Sermon: “The World is Changing. Will the Church Change with it?”

Scripture:  Revelation 21:1-5a

1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

Sermon:  “The World is Changing.  Will the Church Change with it?”

Several years ago on a Sunday morning, in a church I was serving, I talked about reasons why people come to church.  I don’t remember all that I said, but I know that I focused on coming to church to experience the healing presence of God, who comforts and cares for us.  After that service, a member of the church came up to me and said something I will never forget.  I don’t remember his exact words, but the gist of it was this, “Comfort and care are not the main reasons I come to church.  I come to be challenged by God’s Spirit into new ways of thinking and acting-- and responding to the changes in the world.” 

 “Wow!”  I remember thinking.  And, then later I asked myself this question:  “Is my way of preaching and leading worship making enough room for God to lovingly challenge the status quo?”   

This book, Weird Church, by Beth Ann Estock and Paul Nixon, can help us do just that.  I will be preaching a sermon series on this book over the summer.  The descriptions and stories and examples in this book make room for God’s Spirit to challenge us--the church-- how to better respond to changes in our world.  And let me be clear from the beginning--the church isn’t called by God to respond to change only so we can keep an institution going.  We are challenged by God’s Spirit to better respond to change so that we can be faithful in experiencing and proclaiming the message that Jesus preached and lived.

And that message, in a nutshell, is found in today’s scripture from the last Book in the Bible, the Book of Revelation.  In this Book, the writer, known as  “John the Elder” a Jewish Christian possibly from the city of Ephesus, poetically describes the vision he received from God.  It is a hopeful vision given by God to the church that was going through a time of conflict in the first century A.D.  It is a vision that gives hope and reminds the people that the brutal aspects of the Roman empire-- the painful things of this world-- will not have the last word.  God will.  God is in the process of creating a NEW heaven and NEW earth, which verse 3 describes like this. 

Verse 3:      “See, the home of God is among mortals.
God will dwell with them;
they will be God’s peoples,
and God himself will be with them;

“God himself will be with them.”  God is with them and us. We human beings are not left alone or destitute.  There is a power stronger stronger than the destructive forces at work in the world.  There is a power stronger than death.  And that power is the Love of God, who like a caring parent, hears us when we cry, takes us in her arms, and tenderly wipes away every tear from our eyes. 

This is the God the Scriptures point us to--and the God whose Love we are to proclaim and share with our world.  The God whose Love and Grace, Forgiveness and Justice has the power to transform lives.

But the problem is, our world is changing, and some of the ways we used to experience, share and proclaim God’s Love no longer work, at least not for a majority of people.  So this book--and God’s Spirit--challenge us to find new ways to experience, proclaim and share the Love of God--because we still have a message that people need to hear, but they can’t hear it if we keep saying it the same old ways.

This book starts off in the introduction giving us framework for understanding the social changes happening in our world that “are driving the North American decline of organized religion.” (Weird Church, p. ix).  The framework is called Spiral Dynamics, and it describes the cultural and social evolution of human beings over time--both of the human race as a whole, and of individual human beings.  The basic premise of this Spiral Dynamics framework is that as “the conditions of existence change,” we human beings “change our psychology and rules for living to adapt to these new conditions.”

I know I’m giving you a lot of information here, but I ask you to bear with me, because understanding this framework of social change is necessary in order to understand how we in the church can positively respond to the changes happening around us. 

The framework consists of 8 different “value systems,” each one created by human beings in response to their living conditions at the time.  In this framework, the human race started out in the first “value system,” and then evolved into the next one.  Also, as individual human beings, every one of us starts out in the first value system as a baby, and then we move along into the next one as our living conditions change.  Depending on how our conditions change, we may move back and forth among value systems.  And although the general movement is from one value system to the next one in line, it is important to note that one is not necessarily better than the other, each one can be a faithful response to the conditions people find themselves in.  And, to quote Estock and Nixon, “Each of these value systems can be expressed in both healthy and unhealthy ways.” 

So, drawing on this book, let me give a brief, verbal snapshot of each value system, noting that each system is assigned a color to make it easy to refer to them.  People who are present in person today have received a detailed summary sheet they can refer to throughout this series.  That sheet will be available on-line this coming week.  People watching via the internet will see summary slides--with pictures!-- as I talk. 

[SHARE CAVE MAN SLIDE] First value system is Beige.  It literally dates back to the Stone Age and is best described as a “survival mentality.  All humans begin at this stage at birth and can revert to this stage through illness or catastrophic disasters.” (p. x)

[PURPLE SLIDE] Second value system is Purple.  Purple is a “self-sacrificing value system” that arose when people banded together in tribes.  It is characterized by “allegiance to the chief, elders, ancestors, and clan.”  Story, myth, ritual and superstition were the ways people found meaning in life and explained what they could not understand.  “The primordial stories in the early part of the Book of Genesis originated in a purple context.”  One place we see the purple value system displayed in our world today is when people feel it would be disloyal to God if they chose to believe the Scientific Theory of Evolution rather than the literal interpretation of the Creation Story in the Bible (p. x)

[RED SLIDE] Third value system is Red.  Red arose as a reaction to the self-sacrificing mentality of Purple.  It is an “ego-centric system” which--on the one hand--encourages the healthy expression of energy and creativity.  But, on the flip side, can encourage “dominating and aggressive” behavior.  Out in the world, we currently see this value system lived out in the behavior of two-year-olds, teenagers asserting their independence, gangs, contact sports, the mafia, and Mardi Gras. (p. x)  In the church, I bet we’ve all seen this value system lived out in healthy ways when teams of people are allowed to creatively run with a new idea for ministry--and unhealthy ways when a small group tries to dominate agendas and force through a change without considering other options. 

[BLUE SLIDE] Fourth value system is Blue.  In this system, “character and moral fiber [are built] as one sacrifices the self to a transcendent cause, truth, or righteous pathway…  With all blue systems, the ‘old and cherished ways’ are the only ways.”  Haven’t we all witnessed this dynamic at a church meeting at some point or other when a respected member of the church--someone who has given much of their time, talent and treasure--speaks out against a proposed change not because they have weighed all the pros and cons but only because “we’ve never done it that way before and so it will never work.”  

[ORGANGE SLIDE] Fifth value system is Orange.  “Orange shows up once blue stabilizes the world and brings order.”  The focus is on promoting individual “achievement and personal success…  This is a movement from the sacred to the secular, [and stresses] the conviction that societies prosper through reason and science.”   (p. xi)  The “self-help” movement grew out of this value system, and the life-coaching style of preaching arose in it as well.  (p. xi)

[GREEN SLIDE] The sixth value system is Green.  “Green came onboard as people began to question the affluence and excesses of orange.  Global warming, world peace, eliminating hunger, Black Lives Matter, and closing the gap between the “have’s” and the “have not’s” are important issues within this value system.  The focus moves back from the individual to the larger community.”  You may be noticing a pattern here--Each successive value system is a reaction to the one previous--the pendulum swinging between the poles of self-sacrifice and self-focus.   Many Millennials live out of a Green value system, “which is why they struggle with church organizations designed for folks with Blue and Orange sensibilities.” (p. xii)

[YELLOW SLIDE] The seventh value system is Yellow.  “Yellow is the first value system that can respect all the perspectives along the spiral as healthy and needed [depending on circumstances]… People operating in the yellow zone think and act from an inner-directed core…they are comfortable with paradox, taking ‘both/and’ perspectives.  They look to chaos as a gift that helps to leverage the potential for healthy change… You will know them by their capacity to think beyond the confines of politically regimented thinking or behavior.” (p. xii)

[TURQUOISE SLIDE] The eighth and final value system is Turquoise.  Turquoise “stands in awe of the cosmic order in which every person, species, and creature belongs… “ This value system works to get everyone-- on all sides of an issue-- to the same table to talk--literally (when groups are small) and figuratively (when they are not).  The people operating out of this value system--both in and outside the church-- aspire to “move beyond all the barriers of race, culture, and nation toward a global tribalism.” (p. xiii)

[STOP SHARE]

So, let me summarize:  in this Spiral Dynamics framework, there are 8 value systems, and each of us, depending on the circumstances in our lives, operates primarily out of one system, and we are most comfortable in that one system.  So when we bump into people or organizations operating primarily out of a different value system, it can feel very weird and unsettling.  In fact, the authors of this book point out that many of us feel very weird and unsettled much of the time these days--both in and outside the church-- because “this is the first time in history when all the colors of the spiral [--all the value systems--] are bumping into each other, creating cultural wars and political polarities around the globe.” (p. xiii)  In the words of these authors, the whole world is going through “an epic cultural shakeup.”  (p. xv)

Because of this shakeup, churches face great challenges in terms of how to minister to both our current members and the new people we want to reach--because different value systems require different types of ministry.  All that to say, we in churches need to learn how to adapt our ministry to the different value systems that are changing around us.   

This book--and this series of sermons I am preaching this summer-- will explore 7 significant ministry implications that flow from the ways the value systems are shifting around us--particularly those that are moving from blue to orange to green to yellow. 

Each chapter in the book--and each sermon--will describe a different cultural shift and a shift the church at large needs to make in ministry in order to continue to proclaim the Love of God in ways that can be heard.  May the God who continues to work to make “all things new” be with us as we explore these shifts.  And may we examine which shifts God is calling us to make in our own lives in order to travel with God into God’s vibrant future.

PRAYER

God, we trust that you are with us even now making “all things new” in our world.  Bless us as we encounter value systems that seem weird to us.  Help us to engage with people who operate out of systems different than ours, and help us learn from them.  Guide us into the future and help us to change in the ways you want us to so that your church may continue Jesus’ mission of Love in the world. 

Hear now our prayers for our community and our world…

- Moment of silence…lifting up in prayer those we hold in our hearts.. others in this room and in our livestream…  [PAUSE]

- O God, bless the sick… those who are struggling… those who are grieving…caregivers… Give them strength and healing….  In Jesus name, Amen

PLEASE JOIN ME IN THE LORD’S PRAYER

- Our Father, who art in heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name
Thy kingdom come 
Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven 
- Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts
As we forgive our debtors`
- And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil. 
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.  AMEN

Rev. Dr. Marlayna Schmidt

Franklin Federated Church

Franklin, MA