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Before I begin the sermon, let me say that as I travel around I often am asked the question, “how
is the new church doing?” I have a standard response. I say that I started in February of last year
with seven families and today we have about 25-30 families who participate. We’ve had good
growth. We average about 40 people in worship, and we expect that number to increase. In fact
one of our goals of the year is to have 55 in worship on three Sundays in May. We’ll be talking
quite a lot the next Sundays about how you can help us reach this goal that the Steering
Committee set.

When I share this information, people are satisfied. We’ve had growth.

Growth is something that we will always pay attention to at Chain of Lakes Church, particularly
right now in this early time in our congregation. Growing in numbers is not our only objective
as a church, but right now it’s obviously an important one. One of the ways at Chain of Lakes
we’ve articulated how we understand growth is in our Purpose Statement. We’ve said that we
want strangers to become friends.

You and I are learning that there are many ways for a church to grow in people. We can grow
through advertising, we can grow through effective marketing, the best way—as I’ve said often
—is for all of you to invite and bring your friends and family. We can grow by offering
something of value that is missing in the community; we can grow by sharing powerful worship
services. These are all ways for strangers to become friends.

When it comes to growth there’s one method that we in the church often miss. It’s this. When a
significant number of people in a church discover their call, or what I call their Inspirational
Intersection, the community will grow. It’s guaranteed. As a leader I don’t guarantee much, but
I do guarantee that if a significant number of people in our community discover our call, or what
I call their Inspirational Intersection, we will grow. I guarantee it.

With so much at stake it makes sense to me to preach about the Inspirational Intersection. So
today I’m going to start a four week sermon series called, “The Inspirational Intersection.” I
came up with this term a long time ago. The Inspirational Intersection is the same as a call. The
aim of this sermon series is simple. I want to help all of us discover our Inspirational
Intersection, our call.

To help you with this I’ve written a devotion that shares stories of different people in the Bible
who received a call from God. I encourage you to get the devotion out of your bulletin. When
you go through the devotion this week you’ll read the call stories of Abram, Gideon, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, & Saul whose name was later changed to Paul. I encourage you to find a time each
day to use this devotion. In this devotion is a place to take notes for the sermon. One of my
hopes in preaching is that I’ll say something that you’ll want to remember. Write down some
notes.

Today I’m going to describe the Inspirational Intersection by asking four questions. I encourage
you to write these questions down. The questions start with the words, “what” “who” “why” &
“how”

The title of this sermon is “wwwh.” “What” “who” “why” “how”

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SLIDE How many of us have seen the Movie, Jerry Maguire? It came out in 1996. It

starred Tom Cruise and Rene Zellweger. It was the story of how Jerry Maguire, played by Tom

Cruise, left a big sports agency to launch his own sports agency company. Rene Zellweger was

the secretary at the big agency. There was a famous scene in the movie where Jerry Maguire

went into the lobby of the sports agency and told everyone he was leaving to start his own. He

shouted out, “who wants to go with me.” Unfortunately for Jerry Maguire the character that

Rene Zellweger played was the only person who went with him.

The scene that made the biggest impact on me was when Jerry Maguire and Rene

Zellweger’s character went out to lunch. They were going to have a conversation about their

new company. As they were having lunch Jerry Maguire looked at Rene Zellweger’s character

and asked her what type of job she wanted in this new company. She looked Jerry Maguire

straight in the eye and said, (do you remember the line) “I don’t want a job; I want to be

inspired.”

I was 33 years old when I saw this movie. When I heard Rene Zellweger’s character say

this line, I wanted to stand up in the movie theatre and say, “Yes! I don’t want a job; I want to

be inspired.”

I saw the movie in December 1996. It was the fourth December I had spent as the pastor

at Community Presbyterian Church in Plainview, Minnesota. At that time the novelty of being a

new pastor was gone. That was a hard season for me. December can be the hardest time of the

year for a pastor. It’s hard not only because we have so many services to plan. The services are

wonderful, but they take a lot of work. It’s hard because all of the end of the year organizational

stuff can be overwhelming. The church has to pass a budget for the new year, make sure that the

budget is balanced for the current year—that sometimes requires a special offering. There’s

getting new leaders on board and trained for the new year, job reviews of the staff, often new

members join in December. Add this all together and the season can seem overwhelming.
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It was a cold, December Friday night when I saw the movie at the Galleria theatre in

Rochester, Minnesota. I left the movie theatre that night with a new sense of energy. I could

have run like Rocky Balboa. Seeing that movie clip reaffirmed for me that whatever I was going

to do in my life I wanted to be inspired.

I would like to be the pastor of Chain of Lakes Church until I retire. What’s more

important to me than having a job is being inspired. I don’t want a job; I want to be inspired.

What’s a lot more important than my inspiration is your inspiration. I want you to be

inspired. I want you to discover your own Inspirational Intersection, your call.

Let me ask you a few questions:

SLIDE On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest and one the lowest, what number
would you describe as your inspiration index right now?

How often do you feel inspiration in your work?

How often do you experience inspiration?

How often do you feel inspiration about what is happening at Chain of Lakes Church?

After seeing Jerry Maguire I came up with the idea of the Inspirational Intersection.

Here’s the “what” question. What is the Inspirational Intersection? I encourage you to write this

down.

SLIDE The Inspirational Intersection is an intersection of discovering what God wants us

to do AND what we want to do. It’s an intersection. Our task is to discern this place.

The Inspirational Intersection is a place of tremendous energy and passion and

inspiration. No one has to motivate us when we living at our Inspirational Intersection. When

we are at this place we are directed by something that goes far beyond ourselves. We are excited

about what we are doing; we are clear about who we are; we are living out who God wants us to

be and what God wants us to do. What a wonderful place.

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Think of two parallel lines. What God wants us to do is one line; what we want to do is

another line. There’s an intersection.

The Inspirational Intersection is not a place of finding out what God wants us to do, but

what we don’t want to do. At times it is appropriate to do what God wants us to do even when

we don’t want to do it. Over time this doesn’t work. If we’re only doing what God wants us to

do and we’re not happy, then we turn God into a tyrant. We will burn out.

And the Inspirational Intersection is not a place where we discover what we want to do,

but what God doesn’t want us to do. If that happens then we’ve turned ourselves into God.

We’re only living for ourselves.

Also our Inspirational Intersection is not just what we do. It can also be a place of our

being. We can discover our Inspirational Intersection in living out some of the qualities that the

Scriptures call the Fruits of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,

faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

It can be a place of doing and it can be a place of being.

I’m guessing that many of us know people who have found their Inspirational

Intersection. There’s a joy in the person, isn’t there. There’s a light that comes out of the

person. There is a comfort level in the person’s sense of identity. The person radiates peace, and

beauty and joy.

We have another word in the church to describe the Inspirational Intersection. That word

is “call.” A call is the same as the Inspirational Intersection. I use the term, Inspirational

Intersection because it uses new language to describe an traditional concept.

Here’s the second question. It starts with the word, “who.” Who receives a call, the

Inspirational Intersection?

To respond to this question I want to teach you a basic concept of the Protestant tradition.
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Remember there are three branches of the church—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant.

We Presbyterians are Protestants.

The concept is called the Priesthood of all believers. This came from Martin Luther. He

believed that we have one priest—he is our high priest—he, of course, is Jesus Christ. He is the

one to whom we go when we pray. Luther believed that all the faithful and every person has

direct access to God. We don’t need a human intermediary to approach God. We have our

intermediary—Jesus Christ.

This simple concept has profound implications for us. One implication—and this is a

response to the who question—is all of us receive a call from God. God communicates with

every one of us. All of us have an Inspirational Intersection.

A second implication of the priesthood of all believers is the role of the pastor in a

church. If all of us have an Inspirational Intersection, a call, and if our Inspirational Intersection

is an important place to find, then it makes sense to me that one of the tasks of the pastor —me—

is to help people discover their call—their inspirational intersection. Remember, I guarantee d

that we will grow as a congregation when many of us discover our Inspirational Intersection.

I’ve been to many churches where ministry is a spectator sport. You know what I mean.

The people are spectators and they watch the minister perform the ministry. That’s not how

we’re going to be.

If you wait for me to do a ministry, then you’re going to wait for a long time. I am

certainly going to do ministry. Ministry is not a spectator sport. I want to help you find your

Inspirational Intersection, and then get out of the way.

The final implication of the priesthood of all believers is that our call is not only directed

to the church. When you discover your call, you’ll discover what you can do and be in the

world.
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Since I’ve come to Chain of Lakes I’ve developed a friendship with Duane Sweep. He

works as the communications director for our Synod. He is a newspaper man by trade. Duane

talks about one of the pivotal moments of his life was when his pastor preached a sermon saying

that a call that a person receives often is to the world. This sermon completely expanded his own

world view. Duane worked for a newspaper at the time. From then on he saw his work at the

newspaper as ministry. It was a call.

This is what I desire for you. I want your work to be a ministry. That is you believe in

what you do; you believe that God has called you to your work; that you have a sense of passion

and excitement about what you do. You’re not passionate about your work because a boss tells

you to be passionate. You’re passionate about your work because you believe God wants you to

do it AND you want to do it.

The world is impacted when we discover our Inspirational Intersection.

Yesterday my wife, Amy, my daughter, Hannah, and I went to a walk at the track at Coon

Rapids High School. The walk was organized by four student leaders from the High School.

The purpose of the walk was to raise money for the Alexandra House and educate the

community about physical & sexual violence against women. The Alexandra House is a shelter

where women can go if they are threatened by domestic abuse. When we got to the track we

found out that four young women were leaders in organizing this walk.

It was so fun to watch these four young women do their work. They were excited about

what they were doing; they knew what they were doing; they had a sense that they were making

an impact on the world.

Stopping all violence against women is a very important issue for me. My sister was

physically assaulted by a man who was drunk. Fortunately she wasn’t hurt, but she still carries

the memory. As a Dad I never, ever want my daughter to suffer from physical or sexual assault.
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It was so beautiful to see these four young women living out of their Inspirational

Intersection. They were inspired. Their inspiration made an impact on me—and now I’m

sharing the story with you. Here are some slides from the walk

4 slides that have pictures from walk

Finding our Inspirational Intersection is not only about doing ministry for the church.

The third question we have is “why.” Why do we receive a call? Why does God

communicate with us this way? Briefly I want to tell you about a story about a man named

Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet. He lived a little more than 600 years before the birth of

Jesus. God had a call for Jeremiah. God wanted Jeremiah to discover his Inspirational

Intersection. God told Jeremiah:

SLIDE “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you

Before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5

We could pick apart this Scripture and talk about it for a long time. What I find

interesting about this Scripture is the deep level of knowledge that God had for Jeremiah.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.

Some people think that this is a metaphor. That is God wasn’t literally looking at the

unformed substance of Jeremiah and knew who Jeremiah would be and become. Some people

look at this passage literally and think that God knows everything in advance. Whether you

think this is a metaphor or take it literally, we can agree that God had a deep understanding and

sense of who Jeremiah was. God understood the character and gifts and personhood of Jeremiah

at a very deep level. God knew Jeremiah better than Jeremiah knew himself.

What I want to communicate today is God knows you and I in the same way. God

understands our character and gifts and personhood at a very deep level. God knows us better

than we know ourselves.

Out of this knowledge God issued Jeremiah a call.

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“I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

God knew that Jeremiah could perform this task.

The same goes for us. God issues us a call—our Inspirational Intersection—because God

knows us so well. God has desires for our lives; God wants to see us accomplish something with

our lives through our doing and our being.

What’s interesting to me is that God chooses to relate to the world by calling people.

God could snap his fingers and all of a sudden a great tower would exist. God has that power.

God chooses not to work this way. If God wants a great tower to be built, God asks humans to

build a tower. God works through us.

It’s exciting. I don’t want a job. I want to be inspired.

The last question starts with the word, “how.” It’s the most important question. How do

we know who God wants us to be and what God wants us to do? We can believe in the

Inspirational Intersection. We can understand that it is the place of discovering what God wants

us to do and what we want to do. We can believe that god issues a call to everyone. We can

accept that discovering the Inspirational Intersection can make a big impact on the world. But if

we can’t discover God’s call for our own lives, then all this knowledge isn’t worth a lot.

How do we discover our Inspirational Intersection? Well—come next week. We’re just

getting started.