Where Do We Go From Here?                                                       2/22/09

          The people of Israel had spent forty years wandering in the wilderness heading for the promised land.  Too often though they spent their time looking backward to what they had left behind instead of forward into God's bright future.  The past was easy to cling to and with every passing day it got rosier and rosier until they were even longing to go back to Egypt, back to the good old days of slavery.

            We too, as a church, spend too much time looking back to the glory days when the sanctuary was full and Sunday School was sprawled over every nook and cranny and we seemed to be bursting at the seams.  At the church's height in 1967, we had 428 members, and we can't seem to get over it.

            We have a proud and long heritage.  Our church was founded before the civil war in 1847 by 12 disciples of Christ.  What symbolism lies there!  Just like those first twelve apostles, these twelve heard God's call to found a church and spread the good news of God's love throughout this community.  And they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams through wars, fire, and the economic turmoil of the great depression.  They did not lose sight of their mission, and neither can we.

            But it is easy to make the past our idol, easy to remain focused on what was and is no more.

But God is not calling us to the past, He is calling us to the future, just as He called the Israelites centuries ago as they stood on the shore of the Jordan debating whether they should cross over to the other side to the promised land --- for make no doubts about it, there were those who said even then, let's go back or at least let's stay here where we're safe and secure.  Let's not risk it.

            You might remember that that is exactly what they said forty years before when they had first stood at the river's edge.  Then the group sent to scope out the land came back to talk about all the riches they had seen, but, they said, the land was populated by giants that scared them off - only Joshua said, "Let's move forward, for this is the land God has promised us - a land of milk and honey" - but no one would listen to his voice.  He was young, they said, and foolish.  It was too big of a risk.  They couldn't chance it.  So they wandered through hot, barren lands as they lost their way until all the nay sayers were dead.

            Now, here they were again, back in that same spot and God was challenging them once more to take the risk.  But He pulled no punches.  He didn't say it would be easy to claim the land.  It would, in fact, be very hard.  They would have to give things up in order to move forward.  They would have to try things they'd never done before in ways they had never done them before.  They would have to give up living in the past, spending all of their time looking backwards.  They would have to fight many battles to make the promised land theirs.  They would have to claim the future even before it was theirs.

            And God's advice on that river bank?  "I will be with you.  I will not fail you or forsake you.  Only be strong and very courageous. Cross to the other side".

            And that is God's message for us today.  In this moment, we must decide if we will cross our own Jordon and do what is necessary to reach to the other side.  We too must give up looking only to the past.  We must fix our eyes on our future --- and make no mistake our future is bright.

            We can see glimpses of it already as attendance is slowly increasing and we are growing younger and younger as more and more families join our congregation.  We can see it in the children who come forward for the children's time as they not only fill the front pew but spill over onto the floor.  It was just a year or so ago that there was only one, maybe two, children on that pew on Sunday mornings.

            We have put our toe into the water, but we are still not certain we want to cross.  What if there are giants on the other side?  We look at the future and it seems full of perils.  We live in a not so brave new world.

Every day people we know are losing their jobs.  Nothing seems secure.  Our finances are in a shambles.  We don't know how to get out of debt as a family, a church, a community, a nation.  The challenges we face are very real, but we have a God who says even now that it's time to step across to the other side.  But He says, it will not be easy. Only be brave.  Only be courageous.  I will not fail you.

            So we must face the future.  We must turn dreams into reality.  We must try the new and the unfamiliar.  We must invite new people into our family of God.  We must become like those first twelve men and women who founded this church with a dream and a promise.  They did not sit and wait for others to join them.  They reached out and invited people to come.  They did not stop because it was uncomfortable to share their faith.  They did not stop because they were afraid they might offend their neighbor or their friend.  They did not stop and say, "oh everyone I know already has a church home."  They knew that wasn't true and so they reached beyond their comfort level and said, "Come with me.  We're doing a new thing.  We are a church that does more than talk about God's love.  We live God's love."

We must, once more, reach out into our community with the good news of God's grace and power - a power that strengthens us as we face uncertain times.  And we must dream big.

It wasn't so many years ago that a few members of this church saw the aching need of the poor and hungry in our town and said we can do this.  We can feed the hungry and so they started a food bank known as RAM/LOVE and that food bank is still going strong today.

Now it is our turn to say we can do it.  We can meet the needs of those in financial turmoil.  We can provide a safe place for them to share their struggles and teach them new ways to cope.  It is a big dream, but we have a big God calling us forward.

Yes, there are challenges.  Yes, we must face our deficit and live within our means, even if that means we must do the filing ourselves and fold and seal envelopes and type bulletins.  But we can do that.  We can live with less.  What we can not do is to do nothing.  We cannot fail to cross the Jordon.  We cannot fail to claim the promised land.

We must listen to our God who clearly says, "Only be strong.  Be strong and very courageous for I will not fail you.  I will not forsake you, I will go with you to the other side."