From Dread to Joy
Dr. Tony Hopkins; Pastor FBC Greenwood, SC; CBF of SC Coordinating Council Member
November 5, 2006
From Dread to Joy
1 Chronicles 21:18-26
This morning represents the fifth and final Sunday in our month-long emphasis related to our Renewing Hearts and Heritage campaign. Of course I have been very interested in what our church members have had to say about their experiences during the campaign process. If I tried to summarize our collective emotional and psychological journey, I would identify three stages: we have gone from dread to relief to joy.
When we first announced that we had to have a capital campaign– well, that tells how we felt, doesn’t it? Nobody said, “Oh boy, we get to have a capital campaign!” We said, “We have to have a capital campaign.” And we felt sort of a collective dread, or fear, about what the process would be like. Am I going to be bombarded with a lot of talk about money? Am I going to feel pressured, or coerced? Is somebody going to try to make me feel guilty?
As a pastor, I know that church members have these feelings, so I am always reluctant to preach about money. My reluctance is reinforced by the fact that I came along in ministry when we were hearing so much about Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert and Oral Roberts; so any time I speak of money at church, I have this fear that people will associate me with them. Do you remember the time Oral Roberts told his church and his television viewers that if they did not give so much money by a certain date, the Lord was going to “take him home”? To portray God as an extortionist, to suggest that if enough people did not come across with enough money, God will kill someone, is both obscene and ludicrous– a person doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. As I recall, I laughed at the time, partly because I like laughing better than crying; and partly because it did give the late night talk show hosts some good material.
In that same light-hearted spirit, someone did suggest a possible fundraising strategy for our capital campaign. I was given an installment of the comic strip “Kudzu,” by Doug Marlette. As the name “Kudzu” suggests, the setting for this comic strip is a rural community in the southern United States. The preacher at the little country church is a man named Will B. Dunn. In the first frame, he is standing in the pulpit and saying, “As you all know, the tornado that came through last week destroyed the parsonage.” In the second frame he says, “Until we can raise the funds to rebuild the parsonage, I will be living with some of you.” In the final frame, the preacher is holding an offering plate with money piled up about eighteen inches above the top of the plate. Someone suggested that if our campaign were not successful, I could threaten to move in with various church members, and that would probably really spur on the giving– which I have no doubt that it would.
Another possible fundraising strategy began to be discussed on the Sunday this summer when I preached about Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. Genesis 39 says that Joseph was “handsome and good looking,” apparently so attractive that the writer of Genesis felt the need to be redundant. That Sunday I said something like, “Joseph was handsome and suave and debonair; he was to Potiphar’s household staff what Kenny Standley is to our church staff.” Immediately after that service, Ron Davis said that the title should not be given to Kenny Standley outright without him, Ron, at least being given some consideration– and Ron is quite a dapper fellow. As it happened, Ron’s parents visited our church a couple of weeks later. I shared the story, and his mother completely agreed that he should be considered; and that perhaps he, Ron, should be given the title. So then somebody suggested that we might put out in the narthex a couple of large jars with pictures of Kenny and Ron, respectively, and allow church members to vote for, say, a dollar a vote. And then somebody said that perhaps there were other men in the church who should at least be considered. And then either Byron or Lou Hilley (I’m not sure which) suggested producing and selling a “Men of First Baptist Church” calendar– and that’s where I pulled the plug on this whole conversation. I said, “We have gone as far down this path as we are going to go.” I said last week that I am not authoritarian leader, but sometimes the senior pastor needs to put his or her foot down, and this was clearly one of those times.
Now why do I share all of that? Because it illustrates something about this journey we’ve been on. As I said a moment ago, we started with a sort of collective dread; but when I began to hear church members making jokes about the campaign, I knew that their fear was being changed to relief. One of our oldest, dearest, and most faithful members came out of a campaign meeting, looked at me, and said in utter sincerity, “Well, that wasn’t so bad.” The name of that feeling is relief, and I think many of us felt that. And I think there are two reasons for that. The first was the experience of the campaign; as we went through the process, we discovered that in fact we were not going to be harangued or coerced. The other reason is that the campaign steering committee did a great of communicating the most important truth related to this campaign. They were good communicators and educators, and they helped us understand that this campaign is a not an end in itself. It is a means to the end of fulfilling the mission God has given our church. Campaigns, budgets, dollars, facilities, and projects– they are all tools which we use to reach a goal; and the goal is to fulfill our God-given mission. As we collectively discerned during our Futuring process last year, we seek to have the heart of Jesus, and we seek to be the hands of Jesus as we do ministry in our community and our world.
When Carol and I were in the Furman Singers (lo, these years ago), we got to sing in some of the great cathedrals in England and France, including the cathedral at Chartres. There is an old story about traveler from Italy who visited Chartres while the cathedral was being built. Arriving at dusk, he went to the site just as the workers were leaving for home. He asked each of them what they did. One man replied that he was a stonemason, and he spent his days carving rocks. Another man said that he was a glassblower who spent his time making slabs of colored glass. Still another man replied that he was a blacksmith who pounded iron for a living. Wandering into the deepening gloom of the unfinished structure, the traveler came upon an older woman, armed with a broom, sweeping up the little pieces of stone and glass and iron from the day’s work. “What are you doing?” he asked. Looking up toward the magnificent arches, she replied, “Me? I’m building a cathedral for the Glory of the Almighty God!” She had a vision of something much larger than her individual contribution to it. At FirstBaptistChurch, we have a vision of fulfilling the mission God has given our church. We have a vision for seeking the heart of Jesus and being the hands of Jesus in this community. And whatever we contribute– our time, our money, our energy, our service, our spiritual gifts– we know that we are part of something much larger than ourselves. At the same time, knowing that we are part of something so great and important and magnificent brings us joy– which brings me to the final stage I spoke about.
I have had so many interesting conversations with church members during this campaign. One man made the insightful comment that trying to get people to give using guilt, or pressure, is not only unpleasant, but it is also ineffective. He said, “I don’t give in response to guilt, or obligation. I give out of gratitude.” He talked about how God’s love has been overwhelming to him; and how God’s grace has shaped everything about his life. He said, “I give in response to that.” To be so mindful of God’s love and grace that it births in us gratitude and generosity and joy– that’s a life worth living.
Our scripture says that these very things– gratitude and generosity and joy– could be found in the life of King David. David was the most beloved king in the history of Israel. He united the kingdom, established Jerusalem as its capital, and brought the ark of covenant there. And if it had been up to him, David also would have built God’s temple. But God says to David, “Because you have shed so much blood waging your wars, you will not build a house to my name; your son Solomon will build a house to my name” (see 22:8-11). David is disappointed but obedient. Of some consolation to him, I think, David is allowed to make preparations for building the temple (22:2-5), including purchasing the site on which the temple would be build. Under the direction of God’s messenger, David selects a site which is on the property of a Jebusite farmer named Ornan. David says to Ornan, “I want to buy part of your property, this high ground where your threshing floor is; I want to buy it at its full value.” Being a loyal subject, Ornan says, “If my lord the king finds this place pleasing, let him have it. Take the land and all that it is on it, and make an offering to the Lord.” But David says, “No, that wouldn’t be fair to you. Besides, if I offer to the Lord what is yours, then it’s not a gift from me. I will not offer to God that which costs me nothing.” David says, “I will not offer to God that in which I am not personally and genuinely invested.” You see, David knew the secret, that if he diminished his generosity, he would diminish his own joy. The world says that joy comes from getting and keeping and having and hoarding– but that is a description of the most miserable, miserly people I have ever known. But the most joyful people I have ever known understand that the joy of having is that we have something to give and to share; it means that we can be generous, as God has first been generous with us. Every time we give, every time we share, every time we serve, we are helping not only to build God’s house but also to build God’s kingdom.
At the very top of the list of what we want to give and share is God’s love. We have talked so much about the mission of our church, last year during the Futuring Process and this year during Renewing Hearts and Heritage– and it has been helpful– but on the most basic level, the mission of every church and the mission of every Christian is to share God’s love, to help people know and experience the love of God in Jesus Christ. At our leadership event ten days ago, I shared an illustration related to this truth; and several people whom I love and respect asked me to tell that story this morning as we prepare to bring our gifts to the cross.
Ken Chafin was my professor of preaching at Southern Seminary, but before that he was pastor of a church in Houston, Texas which had 12,000 resident members. Because of the size and prominence of that church and because of his giftedness as a speaker, Ken was invited to speak all over the country. He was on a radio talk show in New York City. The format was that he would have some time to talk, and then there would be a time of questions and dialogue with the audience. After Ken had spoken, a young woman in the audience raised her hand. Someone with a microphone went over to where she was, and she stood up on crutches with one leg in a cast. She said, “I’m seventeen years old. I came to New York when I was fifteen, and I became a prostitute at sixteen. My leg is in this cast because my pimp broke it. He said I wasn’t bringing in enough money. [She said,] I don’t know how I got into this mess, and I sure don’t know how I’m going to get out. But most of all, I don’t know how God could love a girl who has sold her body.”
Ken said, “I did the only thing I could do: I began to talk to her out of the gospel. I told her about Jesus and the woman at the well, Jesus and the woman caught in adultery, the Loving Father and the prodigal son. ‘This,’ I said, ‘is how God loves sinners.’” After the show was over, they put the young woman in touch with some civic authorities for her protection; and with a local church which would take her in and care for her spiritually and emotionally. Ken had gone out the back door of the studio and was getting into the car to go to the airport when someone came running out of the door calling, “Dr. Chafin! Dr. Chafin!” The man said there was a woman on the phone who was seventy years old, and she really wanted to talk to Ken. He went back in to take the call, and the woman said, “I was listening to your radio show today. Like that young woman you talked to, I became a prostitute here when I was sixteen years old. Fortunately, I had some friends who got me out of that very quickly. But for all of those years, in my heart, I haven’t really believed that God could love me. Listening to your broadcast today, I realized that it was not that God had not forgiven me; rather, I had not forgiven myself. Today, for the first time in fifty-four years, I felt the love of God in my heart, and I wanted you to know.”
This is why we do what we do, so that people can experience the great love of our God in Jesus Christ.