Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.12UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.08UNLIKELY
Fear
0.61LIKELY
Joy
0.57LIKELY
Sadness
0.6LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.59LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.61LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.52LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.78LIKELY
Extraversion
0.2UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.81LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.49UNLIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Introduction
Recently I have been praying a lot about the subject of change.
We consider the Church as a living entity and not a building, so the Church itself should honestly be in a state of change.
And by change I mean growth.
And I am not necessarily talking about numerical growth, which should be going on by the way.
No, rather I am talking about Spiritual growth.
I am also talking about the willingness to change our own direction and our own wills for the sake of what God is attempting to accomplish in each of us, in our Church, and how God wants to use our church in our community.
However, for some reason, whenever you start talking about change, people get nervous and uncomfortable.
And the reason being is that we do not like to change.
We love to stay just the way we are.
Things are much easier that way.
Because change is hard.
Change is frustrating at times.
Change is even painful for us at times.
But, we have to change.
If we don’t we will die.
And tonight we are going to be talking about the subject of change.
In just a moment we are going to be looking at as God presses Israel to adopt change, for their own sake.
And tonight I want us each to examine ourselves and ask ourselves can we ever change?
And while you are asking yourself that question, I also want you to look at seven things regarding churches who are not open to change.
They are:
I didn’t come up with this list, but found it in an article I was reading today.
You Keep Having The Same Conversation Over And Over (And Over) Again
Every Time Someone Raises A New Idea, Someone Lists 3 Reasons It Won’t Work
Fondness For The Past Exceeds Passion For The Future
Here are seven signs that you may never be open to change:
Small Things Always Become Things
People Are Still Complaining About The Last Thing You Changed
“We’ve Never Done It That Way Before” Has Become A Theme Song
Your Leaders Don’t Bring Unchurched Friends With Them
Now, like I said, this list was the Seven Signs that Your Church will Never Change, but the Church can’t embrace this mentality unless the people have adopted this mentality.
And if there is anyone here tonight and this is your mentality, you need to ask yourself why?
Why am I so resistent to change?
Because your resistance along with everyone else’s could be why the church is not growing and the church that is not growing is shrinking.
And the church that is shrinking is dying.
And if we continue to resist change, we may wake up one day and realize that the Church is dead and those who did embrace change have moved on and left us behind.
So, tonight, if you have found in your Bible, I’d invite you to stand with me as we read about one instance when God called his people to change.
Again, we are in
Scripture Focus
Dwelling in the Past
One of the key things on our list here and one of the central aspects that Isaiah hits on that prevents a person or a church, is the issue of the past.
Again, Isaiah writes . . .
Isaiah 43:
And to some extent we have all been guilty on this.
We want to think about the past and all the good things in the past and we want to go back there and dwell there.
We say things like “oh I remember how good the music used to be.”
Or, “man I remember how great that preacher we had in 19XX was.”
Or, “man, I remember how great church used to be.”
And to be honest, none of these things were wrong, the music was good then, the preacher then was good too, and church was good then as well.
But it is today too.
It is still the same God.
It is still the same Holy Spirit.
It is still the same Jesus Christ.
We (and I raise my hand too) complain a lot about people not coming to church, but when all we are doing is complaining about how bad things are now as to how good they used to be, can we really blame them?
Another reason though we dwell in the past though is we are afraid to embrace the future.
We are afraid to change.
We are afraid that things won’t work out to our advantage and that we may have adapt a little bit or be around some people that make us feel uncomfortable and we don’t like that.
So, it is much easier to live in the past.
NOW, that’s the good way in which we live in the past, but there is also a bad way as well.
And it is much more subtle.
We are constantly overwhelmed with all the bad things that we have experienced in the past.
We refuse to embrace any change whatsoever because every time we’ve tried something, something bad has happened.
It is #2 and #5 on our list, “Every time someone raises a new idea, someone lists three reasons it won’t work,” and “People are still complaining about the last thing you changed.”
These people are called “Negative Nancy’s” or “Debbie Downers,” for everything you get excited about they drag you back down with all the negative things that COULD go wrong.
Instead of how good things have been in the past, they spend all their time talking about how bad things have always been.
Things are so bad, but they don’t want to change any of them, because to them it is better to know what your dealing with rather than try something new.
Which is just doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result each time.
That is not how God operates, and that is why God tells the Israelites to . . .
Forget the former things because you can’t change them.
Dwelling on them and thinking about them is not going to change it.
The past is the past and you can’t go back and change it.
And we can’t live in the past either.
We live in the present and the decisions we make today impact the future, but we have absolutely ZERO impact on the past.
Instead, we are to LOOK TO THE FUTURE.
Look To The Future
I spoke about it briefly this morning, but one of the key things that we neglect is our prayer life.
It is to our prayer life that we communicate with God more than any other way.
And I know we are constantly wanting to know what God’s will is and what God’s plan is.
And sometimes, it is very, very difficult to discern God’s will.
I will be the first to admit this.
But what I have learned is that even though things may not be 100% clear, God impresses things on you and maybe the reason why it is not 100% clear is because God wants us to trust him.
God wants us to step out in faith and trust Him.
Isaiah says . . .
Isaiah 43:19
God is constantly desiring to do a new work in us and through us.
God is in the business of molding and changing us.
Transforming us, which involves every single day being something new and different from yesterday.
Our walk with God should change every day.
And what I mean by that is that we should learn something new each and every day and then apply that new learning to deepen our relationship with God.
Isaiah tells us that this new thing is “springing up” and then asks do you not perceive it?
The only reason why we would fail to perceive it is because we are out of tune with God.
We have shut the penetrating work of the Holy Spirit out.
We have drowned out the call of God by our desire to live in the past.
We need to quiet ourselves and listen to God.
We need to perceive what God is telling us because all the things we did 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago are not working.
We are ministering to a new and different generation of people and if we want to reach them, we MUST be open to change.
We MUST be willing to roll our sleeves up, get a little uncomfortable and do the work of an evangelist, as Paul puts it.
We can’t expect them to just come flooding in the Church doors, we have to go get them, tell them the Gospel and compel them to come in!
And remember the list from the beginning?
The last one on it is “the leaders don’t bring unchurched friends with them.”
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9