August 15, 2004

Darwyn Van Gorp

Chairman, Conference Mission Commission

Mark 4:26-34

The scripture read by Mrs. Van Gorp

And then the parable of the mustard seed:

We welcome the opportunity to worship with you this morning. I know that you are all eagerly anticipating getting back into the sanctuary next week, but surroundings like this are not unusual for us when we talk. At Waynesville First where we belong, the sanctuary burned in 1996, so we worshipped for two or three years in our Christian Growth Center, just like this, and it’s a warm fellowship type of a feeling. Before that we helped start a new church in Kansas City where Jeannine was Director of Evangelism and we worshipped in the school gymnasiums and buildings such as this, and I know that you are just thrilled that you are going to get back in and I congratulate you for that. But we congratulate you for all the things that Lenoir First United Church does in missions. Certainly you are one of the conference leaders.

We are not here this morning as distinguished speakers, nor as Biblical scholars. Jeannine and I are just a laity couple. We believe that the two essentials of work and faith have to be combined in our Christian life, and for us it has found meaning in the area of outreach and mission.

You know, parables have always been my favorite type of story in the Bible. You may not know it, but of all the recorded words of Jesus, one-third of them are expressed in parable form. And I think that the parable of the mustard seed….(tape change)

…. . . routine responsibilities, and the seed grew. And even though scientific knowledge has increased so tremendously since that time, we really can’t explain the mystery of life, for which there is no human explanation. It is outside the knowledge of man. So we need to have faith that something is going to happen. But those of us who profess to be Christian know that Jesus makes it clear that the sprouting, growing and ripening process is beyond our control, and when we accept that loss of control, and live a life of faith, that’s when we start to live as Kingdom People, as He was referring to. We don't have to be impatient to count the abundance of the harvest. All we need to do is be counted among the sowers.

My thoughts on mission are going to be personal, that have been meaningful in my faith journey. I’ll be using a lot of ‘I’ words, because those are the words that kind of popped into my mind when I started thinking about what I would share with you a couple of weeks ago. And the first word I’d like to share with you is INVITATION for being in mission. The Bible tells us that the mission is an activity of a loving and caring God who wants all of His children to have an abundant life. In Matthew we read: Whatever you did unto the least of these, my children, you are doing for me. In Peter we find: Serve one another with whatever gifts you have received. So it appears to me that mission really isn’t an optional program of the Church; it is a central mandate from God. God’s mission extends to all creation and being in mission is the responsibility of every Christian to love as Jesus loved, to live as Jesus lived and to walk as Jesus walked. Acceptance of the invitation to serve in mission should be, again, the focal point. The beautiful sanctuary that you will be worshipping in soon, was it not an act of mission? Was it not built to share God’s love, not only with each other and not only for comfort, but to be inspired so that you will get outside these walls and extend God’s love to all people?

To be in mission you also need to be INTENTIONAL, I have found. Jeannine and I have been interested in mission for many, many years. During the early, early married life over fifty years ago, a young couple, very, very close friends of ours, left for the mission field in what was then the Belgium Congo. Don and Mary had two small children and it was an intentional act, to me, for them to do that. Our support for them through the ensuing years and following years, really wasn't that intentional. I guess it was just because we thought we were acting like Christians should. Maybe you’ve felt that was sometimes too. But as our mission interest grew, we soon discovered that we needed to be intentional if we were going to make room in our lives for mission endeavors. We needed to make a commitment because, without it, our time and our money just kind of disappeared for personal stuff.

So making our selves available, however, has blessed us beyond measure and it has made life meaningful and exciting. Our life in faith has enriched us by friends from throughout the world — in Bosnia, and Estonia and Armenia — as well as from volunteers in mission work in the United States and the travels with Habitat for Humanity. I’m not suggesting that, in order to be intentional, that we need to all get up and leave for a mission field, although that might be a result for some of you and there are a lot of younger people and people who are looking for second careers that this might be the call for you. But what I am talking about being intentional is being of intentional stewardship of our time and our money. We need to set aside time to learn about mission programs and their needs, both in Lenoir and the expanded community and around the world because the world is shrinking daily and we live in a small, small world. We need to do something for those projects that God has placed on our hearts and minds. We need to act, much more than talk. And God will direct us to those ones in which He thinks that you can best be of service and help us to find joy to serve. Each one of us has talents and gifts.

We need to be an INFORMED laity as well. I remember that so many churches that I have gone to — I know it doesn’t happen here — but they’ll say something like, “Well, I didn’t know we were having this Conference Harvest of Blessing.” Or, “I would have given my used winter clothes to Agape if I had known if there had been a pick-up date.” Or, “I wish my preacher had shared that information with us.” No, that doesn’t happen here, but we have no excuse. I love John and I love my Pastor at home, but if I depend on them to know all that was going on in outreach and missions, I could have retired years ago. But it’s our responsibility. With the technical age in which we live, we have no reason not to be informed of those things that we intentionally want to learn about. It’s just a click away or a 1-800 number and that’s the great part of being a connectional church, is that we have those people who are available and that can answer your questions. And so I am just asking each of you: Be informed of those needs that are around you. Be alert and be aware.

A person in missions also needs to be INTERRUPTIBLE. And the closer our mission is to being home to at home, the more interruptible we need to be. Usually if we plan to be in mission elsewhere, we have a few days, or a few weeks or sometimes a few months, if we are going somewhere else. But if that mission happens to be on your way home from church this morning, you don’t have much time to plan for. You need to be interruptible to that person in need around you. You have to be available to do what’s needed at that time.

In January I received a call from a very, very close church friend whose life is just wrapped up in helping the needy and the disadvantaged in our community. For a long time she had worked toward getting a woman’s shelter in our community, a temporary home for women, and the time was coming nearer, but that could be in the future. But then the board member who was in charge of construction had a heart attack. And I knew exactly what the next question would be and I really wasn’t looking forward to it, but I did say yes, not joyously, and certainly not with the intention of working almost full time for a few months in getting the house ready to temporarily house women. But somehow God provided me with a sense of direction to kind of keep me going, and He rearranged what I had planned to do to make space for something that He wanted me to do.

You need to be interruptible. You need to take time. And even though it’s taken me a long to discover it, the important thing is to do something to respond to that need. And if you aren’t feeling the joy as you get out in the rain or the snow or cold and take that hot meal to a neighbor who suddenly became ill, then pray that you will be filled with joy by the time you get there, and you will be. God will make you joyful in whatever you do to serve.

We need to be involved. We need to involve God in our mission. That sounds like a trite statement, but again I need to remind myself of this constantly, because sometimes I get to feel pretty important. I think that I’m the only guy who’s getting that project done or I’m the only one who can give that kind of leadership. And then God intervenes and kind of pushes you back on track and you discover that what you thought needed to be done wasn’t important at all.

Some years ago we were working in a refugee resettlement in Bosnia during the final year of the war. And the refugees made such a significant impact on Jeannine and me that we decided that we needed to go back the next year with a team from North Carolina. And so we did; we recruited a team, and it so happened that I imagine that God had it all planned, but all of our team members were all young adults about the age of our children, and that’s a different generation. You parents can relate to that. But at any rate, our project was to restore a building in a divided town, a bombed out town that could be used for a community center and in conflict resolution. The team’s skills that this team of young adults had were minimal, to say the least. Their sense of organization to get something done was not even close to what I had used over the years, and I was completed frustrated. The team worked hard during the day and they bonded more than any team that I have ever given leadership to. But during the first two days, somehow, God got through to me, that He and I had different objectives for that team. His objective was not to see how much we could get done on the building, but His objective was to do as much as possible in relating Christ’s love to the Muslins and the Croatians who lived in that community. Both were done; there was time for both in the eighteen to twenty hour days that they put in — not me. But they spread out into the community at night and they related in the recreational places of that community and in the coffee houses of that bombed city and they shared the love of Christ in talking about the losses of war, or loved ones who were no longer present with them, and miraculous things began to happen. So God is present when we include Him in our service.

The last one I’d like to talk about briefly, is that being in mission INSPIRES one for greater service. This same team that was in Bosnia for two weeks, it’s doubtful that they felt that there was any more commitment on their lives than those two weeks, but I tell you, careers and lives have been changed because of those two weeks. In a divided city where Croatians on one side and Muslins on the other side — Bosnians — who had lived side-by-side by neighbors, now could not cross the center line that divided their city. But God could, and with a team of volunteers that sowed seeds of love, He made it happen. So I’m sure that each of us considered, you know, that it was a passing thing, but God had different plans. And as a result that team sent money and books for a library for that community. They helped start a youth house for the youth of that community. Many of them returned to that Bosnian city of Gornji-Vakuf to give additional help, and we even resettled the interpreter’s family who had to leave Bosnia. We resettled them as refugees in Western North Carolina. So it just seemed to extend from one thing to another.

And this is what happens when we, or the farmer, scatter seeds, and then we go about our routine responsibilities, the seeds sprout and we can’t explain it, but it happens, and that’s the reward that you receive. You really don’t know the end result, but you have faith that, through God, all things are possible and that someday our world will live where peace and justice reign and where all God’s children share in the riches that He has provided to us.

My prayer is that you will accept the invitation to be in mission, to involve God in your mission, that you personally are intentional, informed, interruptible and inspired in whatever you choose and however your talents are best used in the bringing about of His Kingdom. Amen.