Sermon preached by Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
March 9, 2008
Copyright © 2008, John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.

BUILDING THE FUTURE TOGETHER

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. (Psalm 127:1)

This weekend marks the end of our intensive building campaign emphasis.

This week, I've had, among many other communications, three that stimulated lively conversation.

The first conversation was after church last Sunday. A man waited around until I finished greeting people in the line. Then, in a most kindly but agitated way, he said, "For years, I've come to St. Andrew's for inspiration and encouragement, have always loved your preaching and found what I've needed. But now, for some time, I've heard too much talk about money, and I'm afraid we're losing what this church is all about."

The second was a letter I received, a fairly long letter, from two of my most trusted friends and long-term members of St. Andrew's. They had been out of town, returning to receive in their mail the Building the Future Together campaign brochure, along with the pledge card. They wrote me, sketching their own long-term involvement at St. Andrew's, their love of this church, their commitment to previous building programs, including this present one, but raising sincere questions about why we are doing this now, when there continues to be so many opportunities for mission around the world. They genuinely were concerned that this would detract from our world mission emphasis.

The third was a meeting I had with some young men in a covenant group on Wednesday morning. They had invited me to meet with them in a question-and-answer session of a wide-ranging nature. The first question out of the box was, "Why have we had so much talk about money from the pulpit in recent weeks? It sounds like we're almost at some kind of a fund-raising campaign."

As, in the last few days, I've mused on these three communications, I've had to come up with satisfactory answers, not only for them but for myself.

The answer to the first man's question is that, yes, over the last several months, we have been gearing up for this very weekend in our Building the Future Together capital campaign. For the last four weeks, Jim Birchfield, Shawn Reilly and I have stressed biblical stewardship in a very intense and intentional way. But now, we will go back to preaching the rest of the Gospel in a holistic way.

My response to the couple who are long-term members is that the reason we have emphasized the capital campaign is to try to get as much of the cost of these new facilities behind us as soon as possible, so they will not negatively impact our worldwide mission. Of the $26 million that represents the totality of this project, $1 million of it is for missions. The rest of it is to build a home mission base, from which more local and world mission can be accomplished. We have chosen to not do it with long-term indebtedness. Just this week, I talked with a pastor of a sister Presbyterian church here is Southern California that has $14 million in long-term debt. They just had to lay off some 10 people, taking $800,000 of their local/world mission budget to fund a $100,000-a-month debt service. We are trying to avoid that.

My answer to the third communication from the fellows in the covenant group is, guess what, you are absolutely right. We are in the middle of a financial campaign. And this weekend ends its public phase, as we bring our three-year faith pledges, dedicating them to the Lord. I told them that this is not meant to offend them. No one is forced to participate in this, but many of us--myself included--are taking great joy in making an investment in future generations of young people, children, families, persons of all generations who will use these new facilities.

This weekend is designed to be celebrative.

We are doing two things.

First, quite simply, we are bringing our three-year faith pledges at the end of this message. We will receive an offering of our regular tithes and offerings and, in addition, these faith pledges. Our hope is that no one will cut back in local and world mission giving. That's what this church is all about, doing the work of Jesus Christ here and abroad. We hope that these faith pledges represent second-mile giving, sacrificial commitments, doing now what we didn't do some 30 years ago. We're now building a superb youth and family center and additional children's education facilities.

Second, we are "Raising the Roof" in a hard-hat visitation to these two new building venues. Immediately following this service, tours will be led into the new youth and family center, starting with what is now our completely enclosed new Dierenfield Hall fellowship facilities. Proceeding then down specially constructed stairs to the underground youth center, you will be amazed at what we've been able to do without adding one square foot to our footprint by going down instead of up with a massive increase in cubic square footage, both for youth and adults of all ages. You'll see the footings and much of the plumbing for the new children's education building. The foundation pour should be next week.

The date for finishing these two buildings is still August 21, when we get the sign-off from the Newport Beach City Planning Department. Our occupancy of these buildings will depend on how efficient we are in the moving-in process. We are trying to leave ourselves adequate time for that process, refusing to schedule these facilities until we're quite confident we are completely moved in. That should be by the end of September.

When I say the word "celebration," I know that carries different connotations for different people.

Worship is celebration. This week, I came across this cartoon.

This evolution of a worshiper is quite profound, isn't it? You can go all the way from the hands raised, real Pentecostal fashion to a gradual modifying of the external expression of religious enthusiasm that leads to the miter-bearing, high-church priestly expression. Even that we call "the celebration of the Eucharist." And the evolution moves the other way. The Pew Charitable Trusts survey came out with research a few days ago showing how there has been a movement in our culture in which many people no longer are associated with the same denomination or religious group in which they were raised. I'm finding many of my friends moving from quite energetic, whole-souled expressions of religious enthusiasm into more conservative, high-church styles of worship, while others of my friends are moving from the more high-church to much more lively expressions of worship.

Today, we're going to do some of all of these at the end of this message. We'll receive both tithes and offerings of this week and these sacrificial three-year faith pledges in a very solemn moment of rededication of our lives and our substance to the Lord. Then, after the benediction, we're going to head out into the plaza to take the tours of these new facilities that are springing up in our midst. We'll be given Magic Markers. We'll be free to write our names on the unfinished walls, Scripture verses, hopes and dreams for the future. These celebrative expressions are being added to the memory stones, which we've already signed that will be buried at the foot of the cross, as the plaza is being redone.

Back in the late sixties, our now-retired former associate pastor, Bill Flanagan, and his wife, Christy, were serving on the staff of the First Presbyterian Church of Burbank, California. They, then, had a building program that had a similar celebrative aspect to it, as Magic Markers were given to them to write statements of significance on the unfinished walls. Many years later when they refurbished that facility, some of the drywall was removed, and the pastor shared with the Flanagans the marks he saw that they had written decades before. In fact, he presented Flan with the piece of the dry wall on which years before Flan had written his life verse, John 15:16.

I invite you to let your inhibitions go and enthusiastically share whatever thoughts and prayers are appropriate to you, as we do this walk-through.

This campaign has been designed to share a vision.

This vision is of a vital St. Andrew's that is looking back, in this our sixtieth anniversary year, to those no longer with us, who made sacrifices that have enabled us to be what we are now and do what we are doing now. We are the beneficiaries of them, many whose names are not even known to us. They had the vision to buy the land and to build the initial buildings that made this a home base for missions here an throughout the world.

Thirty years ago, a whole new generation of leadership made sacrifices to build this present sanctuary, which we've just refurbished, educational facilities, the 10 homes on Clay Street that came down to become a parking lot for 250 automobiles, the new administrative/chapel, and the refurbishment then of the now-demolished Dierenfield Hall, which served us so well for so many decades.

I hope we have the backward vision to be reminded of what we are able to be today because of sacrifices made by those who went before.

Now, we have the privilege of a forward vision. Do you have the vision to look 30, 40, 50, 60 years into the future, to pray for those who will come and be touched by the ministry of St. Andrew's, long after some of us are gone? Jesus Christ may return before that time, but we are entrusted with the responsibility to "occupy until He comes." We are challenged to have a vision for the future. The vision is clearly stated on the front of our bulletin. It reads, "Our vision: St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church is a vital and life-transforming church where we are all invited to become disciples of Jesus Christ, are equipped to grow in our faith, and are challenged to love and serve our community and the world with excellence and compassion." May we never forget that vision.

In 2 Corinthians 8-9, the Apostle Paul, writing to a wealthy church in Corinth, asks offerings for a persecuted, suffering and poor church in Jerusalem. He actually challenges the believers in Corinth by the example of fellow Christians in Northern Greece, who had already shared in this offering, even though they were going through very difficult times. He writes:

We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints--and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, so that we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking among you. Now as you excel in everything--in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you--so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. (2 Corinthians 8:1-7)

Then he goes on to talk about Jesus Christ. He writes, "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Today, we are presenting our three-year faith commitments. In these weeks of the campaign, we have done our best to: first, inform; second, inspire; and now, thirdly, call for a response. We've involved ourselves in prayer. We have shared the vision as widely as possible with our congregation, and now we come to a moment in which we call not for equal giving but for equal sacrifice. Equal giving would be what country clubs do when they make an assessment for a new clubhouse. That's not the economy of the Kingdom of God. Jesus commended the widow who gave a couple of these tiny coins, which we now call "widow's mites." He said what that widow gave was much more than those wealthy persons who paraded into the temple, ostentatiously giving but without sacrifice.

Perhaps the best way to describe what we're talking about is a picture puzzle. You've done them with your children. The vision is on the front of the box, but all the pieces are jumbled up together on the inside of that box. Each of us has the privilege of seeing ourselves as a piece in that puzzle. You know what it is to try to do a puzzle and have it almost all together but find out that there are three or four missing pieces. It's very important for all of us to be part of, literally, building the future together, knowing what our shape is as it fits into the important total picture of what God is choosing to do in the future of St. Andrew's.

Let me give a final word before our offering is received.

This word is our biblical text for today, Psalm 127:1. It reads, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." Could it be said more simply, more succinctly? I doubt it.

If what we are doing here is seen as an end in itself, we are most to be pitied. It is so easy to develop a "edifice complex" that measures the success of an enterprise in the physical facilities that house that enterprise. I remember back in the early eighties when my wife Anne coined this phrase that I've used so often since then. "Remember, facilities do one thing. They simply facilitate ministry."

Let's remember that what we're doing here is providing facilities to facilitate ministry over the next 60 years that's as comparable and well-suited for those decades ahead as were the facilities that emerged here at St. Andrew's over the past 60 years. What we're doing now is simply trying to get them paid off, so that, amortized over the years ahead, the amount of money going into buildings is minimized, and the amount of money, energy, prayers, effort going into visionary ministry for Jesus Christ here and throughout the world is maximized.

Let me give a personal testimony. I've been privileged to be a tither since I was nine years old. It was modeled for me by my parents. The best money I've ever spent has been spent on the work of Jesus Christ.

However, in the two major building programs we've had here at St. Andrew's, I was in a bit of a dilemma. Already tithers, when it came to the building programs, Anne and I had to decide what we would do. To do anything meant that we had to go considerably beyond our ten percent before taxes. We did just that back in the early eighties. And we've done it for this present Building the Future Together campaign. We've done it again this time, knowing that in two years and three months, I'll be unemployed. There will be a new leader at St. Andrew's. Yet we're investing in that new leadership's ministry for the years ahead. We do it with enthusiasm, with prayerful love and anticipation.

I must be honest to say that there's something that I have wanted for the 30 years I've been here as pastor of St. Andrew's but have not been able to have because of tithing and going beyond the tithe. Anne and I have been blessed with much. And there's something healthy about saying "no" to something else I want. I've had to deal with the issue of "what is enough." And what is enough, quite frankly, is a lot less than I have. We've been so blessed. Now, how privileged we are to go over and above the biblical standard. I realize that there are some families at St. Andrew's that are barely holding life together, jobs have been lost, equity has been depleted, retirement funds have been borrowed. How privileged those of us who have been blessed are to give up something for the cause of Jesus Christ. What a joy it is to invest in the future.

Our children have modeled it for us. Trevecca Okholm and her team can tell you story after story of children who took the five dollars that we gave them as a talent to invest and who have maximized in bringing many more times that amount to help build the future together. The Lewis family children sold bottled water at the gym. The Drayton family children sold lemonade. The Crawford family child raffled candy. The Somers family did babysitting. The Lunde children made homemade cards and cookies, which they sold. The Huntley-Forbes family came up with a variety of projects, from doing laundry, to selling firewood, to babysitting. The Wicks family made jewelry. And the Pyle family invested five dollars in Hefty bags that they filled with recyclable water bottles, cans and glass bottles, more than doubling their money, as well as one of the children putting on a benefit piano concert and tea. These, and others of our children, multiplied their talents by investing in projects. Their initial $1,500 has increased to almost $4,000 for the Youth and Family Center.

Isn't this exciting to see what our young people have done?

Let me conclude with this story. Many of you know that, for 38 years, I've served on the board of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. This school has a rich history going back into the 1890s. A man from Boston by the name of A. J. Gordon built a Bible school in the inner city for the poor. At the same time, Russell Conwell started a ministry in the heart of Philadelphia.

One day, Conwell, who was pastor of a very small Baptist church in Philadelphia, as he went to church, saw a little girl in ragged clothes outside of that tiny church he pastored. She was sobbing her heart out. He said, "What's wrong?" She said, "I can't go to Sunday school. It's all full. There's not enough room for me."

Conwell sized up the situation and realized two things. One, it was overcrowded. And, two, she came from a tenement close-by and probably didn't fit in as much as did the kids already in that Sunday school. He took her in and made a place for her and followed up on it, assuring that there was a place for her in that Sunday school.

Two years later, that little girl died. When they took her body out of the tenement house, her parents had already called the pastor who had been so kind to her, and he came to visit them. They found a little red purse that she had probably found in a garbage pail somewhere that someone had thrown away. In it was 57 cents. And along with that 57 cents was this little scribbled note, "This is to help build the little church bigger, so more children can go to Sunday school."

He read the note at her funeral and then shared it with his congregation. The Philadelphia press got ahold of the story of that little girl and her 57 cents. A realtor in town magnanimously came and said, "I've got a piece of land for you to build a new church on," and offered to sell it to them at the prevailing real estate rate. They couldn't afford it. Then God touched that realtor's heart. He said, "Wait a second." He came back and said, "I've got a better deal for you. I'm going to sell you that land for 57 cents."

The congregation endeavored to raise money to build the buildings. Over a five-year period, they finally put together $250,000. I've tried to calculate what that would be today. It would be a lot of money. All I know is that at the church I served in Pittsburgh, the total current operation of that great church in 1904 was $30,000 a year. So that gives you an idea. They built the church in the heart of Philadelphia called Temple Baptist Church. They also built Good Samaritan Hospital. And they also built Temple University. And they also built a Sunday school building alongside that church, so many more children could go to Sunday school. Many have heard the great legacy of Russell Conwell, triggered by that 57 cent offering, carefully saved by that little girl over two years, so that more children could go to Sunday school.

Unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain who do it!

We now come to the end of the active financial phase of the Building the Future Together campaign. The offering will now be received into which we will place our tithes and offerings, along with our faith pledges. I urge you, I beg you to go far beyond the dollar sign on that pledge card to the transformation of life and rededication of yourself. For me, it involves not only the pledge that we are making. It involves the prayer that God will help me to finish strong as your pastor and as a follower of Jesus Christ, not to fritter away the rest of my time with you, or to easily slide into retirement, assuming my work is done. My prayer is that the next era of my life be even stronger for the Lord, whatever the health, whatever the circumstances of life might be in those years to come.

I welcome you to join Anne and me in this our faith commitment--and also invite you to join us in a deeper commitment of life that really declares this prayer: "Lord, I want your help not only building this house at St. Andrew's, but building the Temple of God, which is you and I and which is this community of faith in which your Holy Spirit resides."

In Jesus' name, amen.