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Theme Scripture - Luke 10:2 “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Theme Word - Mission
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I have some great news to share with you this morning; some may want to call it Good News. At least it may be exciting news for some; for others you may shake your heads in disgust and wonder what that crazy preacher is up to now. Either way, I want to share a new ministry that continues our response to making disciples and proclaiming God's grace. But I have to tell you some other things first.

What I want to share has its foundation or roots in this morning's scripture passage. We heard the message this morning: Jesus sends 70 of his disciples out to preach the Good News to the various Jewish towns. They are the first missionaries going out to people who have not heard what God is doing in Jesus the Christ. Now we may wonder why Luke mentions 70 missionaries when Jesus only had 12 disciples. We need to remember that many people followed Jesus and believed in his preaching, but only 12 of these persons had been invited to share intimately as an inner circle in Jesus' ministry. These 12 were being prepared to take over the leadership of Jesus' preaching when he was no longer with them. You may want to look at the end of the Gospel of Luke to discover that when Jesus ascended into heaven, 500 of his disciples had gathered to watch him go, of which 11 of the original inner circle were in attendance. It was these people whom the 11 apostles organized and lead after the resurrection and ascension.

So Jesus sends out 70 people to proclaim God's Good News. And Luke lets us know that the 70 were sent out in teams of two, so there were 35 teams of missionaries. What we make of this is that Christian work and ministry is not a solo journey. It's always a team effort. While the Bishop may appoint me as one lone pastor to lead a congregation, I am not alone in church leadership. With other staff and elected church leaders and volunteer ministry workers, I am part of a large team seeking to follow God's leading and sending out into ministry. Nothing I do is done alone. So don't anyone think that ministry depends on you alone. You are a part of a larger team of partners in ministry. God hasn't called you to do it alone.

This is many times difficult for us in Western culture to understand. Christian life is not a solo journey. Christian life is defined by the word “community.” “Where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name,” said Jesus, “there I am also.” (Matt. 18:20) We can't be a Christian alone; we need the community of other Christians in order to be nurtured and strengthened. We can't worship alone or by ourselves away from the community of faith called the Church. We can have private devotions alone, but private devotions are not the same as worship. One person can't do ministry alone. Jesus chose 12 others to share with him because he knew that when he died his ministry would also die unless others were prepared to continue his work. My friends, as Christ's disciples we have to rely on the counsel and help and support of our fellow Christians, or we will become frustrated and lose hope. Of all the people in this world, we are to love one another and to learn to work together in order to show others that we are serious about the Good News we proclaim.

70 people sent out may seem like a lot of people, but Jesus knew this was a pitifully small group to try to make a difference in the world. We have to understand that Israel was a religious nation, which meant that religion colored all of life, that everything that people did, said, created, and shared had a connection to their religion. We Americans who live in a country with the basic freedom of worship also live in a country that enforces the separation of church and state, that is, that our government cannot allow or enforce a particular religion or one set of religious practices on its citizens. We are free to worship where and how we desire without interference from our government. Not so in ancient Israel. Even though Israel was occupied by foreign armies, by the Romans, they were still a Jewish nation with their Jewish religion a part of every Jewish individual's life because no other religion was recognized; how people talked, worked, lived, shared with others, ate, shopped, dressed, worshiped, observed the laws of the nation had to conform to the Jewish faith. Their religion permeated and directed everything they were and did. And yet in the midst of people who were immersed in religion, Jesus says, “There are a lot of people out there waiting to hear about how God is involved in their lives, but there aren't enough people to carry the Good News. The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.”

You see, religion and faith are different. A lot of people have religion, they believe in a higher power and many times engage in some type of religious activity that looks towards God. But that's religion and not faith. Faith, and in particular Christian faith, is religious activity directed by God. It's the difference between being a worship attender and a disciple of Christ. A worship attender comes to church to look at God, while a disciple comes to church to surrender himself/herself to God to be used in Christian ministry. Religious activity that is not directed by God is useless. Our Christian faith is about creating workers or disciples who are sent out to minister in the name of Christ.

And make no mistake: mission work, ministering in the grace of Christ, is hard. Not everybody wants to hear the Good News, and some people will try to stop the Good News from being shared. And of course, none of us knows whether we have been really successful. Our work may appear to be really successful, but have we really allowed God to work through us for God's glory. I know that every time I leave an appointment to go to another church, I wonder: have I accomplished anything of value for Christ? Or did I just leave behind a bunch of programs and made myself look good?

Ultimately, all disciples, all workers for Christ, have to trust in God. My responsibility is to learn to trust God to lead me and be faithful in what God calls me to do and then let God accomplish the things of value. I may never see the results of my ministry, the fruits of my labor, because they are not my fruits, they are God's.

Which brings me to the great news. We have already gone out to proclaim God's grace through our ministry called FaithCentre. We have really only begun at FaithCentre and there is still so much to do, but it's time to go out again into a new ministry. A year ago, our District Superintendent asked me a question, and for the past nine months, the staff has been talking about the need for a new ministry, the answer to the Superintendent's question. 3 months ago, I began to talk with the pastors of our cluster about the possibilities; 6 of the nine were in attendance. They immediately affirmed the idea and said, “Let's do it as a cluster.” And this Fall we will begin to organize and try to put it into effect.

Currently, there is only one United Methodist Church along Rt. 64 between Zion and Lock Haven, and that church is small and is still working at reaching out in discipleship. All of the studies tell us that the area East of Zion will be growing by leaps and bounds. New housing is expected to bring many new families into the area. At the same time, we have many unchurched families in that area and all around us.

We believe that God is calling the United Methodists to plant - another church several miles East of Zion, not to form a competitive congregation, but to form a mission outreach to the people who are not connected to a worshiping community and to welcome people as they come into that area. As great a congregation and discipleship ministry as Faith Church has, not everybody will come here, nor should it be our dream to develop a mega church of thousands of people. Our task is to proclaim the gospel, the Good News, and make disciples of those who hear so that they may proclaim the Gospel so that others may hear and become disciples. The fact is, someone is going to plant a church out there; it's inevitable. So why shouldn't it be us.

This is not going to be easy, and we don't have anything worked out. But the ideas we will begin working with is that we want to encourage Lay Speakers and other people of our congregations to be the leaders and lay pastors of this church. They will need to work together as a team, knocking on doors, welcoming people, providing preaching and worship, working at making and empowering disciples. The pastors of the cluster churches will provide continual training and counseling with these lay leaders, helping and guiding them to hear God's leadings and to respond in the appropriate ways. The Staff here at Faith Church will not be those leaders, but they will be resources to help in training others to be in ministry.

We believe that Christ is calling us to move in this direction. Now we need to discover if Christ is speaking through other people in our United Methodist Churches. For only if God is speaking through other people than the Pastors can we know for certain if God is speaking to the Church. So we call on you this day to pray for guidance and direction, to help us fully discern how God is speaking to us and leading us. If indeed, God reveals through the rest of us that we are called to this missionary ministry, then we can pray for people to be lifted up who will share in the leadership of this ministry. May what we do always glorify Christ instead of ourselves. Let us pray.

(1) Ideas for this sermon were taken from Marion Soards, Thomas Dozeman, and Kendall McCabe, Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year C: After Pentecost 1 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), pp. 68-70.