Many years ago a Soviet newspaper told the story of an architect who built a 12 story apartment building in Moscow. He forgot to include an elevator in the plans. A Soviet court of law charged him with negligence. The punishment was very fitting – they ordered him to live in one of the apartments on the 12th floor.
I tell you this because we are beginning today our month of preparation. We are preparing ourselves to plan for the next 20 years of ministry here at Mount Olive and we want to make sure that, unlike our soviet era friend, we do include the important things in our plans. We’re preparing this whole month and bit into next for the Strategic Ministry Plan that you voted to do earlier this year. This is the beginning, here, today, right now. We are now in the process of preparing to plan. We’re preparing to meet with someone who’s from the Lutheran church extension fund, lcef. They’re the people who put together the Strategic Ministry Planning seminars that we’re taking part in.
This may sound odd – this sermon title… preparing to meet a planner. After all, they’re the ones coming here and we expect them to show up prepared to meet us and to have a plan? Right? Wrong. And right also. We have a facilitator coming from lcef in Oct, but they’re not our Planner. Our Planner, scripture tells us today in Jeremiah already has His plan in place for us and we, this month, are preparing to meet Him; to meet with God about our plans for our future in this congregation. Look at the 2nd reading for today out of Jeremiah and read verse 11 with me please.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
We’re going to be meeting with God about our future for the next 20 years here. At the end of these meetings we’re going to have a guiding document that we will follow as what we understand to be God's direction for the ministry of this church. God’s ministry is our future. The growth of this church will depend on how we come before God together, with one heart, and together seek His will.
As we spend this month and the first part of next preparing for these meetings, picture this. If Gov. Arnold called you to the state capitol to have a meeting would you just show up and wing it? If President Bush, actually summoned you to a White House meeting to plan something, I mean if he really called you there, would you go and just do something off the cuff? I know sitting here removed from that powerful office and being insulated from its realities we can give light or flippant answer.
But…you’d find out what the meeting is about, why you were called and you’d prepare for that meeting. You’d prepare for that planning session. Because you’d realize that when you walked off the plane in DC and got into the limo and rode through those streets to 1600 Penn Ave; up through the gates, to that house, you’d recognize that you had better be ready for business. You’d prepare to go to that room for planning.
Well that’s what we are doing this month. We’re getting our hearts and minds prepared, focused and ready. In the Jeremiah reading we’re told that God knows the plans He has for us as we read. That’s a huge relief isn’t it? We know the One who knows what He has planned for us. The thing we’re called to do is; to seek Him. Notice it doesn’t say we’re to seek His plan, we’re to seek Him. (Again… Notice it…)
And it tells us how to do that. It gives us this direction; its out of verse 13. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. When you seek me with all your heart. It is God we are to prepare our hearts to meet with. He is the Planner that we’re meeting with when the facilitator gets here. She too is preparing for this and we need to be in prayer about seeking God with all our heart. To seek God is to set our hearts on Him alone and allow nothing else to interfere. (repeat) That’s why we need a month to prepare. We need to build that habit of setting our hearts to seek Him.
Never forget that He has first found us. He’s come to us in Jesus Christ and He’s showed us through the cross and resurrection that He has set His heart on us. We’re made righteous in Christ’s blood. It’s because of that, we can turn now and seek Him and we know that He will be found by us.
Remember when I asked you to think about meeting with the governator or the President. That’s simply government work. We’re preparing to meet and discuss God’s work here in this time and this place. We’re preparing for a meeting with the King of the Throne Room of heaven. That meeting deserves our time to prepare for it. And that means prayer. That means lots of prayer. Again going back to Jeremiah listen to verse 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
I’m going to do all I can in this month to prepare us for the meetings in Oct. But I cannot be the meetings in Oct. You’re the ones who have to prepare, by prayer, to show up to meet with God. Yes I’ll definitely be there, but you’re the ones who must show up, put up and give up. Let me explain that.
First, you must show up and be there. Don’t be like the village in France that wanted to welcome the new priest. The plan was for everyone to come to the feast and bring some of their own wine and add it to the cask for the celebration. One person though thought that if he brought only water and poured it in, no one would be the wiser since everyone else was going to show up and bring wine. So comes the feast day and the new priest opens up the spigot on the cask and out comes… right, water. Everyone decided it was up to the others to bring the wine. When we have these meetings, we all need to show up.
And when we do, we need to put up. We need to put before one another what we each honestly believe God is calling this congregation to in ministry for the next 20 years. To show up and not put forward what God has laid on your heart through this time of prayerful preparation is to keep the others of us from knowing what God may want us to consider.
And then when you do show up and put up then, and this’ll be hard, you must give up. You must give away what you put forward and let God speak through the congregation to do with it what God wants. It means putting all things in God’s hands and submitting to His will as it gets expressed through the congregation.
Some of you may be thinking, yeah they over there, they need to set this aside or that aside, and then I can get my plan through. Or you may be thinking, he can’t be talking about my plan, my plan is too important to the church simply to be given away and not used. Or some may be thinking, I wonder if what I think is important is even worth mentioning in light of other things I’ve heard. It all comes down to this. Where is our heart? Is our heart, in prayer, seeking out God? Or is our heart only for our own plan? Jeremiah today reminds us that we are to seek God with all our heart and not hold back our heart for what we think is best.
This 'giving up' is like becoming a pastor. A pastor has no choice in his first call. He goes where he’s called to go. He puts all he has into preparation in the years at seminary. He does that and then gives it up to God and goes where God points. Oh yes, there are discussions and prayers at the seminary and those are the things we are doing this month. We are preparing.
But even at that, there is still a giving over of everything to God’s will. God's will gets expressed through the church at large and by the congregations individually. You chose to call me here after my year of vicarage. And I accepted that as God’s will for all of us. Now you are being called to do that same thing. You are being called to put your hopes and dreams for this congregation into the mix and then give them up. And then with one heart set on God, we go where God leads us together.
Don’t think you won’t be changed by what comes out of this month of preparation nor by what comes out of the Strategic Ministry Plan. You will be changed by it. We are always changed when we encounter God through His word and prayer. The paradox and the wonder is, that when we focus on seeking Him, He changes us.
We are this month setting our hearts not on what God would have us do here and now, but we’re setting our hearts on God Himself. We’re preparing to hear from God and we expect Him to make the 'what' clear.
For now our hearts need to focus on Him and Him alone. So to that end, next week I’ll be handing out a devotional booklet. And for this week I’ve given you a handout to use throughout the month of preparation. It has great scripture to use in seeking God with all your heart. It has very good prayer topics to focus on so our hearts together focus on Him.
Prepare for God to show up and prepare to be changed by God. Seek Him and He will be found. He knows the plans He has for us, and that is exciting!
In His Most Holy name, Amen!