My Best Church Life - Week 1 - The CORE - Pastor Mike Novotny
My Best Church Life
Week 1 - The CORE
Pastor Mike Novotny
Morning everyone, good morning, everyone watching at home. So great to be here. A brand new and big church series for our church. “My Best Church Life”.
So what you think is better?
Being single.
Being married. Or being married with children.
It's an interesting question. I've actually been in all three situations in my life and I would say that better probably isn't the best word to use. I think back to all those years when I was single, I'm single for a long time thinking, my first girlfriend until college and I'm not sure if I realized this at the time, but I had so much independence. I had so much free time for my friendships. I had so much flexibility in my schedule. I ate Totino's pizza rolls all the time. I watched so many Arnold and Jean Claude Van Damme movies. It was a really sweet stage in my life. And then, I got married.
And the pizza roll consumption just went off a shear cliff but do I regret it? Not a chance. I love being married to Kim. I gained a new best friend. A partner for life. Someone to wake up next to, someone who loves me unconditionally who's incredible? We were busy enough. I was in grad school. She was working. I was working, but we still had free time to watch our favorite shows and do our favorite things and travel to our favorite places.
And then we had children. And all that free time went.
With 4 daughters within 15 months. Oops, that was not our plan and suddenly the flexibility and the free time and the quantity time to invest in friends, that disappeared real, real fast life changed in a whole bunch of ways. But do we regret having our daughters? No.
Enough for moments to talk to us more about God and brought us more joy than maybe anything we've ever experienced. I've been in all three stages of life and I would say there's some really beautiful parts of each one. It's a really challenging part. Something about each one, and it's not a matter of which one was better. And which one is worse? I would say this. It was a matter of recognizing which one I had in a moment.
Right? You can be single and have an amazing life, your best life but if all you're thinking about, when you're single is, what you don't have the partner that the children saw on. And so forth, you'll miss the blessing of that moment.
And you can be married and lament that you don't get to eat your favorite meals, every time you'll get to watch Jean Claude Van Damme movies. Like you're still you can look at your friends who have babies and be jealous. You could regret what you've lost, you could regret, what you don't yet have or you could see the life that God is giving you and be so grateful. Because you can live your best life like that too. And you can have kids and you can be crazy busy and you can be changing diapers and watching Dora the explorer and Coco millen binging like it's a different life, but it's also a really good life. Something one is better. One is worse just that you got to know which kind of life you got.
Now, why am I telling you all this in church?
Well, I want you to have your best church life.
And I would propose to maybe have never thought about this ever, but if you're gonna have a great church experience if you're gonna love the church that you go to and everything it offers I would propose to you, it's not a matter of what kind of church you attend. It's the recognition of the fact that you have this church and not another.
To say that all in a different way for taking notes, write this down. I've been thinking a lot about this lately. That church size really matters.
Its just like you got to recognize the size of your home whether you're single or married or with kids. If you're going to live your best church life you have to recognize the size of your church and how that impacts your journey with Jesus.
Having a lot of thinking and a lot of studying just about the vast differences between a church of 10, a church of 10,000 and all the numbers in between. What you can expect on a Sunday morning, what you can expect in your relationship with the pastor. What does it looks like to do life in a community, how well you're going to know their people, the amount of influence you'll have, how much you're needed to make things work. That's really distinct and it's really different depending on what kind of church you attend.
And I felt really compelled in the last year or so to talk about this with you because if it's your first time attending here today, you might not know that this church, our church has changed. Like REALLY changed.
We'd always been hoping to grow our church so that more people could learn about Jesus here. We're kind of like a couple that wanted to have a kid and was trying and then we got pregnant and found out it was quadruplets.
Let me show you a chart to show you what I mean. For the first ten years or so of the CORE’s history. We were a church that worshiped about 200 to 250 people a weekend, when Pastor Ski founded the church in 2009. When I came in 2014, some years were a little bit more, some years were a little bit less. We had a decade of being one kind of church and then… Then that happened.
How we bought this new building, we started our first morning service and the floodgates opened. We had a second morning service and things accelerated, even faster we went from a church that interested one, or two or 10, or 20, but one that doubled and then tripled and then almost quadrupled. The inside two weeks ago, before the holiday break, we had 983 the bar wouldn't fit on that graph. We had two weeks ago at our church, it wasn't for the Packers playing at 3:30 today. We'd probably break that record again. Today, church is bigger than it's ever been.
And it doesn't make us better than we used to be. Doesn't make us any better than a small church meeting down the street. Neither is it worse. So people knock on big mega churches like, they're bad, apparently, they haven't read the Bible. When Moses led to make a church or the New Testament church of Jesus exploded, and they tracked the numbers without wagging a finger. It's not better or worse, but it is different.
In this series I want to talk about that. If you're going to make this your church home you don't have to, but this is going to be your church family, what is that going to look like? What can we do? What have we lost that we used to have? What do we have that we didn't used to have now? Because I got to tell you there's an emotional aspect to this. Other times that I'm preaching here on a recent Sunday, just so overwhelmed, thrilled, humbled at all, the faces that I see.
And then there's other times that I really missed the church we used to have.
I think when I came to the CORE. I used to pride myself as a pastor on knowing the people that I would pass through.
On my desk, a Bible and a copy of the church directory. I'd study it. I would know everyone's names, In time before and after church to connect, I could do an every member visit where I'd sit in your living room, go to your home, meet you for coffee. A guest came out…right down that guest name and study it, work on it. So they walked through the door. The next Sunday, I'd say, oh, you're someone, so there's something really beautiful about that.
That is not totally gone.
It's not just the first time guests whose name, I can't remember, it's the returning guest, it's the person who went through Starting Point, it's the person who I'm officially their pastor and I maybe recognized their face. But man, don't ask me everyone's name.
I feel like I used to be working on a conveyor belt, that was moving slowly and I could take a person and get to know them well and put them back before the next one came and the Holy Spirit decided to turn up the speed of the conveyor belt. And I can't I can't keep up and that, to be honest, is a sobering thought for me.
Like, I could be your pastor and not even know your first name. So the smaller churches that can offer something beautiful that we just can't anymore.
Which I regret.
So, I wish I could get in the time machine and go back. Show of hands, nice and high. How many of you have been attending our church since covid happened? And we have.
Look at that. Do I wish that I could like time machine back to 2019 and tell the ushers? Lock the doors. They're coming. They're gonna ruin our church. Now, I wish I could unbaptize. The people that I baptized that were the people who didn't have a church home still, not have a church home. Do they wish the people who didn't know how amazing Jesus was, would still not know how amazing Jesus was?
No, it's like having kids, it's changed and we've lost something really good. But man, what God has given us in it's place is so good, too. And that's why emotionally. I just want to walk through this tension for the next few weeks with you as we think about, what does it look like for a church our size. Where we're not going to know everyone, where you can't sit down with the pastor every time you have a problem, what does it look like? What's the good and the bad of gathering for church? What's the urgency of being part of a group where there's a thousand names you're not going to know. What is it like to give your time? Do we really need you to with so many talented people around here and should we even go and invite people to church when there's like, 22 empty seats right now that I'm seeing?
Here’s a good question we need to wrestle with over the next few weeks. You don't have to make this your church. You don't have to go to a big church or a small church but if you choose this to be a church, we want it to be your best church life.
So click on that discussion. I just want to talk about this momentum gathering together on a Sunday. What we call the gather root. If you ever thought before about the good and the bad of being a big church at church.
I'm sure this is your first church experience if you've attended a little house church or a gathering of 25 people or a mega mega church before if you ever thought about what we can offer you, what we can do together that other churches can't and maybe the dangers of having this many people gathered in one spot.
I was thinking through that question that I want to share with you today. If you're taking notes, three blessings along with three challenges of doing church at a big church.
So here's the first one. If you're taking notes, at a big church, we can offer people, write this down, a glimpse of heaven.
What? It's not one or two and it's not 10 or 12, but there's hundreds, hundreds, sometimes thousands of diverse people uniting their voices to praise Jesus. That is a little glimpse of what heaven is like. I'll show you in the book of Revelation chapter 7 Jesus's friend, John gets this vision of heaven and here's what he sees.
After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count. From every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne and before the lamb. They're wearing white robes and we're holding palm branches in their hands.
Palm Branch was a symbol of victory, a white robe, a symbol of their purity and forgiveness, are standing there before the Lamb Jesus, who was sacrificed for their sins. Before God and his throne, the king of kings. And what does John see? A great multitude that no one could count.
A great multitude that John could not name by name. These people from all different places on the planet speaking all different languages yet they were there united around the throne of God praising Jesus.
You know one of my favorite things about being part of a big church, is when I look at you and look around, I think. Disciplines have heaven. Older people, younger people, little kids running around, kids being held in their mother's arms. Kids being walked in the lobby right now. Because while then on a Sunday morning, I see white people. I see black people, I see Latino people, I see Asian people. I see people who are new to church, people who've been around for a long time. We have homeless people who attend our church. Millionaires who attend our church and yet here, we all sing the same songs and we pray the same prayers and we focus on the same cross. It's a little glimpse of what happened and it's going to be like we're all these different people gathered around. The throne of Jesus, to sing His praises.
You know, it's not always like this. When I was in grad school, I interned, at this little church in Western Wisconsin, it was a tiny mission congregation we would worship about the front row and a half of people on a Sunday. 15, 20, maybe 30. If it was a big day, we rented a little public utility building. Just a room where we set up chairs. We didn't have a lot of musicians or people. We were doing our best, but it was a small church. When the time of worship music started, there was a volunteer in the back, who had a computer with these two little speakers and she would click, number one, once, do I remember thinking this is what happens gonna be like
An angel is going to flap his wing and hit the space bar, and we're going to sing with little speakers. Like we did our best, the church actually offered some beautiful things, I learned so much, but it was not that glimpse of glory. But is it just me, I remember hearing a Sunday morning thinking like show of hands, nice and high. How many of you love the music here at the CORE? Yeah, can I put up two hands? I'm never stopping singing. Just listen to the harmonies and the beauty and the talents of our musicians, I do two hands. I said high. And if you like the songs even better than the sermon, keep your hands up. I got to write down some names real quick.
Yeah, man, you are, I feel that way too. I mean, there's just so much insane talent, it's wild to me that so many people up here are just volunteers who serve. The median church in America right now, worships about 80 people on a weekend. We have a worship team of volunteers of about 80 people, the artistry and the talent, the people who created these graphics and the videos, the art on the chalkboard outside, like there was so many people, the lights and the sound and the music, the people behind the booth, that what we can offer to people is just a little closer to the energy and the passion, and the beauty, and the glory of heaven. And I don't want you to miss that.
We didn't have all of this before, who knows? That's here. We might not have all of it, but today, we have it. Now, when these people use their gifts to serve and you're surrounded and there's barely any empty seats, all these people singing praises to Jesus just lead into that moment. Be grateful that we can offer you without every church can offer. We can give you a glimpse.
But there's a struggle on the other side of that strength, it's happened to me a ton in church. I wonder if it's happened to you.
Sometimes when you have amazing people standing up here, The drummer, the guitar player, the vocalist, the harmony sometimes you can think about these people. Instead of that person.
Noise in the lobby after church isn't about the lyrics of a song and the Lord that they're focused on. But about people who sang the lyrics, Sometimes, there are more compliments for the people who serve than about the salvation that our Savior came to bring.
Sometimes people invite other people to church. They talk about the people, the messengers. Instead of the message. So, a dangerous thing.
It turns worship into a show or a performance. Something you observe, instead of something you participate in. The point was never the pastor, or the vocalist, or the musicians. The point has always been Jesus.
Let me show you the very next verse in that glimpse of heaven. Revelation 7:10 says this: “and they (the Christians there) cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the lamb.””
If the worship of having been there infatuated with Jesus, they're grateful for the other people who are there, but their eyes are fixed on the one who saved them from their sins.
So let me give you a tip today. If we're going to be a big church that does things in the best way. Actually I think this is a good tip for any size church: Look up about 12 inches.
But you're a little bit too distracted, whether this thing is amazing, or it's not, just look up above the person. And remember what we're seeing about?
If you sat on this side of church. Yeah my seats are always in the front row over there. When I look up about 12 inches I see above the heads of these amazing generous people and that's what I see.
When I look above their heads, I look at the lyrics and I'm reminded of something better than the harmonies and the talents, I see the message, which is the whole reason that we're gathered here together. I'm grateful for what God has given us. You can say thank you to our musicians, but the best compliment you could ever give them or any Pastor is not to talk about how they did. But what they talked, about what they sang about, find the lyrics of the song, this moved your heart and say that to someone who is singing, “Thank you for helping me.” See? That to remember that my soul needed that you don't need some amazing human to sing. You need them to sing about the thing that you really need. So, look up. Keep your eyes fixed on the object of our worship, instead of those who lead us in worship. And we will be a better glimpse of heaven. Where people are infatuated with the King and with the Lamb who died for their sins.
Which brings us point number two. What's the second blessing and challenge of being a big church? Write this down as well. I think that our church, I think the data would prove: this is a great place for guests.
For someone who's brand new. Someone who isn't sure about church, or Jesus or religion. I hope I can humbly say this by the grace of God. This is a great place for brand new people to connect. Back in 2014, our church had started morning services, so I had my Sunday mornings kind of free. I've told you this. I've visited every church in Appleton, Wisconsin. Everyone, normally, has three church services every Sunday morning for months, and months, and months and months. I got to be a guest at about a hundred different churches. And I will tell you this, the guest experience at different churches is not the same.
And sometimes I could sneak in and sneak out no one knew what I was there. Sometimes I'd walk into a place with about seven worshipers and as soon as they saw me, the new guy.
If I was a guest to get him, he couldn't sign up. This really comfortable place is to be a guest. There's awkward places to be a guest. Maybe you guys can tell me if I'm wrong: after church. But I think this is a great place to take a first step.
Actually, crunch the numbers. Do you know that just at this campus, I'm not including our North Campus, St. Peter, just at this campus, how many non-members attend worship on a Sunday?....250.
Not the same, It's really insane. It's crazy to me. The median church in America is 80 people. We triple the average church in guests. It's an amazing opportunity. It's a huge blessing and it is a great responsibility of as a bigger church. We're able to often get guests. A lot of things. Hey, grab a free book, it's on us, Check out the live stream. When you're at home, We have podcasts and YouTube channels with quality messages and music that we can share with other people. We have a simple next step. We have a whole “you first” culture where we're trying to put, guests first. You take my seat, you park in my spot. We want to serve you as best we can in Jesus’ name. It's a great spot to be a guest.
But, for the challenge, it's hard for one person to be a good host to so many guests.
Imagine later today after the Packer game. Find out on your door, “come over for dinner.” People adjust me with a casserole.
Oh my, kids, I grabbed something from Aldi. And I'm here. I volunteer that you'd be a really great host and I would be a really welcome to guest. You would talk to me, you notice me? You'd love me. You show me where the bathrooms are, until comfortably in that meal. But what if here I am with my oldie food and behind me are 249 and my closest friends.
Well, it's pretty tough for you. In fact, if you're a family of five, it'd be tough for you to host so many people, when the number of guests increases the need for hospitality does too.
How just this week I was talking to a guy who used to tend to a pretty big church, and I think I got the details of the story righ? He conducted a personal experiment. After worship, he goes out and stands in the lobby. And wait to see what would happen.
As the buzz of all these people coming in and out, he just stands there. Waiting for conversation.
And he told me that after about a year, he knew the pastor…and pretty much no one else from the church.
Now I know the churches he’s actually talking about. I think it's an amazing church with an amazing ministry. Here's what I think happened. When there's so many people attending a church, there's hundreds of faces you don't know. And it's easy, just to make the assumption that certainly someone's connected to someone. You forget that someone walked through the door by themselves for the first time,
There's so many people who know so many people, but a person can be standing like a face in the middle of a busy, busy crowd. It can be easy to forget that one of our great privileges and responsibilities as a church family is to work extra hard to put our guests first and make sure that they know they're welcomed. They’re loved. And this is a place where they can belong.
I think the passage from Hebrews 13. This with the Bible says keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters.” And here's the best, the big deal. “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers.” That's easy to forget.
You're loving your brothers and sisters and church family. That's a good thing, but don't forget. This other thing. Don't forget to show hospitality strangers. That's why I'm gonna ask you today. To take a pledge to adopt a mentality of hospitality.
You need a, you first t-shirt. You don't need to be a pastor. We don't have to put you on the payroll. If you're an official member of our church family, I want you to adopt this thinking in your head that you are a host. Whose ever in your zone is a guest? Right? You have to do laps on the church. You don't got to kiss every baby. You don't got to shake every hand. Here's my suggestion. If, when you come to sit down, you can say hi to someone without needing to shout.
There, your guest.
They might be there for the first time that they might have been a member here for a decade. But also think of your seat in church like the free space and a bingo card. And all the chairs around it, that's you.
So whenever that person comes for the first time nervous about church, being cold or rigid or unloving or exclusive, it doesn't matter where they sit, doesn't matter what entrance they come in. If you and I dozens and dozens and in hundreds and hundreds of us would say, we're the kind of church that's gonna get out of our comfort zone to make sure every single guest all 250, every single Sunday, are welcomed and known and loved. Man, we would keep the beauty of this passage and not forget to show hospitality to strangers. So would you please put down your pen for a second? Who's, your raise, your hand.
And say, “I promise to have the mentality, the hospitality. I promise to talk to humans in Jesus’ name. Amen. All right, thank you very much. Thank you for your mentality.
Hospitality. I know it's gonna be tough for some of you. But, man, on the other side of that awkwardness we can move from being a good church for guests to be one of the best churches for guests. So when we do this, well, we become a glimpse of heaven's glory. We become a great place for guests. Here's the last thing I want to share with you today at a church, like ours of a big church. There are so, so, so, so so so many stories of grace.
I love the passage from Acts chapter 2. Look what happened to the early church? This as the Christians broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people and the Lord added to their number daily, Those who are being saved. Can you imagine? Every day, not just someone new showed up for Christmas Eve. Every day. There was a story of grace every day, someone was being saved every day. There was a new person to me, another baptism, there were so many stories, then the explosive growth of the bigger early church and did you know around here? What? We're getting close.
Just based on the things that we hear and see it's almost every single day.
Another long time ago, I was talking to this woman outside and she got emotional. She had to escape the really dangerous relationship in part because of a sermon we had here on abuse. And she said, “Pastor, I don't know where my life would be if I hadn't found you guys on Facebook.”
This mom emails me and said my family's been going to the new Lighthouse Youth Center and it's been so good for my kids emotionally and spiritually and eternally.
And it was this guy who was like totally anti-church. Hated it. Wanted nothing to do with religion. His mom, begged him before she died, and in his web tried to drag him. He didn't want to go. Finally, one day he gave in, he told me almost turned the car on before he got here, and he just so happened to walk through the doors on the day in our last sermon series. When he talked about these Christianity or religion or relationship before the day was done, he emailed me. Here's what he said. “Today was nothing short of a miracle. I've been fighting everyone for years that I would never step in a church again and all of that melted away in one moment.” And if you know what, all three of those stories, The woman who escaped the abuse right here, the family was getting connected right here. The guy was done with church. All those things happened in one week.
That's not the spiritual highlight reel of 2023. That was part of my celebration file, from a single week here at 922 Ministries. God has just busted open the doors for baptisms and salvations and people getting connected and people giving church another chance. They're hearing things that connect with their life, they're learning about Jesus. You've experienced that, the people next to you have experienced that, man, this does not happen in every season of ministry, but it's happening right now.
We're not going to Church Council meetings trying to figure out how to keep the lights on and pay the bills. We're trying to figure out where to find seats. For all these people who are planting Jesus roots, it is amazing to have so many stories of God's grace.
But, you know, the bad part about all that? There isn't one. No, they're really isn't one. Oh no. All these people are being saved. The water bill is through the roof. All these baptisms, shut it down. Like pastor. Someone told my stole, my favorite church seat, that's my seat. Now he gets saved and he just thanks taking like no my goodness it is so good. It is so life giving. Someone once told me there's nothing that a long time Christian loves more than seeing a new person become a Christian. Is that true? It's like man being surrounded by so many stories to celebrate it. For me, it's so lifegiving for the mission and ministry that we do and it's happening again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. Man, God is so good to our church. Such a cool time for us. All to be here. I've been a pastor for 16 years. I've never had a moment like we're having right now. And I want to be faithful to it.
Now, I talked to one of our musicians last week. A guy who has been part of the biggest churches in our city, and some of the smallest churches in our city. And he told me, “Pastor Mike years ago, I heard this sermon with a pastor said the best kind of churches are the faithful ones.”
The bigger isn't better in the kingdom of God. But faithfulness is. And I pray today that you and I would be motivated to be faithful to make every Sunday all about Jesus. That we be faithful to be hospitable to the great number of guests that we'd be faithful with the stories of grace that are happening. Right here, in our midst, our church is not what it was.
Probably not what it will be. About the grace of God. It is what it is.
Pretty great place. I hope you have your best church life.
