This morning at Advent Lutheran Church (ELCA) we started a new sermon series: Discovering Joy. Additionally, we celebrated the Blessing of the Backpacks in preparation for a new school year.
Sermon
My message, “Partners in Faith,” is based on Philippians 1:1-18a and John 15:12-17.
You can watch below (note this recording is missing the first 45 seconds or so of the message due to technical issues) or read the manuscript.
Excerpt
Everywhere we turn everyone is getting ready for a new school year! This weekend the entire state of Texas is celebrating tax free weekend. Here at Advent our worship service featured the blessing of the backpacks while conversations about the first day of school abound.
With so much focus on back to school, we can’t help but recall some of our own school experiences. I’ve had lots and lots of first day experiences. All of the years in elementary school, junior high and high school, then four more for college, three more for seminary, and another three for a doctoral degree. Surely, after this much experience I had the school thing figured out.
And I really thought I did, until I went back to school as an older adult ten years after finishing my doctoral degree. After a lifetime of studying liberal arts and theology, I entered business school. While the classrooms looked the same, the experience could not have been more different.
Siblings in Christ, these folks introduced me to something called group projects. While I had a small taste of that in prior experiences, it was central in my MBA coursework. Nearly every class had a major group project.
I never knew who my partners would be. And once I met them, I was often still unclear if they were committed to do everything necessary to ensure the success of the group as a whole. This challenge was compounded by the fact that everyone in the program was an adult with a demanding full-time job with many frequently traveling across multiple time zones.
If you want to hear some of the more frustrating stories, find me after worship or during the week. For now, I’ll simply say I learned a lot about being a good partner and about creating an environment in which a diverse group of people who likely otherwise would have never crossed paths could become a high performing team.
Then, just as I was beginning to learn to really trust my project partners, I reached the end of the program. Our final class – a capstone experience – required us to create a comprehensive business plan for a business that someone was interested in launching. This meant the intensity and stakes of the partnership increased exponentially.
For me, the stakes rose higher still when my group opted to create a business plan for the ministry I was serving at the time, which is now known as the Mansfield Mission Center. It took us longer than was ideal to learn to effectively blend our varied backgrounds and areas of expertise. Over the course of a semester, each of us invested more of ourselves than we imagined possible. We learned. We stretched. We persevered.
Finally, we submitted a 134-page business plan to the professor. Then we presented the highlights of our work to our classmates. While the entire group was anxious to receive a good grade in order to finish their MBA experience and graduate, I was more focused on the plan itself.
For me, the plan was much more than an academic exercise. It was a way to ensure the Mansfield Mission Center would have the financial resources to serve more neighbors in need with food, clothing, employment services, and healthcare.
To this day, I’m thankful to my partners: the women who shared their years of professional experience in finance, marketing, IT, and strategy. Because of them, the framework for growth was strong. The Mansfield Mission Center Thrift Store now generates over $1 million a year in sales. At around 50% profit, that means $500,000 a year is available to help those in need in Mansfield and South Arlington.
I’ve been talking about business school and a faith-based non-profit, but have yet to say a word about Scripture. Or, maybe, I’ve said a great deal about this morning’s Epistle reading in a way that models the greatest storyteller of all.