Welcome to Rally Week. I know, this is Rally Day at our church. But, this is Rally Week for our nation. This is the week that General Petreaus comes to Washington. And he comes, not to rally the troops. Rather, General Petreaus wants to encourage the home-front. To reference our Gospel text, it appears the king waged war and did not initially send enough troops into battle. And now, General Petreaus will likely tell us the surge of additional troops is working and will turn the tide. We pray he is right. A good friend of mine, Dick Mills, knows David Petreaus pretty well as child in the Sunday School and then a student in the Confirmation Class Dick taught. Last week Dick told me that David is an honorable man, and a man of great integrity. Again, let us pray that General Petreaus will be the one to secure peace in Iraq and lead our troops home ... both safely and soon. Oh yes, this is Rally Week in America.

And Rally Day at Grace, and in churches throughout our fair land. Autumn programs are initiated, Sunday Schools once more begin that all important task of telling young students about Jesus. Older students, too. At Grace we have an Adult Sunday School class and beginning this Fall, an opportunity for adults to learn more about the Bible on Thursday nights. Today is Rally Day at Grace.

I've been pastor the pastor of Grace for more Rally days than I can remember. In that time, the congregation has grown modestly, even as the building has tripled its size. And don't we all wish it were the other way around? If I had my druthers, the building would have expanded modestly and the congregation would have tripled in size, but ... what is, is. However, I came across a tactic that might encourage the growth process of Grace. The insight was like a V-8 moment.

The former chaplain at Duke University writes, "A couple of years ago here at Duke, we had a recruiter from the Teach America Program. Teach America is an organization which recruits this nation's best college and university students to go to teach in the most impossible teaching situations in our country.

"This recruiter from Teach America looked out on a crowd of Duke students. She began by saying, 'I don't really know why I am here tonight. I can tell just by looking at you that you are probably not interested in what I have to say. This is one of the best universities in America. You are all successful. That is why you are here, to become an even greater success on Madison Avenue, or Wall Street, or in Law School. And here I stand, trying to recruit some people for the most difficult job you will ever have in your life. I'm out looking for people who want to go into a burned out classroom in Watts and teach Biology. I'm looking for somebody to go into a little one-room school house in West Virginia and teach kids from six years to thirteen years old how to read. We had three teachers killed last year in their classrooms! And I can tell, just by looking at you, that none of you want to throw away your lives on anything like that. On the other hand, if by chance there is somebody here who may be interested, I've got these brochures and I am going to leave them down here and will be glad to speak to anybody who is interested. The meeting is over.' With that, all of the students jumped up, rushed into the aisles, rushed down to the front, starting fighting over her pamphlets, just dying to apply for Teach America."

And the chaplain concludes, "That night I learned: People are hungry to give their lives to something more important than themselves. It is a fact of life, not only that everything costs us something, but that, in our better moments, we are even eager to pay the cost."

How refreshing is that? When people visit churches looking for a congregational home, most preachers I know are not near that honest. We tend to emphasize what Jesus Christ can offer you ... while soft-soaping what Jesus Christ demands of you. Most preachers I know, and certainly me included, say something like, "If you join this church your kids will get a Christian education (no, we don't charge tuition). If you join this church, you will get an on-call pastor twenty-four hours a day. If there is a family emergency, or a friend needs a pastor 'cause she has no church ... this pastor will fill the bill (and all this, of course, at no charge). There will be social groups galore and a music program to beat the band. There will be adult classes to sit in on and, I almost forgot - we do have a box of offering envelopes you may or may not want to use. But all we offer is free. No charge." God help the church which offers everything ... and asks for nothing. Soft-soaping can be a dirty habit.

Churches might triple in size if preachers promise the world and throw in heaven as a bonus. We want to provide a family values ministry at Grace and then Jesus gums up our sales pitch with something like, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Teach America has an honesty about it that Preach America can learn copy.

Large crowds followed Jesus. But Jesus wanted disciples - not followers. He ended up with twelve. That was fine by him. Jesus was not looking for a-hundred-and-twenty half-hearted, luke-warm, namby-pamby followers. No, Jesus wanted disciples. Men and women who were willing to pay the cost to change the world. Large crowds followed him and Jesus could have continued his role as a one man emergency room healing the aches and pains of the ailing ... but Jesus wanted to save the world, and a bandage here and there wasn't gonna do it. Jesus wanted disciples: committed women and men who were not looking out for themselves ... but for the poor, and the widow, and the sick, and the lonely - in his name. Jesus wanted disciples. And with integrity, in his quest for disciples, Jesus was honest and upfront about the cost. Some responded. More did not. Jesus wanted disciples. He ended up with twelve. At the time, that was just enough.

You are here this morning to Rally with Grace. But, are you are here because the preacher has soft-soaped the Gospel, promising more than this church can possibly deliver while asking little, if anything from you? I hope not. I think you are here because you are searching for meaning in life ... and yearning to be challenged again by Jesus Christ - challenged to make a difference in this world. I got the sense that you want to give of yourselves - to something greater than yourselves. I like to think each one of us is here, hungry to be a part of something that costs something. And in our best moments, we are willing to rally and - God willing -to pay the cost.