I’m a sucker for alliterative outlines, especially when they make a really good point…

I was in a Presbyterian church in Alabama when the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) broke off from the Presbyterian Church US, minimally involved at the local church level. I was at First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs when the senior pastor, Jim Singleton, was one of the major leaders in forming a new Presbyterian denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Order (ECO) of Presbyterians. And I’ve been watching friends of mine spearhead creating the Global Methodist Church (GMC), breaking away from the United Methodist Church (UMC). Breaking away and forming a new denomination is an enormous expenditure of time and energy.

Anyway, I’m still on the mailing list for the precursor organization to the GMC, the Wesleyan Covenant Association, and one of their pastors just shared a sermon that made a big impression on him.

The Rev. Jay Therrell’s article with the provocative title A Mission Not a Mausoleum starts this way:

There are four or five sermons that I’ve heard in my lifetime that I can remember almost every word. God used the preachers that shared them to speak into my life. Those words have shaped and formed who I am in Jesus and what I do for Jesus.

Bob Coy preached one of those sermons. He was the lead pastor of Calvary Chapel in Ft. Lauderdale. At the time, Calvary Chapel was the largest church in Florida. A member of the church I served almost 20 years ago gave me a CD of Coy’s sermon, and it had a profound impact. The sermon was called “The Museum of Sardis” and it was based on Revelation 3.1 – 6, the passage where Jesus warns the church at Sardis that they are almost dead.

Coy shared the idea that Christianity started with a man, Jesus Christ. That man inspired a movement; a movement of men and women that began to form a church. That movement grew into a mission that moved worldwide and today includes over 2 billion people. It is a mission that included a church in the ancient city of Sardis (present-day Turkey). That mission located in Sardis was alive. It was making new disciples. It was transforming the city…until the church got comfortable. It began to care more for its own preferences than the lost outside its walls. Eventually, it turned from a mission into a monument.

Jesus squarely warned this remaining monument of what would happen unless it fanned into flame the few remaining embers:

Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. (Revelation 3.2, 3, ESV)

The Christians of Sardis weren’t willing to repent and return to the mission of making disciples. Instead, they chose death.

Choosing death, the monument of Sardis turned into a museum pointing to a past mission. Eventually, the museum became a mausoleum. Today, Sardis is in ruins. Not only was the church not successful in transforming the city, but the city is no more.

It’s a good outline:

• Man: Jesus
• Movement
• Mission [I think I would have put Mission before Movement.]
• Monument
• Museum
• Mausoleum

It’s not a pretty progression after #3. Rev. Terrell, of course, applies the outline to the Methodist movement under John Wesley. He would say that the UMC is well into the downward part of the progression:

I’m done with monuments and museums. I want to be a part of a movement and a mission. I haven’t surrendered my life to Jesus personally and vocationally to be part of a dead sect. I want to join the Light and Hope of the World in reaching the least, the last, and the lost and introducing them to the saving way of Christ! – Jay Terrell

I wish Jay and his colleagues well. I hope they succeed in “reaching the least, the last, and the lost” and disciple them. Jay firmly believes “that disciples are made at the local level.” I agree, but maybe not in the same way. More on that tomorrow.

Today, I’d just like to observe that once the church building gets built, you have entered the “Monument” phase whether you want to or not. And it will take very intentional effort to maintain “Movement” and “Mission.” I wrote about this last year in a 4-part series on movement stoppers beginning here.

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: “The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. ‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.'” (Revelation 3.1, ESV)