Anniversary Sunday (2005)
On East Valley Bible Church's 14th anniversary, Tom Shrader traces the congregation's founding in 1991 through its growth, facility moves, and expanding ministry, giving all credit to God's grace. He walks through EVBC's motto, mission statement, and eight core ministry principles — from dependence on God and the authority of Scripture to evangelism, relevance, and legacy — calling the church to renewed commitment. He closes with 2 Timothy 4:1–8, applying Paul's charge to Timothy as a corporate call for the church to preach the Word faithfully and fulfill its ministry in the generation ahead.
“We express an unchanging message with ever-changing methods.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: EVBC Anniversary Sunday - 2005
Recorded: 2005 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 45 min
Themes: church anniversary, faithfulness, legacy, vision, ministry, scripture, evangelism, gratitude, church member, long-time believer, new to the church, pastor, church leader, feeling disconnected from mission, seeking purpose, building community
Scripture: Acts 2:42, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, 2 Timothy 4:1-8, Romans 10:9
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, biblical authority, missiology, church mission, preaching the word, sola scriptura, pastoral ministry, church growth
Full Transcript
Our First Service
When you came on campus, you saw some banners and people around. I saw shirts I hadn't seen before today, and caps, and just all sorts of things that would say this is a special Sunday — and it is for us. It was on November 3, 1991, that we had our very first service as East Valley Bible Church. Today marks the 14th anniversary of that, but we see this as a very special time, so you'll notice that everything has EVVC 15. We're really acknowledging 15 years of ministry.
The idea is to have a celebratory time through the entire year — two or three special events where hopefully we can get the entire church together, and a whole significant, constant celebrating of what God has done. I want to make sure, as I take my time to talk about that, that there's tension here — because we understand that God does everything, and yet we're going to talk about what we've done. I hope you understand the emphasis here is on Him and who He is and what He's done.
I do this the first Sunday of November every year, and people anticipate it coming. Within the staff, we've known for a while that this would be a special time, and so several people have said, "You need to do this, you need to say this, make sure you say this — this is really important." So to all of you, thank you so much for your help in preparing this day.
There were two main thoughts from those conversations. One was: do the history — no one here knows the history anymore. The other was: we don't care where we've been, where are we going? So I'll talk a little about both. Undergirding all of that are the principles and core values of the mission statement, and I want to talk about those as well.
The Banner and the Beginning
How many of you were with us at that very first service over on Dobson Road? Just a few. How many of you ever worshiped with us on Dobson Road? Amazingly, still not very many. We celebrated our very first service on November 3, 1991, and I was at my desk this morning when, providentially, I looked down and found the banner that hung in the front of the church in those days.
That very first Sunday, I taught from Acts chapter 2, verse 42: "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer." The logo on those first bulletins reflected that passage — the cup and the bread for communion, the apostles' teaching, and the idea of prayer and fellowship. That was the banner that hung in the front of the church for a long time over on Dobson Road. Somewhere there is actually video of that day — I don't have it, but somebody recorded it, and I don't know where it is. Probably just as well.
How the Church Took Shape
We met that summer of 1991 with a sense that perhaps God was doing something, and we decided that would take its form in a church. Dave Moore and I were the very first two elders. Over the years, joining us were Jerry Smith, Roger Wallen, Haskell Kynard — some of you will remember Haskell, who was an elder, then moved away, and a couple of years ago moved back — Chuck Holmes, Jim Scores, and Howard Morrison. Those are the elders who have served you.
In those early days, not many people would even remember this, but we were originally going to begin meeting on Thursday night. We had contacted a church on the northeast corner of Rural and the Freeway about using their space. Then, in a meeting, someone pointed out that traditionally churches meet on Sunday. I thought, you know, that seems like that's true.
The problem then was location. We could not find a place to meet. Schools were one option, but we really thought — and I believe this was wisdom — that a church building was the best setting for us. We knew we weren't going to own it, we knew we'd be a tenant, but it meant the least setup and the least hassle that went with it. Mike Northam Sr. identified a church over on Dobson Road, Desert Christian Community Church, and said, "Hey, you may want to call these guys." We did, and they were very open to us using their campus on Sunday night.
Early Growth and a Place to Call Home
We began, as I said, on November 3rd, and within just a couple of weeks we had two services — not because we needed them, we couldn't fill one service two-thirds of the way once, but from the very beginning, service has been an important part of East Valley Bible Church, and I want to talk about that a little later. From there, God blessed us periodically. As we taught some of the doctrinal distinctives of the church, we would open up more parking places, and then God would fill them up again.
After a few years, we said we were like a family renting an apartment — we needed a home. That began a search, and again, Mike Northam Sr. was absolutely integral in that part. That is how we landed on this piece of land. Mike had identified this land and ultimately gave it to us, and in October of 1997, we moved into this building. When I say this building, I mean the chapel and the classrooms in this courtyard — about half of what you see here now.
From a Few Hundred to Thousands
About 400 or 450 of us were in the other church, including children, so a couple hundred adults. Those couple hundred adults raised a million dollars and then borrowed another 2.3 million dollars to build these buildings. That last Sunday over there we had about 400 in attendance, and the first Sunday in here was about 800 — most of them subcontractors wondering if they were ever going to get paid, I think. I said, how are you guys going to pay for all this? It was a very interesting question.
One of the difficult things for me is how you talk about the church and how you measure growth. If I say to you, "How's business?" you'll say, "We're up 10%." Numbers somewhat often indicate that something is happening — not necessarily always — but what we saw was numerical growth, immediately. We went from 450 to 800 in a matter of months, then to 1,200 in a year, then 2,000 in another year, and 3,000 in another year, and we literally just outgrew the facility.
We started with two services in the morning, then added a third. Then we had two services on Sunday morning and two on Sunday night. Then three in the morning and two at night. Then one on Saturday night, three in the morning, and two at night. It just kept going, and for a while we had four on Sunday morning — there's been that whole sojourn.
Measuring Spiritual Growth
The way you really measure a church, though, is so difficult. I wish I could show you a chart of how the people in this church are growing spiritually. In our house — we had lived in the same house for 20 or 22 years — when we left, I really didn't care about much other than a piece of drywall that was in my office. They actually cut the drywall out and pasted a new piece in, because on that drywall I had been measuring the kids' height, marking their age and their height. I took that drywall with me.
That kind of measurement is so easy to do physically. It's not as easy to do spiritually. I have the privilege of being in contact with virtually the whole church here, so I hear great stories from every department. Sometimes you can be so focused in one area that you lose sight of what God is doing in all these different places.
One of the great ways to see spiritual growth is baptism. Beginning in the next few weeks, we want to video and play some of the baptisms for you on Sunday morning — these magnificent stories of how God is saving people. Next Sunday there will be a baptism of a lady from this church whom I have watched God not just save, but use in some incredible ways. Tyler was telling me he has two baptisms next week of brand-new believers. That is so exciting.
But it is also exciting to see God take somebody who has maybe been a Christian quite a while, but not much has happened, and then all of a sudden — boom — He applies the truth. There is a growth spurt in that person's life, and that is what we have seen over and over and over again. We now have more people volunteering in children's ministry on Sunday morning alone than we had adults who moved over from the original church — the very people who were literally the vehicle God used to make this whole thing happen. That is an amazing thought.
Looking Ahead with Confidence
As we move into the future — and you all know we are in the midst of a couple of building programs — I have very little apprehension that God will not do again what He has done before. We have so many more people now. It is simply a matter of the faithfulness we exercise in the midst of that process.
Motto, Mission, and Ministry Principles
I want you to grab a card — it was also the insert this week. On one side it says "Motto, Mission, and Ministry Principles, EVBC 15." If you turn it to the other side, I want to take some time, maybe half an hour or so, and work our way through this card. It is a great reminder to some of you of why we are where we are and what we do, and for others of you this will be new information.
The original name of the church, by the way — do you remember? — was East Valley Bible Fellowship. We were not the most clever of people. We said, "What are we going to name this thing?" That was really the first traumatic moment in the history of this church. A lot of names were recommended to us — Ebenezer Baptist and many others. Finally, in a moment of frustration, I said, "Listen, we're in the East Valley, we teach the Bible, we're a church — there's the name." Then someone said, "Well, we don't want to be a church, we're a fellowship." It was in early, idealistic days. The thinking was that "fellowship" conveyed more of what we were — we're not just a church with the stigma of being alive for a while and then going dead like so many others. But we found that the name "fellowship" created its own problems. So we said, let's not make this any harder than it is: we are East Valley Bible Church.
What We Are Committed To
Here is what we are committed to, and the phrases on that card are important. The first is to glorifying God. That is what Paul tells us — in all we do, whether we eat or drink, in the most mundane of things, in everything we do, we glorify God. Then there is the community part: by helping one another. We exist to help one another learn God's truth. How do we know if we have actually learned God's truth? There will be biblical life change.
There is nothing, I think, that thrills me more than hearing somebody say, "You know, I was in church all my life, but when I came to East Valley Bible Church it was as though the Word came alive, and all of a sudden my faith began to change."
Our Mission: Come, Learn, and Serve
Why would that excite us? That is our whole mission — to glorify God by helping one another. It is not just something that flows from up here down; it is expressed in the way we live. It is constant teaching, helping one another learn God's truths. And how do we know we have learned the truth? All of a sudden, our life changes.
The Word is not just something we study so we can answer trivia questions. That is not the objective here. We are talking about knowing this so deeply that it begins to change our lives. You ought to be able to see that someone is a Christian. It should be evident to everybody around them.
This is not a call to being odd. This is a call to being unique — unique, humble, loving, caring people. One of the phrases we used, and I love it, and I would love to see it come back to us, is: when you know the truth, it shows. When you know the truth, it is evident. Your families are different. If you are dating, your dating is different. If you are a boss, the way you manage people is different. If you are an employee, the way you work is different.
So we condensed that down to three words: come, learn, and serve. That is what we are about. Come — that part is obvious if you are listening to these words, because it is an invitation to join us. Learn — it is a lifelong process of knowing and experiencing God through the study and the application of His Word. I have been a Christian for about twenty-five years. I learned an awful lot in the first twenty-four years, and I have learned a ton in the last year alone. It is a lifelong process, with the classroom and then the laboratory.
And then there is serve — the believer's obedient response to participate in God's work. God is working all around the world. He is working here. He is working in your office or your neighborhood. If you are obedient, then you will be serving in that. We will come back to this as we look at the eight principles.
Revisiting Our Core Principles
A couple of years ago we said that we had been operating under some principles and core values, and it was time to revisit them. They had changed a little bit. Some things that were once very important had become less so, and some things had become more important — and that makes sense as you grow and evolve. We ended up with seven principles, and when we finished, one of the men in the meeting said there was really something missing. I asked what that was, and he said it was that first one.
Originally we had seven principles, and then we added an eighth. We also tried to give each one just a single word to help people get their arms around it. So often, people have core values and principles and nobody actually knows what they are. Companies have mission statements, and no one can recall them. I was flying somewhere and sat next to a woman who told me who she worked for. I said I loved their product and asked if it was a good company. She said it was a great company — that they operated under a different way, with missions and principles and values. I said, really, what are they? She said she didn't know; she had lost the card.
That is why it is helpful to go back over these regularly. The first principle was understood but never formally stated, and we realized that was not enough. So we made it explicit: we acknowledge our absolute dependence upon God.
Budget Season and Dependence on God
We are now in my least favorite time of the year. I believe the most beautiful month in Arizona is November — I think November is perfect. My favorite holiday of the year is Thanksgiving, which falls in November. I love Thanksgiving because it has all the great elements of Christmas without any of the pressure of gifts, and my birthday is in November as well. But there is one thing that casts a cloud over all of that: budget time at the church.
It is a tough time, and it is good that it is tough. It is a time when we look at every ministry, allocate funds, and are forced to ask hard questions — what are you going to do, what are we thinking, why are we doing this, where are we now? This process started in the middle of September. We have our first elders meeting on it this Tuesday, and I have a meeting tomorrow to go through what is in it, because I do not prepare the budget other than the personnel side. I am not typically a line-by-line person; I tend to see the larger picture. It is a tough time for me, but it is a very important time.
We plan and plan and plan and plan. This will be done in December, so from September through November it is nothing but planning. And we can be easily tempted, after we have planned so well and watched things come together, to stand back and say, "My, my, my — what a plan." No. Here is the deal: my, my, my — what a great God. We try to use our wisdom and we do the work, but we acknowledge our absolute dependence upon Him.
The Authority of God's Word
We are totally dependent. Apart from Him, we cannot do anything. There have been great things done into, through, and around East Valley Bible Church, and all of it is a testimony to God's grace. When somebody says they want to understand God's grace, they want to see God working, I say to them: 1820 West Elliott in Gilbert, Arizona, East Valley Bible Church. It is a monument to the grace of God and the power of God.
The second thing is authority — the Word of God. What God says matters, and God has spoken in His Word, and here is the truth. I used to spend a lot of time having breakfast or lunch at odd hours, in a restaurant at ten in the morning or two in the afternoon. The only people in restaurants at those hours are people with issues — everybody else is working. So I would come into a nearly empty restaurant and sit by the one table with two ladies at it, because if you're smart enough to eavesdrop, you hear great stuff.
They have issues. They're hurting. And you will hear extraordinarily unwise comments — people with issues trying to help other people with issues, saying, "This is what I think," until the other person realizes, "You're as confused as I am. Why would I listen to you?" Is it a worthy conversation to talk about life, about God, about big things? Sure. But we don't have to get five of us together at JavaSpot and try to figure it out on our own — because God has spoken.
If something is going on in your life, God has either directly addressed it or given us principles that, as we sit down, pray, ask for wisdom, and talk it through together, we begin to work through. This isn't just a book we study for the sake of understanding. It is the application of His Word to life. If God speaks, that settles it.
Paul's Letter to Timothy
You want to understand who you are? Open your Bibles. We're going to 2 Timothy. I love this book because it is Paul writing to his favorite person on the planet — Timothy, whom he left in charge of his favorite church, the church at Ephesus. In chapter 4, verse 6, Paul says the time of his departure has come. He understands he is near death, and that takes on a whole new level of intensity in his communication.
He is giving Timothy sets of instructions, and it is a letter worthy of going through again and again, because it gives you the heart of the apostle at the end of his life to the people he loves. It would be like a letter to us. Look at chapter 3. He says this: "But understand this, that in the last days there will be times of difficulty."
When Paul talks about the last days, he is talking about the time between Christ's ascension into heaven and His return. So are we living in the last days? Yes — and we have been for two thousand years. He says in the last days there will be these marks, and notice there is nothing here about floods and earthquakes. Here is how you will know the last days. People will be, as verse 2 says, "lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless" — and the list continues all the way through.
He bookends the list: lovers of self in verse 2, and then in verse 5, they will have "the appearance of godliness, but denying its power." And his instruction is: "Avoid such people." What he is saying is that these people will be going to church — at least their own definition of what church is.
The Gap Between Profession and Belief
We have been going through some new statistics. I gave the guys a book to read — a short new book by George Barna — covering things we have seen over and over again and shared with you. Something like 77 million people say they are born again. When you ask the question, "Are you born again?" 77 million Americans say yes. But when you ask whether they believe in the virgin birth, whether they believe Christ lived a sinless life, whether they believe the full body of Scripture, whether they believe Christ died a substitutionary atoning death — the number drops from 77 million to 7 million Americans.
So when people say, "Look at all these born-again believers," the truer number is closer to 7 million. Here is what Paul is describing as the last days: people who are lovers of self and lovers of money, who hold to a form of godliness but deny its power. You have 77 million who say they are born again and 7 million whom we would say truly are. What about the other 70 million? They are going to church. They are doing their thing. They simply deny its power.
What is the power? It is the power of Christ — the resurrection. There are mainline denominations today that deny the bodily resurrection of Christ. They are not Christians. Scripture says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." If I do not believe
Worship and the Sunday Gathering
We are committed to the Sunday corporate gathering. Now that may sound odd to you, but what we are saying is the Sunday corporate gathering is really important. It is really important that we gather together, and it is really important that you are in it. It is also important that you are serving.
Remember when I said we went to two services right away? It was not because we needed to, but here is what we realized. After a week or two, our most committed people were no longer going to church. They were the ones who were serving in the church, and we only had one service. So we immediately went to two services, and there was a real commitment on my part to that.
I talked to quite a few guys who were in the process of starting churches or in new churches, and I would say to them, you have got to start two services. They would say, we cannot even come close to filling one. I said, it is not about that. It is about people having an opportunity to serve and worship.
We started a four o'clock Sunday evening service over on Dobson. It happened to be in the midst of the Suns being in the middle of the NBA Finals, and I did a service with eleven people in it. Three of them were my family, and a fourth was wearing headphones, sitting in the back saying, "Five down, seven up." That was very distracting to me as I was teaching. But nobody questioned our commitment to the truth that you need to worship and serve. It was a great lesson.
So we protect the Sunday time. You will find very little in competition with Sunday. We do not have ongoing adult Sunday school classes. We have special targeted events, but Sunday morning and Sunday evening is your time to come and to worship one hour and serve the other.
Equipping Every Believer for Service
We uphold the equipping of every believer for the purpose of service. When God saved you, He gave you a spiritual gift. Here is how it is defined: a special enablement to perform a function with efficiency and effectiveness within the body of Christ. If you are a believer, you have one. It is that thing that you do that, as you do it, though it tires you out, it energizes you at the same time. It is the thing you do that causes people to say, "God really used you in that."
It is where you find yourself thinking, "Wow," and you love doing it. It excites you, and you want to do it more. We have an obligation as a body to train you and to provide you with options and places to serve. What we want to emphasize is that service is to be normal.
So if you are going through Costco and you run into someone and they say, "I know you from somewhere — East Valley Bible Church," the question you ask is not, "Do you serve?" Never ask that question. You ask, "Where do you serve?" That is the question. If you are coming here and taking up a pew and you are a member, you are a servant. That is a given. The only question is where.
We now have more adults serving in our morning children's ministry than the entire number of adults who built this church and moved it over here. Think of the power that God has assembled here, and we have a responsibility to train people and to understand that.
Evangelism and the Missionary Call
The fifth thing is evangelism. We desire to live and to share the gospel. One of the concerns I have as we talk about world ministries is that we will focus on the idea of senders. We use that phrase, but I do not love it. You are not a sender — you are a goer. You may be sending some people who require visas and shots and are going to different areas, but every person who calls East Valley Bible Church home is a missionary. You are a missionary.
One of the great things that has happened in the body of Christ in the last few years is the almost universal occurrence of a particular word showing up in church conversations: missional. We are a missional church. Are you a Christian? Yes. Are you a missionary? Yes. You are an ambassador for Christ. We really want to get that into the culture at East Valley Bible Church. Honestly, it is probably something we have not done as well as we should in the last few years, and we are targeting Easter this year as a significant moment.
I do not want Easter to simply become one more target point on a calendar, though. The goal is to make this part of every day. So here is what I want you to do: begin right now to think about and pray over specific names of people who are not Christians, people you are going to invite to church on Easter Sunday morning. Start identifying them now. It may be a long list, a short list, or a list that is still in flux. Think about people at work, people in your neighborhood, people who do not know Christ. We are supposed to love them.
Staying Relevant Without Compromising the Message
We want to care for the lost, proclaim the gospel. I want you to think about it. We are going to invite people and try to make Easter a time where we reach out to the community. For the four weeks after Easter, each message is going to address the questions: How do you know God? How can you find out who God is? How can you have a personal relationship with Christ? Begin now identifying in your mind who those people are. Pray for them. Target Easter. That is a natural time — even the biggest pagan says, "Okay, Easter, I'll go."
Our prayer is that God will touch their hearts, open their eyes, and give them an appetite to come again and again and hear that truth, and that God will save them. Then it just becomes a part of life. All of a sudden it is not just until Easter. Easter is over, but you do not stop praying. You keep praying for the people you know who do not know Christ, praying to bring them in.
The "One Anothers" and Community
On the subject of community — the "one anothers" — here is what we wrote: we welcome hurting people, and we accept people as they are. We know God is not going to leave them there, but we do not say, "Come up to this standard and then you are one of us." In my way of thinking, if you went to any really good, decent church, it would seem that the first several of these values would be present in virtually every church. I think the last two are somewhat unique.
The 12-to-15-Year Mark
About a month ago I was talking to a gentleman who does not attend East Valley Bible Church, though I know him well and he knows us well. He had just come back from a church planters conference — where a group of men gather to talk about and learn how to plant a church. He said, "The whole time I was there, I was thinking about East Valley Bible Church." I said, "That is strange. You do not go here, and you were at a church planting conference. What was the deal?"
He said it was because the speakers kept coming back to this point: the 12-to-15-year mark is a critical time in the life of a church, because that is when a church typically plateaus. My experience is that is about right. That is where things start to plateau — where the founding people have been around a while, the leadership has aged, everything is in place, especially if things are going well. When things are going well, the tendency is to say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." So what happens is you plateau, you keep moving along, real problems are present but do not surface, and then all of a sudden there is a steady decline. He said the whole time he was at that conference he was thinking about us. I told him that is funny, because I think about that very thing all the time. That reality is really the genesis for the last two values.
Relevance: Don't Be Afraid of the Word
Number seven is relevance. Do not be afraid of that word. Not long ago a couple left the church because they said they felt we were trying to be relevant. I am not always great in those discussions, but I said the only option I could see that is not relevant would be — what? Irrelevant. I cannot imagine saying, "Come to our church, it is irrelevant." Picture little T-shirts: "We are irrelevant and proud of it." It does not make any sense.
Now, I want to work through this with you, because I know what you are actually saying. What you are saying is, "Wait — I am afraid you are going to try to reach the culture at the expense of the message." Let me tell you, there is not one shred of evidence that would support that conclusion. For 14 years we have stood here and declared the doctrines of grace and the timeless Word of God, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, without exception. That is exactly true, and that is not going to change. There is nothing that is going to allow that to change. But that does not mean you should be afraid of the culture.
Paul in Athens: A Model for Relevance
I had just started teaching through the book of Acts, and Paul comes to Athens. That passage has really become one of the most important passages of Scripture to me. Paul goes to Athens, looks around, and then engages with the leadership of the city. He quotes their poets. He quotes the teachers of the day. Then he says, "I have an observation: you are a very religious people. I was walking around through the city and I found statues all over to various gods." At the time, they said there were something like 35,000 gods worshiped in Athens — it was said to be easier to find a god than a man in Athens.
Paul then says, "The strangest thing: I came to one statue, and it is a statue to the unknown god." And here is what he does with that — watch this move. He says, "I am here to talk to you about the unknown god." I would say to you, that is relevance. That is not something to run away from. If you do not know the culture, if you do not understand the culture, if you cannot relate to the culture, how are you possibly going to communicate to the culture? Does that mean go and be like them? No. We have said it well: we express an unchanging message with ever-changing methods. We are not afraid to change.
An Unchanging Message, Ever-Changing Methods
About a year ago I stood right here and said we would never have different worship services — that we would always have one style of worship. Six months later, we had three different styles of worship. I was wrong. The church is also changing; we are simply different than we used to be. For a long time we were a very homogeneous, very typical group. When we started moving into this building, essentially it was a mom and dad — biological mom and dad — with 2.2 kids, driving a Suburban.
Legacy and Influence Beyond the Campus
We have a passion to influence beyond this campus and beyond this generation. There are six full-time pastoral staff members — and I am not talking about graphics people, support staff, or tech guys. I am talking about pastoral staff. There are six full-time pastoral men, the oldest of whom is 29 years of age. When I am gone in the summer, you rejoice and you benefit from their teaching. Your children and your students benefit from their work. Your small groups benefit from Luke and his effort. This is not about holding the ministry to one generation.
The elders are all basically 50 and older — Howard is 47, but he acts like he is 50, so we will count him. That matters. It does not mean you throw away that generation. It means we are key in forming the next generation and in extending influence beyond this campus. I had a great meeting the other day with a guy who planted a church about a year ago. He had hit a wall and asked, "What do you do? What have you learned?" The result of that conversation is that he now has four or five friends in different stages of starting churches, and I have a lunch scheduled — along with another man from Atlanta — to meet with them. There is no formal agenda or institutional objective. It is simply using what God is doing here to impact other churches and other Christians.
A Personal Assessment of the Church's Health
I had a chance to get away for four days last week, and that was terrific. I was fishing — which I do not entirely understand, but I was there. I faced my first real dilemma when I caught one and thought, "How do you get the hook out?" I had not thought that through very well. Susan watched me for about an hour and laughed. The next day I went back and fished for four hours, spending most of that time unable to figure out how the fish kept getting the bait off the hook. That drove me a little crazy, and I took it personally.
But I spent a great deal of that time thinking about the church, and here is my assessment: I do not believe that East Valley Bible Church has ever been as healthy as it is right now. The last Connect One class had a table of the 7-10 ministry — that is the 20-something ministry — two tables of singles, a table of seniors, and everything in between. If you want to talk about cross-generational community, there it is right there.
Decisions Shaping the Church's Future
In the last few months we have made some significant decisions. We have placed new emphasis on the 7-10 ministry and the younger singles, Neal is handling the older singles, and we have launched a newly married class, a senior class, and the area ministries. Some of you may be wondering what an area ministry is. Essentially, it is going to take us at least five years to get this done, but the vision is to identify specific geographic areas, place a pastor in each area, and begin reaching out to and ministering to people in a more effective, local way. The idea is to say, "We want to minister to you in your neighborhood," and then come together on Sundays for our corporate time of worship.
I received an email from a woman who had just attended her first one of these gatherings. She wrote, "It was great. It was very special for us to spend time with other believers who attend EVBC and live in our area. We love being around kids. We don't get to do it often. It was a lot of fun. It was interesting to learn about these people." She then mentioned another woman in the group and noted that they both love Mustang GTs — and they had never met before this community gathering. God is changing things in people's lives. It is an extraordinarily healthy time.
The Charge from 2 Timothy 4
If you still have your Bibles, turn to 2 Timothy, chapter 4, and we will close with it. Paul is writing to his protégé, but his words are applicable to us. He writes in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 1:
"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is the judge of the living and the dead, and by His appearing in His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience in teaching. For a time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."
But for us — for you and me, for East Valley Bible Church — Paul says: "Be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of the evangelist, fulfill your ministry." And then Paul adds, "For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing."
I believe that is the charge to us — to us individually and to us corporately. It is a magnificent time, and I know that is what you are supposed to say...
A Call to Recommit
An occasion like this is a magnificent time. The church is extraordinarily healthy, but it won't just stay that way. All of those eight core values need to be fully implemented in each person's life and then in our life corporately. My prayer is that if you are part of this, you would recommit yourself to it. If you've been around a while and sitting on the sidelines, join us. If you're new, I want you to know that this is a terrific place to be, and you need to explore it to see if you want to join us and see what God is going to do.
I don't in any way want to sound presumptuous, but God has done extraordinary things in the last 14 years. My anticipation, my prayer, and my desire is that He would do even greater things in the next 14, and that I might even be around to see some of it. That's my prayer.
Closing Prayer
Pray with me, would you please? Father, thank You for who You are and what You've done. Thank You for the salvation that we find in You and in Your Son, Jesus Christ, in Him alone. God, thank You for what You've done at East Valley Bible Church, and we operate under no illusion that somehow this is a work of anything but You. We see Your faithfulness, we see Your provision, we see who You are and what You've done in this body, and it is an absolute thrill for us to be part of it.
We understand that we're here only to serve You, that apart from You, we cannot do one thing. With You, You will do extraordinary things in our life. God, thank You for 14 magnificent years, and we boldly request 14 more, that You'd use us in ways that are beyond anything we can imagine. We pray this to You, in Christ's name, amen.