‘Living the Dream’
Matthew 28:16-20; Acts 11:1-18
Dr. Tom Boone, May 9, 2007
Central Presbyterian Church

I want to talk this morning about something we don’t often talk about in the church. I want you to think about success. How do we know that we’re successful as a church? People often get a little shy about discussing success and church in the same sentence. And I imagine that there are plenty of reasons for the hesitation. Still though it seems that given what our scripture readings were about this morning, it’s an important topic we shouldn’t avoid. Anthony Robbins has written that “the path to success is to take massive, determined action.” In other words, success doesn’t just happen. However you define success for the church in general, and for Central in particular, we must act in order to have success.

But, we also have to have a direction; a goal that we are trying to achieve. There’s another component to success, which Zig Ziglar has captured in a famous line. “Outstanding people have a thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.” I don’t know whether Zig Ziglar had the church in mind when he wrote this, but his words make a lot of sense when we look at Jesus’ great commission. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.” Mission–“make disciples”–and action–“Go”–two components that will move the church toward success. The powerful word, the challenging word, and the hopeful word for us is that our mission is clear, it is timeless, and the action is ours to choose. Jesus provided the mission, we provide the details for achieving it.

Jeff Bezos was a stock broker and computer whiz who dared to dream that people would want to buy books on a computer. People thought he was foolish, “Who’s going to do that?” people asked. Now ‘amazon.com’ is a household word. Keeping with the computer theme, the paradigm used to be “the more the better.” So in the 1950’s, when Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce dared to dream that computers would be more efficient if they were smaller, people thought they were foolish. Two engineers who didn’t know each other changed the paradigm by individually creating two different integrated circuits that started the micro chip revolution. Since then the world sings a different tune about the relationship between size and computers. In the early 1800’s the idea of a machine making clothes would have seemed preposterous. But by the end of the century mass production of clothing was the only way to go thanks to Elias Howe, who dared to dream that machines could do such a thing as make clothes.

What have you dared to dream lately? Madame Curie dared to dream that a woman could make a difference in the world of science dominated by men. If you know someone who has been made well from radiation treatment for cancer, you have Madame Curie to thank. If you have ever had an X-Ray discover something wrong in your body, you have Madame Curie to thank.

What have you dared to dream lately? Do you want to silence the critics, then dare to dream and step into living it. That was what Vivien Thomas did. How could a black man of no means do anything significant in a field where education mattered? He dared to dream that his training by a carpenter father could change the way surgeons thought about heart surgery. His critics thought not, but his invention of a clamp to close off the pulmonary artery silenced them.

People who not only dare to dream, but risk living their dream are world changers, whether their world spans continents or a neighborhood. Rosa Parks dared to dream that a seat on a bus made a statement about her basic human value, but she had no idea that her dream would affect a nation. A teenager at my daughter’s school helped out an elderly woman on the side of the road who had run out of gas. She had no idea that her example of service would be elevated as an example of Christian compassion for the entire school community. Daring to dream, then setting out on the road that the dream requires.

Christianity would have died days after Christ’s resurrection had the disciples only dared to dream. Had the men and women who heard Christ’s last words of commissioning to transform people into Christ-followers throughout the world stopped with “Wow, that sounds amazing!”, we’d be doing something else this morning and we’d be living without hope. Thank God they didn’t stop with the dream.

In Acts 11 Peter had a dream. For Peter and those around him who were the original believers and apostles Christianity was a sect within Judaism. Judaism was open to Gentiles as long as they observed certain rituals, so the same applied to Christianity. Christianity was primarily a different expression of Judaism, so people who weren’t Jews had to take on the requirements of Judaism to be Christians. For us this doesn’t make much sense at all because Peter and those around him didn’t just stop with the dream.

What was the dream? It was nothing short of a God-ordained, Holy Spirit-inspired, Christ-centered vision of what the church needed to become if it was going to survive. It wasn’t good enough for people to become Christians through Judaism because God wanted people to know that He accepted them as they were. The point of becoming a child of God wasn’t to adhere to a new set of regulations, because by God’s grace alone do we stand. It was a radical notion, but Peter accepted it. “God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” And with that, traditional notions of faith were jettisoned while God made way for a completely different experience.

God challenged Peter and those around him who thought that eating the right foods was important. God challenged people who thought the way of faith was lived by observing the right rules. God challenged people by giving them a dream and daring them to live it. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” He said. “Stand up and be counted against those who don’t understand what you’re doing,” He charged Peter. And the result, “They were silenced,” the text says in vs. 18, followed by their praise of a God who achieves the unimaginable.

What happens when today’s Christians dare to dream and then live it? A business man from the reformed tradition went to seminary and decided that church could be done a different way. A few years later Bill Hybels had established a new church with a few people in a theater against all odds. He dared to dream that church could be done differently. Years later the movement he began dwarves the combined communities of all mainline churches put together and encompasses continents. Leading a church in this new age, he says, takes great courage to do the one thing that must be done.

Billy Graham’s courage to change the way people conceived of missions in a new global world silenced his critics, too. Did you realize that he began as a Presbyterian? His notion of evangelism, which has captured the hearts of millions and brought them to the Lord, was rejected by our Presbyterian denomination from which he came. “Not this way,” we said. He dared to dream, he lived it out, and there’s scarcely a person who wouldn’t give up several days for an opportunity to be in his presence.

Christ gave his followers a dream, a mission to take His name to the world in order that all may believe in Him. The question that forever lays before the church, then, is are we living the dream or are we caught up in the thoughts of it? Do we pursue the dream that Jesus gave to his followers and follow it with courage, or do we look at ourselves and wonder where everyone has gone?

There is a time for grieving, the author of Ecclesiastes would say, for the church that struggles with loss. Central struggles with its losses. Those of you who’ve been here a long time remember the glory days, but you remember the time and time again departure of people dear to you who were bringing life into this place. It has been good but I must admit painful to hear such stories.

But, there is a time for living, he would say as well. In this season of Easter, I’ve invited you week after week to consider life beyond the grieving. I’m not saying that it’s time to move forward with all you’ve got, but I’ve begun to wonder if it’s time for you to give yourselves permission to go for a new dream, to dare to dream of a new shadow for Central in the twenty-first century. But how do you do this?

As I look at your congregation, I see a unique collection of assets that the Spirit can use in a variety of ways to achieve the mission Christ laid before us. Think about yourselves not as a church that once was full, or that once had a great leadership. What I want to encourage among you is that you look at the assets you have right now and then build from the dream to make disciples of all people. You may be inspired by my words to build a new shadow for the twenty-first century, but to actually do it is another matter. Consider what God has given you as a congregation right now: all of your talents, gifts, dreams, physical assets, financial ones, the whole lot of it. That’s where God wants to begin to make a success out of a new Central Presbyterian Church.

Mission and action. Whatever assets you have, whatever dream you declare, it’s important to move from the platform of the dream and into its reality. Living the dream is risky business, but Christ doesn’t send us into the world that we could live safely. He sends us because the stakes are too high if we don’t go. What message will you take to fulfill Christ’s commission in mid-town Mobile? There’s a message to take, and there’s a place for Central in the taking of it. So let’s stop yielding that mission to others around us, because we’re focused on apparent inabilities, or because we’ve surrendered to loss. Let’s stop that, and let’s start living again the dream that Christ gave to us. I, for one, am looking forward to the success. Hallelujah. Amen.