Who Do You See? The King's New Clothes

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WHO DO YOU SEE? (Do I have to say “whom”? – Who makes a much better title)
The King's New Clothes

Volunteerism in our country is escalating daily, and Christians are fronting the trend. In their 2010 statistical brief, The Corporation for National and Community Service found that 1.6 million more Americans volunteered their time and resources in 2009 than in the previous year. The largest single year increase since 2003. Complimenting that statistic are the results of a recent survey asking committed church members when they had experienced their deepest times of spiritual growth. I read the survey, expecting inspirational stories of earnest believers finding peace during difficult times. However, their response surprised me. The larger majority grew closer to the Lord while serving others. Why now? Has peace become more valuable than happiness? A generation of believers has joined modern culture’s venture into self-awareness, with the same meager return on their investment – isolation, emptiness, and a hollow faith. With a prolonged focus on self-helping our way to spiritual and emotional health, our worldview has turned inward; we’re equipped and well prepared for battle – but we are blind to the war.

Perhaps the church is regaining a Kingdom perspective. The Kingdom, where God’s Spirit flows freely, is filled with everything our hearts were shaped for. Pure and holy passion is poured straight from the heart of God into ours, and we’re rediscovering how to keep it flowing – by giving it away. Increasing numbers are compelled to give personally, to give more than money and prayers - to give themselves. That’s where joy is found, and opportunities to grow and to gain genuine rewards are endless. And many of these opportunities are very close to home.

Volunteerism
- Its growth
- Its model
Its rewards
- A practical opportunity

I. The growth of volunteerism (giving personally) in America

A. Statistics
1. Christian
a. Survey (find source)
2. Secular
a. NCS 2010 brief
B. Reasons for increase in giving personally
1. Search for spiritual growth vs. personal
a. Modern focus on self has not provided peace
b. Peace becoming more valued than happiness

When a survey by The National Institute of Mental Health asked ten-year-old girls – and boys what their greatest fear was about growing up; 80% said they were afraid of getting fat. A generation of Americans is consumed with enhancing their appearance, and digging inside themselves to design their image and identity. Where did we lose the message personally delivered to the early Christians by Christ? Our image, created in His likeness and originally reflecting that creator, was messed up in an ancient garden. It’s a shattered mirror and will never be restored to perfection until we get home. Yet we continue to invent ways of covering up our brokenness, trying to fix it ourselves. Today, many are seeing the futility of the effort and are re-examining their Christian roots. The first century Church had their identity imbedded in Christ – who sacrificed a great deal to give us freedom from self. An effective way to restore a healthy self-image is to sacrificially give of that self. Only by going and giving personally, to people different from ourselves, can we get close enough to see their valid identity. Close enough to look in their eyes and to see a striking family resemblance - that they are also the “spitting image” of our Dad



II. Early Christian Model of giving personally

A. Obeyed Christ’s directive to “go”
1. Majority didn’t go like Paul to distant places
2. Stepped out of their comfort zones - went to neighboring cultures
a. Became immersed in cultures they had been trained to regard as inferior,
and accepted their validity
b. Conquered prejudice
c. Had intimate, personal contact with “different” cultures
d. Treated “different ones” with grace and dignity
e. Love and service replaced pity and sympathy
f. Resulted in a huge impact on their society
3. Silent rebellion toward ruling powers
4. Took extreme risks to follow divine directive
5. Followed a higher ethic
6. Steadfast in tough times
a. Faith a matter of life and death
7. Disregard of peer and family influence
8. Kept Christ’s promise to be near them fresh in their minds
a. Rewarded with persecution
b. Focused on future blessing
c. Blessed with abiding peace, confidence, and security regardless of
circumstances

Most early Christians didn’t follow Paul to distant fields, yet their clear directive was the same – to go. While trying to preserve their culture, many first century Jews acquired an attitude of silent rebellion. It was cultivated through years of surviving under an imposing governmental structure they could not control. The first generation of believers followed a higher ethic causing a profound impact on their society. When God clothed Himself in human flesh, His character did not change. When early Christians clothed themselves with that character, God’s love for the lost was revealed. Their actions were powerful. (And…those who conformed to corporal society had Paul to pay.)

III. Biblical Model of giving personally – Christ

A. He came to a “lower” culture
B. He sacrificed everything He had, not who He was
C. He changed His appearance without changing His character
D. He had intimate, personal contact with “lower” ones
1. His powerful actions produced powerful results
a. Impacted the world for eternity

By returning to the foundation model of giving, built by the first century Church, today’s believers are less daunted by an undependable world structure. Looking back at their example, we are, once again, learning to accept the validity of foreign cultures, and are feeling less like foreigners in our own country. Looking up at the example of Christ, we rest in the dependable promise of eternal compensation. Looking for a way back to simpler times is restoring the values of family, home, and heritage. Looking around, aided by satellite technology, we see the exposed needs of a desperate world, and the endless opportunities to serve them personally.

IV. Modern Self-focused Christian Model of giving personally

Looking inward is habit-forming and it’s our natural impulse. We need no training in self-interest. Without supernatural help, self-reflection reveals the limitations, guilt, and weaknesses we inherited from our first parents. The weight of it breeds hopelessness and even more self-focus in the form of self-pity. There is free license, in these “take care of me” times, to stay locked in ourselves, blind to the sunlight of the spirit, and unable to see the way out – which is showing others where to find internal-eternal peace.

A. Well equipped but not practically applying the knowledge
B. Formed patterns that exclude the needy
C. Christians often as bereft as non-believers
1. Isolation fosters feelings of being a foreigner in one’s own country

Committed believers often provide Christmas gifts for needy children, serve in soup kitchens, and even give tirelessly to missions, but few of us foster intimate relationships with people dissimilar to ourselves. I exercise to Christian music in a church basement, invite small groups to my home for evenings of scholarly discussions, and conduct my outreach efforts in the protective circle of the familiar. Seldom do I rub shoulders with those in need of spiritual, emotional, and material aid, those with whom Christ spent most of His time. Am I blocking their view of my Lord by not being visible?

V. Modern revitalized Christian Model of giving personally

A. Awareness of enmeshment with the world – pursuing world’s image instead of
Mirroring Christ’s
B. Awareness of early Christian effectiveness
1. The cultural stakes are the same
a. Impact on society
b. Preserve Christian heritage and ethics
2. The eternal stakes are the same
a. Christ is visible through his chosen ones
b. Life or death issue
c. “Highways-and-byways” folks are reached
3. Rewards are the same
a. Present peace
b. Eternal peace
C. Search for soul satisfaction
1. Led to giving back what was freely given to them – free flowing love of
Christ
D. Awareness of the world’s need to hear the message they’ve kept among
themselves
1. Satellite communications expose the growing neediness of the world
a. Global closeness – “others” aren’t as far away
1) Mixing and moving of cultures has brought foreign missions next
door.

VI. Practical opportunity to give personally – Henderson Village

On a recent visit to a remote village in the hills of Kentucky, I saw this spiritual insight connect with modern practical action. I spent an evening with Mark Lemons, a retired Air Force officer, and the Executive Director of the Henderson Settlement Mission. “We reach out to more than 3,000 people of all ages and stages of life each year,” he said, as he explained the mission’s multilateral community service program. Then, he loaded me into his four-wheeler, apologizing for its dubious dependability, to show me the place where lives change when volunteers display the love of Christ with respect and dignity.

A. Foreign culture in close proximity
1. Near and cost effective enough for many to go
B. Henderson’s history
1. Historical anecdotes
2. Personal interviews with community members
3. Documented research
C. Henderson’s purpose
1. Primary purpose: to educate the Church regarding missions
2. Mission concepts of love and service are more effective with names and faces to go with them
3. Love and serve without prejudice, stereotyping, sympathy or pity
4. Meet practical needs to share spiritual solutions
a. Forms a “bridge between dreams and reality for mountain families.”
b. With no resources of their own, needs go unmet
5. Personal, intimate contact teaches love and understanding of “foreigners.”

“We are here to accept the community people as they are and minister to them within the context of their culture and needs.”

D. Henderson’s process


We waved to an elderly couple and a jaunty group of college kids heading back to their dorms and cottages with cups of homemade ice cream. They were a few of the two hundred volunteers who had come to serve the people of Appalachia. During their week at Henderson, they winterized drafty homes, built handicap ramps, and worked in the library, dining room, and greenhouses. A winsome young woman introduced herself. She had graduated with the last class of the now closed mission school, gotten an advanced degree, and then returned home to minister to her neighbors and family. Her role is to mentor young mothers in parenting and nutritional values and monitor an afterschool program where children do their homework and learn computer skills. She also tends the day-care. Community folks sell their crafts from an old cabin. They work mission garden plots growing fruit, vegetables, and flowers to sell at their weekly farmer’s market. An open gym invites students of all ages to free-time play or year-round team sports, coached by local volunteers.

1. Multilateral community service program – All can exercise their spiritual gifts
a. Health and nutrition counseling
b. Parenting, relationship counseling
c. Construction projects
1) Fix leaky roofs, holes in floors, run water lines, steps, decks and
porches, handicap ramps, fix broken windows
d. After school program
1) Help with homework
2) Teach computer skills
3) Library skills
4) Listening, just being there
e. Children’s day care aid parents starting new jobs
1) Interaction with parents
2) Caring for children – demonstrating parenting skills to parents
f. Kitchen, serving
g. Library tending
h. Animal tending
i. Farming, garden, and Greenhouse work
j. Farmers market set-up
k. Craft cabin help – interaction with local crafters
l. Gymnasium supervision, coaching, sports instruction
m. Senior citizens day care help – interaction
n. Sorting donations of food and clothing
2. Follows the early Christian Model
a. Accept validity of a different culture
b. Personally going to them
c. Providing practical help, meeting desperate needs, so Christ becomes visible through his chosen ones
d. Obedience to Christ’s directive to “go”
e. Step out of comfort zone
f. Involves sacrifice
g. Powerful results
h. Silent rebellion/disregard for the world’s expectations
i. Steadfast in good and bad times
1) Frustration and joy
2) Success and failure
3) Unanswered questions
4) Rejection by those one is giving to

We stopped in front of the white clapboard school now used as a dining hall, and a gathering place for seniors. Mark pointed out the large library, that lends books to a growing number of local readers, and a thrift store full of clothing and food for those in need. Ice-cream buckets were being cleaned and put away in the kitchen, but the fresh dairy smell was still there – along with the last two cups of ice cream.

E. “Personal” rewards
1. Fellowship with other believers
2. Dedicated time with own church family
3. Meet new believers with different views
a. Broaden perspective
b. Learn to disagree well
4. Team work – personal story interviews
b. Learn structure of participation
5. Experience a different culture – accept its validity
F. Henderson nuts and bolts
1. Who: Groups or individuals
a. Youth, adults, college, intergenerational
b. Groups average 15-20 people
2. Can come for any length of time – usually one week
3. Accommodations
a. Dorm - $195. Per week
b. Guest House - $255. Per week
c. Can accommodate 120 people per week
4. Provide own tools
5. PO Box 205 • Highway 190 • Frakes, KY 40940
6.
VII. Conclusion – Who do we see?

A. When we look at other people and cultures we’re not used to
B. When we examine ourselves - whose reflection is in the mirror
C. Who do others see in us, His chosen ones – are we blocking their view?
D. Whom does God see in us? All of us? - His children lovingly crafted in His image.


Sources
National Institute on Media and the Family
About Face: Facts on Body Image
National Organization for Women
Girl Scouts
Do Something.org
National Institute of Mental Health