Ryan MandevilleRyan Mandeville132024-02-14T10:51:48Z2024-02-15T09:21:55Z321591158918OpenOffice/4.1.14$Unix OpenOffice.org_project/4114m1$Build-9811 Now that we are aware of the Good News of the Gospel, that it tells us we are unconditionally accepted, brings about changed lives, and a new Kingdom is coming and will one day be fully here; how do we share this news? Most of us grew up in the era of Christendom, where most went to or at least had respect for Church. Most of us are well aware that day has passed in the United States. We are more likely to hide the fact that we believe in Jesus than proclaim it so that we can be accepted. I have lived through this shift and have watched this church body shrink over the past 17 years as just being here was not enough to get people involved and active in the life of the church.This shift to a Post-modern worldview has upset how we knew how to do church. It once was a logical explanation and once heard and understood, you had to push back against reality. The four Spiritual laws are not working for us very well right now, because we are not even being listened to. The extra letters after my name give me no greater gravitas than a kid with 1000 followers on tiktok. If you watched the SuperBowl Ads, the overwhelming trend was just get a celebrity to appear with your product. Don't need to tell of the strengths and qualities of the product, just the person present does the selling. A wise person would quickly make the correlation that who is telling us the good news matters. But not in the way you would guess. The quirky part is that everyone feels like they are known by the celebrity. My understanding of the Taylor Swift craze is that her songs about breaking up echo others experiences.I have some encouraging news. The church has not completely had their head in the sand. They have been aware of these trends and tried to find patterns. For the next five weeks, we are going to look at the patterns that InterVarsity has found, that have been repeated in the faith journey of thousands of post modern Christians. It is a pattern that I have seen lived out. And the best news of all, it is a pattern that puts us on phase 2 or 3 with a majority of Skagway. The five phases are trust, curious, openness, seeking, and following. Trust is one that in a small town, we are almost handed. It was what I was hoping we could build on during the Sabbatical months and using the gifts we already had. We already have relationships with lots of people in this town. But we may at this point know enough about them to be very cautious about trusting them. We all have done something in the last 5 or 10 years to make everyone in town have reason not to trust us. Even if we are eligible for recognition as a Saint, we live in a world that has experienced plenty of confusing messages from the various parts of the body of Christ. The extremes make for the best news coverage and their views are most often expressed over the airwaves and internet. So our airtime is not focused on Jesus accepting everyone unconditionally, the changed lives, or the coming kingdom. It highlights the hate for those not following biblical standards that are easily identifiable and covering up those that are not as apparent. We can be seen supporting one phase of life, but not all of life. Satan has even been able to have a whole branch of the church let what they stood for become secondary to being in power. Christians in the United States are doing things that will in the future, take the place of things like “crusades” or “holocaust.” So how do we overcome this?The biggest issue is, do people in this town know of anyone who is a Christian? That is why we are here as Jesus' hands and feet. Evil loves to use stereotypes to help us hate whole swaths of people. Then Jesus makes us have a relationship with someone who is struggling to pay their bills or find a house and we see that it is not so black and white. There are places where the stereotype holds true and others where it falls short or is not the full explanation. People are not going to trust Christians based on our web presence. In the Post-modern world, people are starting from a place of distrust and need to be helped to move to a place of trust. It is a tough and wild ride, because I know way too many people in town who used to go here, but do not anymore. The root cause was the trust was broken.When we look at Jesus, we could pick any number of interactions to see what Jesus did to build trust. There is the woman at the well, the man possessed by demons, the 10 lepers, the woman bleeding for 12 years, Zaccheaus and more. But today we will look at Zaccheaus and the woman at the well. How did Jesus build trust with these two?The Lord, the all knowing, all powerful one asked questions of the woman at the well. “Will you give me a drink?” This question, this talking to her to meet a basic need started a relationship. We can all ask questions. Whether that is for help, or just basic information like, “Where are you from?” Or “What do you do for work?” Asking questions helps us learn about them and gives us opportunities to intercede or be involved in their lives. You probably will not get to having 4 husbands and living with someone else, and a discussion of how and where the Messiah is going to return in the first conversation, but it is a start.Or again with Zaccheaus, our Lord who is surrounded by a multitude of people hanging on his every word, goes up to Zaccheaus, the tax collecting outlaw, and invites himself into Zacchaeus' life. Zacchaeus just wanted to see Jesus, he was not expecting to have him over for dinner. But Jesus welcomes himself into the life of the little tax collector. Last summer, I had a man do this to me as I was prepping my boat on the sidewalk for the summer. He asked me questions about my boat, when I was going to launch it, and then said, “I will come help you launch it.” It was really forward of him, but he found himself in my boat, out on the water an hour later with an adventure no one else on his cruise ship had done. I know at this point, most of you have curled toes wondering, “Is my pastor asking me to self-invite myself into people's lives.” I am not. I can work, but I won't ask you to do anything I am not ready to do. But I will tell you what I am ready to do. I am ready to take people up on whatever invitation they give me. How many of you have an invitation to get lunch sometime with a friend. Or a, “We should do that this summer.” still waiting to be collected. As the great Warren Miller said at the end of everyone of his ski films. “If you don't try skiing this winter, you will be a year older next year when you do.What Jesus did with these two people, was he found ways to learn about them, bond with them, affirm them, and receive a welcome. He learned by asking questions. He bonded with them by spending time. He affirmed them by seeing the things that resembled the Kingdom of God. He welcomed them by giving them invitations to a fuller life in God's Kingdom. These things happened because Jesus left behind our normal worldly reactions. He did not defend himself. We probably have had that moment when a group of people discover you have a Christian Faith. All eyes turn on you and you are immediately confronted with your opinion on what ever topic is in the news that another Christian has spoken out in the name of Jesus about. We then counter with, I am not one of those or try to explain it out. Much like many Christians are trying to do with the “He gets us” campaign this week. How could a Christian spend $14 million dollars for two super bowl ads? If you have an answer welling up inside you, you are ready to defend. Instead, ask a question to learn more about them. “What did you think about the ad?” Now you are learning about them instead of defending the ad. Jesus did not worry about eating with a known sinner or receiving water from a Samaritan woman, he cared about learning about them.Jesus did not try to bruise them either. I have felt reluctant to share I am a pastor and a Christian more than once. When the attacks came, Satan has all kinds of responses at the ready for us to use to end any chance of this friendship developing. I may be a Christian, but at least I believe in something, or have some type of morality. You can fill in the blank for the version you get in your head in the moment. But instead of following this instinct, I would encourage you to pray for peace and again, learn about their frustration. Sometimes in spelling it out, they see where their mistake might have played a part or they get the pain out so it can be dealt with.Our next reaction is the peaceable one, we just avoid people. No sin can happen if we don't interact right. We are going to agree to disagree. Jesus was a Jew, the woman was a Samaritan. Jesus was the son of God, Zaccheaus was a tax collector. They traditionally avoided each other. Instead, Jesus bonded with them. He ate a meal in Zaccheaus house, he had conversations about her relationship rollercoaster. Jesus did not follow our playbook and that is why the Kingdom if breaking in.Now if you have made it this far in getting to know someone, they are going to give you all kinds of juicy nuggets that are very tempting to judge. Zaccheus was up in a tree with some of the finest clothes and jewelry on. The woman was at the well at midday instead of early in the morning with all the other ladies. They are not even trying to hide that they should be seen as inferior. Jesus instead, chooses to affirm what he can affirm. Jesus does not affirm everything, just what is in line with the Kingdom. Jesus affirms the woman when she tells the truth, affirms her desire to worship the Messiah. He does not slam the Samaritans for saying it would not be in Jerusalem, but points to the bigger truth that both groups are yearning for. For Zaccheaus, he affirms that he has the wealth and resources to host Jesus. If Zaccheaus was like the poor woman who gave her last might to the treasury and then Jesus invited himself to her house for lunch, this would be considered cruel. He affirms that Zaccheaus has the wealth and resources to host. He let's Zaccheaus' heart do the judging in time and that brings Kingdom like actions.Finally, Jesus welcomes rather than argues with both people. That time alone with the woman at the well was probably the first long conversation she had experienced in some time. Jesus coming to Zaccheaus' house was a gift he had not expected. He had only hoped to see this Jesus. My temptation would have been to use the four previous husbands and ask, “If the Samaritan faith is so much better, how come you are on man number 5.” Jesus instead points to the Kingdom and invites her in.If we take the relationships we have and when our faith in Jesus comes up, not defend, bruise, avoid, judge or argue with the person and instead pray, learn, bond, affirm and welcome them, we will find our relationships grow deeper. We will find we can be moving from a position of mistrust to trust. We are the person God has chosen at this time and hour, to be a friend to a non-believer. Until they have a Christian friend they trust, getting over what they are hearing in blanket stereotypes is very hard to overcome. In Skagway, we already have our foot in the door. Let be a church of opening the doors.Pray for God to soften our heart, to intercede in our friends' lives, and for opportunities to be involved in their lives.Defend, bruise, avoid, judge, argue.Pray, learn, bond, affirm, welcome.