Whatever It Takes (Vision Day 2013)

That's right. I'm glad you guys are applauding, because let's truly give God the glory for the things he has done through this church. Give God the glory. He's an amazing God. Hey, if you are visiting Twin Lakes Church for the first time today, I think you chose a great weekend. This is totally different from the way we normally do things during the message part. This is our annual Vision Day. This is a celebration of what has happened in the last year. You just saw some brief snapshots of this and about what's coming up in the next year and the next few years.

Today, what we're going to do is kind of open up the hood and take a look at the engine of this church. What makes us go? And for that matter, where are we going? And I want to start with a story. Now, this story is going to sound like a joke. But after extensive checking at Snopes and sites like that online, I discovered this is an actually true story. I read this week about a man in New York City who was kidnapped. Now, again, this is completely true. A guy in New York gets kidnapped, and his kidnappers call his wife and ask for a $100,000 ransom. And she talks them down to $30,000. True story.

Now, the story doesn't have a happy ending. The man returned home unharmed. The money was recovered. The kidnappers caught and sent to prison. But don't you wonder what happens when this guy gets home and discovers his wife got him back for a discount? How'd that conversation go? And what kind of guts does that wife have to have? Imagine the phone call she got from the kidnappers. I mean, yeah, hello? Oh, you have my husband. And you want $100,000 for him? Yeah, I want you to take a look at him right now. Are you looking at him? Yeah, OK. Are you kidding me? Give me a break here. $30,000, my top offer. Thank you.

You know, it's incredible. You'd like to think that if you had a loved one in danger, you would spare no expense to help, right? Well, I think you do. I think there are people that you love who actually are in danger, at risk, great risk. And if we love them, we will say, we will do whatever it takes to rescue you. Grab your message notes. Let's talk about doing whatever it takes today. And I want to start this out today with this question. Why do we do what we do as a church? Why do we do what we do the way we do it?

One of my all-time favorite verses of the Bible is Ephesians 3:18. The apostle Paul writes this. I'm going to put it on the screen. It's also in your notes. And I'd like us to all read this together as a church, all right? Read it with gusto. Let me hear you. "I pray that you may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." Do you know what I love about this? Of all the things that the apostle Paul could have possibly prayed for, this is what it all comes down to for him. This is the goal. This is the point that people might know, might experience, might grasp the awesomeness of how much God loves them.

And that is my prayer for you as your pastor. Because when you grasp that, if you really believe that, then everything changes. When you grasp that there is an infinite, unconditional love for you, that God sent Christ to forgive your sins and just let you soak in his never-ending love, that changes everything. That gives you a purpose for living. That gives you hope. That gives you vision. That means you know you're beloved. That means you can love others. That means you can forgive others. It completely changes and motivates you in every way to every cell of your being.

Now, my question is, how can we reflect that kind of love of Christ at TLC? Jesus has wide, long, high, deep love that he's shown us. So how can we just kind of beam that out to our community? Well, I want to talk about what we believe. This is one way to put our mission as a church as it relates to that verse. Jot this down in your notes. First, we believe we need to reach wide. Jesus reached wide. I mean, out to the sinners, right? And the prostitutes, the lepers, the poor, the hungry. And we need to reach wide too as a church.

This is exactly why we do the Second Harvest Food Drive, the Homeless Connect Day, Serve the Bay, People's Pantry, Recovery Ministries, because here's what we want to communicate when we reach wide. First, nobody's perfect, right? Nobody's perfect? This isn't a church full of perfect people. Man, we've all got a past, we've all got issues, nobody's perfect. And second, everyone's welcome. And third, anything's possible. When we reach wide, we communicate nobody's perfect, everyone's welcome, anything's possible for you.

Some of you here today barely dragged yourself to church today. You're going, oh, it's Vision Day, I don't have the energy to get out of bed, let alone have a vision. Well, you need to know, this is God's message for you today. Everyone is welcome here, right? Nobody's perfect, you're not perfect, but neither is anybody else in this room, and anything's possible in your life. We have seen this happen at this church in so many ways. I wanna show you something.

This past Wednesday, I was at a banquet downtown, and on your behalf, I accepted this. This is called the Heavyweight Trophy, and it's presented to the organization that does more to feed the hungry than any other organization in the entire county. And you received this Wednesday night as a church. Are you excited about this? This is something to be proud of, to God's glory, right? This is awesome. You did more than the County of Santa Cruz, more than the City of Santa Cruz, more than UCSC, more than Plantronics or Granite Bay. I mean, those are all great organizations, but it's wonderful to think that you guys did even more than that to feed the hungry.

That is awesome, but why is this important? Why are we feeding the hungry? Because when we do this, we are doing more than giving them food, we're giving them hope. I talked about this with the chief and deputy chief just a couple of minutes ago. A week ago Thursday, Santa Cruz saw something that we've never experienced before, and in some ways, I hope we never experience it again, the memorial service for the slain officers. That day, every email I got, every Facebook message I got, every last one was about the memorial.

Many of you told me that you were praying for me as I did that, and I appreciate that so much. Many of you expressed support and love for the SCPD and the families of the slain officers. Every single Facebook message, every single email, except for one, and it's this one. This is an email from a young woman named Missy who I've never met before, and she didn't say anything about the memorial or about the tragedy 'cause I don't think she even knew what was happening in the broader world because Missy's world is all about feeding her babies right now. That's what's obsessing her, as it should, and she wrote me last Thursday in the midst of all those other emails and Facebook messages, Pastor Renee, I just want you to know, your church pantry got my family through a week without groceries. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

We felt so blessed to have sandwiches, soup, beans, salad, and veggies, and such nice Christian people to greet us. Bless you and the work you do, the work you do. Now notice, she didn't say we felt so full. She didn't say we felt so fed. She said we felt so blessed. You see, when we reach wide with the love of Jesus Christ, you bring blessing, you bring hope, you begin to change people's lives. That's why this will always be of value. Jesus reaches wide, so we're gonna reach wide.

Second value, we believe we need to last long. I mean, what's the length of the love of God for you? The Bible says His love never fails, it never stops. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so we need to reflect that, and we need to say to SCPD, we need to say to the city, we need to say to the county, Twin Lakes Church is here for you for the duration. We're gonna just keep plugging away here, decade after decade after decade, serving Santa Cruz County in the name of Jesus Christ.

See, here's the influence equation. You wanna have influence in your life? Here's the equation. Proximity plus credibility equals influence. Do you get that? Proximity, that's the first point. Reach wide, be there. And credibility, that comes from being it in the long haul, equals influence. It was a pleasure for me to meet Chief Vogel last Thursday at the memorial, but I believe I was only invited to do that because of the credibility of the church, which comes from what? Years and years of the food drive. Project Homeless Connect, Serve the Bay, Angel Tree, on and on and on.

Conversations that you have with people when they find out you're at Twin Lakes, it's gonna be the same thing. I love this email I got from Rhonda. She said, "I always invite people to the Christmas concert. This year, several came because they saw TLC working at our school on Serve the Bay projects. The credibility and proximity lead to influence." So reach wide, last long, and aim high. Aim high. Don't just silo as a church, a holy huddle. All us good Christian people pointed the figure at that bad world out there and not doing anything but burying our talents. No, aim high, do big things for God.

Listen, Jesus Christ loves extravagantly, right? He fed the 5,000. He rose from the dead. And then he said to us, "You will do greater things than these." What that means is he's inviting us to aim high to have big God-sized goals. I mean, why do we as a church set our sights on let's raise a million meals for the poor? That's crazy, let's try it. Let's jam this place out to capacity over 10 services and have 17,000 people at Christmas. Let's be the major source of volunteers for Project Homeless Connect, all of which you did this past year.

Why do we have those kinds of big goals? Not to be a big church. You know, my goal for us as a pastor is never for us to be a quote unquote big church. But it is for us to be a great church. It's for us to be a great church, have great goals. And then what do you do? You just let God do whatever he wants. You know, through those goals, he'll change them and he'll fulfill them in ways you never experienced. But this is a principle for life. Man, go out there, aim high, invest your talents. Don't just bury them in the ground. Reach wide, last long, aim high, and teach deep.

You know, the love of Jesus is so deep, so amazing, and we wanna teach it. This is why the message here is never try harder. I hate that. When I go to church and basically it's what Craig Barnes calls a bad dog message, you know? Bad dog, you should be better, bad dog. And you feel like, oh, I should be better husband, but I should be a better this, that. And you'll leave with your tail between your legs 'cause you just been told bad dog for a half an hour. That's never our message. Our message is you are so loved by God and he has such an awesome purpose for you that he had planned before the creation of the world.

You get to luxuriate in his love, accept his forgiveness, and then go on and spread that love to other people. That's teaching deep. You know, when you teach the grace of God, you never reach the end of its depth because that's just this bottomless well of love from God. I love this letter I got after the Jesus journey last fall. I finally experienced that because of Jesus, God doesn't see my sin when he looks at me. For the first time, that's always been available. I just couldn't receive it before. I can't even describe the sense of freedom.

And some of you need to feel that freedom today. Somebody else wrote me, through these classes, I finally accepted God's grace. Jesus' love is overwhelming. The deep love of Jesus Christ. I think that these four things are our DNA right here. This has been the DNA of Twin Lakes Church for decades. You reach wide, last long, aim high, and teach deep. That's our mission. So what's our vision? If that's kind of what we wanna do, how does this apply to the future? What do we need to do now?

Well, I wanna make a public confession to you. Public confession is your pastor. I believe what I'm about to tell you, first of all, is really the key to the future of Twin Lakes Church, and the key to the future of our faith, and the key to the future of the Santa Cruz community. But I will make this confession to you. For years, I think I missed this. Really, almost totally. And now only at last now I'm starting to get it. Get what? I'll tell you in just a second. But I started getting it when I heard my friend Kurt Harlow tell me these stories.

Some of you have heard his list. I just wanna ask you what all these historical figures have in common. The first one, his name's William. William's 26 years old when a close friend shares his faith with him. Bill becomes a Christian. Almost immediately he gets the sense that, I've been born into a wealthy and well-connected family for one reason, to eliminate slavery. It is wrong. And his life becomes a crusade for this. The rest of the world tells him to sit down and shut up, but he stood up, and William Wilberforce becomes the main force behind the abolition of slavery in Great Britain and impacts the entire world.

Second case study, Amy. At the age of 17, Amy announces to her wealthy Scottish parents, guess what? I'm 17 years old and I am leaving home and I'm leaving Scotland and I'm leaving this continent and I'm moving to India to start an orphanage for the untouchables and the lepers. And her parents say, what? You're gonna be killed? There's riots against British people over there right now. Stay home, God can reach those people if he wants to. You're sick, you have neuralgia, this is crazy. And she goes, no, I'm going over there and to blend in a little bit better, I'm gonna dye my skin.

She literally does this. She dyes her skin with tea and coffee for the rest of her life so that she'll fit in better there, being Scottish, the only people on the planet paler than the Irish, so she decides she's gonna do this. Who is this? Amy Carmichael spends the next 55 years reaching out to the untouchables in India. Now finally, what about Kathy? At age 14, Kathy in London starts telling everybody who would listen that alcoholics are people too, that there is hope for them, that they can change. Now this is in an age when alcoholics were routinely shipped off to asylums and forgotten.

And she says, no, that's not right. And she even goes around and preaches in churches about this, and this is in an age when women were typically never allowed to preach, and they tried to stop her, except for one guy who said, I love what you're doing, let's get married and start this ministry together. And they started an army that is still changing the world today, the Salvation Army. This is Catherine Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army. Now, what do all these people have in common? Wilberforce decided on his goals at 26. Amy Carmichael was 17. Catherine Booth, 14. All teens or young adults when they decided to commit their lives to changing the world.

And this isn't like three carefully selected biographies. If you look at the great lives of so many people, the vast majority have the same exact story. In fact, every great spiritual revival in history started with 15 to 25 year olds. Every great political revolution in history started with 15 to 25 year olds. Why? Those are the years that human beings make most of their major life choices. I mean, worldview, political views, marriage, vocation, college, faith, it's mostly decided before you're in your mid-20s.

So what I'm saying is this, the key to changing our community for Christ in a wide, long, deep highway is to influence youth. Children and youth before age 25. Again, this is becoming more and more clear to me because let me ask you this, who's influencing them now? Who's influencing them now? I don't wanna be an alarmist. I'm not gonna foment fear here, but let's just face it. What are the highest rated TV shows for teens? Jersey Shore? Teen Mom? Teen Mom 2? I mean, we could go on and on and on. And how are these shows, how's music and movies that's popular among teens and youth? How's it influencing them? How's it affecting them?

Let me just give you a reality check, and this is current data. I just looked this up from secular researchers. They say about 50% of college students binge drink or abuse drugs each month. Now maybe you're thinking, yeah, like at, you know, Chico State, but that's not like at most places. And if you are a Chico State alum and you wanna complain to me, you can email me at mark@tlc.org. But according to a brand new study at Harvard University, check this out, frat and sorority members who binge drink at Harvard, 80%. According to one study, college students spend 5.5 billion on alcohol, more than they spend on soft drinks, tea, milk, juice, coffee, and schoolbooks combined.

And what kind of choices do you think are fueled by that? You know, the chief could tell you how drugs and alcohol impact crime. How many crimes percentage-wise are related to drugs and alcohol? The vast majority. You know, this is not like, I'm not saying thou shalt be a tea-totaller here, I'm just saying this is ridiculous. You say, well, what about good Christian kids? Yeah, well, right now, kids' faith is not sticking. 40 to 50%, depending on what data you look at, of church kids leave their faith in college. 40 to 50%.

In your mind's eye, line up your kids or your grandkids, just can you picture them? And their friends, you know your kids, your grandkids, or kids you know and their friends, just line them up in a row, and then pretend they're counting off like you used to do on playgrounds to count off for teams. One, two, one, two, one, two. Okay, the ones are gonna stick with their faith, the twos are gonna abandon it. Are you comfortable with that ratio? I'm not. And I think part of this stat is true because we haven't been, I'll say I have not, been giving this the top priority it deserves.

Now, a somewhat more encouraging stat, somewhere between 30 and 60% of the kids who abandon their faith return to church as adults. In fact, kind of a show of hands here, how many of you left the faith at some point but then returned as adults? Can I see a show of hands? A lot of you. That's why we should have great adult ministries. But still, I grieve over the 40 to 70% who don't ever come back. And those are the Christian kids. They even get to that point. When do you have to reach them? Check this out. 85% of decisions to follow Christ are made by age 17.

You put all this together, and this is why the Bible emphasizes things like this. Teach these things to your children and to your children after them, Deuteronomy 4:9. He commanded our ancestors, teach their children, Psalm 78. Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them." And then Jesus called his disciples and chose 12. You might be saying, what's this have to do with youth ministry? Did you know scholars say probably all the original disciples, Peter, Paul, James, all those guys, they were in their teens and 20s. Almost certainly. This is what we would call a college and young adult group. The 12 who changed the world.

I mean, today, we talk about Saint Patrick this day every year. You know he was a real person, a missionary to Ireland, who trained a group of young men to go back to Europe during the Dark Ages and be missionaries and those, this is just a historical fact, those young Irish monks, as Thomas Cahill historian puts it, "They saved civilization. They were the ones who saved the great works of literature. They were the ones who saved the great works of art. They were the ones who re-civilized an illiterate continent. They were the ones who started the great churches." This is clearly so strategic, so vital.

But here's the problem, both in Santa Cruz County and even here at Twin Lakes Church. Where really is there for youth, for kids, young adults, college age kids to go to hang out? That's positive and productive. I mean, even just look at our campus. Our preschoolers have a place to call home, but the kids and the youth here at our church have always had to make do with rooms that they get when someone else isn't using them. Converted garages, convert as portables, adult classrooms that are sometimes free. It's like they're the last priority.

If this room is empty, then you guys can use it for whatever you're gonna do there. Now, this was not the original plan. I want you to, this fascinated me when we discovered this. This is an old campus map. This, that I'm putting on the screen, we found this all dog-eared in the basement. We haven't looked at this in probably decades. This is the first sketch that was ever drawn of the place that we're sitting right now. This was drawn in 1971. And this is back when every single thing you see on this campus, every building was just an idea. It was just lines on a piece of paper. They hadn't raised a single dollar yet to build these things.

The auditorium, zoom in there, it says it's a proposed building. We're sitting in it right now. Slip on over to Munski Hall, what's it say? Future building. Down to the nursery, what's it say? Proposed building. Even go over to the office building. It's only just a proposed building. Slip down to the preschool building. It is a future building. Down to the gym building. Beautiful gym, what's it say? Future building. Now these are all built now? Paid off for years? Nobody, you don't even remember the building campaigns that built these things. We haven't had a mortgage here in literally decades. We're using all these buildings free and clear. Awesome!

But in their wisdom, these original planners also had future classroom for the elementary kids. That never got built. Up where the portables are now, future chapel, so there could be meetings for these kids. And then way over by Cabrillo College Drive, future college building. Because they knew what I'm just now learning. Do you see the genius of that? Now, we have amazing kids and youth ministries here. Our staff is awesome. My own three kids are aged 14 to 22, so their lives have been changed by it. But imagine the possibilities if we fulfilled that original vision.

Imagine if you really had hangout space for junior high, high school kids after school, a real home away from home. Imagine college students hanging out in a coffee house atmosphere where they can study, have deep conversations about life. It's not about buildings, it's about souls. It's about people, it's about the future. It's about the next generation. So the vision is how to reach wide, long, deep. Well, the way to do it is to finish what the previous generation started.

I mean, look around. Most of us did not build this building, but we sure love it. The heavy lifting's been done. Our parents' generation, God bless them, they bought the land, they built it, they paid for these things we enjoy, they set it up for us. I feel like the ball is on the tee, and all we gotta do right now is take our best swing. Here's what I call our 2020 vision. I'm kinda unrolling today, and I call it this 'cause I think we can finish this by 2020. It's 2013, no reason we can't get this done.

How about a children's building for elementary-aged kids? Remodel a gym building for the youth as their headquarters. Get a college meeting space, a coffee house, and a chapel, and finish these projects by 2020. I really think we can do it. This fall, we're gonna have a quick little giving campaign that ends the weekend before Thanksgiving, and you know, we'll see God's gonna lead based on what we raise, but I think we can do it, and if we start building next year, I think we can have it done by 2020.

And by the way, you do too. You remember we did a survey here of the congregation a few weeks ago. About 717 people filled out that TLC survey, which I really appreciate. Lots of fascinating insight. We asked, how'd you end up at TLC? Nobody mentioned radio, nobody mentioned TV, nobody mentioned advertisements. Top three answers, church shopping, word of mouth invited by a friend. And by the way, guess what? All three of those come together on Easter and Christmas. People in two weeks are gonna be shopping for a church to visit, so generate some good word of mouth, invite your friends personally with those cards Mark talked about, you can pick 'em up in the back.

But back to the building. In the survey I also asked you, what do you think is the greatest need at TLC? Number one answer, more space for ministry. We all see it. And when asked, what do you think about this idea of building a place for the kids? 98% of the respondents said, that's a great idea. So the need is there, the will is there. We asked people in the survey, what would be the downside of trying to build out the campus? The only negative people mentioned was, we don't want a guilt-oriented campaign.

So I can promise you this, you will never, ever, ever, ever hear me or anyone else on my watch try to do some kind of guilt-inducing, arm-twisting, giving, campaign, we're never gonna have thermometers on the wall, we're never gonna hang this over your head like some anvil waiting to drop. It's just an opportunity, man. And let's see what happens. And you will not see us abandoning our commitment to the poor. In fact, we're gonna have a compassion first emphasis.

That means when we raise funds for this, we are not going to drop our commitment to Second Harvest, we're not gonna drop our commitment to our missionaries and other outreach. We're going to fulfill those commitments from the funds we raise first. And only after we fulfill our commitment to feed the hungry, to help the poor, to preach the gospel to the whole world, only after we fulfill those commitments, are we gonna apply the funds to the building project.

Now this is a dramatic vision for the church. So what do we need to do to make this happen? Well, a whatever it takes attitude. Whatever it takes. Remember that opening story about the man who was kidnapped and his wife tackled down the ransom price? Well right now, I feel like our kids and our youth are being held hostage by our culture. And speaking personally, I'm no longer willing to grudgingly say, well, here's what I'm gonna do to help you out. Can't you guys just meet in a garage? Can't you get me a 70% discount on the future? I wanna say I wanna do whatever it takes to get you back.

I'll send in the SCPD with their SWAT team to set you free, whatever it takes. And let me just close with this example of this kind of an attitude. You may not know, but the day after Easter, I'm leaving for 10 days to go to Africa, to Senegal, to Dakar, to do a conference for Christian workers over there. One of the workers will not be there, 'cause he's in jail. His name's Jose. Jose heads up a ministry called the Obadiah Project in Senegal. They reach out to underprivileged and orphaned teenage boys. They feed them, they clothe them, they house them, they educate them, they share the gospel. Why? Because Jose believes youth and kids are the key to the future of Africa.

Well, since November 6th, Jose's been in jail. The charge is quote, "prosletizing minors by offering material enticements," in other words, preaching to youth and feeding them. And he's in jail because of that. That's the price he's paying. Check out his whatever it takes attitude. This is part of a letter that he wrote from jail three weeks ago, and a mutual friend passed it on to me. This is riveting. "Dear brothers and sisters, a while back here in jail, a man approached me and began to verbally attack me, saying, 'You are nothing! You know nothing, and nothing you teach is worth anything. You are less than the little toe of anyone here.' And with many other words, he tried to humiliate me.

And all I said to him was, 'Yes, you can continue. I'm listening, go on.' And he became even more impassioned and poured out a flood of insults. After a brief silence, I asked him, 'Are you finished? May I speak now?' And with a stern voice, he replied, 'Speak!' Expecting I would respond in a tone of anger. And so I began by saying, 'You know, you're right. I really am nothing. I'm dust. I'm a worm.' But then almost crying, I added, 'But I want you to meet someone who's everything, who's the creator of the universe, who in spite all of that loved me so much that he gave up his life for me, but not only for me, for you too. You are important to him, and he loves you. In fact, he died for your sins and rose from the grave so you could have eternal life.'

Well, when this man heard me say that, it was as if he had been shocked with 50,000 volts. He never expected that reaction. And then with a soft voice, he told me, 'You know, I've been following you, watching you, and I wanted to test you to see if you're really a man of God. And starting today, I can say you are. You have my respect.' And Jose writes, 'Now, he's one of my best friends.' Now listen to this, he says, 'What a privilege to be chosen by God to be in this place at this moment.' He says, 'We all need to remember that since the one who owns us is the Lord, he has the right to use us however he wants.'

Because he says, 'Everything we ever sacrifice will be rewarded when we shake the hands of hundreds of people there in glory.' And this guy, he's my hero. That is a whatever it takes attitude. And it's not about our energy, let's try harder. It's about just saying, God just worked through me and then seeing God do head spinning things through you. We started in Ephesians 3, so let's end there. Paul wraps it up with a prayer and he says, 'Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that's at work within us.'

We've seen it here this year. God is able to do immeasurably beyond anything we can even ask or imagine. So let's just say to him, God, you know we wanna reach the youth, we wanna reach college kids. And this is our plan, so we're gonna proceed with this plan, but you direct us. However you want us to do this that's more effective, we wanna do it for the church, for the faith, for the community, for the county, for the city of Santa Cruz.

Now we've been talking about the future here, but I just wanna say this. Maybe you don't feel like you're on it and you're not like, yes, let's go charge that hill. You feel more like Jose in that jail, humiliated and held captive in some kind of bondage. You're just discouraged today. I just wanna encourage you, God is able to do immeasurably beyond anything you can ask or even imagine to get you out of that dark pit you're in right now. And then you'll find yourself turned loose and I can guarantee this to you, if you hang in there and let God work through you, you will see him do things through your life to benefit the lives of other people here in Santa Cruz that right now you can't even imagine.

So hang in there, don't give up, cast all your cares on him and see God work through you powerfully. Let's close in a word of prayer. Would you bow with me? Heavenly Father, thank you for your blessings on this church. Help us to reach wide, last long, aim high, teach deep. God, we wanna be totally committed followers of Jesus Christ to help not only this church, but the community reach new heights. But you lead us, we will do whatever you want and may we all remember that you are able to do exceedingly, abundantly, beyond all that we can ask or even imagine. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.