“On Any Given Sunday”

Acts 2:42-47
September 23, 2007

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Andrew Fleming

I don’t mind telling you that a pastor has to be careful when he’s preaching a sermon on the second of the commitments that we made or will make when we join our beloved St. Paul United Methodist Church. It is the commitment of being here, the promise of our presence. The promise we made when we joined was to show up and to be a part of this Christian community.

The reason that the preacher has to be careful is that pretty much when you preach this sermon, you’re preaching to the choir, to the people who are here week in and week out, Sunday in and Sunday out.

Our church software program gives us the ability to track attendance. We can look at it a month at a time, three months at a time, a year at a time, two years at a time, and three years at a time. The program puts attendance figures in a pie chart. The color green means that you are here. Red means you missed a Sunday. Most of you here today have green all over your attendance records. I want you to know how much I appreciate how you are fulfilling your commitment to be here.

So a pastor has to be careful preaching on a day like today. But today I do want to talk with you about why our attendance s so important.

There is an old preacher's joke that is told from time to time. I heard it again just the other day. It’s the one where a man was leaving a worship service one Sunday morning. The minister pulled him aside and he said to him, “Brother, you need to join the Army of the Lord!”

The man replied, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, pastor.” The pastor was puzzled and so he asked, “Well, then why do I only see you on Christmas and Easter?” The man put a finger up to his mouth and said, “Shhh, I’m in the secret service.”

Compare that to the story that John Ed Mathison tells about an ice storm that came through his town of Montgomery, Alabama, where he has been the pastor at Frazier Memorial United Methodist Church for thirty-four years. The storm came in on Friday and most of the churches decided they would not have worship services that weekend. His church decided to have their worship services. Their thought was that if people wanted to come, they would. They decided to take the chance just in case the weather wasn’t too severe.

John Ed tells that he arrived at the church early that icy morning. Ice was everywhere. The staff helped to get things ready and soon people began to show up. One of them was one of their older members and her preacher said, “Miss Lucille, I didn’t expect to see you here today.”

She asked, "Why?" Her pastor said, “It’s just so icy, and you have to have someone drive you, so I thought you’d decide not to come today." Listen to what she said. “John Ed, I didn’t decide this morning to come today. If I had waited until this morning to decide, I wouldn’t have come. It’s too cold. But you see, I decided last November when I turned in my commitment card that I would be here forty-eight Sundays. I know what four Sundays I’m going to be out of town, and this isn’t one of them. I decided last November that I’d be here this Sunday in February.”

Our commitment cards during the past couple of years have asked you to commit to attend worship services regularly. In fact, it’s asked how many you will attend in a given year. Many would mark four times a month or three times a month. This year’s card will simply ask you to mark that you will attend worship services regularly.

Here at St. Paul our worship attendance is running an average of 235 as of last Sunday. Last year the number was 242 and the year before that it was 245. I would really like for us to head in the other direction, higher not lower. Our church membership hovers right around the 460 mark so that means on any given Sunday, a little over half of our family is here.

Here is something I want you to understand. The church is not the same when you are not here. We all miss something when we’re not here, but just as important as that, the church misses you, too. One of the things I hope for us is that you won’t come here because you have to. I hope you will come to church not out of a sense of religious duty, but because you want to.

And now let me make my confession. You may remember that I’ve said this before. There are some Sundays that if I were not the pastor I might want to stay home. There are weekends I’d like to head out to the lake or just sleep in. It’s okay to feel that way and to do that from time to time but when we join the church, this church, we promise to be present.

Let's look at the way another church does it. Maybe you have heard about the church that is growing by leaps and bounds. Thousands are joining the church each and every year. This particular church dedicates itself to the teachings of the Bible and to fellowship events at the church. This particular church has communion during its worship services and has a time of prayer at every meeting they have. Besides all of that, this church pools all of its resources together, they share with each other. When someone comes around needing help they always help. They pay utility bills and offer any kind of assistance, without fail. But that’s not all. They spend a lot of time together at the church. Their average worship attendance is pretty great. In their souls, they have glad and generous hearts. They praise God and hope the best for everyone. I do not mind telling you that that is a good church.

Did you recognize it? It’s the church that Luke described in our lesson for this morning. Just after the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came and rushed through the city of Jerusalem and changed just about everyone, the church was born. There was a lot of confusion in the air. No one really knew what had just happened. Simon Peter understood it. This is the same Simon Peter who Jesus said would build His church and that nothing could stand against it. This same Simon Peter stood up, explained things, and preached. At the end of the sermon, many in the crowd asked, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter simply said, “Repent and be baptized.” By the time we arrived at our lesson for today, just four short verses later, the church is meeting together. They don’t have a building yet, but they have a spirit about them and a connection with one another. They are listening to the apostles’ teachings, breaking bread together, sharing their resources together. They are also wondering what they are going to do with all of the people who are showing up to be a part of the church.

I have to wonder if it was really like that or was Luke hoping when he wrote his gospel some forty years later that one day it would be like that. I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that Luke paints a picture of a wonderful church and one of the things they did was to worship together. Worship, you see, is the heartbeat of any congregation. And it is what I would like to talk with you about today. I want you to go home with three reasons why I think your worship is important.

First, worship means taking the time. Luke writes, "Day by day they spent much time in the temple together." Beloved you should know that the outside world is watching us. They are paying attention to us and how serious we are and how committed we are to our church. They are watching to see if we are serious about our relationship with God.

I heard of a man named Ken whose life was out of order and out of sync. God had changed his life and he shared his story with his pastor. It seems that every year, his firm would send him and another man to Florida from Alabama for a weekend of golf. Ken always looked forward to the trip. It didn’t take him long, though, to figure out though that on Saturday evening the man he went with got in his car and went home. So he asked him, “Where did you go? Was there trouble at home?” The man said, “No.” So Ken asked him why he went home. The man said, “I go to church on Sundays.” Ken asked, “You mean you’d give up a day of golf in Florida on the company to go home to worship?” His friend said, “Yes that’s right. It’s that important to me.”

His friend’s commitment to his church had an impact on Ken’s life. He started thinking about how his friend was deeply committed to something. And it was through that example that Ken turned his life around.

And what about us? Is our commitment to the church strong enough that other people would take note of it? First, to worship is to take the time. It is important.

A second reason for faithful church attendance is that some other person may need your encouragement. You see, we don’t come to church by ourselves worship is a group activity. It’s hard to relate well to God if you’re not relating well with other people. Now listen to this. In a typical worship service, there are persons here who live with some kind of chronic pain. Just a friendly word from one of us can keep despair away from their door. In a typical worship service there are people here who have experienced the death of a loved one in the past month (maybe even in the past week). Others have the loss of a marriage. They may be wounded inside. They may be really hurting emotionally, perhaps even spiritually. A warm smile and a word of encouragement from one of you can help God with the healing. In a typical worship service, there are high school and college students here. They may look sleepy, but they are listening. All week long they have been immersed in an atmosphere where people tell them that God is not real and has no bearing in their lives. They come to church wondering if that is true. They come wondering if God can be trusted with their lives. They come and they see you here and they believe. Your just being here helps them to believe.

I conducted an unofficial poll this week in the office and I asked someone why coming to church was so important to them. I think they were trying to tell me what I wanted to hear. This someone said that they came to hear the sermon, that it helped them with their work week. I suggest it was the lesson and not the sermon that they have come to hear. I caught this member of our church off guard with my question. She saw me again and said, “And I come because of the fellowship. This is a friendly church.” I like hearing that. Countless surveys have revealed that first time visitors are most influenced not by the sermon, not by the music, but by the friendliness of the people or lack thereof. Keep doing what you are doing with your spirits.

I cannot tell you. They don’t make the words strong enough for me to tell you how important it is to me, as your pastor, to see you in worship. Let us pray.

(Special thanks to the writings of Rev. John Ed Mathison for the idea of this sermon and for a couple of the stories in it. I am using John Ed’s book, Treasures of the Transformed Life for some of our stewardship emphasis this fall).