FIRESIDE CHAT
DR. JIM DIXON
DEUTERONOMY 30:15-20
JUNE 4, 1995
The 1930’s were called the ‘Golden Age’ of radio. During the 1930’s, children couldn’t wait to get home from school and turn on the radio. They couldn’t wait to get home from school, turn on the radio and listen to Buck Rogers and the 25th Century or Jack Armstrong the All-American Boy or Tom Mix and the Ralston Straight Shooters. Of course, in the evening on the radio in the 1930’s there were radio programs like The Lone Ranger and The Shadow. People of all ages tuned in to hear those programs.
It was also during the 30’s that many comedies became popular on the radio, from Jack Benny to Burns and Allen. In 1928, a new comedy appeared on the radio and it was called Amos and Andy. By 1931, incredibly, 42 million Americans were listening every week to Amos and Andy.
But, by far the most popular radio program in the 1930’s during the ‘Golden Age’ of radio, the most popular were the Fireside Chats of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His Fireside Chats were a time when the President would address the nation, informally, talking to the nation about the challenges ahead. Of course, it was the Great Depression and the challenges were great. So the President would call the nation to perseverance and seek to give people hope.
Well, we’re not in a great depression today. There is no fireplace up here and certainly I’m not the President but I have been asked to share a kind of fireside chat with you this morning, sharing with you the congregation, some of the challenges that lie ahead of us as a church; challenges that we are going to face in the next few months and years. I wanted us to focus briefly on four challenges this morning.
First of all, we are going to be financially challenged. We have financial challenges ahead of us. That should not discourage us. I mean, there is a sense in which we should be glad that we are financially challenged.
Now, about five years ago, Barb and I traveled to Turkey to see the ruins of what Bible theologians have called “The Seven Churches of Asia.” The seven churches that are mentioned in the Book of Revelation: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. So we traveled to see the ruins of these once-great cities and to see the ruins of these once-great churches. Of course, they’re all in ruins. The churches and the cities vary considerably. In some of the cities you could see some crosses on the ground, marbled crosses, or you can see an ichthus carved here or an ichthus carved there, indications of the early church. In other cities you couldn’t find any evidence of the church that was once there because some of the churches have not yet been excavated and they’re still under the ground.
But you see, there’s one thing that all seven of those churches have in common: they have not had a financial problem in hundreds and hundreds of years. You see, that’s how it is. Those churches are dead and buried. They are not financially challenged anymore. Isn’t that the way of life? This is true of individuals. This is true of churches. We only have financial challenges while we live.
Some of you are very much challenged financially today but it’s because you’re alive. There’s a sense of which all of us in this room have financial challenges today but it’s because we live. This church lives: Cherry Hills Community Church. We are very much alive and that is why we have financial challenges. We’ve always had financial challenges and I pray to God we always will.
Now I want to say; this church has been financially blessed. I mean, we have been blessed and many of you have been so very faithful. We can look at the last two years and we can see God’s provision. In the last two years, each year in the aggregate, this congregation has given more than $6 million to the ministry of Jesus Christ, $6 million a year. This is only true of a handful of churches in the United States of America and we have been blessed. But you see, we want to do great things for God. We want to do great things for Jesus Christ and that’s why we have such financial challenges. Our operating budget is about $4 million. The likelihood is when we get in our new church home down in Highlands Ranch that the operating budget as the years go by will grow. It is also true that here in this building we’ve paid $330,000 a year on the building payment but when we get down there to our new church home our annual building payment will be over $1 million a year. These are financial challenges. We want you to be aware of this.
Perhaps you’re sitting there thinking “Well if we grow down there, won’t most of those financial challenges be met by the new people?” Well, we hope so. Of course, God knows our future but we want you to understand we’re going to have some problems just accommodating the new people because we not only have financial problems, financial challenges, but we also have facility challenges. When we get down there, we are going to have facility challenges and we want you to know it.
There’s going to be, in the sanctuary, it’s not going to be entirely done. The downstairs of the sanctuary will be completed when we arrive for our first worship service down there next month. The balcony won’t be completed. We won’t be able to complete the balcony until we have the money to do so. Also, when we get down there to our new church home we’re not going to have a fellowship hall. We want you to know that. Don’t be surprised. Of course, here you can go downstairs and you can see a fellowship hall downstairs. We’re not going to have a fellowship hall down there. However, God has blessed us with an absolutely beautiful lobby and that lobby is actually larger than our fellowship hall downstairs now and we’re going to have our Bible Study groups, both men’s and women’s, in the lobby. The lobby will serve as a kind of fellowship hall. The lobby has spectacular mountain views and I really believe that someday when we do build a fellowship hall there’s going to be many groups that still want to meet in the lobby just because the lobby is so beautiful. But we want you to be aware of the fact that we’re not going to have a fellowship hall when we first arrive in our new home.
Also, we want you to be aware that we don’t have adult education space down at the new church home. Of course, that has been true here and those of you who have been taking adult education classes at this church have been getting in buses and you’ve been going over to Denver Seminary where we’ve had our adult education classes on Sunday morning. Well, guess what? It’s going to be somewhat similar down in Highlands Ranch but God has blessed us with some additional space at Highlands Ranch High School. This really is miraculous because other churches have tried to get space at Highlands Ranch High School but could not, but God gave us a window of opportunity and we’ve been able to sign a contract with Highlands Ranch High School. We have access to some of their classrooms and some of their larger areas and we’re going to be conducting adult education right there at Highlands Ranch High School, which is very close to where our new church home will be. On good weather days people can just walk over and we’ll probably be running shuttles as well. We want you to understand that we really do not have adult education space on site at the new facility.
Now of course, we have plenty of parking. We have a little over 500 parking places on site here and you all know that’s woefully too little. But when we get down there, we’ll have almost 2,000 parking places and we praise God for that. However, we want you to understand that it’s still going to take time to get in and out of the lots. You just can’t move 2,000 cars in and out of a parking lot without it taking time and we’re going to need patience. We’re a nation, I think, that struggles with patience. I think in other nations people are used to having to wait for things.
I’m reminded of a story I read recently about a man in Russia who, with the new capitalism, made a great deal of money. He went to buy a new car. He went to the car dealership; he described the car he wanted and the car salesman said “No problem. We can get that car for you, but it will be June 17, 1998.” This Russian citizen who was wanting to buy the car said “Well, will that be morning or afternoon?” The salesman said “Well, you’re just lucky to be getting a car. With the socioeconomic conditions in Russia today, many people can’t get cars and June 17, 1998 is more than three years away. Why do you care whether it’s morning or afternoon?” This Russian man who was wanting to buy the car said “Well, because the plumbers corning in the morning.”
I think obviously there’s a bit of an exaggeration there but it is true that in other countries people struggle having to wait for things and I think we live in a country where we want things quick and it’s difficult to learn patience. The Bible speaks of “hupomone” which is one of the words for patience and “makrothumia” which is another word for patience. It’s a godly virtue. Christians need it. We’re going to need it down at the new church site. We’re going to need a lot of patience with the facility. It’s wonderful. We are so grateful and thankful but it doesn’t have everything that we would like to have. The Youth Center, the Family Life Center, the Chapel; those things are down the road so we’re going to be not only financially challenged but we’re going to be facility challenged as well.
We also want you to know that we’re going to be in these months and years ahead ministerially challenged. We have tremendous ministry challenges ahead of us. We don’t have enough ministers in this church. That’s what this Stephen Ministry video that you just saw this morning was all about. We need more ministers in this church. We just don’t have the money to hire enough vocational full-time paid ministers. We need the lay ministry to rise up in this church. We need lay people, men and women who are members of this church, to come forward in ministry. We want every member of this church to understand that Christ has called you to be a minister and we desperately need more men and women who are willing to be Stephen Ministers that we might weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice, that we might come alongside the members of our congregation, the people who Christ sends to our church, that we might come alongside them for ministry’s sake. We need your help. I thank God for every man and woman who is a Stephen Minister in this church and have gone through those 50 hours of training. What a tremendous privilege and what a great responsibility and we need more. Every single one of our Stephen Ministers are on assignment. None of them are just sitting around. Every single one of them are on assignment and we need additional people.
We look at the future of our church and the ministry needs. We need volunteers: for Stephen Ministers, Sunday School teachers, and for Cell Group leaders. We need volunteers in many areas but these three areas. I mean, unless we have Sunday School teachers, we can’t minister to our kids. Unless we have Cell Group leaders, we’ll never have the sense of community that a church like ours needs to have, that all churches need to have. Unless we have Stephen Ministers, we’re not going to be able to reach out with the love of Christ to the needs of people in our congregation as we should. So, you know, I think of that passage where Jesus Christ looked out on the fields and said to the disciples, “The fields are white and ready for harvest, but the laborers are few. Pray the Lord of the Harvest to send more laborers into His field.” That’s what we need as a church as we look to the future; more laborers in the field because the fields are white for harvest. We need more ministers. We need every member to become a minister.
We are not only ministerially challenged but finally, spiritually challenged. Financially, facility challenged, ministerially challenged, and then also we’re spiritually challenged. As we look to the future, we can count on the fact that there is going to be a certain amount of spiritual warfare taking place in our midst. If you read 2 Corinthians, chapter 12, the Apostle Paul describes the thorn in the flesh that he has. Theologians have debated for much time just exactly what that thorn in the flesh was that Paul had. Some say that maybe Paul was suffering from blindness. Some say that maybe it was a speech impediment. The truth is no one knows. We don’t know whether that thorn in the flesh was some kind of a physical problem Paul was afflicted with or whether it was some other kind of problem but we do know this: Paul described the thorn in the flesh as “a messenger of Satan to harass him” and we can count on that. I mean, we can count on the harassment of the fallen powers of darkness because there is a spiritual war that is going on in this world for the souls of men and women. We don’t need to be afraid. We don’t need to be afraid because “He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world.” We don’t need to be afraid because our Lord Jesus Christ said to the Apostle Paul, when three times he prayed that this thorn in the flesh, that this messenger of Satan might be removed, Jesus Christ simply said “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in your weakness.”
This we know as we look at our future as a church. The grace of Jesus Christ is going to be sufficient for us and His strength will be made perfect in our weakness and we don’t need to fear. So we look at these challenges, the financial challenges, the facility challenges, the ministry challenges, even the spiritual challenges and the spiritual warfare in which we are engaged. God wants us to have faith. He wants us to be a congregation with faith, a people of faith.
You can look at the book of Numbers in the 13th and 14th chapters and you can read about the twelve spies that were sent into Canaan by Moses and Aaron. They were sent into Canaan to check out the land, the promised land, the new homeland that they were called by God to possess. Those twelve came back to give their report. They came to the wilderness of Paran in the region of Kadesh and they gave their report. They said “It is indeed a land flowing with milk and honey. It’s truly a promised land but there are a lot of problems, challenges. The cities are big and they are well fortified, fortress cities. Not only are the cities big but the people are big. They look like descendants of the Nephilim and the Anakim. They look like giants and we were grasshoppers in their sight.” Ten of the spies said “The challenges are too great. We can’t possess the land.” But two stood up, Joshua and Caleb, and they said “The challenges are not too great. God has called us to possess the land and He will provide for us and He will enable us.” The Bible tells us that when ultimately and finally the children of Israel occupied the land, the promised land, the new homeland, God gave a special blessing to the families of Joshua and Caleb because they had had faith in the midst of the challenges.
That’s what God wants for us. Faith in the midst of the challenges. Not only does He want us to have faith but He wants us to be faithful. If we are faithful, we’ll have His blessings. His faithfulness is not in question. Our future is bright if we are faithful. I mean, that’s what our passage of scripture tells us today.
I believe the message to our church is really contained in that message that God gave to the children of Israel as they were about to cross the Jordan and enter their new homeland. When scripture states “See that I have set before you life and death, prosperity and destruction. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God as I have commanded you this day, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in His ways, by keeping His commandments, His ordinances, and His statues, then you will live and multiply and you will be blessed by the Lord your God in the land which you are entering for the possession of it. But if your heart turns away, if you will not hear, if you turn away to worship other gods and serve them, then I declare to you this day that you shall perish and you will not live long in the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to enter and possess. For I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life that you might live loving, that you and your descendants might live, you and your children, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, cleaving to Him for that means life for you and length of days that you might dwell, remain, stay in the land which the Lord swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.”
He offers us life, blessing, prosperity if we would have faith and if we would be faithful. Let’s look to the Lord for a word of prayer.