Hearing and doing

Text: James 1:21-25

Introduction

We are grateful to God for the privilege and grace bestowed on us to serve in Him and His Church on the platform of this training programme for 10 years now.

We thank the leader of our Church, the Most Rev. (Dr.) Henry C. Ndukuba, the Archbishop, Metropolitan and Primate of all Nigeria, for finding us worthy to continue to serve and even to be the leader of the team.

I am particularly grateful to members of the coordinating team for the corporation, so, far received from them. This is our first contact in carrying out our assignment since our being constituted and our inaugural meeting. I will say so far so good.

I congratulate all the participants in this Course 16 of the Church of Nigeria Senior Clergy Management course.

Everything that has a beginning must have an end. The journey that started on Monday, January 17, 2022 is coming to an end today. Congratulations for successfully completing the course. It is one thing to attend a course like this, and acquire some knowledge; it is another thing to apply the knowledge you have acquired. You can only be bold to testify of what you learnt and make reference to those you learnt from, when you applied what they taught you and it is working.

We run a corporative society in our Diocese. How did we come about that? In the first course held in January 2012, after hearing Baba Sowale’s experience on how organising a corporative society is helping them in Ilesha, I acted on what I heard in our Diocese as soon as I went back home. And it is on till today.

Most of us are guilty of hearing far more than doing. We know what we ought to do, but fail to execute the knowledge we possess. As one man said: “We are educated far beyond our own obedience.” That is why I have titled the sermon, “Hearing and Doing” and it is taken from James 1:21-25.

What Does This Mean?
IN the context of this sermon, I will say that; “to hear” is to perceive sound. It is to give attention to what is being said with the aim of acting on it. And “to do” is to act, to apply, to practice or behave according to what is said or heard. It is an act of obedience to instructions given and received.

The Text
THE book of James offers some great insight on “hearing” and “doing.”

James, Jesus’ ‘brother, a leader in the Jerusalem Church in his book addressed the first century Christians residing in Gentile communities outside Jerusalem and, indeed, Jewish Christians all over the Roman empire on many issues among which are hypocritical practice, deception and right Christian behaviour.

The Christians made great claims. They believe in God, they belong to Christ, but are often guilty of belying them (give false representation) with their actions. They profess trust in God and being His people, yet they cling to the world and its values. They were not living by biblical morality, they lived by world philosophy. They contradict the gospel. They listened, but were not doing what they have heard.

With energetic style and well-chosen words James confronts this conflict head-on. In his book, he points out to them that it is not enough to talk the Christian faith, talk like Christians, and use the Christian cliché. They must live it. In our text, he stresses that while it is important to listen to God’s word and “receive it with meekness and implant it in their hearts,” it is more important to obey it and do what it says. Else they live in deception. They are “like a man observing his natural face in a mirror, for he observes himself, goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.”

He further says: “What good is it dear brothers and sisters if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? (James 2:14).

Application
JAMES speaks to us the Christians and Christian leaders’ today. The issues he addressed are still with us. There are many Churches and many who claim to have received the word of God and profess Christianity. We go to Church and attend all services and programmes, listen to sermons from the pulpit and teachings from the lectern, listen to messages on radio and CDs and tapes, we watch TV preachers preach and teach the word of God, we read the bible daily and other Christian books, yet there is nothing to show for it. We don’t act on what we heard or received. We live in disobedience. The life we live contradicts what we hear, watch or read. We are entangling with the world. Our life is a direct opposite of the life of Christ. We say we are Christian’s believers, but we exhibit the characters of un-believers. This is why we are where we are today in the church and the world. Most of us are good listeners, but not good doers. Good preachers and yet pretenders, we don’t practice what we preach. Some of you “parrot” the gospel, but does not promote the gospel. Most live hypocritical and deceptive lifestyle, born again yet we are born against. We are a people “having a form of godliness, but denying the power” (2 Tim 3:5). James teaches us to translate our faith into obedience.

The Message
DEAR friends and co-labourers in Gods vineyard, the author of Hebrews would say: “God who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his son,” (Heb. 1:1).

Many years ago, you received a call to priesthood. You went to the theological college. You were trained and prepared for ordination. You were ordained to minister. You have been in the parish for some years doing what you are supposed to be doing. At every of these stages, you have heard a lot concerning the ministry from many sources.

In these last days, our church leaders have created another avenue for you to hear more, be re-trained and update your initial knowledge about the ministry. Training and re-training is very important if you must be effective and relevant in any career or vocation. Someone has said: “If you don’t update you will become obsolete”. Another person said, “If you did not prepare adequately, you cannot present eloquently.” That is, if you don’t prepare well, you cannot present well.”

This course is designed to re-train, prepare and equip you to do your work well and remain relevant to the Church.

In this course, God has used members of the coordinating team and our guest resource persons to facilitate this. Within these 10 days, you were taught the structure of Anglican Church, time management, ministerial ethics, communication and public relation, constitution of the Church of Nigeria, alternative dispute resolution, conflict management, office organisation, family and home, strategic planning, managing human resources for greater productivity, health imperative, Anglican heritage, financial management, Church and community mobilisation, attributes of successful leadership, current trends in missions, computer literacy, preparation for retirement and effective meeting organisation and management. Also, you discussed in groups, you interacted as individuals and in groups. God spoke to you through the homilies during the Eucharist and the Bible study. God spoke to you through the address of our primate.

What is important is not that you attended the course. Yes, you attended, I hope you participated. Yes, you could have been here physically, but your mind, soul and spirit were at your parish. I hope you did not just attend, but you learnt something. The course is packaged with the management and administration of our Church in the contemporary time in mind. This is expedient in view of the fact that the Church although a spiritual body, is also a human organisation. It is dynamic. It is growing and changing like every other body. For proper coordination of the spiritual and human dynamism experienced, there has to be proper and good management and administration. The spirit in humans must be controlled through administrative set-up to avoid human excesses, create a better understanding of the system and good worship environment and relationship.

Things have to be done in order in times like this if the church must march on. This is what this course stands to achieve by re-training you as the person God uses to drive the process, so you can fit in. If you fail to apply what you have learnt here; the time, money spent in coming here loses value.

“The hood does not make the monk,” they say. Being effective in ministry is not about attending all conferences, courses and trainings that there are and gathering all the knowledge and acquiring all the certificates, but it is about practicing the things that you have learnt. All the knowledge in the world is worthless unless we practice it.

You need to apply the guidelines or instructions giving to have success. Your Bishop and those who sponsored you to this course will want to see how it shows in your ministry. The proof to them that you spent 10 days here is practicality and application. Don’t just show them certificate of attendance, let them see the impacts in the way you minister to them and administer the Church. So, if you have learnt something in this course, we hereby charge you to apply what you have leant. The effectiveness of your training can be measured by its application and effect on your ministry in the Church. Put into action what you have learnt from the course. Don’t just be hearers, but be doers of what you heard.

• Text of sermon at the closing ceremony/graduation service of the Church of Nigeria Senior Clergy Advanced Management Course held at the Ibru Centre, Agbarha-otor, Delta State on January 27, 2022 by the Chairman of the Course Coordinating Team and Archbishop of Niger Delta, The Most Rev. (Dr.) Blessing Enyindah.