commitment to present the food - the bread of life, and the good news of Jesus Christ.
But I said to myself, “You know, I wonder if they are handing out the bread of life? I wonder if they’re out there in the heat handing out samples of the real meal? I wonder if they’re out there saying, ‘Hey, I want you to come to FOCUS*
I want you to get fed. I want you to experience this meal,’” which, incidentally, starts the moment you pull into the parking lot and the moment you drop your kids off. It continues when maybe you grab some coffee. And hopefully, it culminates when you walk in here and you’re focused on God. And when the word is opened, when the word is articulated, then the Holy Spirit does His thing. Then we’re fed, and the people who are hungry get fed. And then we push away from the table and serve others and we live beyond ourselves. Hopefully that’s what happens week in and week out. But it starts with you and me investing & inviting people to FOCUS*.
Whenever I develop a talk-you might call them sermons, or whatever- Because the church is the table where people come to get fed. And we also think about chairs.
Basically, three chairs. Every time we have a service here, there’s three chairs because a healthy church should be made up of thirds.
A third should be mature believers. A third should be baby believers, brand new Christians. And the other third should be spiritual seekers. I’m talking about skirt-chasing, cocaine-snorting, wheeling, dealing lost sinners. That’s the healthy church.
The church should be full of thirds, because, watch this now, if the mature are doing what they should be doing, what are they doing? They’re inviting their lost friends to FOCUS – A Foursquare Church! They’re serving them samples of the bread of life. They’re one beggar telling another beggar where to find food. And then these spiritual seekers are becoming Christ followers.
So the seekers are becoming Christ followers, they’re baby Christians. And then they’re becoming mature Christians as they push away from the table and serve. And you have this beautiful ecosystem going. You have this beautiful environment going. You have a healthy, full, and robust meal being served at a beautiful table.
I want to talk to the Christians for a second. What part are you playing in this process? You’re a believer; you’re a Christ follower. Are you really handing out samples of the bread of life to people that God has placed in your life? Who’s in your life right now that’s hungry? Names are popping out right now in your mind. A neighbor, a co-worker, a friend, or a family member. Someone you’ve just gotten to know. What are you doing about it?
“Well, Joe I need to know more.” No you don’t. If you know Christ personally, you know enough. Yeah, we all need to know more. That’s important, but you need to pray for those people. And pray for God, that he would give you the opportunity to share, to give those samples out to people who are so very hungry.
You see, we give out samples to people by the way we talk, by the places we go, by our language, by our business practices, by our attitude, by our actions. And as a Christian, have you forfeited the opportunity to really get out there and hand out samples of the bread of life by your behavior?
We have the opportunity to do that, to hand out samples of food. What are you doing in this process? Are you inviting people to Church? Because as a believer, that’s your food. That’s your food.
THE PRESENTATION
The invitation is a huge piece. But also, there’s the presentation as well. When we serve the food, we have to serve the food, as I said earlier, where people can get it and understand it. You know, we don’t just throw the food on the table and say, “Do with it what you want. Just throw the food, play in the food, we’re not going to give you utensils.”
No, no, no, we’re not going to do that. We want to show people and give them answers about how to take the food and receive the food. So every time we do something we think about the chairs.
We talk to the chairs
Earlier I said this, “Part of our purpose is what? To build believers and to serve seekers.” Right? To build believers and to serve seekers. And here’s the question, here’s the tension that should always be in the church. How much do you play something, do you angle something towards believers; and how much do you play something and angle something toward the seeker? I love that tension. That’s one of the reasons we plan with the team approach. That’s one of the reasons we talk to so many people. That’s one of the reasons we get input from so many different areas. Because it helps us to formulate these weekends that build believers and also serve seekers.
Here’s the challenge we have, though. And I’ll talk about this more next week. As you know,
Here’s what blows me away about the Houston Metro area. And I’ll develop this more next time. Houston has a number of Bible studies and churches that are diet driven. Diet-driven churches and Bible studies. In other words, they concentrate on the word of God. And they concentrate on studying the Bible. And they feed on Scripture, which we have to do. Oh, we have to dine on Scripture. Yet, what’s so odd is, these churches and Bible studies are diet driven.
Okay, hold that thought for a second.
What does the medical community say? If you want to live a long life, do what? Eat well, diet, and… What? I can’t quite hear you up here. Exercise! Diet and exercise!
Diet and exercise. So, it’s more than just diet.
Yet, for so many of these churches, even around our country, and Bible studies-it’s all about just the Bible. And [they say] if you, you know, eat the Bible, eat the Word, dine on the word, then that’s enough. Just a diet, diet, diet, diet, diet. Well, the Bible says from cover to cover it’s diet and what? Exercise! Diet and exercise. We have to eat the right food. Oh, we’ve got to get into the Word. We’ve got to study. We’ve got to break it down. We’ve got to know this stuff. But we’ve got to do it. We have got to do it.
And here is the call of our church and every church out there. Every church, every Bible study should be a diet and exercise entity. Feed on it. And then the food will give you the energy to do what? To push away from the table and get out there and do the stuff.
How do you build believers? Believers are fed. They consume the bread of life. They don’t just get fat. They don’t just sit there and say, “Feed me, feed me, feed me.” Because you can turn into, “Hey, hey, hey! I’m fat Albert!” You know? You can’t even see your feet any more you’re so spiritually fat.
But the challenge is we build believers. We feed believers, get them to push away from the table, and then exercise as they do what? Serve seekers! As they serve in the church and out of the church they serve seekers. And then the seekers come to the table, they get fed. And you have this beautiful process going on.
And here’s another thing that’s so fascinating about diet driven churches. One would think diet driven churches would reach a lot of people. But in my studying, they really don’t reach a lot of skirt-chasing, cocaine-snorting, hell-bound people. They don’t. Because what happens is they get eaten up with pride. And they become so fat they don’t know how to work out any more. And that’s again what’s so awesome about our Church. We’re a diet and exercise church. So we invite people, we prepare the food, and then we present the food before God in a creative and compelling way. We speak to the chairs.
And our kids have a blast – there's no childcare here – there's Children's Ministry going on!
One of the things we try to do, too, is we try to be consistently inconsistent. “Well, why do you try to do that?” We try to be consistently inconsistent because Jesus was consistently inconsistent. He never communicated the same way. His theology was the same, but his methodology changed. He drew in the sand, sat on a boat bow, picked up a child, pointed to a sower, and talked about a building falling over. He used parables, word pictures, and humor. He always changed. We want to be consistently inconsistent.
Well, I want our Church to be a “consistently inconsistent” church, you know? I want people to go, “What’s coming next. What kind of video, what kind of song? What kind of props, or backgrounds, What… what… WOW!” Consistently inconsistent. Being simple not simplistic. And serving a balanced diet as we serve the bread of life.
Let's hand out samples of the bread of life.
Let's Invest and Invite
Let's get that beautiful process going of reaching the lost and growing the kingdom.
Next week – part 2
On September 11, I challenge everyone here to bring someone with you, a seeker who hasn't crossed over that line yet. We (the Church)
will do our part – on Sep. 11, I am going to talk about consuming
the bread of life. That's what it means to hunger no more – as we consume Christ and let Him guide our lives.
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