Rejoicing & Content | Sunday, August 9, 2020

Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus... I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content... I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:2–13)

A mid-year update on a church learning to adapt, and a call to rejoice and rest content in every season.

Finding a Sweet Spot in a New Format

I've been trying to find a sweet spot in this new format of preaching over the last five months. I've preached to gathered groups of people for more than 20 years, and over that length of time you develop a pattern—an algorithm, if you will. But with our new online video format, with no immediate crowd response or feedback, I've been playing with it to figure it out. I hope and pray it has been landing correctly. We've made minor tweaks along the way.

I feel it is necessary to give you something of a state of the church address—a mid-year update—and to share something from the Scriptures as well.

COVID Fast-Tracked Trends Already in Motion

I'm convinced that church at home, due to the COVID-19 shutdown, has only forwarded trends that were already happening in business, culture, society, and the church. How far forward it has sent us remains to be seen, but let me explain.

My wife is bummed that the Nordstrom about ten minutes from our house has closed—the sign is gone, the building is dark, and it isn't coming back. But here's the fascinating thing: business statistics suggest that even with no COVID-19, by 2030 the sixteen stores Nordstrom is currently closing would probably have closed anyway. Nordstrom had already been downsizing its retail footprint in favor of online retail. COVID-19 just fast-tracked the execution.

Likewise, Amazon is delivering faster than ever. Drive by that old Nordstrom and you'll see dozens of Amazon Prime vans staged in the mall parking lot. Prior to COVID-19, Amazon had been purchasing distressed real estate at vacated malls to pre-position logistics and warehousing closer to customers. That was their five-to-ten-year plan; COVID-19 fast-tracked it. This is happening throughout society—in education, government, retail, health care, travel, and communication. And it's happening in churches too.

Why Change Feels So Unsettling

Some of these changes we don't like. We don't like change anyway, especially fast change. It is unsettling—it promotes a sort of future shock. If these changes happened slowly over ten years, we'd hardly recognize them until we looked back and said, "Remember when you had to drive to Nordstrom for your coffee? Now it just gets delivered to my house each morning by Uber—so much easier."

A lot of churches and pastors are working hard to get back to "normal" church, and that sounds pleasing to me as well. I like a lot of things about church as it was before COVID. But many leaders are forgetting a concerning trend we'd been watching since 2008—the year I became pastor of Cross Connection Church. There's been a clear trend in American Christianity: faithful members of churches go to church less faithfully.

A Generation Working More and Attending Less

That doesn't sound nice, but it's true, and you know it. If I weren't a pastor but a husband and father of four working 40 to 60 hours a week, often six days a week, I might be less faithful in attendance too. I'm not saying I like this trend—there are many trends I don't like—but whether I like it or not doesn't change its reality or direction.

For some of you who are baby boomers, this is where you get upset, because I made it generational. If you're 55 or older, you likely started raising a family and attending church in the 1980s, going two or three times a week, and you look at younger Gen Xers and millennials and wonder, "Where's your commitment?" But the trend from 2008 to about 2019 was a shift from attending two or three times a week to two or three times a month. Most people 18 to 45 came to church about three out of five Sundays—about 60 percent of the time.

After the economic downturn of 2008, many Americans saw increased work expectations. The idea of an eight-hour day and a 40-hour week has changed; many now work 45, 55, even 60-plus hours a week. With the advent of the smartphone in 2007, most workers are expected to be marginally on call even at home. I know people in our church who work six days a week, and if you have kids in sports, the demands on your time are excessive. That doesn't mean they aren't committed followers of Jesus—many of these people are deeply committed—but the demands make it impossible to be at church every Sunday, let alone three or four times a week.

Reading the Numbers Honestly

On an average Sunday at the end of 2019, we'd have about 570 people—adults, youth, and kids. But because of the new attendance patterns, our church, if everyone showed up, was really more like 900 people. And over the last five years the trend has shifted further: from three out of five Sundays toward two or fewer out of four—less than half the time. If you're a dual-income family working six days a week, Sunday becomes the only day off, the only day for birthday parties and taking care of the house. Even if you attend faithfully, with multiple kids there will be weeks when one of them has a cold or a fever and you can't come.

Why am I sharing all this? To identify a trend and to show you what we're doing and why. I've been watching this for a long time, and COVID-19 has fast-tracked every trend by as much as ten years. Most churches are unwilling and unable to rethink what they're doing. We won't change until the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of change—and many churches would rather stay the same and die. I've watched many churches close their doors over the last twelve years, often because they fought against cultural trends and refused to minister to the culture where it is.

How Cross Connection Already Chose to Change

Calvary Chapel of Escondido chose to change in a big way. We became Cross Connection Church—and it wasn't just a name change. It was a massive shift from offering services nearly every day or night of the week to church on Sundays with small groups in homes throughout the week, all in anticipation of the trend I saw coming. When I became pastor in 2008, the church had experienced a steep decline and was on a trend line toward dying. That changed because we changed how we minister to the community God called us to.

In this 2020 fast-forward, every American church has become a video multi-site church in the last twenty weeks, and all of you have grown accustomed to engaging in this format. That means even when we gather again on Sunday mornings, more of you will sometimes choose to stay home and watch online—maybe a couple of times a year, maybe once or twice a month. So even when I begin preaching again from the pub table at our facility, some of you will watch from home.

Reaching the Marketplace of the 21st Century

That's why we're investing in new equipment to focus our online venue. When we return to the church facility, we won't just live stream Sunday mornings—we'll produce a specific online service. Why? Because the marketplace of the world in the 21st century is entirely online. Two thousand years ago the early church grew as Paul and the apostles preached in the marketplaces of Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth, Rome, and Crete. If the church in our day is going to keep growing and reaching the culture, it will happen at our facility—but also on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the Google Play Store.

But church is not only preaching and teaching. The early church continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, but also in fellowship, the breaking of bread—both communion and hospitality—and in prayers. So I encourage you to help us grow not only in online teaching, but in fellowship, hospitality, prayer, and discipleship. We want to help you grow as a follower of Jesus, which is why Pastor Mark led 31 days of prayer in July, and why you can join the prayer team or host a small group through our website.

God Is on the Move

If you're feeling disconnected, I understand. This is not ideal, but it is life in August of 2020. Baseball is weird, the NBA and NFL are trying to figure things out, many of you are working from home, and your kids' education—like mine—is up in the air. It feels absurd. But is God working in the midst of this? Yes, He truly is. Don't despair. One day we will look back and say, "Remember all that craziness in 2020? God had a plan."

No church has completely figured this out. I'm happy with what we've done, but we're not there yet. I beg you to bear with us, pray for us, and connect with me or our leaders with your questions. With all of that, I want to close with something from the Scriptures—Philippians 4:2–13.

Let Your Gentleness Shine

Three quick things. First, Paul closes his letter exhorting two prominent women in the Philippian church who were at odds with one another—hard to believe that would ever happen in a church. One preacher referred to Euodia and Syntyche as "Odious" and "Soon-Touchy," and Paul challenges them to get over it and be like-minded.

Some of you are upset with someone in the church—maybe with me, because we're not meeting. Notice Paul says, "Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand." If you knew you were going to see Jesus today, would your beef with that other person really matter? Let your gentle, kind, courteous spirit shine so all can see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Rejoice in the Lord Always

Second, Paul writes, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice." Always means always. We don't rejoice only when things are going well; we rejoice at all times, because we have the proper eternal perspective. "The sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17). "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world" (John 16). A proper eternal perspective promotes present rejoicing.

Learning Contentment in the Valley

Third, Paul writes, "I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content... I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." You and nearly everyone you know are facing challenges right now, and our inclination is to whine, murmur, complain, and pout. Stop being a pout-pout fish. By Christ's strength we can and should learn contentment.

Years ago, going through a challenging time, a friend reminded me that there isn't much fruitfulness and growth on high mountaintops; growth is found in the valleys. She was right. Even in what the Bible calls the valley of Baca in Psalm 84—meaning bitterness, weeping, lamentation—we find springs and pools of refreshing water. Between Egypt and the Promised Land, between Babylon and the Promised Land, lies a harsh wilderness. You may be in the wilderness now, but an eternal perspective and the strength of the Lord can bring rejoicing and contentment.

A Verse in Its Context

I saw a t-shirt not long ago that read, "I can do all things through a verse taken out of context." We do take this verse out of context a lot. It means we can go through difficult times and still rejoice; we can bear with people when we're upset with them or bothered by them—and we do it by the strength the Lord gives, so that we can grow.

There have been times these last five months when I've been deeply discouraged—by our culture, by challenges in our community, by my kids' education. It has driven me before the Lord to confess wrong things in my own heart: frustration, anger. Scripture says, "Be angry, and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your wrath." So there are times we must go to the Lord and say, "God, forgive me."

God's Purpose in This Season

It's my hope that as we come out of this and into a new season, we will be a little more—maybe a lot more—like Jesus in how we respond and interact with people, seeing the fruit of the Spirit developed in us: love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control. God is using this challenging time not only to refine us, but to draw people to Himself. My prayer is that God would use it to bring revival, because the most important answer for our nation right now is Jesus Christ and the gospel—not new or better politicians, but new and better people transformed by the grace and power of God. The church has the answer this culture needs. On that point, would you pray with me?

Closing Prayer

Father, I thank You for this weird situation—sitting in my home office, sharing with the church. I don't think I've preached a message sitting down in twenty years. This is strange, this is out of the box, but I pray that You would use the work going on here at Cross Connection, and through the church body, to draw people to Yourself. Use Your Word by Your Holy Spirit to make us more like You, that those we interact with—family, co-workers, neighbors—would see Your transforming grace at work in our lives. Work in us, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

God, we thank You for this time. Pour out Your Spirit fresh and anew upon Your church. Fill us to overflowing as we move into the fall, as kids go back to school—even if that means a dining room table and a Zoom meeting. Give us grace. We pray for a resolution to all of this—for therapeutic medications, a vaccine, whatever it may be—or simply, Lord, cause the coronavirus to disappear. But more than that, help our society to recognize that we do not need to have a spirit of fear. For those whose only hope is this life, I understand their fear; may even that fear stir them to seek You, and may they find their hope in You and see it shining in Your church. Cause us to shine as lights in a dark world. And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.