Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and Ephesians 4:22-24
Sermon from the Second Sunday after The Epiphany, January 19, 2025 by The Rev. Dennis W. Foust, PhD, Senior Minister
Some of you can identify with what I’m about to tell you. Some of you will not be able to relate. I am now receiving mail at the 30th address in my life. One day I will write my autobiography for our children and grandchildren. It will be entitled ‘Finding Home.’ On one move during my childhood, as our family car pulled away from the parsonage, I yelled, “Stop the car.” Dad stopped. I jumped out, ran to a bare spot in the yard and returned to the car with a piece of oak wood cut in the shape of Homeplate. I moved that ‘Home’ with me for the next three moves. I kept it in my closet. But eventually it disappeared. I lost that home. It wasn’t the only time that happened.
After Paula and I finished seminary, in 1988, we realized the Southern Baptist Convention was no longer Baptist. We both grew up as children of Baptist pastors. Our family roots grew five generations deep in Baptist soil. We have always known Baptist principles of freedom. We had just invested eleven years in university and seminary training to serve Baptist churches. We had lost our Baptist home. Yes, the autobiography will be called ‘Finding Home.’
In 1990, I was invited into a leadership role to help begin a new initiative based on Baptist principles. I was blessed to impact thousands of churches and hundreds of thousands of people for generations. That leadership role placed me in several decision-making situations that gave new life to Baptists. To this day, even with its limitations and imperfections, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship continues to offer me a home to express my discipleship through Baptist principles.
During the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, Paula and I were busy serving Baptist people and raising our children. Then, in the late 2000s, in my mid-fifties, as our youngest son finished college, I was ready to begin my last chapter of ministry. I prayed to serve a Baptist church where servant discipleship was expressed in inclusive ways through ecumenical, interfaith, and community partnerships. I prayed for God to lead me to a people who needed my experience and ministry gifts where we could share God’s compassionate salvation with all people. In early 2011, the conversation opened with St. John’s. And a few months later we moved to Charlotte finding home.
Consider all the changes you have experienced. As I reflect the many changes involved in thirty moves and fifty years of ministry resulting in me finding home, I cannot count all the blessings and graces. This I know, God has been with me during all these changes and I have come to realize CHANGE IS GOD’S GIFT.
The Preacher taught this truth in Ecclesiastes 3 > ‘Don’t get too attached to the way things are.’
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: In othere words, since the days of antiquity, spiritual leaders have see how CHANGE IS GOD’S GIFT. Whether birth, death, planting, reaping, killing, healing, breaking down, building up, weeping, laughing, mourning, dancing, throwing away, gathering, embracing, rejecting, seeking, losing, keeping, throwing away, tearing, sewing, being silent, speaking, loving, hating, warring, peacemaking – nothing stays the same very long. Life is complicated and change is constant.
This same truth is taught in Ephesians 4 > “You are supposed to change – “put away your former way of life, your old self… and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds…clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” Beloved, CHANGE IS GOD’S GIFT TO YOU!
You live in a changing world. This is a year of change in our church. I encourage you to embrace these changes as God’s gifts to you.
Some of you are familiar with the book, ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ It is a parable about change. Four characters (The mice – Sniff & Scurry and the Littlepeople – Hem & Haw), represent the simple and complex parts of ourselves trying to deal with the complications and challenges of change. In some moments, thoughts provide clarity and in other moments emotions cloud their view. So long as these mice and Littlepeople can follow the same path in the maze to get to their favorite type of cheese, all is well. But, when the situation changes, Hem & Haw begin to blame one another. It is a good story to help you consider how you are responding to change.
Some of you may be asking, “Who Moved My World?’ A recent issue of Charlotte Business Journal presents changes to expect in the Queen City during 2025: decreasing numbers of remote workers, and changing demographics. UNCC studies propose that metro Charlotte region will have a population of 4 million by 2050. A City employee told me this past week there are billions of dollars already allocated for future roads and highways around Charlotte. Change!
The Church in this nation is changing too. [STACK OF BOOKS]. Trends show that lower church income is creating aftershocks throughout the United States causing systemic changes. More churches will follow what we are doing to use church facilities in creative ways. Churches will decrease the number of ministries they can afford and part-time ministry roles will increase, They report 35 to 40% of church members have stopped attending with no plans to return. Because churches are shrinking in size, they now refer to large churches as having more than 250 members & suggest about 20,000 churches with fewer than 30 members will close in 2025.
These same Church researchers suggest churches focus on the foundational practices of prayer, service, scripture, and congregational care. They suggest we provide safe space for young families to connect with church. Parents have so much pressure. They want to provide a Christian foundation for their children, but most churches do not provide healthy opportunities. Churches need to partner and collaborate more ecumenically and with non-profit organizations. I refer to this as Affinity Networks. Members will be more interested in gathering for service projects than for educational groups. Connecting people through technology between Sundays will be extremely important. Churches will need to become seven-day-a-week churches rather than so much focus on Sundays. Members need to see their facilities as Ministry Centers rather than gathering places. Increasingly, members will give online and be present 25 to 30 Sundays a year.
While you may like or dislike these changes, you will have opportunities to deconstruct and reconstruct St. John’s for the future. This will require changes in order to Right-Size the life and ministries of the church for healthy mission going forward. Churches that do not change will die.
SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I WAS IN A PERSON’S OFFICE IN ATLANTA AND READ A SIGN ON THEIR WALL OFFERING THESE WORDS – “THINK SMALL. WE CAN DEAL WITH THAT.”
Beloved, THE MESSAGE OF JESUS IS NEEDED in our city and world. But people do not need small-thinking churches. People need churches like St. John’s to show the way forward with commitment, perseverance, and vision. AN EMPTY-HEARTED WORLD HAS NO NEED FOR AN EMPTY-HEARTED CHURCH. THE WAY OF JESUS IS WHAT WE MUST LIVE AS DISCIPLES OF JESUS.
Recently, we have seen the devastation of war destroy homes in Ukraine and Gaza; flooding destroy homes in Western North Carolina; and fire consume homes in Los Angeles. Millions of people around the world are trying to find home in this changing world. In scripture, ‘home’ is more than walls and a roof. Home is where identity, acceptance, belonging, safety, fellowship, and care are provided. Let us renew our commitments to be a church that provides a home for anyone expressing faith. And let us do so in ways that embrace change as God’s gift.
Amen and AMEN!