Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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One day in 1881, The Reverend C. C. McCabe, a Methodist minister, was on a train heading for his new assignment: the whole Pacific Northwest, a largely unsettled wilderness. He had been given the staggering task of starting new Methodist churches in Oregon, Idaho and Washington State. As he rode along on the train that day, he picked up his daily newspaper and read about a speech that Robert G. Ingersol, the famous agnostic philosopher and orator, had delivered to a convention in Chicago the day before. In the speech Ingersol had said, “The churches are dying out all over the earth; they are struck with death.”

When the train stopped at the next town, Rev. McCabe jumped off and sent a famous telegram to Robert Ingersol. Dear Robert: All hail the power of Jesus’ name – we are building one Methodist church for every day of the year and propose to make it two a day! Signed: C. C. McCabe.
Before long Methodists and other Christians, at their camp meetings and at Sunday evening services, were singing a delightful new hymn:

The infidels, a motley band,
In counsel met, and said:
“The churches are dying across the land,
and soon they’ll all be dead.”
When suddenly a message came
And caught them with dismay:
“All hail the power of Jesus name
We’re building two a day.”

They were building two Methodist churches a day, and I suppose Oak Chapel, way out here in the primitive parts of Maryland, was one of them – built in 1886. Because of the efforts of men like C. C. McCabe, there is now a United Methodist church in every zip code in the United States. They planted seeds of faith in thousands of communities, and today, as many of those rural communities become crowed suburbs, those seeds are taking new root in ways that not even C. C. McCabe would have imagined.

The Church of Jesus Christ will grow; for faith, Jesus said, is like yeast in bread dough, or like a mustard seed that becomes a great tree. There is a God-hole in people’s hearts that needs to be filled. As Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless ‘til they rest in Thee.” The growing part of the Church may not always be called “Methodist,” but overall the Church will grow. It is not growing much, at this moment, in Europe and North America, but it is growing like wild fire in Africa, and Latin America, and Asia – where Europe and North America sent missionaries a century ago. “God works in mysterious – and wonderful -- ways!”

It seems to me that those pioneer Methodists in America were doing exactly what John Wesley had done in England, they were employing the same two-fold strategy: Wesley, you remember, brought people to faith and then nailed down those conversions by giving them class meetings to participate in, and disciplines of prayer and fasting to follow, and regular worship services to attend, and Bibles and Sunday School literature to read, and church buildings in which to gather. We sometimes forget that very practical, “methodical,” side of John Wesley. The greatest preacher among the early Methodists in England was not John Wesley. It was George Whitfield. He converted thousands all over England. But, at the end of his life, he looked at his accomplishments, and comparing them to Wesley’s, said his were “like a rope of sand.” Why? Because when Wesley preached and converted people he never left the area until he had established class meetings for his new converts, and appointed leaders, and laid down rules. Those classes eventually became churches. Wesley’s seeds took root. Wesley knew that you can’t just convert someone and walk away… any more than you can give birth to a baby and walk away.

That shall our approach be, today, to the world outside the church? How can we reach people “out there” and make the church grow again? By using the same two-fold approach Wesley used: Bring people to Christ, through preaching and personal witness, and then nurture them, raising them up in the faith, until they become not just converts but disciples. And then they will convert others. That’s the way it’s always worked.

First: Bring them to Christ. “Let me commend to you my Savior,” as Charles Wesley used to say. I’m absolutely convinced that the Gospel message, whether it’s proclaimed from the most ornate pulpit or whispered in the darkest dungeon, is the most powerful message ever heard. St. Paul, in a time when Christians were starting to suffer persecution for their faith, put the message this way: “Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus….” When we hear the amazingness of that message we truly become, as Paul said, “more than conquerors.” We can withstand anything. When we understand what it means, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” and see the implications of that for our own lives, it knocks our socks off!

The message of Christ, the Good News, doesn’t need to be embellished. It’s already “as good as it gets.” It doesn’t need a dog-and-pony show. It doesn’t need clever preachers who are as smart as all the talking heads on television. What it needs is simplicity, and sincerity and truth. (“Let me commend to you my Savior.” Or how about this approach to a dark world: “This is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you: that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”) The message says, simply, that God keeps his promises. You can put your trust in him. (The word “faith” and the word “trust” are interchangeable in the New Testament.) You can put your trust in him, as do the birds and the wild flowers, and he will take care of you as he does them. And, knowing that, you will be able to live just the opposite of the way the world lives, just the opposite of the way that seems natural to most people. You will be able to love your attacker instead of hating him, to give instead of get, to forgive instead of holding grudges, and so forth. These things you will be able to do because you know for a fact that God loves you and nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate you from that love.

We must get outside the walls of the church. The world is different out there. Not everyone takes kindly to Jesus. I attended a state university where the professors, if they spoke of religion at all, told us it was the thing that caused wars. In the Psychology Department, they spoke of faith in God as if it were a mental illness. Public schools, today, are teaching that the first Thanksgiving was when the Pilgrims thanked the Indians for their help! (I suppose it’s either that or not mention Thanksgiving at all, since any religious content would make the holiday – the “holy day” - off limits in the public schools.)

We need to be out there, in an amoral world, not arguing necessarily with the secularists, but doing our thing! And our thing is feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, clothing the naked – and loving more than just those who love us in return, for which there is “no thank,” Jesus said. Such living cannot be refuted, not by the bitterest of cynics. In Roman times it was accepted practice to take unwanted babies, especially baby girls, to the town dump and leave them there to die of exposure…a sort of late term abortion. The early Christians gained a reputation for going out to the dumps and rescuing the abandoned babies. In fact, the first piece of literature we have, by a non-Christian mentioning the Christians, is a letter from a Roman ruler in one of the provinces asking in astonishment, “What kind of people are these Christians? They not only raise their own children, they raise other people’s children, too.” You see, that’s our thing. And he couldn’t get around it. Words are cheap. Deeds are not.

We must get outside the church’s walls, and when we get there, let’s not be too eager to scold. Scolding comes easily to people. I think we all must have a “school-marm gene.” We like being judgmental. But Jesus reminded his disciples, time and again, that he had come to save the lost. “A well person doesn’t need a doctor,” he said, trying to make it as clear as he could, “but one who is sick!” A Christian goes into the world as one sick person showing other sick people where the hospital is. That way we’re not tempted to boast about our own goodness nor about our own ability to heal. When we’re in the world, all we can really do is point to Jesus. “There ain’t no flies on him.” We can say, “He’s helping me. Perhaps he can help you, too.” That’s our thing.

And then the church must be a wonderful, warm place, for lost souls to come, a “sanctuary” in the true sense of that word. The huge circular colonnade that extends from the front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and almost surrounds St. Peter’s Square, was designed by Michalangelo. It was to be, he said, like the arms of God reaching out to take in the lost, the least and the last of this world. We can’t all have such a colonnade, but we can all have that attitude of welcome. I read of a church where the members, if they are physically able, are encouraged to leave their cars in the far reaches of the parking lot, so the best parking places will be available to visitors. “Come in. Welcome,” we need to say. “This is where we study and learn about Christ. This is where we grow in our faith. This is where we support each other in love. This is where we bare one another’s burdens, and remind each other of our responsibilities under the new covenant.” It ought to be engraved over the front door of every church. Not “Come in if you’re good enough.” “Come in if you’re living right.” But, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

I’m going to stop here – for good! You get the idea. When the world comes knocking, try to say “yes” ten times for every “no.” It’s not our place to fault the sheep that got lost, but to go out and find him. You are a wonderful congregation. May God bless you all.