Sermon for Fall Polity Conference

Monday, October 5, 2009

Minneapolis Hilton

It is a privilege to be with you today. My name is Paul Moore, and I am the organizing

pastor for Chain of Lakes Church. We are a New Church Development in Blaine/Lino Lakes

sponsored by the Presbytery of Twin Cities Area. Blaine/Lino Lakes are two northern suburbs of

Minneapolis/St. Paul. If you stood on the boundary between the cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul

and went a little more than 20 miles straight north you would come to the cities of Blaine and

Lino Lakes. There’s no Presbyterian Church in this area. About 100,000 people live in our

geography without a Presbyterian presence.

I also want to say how thrilled I am to have my sister, Pam Prouty, participate in this

service. She’s always been quick to tell me what it is like to be the younger child of our family.

Let me brag on her. She’s the Stated Clerk of Minnesota Valleys Presbytery, on the city council

of Redwood Falls, Minnesota, is married to a Presbyterian pastor, is a Presbyterian pastor and

most importantly is the mother of three kids. AND she still claims me as her brother.

Allow me at the start to share a little about this adventure of starting a new church. I

started there in February with six families—four of them were unchurched. We have done a

number of events together. We started out with a Bible Study in a family’s home. In May we

did a series called “?Why.” I asked our folks to come up all the questions they have for God that

start with the word, why. We picked four and looked at them on a Sunday night. We did a

blessing of the Animals event in a park in June where I learned how to bless dogs without getting

my hand bit. We did a Vacation Bible School in August where the local Catholic Church gave

us their building for FREE to use. We had 13 kids come the first night and 16 the second night.

This past Wednesday night we started the Alpha Course. We were blown away by the turnout.

We had 38 people come—27 adults and 11 youth. All of us were amazed at the turnout. We had
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Monday, October 5, 2009
Minneapolis Hilton

rented a hotel room and we hardly had enough room to hold everyone. We will start weekly

worship later this fall.

I know that many people in our Presbytery and surrounding Presbyteries are excited to

have all of you back here for General Assembly next July. I’ve been told that Twin Cities is one

of the few places that has had the privilege of hosting more than one General Assemblies.

I am a life-long Presbyterian—who has lived almost my entire life in Minnesota. I love

the people of Minnesota—so much so that I make fun of them all the time. Since many of you

are coming back here next July for General Assembly I feel it is my Minnesota duty to clear up

some stereotypes about our state.

First of all we are not the land of 10,000 lakes—despite what you see on our license

plates. Does anyone know how many lakes we have in Minnesota? 11,842 lakes that are more

than 10 acres of land. After last weeks’ rain we might have more than 15,000 lakes. Second we

have more shoreline than California, Hawaii, and Florida combined. How many of you knew

that? Third I want to assure you despite what you think it has never snowed in Minnesota in

July. It is the only month that we haven’t received snow. There have been some unconfirmed

sightings of snow, (instead of looking for big foot we look for snow in July) but the climate web

site of the University of Minnesota says it’s never snowed in July in Minnesota. I am going to

go out on a limb and make a prediction. We won’t have to get out our snow blowers to celebrate

Independence Day.

The theme of next year’s General Assembly comes from John 7:38. The NRSV

translates the verse, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” This chapter

in John shares a wonderful story of Jesus speaking at the feast of Tabernacles or Booths.

Tabernacles was one of the three pilgrimage festivals in Jesus’ time. People built booths in
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Monday, October 5, 2009
Minneapolis Hilton

which they lived for seven days to celebrate the harvest. Then on the last and penultimate day

of Tabernacles Jesus cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who

believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of

living water’”

It’s helpful to know how important water was to the celebration of Tabernacles.

According to Raymond Brown on each of the seven mornings of the festival people went to the

fountain of Gihon on the southeast side of the temple hill. In the OT times this fountain was the

principal water supply for Jerusalem. At the fountain a priest filled a golden pitcher with water

as others recited Isaiah 12:3, “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. Then

this group walked up to the Temple. As they walked the crowd carried the symbols of

Tabernacles. In the right hand people carried the lulab, a bunch of myrtle and willow twigs tied

with palm; in the left hand the ethrog, which was a lemon as a sign of the harvest. When the

reached the altar inside the Temple they would wave their lulab and sing Psalm 118. The priest

would go up to the altar and pour the water into a silver funnel where it flowed into the ground.

Against this backdrop Jesus’ statement “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the

one who believes in me drink” has even more meaning. Jesus wasn’t talking about natural water,

the water we would find in one of Minnesota’s 11,842 lakes. This was living water. Out of the

believers heart (or if you translated that English word completely) out of the person’s guts (their

whole being) flows living water. This was a new teaching that contrasted so starkly to the ritual

of Tabernacles. Jesus offered something to people that the water in the fountain of Gihon could

not.

People have debated whether this water is the gift of eternal life or the gift of the Spirit.

Even though we Presbyterians like to debate I think we can all agree that we want people’s
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Monday, October 5, 2009
Minneapolis Hilton

hearts (their guts, their whole being) to be directed by Jesus Christ. As the theme of the

Assembly shares, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” He is our Lord

and Savior.

I have a question for us. If you take one thing out of this sermon (besides the three tidbits

of information about Minnesota) would you take a question with you? The question is this,

“how thirsty are you?” Of course I’m not talking about our thirst for H20. How thirsty are you

for this living water? How much passion do we as individuals have to become the people God

desires for us to be? How deeply do we want to grow as followers of Jesus Christ—to know

God with our mind, to love God with our heart, to serve God with our feet? How thirsty are we

for our church. How committed are we to build a church for the future? How deep is our

concern about how our children, and grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren will practice

faith as Presbyterians? How thirsty are you?

My Executive Presbyter, Chaz Ruark, asked me to preach this sermon. When he did so

he encouraged me to talk about the future and not bemoan our past. I have to agree with him that

it gets old hearing all the bad news about the PC(USA) Every year in the fall we hear about all

the losses we Presbyterians have suffered. Even the PCUSA web site told us recently about the

decline we’ve had since Reunion, which is an interesting term since those of us who are 45 &

under think a reunion is something we do with our classmates. We were teenagers when

Reunion happened. Every year it seems we have to go through this ritual of self-flagellation

about all the bad things regarding the PC(USA). I know that many people think that our glory

days are in the past.

Who dares to dream that our glory days are in the future? How thirsty are you?
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Monday, October 5, 2009
Minneapolis Hilton

I am pretty sure that the world is not sitting around waiting with bated breath to hear the

next piece of bad news about the PCUSA. I’m even fairly sure that they are not waiting around

to hear about our glorious past. But I am confident that the world is thirsting today for living

water, the spiritual reservoir that Jesus Christ offers us. How thirsty are you?

This past year we’ve had opportunities at Chain of Lakes to talk about our own thirst and

the thirst we see in the world. As I shared earlier I started at our New Church Development in

February. At my first meeting with these six families I said that the most important thing we do

this year is not to start worship (though that is important), but instead intentionally develop the

culture of our congregation. To do that we’ve worked on developing our Purpose Statement.

A Purpose Statement answers the question “Why do we exist?” It has four parts. One, a

Purpose Statement must come from God—it involves a lot of prayer. Two, a Purpose Statement

must be unique to a congregation’s setting. We don’t clone other church’s Purpose Statements.

Three, it must be inspiring—it touches something deep inside of us. Four, it must be easy to

remember. I told our folks that I want my 8-year old daughter, Hannah, to know our Purpose

Statement.

We spent three months developing our Purpose Statement. We started out by asking

people in our Presbytery to pray for us. We looked at other Purpose Statements; we did Bible

Study together. In May the leaders of our new church did the traditional Presbyterian thing and

went on a Saturday working Retreat. We spent a day talking about our dreams for our new

congregation, about our own thirst, and the needs we saw in the community. After a lot of

conversation we started writing Purpose Statements.

We came up with one that we liked. For the next month we shared our Purpose

Statement with as many people as we could in order to get feedback. We continued to pray
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Monday, October 5, 2009
Minneapolis Hilton

about it. We shared comments with each other via E-mail. Finally in June—after having started

this process in February—our Steering Committee worked through a few more issues and finally

we had it. Would you like to hear it?

Here it is:

We are called to be an authentic, Christian community where:

Strangers become friends

Friends become disciples
Disciples impact the world.

What was so interesting to me was the pushback we got from some of our unchurched

folks on using the word disciples. Some were concerned that people in the world would think

that we were going to be some Jim Jones cult. That we were going to ask people to give us their

minds and turn over their checkbooks.

But over time and with more conversation our folks got excited about what it means to be

a follower—a disciple, a person who is deeply thirsty for living water.

I just wonder what would happen if we Presbyterians were serious about developing

disciples who impact the world? If we as Presbyterians integrated the best practices of our

conservative friends and our liberal friends? If we seamlessly wove together the Great

Commission (making disciples) and the Great Commandment (loving our neighbor) into our

articulation of the gospel. If we were a community of people who impacted the world because

we see ourselves as disciples, followers of Jesus Christ. In our involvement in the world we live

out the Fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control. That we would live out the old campfire song—they would know

we are Christians by our love.

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Monday, October 5, 2009
Minneapolis Hilton

Friends the world is waiting for this type of disciple of Jesus Christ. A person who is just

as serious about fighting homelessness as they are about worshipping God.

This won’t happen unless living water flows out of us. So again, “How thirsty are you?”

It’s almost a miracle that we are starting a new church in the northern suburbs of the

Twin Cities. Even though there are 100,000 people living in this area with no Presbyterian

presence, many people wondered if we needed another Presbyterian Church. As our Presbytery

went through the process of deciding whether we would start a new church I heard people ask,

“Do we really need to spend all that money for another Presbyterian Church?

Do we need more Presbyterian churches?

I am as ecumenical a person as you will find. I’m married to a devout Catholic and we

attend Mass on Saturday afternoons (I attended Mass this past Saturday afternoon) and we

worship again at a Presbyterian church on Sundays.

Along with being ecumenical I’m a passionate Presbyterian. It’s part of my DNA. If I

cut open my arm I would bleed Presbyterian. Without reservation I say, “of course we need

Presbyterian churches.”

How many denominations support women pastors? If my sister had grown up in another

denomination God’s call to her to ordained ministry would have been blocked. How many

denominations have pastors and elders collaborating together to lead the congregation? How

many denominations have a track record of starting schools and hospitals and being part of the

movement to overcome racial discrimination? How many denominations have a history of

overseas mission? We had a couple from the Cameroon call our church office and say that they

wanted to be involved in our new church. When I visited them I asked them how they became

Presbyterians. They shared that they became Christians because of a Presbyterian missionary
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Monday, October 5, 2009
Minneapolis Hilton

who came to their village in the Cameroon. I certainly don’t need to remind folks at a

Presbyterian polity conference the benefits of our fluid form of government where power moves

both up and down. We have something special to share with the world.

How many denominations start from the place that God loves us. In August a tornado hit

Minneapolis. It was the first tornado that hit has hit Minneapolis in a long time. The Lutherans

were having their national assembly in this building at that time. The cross of the Lutheran

Church just down the street was damaged. Right after that happened a prominent, non-

Presbyterian pastor wrote on his blog that God sent the tornado to Minneapolis as a sign to the

Lutherans so that they would not ordain gays and lesbians. Are you kidding me? Of course gay

and lesbian ordination is a difficult issue with good people on both sides. Do we really believe

that God would purposefully and with no warning single out a group of people to punish them—

Lutherans? This is a very damaging theological concept. I wrote a lengthy response to this on

my own blog. I have no problems in cultivating a proper fear of the Lord, but to be afraid—of

the one who created us, who loves us, who has fabulous desires for our lives.

Friends, there is a huge need for a Presbyterian presence in the world.

How thirsty are you?

So today—let’s commit ourselves again to living water. May we without apology share

the gushing streams that reside in our hearts. Let’s look to the future with courage—and commit

ourselves to doing whatever it takes to share our unique witness. The world needs what we

Presbyterians have to offer. Let us go forth—determined to make and be disciples who make an

impact. And to let this living water gush from our heart.