thank you, band. Very good. 20 years ago, we're going to do a little history lesson here. Many of you may not know some of the history of UPC, but 20 years ago was when we had our start. Got some pictures that we want to show you this morning. September 15, 1991 was the day that UPC was born. That was when my good friend Mark Bates, his wife Trisha and their three girls, left Orangewood Presbyterian Church out in Mateland and came out here to what was then a community of old houses and woods and fields and a little known commuter campus called the University of Central Florida. The church started out by renting space in a seventh-day Adventist church that is still there, still worshiping over on University Boulevard. 253 people showed up for UPC's first worship service on September 15, 1991. They had made at least 14,000 phone calls to people in our community who were un-churched or who were unbelievers and a number of our volunteers called these people and invited them to come to the first worship service of UPC. You can see there the first set of elders and deacons. Goofy looks on their faces over there. Mark Rudder seems to be asleep there. And then there's an early youth ministry shot that you see down there at the bottom. Then in 1996, we were able to purchase 15 acres of land right here that we're sitting on today here on Rouse Road. Thanks to a generous donation by one of our members of the church. Here's a shot of UPC's first building going up which is now our education building. That's the groundwork for that and you see how it was constructed. Here's a picture of the way that UPC used to worship over in the other building. We gathered in the room that is now called the Commons. Here's a typical scene of one of our worship services. We had as many as four worship services in that room. There was one on Saturday night and three on Sunday morning. We would open up those partitions that are over there and chairs would go all the way back to the back wall. A few years later, as you know, we were able to purchase 11 more acres over there in this area, looking over there toward the horse farm, bringing our property to a total of 26 acres, which is a very rare thing these days, particularly in this part of Orlando. Here is a picture of the worship center as it was under construction and we had a dedication service at one point in which we set up chairs inside the framework of the building and worshiped God before the building was completed. This is the room that you're sitting in today. Well, now UPC is a church of as many as 975 people. If everybody were to show up, which never happens, but if everybody were to show up, who calls UPC, their church home, members, regular attenders, and so on, about 900, almost a thousand people, 975 people, 12 paid staff, tons of volunteers, and a budget this year approaching $1.2 million. But one thing I want you to know about UPC in case you don't know it already that has remained unchanged over the years is that the emphasis here at our church has been and always will be the gospel. Getting people to hear and believe and get the gospel at a deeper and deeper and deeper level so that the good news about Jesus Christ begins to change us from the inside out. That's believe it or not, not what every church in the world does. We want to do it and we want to do it well. We want to be about the good news of Jesus Christ. That, according to the motto that the church used to have, is what transforms lives into changing world. And we want to always be true to that mission. So let's sing Happy Birthday to UPC, shall we? Happy Birthday to you, us, Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday dear UPC. Happy Birthday to us. Thank the Lord. Yeah, let's give God a hand. Look at your handout, if you will. On your handout, open it up to page two. And I'd like to take you through a part of this and then we're going to sing some more and then I'll take you through the rest of it. I want to talk for a little bit about some of the things that have always been true of UPC because I know that I'm looking out today at some people who are new to this church and you've been visiting for a while. We've had a boatload of new guests in the last year. People, many of whom will come for one to Sundays and we'll never see them again, but many of you have come and you have stayed. And you're still sort of getting your feet on the ground here. You still maybe don't know quite what makes us who we are. And so I want to spend a little bit of time talking to you. You're the you're the main ones because I think much of the other membership will know some of the things I'm about to say, but it's so vital that we get this and that you understand who we are so that you can then join up with the mission and be a part of what's what's happening here. Let's talk first about our mission. We've had this mission statement here for quite several years and it says as follows, UPC strives to be a community of grace, many of the testimonies that we just heard mentioned, the importance of grace in their lives. We've strived to be a community of grace that makes a difference in the lives of people in East Orlando and around the world by leading them to no God, number one, grow together, secondly and serve others. No grow and serve. That's become our new mantra. We want to know God, grow together and serve others. And it's not like you first know God and then you move to growing together and then you finally serve others. All three of those things happening simultaneously. It's a it's a never ending cycle and each one will contribute to the others. We have some core values and these have been here from the very very get-go from Mark Bates and the first elders and Deacons all the way back to 1991. Four core values are number one grace means that God loves you because he loves you. God loves you because you're in Christ, not because of what you can do for him, not because you're good. In fact, the more you know that God loves you when you're not good, you will actually become better. It's a paradox that way. But the more you understand that God loves you, even when you fail, you'll actually find yourself loving him more and desiring to be more obedient. It's when you get away from grace that the Christian life becomes a burden, a list of do's and don'ts and oughts and shoulds. And praise the Lord, I think here at UPC, we've tried to remind ourselves that no, we're saved by grace, not by works, that no one can boast. That's number one core value. Secondly, kingdom. Kingdom. It means that God is busy every moment of every day establishing his reign in every sphere of life. It doesn't matter what kind of work you're engaged in. It happens at school. It happens in your neighborhood. It happens when you're on vacation. It happens when you go to the movies. It happens when you are here at church. God is establishing his reign because he is king over all of creation. We want to be at his feet. Number three, community. We need one another. We need one another. We can't live the Christian life as a lone ranger. And finally, cultural relevance. Cultural relevance is one of our core values. What does that mean? It means we sing songs like we've done this morning and every week it's something's going to be different. It means that we are missionaries in a foreign culture. And we want, if we want to reach our culture, we want to as best we can identify with the culture in which God has placed us. In recent weeks, you've probably noticed that I'm wearing a bit more informal dress up here on Sunday morning. Part of that is this is just really who I am. You just maybe thought I was a nice Joseph A. Bank shirt with dress pants. That really wasn't me. This is a little bit more me. But that's not why I do this. The main reason I do this is that this is our culture. And I feel like that it makes our church a little bit more approachable. It makes me a little bit more approachable as a pastor. And so I'm kind of dressing down a little bit. Hope you are okay with that. If you're not, that's okay. It also explains cultural relevance. It also explains something about our worship style. If we were in a different place, we might have an organ and a choir up here every Sunday. But we're not. We're in East Orlando. And so we want to have music that will appeal to this culture. I know you've noticed lately that the music, well, it's because we have a new worship director. It's going to be different, right? But there are a little bit different styles that David has brought to us. We asked him to do that. We wanted the energy that we think David will help us to experience. That is not because we wanted energy. It is because our community needs energy. Our community needs this worship. And we think that this is what many people, many lost people will find appealing and encouraging as they come to worship with us so that they come and hear the gospel here at UPC. That makes sense? Music, worship styles, dress styles, the way we talk, the language that I use in my sermons. I know that sometimes I slip on this. But I try to use language that the uneducated person in our community can understand. Someone who hasn't had seminary training. I will try to define words, for example. All of that is because of cultural relevance. Let's move on to ministry goals. A number of years ago, we created a strategic plan in which we identified five ministry goals that make up our DNA. Let me read these for you. First of all, equipping believers with biblical and theological literacy, equipping believers with biblical and theological literacy. We want you to know the Bible. We want you to understand the Bible and the basics of reform theology. Secondly, engaging the UPC family in genuine corporate worship. That's what we do every Sunday morning. Thirdly, discipling one another, the spiritual maturity. That is to say that discipling means to mentor, to coach, to teach, to model the Christian life for those who are still growing in it. That's discipleship. Number four, helping believers experience the transforming power of the gospel, freeing them, freeing is the word them from the bondage of sin and idolatry. That happens in my life all the time because I need to be freed from my various idols and so do all of us. And finally, number five, building our children and youth to love God and obey the great commission. Those are the five things that we think when someone comes in and stays here, they're going to see happening within our walls. And then we move on to mission goals. And the way we are encouraging you to remember these is using the three letters, UPC. U stands for UCF. That small commuter college over there, 58,000 people in growing. UCF, we want to reach the campus. The letter P stands for promoting and building strong kingdom advancing families. And the letter C stands for caring for the poor and the marginalized. Now I want you to remember those mission goals because when I come back up here in a few minutes, I want to talk about them in more detail. But let's continue now to sing and worship God. Let's talk a little bit now about vision. You know, one of the things that I think it's so important to understand about vision is that what matters is God's vision. And our place is to follow God in his work. It is he who is building the kingdom. That's his concern. Our job is to say to God, Lord, we are your unworthy servants. If you could use our efforts in your work of building your kingdom, we will be pleased. And we will be humbled. But it's always God's vision. It's God's kingdom that he's building. We're his servants. And so the job that we have as a church is to figure out, Lord, what is your vision? And then we want to join him in his work. So I ask you this morning as UPC, what is God's vision? And it's not hard to find it in the Bible. It's all over the place. In fact, if you start off with Genesis, it's in Genesis chapter three. God's vision for the world is restoration. Here we had Adam and Eve falling into sin, bringing sin and death and misery into the human race. And God promised Adam and Eve, and he promises us in Genesis chapter three, that he's going to let the seed of the woman. And that we know is Jesus Christ, crush the head of the serpent. And that's a promise that means restoration or redemption. And if you look in the Bible, the whole Bible can really be boiled down to a three-point sermon. You know, creation, fall, redemption, or restoration. So if I were to ask you, if someone asks you what is God's vision for the world, it is a restored earth. It's kingdom establishing the reign of God here on the earth. The prophet Habakkuk prophesied this so clearly when he said that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is going to fill the earth. And that's God's vision for the world, that knowledge of him and of his love for the world would fill every continent and fill every single heart. You remember when Jesus arrived? What did he say? He said repent for the kingdom of God is near. His job was to bring in the kingdom. He said in the book of Luke that he came to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. That was Jesus' mission then, and it's still his mission today. In fact, in Revelation 21 verse 5, Jesus makes it even clearer where he says that I am making all things new. I love that phrase and that phrase is now embedded in the vision statement of UPC, a world made new. That vision of Jesus' needs to become our passion because it's his vision, it's his kingdom. We don't have to, it's not rocket science. His vision for you and me is to be a part of him rebuilding the world and making all things new. In John chapter 20, Jesus says, as the father has sent me, I am sending you. So friends at UPC, we are on mission. You and I have been sent with essentially the same mission that Jesus had when he came to make all things new. That's his vision for the world. Our job is to say, Father, where you're on worthy servants, use us here at UPC in your work of making all things new. So let's take a look at your handout again and turn to the page that says vision up at the top. Here's our new vision statement. So friends, this is new. The elders and I and the pastors, we talked about this all over the summer. We came to terms with some claims that we believe Jesus is making upon us. And so here it is, we envision a world made new by the gospel of grace beginning here in East Orlando. We envision a world made new. I hope you will memorize that because that's the vision of our church. We envision a world made new by the gospel of grace beginning with East Orlando. Well, what does that mean, Mike? Well, four things. First, we envision a world made new spiritually. We dream of thousands of healthy, reproducing followers of Jesus, living out of the gospel like we've heard about this morning, living out of the gospel and winning their neighborhoods and their workplaces and their campuses for Christ. Secondly, we envision a world made new socially. See, the gospel has all kinds of ramifications. We envision a world made new socially. We dream in other words of families that are happy and unified, loving and committed to rearing the next generation for the glory of God and the good of all peoples. Third, we envision a world made new economically. We dream that is of poverty and unemployment being replaced with hope, opportunity and productive living. This explains why much of our ministry has to do with reaching the poor and the marginalized, like I'm going to say in just a few minutes. And finally, we envision a world made new culturally. That is, we dream of cities penetrated by believers with a biblical world view bringing all of culture under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Why? Why do these things? Why care about these things? Why envision and dream and hope and pray for a world made new, spiritually, socially, economically and culturally, for the glory of God and the discipling of all nations? That's the ultimate purpose of UPC, the glory of God and the discipling of all nations. See, the purpose, listen, the purpose of the church, like this local church is not just to make good Christians into better Christians. It's not just to stuff our heads with biblical knowledge so that we can know more and more and more. No, we're here to do the bidding of God to turn lost people into believers and followers of Jesus Christ. We're here, like I said earlier, to partner with God in his mission of making all things new, beginning right here in East Orlando. Jesus told his disciples, you remember, that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Well, East Orlando is our Jerusalem. Florida would be our Judea. The U.S. would be our Samaria and the nations of the world are the ends of the earth and we are called to be sent out into all of those different realms. How are we going to do that? Well, turn to the back page and let's talk about our plans and look, in past years, I have made a huge mistake with Vision Sunday and I know that and I'm confessing that to you now. I've tried to give you too much information and it's just been blah. And so I'm not going to do that but instead what I'll do is review real quickly, give you an overview of some of the plans that we have come up with to partner with God in his work. And then as we go on the next few weeks and months, we're going to break these down into more detail. So if you leave here today thinking, well, what does that mean exactly or how we're going to do that or how much is this going to cost? I'm not going to answer all those questions today. I'm just going to give sort of wet your appetite and let you get home and pray and let's be as we heard in the Nehemiah play today, let's be people of prayer about these things. First of all, let's start globally and let me share with you some exciting things that have come up with our vision for the nations. In addition to what we have and will continue to do through our denomination, you know, we support our denominations, the Presbyterian Church in America. In addition to the agencies and the work that we support already, here's what we believe is very important for us to do, focus. I believe that we have got a great missions program but I believe that it's become a little bit like the blob and grown and been, what's the word dissipated I suppose or lack of focus. And so the elders and I have recommended that we come back and begin to focus and so this means that we're going to begin to phase out some of what we've been doing mission-wise and focus on two people groups for the foreseeable future. One is Japan and the other is Cherokee, North Carolina. We believe that there is great advantage in marshalling our time, energy and resources to make a huge impact on a couple of places instead of trying to make a little bit of an impact on a lot of different places. Now that doesn't mean that Japan and Cherokee will always be our focus. We will and time begin to add back in but right now God has really put these two places on our hearts for a lot of different reasons. And so what we're going to do is give greater financial commitment to our Japan missionaries and explore other ways of partnering with church planting in Japan and we're going to send people to Japan as you know some of us are going in November and we want to continue to do that every other year and we also want to continue to send people to Cherokee, North Carolina. We're going to be sending a family mission trip to Cherokee in 2012. So that's one of our big deals. Now the other thing about global vision is that we want to continue to raise up and equip and send out our own people to every place that they are called to. This includes you covenant kids, you teenagers, you college students and adults. There will always be a real desire to let you hear from God on calling you to go somewhere that needs the gospel and we want to be a church that gets behind you and supports you. So those are a couple of things in terms of our global vision. Now let's come local because the local one remember I said beginning here in East Orlando and I think there's been a real need for us to figure out how UPC is going to make a gospel impact on East Orlando and I'm excited to be able to say to you this morning that I think we've made enormous effort and progress in doing that. So UPC let's look at each one of those. Those are our local mission targets. U stands for UCF. University of Central Florida. The largest, did you know this? It's now the largest university in America in terms of undergraduate enrollment. Largest. And there are just 2,000 students or so that are involved in some kind of Christian ministry there. 2,000 out of 58 to 60,000 students. What a need. So here's what we want to do for UCF is to continue to support Andy Johnson, our campus minister working with reform university fellowship. We wanted to continue to encourage you to adopt a student and we want to continue offering free college ministry lunches every month over there in the other building. We want to put a college director on the payroll. We used to pay the guy. We've not been doing that recently. We want to put money in the budget toward a college director and finally we want to this is something new that I'm talking with some people about. We've already got the beginnings of a team is English as a second language to offer to the international students over at UCF. Those are just 4 of the things that we are going to be doing beginning this year and some of which we've already been doing obviously. All right. The next thing you and then P promoting and building strong families. I'm happy happy happy to announce to you this morning that in order to promote strong families we are continuing to offer counseling here at our church. Johnny Lalonde has been doing such a fantastic job for what for four or five years. Many of you were concerned that we replace him with someone qualified and we have done so. We have already made an agreement with Rachel and Michael Blackston some of you might know them. They as a married couple are going to step into the counseling service that we offer our community and we have even called it now Redeemer counseling. So from now on you might as well refer to our counseling ministry as Redeemer counseling. Michael and Rachel wished that they could have been here to be introduced. I would have had them stand and meet you but they are out of town this weekend but they are going to make an appearance probably in a week or so and you'll get to meet them but they are a charming couple and they're already licensed mental health counselors and I'm excited to be able to see what we're going to do for our folks and for our community through their ministry. The next thing on promoting and building strong families is we want to really do more in terms of coaching parents. Matt Reiman our pastor of youth and families has a splendid plan for helping coach new and young parents with mentor couples as well as offering seminars. We would love to be able to offer a parenting seminar next spring. We're working on that hopefully if the funding comes through we will do that. The third thing we want to do is make our facility more available for East Orlando and here's where some of my administrative staff is probably their hearts are thumping over this. What we really need is a facility manager so will you pray and will you give faithfully so that we can have a facility manager that would really help us to open up our building to a lot more clubs and organizations that are here in our community so that we can become known to these folks around us and become valued a valued part of our community more than we are already. In terms of events that are coming up in the near and distant future next year we're going to have two big concerts in this room. Laura's story is going to be here at the end of February of 2012 and Andrew Peterson and his friends will be here for Christmas 2012. So those are events that you can look forward to in 2012. And then finally we want to do more in terms of evangelism and church planting. We're already hooked up with the Florida church planting network. You're going to see churches being planted with our funds as well as those of other churches in the area and in terms of evangelism this Christmas and next Easter are going to be much more outreach oriented than in recent years and we want to also offer evangelism training for our people so that more and more of us know how to share our faith and those opportunities come. Okay let's move on to the letter C. UPC stands for caring for the poor and marginalized and in addition to what we're already doing through mana the feeding of the homeless at Downey Park life care center down the street ministering down there true life choice our pregnancy center in addition to that as well as Christian help the job counseling that we provide on Mondays. Here are some new things that we want to try this year. First we want to have a quarterly Saturday of service. Remember a few weeks ago we had a Sunday of service. Many of you were there and it was such a fun time such a contribution to Easter Orlando. We're going to move them to Saturday and the first one is going to be October 22nd. I want you to write that down on your calendars and participate in that. We've already got oh four or five things that we are already committed to doing on that day and we will need lots of you to show up but you'll hear more details later about that. And then in terms of other ways that we're going to impact our community with God's help we're going to form better partnerships with some of the local agencies such as United Global Outreach which is in Bithlow. I could tell you much much more about Bithlow it's such a needy community. It appears that we're going to be a part of an after school program in Bithlow. Many of you have already been interested in that. Training is happening this Friday and Saturday. If you're interested in helping out a little bit with an after school program in Bithlow you may see Karen Akers. Karen could you raise your hand? Where are you? Karen Akers can give you more details. She's wearing a green blouse or jacket back there. That's going to be in Bithlow. We're going to have a partnership with them as well as Christian help offering jobs to our community as well as other kinds of care. Samaritan Resource Center. We're looking to how best to partner with them as well. All those kind of things. The next thing is we want to network with Riverdale Elementary University High School Samaritan Resource Center and others to find a couple or maybe more families who are in crisis that we as a church can adopt and just poor love on them that live right here in our community who are struggling financially, who are struggling with their kids or with disease or whatnot. We want to love on them and we're going to adopt some families and you'll hear all about that. And then finally in order to help us care for the poor and marginalized more effectively the session and I have approved a plan by which we're going to bring on board very part time like maybe eight hours a week something like that a community engagement director someone who has already a member of our church but who really understands our community and can help us connect with the needs of our of our community more effectively than we have been able to in the past. I think that step alone is going to help us. This person will oversee the Saturdays of service. He will help us to partner with these local agencies and kind of give organization to what we do in our local effort to see Jesus bring in the kingdom and make all things new. Now like I said earlier you probably think I wish you could dwell on this more that more you'll hear more don't worry a lot more details will come in the next few weeks but for now I think that gives you a little bit of a taste for the fact that we exist here to partner with the Lord in his desire to make all things new. Now I'm going to show you a movie. This is the movie I referred to earlier. We have a media team here at UPC and this media team has produced a couple of movies already but this is their latest one. It's called home but not alone. You'll see how this fits in everything I've said just watch. When I see that movie I think of this that the whole point is making a meaningful connection to people around us. A couple of years ago I noticed three doors down from me that was my house in that movie three doors down from that very house. A man who had lived there for several years took his own life. Eastwood is where we live. A beautiful community everything seems to be so rosy, so wonderful but there is need like that in every single home all around the East Orlando and so like we've seen in that movie God is calling us to make meaningful connections with people who are hurting people who desperately need Jesus Christ. So what's going to be your part in this vision? I've put some questions for you to ask yourself and I'm not going to give you anything to fill out. You have nothing to fill out or hand in today but instead I'm going to ask you to think seriously about these questions and you will find more and more ways to act on your answers to these questions. On this last section of the paper my part what gifts and talents do I have that are not being fully utilized for the kingdom? What ministries or callings arouse my curiosity or interest? Tell us about them. What areas of need in my community most make me weep and pound the table that's a phrase that one of our elders has used quite often and finally how could I be a better steward of my financial resources and what help do I need to get to that point? These are some ways that you can go from here today and think about vision Sunday, think about its impact upon your life, think about the vision of God that he has for us and find out what your part is because lady to gentlemen there is not a soul in this room this morning who can say I don't have a place in the vision of God we all do and you're here to help you be faithful to that calling. In just a few moments we're going to receive your offering you may of course give to the general fund that way also place you a little slip of paper in the offering basket when it comes by but why don't we bow for prayer before we take the offering and let's just go to the Lord? Father we've seen and talked about and thought about things this morning of eternal consequence things about the kingdom things about your vision for the world to make all things new Lord where do I fit into that? What is my role in your kingdom? What gifts and callings do I have in the plans that you have for the world? Lord how can I use my money more effectively? How can I be a better steward of my time?
Of what do I need to repent today? Where am I selfish Lord? Where am I self-centered? Where do I think that church exists for me instead of me existing for the community?
Lord where have I been resisting the pull of your spirit? Have I said no to you lately? Have I said no God? You someone else don't use me? Have I given you a list of things that I would be willing to do and said God as long as you ask me to do this I'm okay but don't ask me to do something else. Lord is that our problem?
Lord we thank you that you've come to redeem us to redeem the world to make it a better place to redeem the Matilda's of the world who are lonely and afraid and who are without hope. God we ask you to put those burdens so heavily upon our hearts that we will fall in love with our community again and that we will be a part of making all things new beginning right here in our own backyard. Lord receive our offerings today. We give them with glad and generous hearts because of how glad and generous you've been in your love for us and we pray in Jesus name. Amen.