Today is the third and final Sunday of a three week sermon series on Fulfilling God’s

dreams for our lives. This series came about when Gary Wassam and I saw a video at a

conference we attended last month in Kansas City. The video was made up of person on the

street interviews—like Dave Nyberg and I did recently in front of Cub. In this video people

were asked about their wildest life dreams. Everyone could share their wildest life dreams. One

person wanted to be an astronaut, one wanted to be an artist in Soho in New York City, one

wanted to graduate from college. After the person was asked their wildest life dreams, they were

asked what steps they were taking towards living out their dreams. No one was taking any steps.

Gary and I were filled with sadness when we saw the video. All of these people with all of these

dreams and no one was living out their dreams.

I think a primary function of the church is to help people live out our dreams. God has

dreams for our lives. Jesus came into the world, he died on the cross and was raised, so that we

might experience salvation. And he came into the world so that we might live out God’s dreams

for our lives on this earth.

Sometimes we get so involved in the running of the church that we forget to dream.

There’s so much to do in a church—even in our new small church. We are focused on finding

Sunday School teachers, or finding an usher, we always need child care, and we are always

figuring out how to market ourselves. Running the church and having an efficient operation is

important, and I don’t at all want us to be a sloppy church. One of my expectations for our staff

is we are professional

But we can’t get so focused on operations that we forget to dream. God has dreams for

our lives.
 I want us at Chain of Lakes to be a place of dreamers. I never want us to stop dreaming.

This church came to be because people had a dream for a large Presbyterian church in the north

Metro. I came to this church because I believe God had a dream for me to be an organizing

pastor. I want us to be a place where dreams are nurtured and encouraged. If we think of a

dream as an ember in a fire I want us as the people at Chain of Lakes to be the gas that is poured

out on these embers so that when a person comes to Chain of Lakes they can’t help but fulfill the

dreams that God has for their life. We’ll make an impact on the world when the dreams God has

for us erupt out of us.

It doesn’t matter how old we are—we can still dream. One way I’ve talked about dreams

in this series is an overarching hope for our life. This was the sense of dream in the video we

saw, “What is your wildest life dreams?” Another way I’m thinking of a dream is a bucket list.

A bucket list is the list of accomplishments we want to do before we kick the bucket.

The first week of this series I talked about our dreams for our time. At the end of the

sermon I encourage to take the next step of coming to worship every Sunday. I put a power

point slide of a calendar and asked everyone to put 10:30 in their calendar on Sunday morning.

Organize our lives around worship. Why? When we come to worship we dream.

If we find ourselves working on a Sunday morning or out of town on a sports event, then

I encourage us to find another place to worship during the week. If we’re visiting friends in

another location, could you tell your friend that you want to find a place to worship.

Worshipping weekly fuels dreams.

Last week I talked about dreams for our treasure. I shared some of my stories of giving

money. I encouraged everyone to be first fruits givers. The world would be a different place if

we gave from our first fruits.

 Today we’re talking about fulfilling God’s dreams for our talents. I encourage you to get

out this brochure that is in the bulletin. On this brochure you’ll find a place to write down notes

from this sermon. You might hear an idea or concept that you want to write down. You’ll find a

place for prayer requests. And you’ll find a devotion that you can use daily.

About 15 years ago I developed a concept called the Inspirational Intersection. I gave a

sermon series on it this past spring. The Inspirational Intersection is discovering the intersection

between what God wants us to do and what we want to do. It’s an intersection. I came up with

the Inspirational Intersection after I saw a scene in the movie Jerry Maguire. In the movie Rene

Zellweger was being interviewed by Jerry Maguire about a possible job in the company that

Jerry Maguier was starting. Rene Zellweger looked into Jerry Maguire’s face and said, “I don’t

want a job; I want to be inspired.”

Let’s take this phrase and apply it to the church. Yesterday the leaders of our

congregation spent the entire day talking about how we can see this church grow. We can grow

when everyone is inspired by their participation at Chain of Lakes instead of seeing their

participation as a job. I don’t want a job at church; I want to be inspired.

If we get anything out of this sermon I want to remove the term job from the language of

Chain of Lakes. Instead I want to use the word ministry. If someone is an usher that person has

the ministry of ushering. It’s based on the gift of hospitality. If someone is a Sunday School

teacher that person has the ministry of teaching. It’s based on the gift of teaching. We have

ministries in church, we don’t have jobs.

People will be inspired when they use their gifts.

Spiritual gifts is a biblical concept. Today we came across this verse from 1 Peter 4:10

SLIDE one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully
administering grace in the various forms.
 The Greek word for gift is charisma. I’m guessing that we’re familiar with the English

word charisma. When a person has charisma they have a special quality that attracts people.

We’re drawn to the person because of their charisma.

Our gifts are our own charisma. This charisma is a gift from God. It’s related to the

grace that God gave to us through Jesus Christ and the gift of his Spirit. In the New Revised

Standard Translation we’ll find the word, “use.” Use doesn’t appropriately get at what the

author of Peter was saying in this passage. The Greek word is lambano. You might want to

write that down. It has the idea of take, grasp, to be seized by something. We are to take, grasp,

and to be seized by these gifts that God has given to us. We grab a hold of them like a baby

clinging to her mother. These gifts are precious to us.

Everyone has spiritual gifts. The Scriptures give us a list of gifts. If you want to write

them down you can. I’ll send this list of gifts in a congregational E-mail. In Romans 12 the

spiritual gifts listed are: exhortation, giving, leadership, mercy, prophecy, service, teaching. In 1

Corinthians 12 the gifts are administration, apostles, discernment, faith, healing,helps,

knowledge, miracles, prophecy, teaching, interpretation of tongues, and wisdom. In Ephesians 4

the gifts are apostle, evangelism, pastor, prophecy, and teaching.

This list of gifts is not exhaustive. We might have a gift that is not listed here.

A gift is a talent that we love to use. We love using our gift. We don’t have to be

recruited to use our gifts; we don’t have to be asked to fill a slot to use our gifts; we aren’t doing

a job to use our gifts. When we use our gifts we are inspired. When we use our gifts we

experience tremendous energy and passion and excitement. We end up doing things that we

never could have dreamed that we would do.

See the difference between using our gifts and doing a job!
 For the last five years I served in Plainview I had a secretary by the name of Linda.

When she came to work at our church she would have described herself as a quiet, introverted

woman. Her son served in Iraq. Linda’s thoughts often were focused on her son. We started a

ministry in Plainview called the House of Hope. We bought the house that was adjacent to our

property. We started running support groups out of the House of Hope based on the

community’s needs. If someone had a need in the community and wanted to start a support

group we encouraged them to start one. Linda saw a need to help mothers who had children

serving in the military. She decided to start a Blue Star Mothers group. Soon after she started

the group she had eight people meeting once a month for Blue Star Mother meetings.

The word got out in the community that Linda was doing this group. Pretty soon some

local organizations asked her to speak for them about what she was doing. She spoke at the local

Methodist; then she was interviewed on TV. I remember before one of her speaking

engagements she told me that she never thought of herself as a public speaker. She was using

her gifts and had passion for what she was doing.

One day she came to the office telling me that she was asked to give gold star

presentation. A gold start presentation is done for the family of a deceased military person. The

service can be very emotional.

This gold start presentation that Linda was asked to lead was done at the funeral. At the

funeral Linda sat right behind the governor of Wisconsin. Here was this shy, introverted woman

making a presentation of the gold star to the parents of a deceased military in front of a packed

house at an emotional funeral. She didn’t think that she had public speaking skills.

If someone had asked her before she got involved in Blue Star Mothers if she would be

interested in presenting a gold star to this military family at the funeral, I’m sure she would have
said no. When she used her gifts for something she was passionate about suddenly she was

doing things that she never could have imagined doing.

Some of us are working really hard right now at Chain of lakes Church. I’ve had people

say, “I hope no one burns out.” I have no desire to see anyone burnout. I believe there is a

misperception about burnout. Burnout doesn’t happen when we’re doing too many things.

Burnout happens when we’re doing too many things that don’t use our gifts.

Yesterday our Leadership Team went on a Retreat. I’m looking forward to sharing all of

this information with you. I really enjoy designing retreats and working with groups. One

activity that gives me pleasure is working with a group to come up with some common goals and

objectives. I probably worked 70 hours this week. I worked on my normal day off. A lot of this

work was on this Retreat. Are you burned out? No, I’m not burned out at all. I love working on

and getting Retreats together.

One of the gifts that I don’t have is construction work. I don’t mind helping out with

Habitat for Humanity, but I really have not skills. If you asked me to spend 20 hours this week

designing a piece of furniture, I would burnout in 15 minutes. You’ve heard me say before that

if you see me walking around with a hammer, then call the prayer chain. This isn’t my gift.

We don’t burnout when we’re working hard and using our gifts; we do burnout when we

work hard and aren’t using our gifts.

Often churches play the game of should and ought. At Chain of Lakes we’re trying to

avoid playing the game of should and ought. It’s hard not to play the game. You know how this

game is played. Deep down we know that the church is a good institution. Because the church

is good we know we really should volunteer our time to help out. We believe we ought to help

out. When we get recruited we give of our time out of a sense of duty.
 One way that churches burn out is when we start playing the game of should and ought.

I’m guessing we know how this game is played. We tell others, “you really should do

something; you really ought to help out.” Pastors and staff know how to play this game of

should and ought. We know how to appeal to your sense of obligation.

The problem is when we give of our time based on a sense of obligation or duty we aren’t

generous with our time. We won’t give the best of what we have. When we volunteer based on

obligation, we do the minimum to get by. Should and ought can get volunteers, but it doesn’t

stoke our passion.

When I walk into another church it doesn’t take me long to discover if the game of

should and ought is being played. A deadness exists. People are going through the motions.

People feel overwhelmed. When a new person comes into the door we have a feeling of fresh

meat. Often we get angry at others when others don’t step up to help. People burn out.

On the other hand when a church is placing people based on people’s gifts a completely

different feeling exists. A sense of aliveness is there. People are happy to be present. People

will go out of their way to do a good job. People will give of themselves in extraordinary ways.

If we ask them to stop, people won’t stop. They love what their doing. People are using gifts.

Yesterday at our Retreat we had a brief conversation on the role of staff at Chain of

Lakes Church. The question was asked if every idea has to come out of the church office. I said

that I knew I could speak for the staff in saying that we don’t want to have every idea come from

the church office. In fact my dream for ministry is to empower you to do ministry based on our

gifts. The role of staff is to empower you.

Right now we’re looking for Sunday School teachers. I am pretty confident that many of

us have the gift of teaching. I’m pretty confident that we love kids. If we love kids and can
teach, then let’s use our gifts. We talked yesterday about helping out with child care. If we love

kids and can help out with child care, then I encourage us to use our gifts to help with child care.

Joanne’s job is to equip you; my job is to equip you; Jennifer’s job is to equip you;

Kellie’s job is to equip you.

Yesterday at our Retreat we talked quite a lot about the type of church we want to be.

Let’s be a church where we encourage others to fulfill their dreams because we encourage each

other to use their gifts. When new people come to a church a traditional way that church people

look at them is to think about what that new person can do for the church. It’s an understandable

way to think. As I said earlier we have all these slots to fill and we need people to do things.

I know that many of us want to be a different type of congregation. One way we can be

different is when we go out of our way to encourage others to fulfill their dreams because that

person is using their gifts. When a new person starts getting involved in our congregation I want

one of the first questions coming to our mind to be “how can I help that person fulfill their

dreams because they are using their gifts.” Let’s not encourage people to fill slots. Let’s

encourage people to dream.

I want everyone to stand up. Look around at the congregation. I want you to think about

this question.

“How can I encourage these people to fulfill their dreams because they are using their gifts?”

I’m not necessarily even asking people to fulfill their dreams in doing ministry for the church,

though a person could do that. I’m asking us to encourage each other to fulfill their dreams

because they are using their gifts.

I want to close with a challenge. I want you to take one person in this room and pray for

that person this week. I want to encourage you to pray that this person will fulfill their dreams
because the person is using their gifts. Pray for a week. If you want, write a note to that person.

Tell the person you are praying for them.