The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on October 18, 1987. The title is, Reaching Out and Reaching In. 

Two things come together for us this weekend in a very dramatic way. First, I want to step back just a little bit and trace how God has led us. Six years ago, next month, the Lord took us through one of the most extraordinary experiences of guidance that I've ever known.

As he said to us that we were to enlarge the tent, in the words of Isaiah 54. To literally push out the sides of this building to accommodate greatly increased numbers of people, thereby to broaden the base of ministry here, and as a result of all that, to increase the outreach going from here, literally around the world. At first, many of us were concerned that we were going to have to choose between spending money and effort and time here, or spending money and effort and time in increasing our outreach.

but as we called the whole parish to a day of fasting and prayer literally scores of people were led to the very same passage of scripture which spoke dramatically to that question and said that's a false dichotomy. We need to increase the scope of ministry here in Fairfax in order to increase the scope of ministry beyond the parish. Isaiah 54 verses 2 and 3.

Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out. Hold not back. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes, for you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your descendants, in other words, those who come after you, will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.

We took that to be God's word to us. And there were many other remarkable signs and confirming passages and ways in which God made it very clear that that's what He was saying to us. You will spread abroad to the right and to the left, which is literally what happened.

And as a result of that, those who come after you will reach out to the nations. And those of you who have been here for the last few years can attest with me that that is precisely what's happened in the most wonderful way. We've sent out literally hundreds of people in short-term and extended ministry.

Some folks called into full-time ministry either at home or abroad, and just literally hundreds of others in shorter ministries around the world. Our outreach budget has grown from $418,000 in 1981 to about a million and a half today. You want to backdate that for those of you who haven't been here longer than that.

A decade ago, it was about 38,000, and it's a million and a half today. We've spun off a daughter church in the last couple of years, Church of the Epiphany, that went from mission to parish status in less than a year. We acquired the ICM building across the street just this past year, And in the space of a few short months, it is filled with ministries of tremendous diversity.

If you haven't been over there recently, you really need to go over there sometime during the week and just walk through the three floors and see all the things that the Lord is doing. What a privilege to be part of that. He's good, isn't he?

He keeps his promises, doesn't he? Well, we realized six years ago that expanding this church building would only be the first step. That sooner or later we'd have to deal with the need for increased classroom, meeting room, office, nursery, fellowship, music, bookstore, tape ministry, altar guild, sacristy, sexton, storage space.

You can't increase one part without taking into account all the supporting ministries that go with it. We knew that sooner or later we'd have to deal with that, and now that day is upon us. And that's the reason for tomorrow night's meeting.

For the past year and a half, the vestry has been wrestling with the question of completing the physical plant. And we now have an overall plan. We believe the Lord has led us in developing it.

We're excited about it. We want to share it with you. We need your input.

We need your prayer. So I invite you to come tomorrow evening. It's a most important meeting.

I think it's going to be an exciting time. That's one thing. That's how God has led us in terms of expansion and outreach.

The other, I believe, goes hand in hand with that. It's a matter of celebrating our life internally, celebrating our life together. And as a matter of fact, I believe that the business that we're thinking about this morning, home group fellowships or neighborhood groups or cell groups or shepherd groups, whatever you might want to call them, that really ought to be part of even the smallest congregation, let alone one that's growing and one that's concerned about reaching beyond itself.

Somewhere, even in the smallest congregation, there needs to be a place of personal welcome and support and belonging and fellowship. Somewhere, a place of caring and sharing where folks are known by name and in a very personal way. a place of nurture and growth where prayer and Scripture are translated into the reality of our everyday lives.

That's what you were hearing about in those two testimonies, and we could multiply that with dozens and dozens of others. Somewhere there needs to be a place in which God is invited to invade our families and our homes and our neighborhoods, not just be relegated to our meeting together on Sunday. That's not really a very new idea.

You go way back in the book of Exodus and you'll find Jethro, the priest of Midian, who was Moses' father-in-law, taking Moses aside one day and saying to him, What you're doing is not good. I don't know if you ever thought about it. It takes some temerity to say what you're doing is not good to the guy who has just led Israel dry-shod across the Red Sea and drowned the whole army of Pharaoh's host.

The father's in-law couldn't get away with that. He said the burden of leading the nation of Israel is too great for you or any one individual. You can't do it.

You're going to destroy yourself. He said, here's my advice. Check this out with God and see if he confirms it.

My advice is find godly assistance and appoint them over companies of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. Bring it right down to a small group of ten. You know, sometimes I go around the country and I talk about some of these principles and I met with the reaction, well, that's fine.

Neighborhood groups and a whole system of support and fellowship, that's great if you've got 3,400 members like Truro does, but we've only got 200 members. We're just a little congregation. And I say, if you've got 200 members, you ought to have 20 cell groups.

Down to groups of 10. You know why? Psychologists and sociologists who study this sort of thing will tell you that if you start meeting with a group of people, up to about ten or a dozen, you can have real intimacy in those relationships, but you get beyond that number and intimacy begins to disappear.

Watch what happens in a discussion group. Eight, nine, ten, twelve people are all actively involved. You get up 15, 20 or more, and three or four or five carry the conversation and everybody else is a spectator.

That's pretty ancient wisdom. 3,000 years ago, Jethro was saying it, we're rediscovering it today. You need to break it down to the level of cell groups where people can know each other, trust each other, love each other, pray for each other, grow together, Support each other in the midst of difficulties.

Rejoice with each other in the midst of God's blessing. Let me put it to you this way. As far as celebration is concerned, in a very real sense, the more the merrier.

If what we're talking about is celebrating, the more the merrier. I don't know if you've ever been involved in a great gathering of thousands, An ecumenical gathering such as the Holy Spirit Congress that we had in New Orleans a couple of months ago. Or maybe a Jesus festival that brings thousands of young people from around the country.

Or one of the great missionary conventions such as InterVarsity holds every three years. Where 10 or 20 or 50,000 people come together praising God in one place. It's tremendous.

Tremendous. The only issue there is can you handle the logistics? Can you handle the parking and the people movement?

And have you made sure that everybody can see and hear what's going on? If you can do that, the more the merrier as far as celebration is concerned. But let me tell you something.

You don't belong to 50,000 people. You don't belong to 10,000 people. You don't belong to 3,400 here at Truro.

You don't belong to this congregation. Too many people. How many of them do you know?

And even if you know their names, how many of them do you know? You don't belong to three or four or five or six hundred people in a given service. You belong, if you're fortunate enough to belong, to a handful.

Folks who know you and among whom you can be known and with whom you can grow together. I'm interested that Jesus spent about 90% of his time with the twelve. Did you ever stop and think about that?

He did the mass meetings with thousands of people, fed 5,000, 4,000. He did the one-on-one encounters, Nicodemus, the woman at the well. But about 90% of his time he spent with the twelve.

A small group in which he could share his heart, in which he could know them, in which they could know him, in which he could reproduce his life in them. If you had three years to save the world, how would you do it? Jesus spent 90% of his time with a small group.

Well, our purpose this morning then is really threefold. First, just to pause and give thanks to God for the network of home group fellowships that He's raised up here at this place. We're on the brink of another phase of expansion and we praise God for that.

But in the midst of that, we're stopping to give thanks. And it's not just a matter of growth in numbers. Hopefully, it's a matter of growth in relationships and in love and fellowship together.

Secondly, we want to pray together that God will raise up many others to take on leadership in this home group ministry. As good as it is, the network is not complete. There are many, many other places where we'd love to put a group into a neighborhood.

And thirdly, very explicitly, we want to stop and encourage you in the strongest terms possible, if you haven't yet gotten involved in the home group, to please do so. to consider doing so, to carve out time in your schedule and give it a try and see if God doesn't make that as important to you as he's made it to Ruth and to Jerry and so many others. In a meeting yesterday morning with some folks who were just completing training to become home group leaders, Mary Hayes made the comment that in her experience it's virtually normative.

virtually without exception that those who are growing as Christians are involved in some kind of ongoing small group fellowship in which there is accountability and Bible study and prayer and mutual support. Do you want to grow in your relationship to the Lord? Here's a chief means of doing so.

I recognize, of course, that there are all kinds of other groups in addition to ours. It may be that you're in a Bible study or a fellowship group at work or somewhere else. But even so, and especially if you're not, we'd urge you to investigate the home group ministry.

I've said for the last 11 years that I believe this is the backbone of everything we're doing here at Truro. And yet the truth of the matter is far, far from a majority of us are involved in this ministry. There's information downstairs after the service.

We'd love to chat with you about it and give you a little bit more information about what's happening in your own neighborhood. One of the loveliest prayers in the back of our prayer book is for families. And I'd like to use that just now and suggest to you that it applies not only to our nuclear families, but to the extended family relationships that the Lord brings us into in His Son.

Could we bow our heads together? Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, You set the solitary in families. We commend to Your continual care the homes in which Your people dwell.

Put far from them, we beseech You, every root of bitterness, the desire of vain glory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit together in constant affection those who in holy wedlock have been made one flesh.

Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents, and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned one to another, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.