Good morning.  Have you ever learned something, and you know that you need to do it, you just don’t know how?  You know there needs to be a change, you may even know what, you just don’t know how to apply what you have learned?  As we continue this morning in our series on becoming the purpose driven church we come to a vital part of the process.  Applying Our Purposes.  And a look into next week, we will finish this series with the topic God’s Purpose For Our Church.  But for today, applying our purposes.

Someone once said, “The smallest good deed is better than the greatest intention.”  In other words we have to put things to practice, we must apply them to our lives.  In II Thessalonians 3:4 it says, “1”

I also like how it is phrased in the Living Bible.  In the Living Bible it says, “We trust the Lord that you are putting into practice the things we taught you.”  Applying our purposes is another way of saying putting to practice the things that we have learned.  And hopefully that is exactly what we will begin to do, and continue to do.

Let’s Pray

I like how James says it in James 2:15-16.  Here in this section it is talking about faith and deeds, but it really boils down to doing what you know you should do.  Applying what you know.  Here in James 2:15-16 James writes, “2”

What good is it to know what to do, but not do it?  How much good does it do to know how to become a purpose driven church, if we are not going to apply it to our lives and to our church?  The answer is that it does no good at all.

Later in the book of James in James 4:17 it says, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”  We know what we should be doing, now we have to apply it to our lives.

Listen to how Rick Warren introduces this chapter.  He writes, “Now we come to the most difficult part of becoming a purpose driven church.  Many churches have done all I’ve talked about in the previous chapters: they have defined their purposes and developed a purpose statement, they regularly communicate their purposes to their membership, some have even reorganized their structure around their purposes.  However, a purpose driven church must go one step further and rigorously apply its purposes to every part of the church: programming, scheduling, budgeting, staffing, preaching, and so forth.”

He goes on to say, “Integrating your purposes into every area and aspect of your church’s life is the most difficult phase of becoming a purpose driven church.  Making the leap from a purpose statement to purpose driven actions require total commitment to the process.  The application of your purposes will require months, maybe even years.  Focus on progress, not perfection.”

Chances are, that even if we do begin to apply the things that we have been learning about becoming a purpose driven church, it isn’t going to happen all at once.  The main focus that we have to keep is that we are making progress.  We are not striving for perfection off the bat, we want to see progress, and I feel that that is exactly what we are already accomplishing.

Moving on, there are 6 areas that Warren mentions in a list of 10 that we must consider as we begin to reshape our church into a purpose driven church.  As we look at these 6 ways to be purpose driven I want to see what the implications are for the church as a whole, and take a look at how that involves or effects each of us as individuals as well.  So, let’s begin.

First, Assimilate New Members On Purpose

Now that was some big wording, what does that phrase mean?  It simply means to take in new members.  This is done by moving people from the outer circles of commitment to the inner circles.  Taking people from the community to the crowd and eventually getting them to the core.  Paul says that he will become all things to all people in hopes of saving some.  What is it that we need to do in order to bring in new members?

Warren suggests that you start from the outside and work your way in.  He says not to start with your core.  Now this differs from what most would say, but Warren says by doing this you don’t separate your people from the community. 

He says that many times if you disciple the core and get them ready, it is too late because they have distanced themselves from the community of unchurched people. 

The best way to be purpose driven and to reach the lost is to focus on one level of commitment at a time, and the starting place should be with the community.  Warren says, “Do you see the natural progression?  You build a multidimensional ministry by assimilating new members in a purposeful way, focusing on one level of commitment at a time.  Don’t feel that you have to do everything all at once.  Even Jesus didn’t do everything at once!”

He goes on to say something really neat.  He says, “Solid, stable churches are not built in a day.  When God wants to make a mushroom He takes 6 hours.  When God wants to build an oak tree He takes 60 years.  Do you want your church to be a mushroom or an oak tree?”

We have to realize that it is going to take time and effort in order to become a purpose driven church.  It isn’t going to happen over night.

So, how does this apply on a personal level?  It is simple, as individuals we need to be getting the people here in order to get them involved and to move them from the community to the crowd.  For ourselves, we need to be doing the things that are going to help us ourselves to move from one circle of commitment to the next.  So, the first thing is to take in new members in a purposeful way.

Next, Program Around Our Purposes

Warren says, “You need to choose or design a program to fulfill each of your purposes.  Remember, each Circle of Commitment also corresponds to a purpose of the church.  If you use the 5 circles as a strategy for programming, you’ll identify both your targets, and your objective with each target.  Community = evangelism, crowd = worship, congregation = fellowship, committed = discipleship, and core = ministry.

The whole idea of this is that whatever we plan as a church has to meet one of the 5 New Testament Purposes, and it has to at the same time meet one of our purposes in our purpose statement in order for us to continue doing it.  There needs to be in place, programs that allow each of these purposes to be met.  For example, for the community, we have VBS programs, and we are doing our Sunday night service in an interesting and fun way.  When it comes to the crowd, we are offering worship opportunities on Sunday mornings as well.  For the congregation we have dinners, and other little things that we do that are means of fellowship.  When it comes to the committed, we have Sunday school classes that hopefully help to disciple people.  I think that this is one area where we could work on.  And finally for the core we have opportunities to get involved with the service, and hopefully those people are active in ministry in the community as well.  That is up to them.

The third thing is to Educate People On Purpose

The education of people has to be purpose driven in order to be effective.  Now that is the education of those here, and those that we are attempting to reach out to as well. 

Listen to what Warren says.  He writes, “Our goal is to help people develop a lifestyle of evangelism, worship, fellowship, discipleship, and ministry.  We want to produce doers of the Word, not hearers only, we want to transform, not merely inform.  One of our slogans is, “You only believe the part of the Bible that you DO!””  We need to educate people on how to obey what God has commanded us.

The main goal here is to get people past the stage of learning and enter into the stage of acting out what they have learned.  It is moving them from 1 level of commitment to another.  Comparing it to baseball, teaching them is getting them on base.  However, you don’t get credit for runners left on base.  You have to get them across the plate to score.  When it comes to church, we don’t get credit until they put what they are learning into action.

So, on a more personal level, this is where you have to take it upon yourself to learn, and to put what you are learning to action in your own life.  After you have reached that point in you Christian walk, then you can begin educating others in the way that you act, and hopefully they will begin to follow your example. 

Next we have to Add Staff On Purpose

Now in a small church, we don’t experience the idea of hiring many staff members at the same time, but soon we will be hiring someone to help with the youth. 

As we approach that issue, we are looking for someone that first in on purpose as an individual, but secondly that fulfills a purpose that we want to accomplish with the youth program here at Fly Branch. 

Any church can be purpose driven regardless of its size.  All it takes is having purpose driven members, and purpose driven leadership.  So as we hire new staff, they must be purpose driven individuals.

Now, how can this be personal to all of you?  Maybe you don’t even have children in the youth program, or you won’t be in charge of hiring a new youth minister?  How can you be a part of this?  I think it is obvious, you need to be in prayer about the person that God has for us.  Part of being purpose driven is to seek what it is that God desires for our church.  What better way to be involved than to be in prayer about the decisions to be made and the person to be selected to help lead our youth. 

In fact, I am going to try something here at this time.  If you want to pray by yourself, that is fine, if you would like to get a few people together and pray that is great too, but what I would like you to do over the next few minutes is to have some prayer time considering the person that is going to be hired to help lead the youth.  We nee some help with this issue of finding someone, so be in a few moments of prayer about that at this time please. 

(Pray for a youth leader)

Moving on, next we have the idea of Budgeting On Purpose

Warren says that the quickest way to discover a church’s priorities is to look at their budget and their calendar.  If we say that something is important to our church, but our money and our times is not a reflection of that, we are simply blowing smoke.  If we want to be a purpose driven church, we need to budget around that idea.

On a personal level, we say that we want to be purpose driven individuals, and a purpose driven church, then we need to budget accordingly as well.  If we say that we have a commitment to the church, then shouldn’t some of our finances be going to the church?  There are several passages about giving and being good stewards of what God has blessed us with.  In I Corinthians 16:21-2 it talks about the offering we have for God.  In I Corinthians 16:1-2 it says, “3”

This week I found an acrostic for the word stewardship.  The faithful Christian (See that every week a regular donation supports his individual parish.)  The question is, are we giving our first fruits to God and giving our money to Him, or are we taking care of ourselves first, and then giving to God.  Now this is not a sermon on tithing or offering, so I will leave it at that.  To be purpose driven, we need to budget on purpose.

And finally, we need to Evaluate On Purpose

In order to remain effective in an ever- changing world we need to evaluate what we do as a church.  If we are meeting the purposes that we have discussed, then find out what we have to do to continue in that right direction. 

However, if we are not meeting those purposes, then we need to figure out what to do so that we will meet our goals and purposes.

On a personal note, evaluating your own personal growth is a big key in be a purpose driven individual.  If you never evaluate your progress, how are you going to know if you are headed in the right direction and growing?

At Kingsway Christian Church in Indiana they recently did a survey.

On a scale of 1-10 71% of people said their spiritual satisfaction was a 5 or under.

Only 36% said that they did a daily devotion.

50% of the people prayed for less than 5 minutes a day.

And 54% said that they only read the Bible once a week.  And that counted Sundays.

These can be ways of evaluated your spiritual growth.  Try to improve on these in your own life, and as you become a purpose driven individual, we will begin to become a purpose driven church.

So, how does this all fit into our purpose statement here at Fly Branch Church of Christ?  We are here to Gather, Grow, and Glorify God.  As we strive to do that, we need to think about each of these things we have looked at this morning and make sure that we cover them all in our purpose statement.  We also have to be sure that we balance all five of the New Testament Purposes in the way that we looked last week.

Is the church accomplishing that?  Well, I don’t think that should be our first question.  Our first question should be: Are we the members working to accomplish that?  It is only after we all begin to accomplish this as individuals, that our church will begin to look like a purpose driven church.

Wrapping things up, listen to how Rick Warren ended this chapter.  He wrote, “As you seek to apply your purposes to every area of your church you will notice the church growing stronger and stronger.  Instead of consistently looking for new programs each year keep people excited and motivated, you will be able to focus on the essentials.  You will be able to learn from each mistake and build on every success.  Momentum works in you favor.  The more your members understand and commit to your purposes, the stronger your church will become.”

There will be failures and there will be successes, but the main thing is that we all focus and be committed to see our church be a purpose driven church. And what are our purposes?  Everyone should know them by know, and you are probably getting tired of these two passages, but our purposes come from two of Jesus’ statements.

“4”        “5”

Let’s Pray