Sermon preached by Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
June 24, 2007
Copyright © 2007, John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved.

BUILDING THE FUTURE . . . NOW!!

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

This is a great historic weekend in the life of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church!

It is a great weekend, as we, in various symbolic ways at a moment in history, a date on the calendar, put the shovel into the earth, breaking ground now for the physical and spiritual ministries of the future.

First: We are building the future NOW with a facility that will facilitate future ministry.

You have a brochure in your hand that shows our first worshipers almost sixty years ago attending the very first service which was held at the Baltz Mortuary, December 21, 1947. You see the first ground-breaking ceremony on March 19, 1950, as the shovel went into the ground on what was then an empty field across the street from Newport Harbor High School. And you see pictured subsequent ground breakings that bring us to this moment.

Most dramatic as far as I'm concerned was that of the early eighties in which we built: our present sanctuary; a new education facility; a new chapel/administrative building; totally remodeled Dierenfield Hall; and tore down ten houses to provide the two-hundred-fifty-space parking lot.

What we didn't do then, we are doing now. We neglected our junior high, senior high and college youth in that building program. And now, we are tearing down the old Dierenfield Hall and replacing it with a brand new state-of-the-art Youth & Family Center, plus a new Children's Ministry Building in the place of the oldest structure on our campus. Both of these buildings that we are now tearing down and replacing are out of earthquake and other codes.

This weekend, we break ground to finish off what we were unable to do in the early eighties. The initiative for what we're doing now began immediately upon our burning the mortgage in the mid-nineties.

Let us never forget one very important fact. A building is a facility. A building is meant to facilitate what goes on in that building and what is motivated in that building to go on beyond the walls of that building. We now, this weekend, are breaking ground as a gift to the future generations of an up-to-date facility, graciously landscaped, a credit to the community, a center for quality mission. When we move into these new facilities in approximately one year, we will be gifting to the 21st century that which those in the early fifties and early eighties gifted to us.

We are building the future NOW! And let us never forget, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain."

Second: We are building the future NOW in healthy healing relationship with our neighbors.

None of us will forget the acrimony of three years ago. None of us, St. Andrew's members or neighbors alike, enjoyed seeing those signs of protest in the front yards of many homes in this community. None of us will quickly forget the jam-packed city council chamber of that August night two years ago that brought a compromise vote unsatisfactory to both church and our neighbors.

We needed the thirty-six thousand additional square feet to adequately provide the gym so desired by many and the highly controversial underground parking. Our neighbors said "no" to both. It took many months of intensive study, reviewing strongly felt various opinions of our own congregation. Some even suggested that we move to another site where we would have more land. But we concluded that Orange County did not need one more mega church. Our calling is right here in Newport Beach, which we have faithfully served these almost sixty years. Finally, we prayerfully bit the bullet and concluded that to force this project through on less than one half of the square footage that was needed at what would be double the cost with eighty-some restrictions and the ill will of many of our neighbors was irresponsible on our part. Our dreams died slowly.

Month after month, we prayerfully reflected and sought God's will. It became increasingly apparent to us that we are here to serve this neighborhood, not to antagonize it. We came to the conclusion that we should not add one single square foot, but we should work within our present footprint and the conditional use permit that has prevailed for this past quarter century. Unfortunately, the gym had to go, unless we were prepared to put it here at a considerable cost to ongoing present ministries.

So, we break ground enthusiastically today, having heard the will of our neighborhood--that there be no gym and no underground parking. We declare that to be God's will for St. Andrew's, as God has spoken through the external circumstances in reshaping our plans to His plans and that which will be for the most positive good for future ministry.

We are grateful to have our neighbors on board, to have representatives of the various neighborhood groups as well as city council members present for the ground breaking and to hear words from our neighborhood leaders and our past and present mayor.

We are building the future NOW! And let's never forget, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain."

Third: We are building the future NOW in proactive transition planning for the future.

You have heard a lot about the mission study that is going on by your Visioning Together Team. I'm so impressed at the quality of the persons chosen to do this job and the cross section of our congregation that they represent. They are moving ahead under the extremely capable direction of a new generation of leaders typified by co-chairs Jerri Gerard and Brad Hillgren, resourced by our Executive Pastor Jim Birchfield and the carefully selected national consulting firm of The Armstrong Group. They have studied the results of the fourteen hundred-plus surveys, which you filled out, the twenty focus groups involving over two hundred of you, and they've already met on one day and a half retreat to be followed by two more. I have recused myself from this process, so that there will be no note of defensiveness for the way we've done things in the past, and so that the most creative thinking can be done for the present and future. My sharing of the pulpit with Jim Birchfield, who represents a fifteen-year-younger preaching and teaching voice, is part of this transition.

Your leadership is enthusiastic about the future of St. Andrew's. It knows that there are weaknesses of the present that need to be addressed. There needs to be a shaking up of the status quo. And it's beginning to happen in immediate response to the findings of this task force. Some of these changes will be painful, as tough decisions are made, some having been implemented in the last few days. This involves the reshaping of some of our departments, some staff changes and some modification of present position descriptions.

My role for the next two years and eleven months is to be generative. The biblical precedent is that of a Moses who had all the ups and downs of leadership challenges for those forty years and who, in God's timing, handed the leadership over to his right-hand man and associate Joshua. Deuteronomy 34:7-9 reads, "Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigor had not abated. The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the period of mourning for Moses was ended. Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses." Then Joshua 1:1-2 reads, "After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, 'My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites.'"

I would not for a moment be presumptuous enough to put myself in the category of Moses, even if the next pastor of this church is so gifted to have all of the leadership capabilities of Joshua. But I am determined to be instructed by this model of leadership that understands transitions are necessary. I need to keep a strong pace but coordinate that pace to be able to hand off the baton to the next leader at the appropriate moment. Or to put it in those words of John the Baptist, who initially had the big following but humbly knew that it wasn't all about him but about Jesus, declaring, "I must decrease that he might increase." God is the only one who knows now who the future pastor will be. The polity of the PC(USA) is clear that a pastor must not have any say in choosing his or her successor. It is just as clear that this designated co-pastor part-time procedure is part of our polity and allows present staff to be considered in a national search. Our prayer is that, two years and eleven months from now, the baton will be passed in an orderly way with the action conclusions of the Visioning Study being implemented in a physical facility that is debt-free, with a former pastor who will continue to work for Jesus Christ in some ministry-at-large, with this church free, unencumbered by his influence, to move into the future.

This will take all of us building the future together NOW to make this happen. And let's remember, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain."

Fourth: Building the future NOW involves prioritizing what is really important in ministry.

Several weekends ago, I was in a Saturday retreat with theologian/philosopher Dallas Willard. In it, he made a statement I had never heard before. He talked about the "ABC's" of the church. I paused from my note-taking and asked him, "What do you mean by the ABC's?" His quick response was "Attendance/Buildings/Cash." Then he went on to eloquently lament the fact that the American church has become consumer-oriented and is judging its success on the commercial bottom-line criteria of attendance charts, how up-to-date are the buildings, and what's the cash flow.

These are important. But the reality is, they are not the bottom line criteria for ministry. The church of Jesus Christ has flourished the most in history when it's been the most persecuted. It is not lightly said, but it is true, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Any church that evaluates success on the fickle, lessor standards of Attendance/Building/Cash has already lost a spiritual battle. There will be nothing but a spiritual shipwreck ahead. Jesus made it clear. "'No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth'"(Matthew 6:24).

Yes, attendance is important. Yes, buildings are important. Yes, cash is important. But they are not to be the bottom line. If they do become the measure, the ultimate end of ministry and the definer of success, we are only a for-financial-profit business, not a Christ-centered mission.

It's extremely important, on this day of ground breaking that involves an active membership, physical facilities and the generosity of cash flow, that we keep this all under perspective of our terse and to-the-point mission statement, which is on the front of your bulletin. "St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church is endeavoring to be the family of God together in joyful, Christ-centered worship and is committed to: Leading men, women, and children to a personal saving faith in Jesus Christ; building ourselves in the faith; and serving others here and throughout the world." We are to be a "worshiping/witnessing/nurturing/serving" community. Our attendance, our buildings, our cash must be facilitators of our mission.

Today is an historic day in the life of St. Andrew's because of the ground breaking.

But it is even a more historic day in the life of St. Andrew's wherein each one of us rededicates our self at the table of the Lord's Supper to our personal involvement in worship, witness, nurture and service.

I'm thrilled, on this day of symbols, to place three before you.

The first symbol, quite easy to remember, will be the hard hat/shovel.

A second symbol will be the special prayer of dedication of two of our members, Brett and Shelly Faucett, who are leaving to become full-time medical consultants for Health & HIV/AIDS in Asia.

And the third symbol will be the broken bread and shed blood of the Lord's Supper.

We are breaking ground after each of our three services.

We are breaking the bread and pouring the cup at the end of this meditation.

But now, I'm going to ask Brett and Shelly Faucett to come forward with their two children, Acacia, age five, and Annapurna, age three. Two years into their fifteen-year marriage, Brett and Shelly knew that God was calling them into the mission field. Brett, who was a firefighter, quit his job to become a nurse. Shelly became a certified HIV/AIDS Red Cross instructor, so that both could offer their gifts through service in the Peace Corps for two years overseas. "Ever since then," Shelly explains, "We have always been ready to serve. We only have been waiting for the right position."

Active members here at St. Andrew's, Brett and Shelly have been praying for the right opportunity, and it has now come. They leave on July 14 for training in Louisville at denominational headquarters. They come back here on July 31 and, in August, leave for Chiang Mai in Thailand, but their emphasis will be on India, China and Thailand. Our denomination currently has three similar workers in Africa but none serving the more populated Asian region, where the transmission of AIDS is the highest in the world. Shelly says, "We're ready to get out there and make a difference. It's fulfilling our calling to reach people through health education and also spiritually as role models."

We've asked that these four kneel before us and that the elders present come forward and lay hands on them, as we dedicate them. Their funding is coming through the "Mission Initiative: Joining Hearts & Hands Together" of our denomination. Here at St. Andrew's, we've made a one-and-a-half-million-dollar commitment to our denomination's forty-million-dollar goal of putting twenty million dollars into new church development and twenty million dollars into new missionaries for the mission field. Our monies are already at work in the planting of a new church in Ladera Ranch, and helping the Chinese congregation in our presbytery. The monies are already helping with two new teachers at Forman College in Lahore, Pakistan, and now with Brett and Shelly.

But more important, as these four kneel here before us, I'm going to ask you, if you are able, to kneel right where you are, an act of dedication and/or rededication of your life to Jesus Christ. I too will kneel. As these are willing to go, under modest financial circumstances into the very center of the burgeoning HIV/AIDS pandemic in Thailand, to serve others in the name of Jesus Christ, I ask you to join them and me in bringing our lives before Jesus Christ in this moment, as we prepare for the Lord's Supper.

My friends, we are together building the future NOW! And let's never forget, "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain."

Let us pray. "O crucified and risen Christ, on this day of ground breaking for our new physical facilities, on this day of celebration of the Lord's Supper, as we eat of Christ's body and drink of Christ's blood, we now dedicate this couple, this family, to your full-time Christian service. And we dedicate and rededicate our own lives to three hundred sixty-five days a year, twenty-four hours of each day to service to you as Savior and Lord. May we never define ourselves by the standards of a consumer society that sees success in the ABCs of attendance, buildings and cash. Instead, Lord, may we see ourselves using these vehicles, these facilitators of ministry in a way that enable worship, witness, nurture and service. Give to this young couple all the resources they need to be effective in your service. And, Lord, in their moments of discouragement, may they know they have a home church that loves them and will pray for them and will continue to support them. May they know they go as part of this family. Sustain them. Sustain us in our dedication to you. And, gracious Lord, may this weekend of June 23/24, 2007, be historic for: ground breaking; dedication/rededication of all of us; and celebration of the Lord's Supper! In Jesus' name we pray. Amen."

In this spirit, may we build the future NOW, as we come to the table of our Lord, with sins confessed, lives rededicated, and a determination that these new buildings authentically facilitate that which is of highest priority--worship, witness, nurture and service!