Text: 2 Corinthians 8: 1-7

If I were to ask you to define yourself, what would you say? Who or what defines your life? Family is usually the first descriptor that comes to mind. We are defined by our families of origin and our family of residence. You are married, or single, or divorced, or engaged, or partnered or blended. You may be childless or child rearing or an empty-nester. Family defines you.

You are also defined by your work.  It’s one of the first things we ask. What do you do? You might be retired or a stay-at home dad or looking for work. Or like the old nursery rhyme you might be a tinker, tailor, beggar-man, thief, a doctor, lawyer, merchant, Indian chief. What you do, or don’t do, defines you.

There are lots of other things that define you. You are defined by your hobbies, your clothes, your car, your iPod, your friends, your home, your education and the groups and social networks that you are a part of. All of these things label who you are. They classify you, they describe you, and they present to others a definition of your life.  How are you defining yourself?  Who are you? By what or by whom do you define yourself?

I’m beginning a new sermon series that I hope will help you answer that question even as I ask that question about our congregation. Who are we? The sermon series is titled, 25/2 and over the next few weeks, I’m going to describe who we are as we begin a capital campaign to support who we are.  The logo for the campaign is the sermon series title, 25/2 and that becomes the starting place of our definition.  We are one church in two locations, hence the big two behind the 25.  Our mission is fulfilled in two locations.  There are lots of churches that can say that now. The multi-site movement is one of the fastest growing movements in the America. There are some 2,100 congregations in America that are one church in two locations, or one church in multiple locations. Sixty-five percent of the largest churches in America are multi-site congregations.

But we are more than one church in two locations. For twenty-five years, twenty-three of which were just one church in one location, we’ve grown.  If there is one word, one descriptor that we can use to talk about our congregation it is growth.  We are a growing church. As we celebrated our 25th anniversary last weekend, I shared that we started with six families and we are now well over 700 families. Our first year in 1985, our attendance averaged 26.  We now average over 1000 in 5 worship services. By anyone’s standard, that is significant growth and we continue to grow.

Some of our growth is biological. In the first four months of 2010, our congregation has welcomed 9 babies into our community and we have another 19 on the way. This year, we are going to have a record number of babies born in our church. We are also growing new Christians, welcoming students and adults who take Jesus as their personal Savior--60 professions of faith in the first four months of this year. Others are joining because they are invited by friends, discover us through Weekday Ministries family, or just drive by, see our vital ministry and visit.  We are growing with new members.  

Attendance is growing, membership is growing and so is our ministry to children and youth. With the opening of our second campus, our Weekday Ministry program has doubled as has our summer Vacation Bible School.  Over the past five years, we’ve developed a stronger youth program with a dedicated South Campus worship space and the recreational facilities of the north campus. Adults are also growing in faith and knowledge through programs like Bible 101 and our small group ministry.  If you ask anyone about Geist Christian Church, our identity is growing in size and number. Like the early church in Corinth, we “excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness and in love for Christ” (2 Corinthians 8: 7a).  But also like the Corinthian community, we need to excel in a generous undertaking and to do so, we will need to grow not numerically but spiritually. We need to become like the amazing Macedonians.

Macedonia is a special place in the early church, an area north of Greece. On his second missionary journey; Paul plants three churches at Philippi, Thessalonica and Berea and he visits them a second time on his third and final journey.  They are the first churches in Europe. The Macedonia of the Bible was swallowed up by the Ottoman Empire then later was part of Yugoslavia. With the fall of communism, Macedonia became a free standing nation in 1991. The area Paul visited and the area today has a striking similarity—poverty. Fifty-two percent of modern Macedonians live under the World Bank’s poverty line of $4.00 a day.  More than sixty percent of the nation is unemployed.[1]

It is a poor country today and it was very poor when Paul visited it. He described it as living under “a severe ordeal of affliction” and in “extreme poverty.” (2 Corinthians 8: 2).   Yet, despite their extreme poverty, when Paul asks for an offering for the church in Jerusalem, an offering desperately needed to relieve the stress on the church fathers, the Macedonians respond generously. There is no, “this is my church and that’s somebody else’s church in a different community.” There was no, “we don’t really know those people.”  There wasn’t even a hint of “we are gentiles and they are Jews. They aren’t like us and we aren’t like them.”

There was an understanding that they were one church and since there was a need, they had to respond. Paul says, “they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints”—(2 Corinthians 8:3-4a).

Corinth, on the other hand, had the opposite circumstances and an opposite response.  They were a wealthy community, one of the wealthiest communities in the world at that time. They had all sorts of economic ability. But even though they had the ability to support the offering, they weren’t willing to do so. We don’t know why.  Maybe they were using all of those excuses that the Macedonians didn’t use. Maybe they said, “We don’t know these people or we’ve got enough problems of our own.” Maybe they said, “Business isn’t as strong as it was a few years ago.”  Whatever their response, Paul perceives it as very inadequate, maybe even stingy. While the Macedonia churches are poor and give abundantly, the Corinthian church is wealthy and they hardly give.  How does that happen? What’s the difference?  It is all about how they identify themselves. The Corinthians’ identity is about what they have, not what they give away and while they have a lot, the one important thing that it appears that they don’t have is a fully committed relationship with Jesus. At the very least, they aren’t growing closer to Christ.

Look again at these amazing Macedonians and the way Paul says they respond. “ …they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means. (2 Corinthians 8: 3). Paul said they gave beyond what he expected, maybe beyond what he thought they should give. Then he adds, “…they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us.”  (2 Corinthians 8: 5b)  Do you see the image here?  They didn’t just open their wallets and pull out a big bill. They gave themselves fully to the Lord and then, responded to the appeal. Their relationship with Christ was of first priority.

A couple of weeks ago, I led a workshop at a seminar on Faith and Giving. In the workshop, as I told the story of our church’s growth, from a church with just a few families to a large congregation with many families. I indicated that we were a growing church because we have growing Christians who are taught stewardship as a part of their spiritual development. When you take the membership class, you learn about giving. You learn that to grow in faith means to grow in your generosity to Christ and his church. You learn that we are called to tithe, give ten percent or more of our resources and that you are called to increase your giving by some percentage every year in a faithful activity towards that goal.

Now I know some of you are thinking: “Here we go again. All any church really wants is my money.” But of course, you know that’s really not true. Make no mistake, God does want your money, God expects your financial investment because it is an expression of your identity, a definition of you are.  But God really wants much more than that. God wants you to love him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and somehow I think that includes your wallet. God wants you to, like that Macedonians, “give yourself first to the Lord.”

The story is told about one of our missionaries in the 1950’s who came home on furlough from Africa. In those days, overseas missionaries regularly came back to the states to regain their health and to travel among our churches to tell about their ministries. This woman wanted to purchase a globe to carry with her so that she could show the churches where she had been serving. She went to a store and found a salesman to help her. After looking at several choices, she asked if he had any globes which could be illuminated. He looked at her drab clothing and shabby demeanor and said “Lady, you couldn’t afford it. Those globes are much more expensive.” She fixed him with her missionary teacher’s stare and said sharply “I know, young man. A lighted world always costs more.”

This is what the Macedonians knew and the Corinthians forgot. A lighted world always costs more. Someone came and gave, to light the way for you. Now you are called to decide if you will help light the way for others. This is a time of real testing, both for you and for our church. We need a faithful response to this campaign in order to sustain our congregation, to continue our growing ministry.  Are you growing in your faith?  Are you giving yourself fully to Christ?  How are you defined?

We are a growing church with a growing mission. If you are a growing Christian, you know that your faith journey requires you to respond. Yes, the church needs your support. But the reality is that you need to be a part of this because it will help your faith to grow. There is no greater joy than helping someone else discover the love of Christ which you have found. Be a Macedonian. Begin praying today, asking God what you should do to respond, to light the way for others, as it has been lighted for you.