Sermon Tone Analysis

Launch:

The Launch Pad

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

Nov. 30-Dec.2,

2007

 

Amazing, isn’t it, that this is the last service in this building.

As involved as I have been in all of this replant, I still have a hard time believing it is really happening, that it is really real.

So, what do you do on your last weekend in the building you are leaving behind before you move on to the next…what do you do when you are closing one chapter and opening the next?

Today is a significant day, because we need to remind ourselves in a time of great change who we are, or in other words what is not changing.

If you are new in our church, you’ve picked a great day to come because you will hear what our church is really all about, why we do what we do.

If you’ve ever wondered why we are so crazy, or not crazy enough, or so different, or not as different as you might think, today is a great opportunity to figure out why.

Today we will also talk about change, which all of us will face in our lives.

To help do so, I have a little friend up here that we haven’t seen for a couple of years.

A few years ago now, I used this little hermit crab (actually a different one, the other one is now in hermit crab heaven, and yes, no matter what Jack says pets are in heaven) to help us understand how God was leading us forward.

Hermit crabs from time to time have to move to a new shell, if they are going to continue to grow.

Actually, if they refuse to move when it is time to move, then they will die.

It isn’t necessarily easy or comfortable for a hermit crab to move to a new shell, but it is vital for the health of the hermit crab.

Same with us.

We realized a few years ago, that it was time for us to move to a new shell, that we had outgrown this one and as good as this shell has been for us, time for a new shell.

We knew it wouldn’t be an easy adventure to move, but we also knew that God was leading us to take that big step.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the old shell is bad and the new one good; in fact, the success of the old shell is what made the new one necessary.

That is an important thing to understand about change, and all of us will face changes.

We face changes in our family as we go from one phase of parenting to another, or from singleness to marriage, or marriage to singleness, or from one job to another, one church to another, one neighborhood to another…all those are significant changes, and most often the change isn’t from completely horrible to completely wonderful.

Most changes involve moving from one reality, where there were lots of good things, to another reality, where there are also lots of good things.

So, to deal with change in a healthy way means that we have to understand, as we move from one shell to the next, that we have to say goodbye to the old in order to say a proper hello to the new.

In other words, as we move from one reality to another, it means that we have to say goodbye to some really good things that we will miss.

Change brings both grief and excitement, because in most changes we lose some things even as we gain some other things.

I remember as a little boy when we sold our station wagon.

It was one of those station wagons with the wood paneling on the side and the rear-most seat faced backwards so that as you drove you could look out the rear window and make faces at the people driving behind you.

Remember those?

Those were awesome!

Even though we were getting a car that was newer and in many ways better, I had to grieve the loss of that car.

That car held my memories.

In order to be excited about the new, I needed the freedom to be sad about the loss of the old.

The same is true for this building.

It is just a shell, but an important shell.

I’ve been in this church for a little over 18 years, many of you even more than that, and we have lots of great memories in this building.

I remember the first sermon I ever heard in this building.

I sat right up there in the balcony, and Gene was teaching from 1 Corinthians about unity, a sermon that has marked me to this day.

I also remember the first sermon I ever preached in this church, right here on this platform.

In those days, we were more formal, and I was wearing a suit.

You could tell back then who was preaching because usually that person was the only one with a coat or a tie.

I’ll never forget the experience, because I was nervous, and I was sitting down in that seat where I sit every week before  I speak.

I was there in my suit, and as the service was just about to start, I heard one lady talking to another lady she had invited to church.

She said, “Oh, no! See that kid in the suit.

I bet he is preaching today instead of Gene.

I am so sorry!”

Ouch! That’s a real confidence-builder!

Another memory that comes into my mind when I think about this building is one of the first weddings I officiated.

As I was doing the wedding sermon, the groom who was facing me and away from the audience, kept doing this with his nose, letting me know I had something hanging out of my nose or something.

He is a jokester, but I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not, and he kept doing it.

So, for the whole wedding, I kept trying to knock whatever it was off.

Turned out to be a joke.

I remember my boys running down the angled floors in hear into my arms.

I remember times holding Christy’s hand, hearing Gene or someone else speak the Word.

I remember when Caleb was little, sneaking away from Christy and crawling on the floor to come sit by me before I spoke.

I also remember the first service as Sr. Pastor.

About 2 minutes before that first service on Friday night, reality hit me.

It happened all in one moment, this sense of responsibility descended on my shoulders.

All those are really good memories, and I could keep walking down memory lane for a long time.

Many of you could, too.

For many of you, God did some big things in your life right in this place.

Maybe you found God here, or rededicated your life to Christ.

You may have gotten married here, or married off your children on this platform.

You dedicated your babies here.

You got baptized here, or baptized a loved one.

In this room right now are thousands of memories that we could all tell.

The truth of course is, if you really think about it, that all those things could have happened anywhere.

We’ll do all those things when we move.

But they didn’t happen anywhere.

They happened here.

We want to honor God for what he has done here, even as we anticipate what he will do there.

We want to say goodbye to this place, even as we look forward to the next place.

So, here is what we are going to do.

We are going to say goodbye to this shell and honor God for what he has done in our lives here.

Memory is a major theme in the Bible, and Jesus told us one of the ways to remember him was through communion, where we take time to remember what Jesus has done for us through the cross.

We are going to take communion now, and as we do, I want you to pray quietly and thank God for what he has done in your life here.

For those of you in Epoch, the elements are on the tables, and I invite you to get out of your seat and dip the bread into the juice.

For those of you in Live, as the plates are passed, you can take the elements whenever you wish, right away or you can wait a little while.

Take some time to remember and thank God for those memories, and then Ty in Live and Sean in Epoch are going to lead us in a song and we will do some more sermon; but for now, let’s remember.

Communion and Song

 

I’m going to ask my hermit crab friend to help me once again as we make this move to make a very important point.

When a hermit crab moves from one shell to the next, guess what?

It is still the same hermit crab.

A different shell, and it does look different on the outside, but it is still the exact same hermit crab on the inside.

I could pull him out and show you what he looks like, but that would just be mean…someone told me that they actually make this little screaming noise.

So, we’ll leave him in there, but let’s remember the point.

As we make this move, we have to understand that we are the same hermit crab with a new shell, not a different hermit crab…same church with a new building.

In fact, the church is not the building any more than the hermit crab is the shell.

We are not leaving the church behind.

We are taking the church with us.

Yet, in a time of significant change, it can seem like everything is changing.

The truth is, almost everything is staying the same.

New shell, same crab.

So, let’s talk about what is not changing as we make this move.

Let’s talk about the essence of Chase Oaks Church, what makes Chase Oaks, Chase Oaks.

Again, for those of you who are new, this is a great opportunity to find out what we are all about; and for those of us who have been around a while, a great opportunity to remind ourselves of who we are.

As a church, we have __ core values, and let me go through these.

Slide: ______________ )

 

·        Teaching the Word

 

Our first core value is teaching the Word, which means that when we move up to Legacy and 75, we will take the Bible with us.