Sermon Notes for Sunday, 8/19/07

From the Sermon, Why Are We Here? or There's No Such Thing as a Perfect Church...

There is no such thing as a perfect church. I have heard it said, “If you find a perfect church – don’t go there. You’ll ruin it.”

For as long as churches have been in existence, there have been conflicts.

Examples:

• The story from the London newspaper, about the man who griped about hearing approximately 1,040 sermons over a period of 20 years, and not feeling spiritually fed or remembering one of them; and the response about eating 3,120 meals over that time span, and not remembering a one of them, either, but being fed in some capacity.

• The Story of the Three Envelopes…in a nutshell, it's about a new minister who, in his first days of work finds a metal box in his desk, left to him by the preceding minister. Within the box are three envelopes with instructions to open them, in turn, in the event of trouble. The church runs smoothly at first, but trouble soon arises and the minister opens the first envelope. It advises him to blame his predecessor. That succeeds in the short term, but soon new difficulties arise. The minister opens the second envelope. It advises him to blame the denomination and the denominational hierarchy. That again succeeds, but soon the minister is faced with more trouble. He opens the third envelope only to find instructions to prepare three envelopes marked 1, 2, and 3...

Acts Chapter 2 details how God brought the Church to life on the Day of Pentecost with his Holy Breath (Acts 2:2 – the “mighty rushing wind”) just as He brought life to Adam through His Holy Breath – His pnuema…where we get the word Pneumonia from…the Church is for our Spiritual betterment...for empowerment, that we might minister to the world at large...

The Holy Spirit falls upon a congregation for a reason, and we should respond accordingly...

Genesis 6:3 - "My Spirit shall not always strive with man..."

Two forms of time:

Chronos Time: Ordinary, everyday time (where we get the word 'chronometer' - watch - from)

Chairos Time: God's appointed, Divine, Holy time