My Best Church Life - Week 5 - St. Peter - Pastor Mike Novotny
My Best Church Life
Week 5 - St. Peter
Pastor Mike Novotny
In my opinion, there is something that we should tell every single person who is thinking about getting married. And it's the same something that I believe we should tell every married couple who is thinking about having their first kid or their second or the third or their fifth. It's something that people don't share often when it comes to relationships situations but you really need to know it. In fact, I think it's so important. I love you to write this down. If you're taking notes in your program, I think you should know that when it comes to relationships growth makes messes.
On the old way that you used to do things. The old way, that things used to work. If you go from single to married, it is such a blessing. But it's also still a mess. If you decide to start a family and have kids, it they're unquestionably great gifts, from a great god, but it will mess with the way that life used to be. I can't imagine you're that single woman and the closet is just like you like it, organized. And the kitchen is the perfect level of cleanliness, like that OCD clean. But not a total pigsty, and everything is just a range. Like, it should be according to you and God apparently were the same page. You meet Mr. Semi-Perfect. And you fall in love and you take your vows and he moves in with all of his stuff and his boots, and his devices, and his way, obviously the wrong way of doing things. The jacket on the back of the kitchen chair, even though the closet is like four feet away, which is baffling, you're putting this stuff here in the garage, which is fine to him, but it's not to you, oh, like you love him and you might love being married, but the growth of your family situation makes a mess. Of the way that things used to be.
Be grateful because then the kids came and you realized the mess has only begun. There's bottles and you know it's thinking appearance coming to church this morning like with 18 backpacks thrown over the shoulders, in the bottles, the backup plans, and the Cheerios. And the toys, there's stacks of homework at home. Everything is everywhere and you love your kids without it out. It's They're blessing from our heavenly father, without a doubts, but the way that things used to be has changed,
It's not, that one is better or worse than another. In the eyes of God, he doesn't have like orders of people that matter based on your relationship status, but it really is important for you. Spiritually to know the difference between the size of the home that you live in.
And I wanted to share that with you today, not because the sermon is about marriage or parenting. But because the same principle is true, when it comes to a church family.
In the Bible, the size of a church doesn't make it better or worse. Your little house church where everyone knows. Everyone isn't better than a megachurch where you barely know anyone. It's the Bible doesn't make distinctions of superiority or inferiority, but the Bible does say this, that when a church grows, The way that things used to be kind of gets messed with.
The way that things work and the expectations that people have need to change growth in a church makes messes.
And let's say that today because in case you haven't noticed, our church has changed. We're not the same church that we were 50 years ago, we're in the same church that we were 15 years ago. We are not the same church that we were five years ago. Some of you have been around here a while you know that the church is changed.
I say this with no boasting in any way: out of the 1,200 plus churches in our denomination 922 ministries is not officially the biggest by far.
The median church in the United States of America has about 70 to 80 people that show up on a weekend. Which is approximately the number of musicians that we have at 922 ministries. We have more people right now in our starting point group that the average American church has total members Doesn't make us better than anyone else. But I would say this, it makes things different
The dynamics of how this works, the way that we relate and connect and fit together is I sometimes describe 19 ministries is like a guy who fell in love and then got married and four months later found out. He was having quadruplets changed really fast. None of us. Expected to happen and now we're trying to figure out how to do this. Well how to be a good church family where you are personally loved and served and we don't burn everyone else a year from now, growth makes a mess. We're big church without a doubts.
But if I could pose kind of a challenging topic for you this morning, I would say this that just because you're a big church. Doesn't mean you're a strong church.
Actually a church gets real big and it gets real big real fast being big can backfire.
It's all exciting. Lot of you are brand new. I mean, you're the reason we've got bigger and we're glad that you're here. You're, you know, connected, you're hearing the word of God. Maybe more than you ever have in your life. You're understanding the cross of Jesus and what it means for you and you're forgiveness. And you're eternity, we won't change it for the world. But all this business, if we're not, careful can backfire
You think you're from a staff perspective?
When it's more of you, there are more people to know more people to pray for more people to serve statistically. There are more counseling cases more couples trying to make it through more. Couples preparing, for marriage, there are more weddings, there's more funerals, there's more addictions, there's more people in prison, and in hospitals, and nursing homes like as that grows. Maybe didn't know this about being a pastor, but we also only have 24 hours in a day. God doesn't add like special time exceptions because the church has grown and this has happened at a ton. We're pastors serving. Big churches like the grinded out. They starting neglecting their own lives, and their marriages suffer. They do stupid moral things because they're numb and they're tired. They're their kids feel like Their father cares, more about the church and he does his own home than neglect, their bodies, their health, they burn outs. Like if if we're not careful, the people who serve our pastors and teachers and staff, And would seem so good. Now, I might not seem so good, five years from now.
And there's a dedicated volunteers of our church.
When you're at a smaller church and you step up to volunteer, you know, maybe you see a great place where you can serve and a kids ministry or making food for people who are going through a difficult time. It's it's really exciting when you can get your arms around it.
But when a church grows and there's more ministries and extra services when you're playing in the band, and it's not just one service, but multiple services on multiple campuses, and there's so much to do Stems, you move from volunteering? Have you heard this trace before to being volunteered? It's like mandatory church overtime that you don't get paid for but we need you because there's so much going on that. It stops being joyful and it's stops being something you want to do. It's only all these new people in the business of the church come backfire.
And even for the average member of the church, you know, who wants to be just one out of three thousand one hundred people that no one knows like a face in a crowd. You people slipped through the cracks who have real needs that are going through really difficult situations on the outside. It looks pretty exciting. And in some ways it is But we can't be naive about this moment with explosive. Growth comes a whole bunch of messes that we need to clean up. If our church is not just going to be big but big and strong.
And that's why today I want to grab my Bible and tell you the story of something that happened to the first Christians.
Did you know that after Jesus returned to his Father in heaven, two, things happened in the first century. The early Christian church grew explosively.
And that growth caused some major problems to their ministry.
If they can notes in your program, let me share some of the numbers, the book of Acts, which tells the story after Jesus went to have and says that when Jesus left, he left behind a church of 120 people.
To imagine that. It's like you that was the first Christian church after three years of Jesus's ministry and miracles, that's crazy to believe, but one chapter later after the apostle, Peter preached, the famous sermon, the number jumped to Three thousand one hundred twenty. That everyone was local. They were coming from other communities, but the church was obviously growing fast. Which was nothing compared to actually chapter 4, where we hear that the number of Christians had jumped to five thousand people. And there's one line that says every single day God was adding to the number of those who are being saved, the early churches water bill was through the roof. Because baptisms were happening on a daily basis. It was exciting angels were rejoicing
But then they turn the page to act chapter 6 and we find out that it was not all good news.
With the bigness of the church came a big mess that the church needed to clean up. And that's a story that I want to share with you today. Is what it says.
In those days, when the number of disciples was there's the word increasing churches growing The Hellenistic Jews among them complained, there's the mess, but against the Hebraic Jews because their widows are being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So, in the first century when there wasn't life insurance and social security, and Medicare, and Medicaid, when women often had fewer economic opportunities, unfortunately, one of the most vulnerable people groups were widows. Now, when the husband died, their income source, often dried up. And so the church filled with Christian love and following the example of Jesus, they came up with this ministry. That's called the daily distribution of food. We don't know how they did it but every single day they would distribute food to all these women in need
When the church was small,
When the number of widows who needed food from Sunday to Saturday, was five or seven or 12, the church should get its arms around it. But when things explosively grew that old ministry, got very complicated very quickly.
I kind of like the verb that's used in this verse some way. Those are being “overlooked “.
They weren't intentionally ignored or devalued, it's just that so much was happening in the church while that suddenly lost track of these widows who desperately needed to eat. The church apparently was a multicultural to the Hellenistic Jews. Were the ones who spoke Greek. The Hebraic Jews would speak Hebrew. So you had a big growing church with different ethnic groups, different languages. And sadly with the bigness came, this mess and this complaint. So there their tummies were rumbling. And their mouths were grumbling. They were a big church but apparently not a strong church.
So look with the disciples, the next verse 2.
So, the 12, that's a 12, apostles gathered, all the disciples together and said, It would not be right for us to neglect to the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. For this and sisters. Choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the spirit. And wisdom will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. Now this might be my favorite slide of the whole sermon Olympic careful attention to it, because there are four really important things that I see in these verses. Everyone.
The apostles knew their priority.
They said it would not be right for us to neglect like preaching and ministry of the word to take care of this problem with the widows. And the primary calling that Jesus has given to us is to preach. The gospel is to make disciples. We're the ones who saw him on the cross. We saw him alive after his death, like our job is to meet people spiritually and eternally. It's it wouldn't be right for us to give up that they do their priority.
Second, they knew their limits.
They knew that they were followers of Jesus but not Jesus, you know, the conscious sleep two hours a night and throw another thing on their shoulders. They realized that we can't pray a ton and preach well, and also fulfill this ministry. We can't snap our fingers and feed 5,000 widows with 5,000 loaves of bread. Like Jesus, we don't have that gift. So they knew that they couldn't fix this problem and it wasn't their priority.
Yet number three, they also believed that these women mattered.
I love that fact. She knows what they did. It says the apostles gathered, all the disciples together
So just because this wasn't like a Bible issue or getting to heaven issue, it didn't mean that this issue didn't matter to the church. And Jesus and his ministry, he cared about people's souls and their bodies. If it were hungry, he didn't say, well, I'm just here to get you to heaven. Good luck. No, he tried to serve people in multiple ways and nearly church did too. Yes, they wanted to pray. Yes. They wanted to preach and they wanted to meet the other real needs that God's people had in the church.
Which is why finally they created a system.
They said choose seven men from among you good, men, full of the Spirit and wisdom. We're gonna turn this over to them to do well, so that we can give our attention to the thing that we hope to do. Well, they raised up next level leaders.
And it worked. Next verse,
It says in verse 5, this proposal please. The whole group they chose. Steven a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, also, Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism, they presented these men to the apostles who prayed and lay their hands on them. Now, this might be my favorite slide in the whole sermon that I said that already. This is my new favorite slide. Here's what I love about this slide. I love, love, love that all the names are listed.
Let's do a quick search quiz before the sermon. How many of you knew the names of the apostles, Peter, James, and John? Would you put your hands up? nice and I Button lights on. Let's say okay, handsome before the sermon, how many of you knew the names Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas?
We got we got a half a hand. All right. Good job. And no, this isn't Timon from Timon and Pumbaa, by the way, this isn't a Lion King reference.
Why these names in here, I mean these aren't like the big important people of the early church.
And I'll tell you why they're in there. Because you don't have to be a preacher. To matter. In a church's ministry.
You don't have to be Peter and James and John to make a difference. For the cause of Jesus.
You don't have to be the man or the woman or the kid that Christians remember 2,000 years later. To make a real difference in the real world that God is doing in real people's lives.
That makes me think of a question. My youngest daughter asked me that's my family has been on a mission here in 2023 to try to read the entire Bible in one year. Have you done that before me? My wife, my 15 year old Brooklyn, my 13 year old Maya. On just last Sunday, we finished the Old Testament, which is a huge deal. If you ever tried to read the Old Testament before,
Not to insult, the spirit who inspired this book, but there are some pages that are just hard to find interesting, ever the genealogies in the Bible. So, and so was the father of so and so was the father of so and so and my youngest Myah she asked me one day. Dad, why is this in here?
God has like one book. Why would he put this in the book? I don't know who these people are. I don't know what they did. Why is this in here?
And I think the answer is the same reason that's there.
Because you don't have to be Moses to matter.
You don't have to wear a microphone on Sunday. To make a difference.
And the world thinks about how many TikTok followers do you have? How many views do you get? How much money do you make? That is not the way that Jesus works. Jesus once said that, if you give a cup of cold water to a kid in his name, You will not lose your reward.
That people who might seem small in the eyes of the world are huge in the eyes of our heavenly father, I need you to know this we live in a culture that is infatuated with celebrity but Jesus Is not worried about celebrity and bigness, he puts these names in here so that we would know that every person who serves in love and in humility is huge. In the eyes of the kingdom of God raising up next level leaders, made the church, not just big, but big and strong.
So, look how the story ends for seven.
It says so the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. Now, this without it out, is my favorites. Slide of the whole sermon. Actually, I didn't think of this until I'm preaching this now for the Six time, I think and it just dawned on me the word. So,
The text, the same problem, hungry widows solution, raise up, more people to serve them. You would think that conclusion would be, so, the widows got fed.
But then the text takes a hard left and says so, The Word of God spread over that. Be it well to remember the apostles rationale. Like if we do this work, what we don't be able to spread the preaching, the ministry of the word, when all these people like Timon and Permanus, and Ticanor stepped up to serve, when they met those physical needs. They empowered the other members of the body of Christ to use their gift to preach the gospel. And to save people the number of disciples kept increasing unlikely converts, a large number of priests became obedient to the faith, the church thrived, physically relationally spiritually, any eternally, why not? Because they added more apostles, Because they added more Christians who served their neighbor with the gifts that got given.
So for taking notes, let me summarize this in one simple sentence. I think the key of this text to a great big church, a big church that's great, that's strong is next-level leaders.
It's raising up selfless servants, who might not preach? But they make a massive difference in the kingdom of God.
Maybe I would just visualize it like this.
That's a big green Lego square with all these little dots. Represents all the different ways that you could serve here at 922 ministries. And whether you're making meals giving someone a ride to church, greeting people at the front door passing bulletins, playing in the worship band, helping with the live stream, serving on our prayer team. All these different ways that we allow you to serve. Let's imagine that each one of these is service.
Let's imagine that all these Legos, are you?
The people who call this your church home,
Because there's a lot of you, I Brought some extra Legos.
Lots of people big church. Now, out proposed to you, that there are different ways that we can connect these logos and arrange a church family.
And maybe the classic unfortunate model is where some people are connected to personally serving.
But not lots of people. Ever heard of the old 80/20 rule or 80% of the work? It's done by 20% of the people like we could stack a church's whole ministry on the backs of just a few people that would be a big church.
But it won't be a strong church.
And we're only taking some big pressure, or some person dying, or leaving or burning out. It's for the whole ministry to come crashing down.
But, what would happen if we were to range the same number of people in a different way?
What would happen if we could just take a couple more people and get them connected with their God-giving gifts? To serve another person in love.
What happened if we could break that old 80/20 rule and get 30% of you serving or 35% of you serving? What would happen if we would swing for the fences and hope to get 40 or 45 or 50% of the people who call this their church home, serving their neighbor in Christian love what happened? If we would all be connected, we'd be the same number of people.
But it'd be a different kind of church.
This, the part of the demonstration that makes me nervous. Okay, we did. I see the difference.
Same, number of souls being served. Very different kind of ministry.
Nearly church, it seems was built on the backs of the apostles but as a grew, there were more and more people and they knew they needed to rearrange. They needed to change and so they made sure that the early church was not just big, but big and strong.
And maybe the apostle Paul summarized this idea of best and Ephesians chapter 4. He wrote these words. So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, they evangelists the pastors and teachers. The leaders that we all think about, why To equip his people for works of service.
Why? So that the body of Christ, Maybe built up.
Is that the end goal that the body of Christ, that means all of us might be built up that when you're hungry, someone could help you. When you're lonely. Someone could talk to you. When you need to understand the Bible better, someone could teach you. When you need, someone walking by your side to encourage you, there would be someone like that's the goal, no matter where you're from that you would be built up spiritually if this is your church home, And the only way that happens isn't by getting an apostle to show up. But it's by getting leaders to equip people for works of service. So that the whole body of Christ, Maybe built up.
Make sense.
All right, first name and let me leave you with three really practical next steps, for our church family. Then if you're taking notes, three things I want to leave you with today, here's the first one. Beware.
And one of the tricky parts of both being part of a huge ministry, like ours is that it seems like there are more than enough people volunteering around here.
Example, let's imagine the first two pews over here and I started a church.
Six, eight eleven of us serving. Okay? If we're going to have a potluck meal and I ask you who can bring something to the potluck, and you raise your hand nice and high. Okay? You'll be the one guy. We all can see. This may not be a great pot. Look, The one person trying to feed all these people, if one out of 11 serves we kind of all instinctively know that there's a problem.
What happens if we expand the church? Not just from the 11 of us but to a church, our size 3,100 plus. Then if the same ratio Serves. How many people do you have serving?
Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, right? 10% of 3100 310. Volunteers, you would look around and see all the people with the “You First” t-shirts and assume. Oh, there's plenty of people serving
But the same ratio is true, right? One person trying to serve a group of people that is way too big and so I want to say just beware of the assumption that the ministry is fine, without your gifts, it likely is not.
Now, I want to be really clear about this. You don't have to volunteer at 922 ministries to serve Jesus, okay? If you don't sign up today, you're not a center who's going to hell because you didn't usher on that one Sunday. All right. I mean sometimes, like when you have a baby, please just get some sleep and take care of the baby. We'll worry about that later. Or if you're sick or disabled or caring for loved one, you know, there's things that happen in life where we just can't. And that's okay, no guilt and no shame, but if you're able, I would just put this on your heart that we we need you. Like, if people aren't going to slip through the cracks, if we're going to serve all the people really well for any big and strong, it's very likely that we need you to identify how God is gifted you and a step up and serve. So, beware of the assumption.
Number two, this is not gonna shock you.
I knew it was coming Pastor. Yep, it is. If you have gifts to serve we heard in Romans 12, then serve There's going to be a sign up just waiting for you. Here's a slow pitch, as slow as we can pitch it. We have our annual service fair waiting, where you're going to find incredible ways and incredible needs that our ministry currently has You're gonna be surprised how many things our church does behind the scenes and maybe one or two of them are gonna jump out to say, hey, I think I could do that or that would that be exciting to me. We're not gonna force you into something that you're not gifted to do and some asking if you can every one of you to stop by the service fair and just look You're not committing to anything, you're not signing a five-year volunteering contract. Just see if something stands out to you, as a way that may be, God could use you to serve. And we've told the ushers, they've blocked all the exterior doors. So until that's faster. Michael's joke. Yeah. If you got to run right, no shame. You don't have to hang your head, if you just get out the door after you leave. But really, if you have just two minutes, take a look, please. It's what's gonna make our church big and strong.
Thirdly, finally.
Thank you.
I'm as much as I want to open your eyes today, to the need that our church has. I on behalf of our staff, just have to say to all of you. Thank you for being a crazy generous church.
Some of you have been serving this ministry from before I got here, nine years ago.
Some of you've been serving this ministry from before I was born here at Saint Peter. Some of you have just loved and selflessly given of your gifts to make this the place that it is. Thank you.
And some of you are the people who made last year's service Sunday on your miracle.
Have heard the story what happened?
Yeah, last year about this time, we had a really similar sermon, you know, the power of people stepping up to serve our church, leaders had set a goal of trying to get 150 new, people volunteering over the course of 12 months. Those are goal, right? 52 weeks. Can we raise up 150 new volunteers to make this ministry strong. So we had our service fair, we had the sermon. We said, would you sign up? People at the CORE and Saint Peter signed up on that one Sunday.
I'll give you one guess.
150 people y'all. Like, why do we need 52 weeks? Let's just do this in one. And you did. And I'm just thinking I'm thinking of the words. So from verse 7, All these people serve. So the word of God's spread. So many of you stepped up for the first time to serve and I wonder how much of what you did. Is connected to how many people are now rooted in Jesus?
You might not see the immediate connection because you ushered or joined the prayer team or helped to technology or serve the kids of our community. But you empowered, people like me and Pastor Michael and Pastor Jim to serve people with the word of God and prayer. You might not have seen the conversion up close like we did. But according six, you were a huge part of it. Thank you.
Just like the Amna, our volunteer coordinator on staff, and I asked her. Wow, last year, 150 people, I got to preach this message last week at the core Thursday night. 7:30, I asked her after the Thursday service, how many people signed up this year?
She said after Thursday night, 117.
And if you're competitive like me, you're thinking we could do this. What we could do this, we could do on your miraculous thing. Two years in a row, not just to say that, We did it.
But to serve people in their physical needs and empower our leadership to meet people's eternal needs.
So, be aware of the assumption if you can sign up to serve that. Thank you for all of you who already do.
At the end of the day, doesn't matter how big 922 ministries is doesn't matter. If people know our names. What, what matter is this that the body of Christ? Might be built up.
There are people who just don't know. When Jesus does.
They're people that we know and love who don't yet know that God really does love us that they don't know that Jesus fought on the cross to win the battle that you. And I could see the face of a father in heaven. That's face a big day for us. It's true. Growth makes a mess. With your help, we can clean it up. And make nights to ministries. Not just a big church but a big church. That is strong.
