“God’s Open Door”

Matthew 28:16-20

Romans 10:11-15

May 22, 2005

There are times in one’s life when one is presented with a choice to make about the direction his or her life will take. These times are the landmarks of our journey; the sign posts that mark in our life the moments when a decision was made that directly affected the course of our life and brought us to where we are today. I firmly believe, as my own life experience bears witness, that these times are none other than God’s direct intervention in our life, the times when God puts before us an opportunity for growth, when God opens a door and calls us to step through to a new way of being and doing in the world.

These choices we have to make are not always easy. They require us to step through the doorway from the past into a future that is not always so clear and certain. Sometimes these choices require us to change how we think and feel and even our own worldview. The temptation, of course, is to stay where we are because at least we know what to expect, for it is far easier and safer to remain unmoved, than to be moved, to remain unchanged, than to be changed. It is not the pull of tradition that keeps us unmoved and unchanged, it is the anxiety of the in between time, the time between the decision and the outcome, the time between letting go and walking in a new way.

My one-year-old niece is at the point where she is learning how to walk. She will walk around the room without any problem as long as she is holding onto adult hands, but she will not take that first step by herself, not yet anyway. Several weeks ago, my family went to her birthday party. I put her on the ground standing up and held onto her hands with her back to me. As she stood there looking around the room, I slowly started to move my hands away and she let go. She stood there all by herself. Her mom got in front of her, held out her hands, and encouraged her to take a step forward. Suddenly, my niece realized that she was not holding on to anything. She turned around and lunged for me and grabbed my hands again. With her eyes focused on something else, she had no problems standing, but as soon as she realized that she was not holding onto anything she reached for the security of what was behind her rather than what was in front of her.

Sometimes taking that next faithful step can be difficult and overwhelming. The anxiety of taking a new step in life can almost be paralyzing, keeping us where we are, unable to break free in order to become someone new and be lead to new place. And it is the same way for the church. Taking that next faithful step can be difficult and overwhelming, even when the church is being encouraged and called to do so. Without something or someone to keep our eyes and hearts and minds focused on, the church will often times reach for that which it has held onto for so long, the security of what is behind it rather than what is in front of it, unable to take that first step into something new.

The first verse of our second hymn this morning says this:

The church in Christ in every age,

Beset by change but Spirit led,

Must claim and test its heritage,

And keep on rising from the dead.

These are hugely important for words for the church to remember. To keep on rising from the dead is the great reminder that the church, having been baptized into Christ’s death and therefore baptized into Christ’s resurrection, must always be prepared for the time when God will call it to let go of the old self, the old ways and forms of how things were done and are done, in order to be able to take that next faithful step into new life.

In these times, God presents the church with choices to make, so that we will grow inwardly and outwardly. In these times, God opens a door for us and encourages and calls us to walk through it, so that we may truly walk in the way that is Spirit led in the new life begun for us in Jesus Christ. Now is one of those times. God has opened a door for us.

On October 13, 2003, the Session unanimously approved a motion to consider and evaluate the possibility of joining together in a Church-to-Church partnership through the Shenandoah Presbytery with a church in the Illubabor Bethel Synod in Ethiopia. The Illubabor Bethel Synod, or IBS, is one of 14 Synods of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus.

For nearly fifteen years the Shenandoah Presbytery and the IBS has been in partnership with one another in ministry. When the partnership began, IBS had 30,000 members. Today, IBS has over 200,000 members and the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, which was established in 1959 with 20,000 members, has now surpassed 2.3 million members, roughly equal to that of the PCUSA. The spiritual awakening and renewal that has occurred in Ethiopia, and accounts for the astronomical growth in church membership, is a testament to God’s grace and powerful work in the world. Our God truly is a global God.

The Illubabor Bethel Synod, as well as the Ethiopian Evangelical Church, is solidly with in the Reformed Tradition. The IBS supports a Bible School in Gore and the Seminary in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. IBS is also active in managing the Gore Home for Children, which houses and cares for orphans and other children who are the silent victims of desperate circumstances in the region. The money we raise through our yard sale and through donations from the Presbyterian Women and individuals goes to support six children in the Gore Home.

IBS also supports the growing of coffee as a commercial crop, which some of you have purchased recently, medical care, AIDS prevention, hunger programs, and education programs. The IBS continues to receive assistance from the Shenandoah Presbytery in teaching church leaders Bible, leadership, and counseling skills. And over the past three years, Finley has been in prayer for and financially helped a member of IBS, Yonus Yigezu, in his theological training at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, so that he will be better prepared to lead the church in his native land. Finley has already established itself in the mission and ministry of IBS, but now God has opened a new door for us.

As you know, over the last four weeks of worship and Recharge, we have looked seriously and enthusiastically at what it means to be a church in mission. We looked at the Biblical mandate for mission, the history of mission in the world, and we met and heard from several people who are from IBS, including Endalkachew, who gave an inspiring testimony last week of his experience of the coming of the Spirit.

But what you don’t know is that even before the planning of these last four weeks, another set of hands has been at work. Within the last six months, we have learned that a church in the Illubabor Bethel Synod has come open to join in a partnership with a church in this Presbytery. This church is the Gore Church, which is located on the grounds of the Gore Home for Children. The importance of the Gore Church cannot be overestimated. It is the church in which the Spiritual awakening happened that started the Illubabor Bethel Synod.

The significance of the Gore Church to the witness of Jesus Christ and its impact upon the people is truly amazing. As soon as we found out that the Gore church was looking for a partner in ministry, several of us here at Finley started working on making a Church-to-Church Partnership a reality. But what we discovered was even more amazing still. What we discovered is that they, the Gore Church, want to be in a relationship with us here at Finley. Even when we said we were not ready yet, they said they would wait, confident that God would open the door for us. And they were right.

So what does it mean to be in a church-to-church partnership? First, what it is not. To be in a church-to-church partnership is not about money. It is about the spiritual and the relational. Will there be times when money is needed? Yes, of course. Part of being in a partnership is to send people to Ethiopia and to have them come to us. There will also be occasions when we will become aware of something they may need, and we will gladly give whatever we can to help to support and lift them up in their own ministry. We will not let our affluence hinder the demands of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But this relationship is not about money.

To be in a partnership is not about us taking care of them, it is about all of us caring for each other, and sharing in the joys and struggles of the faith. To be in a partnership is not about exchanging our mission and ministry in our community to that of another country, it is about being partners in Christ’s ministry as God’s people in the world, so that our mission and ministry in our own communities will be strengthened, not diminished.

A church to church partnership is about being partners in ministry on a global scale, partners joined together as Christians in the unity of the Spirit in which we all were baptized, for the building up of the full body of Christ, for the mutual encouragement of our faith, both theirs and ours. It is about growing together in our personal relationship with the God we know in Jesus Christ. I want you to listen to an email I received from Endy on Friday.

Hello Pastor:

Due to time constraint I failed to share some very important characteristics of the revival/reawakening at the Gore church.

1: It was an answer to prayers of the laborers/missionaries who invested their lives to the cause of the Gospel for so long in that area. No doubt, they prepared the way/the ground for the [Spirit] to come.

2: One of the major outcomes of the revival is the zeal by which the young people went around the countryside and shared the Good News of our Savior Jesus Christ. Evangelism caught fire. That was the main thing.

3: The Lord opened our eyes to His Word. Everybody was reading the Bible starting from Genesis to Revelation. That to this day is a mark of new birth in Christ.

4: Fervent prayers. People prayed and prayed, prayed. Personal devotions became part of life. Seeking God and living by Grace.

To be in a partnership is to join together as people with enthusiasm and passion for the gospel that sends us out as apostles and evangelists with boldness to proclaim and share the good news of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is to join together in reading the Bible as a mark of new birth in Christ. It is to join together in prayer for each other and with each other as we both seek God and live by God’s grace, so that all of us may fulfill Christ’s global purpose for us as his witnesses to all nations, even to the ends of the earth. It is about being one as Jesus and the Father are one.

Brothers and sisters, the time is now upon us to make a decision. God has opened the door for us. Are we willing to walk through it and have our territory expanded, our vision enlarged, and our work in mission and ministry become global in response the calling of our global God? Are we willing to let go of our old ways of being and doing, and set our eyes and hearts and minds upon the Triune God, so that we may become new people being lead to a new place on this spiritual journey of faith?

I for one want to set my eyes and heart and mind upon the One who died for the sins of the world, the One who raised Jesus from the dead giving us a new birth into a living hope, and the One who is the eternal presence of the living Lord. I for one am willing to put myself and this church into the capable hands of the Triune God, who I trust to lead us and guide us in our next faithful step through God’s open door into this new way of being and doing. And I call upon you to do the same.

Let us join together as one and remember the commissioning words of Jesus Christ to his disciples upon Easter’s mountain and make this potential church-to-church partnership a matter of constant prayer. May this time be for us a landmark moment in the life and ministry of Finley Memorial when we decided to walk through the door God has opened for us, to join with God in God’s global mission in the world. Tonight during Recharge we will begin discussing in more detail about what a church-to-church partnership is and what it might look like for this congregation. I invite you to come and be a part of this important discussion. The decision we make is up to us, but whatever decision we make, may it be for the glory of God, the God who opens doors and invites all of us into a life of newness and fulfillment and everlasting joy. Amen.