Collaboratively Led (Pastor Cheryl Lavornia)

Okay, I need a volunteer.

One volunteer.

Tim, come on up.

No, he has no idea.

Okay, Tim, I want you to take this hoop,

a couple of steps back, turn around

and put it in your back like this.

And when I say go, turn around so you can't see the cone,

you're just gonna walk backwards

and drop it over the cone.

Go.

Close.

Wanna try that again?

You can use your peripheral vision.

Okay, come on, let's go.

Okay, okay.

Yay!

Okay, I'd like you to pick three more people.

Don, you wanna come up here?

Anybody else?

Two other people.

Well, I don't know if that's possible, but.

Marco, you wanna come up and try?

You can nominate someone.

Anybody else?

I need two more people, or I'm gonna start picking.

Yep, Marco, come on, let's go.

Okay, you guys hold this and Tim, you hold this one.

So you guys each get with one of them.

Marco, come on up, yep.

Okay, come on up here.

Sorry, what is your name?

Phoebe, see, now everybody knows for Phoebe.

Okay, so you guys gonna take this

and put it between you and your back

and hold it without your hands.

So your backs are gonna be touching.

Okay, yep, just like that.

No hands though, okay, there.

Don't squish it, because you'll move.

Okay, you guys do the same.

Back to back with each other, yep.

Marco, you go around the back, yep.

No hands, just back to back like this, okay.

Keep your hands out front, there.

Now what you're gonna do is walk around the cone.

So one of you has to decide who's leading

and one of you has to decide who's following

and you're gonna walk around the cone through the music.

When the music stops, you're going to move over

to the cone and try to drop it without using your hands.

Okay, so Tim, you can start walking that way.

Okay, see, and any time this happens,

just pick it up and start going.

Okay, turn to your back, Marco, yep.

Okay, start walking around, walk around the cone.

Keep going, keep trying.

Okay, try to get it on the, drop it,

try to drop the drop.

Okay.

Okay.

It's okay.

I'll take it, thank you.

That's okay, thank you.

Yeah, there you go, see, thank you, woo.

Okay, which one seemed easier?

Tim by himself.

Yeah, Tim by himself seemed much easier.

Okay, which seemed more fun?

The second one, of course.

Of course, being the only one to control the hoop

makes the odds of winning pretty high.

Pretty high, I can't say you can get it,

but it's pretty high.

It's just up to you and you're in control,

but when you team up with others,

you have to collaboratively lead,

and it's a bit less likely that you'll win.

It's less likely that you will have the ability

to control the hoop and know where it's going,

but as we saw, it's way more fun.

So, as we continue in our series Revivalization,

the process of reimagining what it means

to be a compassionate Christian community,

we have looked at what it means to be Christian

by being biblically inspired and designed for prayer,

and what it means to be a community

that is mission-minded and relationally aware,

and today we'll be finishing up community

with a series, a sermon I'm calling Collaboratively Lead.

So, would you stand with me as we read

from the book of Romans,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

chapter 12, four through six.

For just as each of us has one body

with many members, and these members

do not all have the same function,

so in Christ we, though many, form one body,

and each member belongs to all the others.

We have different gifts according to the grace

given to each of us.

If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy.

In accordance with your faith,

if it is serve, then serve.

If it is teaching, then teach.

If it is to encourage, then to encouragement.

If it is giving, then give generously.

If it is to lead, do it diligently,

and if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

Lord, we thank you for your word this morning.

We thank you just for the fun of being together

this morning to see how your word

can be both transformational and fun and inspiring

and ways in which we can actually listen

and hear you to see what you're calling us to.

This morning I ask that you call all of us

to be attentive to your word

and what you're saying to each one of us.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

You may be seated.

Okay, so Romans is a complex letter.

It's written to the church in Rome around AD 57,

and it's at the end of Paul's third missionary journey.

And he was writing from Corinth, Greece.

Now the Gospel in the Eastern Mediterranean

was going really pretty well,

but he yearned to go to Rome to meet these Christians

and then from Rome take the Gospel across to Spain.

But the Gospel had actually already come to Rome

when Paul was writing this letter.

And it's uncertain how the church got its start there,

but it's possible that after the day of Pentecost,

believers who had, Jews who had traveled to Jerusalem

heard the Gospel and then brought it back to Rome

and began to meet.

Now several house churches had already been established,

but they were vying for leadership and structure

and they were trying to figure things out.

Now Romans is the only letter Paul wrote to a church

that he didn't start.

And it appears that no other apostles

had started it either.

He desired to come to the Christians in Rome

to establish a firmer foundation

because it seemed like the churches in Rome

had been operating sort of independent

of apostolic influence.

So Paul writes this letter to establish a firm

and solid foundation theologically

and to model collaboration.

So he says, he starts off this in verse four

we started today.

And he says, just as each of us has one body

with many members and these members

do not all have the same function,

he starts with this metaphor.

It's a metaphor that he uses around this political

and cosmic solidarity that was very familiar

to the Greco-Roman world.

Ancient writers like Putark and Esop

applied this metaphor to the city-state.

So that instead of the power struggles for leadership,

these writers were saying city-state

should really think of themselves as one body

coming together with different abilities

in order to protect and prosper all.

So for them, collaboration was the key.

So then Paul continues with this metaphor in verse five.

So in Christ, we, though many, form one body

and each member belongs to all the others.

So now Paul takes that metaphor that they knew

about their political system

and applied it to the church,

to the church metaphor of one body being the church

as is political and cosmic reality in the kingdom of God.

Now it's important to know that he was talking

about the kingdom of God, God's kingdom,

not a political one.

It's big picture thinking for Paul

and again, collaboration was the key.

So each Christian was to be interdependent on each other

because as they were all in Christ,

like city-states were all part of the country,

each city-state were to come together.

He's saying because we're supposed to be interdependent

as Christians and be one body in Christ,

we are all responsible for growing and nurturing

and protecting and providing

as we follow God's lead for his kingdom.

And so then he continues in verse six.

We have different gifts according to the grace God,

grace given to each of us.

Again, just like these city-states

that may have had different provisions or abilities

or talents or skills, just like those city-states,

Christians are to be members of God's kingdom

as one body with specific responsibilities

because we all have different gifts.

But there's no hierarchy.

He wanted to make sure that we weren't vying

that one gift is higher than the other

or more important than the other.

And so he's saying these all are gifts

for the full expression of collaborative leadership.

For Paul, the body of Christ should operate

as one political and cosmic kingdom.

Now political meaning, the set of activities,

and here he's talking about giftings

that are associated with making decisions

and being a body so that all can prosper and grow

and cosmic as a way to order that system

or structure or the church to be collaboratively leading.

He desired to see these house churches

to operate as this one body enriched

by the strong theological foundations,

but also as a body that could be a community

that we're all fully participated.

Now, have you ever heard of the difference

between a buffalo versus geese style of leadership?

Okay, buffalo versus geese style of leadership.

Buffalo, if you didn't know,

are extremely loyal followers of one leader.

They do whatever that leader directs them to do.

They follow wherever that leader goes

and stand around waiting for the leader to show up

when he isn't around.

Now, all of us have seen Western movies

where the buffalo go running off the cliff.

That's why, back in the frontier days,

the earlier settlers learned this very quickly.

If they could kill the lead buffalo,

the whole herd would stand around

and they could easily slaughter them

because they didn't know what to do without their leader.

For hundreds of years,

leaders in the church have been taught

to be like those buffalo leaders.

Now, geese have a different style of leadership.

The reason why geese fly in a V formation

is because as each bird flaps their wings,

it creates an uplift for the one in the back.

This way, the whole flock achieves an extra 71% flying range.

If you were in business and someone said,

you could increase by 71%, you would do it.

When the lead goose gets tired,

it drifts back into the formation

and another one moves up to the lead position

so they all can benefit from the extra lift.

It seems that with geese, leaders have a perfect model.

They understand how to share leadership responsibility,

when to share it, and with whom to share it.

Now, in Paul's context, the buffalo were ruling.

Rome, Caesar, Herod, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees,

they're all trying to be the head of the herd.

But Paul knew that to be Jesus-shaped,

the church needed to be more like the geese.

This is how he understood Jesus' call

to go and make disciples.

Sometimes we think of discipleship too spiritually,

like knowing more about the Bible

or attending services more often.

And we forget about the real practical part of following Jesus.

So I'm gonna throw a slide up on the screen.

This is a matrix, and it helps us understand

where we are as disciples in terms of our fruitfulness,

what's happening in our lives as we follow Jesus.

So if you look at that first top quadrant,

you get this high character, low skill or low competency.

It means that you have the character of God,

you are following him, you're reading your Bible,

you are understanding there's this inward transformation

that's happening, and you're living your life that way.

But you have a low skill.

You may not know how to pray very well,

you may not be operating with some of his giftings very well,

so you're limited.

It's like having a really, really strong

biblically sound person who cannot teach.

They can't get all that internal stuff out.

They don't have the skill for that,

so they're a bit limited.

That's okay, that's why we move.

So that you may find yourself there.

Unfortunately, if you find yourself

in the low skill, low character place,

you're probably going to be irrelevant

because you're not actually in,

you're not even on the playing field.

You're just sort of like, oh, okay,

I'm not even being a Christian or I'm not following Jesus,

and I have no skill, so we just sort of,

that's just a quadrant we hope nobody falls in.

Sometimes we fall into the high skill, but low character.

So sometimes we come in and we're like,

we have a super skill, we've been trained

to be a teacher or a musician or a doctor, a nurse

or something, you know, really good skill,

but we have questionable morals.

Nothing has changed in the inside.

We are still living as though we're outside in the world.

And when that happens, if you're a Buffalo leader,

you're just going to bring everybody off the cliff.

Okay, you're shiny, you're bright,

people are attracted to you because you have

this super skill, but you're leading them

down the wrong path.

Now what Jesus wants us to do is learn

how to move from limited into fruitfulness.

And so when we do that, we have high character

and high skill or high competency.

The word for disciple in the New Testament

literally means learner and refers to somebody

who just hasn't just learned what their teacher knows,

but becomes the kind of person their teacher is.

Jesus said to his own disciples,

anyone who believes in me will do the things

that I have been doing.

A disciple of Jesus then is someone who is with Jesus,

learning from Jesus how to be like Jesus.

The implication is when you follow Jesus,

he's not just transforming your character,

he's also equipping you with his competencies, his skills.

Discipleship means being equipped

in both character and competency of Jesus.

And when Jesus felt his disciples were ready,

you saw him send them out into do the work that he was doing.

And they turned around and did it again

and formed Christian communities that practiced healing,

forgiveness, conflict resolution, compassion and care.

And they equipped the person after them

to do the ministry to and for the world.

So in God's kingdom, the goal is fruitfulness.

John 15.5 says, yes, I am the vine and you are the branches.

Those who remain in me, this is Jesus,

and I in them will produce much fruit.

From apart from me, you can do nothing.

See, Jesus said that every person is welcomed and invited

to enter into his purposes.

Every person is expected to be fruitful

and to provide for themselves and others

interdependent on each other.

Jesus's leadership is kingdom centered and kingdom focused,

which means Jesus calls all of us to collaboratively lead.

So what does it mean to collaboratively lead?

It means that you lead as a servant

with the character of Jesus and the competency

to influence people in a particular context

to pursue their God given direction.

I'm gonna say that again.

To collaboratively lead means you are a leader.

It means you lead like a servant with a character of Jesus

and the competency to influence people

in a particular context to pursue

their God given direction.

Now unfortunately throughout history,

the misconception about Christian leadership

is that it only applies to people

with certain positions of authority

or with an impressive title

or those who have achieved institutional rank or tenure

or even individuals with special social standing or gender.

But Paul in Philippians two says this,

verses six through seven.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality

with God as something to cling to.

This is Jesus, he's talking about Jesus.

Though he was God, he did not think of equality

with God as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges.

He took the humble position as a slave

and was born a human being.

This is servant leadership.

For Paul having the character and competency of Jesus

created a collaborative led church

that aimed at kingdom growth.

Jesus shaped people in a worldwide movement

across the entire Roman Empire.

Imagine a very, very, very small percentage of people

once they jumped into Christian communities,

became Christians, became Jesus shaped.

They literally spread Christianity across the Mediterranean

like by 71%.

It was amazing how much a little bit,

a small band of people.

The fact that Christians were in Rome

before the apostles ever got there

is testimony to that sort of movement.

The political and religious power structures of the day

could not hold a candle to this type of movement.

I want you to just listen to the end of Romans

because Paul commends 35 people, 11 of whom are women

who have the character and competency

that collaboratively led with Paul.

I commend to you our dear sister Phoebe

who was a deacon in the church.

Many people actually believe

that here's this Gentile freed woman

who probably preached the letter.

Paul gave her the letter of Romans,

sent her to Rome and most likely that meant

she preached the letter to the Romans.

Give my greetings to Priscilla and Aquila,

my co-workers in the ministry of Christ Jesus.

In fact, they once risked their lives for me.

Husband and wife, the wife is said first.

Usually that meant that she was the one

that was the chief lead in teaching and equipping

and church planning and evangelistic work.

They're co-founders of the church in Ephesus.

My dear friend Eponatus,

he was the first person in all of Asia

to become a follower of Christ

and he was a Gentile, a Greek Gentile.

To Mary who has worked so hard for your benefit,

the third woman he's mentioned so far.

To Andreticus and Junia, both husband and wife,

my fellow Jews who were in prison with me

and they were highly respected among the apostles

and became followers of Christ before I did.

To Eponatus, to Urbanus, a co-worker in Christ

and Stachius, all Italian slaves

who are in the Imperial household of Caesar.

Greet Apellus, a good man whom Christ approves.

To the Jewish believers from the house of Aristia Bellis,

who are the grandson of Herod the Great.

To Herodian, another fellow Jew,

possibly part of the Herodian dynasty.

To Triphina and Trifosa, Gentile twins

who worked hard for the Lord.

Deer Persis, which most people actually think

this is a description of a Persian woman

who had worked so hard for the Lord.

To Rufius, whom the Lord picked out to be his very own

and also his dear mother who has been a mother to me.

Rufius might sound very familiar to you

because he was the son of Simon of Serene

who carried Jesus' cross through up to the place of Galgotha.

To Asecretus, Flagon, Hermes, Petrovis, Hermas

and the brothers and sisters who meet with him.

To Philegia, Julia, Nerehas and his sisters

and to Olympus and all the believers who meet with him.

This is a list of Greek slaves and freed people

who actually met in these various house churches.

Nepal collaboratively led with slaves, Greeks, Jews,

Romans, Persians, men and here 11 women

who all use their gifts in Christ

to advance the kingdom of God in collaboratively leading,

influencing, church planting, teaching, preaching, sharing,

caring, showing compassion and building up the body of Christ.

So if God has placed you here in this church

it's because he has called you to collaboratively lead

by being the kind of disciple

that is learning from Jesus how to be like Jesus.

I can imagine if Paul is wrote us as Christ's church a letter,

I'd want all of our names to be at the end of this letter.

Again, I wanna clarify something here

that it's not that leadership structures

or specific roles in church are not biblical,

it's not that we don't have specific leaders or pastors

or staffing for specific roles and responsibilities.

But what it does mean is that in order to become

a more Jesus-shaped, less culture-shaped church

we have to reimagine how we do ministry in our context now.

Collaboratively leading calls for a bigger imagination

because to be Jesus-shaped as a community means

we model ourselves after Jesus.

First John two, five through six remind us

but those who obey God's word truly show

how completely they love him.

That is how we know that we are living in him.

Those who say they live in God

should live their lives as Jesus did.

That's character and competency.

Now, if you were not handed a card,

there's a card that you might've gotten on your way in.

How many people got this?

If you got this, if you didn't raise your hand,

Shell's gonna bring them to us.

This is our Easter.

This Easter it says we lead together.

And you can tell there's an acronym,

there's a little thing there, we lead.

And I'm gonna go through this in just a second

because it's important for us to understand.

So as you get this, I'm gonna go through this.

I really want you to seriously consider

the ways in which your expertise, your giftings,

your talents, your time, your finances

can all collaboratively lead in advancing God's kingdom here

in the East Greenwich, North Kingstown, and Warwick area.

First you'll see the devil in the back of your head

and the devil of you is welcome his invitation.

If you were a follower of Jesus,

you, you have been invited to participate in his kingdom,

in his kingdom work.

I don't care how you plug in.

You might choose to take this card and plug in for Easter.

You may choose to sign up for a C group.

You may choose to get involved in one of our ministries.

I don't care how you plug in, I just care that you do.

So welcome his invitation into his kingdom.

Now enter his purpose.

Our mission statement says that we exist

to model and multiply

compassionate Christian community and that takes all of us.

His purpose is to make disciples of all of us

no matter our background, our education,

our financial status, or anything else.

And then we lead, we listen expectantly.

So spend time this week listening to God.

Come to this month's behold, this prayer experience.

It's time to just be silent before God

and listen to what he's saying to you.

It's a time to be together as a community

to hear the ways in which he's interacting with us.

Then engage faithfully.

Be courageous in your faith and step in.

You can either scan the QR code,

which is fun to do if it works.

Sometimes on your phone,

my phone sometimes is weird about it.

You can scan that and it will send you to a form

and you just send your name.

Or you can go to our website, cccub.org

and click next steps and sign up there.

Or you can scribble your name on this card,

the old fashioned way,

and hand it to a greeter as you go out.

We will get back to you with all the things

that you could get involved in around Easter.

We do this because we're advancing his kingdom.

We have different gifts, according to the grace,

given to each of us.

If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy it

in accordance with your faith.

If it is serving, then serve it.

If it's teaching, then teach.

If it is to encourage, then give encouragement.

If it is in giving, then give generously.

If it is to lead, do it diligently.

If it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

Again, just step in

and then do it for others

because we seek to follow Jesus

in shaping disciples who transform the world.

Just step in.

So Lord, we thank you for your word this morning.

We thank you that your invitation is open

to each one of us.

Regardless of our abilities, our competencies,

our character, you wanna develop it all.

You're inviting us to step into places

that our character can be formed

and our skill level for doing the things that you do

can be enriched and grown.

And that means each one of us.

No matter how we feel right now,

no matter if this is your first time

or 10th time or 100th time to come to church.

Jesus, I know that you are calling this body

to reimagine what it means to be

a Jesus-shaped community in this community at large

because you have work for us to do.

You have work for us as each neighbor

and each house around us is needing you, Jesus.

And it will take all of us to meet them

and greet them and disciple them

and grow them and nurture them

and to expand your kingdom.

Jesus, you are the one that is expanding the church

and growing this kingdom

and you're just inviting us in to participate.

Allow our hearts to be moved to take that step forward.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.