August and Everything After

Okay well good morning and welcome to the house. My name is Greg Hampton if I haven't mentioned

that or if we've never met and today I actually want to start off right away with the passage

of scripture that that I'm going to read. It's in first Kings chapter 17 and if you don't have a

1 Kings 17 · chapter mention

Bible we have physical Bibles out in the lobby otherwise you can look this up in a digital

Bible. It goes first Samuel, second Samuel, first Kings, second Kings, first and second Chronicles.

If you pull me down just a little bit I call that one of the sequel sections of the Older Testament.

Wow that wasn't funny. I thought that was funny.

Man did you get it? Do it again. I'll do it again. So it goes it goes first Samuel, second Samuel,

first Kings, second Kings, first and second Chronicles. It's what I call the sequel section

of the Older Testament. See Bradley you get me. You get me. Anyhow we have a tradition of giving

the scriptures our full attention when we read them. One of the ways we can do that is by standing

together as we are able or as you would prefer if you would like to stand with me. I'm going to read

first Kings 17, 7 through 16. Sometime later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in

the land. Verse 8, then the word of the Lord came to him. Go at once to Zarephath in the region of

Sedon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food. So he went to Zarephath.

When he came to the town gate a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked,

would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink? As she was going to get it he

called and bring me please a piece of bread. As truly as the Lord your God lives she replied,

I don't have any bread. Only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil and a jug. I'm

gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat and then

die. Elijah said to her, don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small

loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me and then make something for yourself and

your son. For this is what the Lord the God of Israel says, the jar of flour will not be used up

and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land. She went away

and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her

family for the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry in keeping with the

word the Lord spoke by Elijah. Let us pray. God of every tribe, every tongue, every color,

and every nation we thank you that we have the scriptures. This scripture that this story goes

back nearly 3,000 years. We thank you that your scriptures have persisted throughout the millennia

that we still have them to read and to learn from. Pray that whatever you have for us to learn today

that it would stick, that it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would

become more, would become stronger as we become more like your son Jesus. Amen. Amen. All right,

so today I want to talk about August and everything after. Some of you are going, oh we talk about

counting crows? No, I'm just calling the sermon August and everything after and I just love

the album cover and so I was like I'm just gonna rip that off, you know, the biggie. But,

so today may not seem any different to most of you. Most of you probably think, oh this is a Sunday

just like any other Sunday. It's just a Sunday in August but to me Sundays in August and especially

the fourth Sunday in August have a lot attached to them. Ten years ago at the end of July in

2013 my family moved back to Rock Island from Colorado Springs to plant this church. Before we

had moved I was the small groups director at a church of 10,000 people for three years. In addition

to helping people at a very large church connect with each other I was tasked with helping launch

the new campus downtown Colorado Springs and to lead the worship band and worship ministry for

that for the first few months as it got onto its feet. And when I would drive downtown I would take

the exit off the highway that was to Bijou Street and Bijou had this hard s-curve that would curve

hard to the right and then hard to the left and you would be dropped right at the edge of the

edge of the downtown area. Now I grew up in Moline but the first job that I ever drove myself to

was at the Fort Armstrong in downtown Rock Island. I posted on Facebook today. I'm gonna cry during

the sermon today 100% guaranteed. And when I would drive myself to the job at the Fort Armstrong

I would go through this curve as fast as I possibly could because I was 16 years old and that's what

you do when you're a 16 year old and a 1982 Toyota that's rusted out and has no shocks. You just go

as fast as you can because it's fun. And so when I lived in Colorado anytime I would take that exit

onto Bijou it reminded me of this s-curve and I would find myself praying for Rock Island.

After that campus was up and running the next January in 2013 Cindy and I were praying together

about what God might have for us and she said well maybe we should move home and maybe we should move

to Rock Island and I said well if we move home we we'd have to plant the church in Rock Island.

And then I just started to weep.

I was weeping for a town that I'd only lived in for one year before we ever moved.

Every other year of my life had been spent in Moline.

From that point on pretty much anytime I would talk about Rock Island this would happen.

I remember telling my direct report my executive pastor that I would was responsible to about

wanting to plant this church and and he said well if this isn't call I don't know what is because I

don't see anyone else crying for Rock Island. So by the end of August 2013 10 years ago we had only

been back in the Quad Cities and specifically in Rock Island for less than a month. We were

putting together our first information meetings. We had maybe three or four people that had said

for sure yes we want to be a part of that. It felt like a miracle when months later in January that

we we launched and we had 50 adults and kids that were all on board. They were all like yeah we are

going to be a part of launching this church and we all agreed that the house a local church exists

to invite people in to call prodigals home to adopt the spiritually homeless. We said that we

believe that no one should be left out. We said that we would partner with other congregations

and seek to plant more churches so that everyone has the opportunity to rest live and work in a

great house. We said that we wanted to see a massive shift from spiritual homelessness to a

strong and undeniable sense in our lifetimes of spiritual family in Rock Island and in the Quad

Cities. We sent out 70,000 mailers not to 70,000 people to 70,000 mailboxes. That first Sunday we

were expecting in addition to the 54 people that were already signed on anywhere from three to

400 people to show up. They say that you have one half of one percent of a return on a mailer. Well

one half of one percent on 70,000 is 350. Now as the story goes that first Sunday the water main

broke at the high school. So we were told we were not able to or allowed to have a service inside

the building and so what we did was we posted on Facebook hey it's pushed to the next week

but anyone that's coming will be out in the parking lot. So we handed out gift cards and flyers and

coupons and we just encouraged people to come back the next week and some of you that are here right

now were there. One of those first two Sundays whether because you were on the team or because

you got a flyer because someone told you to come and see what this was about. Right around then

I had a dream. You ever had one of those dreams? First of all it just feels real as you're having

it but it's also one of these dreams where depending on what you do for a living like so

maybe you're a teacher and you have a dream that you're about to you have to go to class but you

didn't do any of the prep for the class or you have to go to court but you didn't do any of the

work for court or you're about to open a new show but nothing's been sewn and finished.

For pastors that turns into the feeling of existential dread of I didn't write a sermon.

I had this dream we were in the the auditorium of Rock Island High School and I was so nervous

because I hadn't finished a sermon and the service was about to start and so I went around to the

close to the back of the sanctuary and the place was just full of every kind of person.

Every kind of person of Jewish people, black families, Hispanic families, gay couples,

kids, the young, the old, just everybody was there and I looked up at the screen on the on the stage

and there was a video playing of people telling their testimonies about how they had come back

to or met Jesus for the first time because of this church and then suddenly I wasn't worried

about not having a message to share and I woke up.

I didn't know how we would ever get there considering that

it seemed like all that would happen on Sundays in the winter of 2014 was snow.

We had 10 out of the first 11 Sundays it snowed, not including the one where the water main broke.

Okay so back to August but now it's August 2014. This is my second August back in Rock Island but

it's the first August after we launched the church if that makes sense right. August is always a time

of ramping up for churches. I don't know if you've ever noticed that but for instance like right now

we've been talking about how Treehouse is going to be a church and we're going to be a church

and we're talking about how Treehouse is going to relaunch in September, how we're going to serve in

the Labor Day Parade, we have our annual homecoming Sunday. Why? Well because culturally speaking

September is one of the few seasons every year that people are most open to trying out this church

thing. Any Sunday is a good Sunday to invite someone to talk to Jesus but culturally speaking

Christmas, Easter, September these are the seasons where people are looking and so summer 2014 I was

hyper focused on getting us ready for growth leading the team we were sending out another mailer.

I'd said on this Sunday we're going to have 120 people. I knew it. I knew it. I was building

expectations for what was coming next and then what happened next was completely unexpected.

In August of 2014 my six-year-old son got sick with a rare and unknown virus. Actually

nine years ago this weekend this fourth Sunday in August was the first Sunday that we spent in the

hospital in Peoria and that Sunday morning was easily the scariest day of my entire life because

it is the closest that we have ever come to losing one of our kids. Eventually they told us that they

had no cure and I remember not knowing if I could keep going. If I could keep passing on the

faith. If I could keep pastoring this church that we had just started.

I had no idea how to lead people to a God that I suddenly felt was very far away

but I put on a good face

and there was at the bottom of my heart

just enough faith for bread that day.

For the next seven months from August 2014 to March 2015 we lived in hospitals. OSF

Chicago Children's Hospital in Peoria, the Lurie's Chicago Hospital for a little bit and the rehab

institute in Chicago we spent Christmas morning at the Ronald McDonald house. So to say the least

August is never just August to me like our bodies know it. There are times where we will just feel

crankies all get out and we won't know why and then we look at the calendar and it's like our

body knows what's going on before our brains do. The fourth Sunday of August is never just another

Sunday in August to me. The eventfulness of August doesn't end there for me. Jumping forward a bit

five years ago I took my first sabbatical in the summer of 2018. It was just a six-week sabbatical

and in August of 2018 when I returned from six weeks when I was coming back from a time of rest

for whatever reason over those six weeks right around a third of our congregation had dropped

off and never returned. Maybe it was me but I know there was more to it. Leading up to that summer in

2017 and 2018 was the season when we and particularly I had become very vocal about racism.

I'd read a book called divided by faith that said statistically speaking the more a pastor feels they

have to lose the more they feel like they'd lose part of their congregation specifically the less

likely they are to speak out about racism but our leadership team agreed that we were willing to

take that risk if it meant that we were telling the truth. I was a little bit worried about the

risk if it meant that we were telling the truth. In the first testament in the book of amos chapter

Amos 5 · chapter mention

5 23 and 24 god says to his people take away from me the noise of your songs i will not listen to

the music of your harps but let justice roll like a river and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream

because church actually being good matters more than only looking good.

That august I was sad that people had left but I was proud that while the size of our congregation

changed that the character of our call remained the same and I still had faith in the jar

and I still had faith in the jar and so despite the challenges that we'd been through in 2018

august I was optimistic about our future because I also knew that within a few months we would be

moving into this building the building that just happened to be on the corner of the s curve that I

had always prayed about. What are the odds of that right? In january of 2019 we officially moved in

and opened this location. Sorry not only is this emotional for me but I've had a lot of allergies

this week and so it was this building it was and still is more space than we need for look around

a congregation of our size but remember we wanted to see a massive shift from spiritual homelessness

to a strong undeniable sense of spiritual family we wanted enough room to grow

and so that next august four years ago august 2019 I stood right here and I shared the vision that

within five years we wanted to grow from an annual or from a weekly attendance of 75 to between 120

to 180 so that we could send 50 people and a pastor to plant another church in one of the other

cities now if you're keeping track of when that was some of you already know what happened next

because within months we started hearing rumors of a virus on the other side of the world

and within months of that the pandemic had shut down America shut down the world

at first we thought it would be a couple months remember that

remember that optimism we're like ah it'll be a couple months everyone will do the right thing

man we'll we'll knock this thing down

those couple months turned into 15 15 months before we started having people back in the

building at a limited number and we were like oh my god we're going to be in a pandemic

in the building at a limited number we had rsvps we had section small groups of chairs some of you

were here from that it was 21 months another six months after that before there were really kind

of no restrictions at all except for whatever people felt comfortable with themselves that put

us in december of 2021 but let's be honest it was a full three years before things felt normal again

so that vision that hope of intentional growth that was put on hold because we had no idea

how long this was going to take

we had no idea how long a global pandemic was going to last

we also had no idea how it was going to affect local churches what we know now

is that churches across america including ours on average are 20 smaller than they were pre-pandemic

we were hoping to spend five years doubling our attendance so that we could plant another church

instead in four years we shrunk by 20 percent there's an anecdote about a new pastor at a church

and he his old friend says hey how's it going at your new church and he says it's great i've

successfully grown this church of 100 people into a congregation of 60

so then we move forward a little bit to the summer of 2022 it was time for my second sabbatical

the first one was after five full years four and a half years of sunday mornings the next one was

four years our pattern is going to be every four years and so it's time for my second sabbatical

and i had no idea what to expect the pandemic had to do with the pandemic and the pandemic

is going to be every four years and so it's time for my second sabbatical and i had no idea what to expect the pandemic had

carved away a chunk of every congregation in america and the last time i left for

a sabbatical a third of the congregation pieced out but the truth is i wasn't worried

because i had learned that church size does not always indicate church health

i'm reminded that 10 years ago the same month that my family moved back to rock island i actually left

for one week to go lead worship for a youth group that was taking a missions trip to the rural towns

of oklahoma that had been destroyed by tornadoes in one of the days on that trip what they did was

they took us to the site of the oklahoma city bombing in 1995 and as the guide showed us around

they pointed out that they had planted a row of trees in memory of each of the first responders

that had lost their lives and then they pointed out that they intentionally had chosen a species of tree

that would never grow taller than the building that had been destroyed

so that as you looked at this outline of trees it was though it replaced the outline of the building

those trees will never grow any taller than they are meant to grow and yet those trees will still be healthy

i think that by the time i was leaving for my second sabbatical the summer of 2022 we had not grown

numerically but we had grown in depth in community and in the community of the community of the

we had grown in depth and community and culture i didn't think and i still don't think that our

tree has reached its full height but i knew that it was healthy

and i think that we had found ourselves grounded in the rich soil of what the 17th century theologian

rupertus mildenius meant when he said in essentials unity and non-essentials liberty

and all things charity so when i returned from sabbatical last year it was august 2022

and i found exactly what i had left a healthy church because i believe that jesus is here

i believe that the spirit is moving and i think that the father is pleased

let me say this clearly being healthy isn't an accident i used to tell people that

most the time when someone says they want something to be organic what they mean is

they want it to happen accidentally some of you have been in a meeting where you were starting

to plan something and someone in the room chained up and they said i just feel like we should

let this happen organically and in some cases that works without any help but in other cases

if you go to the grocery store and you go to the organic section everything in that section required

more work more hoops more intentionality and more money for it to be considered organic

it is no different in a church or community or friend group if you want it to be healthy

it requires some intentionality we cannot sit back like a basketball team in the dark going hey

we're all in the same team and just hope we'll put the ball into the right hoop

requires intentionality it has to be on purpose in some way it has to be on purpose

and so today with just the few minutes that i have left i just want to lay out what this next year

looks like for us and why because it's important because it's not just for us for this congregation

but it's for our city it's for the mission and the vision that god gave us more than 10 years ago

it starts with next sunday is a rest sunday i don't want to see you here

it has been a core value of who we are since day one that rest comes first

rest is the first thing that god offers us and it is okay for us to stop to intentionally stop

for us to stop to intentionally stop even when we're on the verge of september to say you know

what we are not going to buy into the rat race that we have to do something every single opportunity

that we can we will reject that and say yeah labor day weekend we're gonna rest we are not going to

try and convince people to show up here labor day monday anyone that wants to we have the opportunity

to serve our city though for the 10th time the first year that we committed to serving in the

labor day parade i was in a hospital but we served anyway because we wanted to see our city

thrive part of the reason that we have never had a float not to say that we won't but we've never

walked in the in the parade as a church or as a community we've only ever served it because we're

not not to say that we never will but we didn't want to start by advertising ourselves we wanted

to start by serving everyone else there will be thousands of people at this parade there will be

hundreds of businesses and bands and people walking in this parade and we get to serve them

and give them a positive experience on a stressful morning because it is because half the time no one

has any idea where they're supposed to be we will be there serving them making it as easy as possible

and then we want to relaunch our pantry that's going to be happening at earl hansen

i'm currently emailing river bends food bank to find out the information on how we continue to do

that if you're interested in being a part of that let me know and then september 10th homecoming

sunday it's just a fun event we do because sometimes prodigals the spiritually homeless

the first thing that they need isn't a message isn't a sermon it's just to be able to see a

community have fun together so that's a great day for us to invite people to come home maybe for the

first time and see what a community can look like september 17th tree house and the shed relaunch

everybody give a whoo whoo and it's not just because oh we need something for the kids

it's because creating a safe place for kids to learn about jesus in a way that isn't judgmental

that isn't legalistic will set them up for the rest of their lives of how they will think about

god they may not remember everything that they are taught but they will remember the people that

taught them they will remember the attitudes of the people that taught them they will remember

them they will remember the demeanor and the culture and the feeling and the environment that

they were in that's why we have these things not because of everything that they will remember on

monday but because of everything that god will plant in their hearts for some day

and then from september 17th through advent we are very specifically going to do a series

that is about being a healthy church because again it's not on accident

i said siri we're going to do a series

it's going to be called a church called tov scott mcnight a scholar and theologian wrote a book

his this book called a church called tov and tov is a hebrew word that means good

it's all about how a church can resist narcissism how a church can resist creating false narratives

a church can resist celebrity cultures for their leaders how a church instead can embrace empathy

can nurture justice can care about truth and so from september 17th until advent we're going to

talk about what it means to be good in that same time frame at the end of september you're going

to see some opportunities to connect with each other outside of sunday mornings

tashiana mcconnell if you don't mind raising your hand tashiana is going to be hosting

a women's group that's going to happen once a month it starts on september 30th the next month

october november we will have a weekly community table we've had community tables for years

i'm just highlighting these things because we want you to connect with people outside of sundays

if you can and then in december as we have for the last i think nine years we will have our foster

gift ministry we will collect gifts for kids that are affected by foster care again speaks to the

vision that we not only want to call prodigal's home and adopt the spiritually homeless but we

want to care about people that are physically in that place and then in january we will is everyone

ready for this are you ready drum roll please we will celebrate being 10 years old as a church

that doesn't happen for everybody so i don't know what we're going to do but i might put a little

team together to come up with some ideas of what we'll do for 10 years because that feels like

feels like a big deal but after that we need to continue thinking about what it means to be healthy

and so from february to easter we're going to do a series where every week we're going to talk

about and dive deeper into worshiping god because it's not just singing songs singing songs is part

of it part of is using our bodies part of is our minds some of it is our creativity

i think a lot of times we expect people to know how to worship just by watching us up front

but i want to make sure that we as a congregation have every opportunity to learn and step into

what it looks like and what it means to worship the god that has given us everything amen

amen and then we'll do some stuff in the summer i don't know what but that'll bring us back around

to august august august 2023 will mark five years since i stood right here and said that we wanted

to plant another church in five years i do not think it's likely that will happen

and that's okay that is completely okay because we are healthy

but i will say this i'm not letting go of that part of our vision just because it's okay to wait

does not mean that we have to let go of that hope because don't don't we still want to see a shift

don't we still want to see people invited in to see the spiritual spiritually homeless find a home

do we not still want to see prodigals coming home seeing the father's foot touch stone and run to

them don't we still want to see god do something for us to be able to see the world and to be able

to see the world we still want to see god do something in rock island

the city that 10 years ago seems to be treated so second and other by everyone i would talk to about

has not changed that much even in 10 years so we have so much further to go i think that god has so much more

for us to do and be and i think that there's still flower in the jar

that there is still faith in my jar

and if you are running out i will give you some

because i have faith that i can go and and bake a loaf of bread that feels like will only be enough

for me but somehow it will also be enough for you

so that is august but jesus is in

everything after amen let's pray

Jesus i thank you for august there have been times when i have hated it

but i thank you that every year we come around august

that my body reminds me my brain reminds me and then your spirit reminds me of who you are

and why you call this here in the first place

it was not to bake one last loaf of bread and then die

it was to invite people in

to call prodigal's home to adopt the spiritually homeless to say and believe that no one should be left out

and so i'll keep saying it

and i thank you for a church that is healthy that will say it with me