Series title:  Stepping outside the margins: building upon God’s dream
Sermon title:  Are visions rare, or just unseen?
Stewardship sermon preached on November 4, 2007
Rev. David Tinney
Text: 1 Samuel 3:1-21
Theme:  The Holy Spirit has supplied the vision, the spirit of change has already taken hold, now is the 
time to step out of the margins and build upon the dream that God has already started.

     This is my favorite time of the year.  I am not talking about my great love for falling leaves, 
temperatures, and daily exposure to the sun.  I am talking about my favorite time called stewardship.  I 
know many of my colleagues who would rather fast for two weeks than lead a stewardship campaign.  
They feel that asking people for money is the hardest thing about being a pastor.  I don’t have that 
problem.  I don’t look at stewardship as a time of asking you for money.  I look at it as a season to 
share visions, to look at the way God has blessed us in the past, and to dream about how God can use 
our resources to bless others in the future.  This is not a time for emptying wallets but a time for 
building trust and faith.
    I love this season because it is one of the few times in the church year that we can examine our 
vision to see if we are still being faithful to it or if we need to make course corrections.  This is one of 
the few times we get to look back and take a vision test.
    Speaking of vision tests I heard a joke this last week about a man from Czechoslovakia who went 
to an eye doctor to have his vision tested.  The fifth line down on the eye chart read: CVKPMWXFCZ.  
The doctor said, “Can you read that?”  To which the man said, “Can I read it? I dated her once.”
    Okay, I am talking about a different sort of vision test which I will get to in a few minutes.  Before I 
do let me make a confession.  This stewardship campaign has caught me off guard.  In fact it has caught 
the leadership, the finance folks, the worship folks, and probably our secretary off guard as well.  I 
blame it on the Holy Spirit. Pastors are trained in seminary that when something isn’t going according 
to plan we just blame it on the Holy Spirit.  It usually works. 
    In this case it really was the Spirit’s fault.  You see I had a well constructed, well planned, 
moderate stewardship campaign.  We were bold last year in our campaign and I decided to pull back a 
little this year to even out the flow.  But many of you know I don’t do moderate well.  The truth is that 
several weeks ago I went to a Leadership Training session with two of our lay leaders – Gayle Pasero 
and Cynthia Magoon.  It was a transforming conference and we came back on fire.  
    We decided not to let the fire fizzle so we invited the rest of the Aldersgate Leadership Council to 
the parsonage for a night of videos.  We didn’t watch anything from Blockbuster.  Instead we watched 
a video of one of the main speakers from the Leadership Conference and when we were done we 
started a conversation that carried over three more hours on Saturday morning.  By Saturday noon we 
had changed our goals for this next year, changed the budget, and changed my sermon series.  We 
were inspired and determined to be boldly obedient in living out God’s call upon our church.  
    The sermon series went from three weeks to four and now the end of the stewardship campaign 
or what we call “consecration Sunday” will be the Sunday after Thanksgiving or November 26th.   We all 
agreed that the video that meant so much to us needed to be shared with the entire congregation so 
we are going to view it at every service next Sunday.  It is a sermon from Rev. Emanuel Cleaver, who is 
the senior pastor of the largest African American Methodist Church in Kansas City and a US 
Congressman.  Obviously he is an underachiever.  The sermon is 50 minutes long so we are going to 
make the necessary adjustments in our worship service.  I know this is a departure from normal 
worship style, but I can guarantee that it will bless you.  I have asked pastors and leaders from other 
United Methodists congregations to join us in the evening service.
    Now let me move ahead by looking back.  As I said earlier stewardship time gives us a chance to 
look back at what we have done and see if we are living up to our vision of “Gathering all people, 
healing and transforming in grace, and sending out passionate disciples of Christ.”  One of our biggest 
goals last year was to build connection.  We hired a connections coordinator and Cynthia has been 
working every Sunday at meeting every new visitor and trying to connect their needs with our 
programs.  We have added slightly more than 50 new members with a large new membership class a 
few weeks away.  Many of the new members have connected with our disciple Bible study, or with 
our mission trips, or with the Fall Family retreat, and many of our new teachers downstairs are some of 
our newest members.  We are trying hard to encourage small groups and they are growing around our 
study programs and new things like yoga and young adults, but we have more work to do.  As I said 
last week, in light if the social trends toward isolation we are called to make connections and it will 
remain one of our highest priorities.
    This past year we added Dwight Brown to our worship staff and he has electrified our Blue Jean 
service.  While the band is still in search of a name they are no longer in search of a direction and are 
pulling people in for worship at a steady number.  That service is quickly outgrowing it worship space 
and we are once again in discussions about how and when to make the move back to the sanctuary.  
One of our biggest goals for the year ahead is how do we make that move as smoothly as possible and 
how can we transform the worship space to accommodate both worshiping styles.  You will be hearing 
more about that in the next few weeks.  
    We added an evening worship that has not taken off like I had hoped but I am not about to give 
up on it and find that it does provide a worship opportunity for those who are traveling or engaged in 
your children’s sporting events on Sunday morning.  If you have not come to one of the evening 
services you ought to give it a try.  
    We updated our website and it is more interactive and exciting than ever before.  Did you know 
that about 90% of the recent visitors visited our website first before coming?  That tells me that we 
need to make it even better.  
    We met my goal of having 100 or more students in Disciple Bible study!  Not all are still with us but 
it has been a great way to teach, grow new small groups, and reach out to at least one of our 
neighboring United Methodist churches and be more connected.  Speaking of connection we just 
finished a tremendously successful Habitat/Together We Build mission and we had 48 volunteers.  
Before that several of our men spent hours in the rain and mud installing playground equipment for 
our Preschool.  It was a huge effort but tremendously appreciated.  We led the campaign for the 
climbing tower at Lazy F, which I am told is very near completion, and keep reaching out to our 
homeless through Hammond House, Operation Nightwatch, and Congregations for the Homeless.  
    We can celebrate many successes but the thing that I believe is our biggest accomplishment this 
last year has to be our willingness to change so that we might be the church that Christ is calling us to 
be.  Let me give you one small example but for me it represented a huge change.  A few weeks ago 
we moved the front pews and replaced them with chairs so that third service could have more 
flexibility in their worship and so we could use the sanctuary for the huge Disciple class.  In some 
churches and for that matter early on in this church, if you messed with the holy furniture you were in 
for a holy battle.  When I moved the pews I waited for the outcry and heard nothing except people 
how said they were pleased we could accommodate the growth.  
    When I was at the Leadership Conference I heard story after story of churches paralyzed by 
change.  Some pastors talked about major splits because they moved the kneeler without permission 
or changed the order of worship without asking for committee approval.  I have to say that one of the 
greatest blessings we have in this church right now is the permission to take risks and change.
    All of these successes are signs pointing the way to a bigger future.  They are signs leading the 
way to holy boldness.  
    Let me tell you a cute story about signs.  There was a state trooper who was parked by the side of 
the road waiting to catch speeders and he sees a car puttering along at 22mph.  Thinking the driver is 
as dangerous as a speeder; the state trooper turns on his lights and pulls the car over.  As he 
approaches the vehicle, the officer notices there are five elderly ladies inside—two in the front seat 
and three in the back—wide-eyed and white as ghosts.
    The driver, obviously confused, points to the sign by the road and says, "Officer, I don't 
understand. I was going the exact speed limit. What seems to be the problem?"
    The trooper, trying to contain a chuckle, explained to her that 22 on the sign was the route 
number—not the speed limit.  A bit embarrassed, the woman grins and thanks the officer for pointing 
out her error.  "Before you go," the officer says, "I have to ask: Is everyone in this car okay? These 
women seem awfully shaken." 
    "Oh," she answered, "they'll be all right, sir. We just got off of Route 127."
    The leadership of this church has been reading the signs – hopefully a lot better than those ladies 
– and we feel that we are headed in the right direction and are ready to blaze into the future that God 
has planned for us.  We are ready to move beyond the margins (and that will make more sense next 
week) and build upon God’s dream for us as a church.  We are so energized and so excited about 
sharing the vision, the goals, and the dreams that we can’t wait for each Sunday of this campaign.  
Ginny shared parts of it today.  In two weeks Dwight will share our vision of what next year’s worship 
will look like and then in the final week Colleen will share our dream about a church-wide mission trip 
will look like.  We are caught up in a holy vision and the energy is contagious.
    I would like to ground today’s sermon in one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.  It is a 
story of call (and I am a sucker for call stories).  It is a story of God breaking through with his vision even 
in a time when the church leaders’ ears were clogged and their eyes failing.  The opening verse sets 
the stage and says so much in just a few words.
    The Bible says, “Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord 
was rare in those days, and visions were not widespread.”  Have you ever been in a place where the 
“word of the Lord was rare?”  Have you ever wondered why everyone around you is talking about 
God’s great vision or seeing God’s great dream and you feel like you are experiencing spiritual 
insomnia?  There is a reason the two are paired up.  When we treat the Bible as an ornament for our 
coffee table then we can’t expect it to change us.  When we rarely look to the Word for direction, 
connection, or transformation, why would we ever expect visions to come?
    There have been times recently when I have been serving in the greater church when I felt those 
words were a perfect description of the plight of our mainline denominations.  It is a perfect 
description of churches and pastors who are so worried about change and transformation that they no 
longer look to the Word of God for its liberating power.  
    It is a perfect description of church leaders, who like Eli, are stumbling around in the darkness with 
weak eyesight looking for a way out of the mess they created.  It is a perfect description of leaders 
who have clogged ears trying to listen when they are too afraid to hear the voice calling them to 
obedience.  It is a great description of our society right now where there is a lot of talk but very little 
vision.  
    The story goes that the young boy Samuel, with fresh ears and clear eyes, responded to the voice 
of God and said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”  Now here is the best part of the story.  God 
responds by saying, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who 
hears tingle.”
    I felt that tingle on Friday night after the video when my leadership team said we need to be 
bolder.  I felt that tingle on Saturday morning when they told me to scrub my sermon series and start 
over.  I felt that tingle when they said we have grasped the vision and we are ready to put programs in 
place and attach goals and timelines and accountability and move out of the margins.  I felt that tingle 
as I started to share with others and I watched them come alive.  I felt that tingle as we took a budget 
that asked for a moderate increase and declared “Now is the time to step out of the margins and build 
upon God’s great dream for us.”  
    I believe this church has already done great things, but it is just the foundation for greater service, 
outreach, and mission to come.  I never entered a stewardship campaign more excited, more focused, 
and more expectant than this one.  I truly believe that if we all listen for God’s voice, if we faithfully 
pray “Speak, for your servant is listening,” then God will bless us with a mission and ministry that will 
make the ears of our community and conference tingle.  Let us pray…
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