Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
June 3, 2012 - W1223

What I want to talk to you about today concerns “renewal,” or reclaiming our voice.

Now, a key to all of this is knowing the difference between what must change and what must not – and not mixing them up.

Whenever you talk about renewal you always find people at polar opposites. Some are all for it, while others are threatened by it.

We need to take a look at reality. I was looking at some statistics earlier and today I want to use some stats as I delve into the national church.

Some are doing fabulously in the national church and there are bright spots everywhere. Today, I want to take a deeper look and see how we can do better together.

You’re going to see some things that are reality and it won’t always be fun, but I want you to get excited about renewal because just think, if we’re part of renewal, this might be something that you get to see only once in a lifetime.

The Webster Dictionary definition of “renewal” is to “take up again,” or to “become new again.” Renewal. I think it’s a thrilling subject and while I won’t be able to cover everything today, I pray that what you read here will start conversations.

To prepare myself, I went all the way back to our roots in order to develop a trajectory for the future. I studied more about Sister Aimee [Semple McPherson] and her gregarious nature. She was a quintessential evangelist and was quite hilarious.

As we talk about renewal, we need to talk about core values – what God gave us in the beginning as our assignment, and the leadership gifts that brought this assignment to the forefront. We gotta remember who God called us to be.

I spoke with Pastor Alan Hirsch recently, and was reminded of a quote from a book of his: “We are called to believe that we have everything we need to become the movement Jesus intended for us to be.”

I will be using some Biblical illustrations and some stories from the corporate world to aid me in my message.

“After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.” (Judges 2:10 (NIV)

Do you know why we need renewal? Because another generation of people are coming up who do not know the Lord.

And in some of our leaders here at foursquare, the story of the Lord resides in you, but a new generation is rising up and they know not the story. They need a renewal, and we need to pass it on to them, so they too may get up to speed.

The reason I take the risk in using outside, or non-Biblical examples can be found in this passage:

“The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. (Luke 16:8 (NIV)

There are times in the corporate world when there are mistakes made – and guess what? We can learn from them.

I’d rather them make the mistake and we learn from them, than we make the mistake. But we understand from them the need for renewal. Look at the late Steve Jobs and the work he did with Apple.

He understood the consistent need for renewal – keeping the core while stimulating upward movement. Jobs and his team have changed the Operating System on their Mac computers no less than eight times in the last ten years.

Renewal isn’t that we change our core value, but that we redesign our Operating System to deliver afresh what we’ve always believed.

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks once wrote, “The reason we are going to succeed is the same reason we have succeeded in the past. We succeeded because of what we believe in, and we stand for what we believe in.”

But it’s more than just believing in good things, we have to live it.

So what stops renewal?

A couple of things and the first one is:

·     Fear of Change

Got to make our past our guide to our future. Are we looking for a mile post or a hitching post? We respect our past, and let it give us a guiding light, the trajectory to our future. Fear of change will cause us to evaporate and extinguish.

You’ve heard of Kodak – it used to be a corporate giant – and in the ‘70s, it was Kodak that first invented digital cameras.
But they were afraid of this new technology cannibalizing their Kodak film-making business. So they shelved the new designs until someone else had come out with digital cameras and all the related products.

As a result, Kodak went from a high of about 70,000 employees down to about 20,000 and as of this past January, Kodak’s film department filed for bankruptcy.

Yes, fear of change will hurt you.

Another thing that will stop renewal is:

·     Reluctance

Reluctance stops renewal. Reluctance to embrace what we already have. Sometimes we have a tendency to not embrace what we already have.

Did you know that Xerox were the first to develop the computer and the mouse? It was right under Xerox’s nose and they apparently didn’t realize what they had.

Steve Jobs was a young man when he went up to a Xerox PARC office in Palo Alto, California. It was 1979 and he was shown a demonstration of a Graphical User Interface or “GUI.”

Jobs was excited and asked a technician what they were going to do with the GUI. The response was nothing, because the cost for each one was about $300.

Jobs went back and challenged his own engineer to make a GUI for $15, and while it took four years for “the mouse” to be perfected, the results were immediate and long-ranging as Apple took off and Xerox lost the chance to be bigger than IBM or Microsoft combined, according to Jobs himself.

But Xerox was reluctant to embrace what they already had in their midst. I look around at this group here today – at the brilliance that we have – and we need to embrace what we have – and watch what God can do.

Fear.

Reluctance.

And the last thing that can halt renewal is:

·     Procrastination

Procrastination will destroy renewal.

It’s like kicking the can down the road, hoping that the problem will go away – as is the case with Blackberry.

Did you know that BlackBerry didn’t want to adapt to running applications because that would make Apple look like the industry leader – rather than the industry leader that BlackBerry hoped it would be.

In the past year, BlackBerry has lost about eighty percent of its shareholding – it’s lowest in nine years.

And, guess who traded places with BlackBerry as the industry leader? Apple.

The penalty for non-renewal is extinction.

I think if we can be a part of a denomination’s renewal over the next decade or so, I think that would be cool.

To see it turn around and jet upward would be awesome.

SO, what are the next steps?

You need to look inward to answer the question: Is renewal an ordeal or an adventure?

And I think it should be an adventure. I would encourage you to join in, because renewal is a thrilling adventure that not every generation gets to participate in.

And, if you’re under thirty-five, you should jump in with both feet and both hands because this may be the only time in your life time that you can be a part in a genuine renewal, a returning to core values, all while we redesign the operating system but maintain our assignment and focus while we watch what God can do.

It will be an amazing ride – and it can happen right here – and it’s all about renewal.

Some people say, “Wait, wait, wait, Wayne, we don’t want renewal – just leave it as it is – don’t tell us about it.” But we must renew in order to survive.

Sometimes we do have to criticize what someone is doing.

Now, let me explain. Criticism is not the same as cynicism. Often cynicism is on the other side berating critics.

Criticism is motivated by differing approaches while focusing on a common mission.

People critique things because they think their way is a better approach or angle – even though they may have the same mission as us.

Cynicism is motivated by fear and distrust and focuses on self-preservation.

A cynic may say, “I’m too deeply vested in this – don’t mess with it – it’s my job.”

But, as Joan of Arc said, “Act and God will act.”

So we have to take a look at things as they really are.

For example, I see numbers on a screen and it tells me that 1.25 million people were saved in the last ten years, but guess how many were retained from that?

Only 250,000.

So, we grew by a quarter million people, but we have on our records, 1.25 million – so what happened to the million people?

What I say is this: why don’t we learn how to disciple? We’ve got to figure out how to do that better.

Because the questions are going to be asked about what happened to all these people – we counted them – and here’s my answer:

New Christians should not be counted, they should be weighed.

And new churches should not be counted – they should be weighed. Because scales do not lie.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The greatest problem for tomorrow’s church is not a lack of leaders; it will be an overabundance of underdeveloped leaders that we rush into place – and then have to close back down.

So we need to rethink our Operating System on how we’re going to disciple our new leaders and the depth that we will disciple them.

I hate when people ask what the most innovative thing in the church is – and the answer is always technology. But why is that? Shouldn’t it be discipleship? Shouldn’t we be making strong disciples who we know will lead us into tomorrow?

SO, what do we do over the next ten years?

One thing we could do to potentially seed six thousand churches is following action points that can make renewal a reality:

·     Think more like a movement and less like an institution.

When you begin to act like a movement, you have to start thinking as a beginner. And, always think about the end in mind, what do we want to do and how are we going to get there?

But when we think more like an institution, we have a change to end up with organizational equilibrium. We want everything to remain the same.

INSTITUTION

·     Equilibrium

·     Security

·     Risk adverse

Movement

·     Expansion

·     Advancement

·     Imagineers

But when you think movement, you think expansion.

So how do you start thinking like a movement?

Here are several answers:

·     Start by imagining

Wouldn’t it be great if Foursquare was an epicenter for training new youth leaders?

Imagine if people could come to a foursquare church and they would know – they would be guaranteed that these men and women are communicators of one book – the Word of God.

The second point is to:

·     Recognize Growth tips.

There are things happening around us –  pockets of shining bright lights.

Recognize the people around you and how much support they give to each of us.

The final thing is:

·     Focus

Going back to Steve Jobs, he changed the way Apple did business and turned them into one of the most successful companies - worth 500 Billion – in only fourteen years.

If we can’t produce disciples, we’ll never produce leaders.

And if we can’t reproduce leaders, we will never build new churches.

And, if we can’t reproduce churches, we will never sustain a movement.

Think of a graph where the line is going upward on a bell curve. The line is going up and up until its starts to saturate and flatten out a little at the top. And then the line starts to go down.

But we can break the free fall when we invest more like a movement and give our time and resources for the Kingdom.

We don’t want to ever have a time when we stand before God one day and say we have $400 million in our foundation…

And God could say, “I didn’t ask you to keep all that money – I asked you to win souls and plant churches and win people to Christ.”

We have to reboot and redesign our Operating System.

We would love to see that in the next fifteen years. If we did renew, Foursquare would grow to 14,000 churches.

Renewal can happen at both the corporate and individual level.

Here is an assignment for today.

How tall is a piece of paper folded fifty times?

It is a stack of paper going to the moon and back ten times.

That is the kind of exponential growth we want for Christ.

So here’s the challenge.

Every five years – not one – every five years, if every one of our churches (we have nearly 1,600) took and mentored the youth; we could grow the church up to 100,000 churches.

If we can do that and focus, we can be like Apple changing things up and we could have a renewal not seen since Sister Aimee.

We can do it – you and I – and all of us together and the Holy Ghost.

Let’s get back to what God has called on us to do.

Study Suggestions

1. What the difference between renewal and change?

2. What stops renewal?

3. What’s the difference between criticism and cynicism?

4. How should we think?